[
    {
        "id": 213880,
        "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-1996",
        "page_number": 232,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "206\n\npolicy of railway nationalization that sparked off very strong provincial\n\nresistance.\n\nNumerous Railway Protection Societies were formed in different provinces, and one by one, they declared the provinces independent from Beijing.\n\nThe 1911 Revolution and its Aftermath\n\nIn Guangdong, the Railway Protection Society was formed in Hong Kong and chaired by Li Yutang, the chairman of the Siyi Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. In a dispatch to the Colonial Office, the Governor noted that since the revolution, the Siyi Chamber had \"principally ruled Canton.” It is recorded that in a meeting in the Siyi Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong, Wu Hanmin was elected as the new Governor-General for Guangdong. Li Yutang, chairman of the Siyi Chamber, as well as that of the Railway Protection society, was appointed as the Provincial Treasurer of Guangdong. His son, his two brothers and his son-in-law also held posts in the Canton Government. They formed themselves into a bank of Canton, but registered it in Hong Kong. Aside from this, the Siyi men formed themselves into a \"Thirty-Men Subscription Team”. With certificates granted by the Canton Revolutionary Government, they set up a Subscription Bureau in Hong Kong. One member of this group, a Yang Xian recalled years later that:\n\nthe uprising was a success without any single help of a soldier or army... because of the assistance of the Hong Kong merchants... we subscribed, within half a day, an amount of 40,000 and had it transported to Canton immediately. Originally, the Canton government promised to return $2 for any $1 subscribed... but we [with patriotism] adjusted it to $1.50 for $1 only.\n\nTo back up the unsecured currency issued through the Bank of Canton by the Canton Revolutionary Government, the Siyi Chamber established a \"Canton and Hong Kong Financial Company\" to redeem the unsecured currency in August 1912.\n\nThrough the Registrar-General of Companies, the Governor warned the Hong Kong merchants of the \"financial unsoundness of the scheme\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213881,
        "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-1996",
        "page_number": 233,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "207\n\nThe reply he received from the Registrar-General stated that \"no sound men of business in Hong Kong were connected with the scheme.\" Ending his despatch, the Governor commented that the \"principal promoter [of the company] was Li Yutang, whose name was enough to damn... the Chinese Firms were likely to subscribe only because they dare not refuse.”\n\nThe Governor's comment might have some truth. Li Yutang in years to come would be named the \"Insurance King\" (保險大王) of South China. In an interview with Mr. Li's grandson, I was told how Li Yutang multiplied his wealth in these years. Mr. Li said \"my grandfather converted to Christianity.” I doubt that the asset of Li Yutang in insurance business was his religion or his entrepreneurship. His greatest asset, I suspect was his political influence, or other's belief that he was politically influential.\n\nTo support this speculation I cite the following event. As the attempts to establish a joint-stock company failed, the Siyi men attempted to organize all the regional chambers of commerce in the colony into a “Overseas Chinese Society for the Promotion of Patriotic Subscriptions\". The Governor observed that:\n\nthe circulation [of Canton currency, which had fallen to 30% of its face value] is maintained here (in Hong Kong), in spite of its general unpopularity ... not only by official pressure from Canton but also by means of intimidation practiced by so-called patriotic associations & by the influential persons who are financially interested.\n\nThese \"influential persons who [were] financially interested\" - a reference to the Siyi men, were in actuality the directors of the Bank of Canton, Li Yutang. The Governor recorded that:\n\nIn addition to the authorized issue of $16m...... Li Yuk-tang made an issue of $5m for his own benefit. He left Hong Kong a poor man but has, since his return, invested largely in the Colony and is now reported to be a rich man.\n\nAgainst this background, the Governor of Hong Kong also observed a significant development among the non-Siyi Hong Kong Chinese.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213889,
        "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-1996",
        "page_number": 241,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "215\n\nnegotiations with Chen Jiongming as “Canton needs the salvage of a large and united body of influential men\" and they all \"begged me [Lu] to form the Merchants' Association at once”. \"All urging me not to leave things as they were\", emphasised Liu, and they were \"offering to support whole-heartedly the scheme of government that I might propose\"\n\nImmediately after Liu's return to Hong Kong in late March, Liu Zhubo announced an organizational charter for a \"Business Maintenance Committee\". This committee was to raise a loan of $3,000,000 for the new Canton Government. To put up the sum, Liu proposed two methods to recruit adequate subscribers. The committee would either include a membership of 300 merchants with subscription fee of $10,000 or a membership of 30,000 with a subscription fee of $100. This charter was actually published and distributed in Canton and Hong Kong\n\nWith everything in place, Chen Jiongming broke with Sun Yat-sen in June 1922. During the incident, Sun's residence was bombarded. Sun fled to a gunboat and, from Hong Kong, he escaped to Shanghai\n\nChen Jiongming's co-operation with the Hong Kong merchants, however, proved to be a very short one. Sun returned to Canton in January 1923 with the military support of the Yunnanese and the financial support of the Siyi men from Hong Kong\n\nBack in Canton, Sun faced the familiar problem of trying to organize a government without adequate money and with no real command over military forces. To prevent the guest armies from mutiny, Sun had to provide a daily maintenance expense of $20,000 to $30,000 to the armies. Added to this problem was Sun's inability to collect tax in the province. Almost all the existing organizations for tax collection were non-functioning in the face of the guest armies who divided Guangdong into spheres of influence.\n\nImmediately upon his return, Sun called for a meeting with the merchants in Hong Kong. Fifty overseas returned merchants in Hong Kong, led by Li Yutang, met Sun Yat-sen in the Cement Factory of Guangdong. In response to Sun's call for financial support, Li made a public speech.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213891,
        "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-1996",
        "page_number": 243,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "217\n\nWeekly Review recorded that:\n\nSun has been importing, to support his ambition to become the President of China, several hundred thousand politicians and mercenaries. To support them, exorbitant taxes had been created, public lands and buildings sold, private property confiscated; and many men and women pressed into involuntary servitude.\n\nThese auctions and speculations gave rise to a land boom in Canton. The record of the British War Office stated that “in the last few months there has been a considerable rise in the prices fetched by land sold by auction in the open market and an outburst of speculation in real estate. Demand exceeds the available supply…” The China Weekly Review also recorded that the \"boom in lands and shares\" was the most outstanding feature of the year of 1923. “Both markets helped to swell government's income, the former with premia and the latter by stamp duties. Money too plentiful, speculation rife. Work seems to have been plentiful.” It was recorded that the tax return for deed registration by the end of October 1924 amounted to $5,310,000. Between 1919 and 1927, a large quantity of land and property in Canton, amounting to $55,197,514, was also purchased by overseas Chinese merchants. These figures suggest that the real estate market in Canton drastically expanded over these few years.\n\nAmidst this boom of real estate, understandably, not every piece of \"public\" or \"government\" land was openly put up for auction. These properties could always be purchased through personal networks. In some cases, one could purchase the land with just 10% of the estimated price for auction. A large number of land investment and mortgage companies were then found in Canton, the majority of them were under the control of the Siyi men. Among other examples, the Canton Sanshui R.R. Wharf on the Bund, together with the control over the ferry services, was sold to a Wu Dongkai (吳東楷), one of Sun's Siyi financiers in Hong Kong and an old member of the \"Thirty men subscription team”.\n\nThe most notorious case was the purchase of the Guangdong Nonglin Shiyan Chang (廣東農林實驗場), literally the Canton Agricultural Experiment Laboratory. The Bank of Canton, under the directorship of Li Yutang, purchased the site and buildings of the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214197,
        "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": 55,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "18\n\npeople believe, and there appears to be truth in this (with greater use being made of the Chinese language since the Handover), that Hong Kong as a city-state is becoming more Chinese. Although this can affect the development of Hong Kong humour it is expected to be more than offset by globalisation and the world-wide effects of radio, television, the Internet and information technology.\n\nThe late Lin Yutang postulated that a Chinese believes, while getting in a few puffs while standing in front of a no-smoking sign, that the world is a stage where drama and high comedy abound. Life is a huge farce and one must not take matters too seriously, whether they be government reforms or funerals (Lin, 1936:65). The latter have a certain amount of 'gaiety' about them. Sending a person on his or her last journey to confront the final mystery of life should, it is believed, be expensive. The Chinese consider only Europeans (Lin insists) take funerals seriously and try to make them solemn affairs. What is wrong at a funeral in getting a few words across to a pal, about horse racing or morning walks, when you have not seen him for a long time? The man who takes life too seriously and obeys all the rules (according to Lin), and keeps off the grass when nobody is looking, appears ridiculous. In addition Chinese humour often takes a tolerant view of vice and evil. Instead of condemning them outright why not make fun of them? Lin Yutang believed humour could transcend cynicism and be used for other and better purposes than reconciling oneself to one's down-trodden position.\n\nAccording to Lin Yutang (1936:64), first-class humour is to be found in the Confucian Analects. \"After all, Confucius is quoted as having said, because Tsai Yu napped during the day:\n\nRotten wood cannot be carved nor a wall of dried dung trowelled. How would I rebuke him?\n\nA saying like that is always good for a chuckle.\n\nMuch humour is to be found in Ming dynasty novels, in Hong Kong's New Territories' folk songs (largely forgotten except among the elderly), and in the poetry of the drunkard, Li Po (alias Li T'ai-po), who lived in the eighth century. He made much of the solace and lib-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]