[
    {
        "id": 206270,
        "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": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n81\n\nshould be seized as a traitor by the Mandarins. In the end he settled at Hong Kong, where he is said to encourage disreputable characters by the loan of money, and in various ways to reap the proceeds of profligacy and crime.5\n\nLoo Aqui also appears in the records as Lo Aking 盧亞 or Sze Mun King [Lo] (King, the Gentleman). At the time of the Sino-British war he seems to have played both sides of the game. The Chinese government lured him back to Canton by offering him an official degree of the sixth rank. He accepted but did not stay long with the Chinese, as he was soon back in Hong Kong enjoying the rewards of his services as provisioner for the British forces. He seems to have had supporters in Hong Kong Government circles for he secured the grant of a large and valuable section of land behind the Marine Lots of the Lower Bazaar. This was the area between Queen's Road and Jervois Street extending from near its junction westward to Cleverly Street. He and his family also acquired a number of Marine Lots by grant or purchase. Of the twenty-seven signers of the petition of land owners in 1848, about one-fifth of them were members of the Loo clan. Soon after the settlement of Hong Kong Loo Aqui was operating a gambling establishment and brothels. In 1845 he built a theatre. For a time he held the opium monopoly, and when the residents of the Middle Bazaar were removed to the Tai Ping Shan area in 1844, he petitioned the Government for the privilege of operating a market for the inhabitants, agreeing to build a substantial market house at a cost of $2,500 and to pay a monthly rental to Government of $200 for a period of five years. Loo Aqui and Tam Achoy were recognized as the leaders of the Chinese community, for according to a Chinese account entitled \"Information as to the period of the formations of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan—a bay to Wan—a circuit”, in 1847 they built the Man-Mo Temple on Hollywood Road and here \"they judged the people in public assembly\" until 1851 when the shopkeepers of the Lower Bazaar \"repaired to Man-Mo Temple, elected a Committee, and therein decided all cases of any public interest\".\n\nAside from Aqui's income from various business ventures, he had a steady income from his properties. In 1850 he was",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207901,
        "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": 289,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "274\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTung Wah as a Political-Judicial Institution\n\nThe Tung Wah Hospital Committee is of particular interest in the relation of a Chinese community to a Colonial Government. It performed an important function in providing self-identity to the community during the early years of the Hospital's history.\n\nThis function is related to the development of social control within Chinese society. In general, there are two levels of such control: central, from the top, represented by the Emperor and supported by the gentry and literati, and local control. In the countryside, local control was represented by clan organization and village councils. In mixed communities, such as cities, some market towns, and fishing villages (such as Cheung Chau - see J.W. Hayes, \"Cheung Chau, 1850-1898\", JHKBRAS, 3(1963), pp. 13-23), by Temple Committees and Kai Fongs.\n\nThe local village organization based upon clan could not be operative within urban Hong Kong with a mixed population drawn from various areas and Chinese language groups. Direct central control in the form of Mandarin officialdom was obviously impossible in a place under British control. To fill the vacuum, institutions grew up which were similar to those found in urban and commercial centres in China: commercial and craft guilds, street associations (Kai-fong), and temple committees. The 1872 Hong Kong Directory lists three Chinese organizations, possibly in the order of their importance: the Chinese Hospital Committee (Tung Wah), the Man-Mo Temple Committee (or, as given in the Chinese designation, the Kai-fong), and the U Lan Procession Committee.\n\nA Chinese article published in translation in 1876 (China Review) gives an account of the origin of these institutions. In 1847, only a few years after the establishment of Hong Kong as an urban centre, two wealthy and prominent members of the community, Loo Aking, the alleged leader of the major criminal syndicate in Hong Kong, and Tam Achoy, a respectable businessman who had lived previously in Singapore and acquired his wealth in Hong Kong initially as a contractor, were connected with the Man Mo Temple. Both had been in Hong Kong since shortly after its occupation by the British. Their association in the building of the Man Mo Temple illustrates the thesis set forth by Mr. Lethbridge that during the early years of Hong Kong's history, the presence of strong Triad Society organization served as a buffer against social control by a foreign government which often seemed to the Chinese as \"bizarre, erratic, at times even hostile, aggressive, and cruel\".",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]