[ { "id": 208023, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "46\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nhere, the surveillance is curiously haphazard and capricious. We could not see that we were followed on leaving; perhaps they have given up checking on foreigners\". We had also been to a large reception given by General Chou En-lai on January 7th which was attended by General Marshall and, from the Kuomintang; Chen Li-fu, Feng Yu-hsiang and Dr. H. H. Kung, together with the Chungking establishment of Ambassadors, Consuls etc.\n\nThe Journey There\n\nThe route followed is shown in Fig. 1.* The convoy finally set out on a misty morning on January 21st intending to cross the Yangtse by the upper ferry. Disaster overtook us within four kilometres. Going down a steep slope the driver of the leading truck missed his gear change and ran off the road into a paddy field. The truck finished up on her side (Plate no. 6). With help from the base garage, she was hauled out, (Plate no. 7), the Garage Manager directing. The convoy returned to base, spent a day straightening and reloading and set forth again on January 23rd. The route went through Sui Ning, San Tai, Mien Yang over the Chien Men Kuan or Sword Gate Pass to Kwang Yuan and then over another Pass, Ch'i P'an Kuan or the Gate of Shensi, in the Mi Ts'ang Mountains to Pao Ch'eng.†\n\nNorth of Mienyang the 'new' motor road follows the route of the old Imperial Highway to Ch'eng-tu. Impressive “pai lo's”, fine trees and stone bridges mark the route (Plates 8 & 9). Just after Pao Ch'eng is the famous Buddhist temple Miao-T'ai Tzu, where we stopped for a visit. A place of peace and beauty to which one might dream of retiring for a while.\n\nIn Pao-ch'eng the scene is very different from the Szechuan towns over the mountains to the south. This was the southern limit of the camel trains coming down from Sinkiang and Kansu, some with loads of dried Hami melon. Perhaps some of the flavour of the place is given in a quotation from a letter home: \"We spent one night in Pao-ch'eng and as we came up across the bridge in the late afternoon, the long flatness of the Han-hui Ch'u valley behind us, lines of camels drinking at the river side were mirrored\n\nP.54 Plates 6-19 at rear illustrate the article.\n\n+ The romanisation of place names is that used in the Times Atlas of China since this is the detailed reference most easily available to Western readers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209081, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "GEOMANTIC TERMS \n\n211 \n\nTo ensure the correct flow of water through a site the geomancer makes use of two ancient patterns commonly known as xiantian ★ A and houtian ✶ which refer to two different arrangements of the eight trigrams2. Since the trigrams also symbolise eight major compass points the xian and houtian are, in fact, two different methods of organising space. Geomantic practice requires that water flows from its zhengqiao wei trigram in the xiantian to the position occupied by the same trigram in the houtian. For instance, water originating in the qian #(E) trigram, which in the xiantian is correlated with the north, must flow towards the southwest, that is towards the compass point occupied by qian in the houtian. One must, however, remember that geomantic compass points are the reverse of ours so that north is south; east, west; etc.) Moreover, in its journey from xian to houtian water must always flow in front of the chao (which see). \n\nSince geomancy is a directional science it has coined a number of terms for the twenty-four compass points and the four quarters. Three of these terms, namely shan ↳, xiang 6, and zuo, have been systematically misinterpreted since J. Edkins' day. \n\nShan has consistently been taken to mean “site” which is only true in those rare cases when it is used as an abbreviation of shan-long. In all other instances shan means \"compass point\" so that shi’er shan + refers to the twenty-four compass points and not to twenty-four sites. \n\nXiang and zuo are two esoteric names for two of the four quarters. Just as qinglong ✯✯ stands for east and baihu éʼn ✯ for west, xiang means south and zuo north. But it must be stressed that these terms do not necessarily refer to actual compass points but indicate the back, front, left and right sides of a grave. \n\nLike other parts of the earth, geomantic sites are also subject to cosmic influences but a detailed explanation of all stellar influences would go beyond the scope of this paper. (Readers interested in the subject are referred to B. Frank's study of the jiugong Лg and E.H. Schafer's Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars. University of California Press, London and Berkeley, 1977) \n\nTwo sets of so-called stars play a role in geomancy but, for the most part, these are not real celestial bodies masquerading under esoteric names but purely imaginary entities conventionally referred to as xing or stars. \n\n* Much effort has been expended to explain how the xiantian changed into the houtian but none of the explanations are entirely convincing One of the best known is M. Granet, La Pensee chinoise (1934), reprinted Albin Michel, 1968, pp. 167 sq.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210490, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "78\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nand the development of radio weather forecasts directed specifically to the fishing fleets, brought at least a measure of security which was quite new.\n\nI have stated that Kau Sai bay was not safe in a typhoon. Under sail the journey to the nearest relatively safe place, Sai Kung, might take anything up to two-and-a-half or even three hours. Given the unpredictability of typhoons any master who did not take his boat, with his family on board, off to Sai Kung at the first intimation of a possibly threatening storm would have been failing in his manifest duty. Many fishing days and nights in the summer were lost in this way. But with an engine there was nowhere in the whole territory which was more than an hour's journey from a typhoon refuge, and the journey itself was not dependent upon the very winds one was hastening to avoid. One of the most vivid and lasting memories of windy days in the summer of 1952 in Kau Sai, the first summer in which the village had had a properly mechanised boat at the anchorage, is of old Chung Fuk Hei chugging about here, there and everywhere to round up the stragglers and tow them into safety. He was unfailingly generous in this self-imposed task, and several times made two or even three journeys back to Kau Sai to make sure that no one was left behind. The lesson that engines spelled safety was very quickly learnt.\n\nSafety when proceeding under power was, of course, also a matter of official concern. The prohibition of petrol engines as a safety measure has already been mentioned. With the introduction of small marine diesels the Hong Kong Government, through the Marine Department, devised a simplified form of license for coxswains and engineers in order to make it possible for inshore fishermen with only a few years' schooling to obtain essential minimum skills in navigation and engine maintenance. If this had not been done it would have been necessary for the owners of mechanised junks to employ men with the existing unnecessarily advanced qualifications. Since such men could command salaries well beyond the range of ordinary purse-seiners or small long-liners, the mechanisation of the inshore fishing fleets would never have taken place. At about the time that the first small marine engines made their appearance the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211871, "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "261\n\n^And now as regards my room, I have taken pains to put it a little in order, and have now got everything nearly to rights. Around the room hang my clothes. I have hung my lamp, which with its ground glass globe gives a nice light during the evening when I am alone. I have eight photographs round the room, hung up in fine order. I have placed 'Anna' in the central position, and the rest in order round it. I very much regret not having more. Not one of our family is there. But I must have them on paper, sent out in a letter, one or two at a time, and in that way I shall hope to get them all in time. I very much wish I had mother, father and all our family. If it had not been for the hurry and confusion of getting off so soon, I should have got them taken. I had explained it in my own mind, but forgot it in the hurry.\n\nThe plum cake, biscuits, jams, etc. have already proved very useful, and what are left will prove more so during the voyage, especially since we stop nowhere till we get to Hong Kong. Captain Moult has lived at Hong Kong, and gives me a very pretty idea of what the place is. Yet it does not frighten me at all, for I have made up my mind to take it all as it comes. I must stop for the present as it grows dark. We are now past the Bay of Biscay, and hope soon to have mild and more agreeable weather.\n\nThursday, March 28th\n\nSince my last entry nothing of importance has occurred. We are now off Portugal, and are going along beautifully before a fair wind. Nearly all day I have been on deck, either walking to and fro, which is the only exercise I can get, or sitting in the warm sunshine. Every day we get into a warmer temperature, so that soon the deck will form the chief resort during the day. It is very comfortable indeed. Tomorrow if all is well up goes the easy chair, and there I shall sit and study, or watch the ship's course over the blue waves. She sails along very rapidly, and the pleasure of seeing her dash through the water is great, when I bear in mind that every mile she goes over makes one the less.\n\nYet it is a rather long time to have to look forward to before seeing land again. We are not to stop before reaching Hong Kong, and so there is no chance of sending you any news before I reach the end of my journey, unless we are becalmed near some homeward bound ship. I am very sorry for this, because I know you will be rather in a way at not hearing from me. Still, however, it cannot be helped.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211874, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "264\n\nrefreshing as we get into warmer climates. I lost no opportunity of looking at Madeira through the glasses, and as we sailed half round it I was much amused. The weather was uncommonly mild; the pleasantest day we have had.\n\nI have spent the time reading or thinking, or walking with Captain Moult. Poor fellow, he is very gloomy, and it is quite a charity to liven him up a little. I have, however, to tell him very often of his habit of swearing, which is one of the greatest drawbacks to his society,\n\nIt is now Saturday night. Here I am writing in the saloon, the ship rocking in a cross sea. We have had tea, and as usual I am spending the time from half past seven to nine in reading and writing. The time begins to go now more rapidly; yet it is poor work after a month's sailing to have got no further. I am often thinking as I write, of home, and Saturday night there. Often do I see the old shop, and Siss and mother busy behind the counter. Sometimes I get so lost in thought that I fancy I am really at home among you all.\n\nI do however come home every night regularly to sleep either at Hythe, or Chudleigh, or Bridge. I get to bed, and in an instant I am back again to old England, I sometimes fancy it would make a curious medley, if I could write the substance of some of my dreams of home. It cheers one up, however, and takes off half the pain of separation. When I wake I have to take some few moments to make out where I am, and then when I open my eyes there are all the cluster of photographs before me, all seeming to look at me and sympathize with me in my solitude. I am thankful to say that my health fast improves. I hope soon to outgrow my clothes. Tomorrow I should very much like to spend a “Sunday at Home\", instead of a “Sunday at Sea”.\n\nThursday, April 11th\n\nWe are still jogging along on our journey. Every day seems shorter than its predecessor, and the time begins to go, I don't know how fast. It is no sooner morning than night comes. The day passes away very pleasantly, and really I am now quite at home. In fact I am as much at home as ever I was in college, and should feel quite as happy if I could only hear from those who are continually before my thoughts.\n\nEvery day now grows warmer. The thermometer is now 75° in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212206, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "125\n\nThe journey takes the whole day. It was almost dark when I got off and walked across the long new road bridge, erected over the great Kan river which forms the main artery down the centre of Kiangsi province, as the Siang river does in Hunan. And as in Hunan the Siang river passes through the Tung Ting lake, one of the natural overflow reservoirs into which the surplus waters of the Yangtze pour during the summer freshets, so in Kiangsi the Kan river passes through the Poyang lake before reaching the Yangtze some miles below Kiu Kiang. Nanchang stands where the Kan river enters the lake. Like Kweilin it is not a treaty port. Apart from missionaries no foreigners were allowed to live here, but they could transact business and pay visits. In the old days owing to the discomfort of the railway we generally preferred to come by houseboat through the lake; but now the motor car had begun to replace all that, though the process was hindered by the scarcity of petrol caused by the war.\n\nThe population of Nanchang could not be far short of a million. The narrow streets were giving way to wide new thoroughfares on which the city bus services operated. Though many in China could afford motor cars, away from the treaty ports their use was not common, because only too often, unless the owner could arrange through his friends for protection, the car would be commandeered for military business claimed to be urgent. It is this fear of commandeering that has restricted the distribution of the private car and the private wireless set in China.\n\nThe very shops were changing their nature. The old shops, in their narrow alleys, would show a front open to the cust, of which there was plenty, and receive such meagre light as the proximity of the houses on either side of the strect admitted. The back of the shop would be dark. Perhaps, a small kerosene lamp stood on a desk to light up the accountant's daybook. Across the front and down part of one side, along the passage to the back, an open counter awaited the display of such goods as the customer might require. These would be drawn from the shelves at the back by one of the numerous assistants, mostly relations of the owner, who would be standing behind, leaning their elbows on the counter, and killing much time by making comment on the people passing in the street. The intending purchaser would examine the article exposed for his inspection and point out its numerous defects, imagined or real, while the assistant would take the opposite view and extol its merits. There", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212221, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "140\n\nsometimes visited by H.M. ships, and further inland Snow Valley, high up in the mountains, was a popular resort for the more enterprising of Shanghai week-enders. Now the motor roads round Ningpo had all been destroyed by the Chinese lest the Japanese advance and make use of them. The roadhead was twenty miles away at Kikow, the Generalissimo's native village, where tourists used to leave their cars to make the ascent to Snow Valley.\n\nI had to get back to Shanghai somehow and decided the best way would be to make for Hongkong overland, a distance not far short of a thousand miles. You reached Kikow partly by boat and partly on foot, and I arrived one evening, to find I should have to wait a couple of days for a seat on the crowded bus service. The next morning I was strolling by myself along the village road when the alert sounded. This was such a common event that I took no notice, and almost before I realised what had happened two Japanese light bombers were circling over the village to locate their targets. The police hustled me into a nearby house, from the courtyard of which I watched the planes fly around and make shallow dives each time they placed a bomb, of which they dropped a dozen. Besides myself there were only women in the house, an old lady, a daughter, and a small child with their amah. They told me that only two houses away was the Generalissimo's ancestral home, at which it was probable that the Japanese were aiming. The daughter was very concerned that I should be standing in the courtyard with my sleeves rolled up displaying my wrist watch to the Japanese pilots. She feared it might attract their attention and asked me to take it off. In my halting Chinese I tried to explain to her that the pilots, who were flying about two thousand feet up, there was, of course, no defence of any kind\n\ncould neither see me nor my wrist watch, and each time the aircraft commenced to dive I signalled to the women to crouch down and comforted myself by the realisation that they were going for the other end of the village. The planes flew off after half an hour. When they were satisfied it was all over, the women collected the clothes they had been washing, and made their way, as if quite accustomed to it, across the road, down the steps to the mountain stream to resume their work. Fortunately no buildings caught fire on this occasion, and there was not much damage; the village was burnt out in another raid a week later.\n\n―\n\nNext day I started on my journey. Laboriously, on the overcrowded", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212730, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "24\n\nin 1884. He also claimed to have produced several minor booklets, one on Yunnan and another on Tonkin, and one article in the Royal Asian Society North China Branch Journal in 1891 on 'Yunnan: Its Treasures and Trade Routes'. He planned to incorporate the two booklets into what he saw as his magnum opus 'The Greater China' which unfortunately never saw the light of day.\n\nHe wrote a very long letter on the Yellow River and its appearances, published in 1887 in Indian Engineering, describing the different places where he had sailed on or had crossed it.\n\nMesny and Chiang Chao-ling, under noms-de-plume, produced in Shanghai in February 1898 'A New Collection of Tracts for the Times', with Mesny editing and Chiang writing the introduction. It was reviewed in the North China Daily News of 23 July 1898. Mesny and Chiang had planned some ten years earlier to publish a monthly magazine in 1887 which would seem never to have taken off.\n\nMesny wrote a lengthy account of his journey from Canton through Kuangsi in 1879 for the London Daily News, but 'this very influential and highly respectable journal did not consider my poor contribution sufficiently interesting to insert it in its widely read columns.'\n\nIn passing when describing a 'celebrated heroine of romance' a novelette based on facts, Mesny added, \"I wrote it all out in one of my stories 'Chinese Nights' years ago, considerably different from Mayer's [version]...,\" but Mesny leaves us no wiser about 'the stories I wrote.'\n\nIn 1904 he published Mesny's Chinese and English Almanac though no copies appear to be available nowadays.\n\n*\n\nIn 1905 he advertised two forthcoming publications, 'Mesny's Commercial Guide' and 'Mesny's Business Directory', presumably both one-off books.\n\nMesny's Ranks and Honours\n\nAlthough Mesny was awarded several decorations by the Chinese one, the Baturu, a Manchu military award for distinguished services rendered on the field of battle, was the award of which he was most intensely proud and which, he explained, had entitled the recipient to travelling", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214519, "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": 377, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "346\n\nBy the time dinnertime came, we had finished dinner. Let me explain. Dusk fell at about five o'clock, and the guide said that we were now going for dinner. Of course, there were howls of protest, but we were assured that this was perfectly normal. At least, we demanded, can we have a change from Chinese food. We all enjoy Chinese food and the quality had been consistently on the good side, but we craved a bit of variety. So we were treated to a Korean BBQ buffet, and it was absolutely excellent - masses of fresh meat, seafood, and vegetables and gas-fired hotpots to do your own cooking in. A real eye-opener and tummy-filler, but all was finished by about seven o'clock, leaving some of us in desperate need of a cream cake or two back in the hotel.\n\nPort Arthur\n\nOn the 40-odd mile journey to Port Arthur, we were treated by Philip Bruce to an introduction to fortress-building and sacking, just so that we could be prepared. However, I have to say that the visit to Port Arthur, or Lushun as it is now known, was the closest we came to a disappointment. We were all experts on the place from the time Captain Arthur first dropped his anchor there until the early part of this century, but none of us was prepared for the present day Lushun.\n\nTo be fair, the guide had told us that the whole place is still dominated by a naval base - but this time, of course, one operated by the People's Liberation Army. We tried to explain that we were not interested in any of the naval installations or hardware, but the old buildings that remained to be seen, and in particular the railway station. However, we were told that as we were foreigners, we could not even go into the town at all. Only half-jokingly, those of us that could produced our Permanent Hong Kong Identity Cards, demonstrating that we too were citizens of the People's Republic. But this did not impress the guides. It was suggested that it might be a case of us not looking all that Chinese that was the problem. The guide assured us that this was not the case - it was simply a matter of not wanting foreign nationals wandering over highly sensitive military facilities. However, when it was pointed out that four of our number did indeed look very Chinese (despite their Canadian, Malaysian, and other passports), the guides agreed that these four could indeed visit the town.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215236, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Elizabeth Teather - Deathspace in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Seoul: A Review of Recent Research, 1995-2001 .... \n\nChiu Hang Shi - Unicon Dancing in Pat Heung \n\n329 \n\n341 \n\nKeith Stevens - A Contentious Christian Missionary in Central China, 1887 \n\n353 \n\nKirsty Norman - Friends of the HKBRAS Trip to Cornwall....... 357 \n\nDavid Akers-Jones - Tea and Opium: Some Further Notes on Macartney's Role \n\n367 \n\nJennifer Welch - Coincidence? \n\n... 373 \n\nDan Waters - Another Donation to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society \n\n375 \n\nRichard Garrett - Taipa Fort and a Nineteenth Century Cannon 379 \n\nPeter Halliday - More Thoughts on Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing: A Tribute to Ian Morrison...... \n\n391 \n\nRosemary Lee and A.C. Bromfield - The Life and Times of Captain Samuel Cornel Plant \n\n407 \n\nAnon. - More on the Two Obelisks at Tai Tam \n\n417 \n\nBOOK REVIEWS \n\nDan Waters - Long Night's Journey into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945 \n\n419 \n\nJames Hayes - Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away:Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton \n\n423 \n\nPatrick Hase - Hong Kong Metamorphosis \n\n427 \n\nPeter Halliday - Searching for Frederick and Adventures Along the \n\nWay. \n\n430 \n\nX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215689, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 466, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "419\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nCharles G. Roland. Long Night's Journey into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Canada, 421 pages.\n\n'We live not as we would but as we can.'\n\nMemoir\n\nLike most Britons of my generation, I fought in World War Two, and for me, that included over four years on active service, much of the time in and out of action. But I have always wondered how I would have faced up to being a prisoner of war. Consequently, I found this book of considerable interest.\n\nOf the many books I have read about Hong Kong and the Japanese War, I know of none where the research was more thorough or the contents of the book more detailed. With the project spanning over 20 years and numerous persons and institutions having been consulted, this is not surprising. Chapter One deals with the run-up to the Japanese attack on 8 December 1941, and Chapter Two deals with the 'Eighteen-Day War' during which the Crown Colony was overrun. As many as 10,000 women were estimated to have been raped, although this figure, arrived at by a Chinese physician, can have been little more than an educated guess. Nor would the Japanese tolerate interference in their \"right to loot.\" The remaining eight chapters of the book deal with prisoners of war and life in the camps. There are copious notes, a long bibliography, and an adequate index.\n\nGenerally, internees, for example civilians in Stanley, were treated less badly than prisoners of war, for instance other-ranks incarcerated in Shum Shui Po Camp. But whoever they were and wherever they were incarcerated, too little food plagued prisoners constantly. Pet dogs and regimental mascots that followed men into camps were eaten, although a few would rather starve than partake of culturally forbidden foods. A few persons fattened maggots to eat in order to obtain much-needed protein, while others trapped birds and snakes. By the end of the war, prisoners were on average down 20 to 30 per cent in body weight. One prisoner is reported to have gone ... his years in camp. This seems har...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215691, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 468, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "421\n\nbeing starved. The complainant was later severely beaten by the Japanese. This prisoner could well have been HKBRAS member the late KMA Barnett although the book does not say so.\n\nWhen I have talked to ex-POWs I have seldom heard mention of acts of kindness by Japanese guards. As an ex-POW Dr Solomon Bard, who is well known to many HKBRAS Members, holds views which many regard as exceptional. He maintains there was 'no unprovoked cruelty within his experience. There are also instances quoted, in Long Night's Journey into Day, where individual Japanese were considerate to prisoners. This was more likely if a prisoner spoke Japanese.\n\nTo counterbalance instances of kindness there was the case of the American prisoner who requested permission to urinate. Permission was refused. Eventually, in agony, he broke ranks and urinated nearby. Afterwards he was made to lick his urine off the wall.\n\nThere is no doubt that, by and large, prisoners were severely treated. We have to remember, however, there was a war on and, in many cases, Japanese guards were little better off than their prisoners. Generally, when the war turned against them, both Japanese service personnel and civilians readily tightened their belt the extra notch. Japanese soldiers were brutalised from the day they entered service. Life in the Hong Kong camps, however, was not as bad as being a prisoner in Manchuria (Unit 731 and others) where inmates were subjected to inhumane medical experiments. In some camps in German-occupied Europe there was state-sponsored genocide, among the Jews for example, the full details of which did not come to light until the end of the War [Hon. Editor - As an aside, I recently paid a visit to Auschwitz, an experience which will haunt me for the rest of my life].\n\nMost prisoners in Hong Kong could envisage the war continuing for several years more and, when the Allies started to fight back and for the Japanese the going became even tougher, Allied prisoners were under the impression they would eventually be killed off in batches. The atom bomb saved the day. Although I fought against the Germans and the Italians, and not the Japanese, I remember no one at the time shedding tears at the dropping of the bomb on Japan.\n\nAlthough bushido and chivalry are in some respects similar this is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215692, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 469, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "422\n\ncertainly not always so. A Japanese soldier who does not fight to the death receives little respect from his fellow countrymen. Consequently, enemy troops who did not fight to the bitter end could expect, and in the eyes of the Japanese deserved, severe treatment.\n\nOne of the findings of this 20-year long study was that a surprising, almost 10 per cent of prisoners, survived the malnutrition, hazardous working conditions and frequent beatings et cetera with no accident or illness that resulted in hospitalisation or lost working days over the entire incarceration period.\n\nThere are few typographical errors in the book although the name, Sir Thomas Ho Tung, is quoted (page 64) when obviously it should be Sir Robert. I have brought this error to the attention of the author. Having said that this is a splendid book which, I repeat, has been well researched and written. It is a good read. I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.\n\nLong Night's Journey into Day may be purchased from the Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L.\n\n1\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nBard, Solomon, 'Obituary: K M A Barnett, OBE,' Journal Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society, Vol.27, 1987, p.9. I have written to the author who confirmed it was Barnett.\n\n2 Bard, Solomon, 'Mount Davis and Sham Shui Po: A Medical Officer with the Volunteers,' Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University During the War Years, Eds. Clifford Mathews and Oswald Cheung, Hong Kong University Press (1998), p.199.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]