[ { "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 The child of sycee, the silver dollar, gradually superseded its parent in favour.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": 204643, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n111\n\ncities, which together constitute Wuhan, as 8,000,000—almost certainly a great exaggeration.3 Lord Elgin, some fifteen years later during the Taiping Rebellion, thought it to be about 1,000,000, and that it would have been about 2,000,000 before the rebellion. It must, therefore, have been a more important city than either Canton or Shanghai at that time. Like those cities, it was the centre of a network of waterways which connected it with a great area of the surrounding country. In the first few years after the opening of the river Hankow resembled a boom town in the American West. Fortunes were made and lost in a few months, and passages from Shanghai were at a premium, up to £100 being paid for the trip. This initial boom was followed by the inevitable collapse, in this case intensified by the depression in the cotton market when the American Civil War came to an end, and a fall in tea prices which came at the same time.\n\nTrade on the river had been damned up for years by the Taipings, so that a boom following the opening of the river was only natural. By 1862 there were twenty steamers running regularly on the river, and there was such a demand for steamers that, as one writer described it, “everything which could burn coal was employed at high freights\". The freight on light goods from Shanghai to Hankow was as high as £6 per ton for a voyage lasting only three or four days. The first European ships on the river were small schooners, shallow draft paddle steamers, and lorchas.* The pioneer river steamer, as distinguished from warships and ocean-going steamers, was the American Firedart, which had been designed originally for the Canton River. She was soon followed by others specially designed for the Yangtse, and within a short time after the opening of the river, there were regular services between Shanghai and Hankow,\n\nThe early years of foreign trade on the Yangtse coincided with the last years of near American supremacy in shipping and shipbuilding, and the first British steamers to run on the river were built in America. Although the majority of foreign trading firms in the treaty ports at that time were British, the Americans were very serious competitors in the field of shipping. The\n\n* According to recent census figures the population of Wuhan is now 2,200,000.\n\n• A sailing ship with a European hull but Chinese type of rig.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204657, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "124\n\nA. D. BLUB\n\nwith the Middle River steamers for the next stage of Ichang. At Ichang another change was made into the Upper River steamers for the journey through the Gorges to Chungking, where motor launches took over for the final stages to Sui Fu and Chengtu. In the high water season some of the Lower River steamers extended their run to Ichang, and some of the Upper River steamers extended their run to Sui Fu, but Chungking was usually regarded as the upper limit of navigation for all practical purposes.\n\nChungking became internationally famous when it became China's war time capital. Before that it was comparatively unknown to the outside world, although, under various names, a city has occupied the site for some 4,000 years. It is a unique site, a high, rocky bluff on the peninsula formed by the junction of the Yangtse and the Kialing Rivers, nearly 1,400 miles from the mouth of the Yangtse, and in the very heart of China. At this point the normal variation between high and low water seasons is 75 feet, and has been known to reach 100 feet. In the low water season the city is reached by innumerable broad flights of steps leading up from the river, most flights having 240 steps. The transport of goods from the river to the city provided work for an army of porters and ponies. Until 1934 all the water for the city was carried up those steps by coolies who earned the equivalent of a farthing for a load of two heavy wooden buckets.\n\nWhen A. G. Morrison passed through the city in 1894 he estimated the population to be about 200,000. He described the coolies as being hungry and wretched in the midst of plenty, and riddled with malaria and phthisis. Although he estimated that about 40% of the men and 5% of the women were opium smokers, he thought it a law-abiding city. Szechuen is one of the richest provinces in China, and Chungking's exports included silk, hides and skins, bristles, tung oil, musk, rhubarb, and wool, some of these things coming from Tibet.\n\nThe loss of the German steamer Suichsiang in 1900 and a narrow escape of H.M.S. Woodlark in the same year, coupled with the Boxer troubles, postponed the establishment of a regular steamer service between Ichang and Chungking for several years. When this was eventually established in 1908 the honour belonged to a Chinese company, the Szechuen Steam Navigation Company. The formation of this company was largely due to the inspiration", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204922, "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-1965", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "NIAH CAVE, 1947 - 1964\n\n23\n\n9. Jeragun a very high cave up a barely accessible cliff, discovered in 1960 (c.600 square feet). Crammed with primary burials of small-bodied adults and urn burials of infants and some women. Very simple material culture, perhaps of a more primitive group (Punans?) integrated economically with the Great Cave people. The deposit has been entirely removed, owing to danger of guano-extraction and difficulty of control at this point. This material is being studied as a unit in Britain, by Dr. Calvin Wells and others.\n\nMATERIAL FINDS\n\nA new building in Kuching, completed in 1958, now houses the bulk of the materials from Niah and related excavations just described. These include stone tools from fully palaeolithic \"hand-chopper\" and flake tools, through to neolithic polished round axes and then to quadrangular adzes — about 5,000 pieces in all. Bone-tools are richly represented and have been recently classified tentatively into seventeen categories by Lord Medway and the writer. A great quantity of food-bone remains are all kept. Where possible, these are sent abroad to zoological specialists and reported upon separately (see below). Animals now extinct in Borneo include tapir, rhinoceros, giant pangolin, and tiger. Food shells abound. Samples are kept for each trench; all others are counted-off as excavated, against a coded species identification list. Shell tools (including fossil oyster) are less common. Skeletons are treated as above; plus several thousand scattered teeth which are being studied on the spot by Dr. Yim Khai Sun and assistants.\n\nIn the upper levels, earthenware pottery (studied on the scene by Dr. W. S. Solheim) in a wide range of types starts in the neolithic and reaches an apotheosis in massive \"three-colour ware\" urns, several of which have been reconstructed and are on museum display. Some of this pottery was made in the caves; one such site has been excavated. Pottery and bone were also used for beads in the neolithic. Glass replaced bone as a bead material a little later and shell and bone jewellery then became scarce in the sub-surface. Several fragments of fine bronzes, carved ivory, and also iron tools came in the topmost levels or in the special burial caves. A few textile fragments\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204973, "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-1965", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "72 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nFor the first few years after the cession of Hong Kong, the British Government and Royal Navy practically ignored piracy on the South China coast; and the American, French, and Portuguese governments were equally indifferent. Any attempts at suppression by the Hong Kong Government were as feeble and ineffective as those of the Canton authorities. British traders in Hong Kong and the treaty ports, however, considered that they were entitled to much greater protection, and after repeated protests and representations to the home and Hong Kong governments, the Hong Kong Government passed its first anti-piracy ordinance in 1847, and the Royal Navy began to take more effective action. As a result, many unsavoury practices were uncovered. It was found that certain British merchants were supplying arms and ammunition to the pirates against whom they were demanding protection; and that Hong Kong officials were licensing ships to provide convoy protection for Chinese traders, which ships were using the cover of the British flag to plunder the cargoes they were paid to protect. This licensed convoy system was open to much abuse, and a source of great trouble to the Navy. The Chinese called these ships \"protecting tigers.\" The Navy itself was not blameless in its anti-piracy operations. The over-generous bounty system, which made pirate hunting a lucrative profession for the first decades after the cession of Hong Kong, often led to innocent Chinese traders and sailors losing their lives and property. Admiralty records ignore most of the errors committed by overzealous naval officers, but the Navy's anti-piracy campaign was one of the many British activities to draw unfavourable criticism from Lord Elgin in his mission to China and Japan in 1858.\n\nThe Royal Navy and the Hong Kong Government faced a difficult and complex situation when they undertook serious anti-piracy operations in the late 1840's. The Navy could attack pirates anywhere on the high seas, and commit them for trial to any British or Chinese court; but Hong Kong could only free its own waters of pirates. Piracy on the coast and rivers came within the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government, and neither the Navy nor Hong Kong could operate there without permission from the Canton authorities. Anglo-Chinese co-operation, therefore, was essential for successful anti-piracy operations, and this was not always available. The Treaty of Tientsin was the first", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205978, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n53\n\n19 Sir Francis Henry May (1860-1922), Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Dublin. Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Captain Superintendent of Police, 1893-1902; Colonial Secretary, 1902-1910; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of Western Pacific, 1910-12; Governor of Hong Kong, 1912-1919. First cadet to become Governor. Altogether May spent 38 years in Hong Kong.\n\n20 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874-1938), Educated at Edinburgh University (Gray Prize; prox. accessit., Lord Rector's Essay); Magdalen College, Oxford (mentioned hon, causa Stanhope Essay). Hong Kong Civil Service 1898; Assistant Colonial Secretary, 1899-1904, Transferred to Weihaiwai 1904; Senior District Officer and Magistrate, Weihaiwai, 1906-17. Tutor to the Ex-Emperor of China, 1919-1925. Commissioner of Weihaiwai, 1927-30. Professor of Chinese and Head of Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Languages, London University, 1931-1937.\n\n21 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). Educated at St. Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1899. Clementi, following his uncle and godfather, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, preferred an Eastern Cadetship, and was posted to Hong Kong. Land Officer and Police Magistrate in the New Territories, 1903-6, Clementi had the task of recognizing the land titles of over 300,000 claims. Appointed Colonial Secretary of British Guiana 1913-1921; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1922-1925; Governor of Hong Kong, 1925-30; Governor of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for the Malay States 1930. In 1934 Clementi retired on account of ill-health.\n\n22 James Legge \"The Colony of Hong Kong\", China Review, Vol. I, 1872-3, p. 173.\n\n23 Dominions Office and Colonial Office List 1939, p. 624, states: \"The average number of cadets appointed to Malaya and Hongkong during the period of 1919-31 inclusive was between 9 and 10. Since 1931 the average has been 5-8, 6 generally. In 1937, 7 cadets were appointed, and 9 in 1938. There were none appointed to Hong Kong 1937, and only 2 in 1938. The demand for cadets in Hong Kong was always small”.\n\n24 For example, Thomas Sercombe Smith (1854-1937) was appointed a Hong Kong Cadet in 1882. In 1883 he was attached to the Colonial Office for a year; and in 1884, after a brief spell attached to the Colonial Secretary's Office, Hong Kong, proceeded to Peking where he studied Chinese, 1884-6. On the other hand, Arthur Winbolt Brewin (1867-1946), proceeded to Canton in 1888. Brewin, who was educated at Winchester, succeeded Eitel as Inspector of Schools in 1897; became Registrar General in 1901 and retired in 1912.\n\n25 Victor Purcell The Memoirs of a Malayan Official, London, 1965, pp. 108-109. The Index to Correspondence (of the Colonial Secretariat), compiled in 1902 by R. H. Kotewall, has a cryptic entry: \"Cadets studying Chinese in China must reside at a place removed from European social surroundings\".\n\n26 Alexander Grantham Via Ports, Hong Kong, 1965, p. 5.\n\n27 I have been able to discover the schools attended by 64 of the cadets: 52 went to schools listed in the Public Schools Yearbook; the other 12 to small private schools. Two cadets (H. E. Wodehouse and A. W. Brewin), it seems, did not go to a university; five I have been unable to trace; and of the rest - 78 in all — 55 went to English universities (Cambridge 25; Oxford 23; London 4; and one each at Leicester University College, Liverpool University, and Manchester University); 10 to universities in Ireland (Trinity College 8); and 11 to Scottish universities (Edinburgh 6,\n\n-55", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206623, "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-1972", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA\n\n165\n\nthey have revealed a new province of culture, which from its leading characteristics as well as its geography can be seen to link the Chinese classical culture with that of the Archipelago and the Pacific Islands, generally referred to as 'Indonesian'. The reciprocal influence of these two cultures has never been adequately studied, for only in a region on their respective boundaries, such as the China Coast, can this be done.\n\nThese characteristics may be summed up as: 1. use of stone adzes, chiefly rectangular and stepped; 2. working stones with circular borer to make rings, and with stone saws to cut stone implements; 3. pottery made on the turn-table, in both coarse and fine qualities built up by the ribbon technique and decorated with cord, mat and geometrical patterns; 4. lance heads of shale or slate; 5. cylindrical stone beads; 6. rings of hard stone used as ornaments; 7. cultivation, probably by growing grain in cleared patches of jungle; 8. fishing and boatbuilding; 9. cloth-making. The later form of this culture has in addition these features: 10. casting of bronze weapons and tools; 11. use of ceremonial objects of jade, especially in burials; 12. hard, high-fired pottery stamped with the f pattern; 13. leadless glaze, green and brown, applied to pottery.\n\nSecond, they demonstrate the flow of Chinese culture to the south and its replacement of the native culture, in which can be seen traces of the ancient Chinese culture of the Shangs.\n\nThird, they show that this native culture formed part of a culture-province which included not only the Chinese coast provinces but Japan, Manchuria, Formosa and Annam, and whose remoter connexions extend landwards into E. India and N. Asia, and seaward as shown by the adze forms into the Archipelago, the Philippines, and the furthest Polynesian islands. For instance, a highly polished adze with a large tang, of very distinctive form, is found in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand and Hervey Islands.\n\nFourth, light is thrown upon the ancient trade routes of S.E. Asia. Painted pottery, which was not, it seems, made on the China Coast, was imported from Tongking, probably along the West River. Bronze and jade of Chinese workmanship was imported from the Yangtse valley, by which of the three possible routes is uncertain. The Swabue people produced quantities of shale lance-heads, harpoons, arrow heads and rings, sometimes very delicately worked,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206897, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "168\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nDEEP BAY MARSHES\n\nThe photograph at Plate XV was taken in March 1973 by Mrs. F. O. P. Hechtel. It shows men and women collecting seaweed from an embanked pond at Deep Bay. They had come over from Chinese Territory by boat, bringing a punt with them on deck. The boat was anchored at the outer edge of the bund, left high and dry at low tide, and the punt was launched in the shallow pond and loaded with seaweed which was taken back for pig food. This is still a common practice, and has been observed by Mr. and Mrs. Hechtel on other occasions.\n\nThis brings in another feature of the marshes. Our printer, and member, Mr. Y. F. Lam of Ye Olde Printerie Ltd., tells me that when he went shooting on the marshes just after the war, his party used regularly to meet a person who came over from Chinese territory using a waak baan (★★) or mud scooter on which he travelled easily over the areas of foreshore and swamp. The man landed at Mai Po, left his mud scooter there, and walked to Yuen Long Market to buy necessaries, after which he would return to Mai Po, load his scooter and set off for home.\n\nThe mud scooter is also used by oyster farmers in Deep Bay and is an old form of local transportation. Two of them, one old and much used, and one made to order, have recently been obtained by the City Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong. Plate XVI is by courtesy of the Curator, and shows the used scooter.\n\nA very similar contrivance is used in the shrimp fisheries at Stolford on the Bristol channel, Somerset, England, C. M. Yonge writes: 'At Stolford where the nets are secured on soft banks of mud a mile from the shore, the fishermen use a type of intertidal sledge or \"mud horse\" which they push in front of them and which serves the double purpose of preventing them from sinking deeply in the mud and of carrying back the catch'. (pp. 321-322 of The Sea Shore, Collins, The Fontana New Naturalist paper back, 1963). There is an illustration of the \"mud horse\" at page 322.\n\nHong Kong. April, 1974.\n\nHON. EDITOR", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207769, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "142\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nand canvas tops added in Rangoon. Other similar trucks were obtained during the fall of Burma, but in the event a total of 12 trucks were left behind there. As has been mentioned earlier, the Unit took over the existing IRC fleet which was a very mixed bag. It also purchased eight Dodge 3 tonners in Chungking from Liddell and Co., a merchant house. Another addition was five 1938 Ford chassis into which replacement Hercules 4 cylinder diesel engines were fitted.\n\nBy May 1942, the Unit had a fleet of 30 trucks, and those held in Feb. 1943 are listed in Table VI. Some of these were obtained by an ingenious arrangement. Some mission organizations had purchased trucks, brought them to Rangoon and taken them up the Burma Road loaded with supplies and people. It was, however, uneconomic and difficult for the organization to run the trucks once their destination had been reached. The Unit, therefore, offered to take them over in return for 16,000 km. tons of haulage of their organizations' goods.4\n\nWith the fall of Burma, importation of fuel oil, lubricating oil, and petrol became impossible except by air. Low octane petrol and diesel fuel were available at the Yumen oilfield in Kansu, some 3,000 km. from the centre of operations. The alternative fuels were rape-seed or other vegetable oils for the diesel engines, alcohol produced from sugar cane, and 'petrol' distilled from tung (#) oil for the petrol engines. All these fuels suffer from serious shortcomings. The rape-seed oil had a high acid content which gave rapid wear on the fuel pumps, injectors, and cylinders of the diesel engines, and these were worn out after two years of hard service. The alcohol was not only expensive, it was also rationed and gave a fuel consumption double that of petrol with the engines and carburettors available. The water content of the alcohol also caused rusting in the fuel tanks. The tung oil petrol was better but cost (in October 1942) NC$130 a gallon when the exchange rate was NC$80 to 1 pound sterling.\n\nThe alternative was to convert trucks to run on gas produced from charcoal. The technical description of the system used is given later. Conversion sets were first purchased and later manufactured by the Kweiyang and Kutsing depots. Considerable skill and experience were required to operate the systems successfully, and the maximum power obtainable was perhaps 70% of that on petrol. The apparatus took up room and increased the tare of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207771, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "144\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\ntruck so that the payload of 2 tons was the maximum. However, by 1944 the charcoal trucks were being operated successfully over the Luhsien road with its high altitude as well as all the other routes. Charcoal was obtainable in most villages and was cheap in the mountain areas and the cost, per ton carried, was 1/5 of that of alcohol. The charcoal burners carried the major load of supplies through 1944 and the first part of 1945.\n\nThe successful Burma campaign of autumn 1944, the opening of the Ledo road and the petrol pipeline laid along it made a great difference to the Unit transport systems. Not only was the Unit allocated 25 Canadian W.D. 3-ton Dodge trucks in the summer of 1945 from ARC and UNRAA, but it was also able to obtain P.O.L. (Petrol, Oil and Lubrication) supplies from the US army free of charge. To quote from a letter written 10/6/45 “It was a great moment when at Kunming, Rupert (Stanley) and I drove up in a truck to the P.O.L. station and pulled up beside a real petrol pump (and bright red at that too) and said to the Sergeant \"Fill'er up\" and he filled her up to the tune of 22 gallons US. When I told him it was 34 years since I'd done that he registered the usual GI amazement that anyone could stand the place that long”.\n\nSystem Performance\n\nThe cargo carried by the system was in three categories: Medical and Relief supplies for NHA, IRC, ARC etc.; FAU maintenance and fuel supplies; and return cargoes. The Government transport administration ruled that no trucks should travel empty and on return journeys must take Government, usually military, cargoes. The Unit had a special pass, as a Christian pacifist organization, exempting it from taking soldiers or weapons and instead usually had cargoes of salt from the Yangtse valley south to Kweichow and Yunnan.\n\nThe system performance figures in terms of kilometre tons for the 4 years, as far as they are at present available, are given in Table VII. The number of trucks available on average through the years are given, and from this it will be seen that the operating efficiency in terms of kilometre tons per truck per year steadily increased. This was due to:---\n\n1) increased efficiency of the Charcoal truck operations, more than compensating for the deterioration of the diesel trucks", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208002, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BRUNEI A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n25\n\nacquisition of Limbang cut right across the middle of Brunei territory. It was only later discovered after the Foreign Office was able to obtain accurate maps of the region. Hence Brunei is bifurcated and each part almost surrounded by Sarawak territory.\n\nThat Brunei was not completely annihilated is perhaps due to the late and strenuous objections of the rajas themselves, as well as to some feeling of conscience on the part of officials in the colonial and foreign offices. Some in Whitehall thought it a good thing and a great convenience for the future to allow Sarawak and North Borneo to divide up the carcass. Lord Salisbury, the foreign secretary in 1888, noted that Sarawak and North Borneo were \"rapidly crushing out\" Brunei between them. He noted,16\n\nI think we had better let them finish it, and make no agreement with the Sultan of Brunei which would stand in the way of a consummation which is inevitable, and, on the whole, desirable.\n\nNevertheless a protectorate was agreed to in 1888. Sarawak and North Borneo also became protected states. But very little change occurred in Brunei. Except for being saved from extinction the new status merely formalised a situation that had prevailed since 1847—the sultan and rajas continued their misrule while Britain retained control of foreign relations.\n\nIV\n\nTwo further events contributed to the salvation of Brunei and its resuscitation. In 1906 Britain finally agreed to appoint a resident advisor to help the sultan manage his affairs.17 And in 1929 oil was discovered in commercial quantities in the southern part of the state at Seria in the Belait district.\n\nModern Brunei is oil rich and not unlike in that respect some of those other Muslim sultanates, in the Persian Gulf. Its 2,226 square miles is inhabited by 144,000 people, with two largish urban concentrations at Bandar Seri Begawan, the new name for Brunei Town, still on the sluggish Brunei River in its old location, and Kuala Belait-Seria some 80 miles to the south, surrounding the oil fields. The urbanites are largely Malay and Chinese with numbers of Ibans working the oil fields. The remainder of the indigenous peoples are Kedayan, Dusun and Murut, mostly living along small streams in the interior. The high per-capita income and wealth created by steady oil revenues have created the stability so lacking", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208005, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "28\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nThe state of Brunei annual report for 1956 describes the water city, Kampong Ayer, this way,\n\nSet in a wide sweep of the river, this river town is in its way unique. At high tide under favourable conditions of light it takes on quite a remarkable beauty; viewed at close quarters it is even more remarkably ramshackle. The houses are grouped together in small villages, being connected by precarious plank walkways, and there the inhabitants carry on their multifarious activities in much the same way as if they were on land.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 See e.g. O. W. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce; a study of the origins of Srivijaya, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967); and D. E. Brown, Brunei: the structure and history of a Bornean Malay sultanate, (Brunei: Brunei Museum, 1970).\n\nThese works have drawn upon the earlier studies of such scholars as W. P. Groeneveldt (1880) and Lien Sung (1919).\n\n2 See Brown, op. cit., Ch. XI.\n\n3 The fullest account of the Moro wars is in E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493 - 1898, (Cleveland, 1903 -09).\n\n4 Lord Stanley of Alderley (ed.), The first voyage round the world by Magellan, by Antonio Pigafetta, (London: Hakluyt Society, 1874).\n\n5 J. Hunt, \"Some particulars relative to the Sulo islands in the Archipelago of Felicia”, in Malayan Miscellany, I, (Bencoolen, 1820).\n\n6 James Horsburgh, Directions for sailing to and from the East Indies and China, (London, 1811), the navigational handbook for generations of British sea captains. This work drew heavily upon the surveys of eighteenth century seafarers such as Alexander Dalrymple (1774) and Thomas Forest (1780).\n\n7 S. B. St. John, Life in the forests of the Far East. (London, 1862), Vol. 2, pp. 248-49.\n\n8 British Parliamentary Papers, 1854-55, XXIX (253),\n\n9 Sarawak Gazette, 26 April, 1872.\n\n10 Henry Keppel, The expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido for the suppression of piracy, with extracts from the Journal of James Brooke, Esq. of Sarawak, (London, 1847),\n\n11 S. Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde, A History of Sarawak under its two white rajahs, (London, 1909), pp. 82-83.\n\n12 Lennox Mills, British Malaya, 1824-67, (reprint: Kuala Lumpur, 1966), p. 248.\n\n13 British interests in Borneo are treated extensively in, L. R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo, (Hong Kong, 1970).\n\n14 See L. R. Wright, \"The Foreign Office and North Borneo\", in Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. VII, No. 1, (January 1969).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208110, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND\n\n133\n\nTyphoons bring with them torrents of rain. More falls in the two or three days that follow than in a whole year in drier climates. It is these rains which make possible the dense population of the deltas of South China as well as the disastrous floods.\n\nFrom October to March there is little rain, but the sun is always bright and hot. The wind blows for the most part from the North and East, and the cool air, hot sun, and brilliant sea make an exhilarating setting for the activities of the little state. Even in summer the climate is far superior to Hongkong's, the air fresher and the oppressive canopy of clouds less unbroken. Hence there are summer visitors, missionaries and their families from the interior, and business and professional men from Hongkong, who live apart from the village but in perfect friendliness and to mutual advantage.\n\nThe town itself stretches for a mile along the shore, being only a few streets deep at the ends, but widening out in the middle to a little market square, some three streets wide. The main landing stage opens on to this market place, and here the police and the male and female searchers take their stand to prevent the smuggling of arms or opium which would otherwise most certainly take place. There is another and older pier a hundred yards or so away, at which the salt junks load.\n\nIn the main street almost every building is a shop, workshop, or both, until we reach the end nearest the Pak Tai Temple, which is in the \"West End\" of the town. There we find private houses of the usual narrow type. The backs of half these shops and houses run out on to the beach on a picturesque disarray of piles and retaining walls, interspersed with garbage heaps. There is none of the beautiful and simple cleanliness of the Japanese village. On this beach side or on the beach itself are two slipways for beaching and repairing the junks, a tannery, several boat-building yards, a distillery, coffin maker, and several blacksmiths, tinsmiths, and coppersmiths' shops.\n\nThe beach is a scene of constant activity. At the Eastern end is a floating village of sampans, occupied by families of the Tan Ka tribe, and when one of these sampans becomes too old to float any more, it is hauled above high water mark, and some family or other lives there until it literally drops to pieces. They look rather like huge sea slugs taking to life on shore when the struggle for survival on the water has become too severe for them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208113, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "136 \n\nW. J. HINTON \n\non sanitation and the care of a little system of hill tracks which might serve as a model to the New Territories. Their King is the District Officer South, the \"Lord of the Isles,\" but Kaifong and Residents Association alike show a praiseworthy spirit of independence, and a capacity for governing themselves; moreover, the injunction “Agree with thine adversary quickly\" is well understood and followed in China, even under British rule. \n\nBut we have drifted from geography into politics, like better men before us, and it would be well to pass back to the native community, through the terraced fields dotted with blue-clad figures bowed over the hoe, or shuffling along the narrow paths with a yoke of watering buckets, or cutting and pulling the beetroots, carrots, and cabbages. We will go back to the Eastern end of the village and then traverse its length, completing our brief survey by passing out to our waiting boat over the harbour, and so back to Hongkong. On the stage thus set, it may be that we or someone more competent may stage scenes from the life of the island folk from time to time. There is a strange and interesting feast in the Spring, well worth describing, and at the New Year when the whole fishing fleet lies at anchor in the bay, the little town is all alive. A sitting in the Court of the District Magistrate would be worth describing too, and a meeting of the City Fathers, the Kaifong. We must write, for lack of better witnesses, yet how true it is that those who know do not say, and those who say do not know! \n\nBut to our walk. There lies our little yacht that brought us from Hongkong, white and strange among the high-sterned junks with their brown mat sails. We have all the afternoon to wander, and half the night to lie in the Harbour before the tide turns and we must up anchor and away. \n\nStrolling through the Town \n\nWe have landed on the beach near the Temple of Kwan Yin and find ourselves among the Hakka people who inhabit this end of the town. Their small, sturdy figures are to be seen clustered about the well where the women are drawing water, or bending over the boats in the boat-building yard that slopes to the water's edge. There is material for a whole study in the types of boat and the methods of building alone, but we cannot stop to watch for more than a few minutes while the skilful ship's carpenters fix the ribs and planking of a brand new sampan. A word of greeting to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208115, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "138 \n\nW. J. HINTON \n\nfrom the wells, in the ubiquitous kerosene tin. A pig or two investigate the gutters with deliberation, and entire disregard of anyone's convenience. Dogs prowl everywhere, mostly \"chows,\" but here and there evidences may be seen of deplorable inter-racial amours by the terriers of the Europeans. And everywhere there are children. In the shops, on the floor, on the counters, in their fathers' and grandfathers' arms, on their mothers' backs. They walk, run, and crawl in the streets—and those too small to do any such thing are tied in a great kerchief on their sisters' backs, their solemn sleepy little heads lolling and shaking over the edge of the red cloth. No race suicide here—but what is the infant mortality? No one knows, but it is probably very high for the average ratio of inhabitants to family in China seems to be about five, and there must be a fearful infant mortality to keep it at so low a figure, when so many children are born. However, they seem happy and well fed, these people, and healthy enough, though somewhat dirty. Not so the dogs and cats who seem starved and diseased almost without exception.\n\nThis is a tinsmith's shop, where kerosene tins undergo reincarnation as lamp, or dipper at the skilful hand of the craftsman. Outside the next shop is a block on which a boy makes fish hooks from wire with a deft twist and a couple of blows, passing the rough hook to a companion to be barbed and tanged. The fisherman before us picks one up and looks it over with an eye of infinite experience and he and the maker speak as one expert with another. A few steps on and there is an idol shop. Little clay images for the shrines on the junks—larger images, all ready with the hole through which some small living creature is to be introduced and sealed up. Models which can be set to sail away from a junk beset by wind or tide or cursed with ill luck and so bear off the evil with them. There are charms and paraphernalia in plenty, but it is all a hidden and mysterious business to us. More's the pity. Now we come to a cross street continually wet and slippery from the salt which is carried in baskets by women, their necks bowed under the burdens, but their bodies moving strongly resilient beneath the load. What a glorious column of rippling muscle must be then so modestly hidden beneath the blue coat. But we shall not see it, for, however hard they work, the women of China keep themselves covered. Only when they wade in the ricefields planting the small shoots in the soft mud, or weeding between the plants", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209241, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "130\n\nTA ACTON\n\nearnest students of all ages doing the homework impossible to do in crowded one-room flats) The report suggests that even though land-based jobs had increased awareness of the need for secondary education, drop-out rates of those who started on it remained high because of the physical difficulties in the way of studying. The F.M.O. schools are not, however, mentioned in the report, nor have I seen any F.M.O. comments on these findings.\n\n38\n\nThe report of the survey concludes that the plight of the poor boat-people is an indication of a more general social malaise, the devil-take-the-hindmost atmosphere of Hong Kong. They suggest that the Government should accept responsibility for re-settling the casualties of the mechanisation of the fishing industry from which the rest of the community has benefitted. In the long term, a better understanding of the Shui-sheung-yans' needs was required by the housing authority, who should plan in accordance with forecasts about the manpower needs of the fishing industry. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries should extend the availability of its loans so that less initial capital is required of the borrower. New fishermen's villages could be built by the Housing Department, and the Labour Department and the Education Department should co-operate to increase the general levels of education and training in industrial skills. In the short term, the report urges immediate improvements in safety, rubbish collection, sanitation, and disinfection. Regular checks on boat safety should be made by the Marine Department. The Urban Council should provide study rooms for children, and the Education Department evening literacy classes and industrial training.\n\n39\n\nThe report spurred a campaign which gained wider sympathy. In January 1979 a coach-load of boat-people were arrested on their way to take a petition to Government House. Children as young as seven years of age were finger-printed and charged with illegal assembly, although magistrates refused to proceed with the case against those under the age of 12. The adults, social workers, students, a Catholic missionary and Shui-sheung-yan, were found guilty, but discharged.\n\nAfter this incident, however, the groundswell of liberal support for the boat-people diversified into a general civil rights attack on the Public Order Ordinance itself. This has left the boat-people to fight their housing struggle by themselves, with the help of a few community workers linked to SoCO, such as Fr. Cunbo Franco, an Italian Roman Catholic priest actually living on a boat in the Yaumatei typhoon shelter.\n\n40", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209505, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "140\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\n**Sax Rohmer, pseudonym of A.S. Ward (1886-1959). Rohmer's Chinese master-villain first appeared in Dr. Fu Manchu (1913), the start of a series of thrillers about Fu.\n\n27 His real name was Chang Wan but he was known as Brilliant Chang to police and public.\n\n**The Times for April 10 and 11, 1924. See also Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Week-end (London: Faber, 1941). One of Chang's clients was Brenda Dean Paul, a notorious upper-class drug-addict, daughter of Sir Aubrey Dean Paul, a former Lord Mayor of London.\n\n\"Some information about Miss Siu is given in the South China Morning Post on October 26, 1928. See also the Hongkong Telegraph for June 23, 1928.\n\n**Travers Humphreys, op. cit., p. 163.\n\n\"1 South China Morning Post, December 7, 1928.\n\nNecrophiliacs are rare but not unknown. The most famous was surely Sergent (Sergeant) Bertrand, whose activities are discussed in Marcel Montarron, Histoire des crimes sexuels (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1971) 113-13. Another extraordinary necrophiliac Henri Blot, 'Le vampire de Saint-Ouen'—is discussed in Daniel Riche, Histoires criminelles de Paris/Ile-de-France (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1980) 407-416.\n\n**The case is examined in Sir Travers Humphreys' A Book of Trials, op. cit. But see also Christmas Humphreys, Seven Murders (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946); E. Spencer Shew, A Companion to Murder (London: Cassell, 1960); and C.E. Bechhofer-Roberts, Sir Travers Humphreys: His Career and Cases (London: John Lane, 1936).\n\n*Sir Travers Humphreys (1867-1956). Called to the Bar, 1889. He was a distinguished criminal lawyer before becoming a Judge of the King's Bench Division of the High Court, 1928-1951.\n\n*Joseph Cooksey Jackson K.C. (1879-1938) of the Northern Circuit. **Criminal Appeal Reports, vol. 21, 1930.\n\n**Travers Humphreys, op. cit, 162-163.\n\n06\n\n18 Ibid. 167.\n\n*Ibid, 168.\n\n40 J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese; or, Notes Connected With China (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1925, fifth edition). Dyer Ball writes: \"The Chinese are not only remote from us as regards position on the globe, but they are our opposites in almost every action and thought\" (668).\n\n\"The late Victorians were much amused by Pidgin English. See Charles Godfrey Leland, Pidgin-English Sing-Song; or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect (London: Trubner, 1876).\n\n42 Op. cit., 164.\n\n\"Herbert John Bennett was accused of strangling his wife on Yarmouth Beach. The body was left in such a position as to suggest attempted rape. See Julian Symons, A Reasonable Doubt (London: Cresset Press, 1962).\n\n**Op. cit., 168.\n\n*A son and a daughter (Wai-sheung) were born to his primary wife. His other wives produced over ten children, two of whom were later returned students from the United States. See the South China Morning Post, June 25, 1928.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209957, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "194\n\nThe newspaper does not identify the author, or give a Chinese version, stating only that he was \"a poet and scholar who formed part of the suite of the High Imperial Commissioner (Keying) during his late visit to Hong Kong, and was composed on board the steamer on the way back to Canton.\"\n\n**\n\nIn 1981 the journals of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon, RN, were published by Webb and Bower, of Exeter in England. In 1845 Cree was surgeon on the Vixen, a steam paddle sloop. In his entry for Tuesday, November 25, Cree records that the Vixen was taking Keying and his suite back to Canton:\n\n\"A salute was fired from the battery as we started through the Cap-Sing-mun passage. On our way we were also saluted by the Chinese forts and war junks. I almost got into the bad books of Low, the Lord Mayor of Canton,' by a practical joke that Willcox, the 1st Lieutenant, played on me: he came up to me on deck and said: 'Doctor, do you know that the gunroom is full of those confounded flunkeys, and one of them is snoring in your cabin,'\n\nI rushed down and saw, on my bed, a great body and a pair of legs encased in black satin boots on the pillow, the head at the other end snoring most lustily. I unceremoniously laid hold of him, and rolled him on to the floor. At the same time one of the servants rushed in and jabbered something, holding up a mandarin's cap with the peacock's feather: I immediately saw it was the great Lord Mayor I had treated so roughly. I apologised as well as I could. His Lordship, who was now wide awake, sat at the table and said something to his valet, who brought him writing materials, with which he set to work filling a large sheet of paper with neatly written Chinese characters. I thought, now I am in for a report to the Lord High Commissioner, and told Gutzlaff, the interpreter. Chaou, who was in the Purser's cabin next door, laughed immoderately. Soon the paper was handed in, and I got Gutzlaff to interpret it. I was pleased to see it was no report, but an ode Low had been composing on his departure from Hong Kong.\"\n\nI\n\nIt seems reasonable to speculate that this was the ode which the Friend of China published a translation of a few weeks later.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209963, "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": 222, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "200\n\nMC, while he was a prisoner of war in Japan. Captain Shigeru was later tried and executed for war crimes.\n\nNot connected with the last war is a mirror on which are painted the colours and battle honours of the regiment and which is set in a carved wooden frame. This mirror was originally the property of the Sergeants' Mess of the third battalion and it was used in the ante room of the mess from 1906 when the battalion served in Hong Kong, Tientsin and Peking, up until its disbandment in 1922.\n\nThere is, finally, a waist-high Chinese vase decorated with blossoms and birds about which little is known.\n\nMy final stop was at the excellent museum of the Royal Engineers, at Chatham, where there are many interesting China-related items.\n\nA whole case contains objects relating to General Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, who was an RE officer. Gorgeous embroidered robes feature dragons, there is a white silk jacket, panels and hangings, a Mandarin's hat with a long pigtail seemingly attached, a silver cup and other items.\n\nA name that crops up in the early history of Hong Kong is John Ouchterlony; he wrote a book \"The Chinese War\" which was published in 1844. The RE museum has his epaulettes, those of the Madras Engineers, on display.\n\nThere is also an executioner's strangling cord, bullets, a fung shui compass, a series of gods from the Summer Palace, a Chinese crossbow, knives and swords. Probably most of these items date from the time of the Second China War, in 1860.\n\nAnyone who can visit Chatham should note that the Royal Engineers library has a large store of information just waiting to be mined. The Engineers left their mark throughout Hong Kong and their projects are well documented and recorded in the reports, journals and other papers held in the library.\n\nI am sure that in each of the establishments mentioned there are other items which I missed; most visits were in and out affairs with a pregnant wife waiting patiently in the car and a not-so-patient two-year-old keeping her company.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210190, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "140\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n77\n\nSee despatch No. 76 Civil from Governor, Hong Kong to Lord Stanley, 28 December 1844 in CO129/7/9807, especially p. 323. Ako Mayers, Dennys and King, op cit, p. 57.\n\nSee J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op. cit. and The Rural Communities of Hong Kong op. cit. D. Faure The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1986), J.W. Hayes Secular Non-Gentry Leadership of Temple and Shrine Organisations in Urban British Hong Kong JHKBRAS, Vol. 23, 1983 pp. 113-137, passim.\n\nJ.W. Hayes The Rural Communities of Hong Kong op cit. p. 63.\n\n80 See D. Faure Visit to Stanley, elsewhere in this Journal.\n\nJ.W. Hayes Secular Non-Gentry Leadership op. cit. JHKBRAS, Vol. 23, 1983, pp. 127-132.\n\nSee note 10.\n\n12\n\n81 科大街\n\n陸鴻基,吳倫霩霹 A*.\" ****\" op. cit. p. 821 (D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong).\n\n84 J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op. cit. pp 61-64, and 64-69, and J.W. Hayes Secular Non-Gentry Leadership op. cit. pp. 113-121.\n\n85\n\n科,陸,吳, 香港碑銘 #‚É‚1⁄2‚“ ***(op. cit.) (Faure, Luk, Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit.) p.76.\n\n*,4,5,\" *** \"(op. cit.) (Faure, Luk, Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit.) p. 102. For the Kaifong hall, see also D. Faure Visit to Stanley elsewhere in this Journal.\n\nH 科,陛,吳, 香港郈銘 (op. cit.) p. 98 (Faure, Luk, Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong).\n\n63\n\n*.,,\" \"(op. cit.) (Faure, Luk, Ng, The Historical Inscriptions 科,陸,吳, 香港碑銘 of Hong Kong), p. 152 (Foundation of Tin Hau Temple 1873 by group lead by General Managers and two grades of Managers 總理, 董理, 個事), p. 166 (Refoundation of Tin Hau temple 1876 by group lead by General Managers and Managers), p. 347 (Foundation of Tam Kung temple 1905 by group lead by General Managers and Managers #), p. 388 (Repair of Tam Kung Temple 1908 by group lead by Managers).\n\n89 The possibility certainly exists. Revd. Carl Smith's researches show that some Hong Kong village men took advantage of the new situation to acquire language skills and advance their fortunes through service as government interpreters and clerks to solicitors, or by acting as compradores for Western business firms. The most famous of them all, Sir Shouson Chau, born in Little Hong Kong in 1861, was sent to America with the \"First Hundred\" Chinese boys (of the Chinese government's educational mission) in the 1870s. He graduated later from Columbia University, served the Ch'ing government as a high official and afterwards returned to Hong Kong where he was a member of both the Executive and Legislative Council. His father was compradore of the Canton Hong Kong Steamship Company with its head office in Canton, and according to family history his grandfather, the village head of Little Hong Kong in 1841, assisted Captain Charles Elliott in posting up one of his first official proclamations on the Island in 1841. (Letter quoted at note 18 above, together with the biography in Chinese and English at pp 4-5 of Prof. Woo Sing-lim's The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, The Five Continents Book Co., 1937)). See also D. Faure Visit to Stanley elsewhere in this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210732, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "66\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\nin future planting programmes:\n\nNative Country Remarks\n\nBotanical Name\n\nTristanea conferta Australia\n\nCeltis sinensis Hong Kong\n\nFrom 100 to 150 ft. high... etc. grows very rapidly and well in H.K.\n\nA fine tree which grows well and can be propagated readily from seed which is produced in abundance.\n\nMany trees were planted on the roadsides 2 years ago which have grown very rapidly. Two rows bordering the side of the Peak Road would also have done well if they had been attended to in pruning during this and last year.\n\nDespite the prevalence and destructive power of typhoons Mr. Ford was able to report in 1879:\n\n\"The general appearance of the Gardens has been decidedly in advance of previous years. The collection of Cacti continues to thrive well. On the sides of the walk next to the Fountain Terrace the trees of Grevilea robusta now form a very effective avenue. The trees were planted when they were one year old, in 1876 and they are now about thirty feet high. Near the Fernery in the Old Garden a collection of Orchids indigenous to Hong Kong has been made. Many of the more beautiful and interesting plants of this Colony have been introduced to the Gardens and I am now continuing this work.... The collection of coniferous trees in the New Garden has been partly rearranged... the Palms have quite filled the ground, and excepting very dwarf kinds, no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211605, "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": 20, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "medical care not available in many mission countries, the Superiors of the Paris Foreign Mission Society decided to put up a house in the Far East for sick and old missionaries. Hong Kong was chosen for this purpose on account of its climate and medical facilities available. It must be added that at that time few places in the Far East offered the political stability and religious tolerance of the Colony\". \n\nThose words have long rung in my ears. I doubt if there could be a finer unsolicited tribute to British Hong Kong. \n\nI must confess, too, against that stirring background of service, and recalling the over 100 priests and high dignitaries of the Mission who were buried in the private cemetery then within the grounds, that I was moved by the inscription that can still be found over the entrance. \n\nFather Caminondo had continued, \"The name of Bethanie was chosen after \"Bethany village\" of the Holy Scripture, and the inscription above the main entrance \"Lord he whom thou lovest lies sick\" is part of the message sent to Jesus by Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus became sick”. \n\nTruly memorable, at least for me. \n\nBut enough of the past: though it enriches the present. We are a strong Society in both numbers and spirit. We aim to continue in the service of scholarship and mutual understanding in this great City for as long as may be possible. Judging by the record of the last 30 years, there will never be a shortage of willing workers and contributors, whether British, Chinese or others. With Sir David's consent, I shall now ask him to propose a toast to the Hong Kong Branch of the RAS. \n\nxix \n\nJAMES HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211628, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "18\n\nTHE JADE EMPEROR AND HIS FAMILY\n\n玉皇大帝\n\nYU HUANG TA TI\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nThe Jade Emperor, also known as the Lord of Heaven (T`ien Kung), is the chief deity of the pantheon of the Cheng I sect of Taoism. He is only a secondary deity of the Taoist Lungmen sect. He was worshipped China-wide as the supreme ruler of the Heavens, and even of some of the Underworld. In folk religion, he is worshipped as the protector of all mankind, having replaced Lao Tzu in that role and as head of the Taoist faith, possibly because people were uncomfortable taking their problems to a philosopher. According to a majority of Taoists his earthly mouthpiece was Chang T'ien Shih, The Heavenly Master and his descendants.\n\nAlthough he is well known to both Chinese and to interested foreigners, what is not so well known are the ramifications of his family and the extent to which several of its members have their own cults.\n\nThe development of the supreme deity in China is far from clear. In earlier times the all-seeing, all-powerful, unseen god was Shang Ti who even now is occasionally referred to as the all-highest. Not only is the term Shang Ti used by Protestants for the Supreme Deity, God, but also the late Chairman Mao in his statement that, at the age of 72, “he was soon going to see God“, used this expression.\n\nHoward Smith, a missionary in China for 24 years, describes how the Chou dynasty (ca 1050-256 BC) founded its government on religion and transformed 'Shang Ti', probably originally a term used for the deified spirits of the imperial ancestors under the previous dynasty, the Shang, into a high God, independent and supreme, He added \"The importance of this change cannot be over-emphasised. When this supreme deity finds the rule of an emperor abhorrent, whenever a king fails, by persistent misrule, in his duties to God, then God rejects him and seeks out a suitable substitute.\" The transfer of the mandate of Heaven, based on the belief in a supreme deity, carried with it strong ethical implications, and continued down to the last dynasty, which fell in 1911.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211654, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "44\n\nCommander of the Main Army [ff]) and the Yu Ying Kung share the sanctified premises and all offerings. The stalls in front of the temple sell 'gold paper' for the Wang Yeh and 'silver paper' for the Yu Ying Kung together in one bundle. Worshippers have to pay their respects at both temples or their prayers will not be answered. These are special characteristics of this temple.\n\nThe temple was completed in 1824 and Wang Te-lu (E), an Escort to the Crown Prince and a native of Taiwan, went to Nan K’un Shen to pay his respects to the Wang Yeh. It was generally believed at that time that such deities are incarnated officials and are feared by demons. The way to test whether a deity is a genuine incarnation or not is for a living high official to kick the effigy of the god and if it is a demon in disguise then the effigy will fall over. Wang Te-lu kicked an image of one of the Five Wang Yeh with his boot but the image did not budge.\n\nThe Yu Ying Kung is known in this temple as The Lord of the Myriad Kindnesses (Wan Shan Yeh). He is also referred to colloquially as the Infant Duke (FA).\n\nAccording to legend, one of the Five Wang Yeh of Nan K'un Shen in 1820 made a tour of inspection to the north of their area and encountered the local magistrate also on tour, in what is now Chia I. Neither would give away to the other and a dangerous confrontation took place. A nearby illiterate farmer suddenly had supernatural powers and wrote in the soil with his hoe, \"Representing Heaven in order to deal with both the Yin and Yang worlds. Hope that the bad government will change for the better\". The magistrate seeing these words hurriedly gave way. The local Prefect heard of the incident and decided that he would like to test the power and genuineness of the Wang Yeh. By coincidence the Wang Yeh was on his way to Tainan, where the Prefect had his Yamen, in the course of his inspection tour. So the Prefect ordered his men to tie an effigy of the Wang Yeh on the altar to a large tree stump and announced that if the effigy was unable to free itself from the tree stump then he, the Prefect would chop the effigy up for firewood. Nothing happened for two days and then, on the third day at midday two large black dogs appeared, jumped on to the shrine and tore away the large tree stump. The Prefect was very impressed and pledged that he would go each year to the shrine to worship before the Wang Yeh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211796, "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "186\n\nwho evidently had no 'tender cares' to occupy them, manfully maintained their seats in front, and remained so spellbound as to forget entirely the courtesies of gallantry and good breeding. We are of opinion that a perusal of Lord Chesterfield's 'Hints' might be a useful exercise for such as have no innate impulses to enable them to understand and practice what is conveyed in the phrase 'Place aux Dames' when those fair patronesses choose to honour public entertainments with their presence\".\n\n129 Once front seats were shunned by ladies, but that was not the case in mid-century Shanghai. In the Regulations to be Observed on the Evenings of Performances at the Shanghae Theatre printed in the North China Herald of February 14, 1857, it was even stipulated that, \"after the front row had been set apart for the exclusive accommodation of H.B.M. Consul and the French and American Consuls, the seats numbered 2 to 6 will be reserved for ladies, and the gentlemen who escort them.\"\n\nVII. The Plays\n\nFrom the references above, and even more from the Calendar of Performances, it will be clear that the dramatic fare in Shanghai consisted for the greater part, nay for nearly one hundred percent, of pieces that could easily amuse the people. That is to say: farces, comediettas, burlesques, melodramas, burlettas, musical comedies or whatever name may be invented for the genre. There is no space here, nor is it within the scope of this Survey, to give an analysis of these plays, so I shall keep myself to some general remarks.\n\nMost pieces that were performed dated from the 19th century, but there were some from the previous one, like Henry Carey's The Dragon of Wantley (1737), a short three-act opera with music by John Frederick Lampe which burlesqued the Handel style works which were then in vogue (but hardly a century later); and James Townley's (or was it David Garrick's?) High Life below Stairs which one rather antiquarian critic thought \"worth whole bales of farces of the 'Box and Cox' pattern\". Sheridan's The Rivals (1775) was also on the programme several times (although not on that of the local amateurs) but it is remarkable (and, considering the travesties that were common, maybe just as well) that a classic comedy like Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer was not tackled.\n\n130\n\nOf contemporary authors the most prolific was John Maddison Morton and it should cause no surprise that his plays took top of the bill: no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211802, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "192\n\n12.12.1850 (Thur)\n\nG.A.A. BECKETT: \"Roofscrambler\" (1835)\n\nT: Burlesque\n\nW.H. MURRAY: \"Diamond cut Diamond\" (1843)\n\nT: Farcical interlude (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (A)\n\nR: NCH 14.12.1850. From the file I have been using the pages on which the review appeared were missing, so no further information can be given.\n\n28.1.1851 (Tue)\n\nJ. KENNEDY: \"Love, Law and Physic\" (1812)\n\nT: Farce\n\nW.B. RHODES: \"Bombastes Furioso\" (1810)\n\nT: Burlesque tragic opera (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (A)\n\nR: In only a short impression the Herald wrote that \"the performances went off with much spirit amidst repeated plaudits and continual bursts of merriment. The present company seems likely to become highly popular and the public are much indebted to them for according such seasonable diversion at this dull period of the year\" (NCH 1.2.1851).\n\n21.4.1851 (Mon)\n\nG. COLMAN Jr: \"Heir at Law\" (1797)\n\nT: Comedy (5 acts)\n\nJ. TOWNLEY: \"High Life below Stairs” (1759)\n\nT: Farce (2 acts)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (A)\n\nN: Final performance of the season.\n\nR: About the actors the critic thought it \"uncourteous to select where all did their best and there was much to praise; we will, therefore, only say in allusion to Heir at Law that STEADFAST maintained the character of the fine old English bachelor with spirit”. In the same issue appeared a letter from \"A Stranger\": \"The character of Dr. Pangloss (in Heir at Law) was performed with much quiet humour and the pedantic stolidity of an L.L.D. and A.A.S. (sic!) were exceedingly well portrayed, though at intervals much too low to enable the back part of the audience to catch the full force of the quotations\". The Herald added that the part of Dr. Pangloss is, perhaps, the most difficult in the play, for an Amateur to sustain; the curt witticisms and various learned quotations require an experienced actor to give with effect\".\n\nHigh Life below Stairs \"flagged somewhat from the previous exertions of the actors, but we must not omit to notice the excellent acting in the representative of the Lord Duke's servant'\n\nDespite this and in spite of the editor not being very much satisfied with some of the language in the plays he thanked “our young friends for their kindly endeavours to promote amusement amongst the community, they were spared neither trouble, time nor expense to cater for the intellectual appetite of Shanghai in the classical drama” (NCH 26.4.1851).\n\n26.1.1852 (Mon)\n\nD. BOUCICAULT & C. MATHEWS: \"Used Up\" (1846)\n\nT: Comedietta (2 acts)\n\nH. CAREY (music: J.F. LAMPE): \"The Dragon of Wantley\" (1837)\n\nT: Burlesque opera (3 acts)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212263, "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "182\n\nChinese Recorder, by one of the leaders of the conference. It claimed that Legge was making the Confucian Classics equivalent to the Old Testament. Legge's attempts to synthesize traditional Confucian views of God and man with Christian revelation, reflected, it claimed, an unrealistic assessment of modern Confucian ideology and Confucian bureaucracy. Taking Legge's thesis to its logical conclusion, it claimed, there was no substantial reason to promote Christian missionary efforts in China. Although it was clearly not Legge's intention to weaken the Christian missionary effort, these fears were felt by many missionaries.\n\n## II. Academic Misrepresentations\n\nLate in Legge's career at Oxford the translations of the Confucian sacred texts Legge had prepared for The Sacred Books of the East were attacked by Barthelemy Saint Hilaire. His conclusions were that there is basically no religion in China; the Chinese honour, he stated, no spiritual Being except Heaven (Tian, 天) thus contradicting Legge's discussion of the terms Shangdi (\"Lord on High\") and Di (\"Lord”). Hilaire ranked the religion of Confucius last among the world's religions, far behind even Graeco-Roman mythology, since it was built only on certain traditions, only had a human basis, and excluded all notions of divinity; while Confucius was admirable in his own milieu, his teachings only insult and degrade our intelligence. It would seem that Hilaire had not read Legge's texts seriously, and his views have not been much supported since.\n\nNevertheless, the fact that not all scholars accepted Legge's position raised some doubts in the minds of even some of his closest associates. In 1895, A.M. Fairbairn, Legge's close friend and founder of Mansfield College in Oxford, when completing a text on the philosophy of religion, was convinced by anonymous sources not to publish his materials on China (based heavily on Legge) because Legge's position was \"dated\".\n\n## III. Accusations of Interpretive Error\n\nIn 1895 Legge was confronted with a more subtle criticism. It came from an Austrian sinologist, Franz Kühnert. He wrote a criticism of Legge's translation of The Great Learning, basing his criticism on the standard interpretation of The Great Learning of the Song dynasty", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212347, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "266\n\nabout a mile below the Sha Wan River, and finally the Ching Shui River which drains the northern part of the valley from Po Kat (Buji) down, and which enters about half-a-mile below the Sheung Yue River. The main river is navigable for small skiffs as far as Kim Hau, but for junks only as far as the confluence of the main river and the Ching Shui River. However, the river at the mouth of the Ching Shui River is not navigable for junks at low tide. Furthermore, the navigable part of the river is not wide enough for a junk to turn around in easily when under sail. The Ching Shui River, at the junction with the main river, splits into two branches, with a low, marshy island between them and the main river.* Junks could come up the main river, enter the Ching Shui River, pass behind the marshy island, and back into the main river via the second branch of the stream, thus turning round without cutting across the channel, using a \"one-way\" system. The landing place used by the cargo junks and ferry boats, therefore, was the channel of the Ching Shui River behind the island. Junks would come up the river with the tide, and would load and unload while at rest on the mud at low tide, and would cast off and go down the river with the next high tide. Three significant roads pass through the valley, crossing at Sham Chun: the Yuen Long to Wai Chow (Huichou), Nam Tau (Nantou) to Sha Tau Kok, and Po Kat to Kowloon roads.\n\nIn the Ming, this valley had a number of markets, of which Sham Chun was only one. There was another at Kim Hau, and others to the west, including one at Lung Tsun Hui (Longjinxu), which was part of the Fuk Tin (Futian) village cluster. By the nineteenth century, however, all these other markets had either become extinct, or else survived only in a very small way as satellites of Sham Chun. Sham Chun had developed until it had become a very large market, with probably 500 and more shops. The market was ringed by large villages of rich clans—the Cheungs at Wong Pui Ling (Huangbeiling) about a mile to the east, the Tsois at Tsoi Uk Wai (Caiwuwei) about half a mile to the south-west, the Wongs at Fuk Tin about a mile to the south-west, the Yuens at Lo Wu (Lohu) about half a mile to the south and the Hos at Sun Kong (Sungang) about half a mile to the north. These rich and ancient clans were almost perennially in dispute, as they jostled for power and position in the district.\n\n* See Map.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212577, "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-1991", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "111\n\nwas especially fond of like homemade, western-style cookies. There were traditional offerings such as roast duck, rice wine, fruit, cakes, cooked vegetarian food and chopsticks. Ancestors must be provided with sustenance. Even with Christian services food is still sometimes 'offered up' on the altar, for example for 'divided families'. Although not all mourners approved, because the deceased enjoyed smoking, cigarettes were placed on the altar. During the proceedings a butt was found in an ash tray which some were convinced had actually been smoked by the dead woman. Objects once placed on the altar should not be touched.\n\nAlthough the deceased was a humble housewife, 37 suit lengths and blankets were draped on special fixtures around interior walls of the hall. These practical gifts from friends were overlaid with gold, red or white paper characters proclaiming slogans such as:\n\n'Everlasting life in heavenly kingdom'; and another, 'Picture of her will live in minds of women',\n\nThere were 114 wreaths, many on eight-foot or so high bamboo frames each with a banner, sometimes black with white characters, giving names of donors and slogans. The family cobler who owned a small street stall sent a wreath. Immediately after the ceremony these bamboo frames were appropriated by outsiders and reused for making wreaths for other funerals.\n\nAfter encoffining, the body, lying in state with face heavily made up and looking peaceful, was placed behind a glass partition in a small adjoining 'farewell room' off the back of the hall. So that a person is in the 'mainstream' it is necessary the body be positioned in the centre of the coffin. The air was oppressive with candle smoke and incense, one of the main ingredients of the latter being sandal wood.\"\n\nThe deceased wore four dresses and three pairs of trousers (for a man it would have been four and four). With \"foo\" being a homophone for both 'riches' and 'trousers', an odd number of pairs are worn by females and an even number by males. No fur, leather or rubber are used for fear of reincarnation as an animal. The feet are tied together with hemp cord supposedly to prevent jumping if tormented by ghosts. Feet of corpses in England are also bound, to keep them together before rigor mortis sets in, when a body is ‘laid out'. This seems a more plausible reason.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213149, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "199\n\nits name - and the road from Sha Tau Kok to Yuen Long. (3) The 1819 Gazetteer adds specific references to the route from Sha Tau Kok to Kowloon (ARG.MM. AM 4) The Sham Chun to Sha Tau Kok road is not specifically mentioned in the Gazetteers, but undoubtedly also existed at this time; the Cheung Sha Kwu Tsz at the summit of the pass on this road was founded in 1789, in part as a place of shelter for travellers on the road. See P.H. Hase, \"Cheung Sha Kwu Tsz, an Ancient Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp. 121-157.\n\n52 See 1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7, and 1819 Gazetteer, ch. 11, Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, p. 12.\n\nSee P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853\", op. cit. It is possible that the salt fish trade in this part of Mirs Bay was centred on Kat O rather than Sha Tau Kok, although the fresh trade was certainly predominant at Sha Tau Kok. There were \"many salt fish dealers\" on Kat O in 1891 (Basel Mission Archive, doc. Al-25, No. 70).\n\nby\n\n54 These figures are calculated from the surveys of traffic on the roads in the area conducted by the Hong Kong Government in advance of the construction of railways in the area. See File CQ882(PRO London, copy at PRO Hong Kong), despatch no. 59, Sir Matthew Nathan to Mr. Lyttelton, received Feb. 13th, 1905, and File CO129/376(PRO London, copy at PRO Hong Kong), despatch no. 165 (page 582), from Sir Frederick Lugard to Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt, 28th April, 1911. The surveys were carried out on Dec. 11 and 12, 1904, and Dec. 26 and 29, 1910. The surveys were somewhat summary, but they suggest total traffic of this approximate amount. The Governor, in 1904, calculated that they suggested an annual total of 250,000 persons travelling on the road, with a quarter of them being coolies carrying loads.\n\nThese statistics are taken from the 1910 surveys noted in n. 34. The figures in the surveys have been analysed and averaged to give the totals given in the text. The surveys consisted of a head-count of people passing a given spot, mostly the summit of the local passes (Shek Chung Au, Wo Hang Au, Miu Keng Au). The surveys were conducted twice, once on a non-market day, and once on a market day. The averages have taken into account the number of market and non-market days in each month. The Governor noted that the numbers of travellers was much higher at peak seasons, such as when the rice crop was being carried to Sham Chun. Taking all the imperfections of the statistics into account, they can still be used to give an impression of the amount of traffic in the area. The figures seem high, but to put them into perspective, they are the equivalent of 1 lorry-load of goods entering the town every hour, and three double-decker buses every hour of a twelve-hour day.\n\n56 Administrative Reports for the Year 1926, App. J, \"Report on the New Territories for 1934\", p. J2.\n\n57\n\nI would like to express my very sincere thanks to those elders, especially those in Wo Hang, who have suffered the long hours of questioning that I have subjected them to on this issue, and especially the late Mr. Lee Yau Shi, and Mr. Lee Chung (Lee San-tuen), both born in 1907, and Mr. Yau Chu, born in 1911. I would also like to thank Mr. M.Y. Lee for his indefatigable help in setting up meetings and translating. Without his help, this article could", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213499, "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-1995", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "63\n\nwaters.\n\nSai Ying Pun During the Early Years of British Colonization\n\nOn 20 January 1841, Captain Elliot announced the conclusion of preliminary arrangements with the Chinese Imperial Commissioner involving the cession of the Hong Kong Island and harbour to the British Government. Lord Palmerston in April 1841, hearing of Captain Elliot's restoration of Chusan to the Chinese government in return for the cession of Hong Kong, relieved him of his post and contemptuously remarked that Captain Elliot had obtained a barren island with hardly a house upon it.\n\nLord Palmerston was right in describing Hong Kong as a barren island. It was then almost entirely grass-covered, as the fine drawing of Collinson in 1845 showed. When on 26 January 1841, a party of marines landed and raised the British flag, Hong Kong was virtually unoccupied, apart from the little villages and hamlets, like Chek Chu, Shek Pai Wan, and Shau Kei Wan, which were inhabited by a few fishermen, stonecutters, and farmers.\n\nAt that time, the area of Sai Ying Pun was mere rugged slopes of rocks with a narrow, hard-trodded pathway winding along the cliffs, to which the fanciful name of Kwantailou was given by the fishermen and villagers. It was said that the path was used by the local inhabitants to go up to the hillside to cut the grasses and wood for fuel. E.J. Eitel, in his book \"Europe in China\", gave a rather detailed description of the path. He said:\n\n“Along the northern shore of the Island, there used to be, previous to the British occupation, a narrow bridle-path leading, high above the beach, across rocks and boulders, all the way from Westpoint to a hamlet near Eastpoint called Kwantalou, described in the first census (May 15, 1841) as a fishing village with 50 inhabitants. This path was used by the crews of trading junks in cases of wind and tide being unfavourable to track the junks along by a towing line attached to the peak of the foremast. Now, this hard-trodden path standing, to an observer from the opposite shore, clear out from the grass-grown hillside, like a fringe or border along the skirts of the hill, was by the natives called Kwantailou (petticoat string road), and the hamlet...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213593, "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-1995", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "160\n\nmaintaining high productivity as outlined previously. However, the mangroves are also very important as mud stabilizers. As the pioneers grow out onto the mud, the band of vegetation becomes broader and the rear becomes drier. Eventually new land is created, which can be used for agricultural purposes. They also play a role as an important protective barrier against destructive storm waves, thus reducing the risk of flooding.\n\nMan's impact on the mangrove\n\nThe most significant impact by man has been the drainage and reclamation of the mangroves to provide sites for settlement and agriculture. This century alone about 1700 hectares of mangroves have been converted into deep fish ponds and vegetable growing areas and many of these, more recently, have been converted into container storage facilities and other industrial purposes. Many of Hong Kong's mangrove stands have already been totally destroyed; Mai Po's mangroves still survive to give an impression of what Deep Bay, indeed much of Hong Kong's shoreline would have looked like because they have been protected since 1976 as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The effects of deep fish pond development, vegetable gardening, industrial usage and new town development can all now be seen in the Deep Bay area.\n\nThe likelihood of further major reclamation of Deep Bay for urban expansion poses new threats to the ecology of this mangrove area and to the life which it supports (Irving & Morton, 1988).\n\nHowever, at present, the biggest threat is pollution. The many streams and rivers that drain into Deep Bay carry an enormous load of agricultural, domestic and industrial waste. Increasing pollution loads have already been reflected in a changed use of the ponds in recent years. A marked decrease in shrimp harvest has led to the conversion of some gei wais and mangrove areas to freshwater ponds to protect them from marine pollution. If this trend continues, then extreme changes will result as more and more of the mangrove areas are turned into deep ponds and, as pollution has a greater effect on mudflat productivity, the whole area will eventually lose the ecological value which it now has as a multifaceted series of habitats supporting an enormous variety of flora and fauna. In particular, it will cease to be a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213943, "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-1997", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "sometimes attended RASHKB functions. He still has interests here—for example the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust.\n\nEarlier in 1997 two of our Past Presidents, Mr David Gilkes and Dr James Hayes, were also made Honorary Members in recognition of many years of devoted service for our Branch. We were pleased to welcome David and his wife Edith back on a brief visit in late 1997.\n\nOur membership today is becoming more cosmopolitan and includes about 20 different nationalities comprising scholars, teachers, lay persons and students. It is made up of specialists, who can pursue their own interests, as well as generalists. We welcome persons of all nationalities and from all walks of life and we encourage interaction between the different groups. There is strength in diversity. Yet in a few ways the Branch has not changed over the past 30 odd years. In the 1965 President's report the following was recorded:\n\n\"the Society should have a publicity officer, somebody who would chase after a few more members.\"\n\nToday, too, we need new members and, with the assistance of Robert Neild, Phillip Bruce and Arthur Hacker, a recruitment drive is under way. But all members can help. If all present members could each recruit a friend our aim would be more than achieved. Publicity is important. It is also up to all of us living and working in the 'New Hong Kong', to ensure that our Branch is seen as a friendly group of similarly minded people who are prepared to welcome all types of members.\n\nAs at 27 March, 1998, the number of local members stood at 393. Of these, 62 were Life Members. In addition there were 110 overseas members of whom 77 were Life Members. It is regretted, however, that, in spite of repeated warnings, members underpaid their subscriptions often because they would not take the trouble to up-date their bankers' orders. This causes considerable extra work. It has been decided that, in future, any member who does not pay his or her full subscription will not be entitled to a free copy of the Journal. Although some complain that our subscriptions are high one has to remember\n\nxii\n\nPage ...\n\n \n\n (No additional text like \"Page\" number information is available other than the \"xii\" which seems to be a page number or a marker) \nwas not provided, hence not added \n\n was removed as per rule 12. The text is now output in HTML using for paragraphs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214286, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "107\n\nWEAPONS OF THE CHINA WARS\n\nRICHARD J. GARRETT\n\nOne of the remarkable features of the nineteenth century China wars was the ability of a relatively small force of European soldiers and sailors to overcome a numerically superior Chinese force. Just as in the recent Gulf War, where Saddam Hussein's dream of a 'mother of all wars' was shattered by high tech. weaponry, so one of the factors which made the difference was, undoubtedly, the vast difference in the military technology available to each side. It was not the only factor, but it is necessary to understand it to arrive at a clear picture of the China wars.\n\nIt is worth dismissing any idea that the quality of the fighting men was inferior. There are many instances of troops fighting to the death and refusing to surrender.1 Indeed, to the European mind some of these heroics seemed foolish, just as they could not understand why people committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the 'barbarians.'2 Captain Loch R.N. remarks that \"I feel persuaded that, if drilled under English officers, they would prove equal, if not superior, to the Sepoys; they have greater physical power, greater obstinacy, and consequently minds that retain impressions with greater tenacity, and would be slow to lose confidence after it was once built upon the foundations of their vanity.\"3 It was not that the officers were cowards, as many of the Mandarins died bravely, but rather there was no conception of the need for the troops to be trained to act together as a whole. Mackenzie, an officer present during the first war, notes: \"As yet, I imagine that no field exercise and evolutions have been compiled for the use of the Chinese Army. Neither do the troops, as far as I observed, move in concert, nor do they make any formation in bodies.\"5 Although the Manchu armies had been an efficient fighting force at the time of the conquest, two centuries later they neglected to maintain rigorous training programmes.\n\nThe European officers, on the other hand, put a lot of effort into exercising their men. An example of this is recorded by Lord Jocelyn: \"During our stay in Singapore the seamen of the flag-ship Wellesley were exercised on shore, under the supervision of the commanding...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214327, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "149\n\nber of thirty-nine British, French, and Sikh prisoners who had been taken by the Chinese on 18 September 1860. They had literally been carted from here to there, denied water for long periods, imprisoned, interrogated with violence, and loaded with chains. Some had been tied so tightly with ropes that the circulation was impeded, and eighteen at least died slowly of the resulting gangrene.\n\nContained in the Daily News correspondent's narrative as quoted by The Illustrated London News was a thumbnail sketch of one of the prisoners who died, Private Phipps, of the King's Dragoon Guards. \"He was a strong and cheerful man, and could speak enough Hindustani to make himself intelligible to them... [that is, to the Sikh soldiers]. To the last he appears never to have lost heart, and even when dying encouraged his companions, telling them to keep up their courage, for that help would soon come. All honour to this noble soldier! Though but a private in the ranks, he had the soul of a hero. Well may England be proud of such sons.\n\n913\n\nThe same issue of The Illustrated London News also gives an account of an event which has subsequently been held synonymous with wanton destruction—the burning of the Emperor's Summer Palace in Peking. At the time, however, a different view of this was offered: \"It having been ascertained that [the prisoners'] ill-treatment began in the Emperor's Summer Palace, it was determined to burn it to the ground, to mark in some tangible way the detestation entertained of the Chinese treachery and cruelty\".14\n\n15\n\nThe Illustrated London News was to maintain the Chinese theme over a period of months. Its next issue (12 January 1861) carried a portrait of Henry Loch,1 Secretary to the Earl of Elgin, who had been the bearer of the official despatches which had arrived from China on 27 December 1860,16 and which had occasioned the high degree of coverage in the subsequent issues of The Illustrated London News, which has just been described. (Loch was the gentleman with whom, as it seems, Fraserburgh North Eastern Scotland historian, John Cranna, confused Frederick Stewart (“Founder of Hong Kong Government Education\"), when he inaccurately asserted that Stewart, at one time a secretary of Lord Elgin's, when that administrator held office in the Far East\".)17", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214354, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "177\n\nself and appeared back home, having lost his lucrative post, where he bore the full fury of his wife as she had been enjoying the perks of the wife of a high official. He explained that he had no intention of returning to the palace as the fortunes of the evil Zhou Xin had a further twenty years to run, and went off spending his days fishing.\n\nMany years later the father of the future victorious King Wu heard a fisherman singing and learning that the song foretold the future fall of the Shang and the victory of the Zhou he went in search of the man who had taught the fisherman the song. This turned out to be Jiang who was then encouraged to return to the court of Duke Fa, where after Duke Fa's victory he was made the Prime Minister.\n\nIn the Fengshen Yanyi he was then despatched to the mystic mountains of the West, the Kunlun Shan, where he was to seek from the great deity, Yuanshi Tianjun, the Primordial Heavenly Lord, honours for the loyal ministers, brave warriors, and all the good and bad immortals, male and female, who had died during the struggle. Jiang arrived at the Palace on the Kunlun mountains and was admitted by the White Crane Youth, Bai Hao who escorted him to meet Yuanshi Tianjun. After Jiang knelt and made his plea the Primordial Heavenly Lord promised to send a decree, which would authorise the canonisation of all the warriors, and name each in turn. Jiang returned to report to King Wu, followed a few days later by the White Crane Youth who descended amidst soft music and fragrance to deliver the decree. Jiang then ordered the Terrace to be prepared and soldiers to guard it whilst he purified himself. He entered the Terrace and after unrolling the decree read aloud the order which promised that those to be deified should be free from transmigration, and would be promoted or demoted according to their merits. He ordered that they should be worshipped by the people as protectors of the nation and its people, and they were to regulate the wind, rain and natural forces for the benefit of the people. They were authorised to reward good deeds and punish the wicked. The list of names of those deified was then hung up and the ministers and warriors ordered to approach in a lengthy queue with no one being permitted to leave it. The first to be called was Bai Jian, who was created the God of Pure Blessedness. He was followed one by one until all 365 warriors and worthies had been rewarded. Not all were straightforward. Some had followed the evil King during the struggle and had perpetrated wicked acts but had eventually recanted and had tried to make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214423, "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": 281, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "247\n\nTHE STORY OF STANLEY FORT\n\nBrief History\n\nR.G. HORSNELL\n\nThere seems to have been a military presence at Stanley since the early days of Hong Kong as a British Colony. The original barracks were situated at Chek Chue (Stanley Village), Tytam Bay. The English name seems to have been derived from the name of the Colonial Secretary of the day, Lord Stanley.1 Work on erecting new barracks commenced in 1841 and by 1857 there was accommodation available for 3 field officers, 10 officers, 1 mess room, 1 anti-room, and accommodation for 441 NCOs and men. The high rate of fever within the Hong Kong garrison resulted in a decision being taken in 1857 that Stanley Barracks was to be used as a Convalescent Station and orders were given for the unused portions of the barracks to be prepared for convalescent soldiers. With an increasing number of troops arriving in Hong Kong the accommodation problem made it necessary for the hiring of private buildings, supplemented by Madras tents which could accommodate 20 men per tent. Bell tents were not considered to be suitable, nor were the traditional Chinese matshed temporary camp structures which formerly had been used in the very early days.\n\nThe present barracks on the Tytam Peninsula, known as Stanley Fort, were built in 1936 to replace the old 1840s barracks which had been abandoned about 1895 and fallen into ruin. A contract was given to a Chinese contractor on 11 June 1936 for the following buildings:\n\n1 Barrack Block\n\n1 Sergeant's Mess\n\n1 Dining Room and Cookhouse\n\n1 Bath House\n\n1 Medical Inspection Room and a 2-Bed Ward", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214849, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "231\n\n[Seen but citation mislaid] The origin of the term \"Fokies\" is unknown to me. However, it seems to have been in use in the British navy long before the Opium War. For instance, it appears in the Account of A Voyage to India, China, & in His Majesty's Ship Caroline, Performed in the Years 1803-4-5 By An Officer of the Caroline, published by Richard Phillips, London, in 1806. There, it is written \"Fukki,\" and is applied to a Chinese pickpocket who got the worst of an encounter with a British naval officer on the street near the British factory at Canton (pp.70-71). This book is remarkable for the unmistakable impression it creates of the high morale, national pride and spiritness of a well-led ship's company, the very same qualities which were to be again much in evidence in accounts of the Opium War; whilst the fate of the forts at the Bocca Tigris in 1841 are foreshadowed by a description of the battery at “Annanhoy\" (Anunghoy) and its accompanying dismissal, “Such is the gasconade of the Chinese about a fort, that a man of war's launch, armed with a carronade, would knock about their ears in a very short time” (p.55 with 56-7).\n\nYet it would seem that those few naval officers with earlier experience of dealing with the Chinese bad, like the officer of HMS Caroline, already taken the measure of their military and naval officials and their equipment. Critical assessments can be found in John McLeod's The Voyage of [HMS] Alceste to the Ryukyus and Southeast Asia, at pp. 125-170 of the Tuttle 1963 reprint of the First Edition published by John Murray of London in 1817; and in Captain Basil Hall's account of the same voyage, Narrative of a Voyage to Java, China, and the Great Loo-Choo Island (London, Edward Moxon, new edition, 1840) at pp.68-76, including the forcing of the Bogue. Hall commanded the Alceste's smaller consort, HMS Lyra. The animated spirit of the English officers and men, and the keen sense of the national honour, and especially of the flag, are well to the fore. This voyage was occasioned by the embassy of Lord Amherst to the Chinese Emperor, the two ships conveying its personnel to and from China,\n\nREFERENCES\n\nCommander J. Elliot Bingham, RN, Narrative of the Expedition to China From the Commencement of the War to the Present Period : With Sketches of the Manners and Customs of that Singular and Hitherto Almost Unknown Country, (London, Henry Colburn, MDCCCXLII [1842].\n\nWilliam C. Milne, Life in China (London, Routledge, Warnes &", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214872, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "256\n\nGetting to Tong Fuk at that time was a slow business. After taking a scheduled ferry from Hong Kong, and travelling along the new South Lantau Road to the road-end at Cheung Sha, half the distance to Shek Pik, we had still to walk along old country paths and ford large and small streams. One of these stream courses was wide and boulder-strewn, and crossing it in full flood after heavy rain, as well as several smaller ones, was guaranteed to give one a thorough soaking. However, being young and active, and in high spirits, we thought nothing of it. In fact, I positively enjoyed it! Nonetheless, when visits were so time-consuming and there was plenty of work to do in the office and elsewhere in the District, the need to go out so frequently in that short space of time was not appreciated.\n\nOn this occasion, local opposition was centred on one especially sensitive spot, where the villagers insisted that rock and boulders be broken up by hand instead of being removed by blasting with explosives. My reluctant acquiescence made the District Office unpopular with the government engineers from the Roads Office, who thought we were pandering to the villagers. So it might have seemed, but there was otherwise certain to be a conflict with people who were quite numerous, united in their opposition, and always capable of taking the law into their own hands, not omitting sabotage of contractors' equipment and installations. In this respect, I may add, they were no different from the majority of New Territories' villagers of the day.\n\nTo run such a risk was not advisable in circumstances where both the senior police and civil authorities were based in Kowloon, several hours' journey from the site. Violent confrontations would not have been acceptable to my seniors; and in any case, it was part of my personal responsibility as District Officer to avoid that kind of thing. Moreover, further, and more prolonged delays would be certain to ensue. This was unthinkable.\n\nNonetheless, our experiences on this particular occasion were certainly rather trying. The full story, on two and a half closely typed pages, was contained in a minute to the District Commissioner dated 27th May 1958. I do not know whether it has survived in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, but fortunately I kept the copy on which this account is based.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214957, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "8 \n\nposed as to whether the Chinese as a whole were \"anti-commercial\" or whether it was only the government. Greenberg believes that \"trade in the long run mattered little to the Chinese economy.\"2 A further factor contributing to distrust of foreigners and the consequent restriction in contacts and trade was fear of European expansionist policy apparent to the Chinese in Tibet, the East Indies, the Philippines, Burma, and Nepal. \n\nBy the 1830s British demand for tea had become enormous; tea worth twenty million pounds sterling was imported into Britain annually. It was paid for from huge profits made on the sale of smuggled opium. Many foreign firms in Guangzhou, other than British, had engaged in the lucrative trade, with two notable exceptions,13 Britain accounting for more than 80% of the trade. Dissatisfied with the capricious nature of its trade in Guangzhou, Britain made three high-level attempts to form full diplomatic relations with Beijing, sending embassies under Macartney in 1793, Amherst in 1816, and Napier in 1834; all failed. The last two reached no further than Guangzhou before being unceremoniously sent back. But it may be of interest to deal in some length with Macartney's Mission because it seemed to succeed; that it failed was the most significant disaster in relations between the two nations, eventually leading to war. \n\nAfter a long journey, Macartney's Embassy embarked on Chinese boats to proceed up Baihe (Peiho) River on the 9th of August 1793. The following day they reached Tianjin (Tientsin) where they met the Emperor's envoy at a formal ceremony, which, however, lasted a mere 20 minutes. After staying in Beijing for some two weeks, they set out for Chengde (Jehol) where, on the 30th of September, they met Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795). Lord Macartney was graciously permitted to dispense with kowtow; it was agreed that the salutation was to be made on the right knee. According to Macartney, the Emperor was polite, and the conversation, conducted through interpreters, was lively and interesting. Moreover, the various scientific instruments, which were brought as gifts, were examined with obvious interest. The Embassy was told that they should depart on the 7th of October. Three days' grace was promised but immediately withdrawn, ostensibly because the Emperor was concerned that an early onset of cold weather would inconvenience the Ambassador. To reach their ships at Zhoushan (Chusan) Island, the Embassy had to travel across China, partly overland and partly by rivers - a journey that took nearly two months. It has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214982, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "34\n\nShiyi' who suggested that an army be sent to Europe for training and service with the Allies. He continued to promote China's participation hoping for future political and financial advantages which might accrue providing further expansion of his own empire of bureaucratic and financial interests.\n\nLord Inchcape, the chairman of the Port and Transit Executive Committee, had already suggested the formation of Transport Workers Battalions to assist in clearing ships' cargoes for speedy turn-around. Some considered that delays in this area resulted from dock-workers not working a full day or were too few in number to carry out the work. To placate the unions, their representatives were appointed to serve on the Committee. Ernest Bevin, the national organiser of the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Worker's Union [the Dockers' Union] considered that the port authorities intentionally created labour shortages as an excuse for employing non-union labour. After an agreement had been reached with the Government as to further representation by Union members to serve on the Committee, Ernest Bevin became a member of the Committee. However, because it was considered that agreement with the Unions would not be reached, as to the employment of foreign labour, it was decided to look elsewhere for additional manpower. Throughout the war, trade union pressure prevented the introduction of Chinese labourers to the British Isles.\n\nMany years previously, Chinese had travelled to work, under contract or treaty provisions in, for instance, the gold mines of South Africa. They were tempted to do so due to poor conditions in China and because of the comparatively high wages offered.\n\nRecruitment\n\nThe French pioneered the scheme to recruit Chinese to serve as non-military personnel, negotiations being conducted by government officers posing as civilians to protect the Chinese Government and its neutrality from controversy. The contract to supply 50,000 labourers was agreed upon on 14 May 1916 and their first shipment left Tianjin for Dagu and Marseilles in July 1916. In February 1917, in the Mediterranean the French steamship Athos was sunk with the loss of 543 Chinese lives, but this did not deter the Chinese from enlisting to serve with the French or British.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215491, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "217\n\nfortunate. An official-looking monk passed along each row, giving what looked like two banknotes to each seated monk. Then, down each row, ran a small boy-monk with a metal kettle, leaving a small trail of water behind him (the water coming from the kettle, I should point out). Obviously symbolic of something - ritual cleansing? Stunned and devoid of all feeling except a sense of being overwhelmed, we were ushered out into the next and final courtyard, beyond which was the building that had suffered most in the flood.\n\nIt may have suffered, but was now receiving its reward. This vast structure was the principal target of the king's no-expense-spared command. Ten years later and the restoration was far from complete. (But didn't Salisbury Cathedral take about a century to build?) The focus of this hall, the highly decorated ceiling of which stretched about six or seven storeys above our heads, was three enormous seated statues. The centre figure was that of Buddha himself, about 40 feet high and carved in wood. He was flanked by two smaller (30 feet) figures, one of whom was Guru Rinpoche. These, we were told, were of brass but they had been covered in clay. In front of these was what must have been a container-load of prayers and religious representations printed on tissue paper. It is the custom to fill the hollow back of statues with printed prayers, so that they are always there. These were waiting to be sealed within Buddha and his sidesmen.\n\nAttention to detail\n\nWorking in a stream of slanting sunlight, and with the dubious benefit of some 40-watt light bulbs, were about a dozen artisans who were putting the finishing touches to 100 or so smaller seated statues. These figures, about two feet high, were waiting to be placed into a similar number of niches in the walls around this 200-foot square hall. Other workmen were carving wood, modelling detailed bits of decoration in clay, and painting. Rood wooden scaffolding surrounded the three major figures, behind one of which I climbed. There I saw a craftsman carefully moulding clay to represent more perfectly the flowing robes of the seated guru. What struck me most was that nobody would ever see the fruits of this man's labours, but that did not seem to matter one bit. Again, thinking of my own culture, a similar amount of unrecognised effort went into the facial expression of a gargoyle high in the wall of Salisbury, or the decoration of a ceiling boss 200 feet off", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215580, "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": 357, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "307\n\nand Monuments Office and the Government Marine Department and to everyone mentioned in the text. Without their help this paper would not have been written. Special thanks are also due to Yip Kin-sang Superintendent of Aids to Navigation of the Marine Department. Thanks are also due to many other helpful people including Master Mariners Roger Parry and Alan Lack, Dr James Hayes, Simon Lord, Paul Brown, Phillip Bruce, Louis Thomas and S J Chan. This paper would not be complete without photographs and those published here are indeed rather special. For these, a very sincere thank you to Charles Slater.\n\nNOTES\n\nPart One\n\n1. T. Roger Banister (1932). The Coastwise Lights of China, Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, Statistical Department.\n\n2. Lee Krystek - http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/pharos.htm\n\n3. Trinity House - http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/\n\n4. A day in history - http://www.sis.gov.eg/calendar/html/cl171196.htm\n\n5. It was named after James Horsburgh (1762-1836), an eminent hydrographer for the East India Company, author of the book Sailing Directions, which became the most widely used nautical directory of Eastern waters during the first half of the 19th century. He was also a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The lighthouse has a cone-shape tower painted with black and white horizontal bands. http://www.lighthouseclothing.com/database/searchdatabase.cfm.\n\n6. It was rebuilt in 1875 in the form of a white conical cast-iron tower with black trim. The 30-foot high tower with lantern constructed of oyster shells had a light visible for 20.5 nautical miles.\n\n7. T.R. Banister concedes that the claim is good only in its literal sense. '...if we except such primitive lights as the old open beacon at north-east promontory, or the ancient native light on Fisher Island in the Pescadores. The Tungsha Lightship, in the Yangtze Estuary, was established in 1855, and the Taitan Light was apparently first shown by the Chinese priests in 1863. But neither of these were exactly light [houses].'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215818, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "50\n\ninto the territory. Kai Tak Airfield would presumably serve as the base for the B-29s. It was right on the shores of Victoria Harbour, which would make supporting the logistical requirements of the B-29 easier. On paper, its runways of between 4,500 to 4,800 feet long (1,372 to 1,463 metres) were just long enough to accommodate a B-29, which needed at least 4,375 feet (1,333.5 metres) of runway on a soft surface at sea level to take off.36 But such numbers were theoretical, because in practice a runway had to be much longer before it could safely operate a B-29.37 Lengthening Kai Tak's runways would be time consuming, if not impossible, because the area around Kai Tak consisted of mountains and dwellings.38 While there were other places in Hong Kong that were under consideration for airfields, none were as well-equipped or logistically supportable as Kai Tak.\n\nFurthermore, a B-29 needed sturdier, preferably all-weather, runways to support its maximum 70-ton weight, and Kai Tak's runways were still mainly grass with a maximum load factor of 35 tons, although the Japanese began to convert them to concrete during the occupation. Prisoner of war labour was used to make this conversion, and sabotage ensued. By some accounts, the sabotage was so effective that in certain places the concrete could not even support the weight of a bicycle!??\n\nThe B-29 was built to withstand extreme weather conditions - at least on its exterior. During its manufacture in the U.S., the first batch was fitted out in blizzard conditions outdoors. When this first batch arrived in India, the weather shifted to the other extreme. Midday temperatures in India went as high as 115°F (46°C), which limited takeoffs to the early morning or late afternoon. Also, India was humid during the summer, which was monsoon season. Its rainfall during this time was even heavier than that experienced in Hong Kong. Rains caused the fields in which the B-29s were parked to become muddy, and much effort had to be spent freeing them, thereby wasting time.\n\nAll of these factors combined to affect the serviceability of the B-29s if they weren't maintained properly. In India, maintenance could only take place at night, which posed another problem. The maintenance crews required light to work during this time of the day, and the lights they used attracted insects, including malaria-bearing mosquitoes.?? Even without the weather, a good number of B-29s were out of order at any one time because such a new piece of equipment was bound to have defects.\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215961, "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": 260, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "194\n\npart in shaping the openness Ch'ea expressed once he had heard about the Christian message from these two Chinese colporteurs. Would he have rejected it if the speakers were Scottish missionaries? It is highly probable that he would have resisted such an obvious foreign intrusion. But as he began to read the Delegates' Version of the New Testament presented to him by A-Wye, Ch'ea read a Sacred Sutra (Shèngjīng23) very different from the texts read by Hóng Xiùquán (1814-1864) twenty years earlier. Previous translations had been prepared primarily by foreign missionaries, always in consultation with some \"native informants,\" but hardly proper persons qualified to act as \"expert consultants\" on translation problems. The Delegates' Version, on the contrary, was the result of a rigorous process of interaction between foreign missionaries and traditionally trained Chinese informants, among them the young scholar, Wáng Tāo.24 Among their translation goals was the concern to create a translation attractive in style to a relatively educated Chinese person, in essence, a Bible with a Ruist flavour. When Ch'ea read the Delegates' Version of the New Testament, he felt the influences of a Ruist mind shaping the ideas of the text in numerous obvious and more subtle ways. In addition, and this very much due to Legge's personal commitments regarding the so-called \"term question\" debates, Ch'ea read a Shèngjīng which referred to \"God\" as shàngdì, the classical term in the Ruist canonical texts of the Book of Historical Documents (Shūjīng or Shàngshū) and Book of Poetry (Shījīng) for the supreme \"Lord on High.\"26\n\n25\n\nNo precise record of the dialogue between A-Wye, the colporteur, and Ch'ea, the keeper of the Poklo temple to Master Kong, was ever made. What is relayed through a letter conjointly written by Legge and Chalmers in 1856 is the following. Since A-Wye and his colleague intended to leave Poklo very soon for other areas in eastern Guangdong, they presented Ch'ea with a copy of the Delegates' Version of the New Testament and then proceeded eastward, promising to return sometime later. Their discussion had apparently focused in part on passages describing Jesus' dialogue with the Jewish literatus, Nicodemus (John 3: 1ff) and the Samaritan woman (John 4), dealing with the question of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215968, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "201\n\nMore fundamental to Ch'ea's self-defence was a claim inherent in those translations of the Shengjing, the Chinese Christian Bible, which employed shàngdì as the key term for the Christian God. When Jesus spoke about \"conversion,\" the Chinese phrase suggested a “return” (gūixiàng) rather than a \"turning.\" One who \"turned\" to the Christian God through the sacrifice of Christ was \"returning\" to the Lord on High (shàngdì) worshipped by the ancient sages as mentioned in the Book of Historical Documents and Book of Poetry. For a Chinese to become a Christian was, in the final analysis, to return to the religious worldview of the sage kings and to experience a new fulfilment of their own Ruist cultural heritage.49\n\nPerhaps it was this strain of Chinese Christian theology which was partially influential, though never stated explicitly, in sparing Ch'ea from civil punishment. Probably some months after he had left his post at the local temple, Ch'ea was arrested by government officials and his Christian books were seized. Ostensibly the charge was that he had \"been deceiving the people with heretical doctrines,\" but there were probably other concerns also motivating the officials' harshness. After the initial battles of the new Sino-British war, issues probably not fully known by Ch'ea, all suspicious citizens with obvious foreign connections were being questioned. The threat of foreign invasion determined by the outcome of war and not restrained by any other known international legal institution greatly threatened the Qing hierarchy and Chinese citizens in the Manchurian empire. As a consequence, Ch'ea had this additional complication to face in addition to other, probably more expected, cultural oppositions. After \"squabbling for about three hours\" and trying to \"practice extortion\" on Ch’ëa, who “fearlessly” did not “answer them a word,” nothing could be found as evidence to place him in either a cangue or chains. Did the officials peruse the books and come up with other conclusions? Or was it merely that they found Ch'ea was a poor man without money, and so \"they pretended to be in a great rage\" and let him go?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216038, "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": 337, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "271\n\nother smaller temples, some well known, others hardly known at all. These include the conspicuous red-walled Dicang Wang Temple not far from the south-west corner of the city wall; the Doutian Miao and the Xiu Wang Miao, both referred to earlier. All were destroyed during the Taiping occupation, though many were rebuilt during subsequent years only to fall into disuse during the Japanese occupation as well as since 1949. The Jin Shan Temple and the Ganlu Temple today are the premier tourist sites in Zhenjiang, with the Dinghui monastery, though less easily accessible, being a good third.\n\nThere used to be an interesting group of memorial temples on the Ganlu headland [Consular Bluff], a favourite resort for native Chinese picnic parties. One of these shrines was dedicated to Zhu Xi, a Southern Song dynasty neo-Confucian philosopher, born in Anhui in AD 1130, and probably best remembered for his commentary on Confucian classics, with his 'Rituals for Family Life' being influential throughout China as the standard authority consulted by high and low alike. He was the Confucian scholar who, whilst prefect at Zhangzhou in Fujian in 1190, attacked Buddhist and Daoist practices and issued orders laying down punishments for those who disobeyed the rules. Despite this he wrote commentaries on the sacred books of Daoism. He retired in 1196 and after his death four years later was posthumously appointed Chief of the Imperial Tutors with the rank of Lord. He has long been deified, with a portrait installed in a temple in Jiangxi province at an early stage during the twelfth century to encourage sacrifices to him by local scholars and gentlemen.14 He was revered in Confucian temples from about 1250, and during the reign of Kang Xi he was elevated to a position just under the 'Ten Noted Men' [The Ten Disciples of Confucius].\n\n[1824-1890],\n\nAnother shrine was dedicated to Peng Yulin the Chinese admiral in charge of the Yangzi Fleet which operated with success against the Taiping rebels. Peng was remembered by foreigners for his incorruptibility as well as his inability to understand the westerners. During the short French war with China in 1884-5, when in Guangzhou as the Imperial Naval Commissioner sent to organise its defences he proposed sending emissaries to Singapore to poison any French officers who might have been enjoying British hospitality there. Beijing frowned on his plan and he was unable to see why. He was also violently opposed to the introduction of iron-clads into the Chinese navy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]