[
    {
        "id": 211604,
        "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": 19,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "TEXT OF ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, DR. JAMES HAYES, \n\nAT THE ANNUAL DINNER 1990 \n\nSir David, Ladies and Gentlemen, \n\nSpeaking on behalf of the Society, it is my great pleasure to say how delighted we are to have our Patron, Sir David Wilson, together with Lady Wilson, with us on this occasion. Despite their overwhelming schedule, they have made time to be with us tonight, and we are the more appreciative: but not only on this account. \n\nSir David is a scholar-diplomat, a former Editor of The China Quarterly, and very well acquainted with the history of China and its tributaries, and their relations with the West. A Fellow of our parent body since 1968, he shares the concerns and aims of this Branch of the RAS, its youngest offspring. Both he and Lady Wilson take a keen interest in our progress, and we are most grateful for their support and encouragement. \n\nThis is also an occasion of another kind for me, since (though not leaving the Council) I am stepping aside after 25 years as an office-bearer of the Society, the last seven of them as President. Seizing on this opportunity to the full, I have made some gratuitous observations on the role and modus operandi of the Society in the coming years in my Annual Report to the AGM, and shall now indulge in a more personal aside. \n\nOver many happy years working for the Society and doing \"recces\" and preparing Programme Notes for visits to places of interest, the one that still means a great deal to me was our visit to Bethanie in 1972 in its centenary year; both for its own sake and for its insights into bygone Hong Kong. \n\nThe Maison de Bethanie, nowadays a storehouse for the University of Hong Kong, was the sanatorium of the Paris Mission, that valiant body which preached the Gospel in China and other countries of the Far East from the 17th century on. \n\nIn his brief note for visitors, Father Caminondo who was in charge at that time wrote for me, “At a time when travelling was not easy and \n\nxviii",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213330,
        "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-1994",
        "page_number": 152,
        "title": "RAS-1994",
        "content_text": "134\n\nPokfulam and Bethanie, July 1972\n\nDuring an address at the 1990 Annual Dinner in the presence of our Patron and Lady Wilson, I reminded members of this visit to the \"Maison de Bethanie\" in its centenary year, some eighteen years before. This particular local tour had meant a great deal to me; on its own account, and for its insights into bygone Hong Kong. Made in the height of the Hong Kong summer, it took in University Hall the former \"Nazareth\" of the French Mission's complex at Pokfulam with its famous Mission Press, operated between 1884-1953 together with \"Bethanie\" itself, and the old Pokfulam Village. As was stated in the programme notes for the visit, it was being made to a part of Hong Kong Island that had not witnessed the same degree of change as other districts. \"Even today\", I wrote in 1972, \"it is easy to imagine what Pokfulam was like in 1841 when Britain occupied Hong Kong.\"\n\n\"Bethanie\" had been built by the Fathers of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris; otherwise called for short, the French Mission. Suffice it to say here, that this particular Catholic Mission provided more workers and more martyrs than any other of the bodies that evangelized the Far East. It originated with some French priests who, in the mid 17th century, had been invited to Tonkin to help with the Jesuits' work there, and its first missionary to China had begun work there in 1681. By the time the Mission received a mention in Samuel Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica in 1917, it had under its care 12 Vicariats with 462,321 Christians, and more than 160 of its members had been made bishops.\n\nBut it was by \"Bethanie\" itself, the embodiment of so much heroic effort, that I was so stirred. As stated in the Journal, its chapel had then still contained beautifully finished ecclesiastical furniture and fittings that, in mediaeval fashion, had obviously been made by artisans working on and round the site for as long as required, when the building was nearing completion. Its walls carried memorials in marble to martyred priests, and the adjoining Mission cemetery had held the remains of a hundred former priests and high dignitaries, many of whom had come to \"Bethanie\" to die of sickness contracted elsewhere or to spend their declining years amidst its peace and safety - for the \"Maison de Bethanie\" was essentially a sanitarium for the entire overseas Mission, and Hong Kong had been selected on account of its climate and the medical facilities available. Father Caminondo, who permitted our visit and provided a valuable note,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]