[ { "id": 206666, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "208\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nit is easy to see what it was like in 1841 when Britain occupied Hong Kong.\n\nUniversity Hall began life in the early 1860s as Castle Douglas, the fanciful creation of Douglas Lapraik, an early Hong Kong ship-owner (see J. Llewellyn's article from Volume XI, (1967-68) of Outpost, the annual magazine of University Hall Students' Association). The house and estate were sold to the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (hereafter called the French Mission) in May, 1894, rebuilt and extended, and renamed Nazareth House.\n\nThe Mission figures prominently in today's tour, since we shall visit the Maison de Béthanie, opposite Castle Douglas, that also belonged to it. Before proceeding further to describe Nazareth House and Béthanie, I shall mention something of its work and history.\n\nAccording to Samuel Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1917) p. 378, the Société, all of whose members were French, was, at the time he wrote, a society of secular priests who, without being tied to any religious vow, devoted themselves to the propagation of the Catholic faith in the Far East. It originated in the middle of the 17th century by some French priests proceeding by invitation to Tonkin to assist the work of the Jesuits there. Its first missionary to reach China proper was Mgr. Pallu in 1681. It had no Superior-General but was administered by the heads of the different Missions, and by the Directors of the Seminary in Paris.\n\nThe Society provided more workers and more martyrs than any other of the bodies that evangelized the Far East. At the time Couling wrote, it had under its care 12 Vicariats with 462,321 Christians, and more than 160 of its members had been made bishops.\n\nBesides its Missions in China, the Société had in Hong Kong a famous printing house, the Nazareth Press, which began its work soon after the first Nazareth House was opened in Macau in December 1884. Nazareth House soon moved to Hong Kong, to Tai Ku Lau, Pokfulam, (see below) 1885-1891, then to Richmond Terrace above Kennedy Town in the Western District of Hong Kong (1891-1895) and then to Castle Douglas, renamed Nazareth (1895-1953). The printing press went with it in all these removals.\n\nThe Nazareth Press was a notable achievement. It occupied a special building at Tai Ku Lau, with the presses on the ground floor and the setting rooms above. A special extension was later built", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206668, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "210\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nUniversity Hall. The hall has accommodation for 80 students, all men. The present warden is Dr. Enoch Young, lecturer in physics at the University, through whose courtesy the Branch is able to visit this historic building today.\n\nWe shall then walk across to the Maison de Béthanie. This building, since renovated and added to, was originally constructed in the early 1870s by the French Mission.\n\nFather Caminondo who is in charge of the Maison de Béthanie has very kindly supplied the following account:\n\nAt a time when travelling was not easy and 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 the sick and old missionaries.\n\nHong 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\nThe name of Béthanie 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\nMany Missionaries availed themselves of the facilities offered by the sanatorium. In 1884, for instance, 43 missionaries stayed for some time.\n\nApart from the delightful setting, the main interest of the Maison is its chapel. This is said to be built to the same design as the former French Cathedral in Tokyo, destroyed during the war. By kind permission of Father Caminondo, we are permitted to enter the chapel and walk round it, up one side to the sacristy behind the altar, and down the other.\n\nThe chapel is remarkable for its fine furniture and fittings which apparently date from its construction. Note the sets of altar tables, of different shape and decoration, on each side of the aisle, and the large wall cupboards in the sacristy which is, as its name implies, the repository for vestments, vessels etc. used in the chapel. There are two memorial tablets to martyred priests behind the entrance doors to the chapel.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207153, "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-1974", "page_number": 224, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "218 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\ncame about at the time of the building of the Ko Shing Theatre in 1870. The theatre gave its name to the old Praya when the sea was reclaimed near the turn of the century. Today a new building is being built on the site of the theatre. Two lanes were left on either side. The western one was called Kom Yu and the eastern Wo Fung. A short lane, Pan Kwai, ran off Wo Fung. It contained five family houses on each side. It no longer exists, as the Ko Shing Telephone Exchange has been built over it. Tsung Sau Lanes East and West were developed between 1877 and 1879, as was also In Ku Lane and Sutherland Street with its godowns. Li Sing Street was opened later.\n\nAs an illustration of the diversity of shops conducted on Queen's Road, the 1885 Rate and Valuation Table lists the following between Queen's Street and Wilmer Street: four each of chandlers, druggists and barbers; three each of tin smiths, merchants and tea dealers; two each of coopers, shoes, scales, lamps, lumber and tobacco; and one each of iron, cotton, silk, joss paper, pickles, rice, pawnshop, mason, carpenter, eating house, marine store, copper smith and gun smith.\n\nCurrently much redevelopment is taking place, but some of the old alleys, particularly In Ku, still retain buildings erected when they were first opened a hundred years ago. Queen's Road still has the same variety of shops and Ko Shing Street is still lined with Nam-pak business hongs.\n\n(b) Chinese Tea Houses\n\n(1) A Chinese friend has supplied the following Note:\n\nCha Kui (**茶居**) is the old, local name for a Chinese Tea House. It is a special type of Chinese restaurant catering exclusively for tea-lovers. Tea drinking or Yum Cha (**飲茶**) has been a long-standing pastime with the people of the Kwangtung Province to which Hong Kong once belonged. It is popular with poor and rich alike. A tea house is sometimes looked upon as a gathering place for meeting people, talking with friends or for taking leisure in a friendly atmosphere. Most tea-house goers used to go to the same tea house everyday and also at almost the same time of the day and it is also customary that they ask for the same kind of tea each time they go. In a sense, a tea house for Cantonese people is much like and comparable to a 'pub' for English people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209614, "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": 271, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "249\n\n21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 Mar. 1912 — \"The Gondoliers\" (Gilbert and Sullivan, 1889)\n\n1912/13 25, 26 Oct. 1912 \"A Pair of Spectacles\" (Sydney Grundy, 1890) given in\n\n1913/14 —\n\n1914/15 —\n\n17, 19, 21 Dec. 1912 \"An Ideal Husband\" (O. Wilde, 1895)\n\n25, 28, 29, 30 Oct., 1 Nov. 1913.\n\nHong Kong Mummers (personnel same as A.D.C.) \"Twelfth Night\" Shakespeare.\n\n21, 26 Feb. 1914 —\n\nCentennial Performance: Three Episodes \"A Privy Council\" (W. Drury and R. Price, 1904). \"Between the Soup and the Savoury\" (Gertrude Jennings, 1910) \"The Open Door\" (Alfred Sutro, 1906)\n\n7, 10, 14 Nov. 1914\n\n—\n\n\"The Blue Bird\" a fairy play (M. Maeterlinck, transl. by A. T. Mattes, performed London 1909)\n\n2, 6, 9 Jan. 1915\n\n\"Snow White and the Frog Prince\" a fairy ballet in 3 parts and 4 tableaux.\n\n1915/16 — 14, 16, 11 Mar. 1916 — \"An Angel in the House\" (B. M. Hastings and E. Phillpotts, 1915):\n\n1916/17 —\n\n15, 16, 18, 30 Dec, 1916 - \"Kismot\" oriental, spectacular (E. Knoblauch, 1911)\n\n1917/18 23 Feb. 1918\n\n1918/19\n\nA.D.C. Mr. A. P. Stokes assisted by members of \"Acid Drops\"\n\n\"Five Birds in a Cage\"\n\n\"The Rest Cure\"\n\n23 Apr. 1918 \"The Witness for the Defence\" (A. E. W. Mason, 1911)\n\n7, 9 Nov, 1918 - \"The Barton Mystery\" a spoofic fantasy (Walter Hackett, 1916)\n\n21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29 Mar. 1919 \"Pinkie and the Fairies\" a fairy play. (W. G. Robertson, music F. Norton, 1909)\n\n1919/20 — apparently no production.\n\n1920/21\n\n28, 30 Oct., 3 Nov. 1920 Four Dunsany Plays\n\n\"The Golden Doom\" (1912)\n\n\"The Glittering Gate\" (1909)\n\n\"The Lost Silk Hat\" (1913)\n\namateur musicians:\n\nInterval Chinese \"Compromise of the King of the Golden Isle\", world premiere", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211429, "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-1988", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "121\n\nwhen my mother was living, he visited her now and then to bring her a piece of pastry or to help her with the yard and other chores. He wanted the younger generation to know the Chinese language and so worked tirelessly in establishing a Chinese language school in Makaha where he lived for many years.\n\nA summary of George's descendants: Claudia was married to George Murphy but they are now divorced. They had two children, David and Michael. Calvin, married to Barbara has three children: Jennifer, Jason and Jeffrey. Kwock Wah, married to Mona Lew, has five children: Paula, Donna, Marcha, David and Jonathan. Lorna has been married several times and has six children: Lawrence, Paul, Yolanda, Twila-dawn, Keith and Robin.\n\nAunt Yim was a good-looking woman, short and plump. When she visited us in Shekki in 1919, I accompanied her back to her home in the village via sedan-chair in order to meet Father's relatives and to have a look at his native village. On the way I saw Father's elderly teacher on the roadside. He did not strike me as a person who could have been so stern with my father. As I was nursing an infected toe and he was practicing herbal medicine, Aunt Yim sent her maid to him for a prescription and he gave me some pearl dust that proved effective. As a Chinese woman living in those days, Aunt Yim had little education, little social life, and little opportunity to enjoy the relationship of a husband who had to seek his livelihood far away in the United States. As the oldest in a large family, she held the respect of all her brothers and sisters who catered to her every wish.\n\nAfter several years of mental deterioration and nursing home care, George died on 2 November 1985.\n\nSecond Paternal Aunt Leong\n\nSecond Paternal Aunt was my father's favourite sister, and it was upon receiving word of her death that he made up his mind to take that ill-fated trip in 1919 to see the rest of his siblings. I understand she was a kind and caring sister to him. From a single photograph we have of her, Aunt Leong resembled Father in looks, having a rather angular face with somewhat prominent cheek bones. In theory, she had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211669, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "59\n\ndeities are not pestilence deities. The confusion has been compounded by the Fukienese themselves when over the years they unconsciously accepted all deities bearing the honorific Wang Yeh as protectors from epidemics.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe term Wang Yeh is best translated perhaps as 'The Excellencies'. It was a title given to imperial princes or lords, and interestingly it was also a term used by robbers for their brigand chief. See Plates 9-14 for illustrations to this article.\n\n2 There has long been controversy whether the Pestilence Wang Yeh are shen (Supernatural beings, spirits or deities) or kuei (shades of the human dead and pejoratively used for ghosts, spectres and demons). One god carver in Singapore explained that Pestilence Wang Yeh are \"half-deities\", (pan shen) that is half-shen and half-kuei. However, whilst a number of Pestilence Wang Yeh have ferocious faces, the great majority are portrayed as standard deities with no indication of demonic characteristics. An elderly and authoritative Fukienese god carver in Singapore explained in hushed tones that the Pestilence Wang Yeh are neither gods nor demons, are feared but not revered, and not only protect against plague but also cause it. They are, he repeated, semi-deities from the lower echelons of the bureaucracy of the Afterworld who do not like the human world and therefore cause trouble and bring calamity and misfortune. However, if prayed to they are quite prepared to care for devotees who seek protection. For this reason, more often than not the scale of devotion and offerings to the Pestilence Wang Yeh is greater than that provided to more powerful but orthodox gods.\n\nE\n\nDoolittle J. Social Life of the Chinese 2 Vols: New York: (1865).\n\nA god carver in Singapore suggested that Pestilence Wang Yeh have been given surnames so that no particular surname group is left without a specific deity to worship.\n\nThe only time that all images can be guaranteed to be on their altar in their temple is during the temple's annual festival.\n\nThe altar of Chu Wang Yeh in a temple in Lukang, Taiwan was destroyed by a flood some fifteen years ago. Of the three Wang Yeh images in the temple at that time (Chu, Ting and Nieh) only one image, that of Chu, was recovered. Although a new temple has been built for the three but only containing one image, the one of Chu recovered from the flood, devotees have largely stopped away. They seem to have lost confidence in deities who were unable to protect themselves against disaster.\n\n7\n\n**At Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong in the afternoon of the third day (of the chiao festival of ritual purification held every ten years) a ('paper boat') ritual to chase away the Demon of Pestilence is performed. A Taoist issues orders to a Heavenly Envoy to carry off the boat and puts the Demon of Plague on a boat and leaves it in the outer seas. The Heavenly Envoy, like the King of Ghosts (Yenlo Wang), has a fierce-looking face. It is an image of about one metre high and the boat is a small one of about one and a half metres long. A Taoist lifts the Heavenly Envoy to a stage in the matshed theatre and chants a question-and-answer song which instructs the Heavenly Envoy. Having finished that, the villagers then put the Heavenly Envoy into the boat loaded with offerings. The boat is taken to the sea shore and left on the waters.\" Tanaka Issei: \"The Jiao festival in Hong Kong and the New Territories\", The Turning of the Tide Religion in China Today: Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, and Oxford University Press (Hong Kong); (1989), p. 287.\n\n8 There is a K'ang Yuanshuai, ie Marshal K'ang, on several Taiwanese altars where he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212727, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "21\n\nIn 1896 when describing various secret societies Mesny, as an aside wrote 'I'm of the ritualist sect, Tsai-li Chiao [sic] #, a secret political society3, the members of which bind themselves to abstain from eating flesh of oxen, goats and sheep; from drinking wine and all other intoxicating liquors; from smoking opium, tobacco and all other such ingredients in any form. The ritualists usually wear a white girdle, but abstain from wearing anything red or green. This society is now [1896] very strongly rooted in Northern China. It has a temple or hall in Shanghai, with a priest or master, who initiates members after several severe trials and approbation in secret. Candidates for membership in this society have to undergo very severe trials for steadfastness and fidelity before they are considered fit for initiation.\" He refers to members of the society as 'they' without once referring to his own membership again nor does he ever refer to the society or his membership elsewhere.\n\nConsidering the distances he covered in central China and the era he lived in it would seem amazing that he did not die young, as did his brother in Hankow at the age of 39. He lived to the ripe old age of 77, was described in his last year as walking briskly, with clear eyes, fair complexion and tinted like a winter apple, and although we do not know what he died of, 1919 was in the middle of the great world influenza epidemic.\n\nReligion\n\nIt has to be borne in mind that he was living and writing during a period of incipient reform, with Chinese imperial die-hards fighting back against increasing foreign influence which they saw mostly manifest in missionary activity. Chinese officials and for that matter Chinese peasants too were unable to differentiate between Christian sects. Mesny's only criticisms of Christians were for Roman Catholic priests who had, he claimed, set their converts against non-Catholics of all kinds, revealed by their use of abusive terms for non-Catholic Christians. As this was a common complaint, and one which was reciprocated equally strongly by Catholics, Mesny would appear simply to be voicing popular British and American expatriate views of the day.\n\nMesny came from a Wesleyan Methodist background and both he and his brother in Hankow had some links with the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries in Hankow, especially with David Hill, Mesny was also a Free Mason of long standing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212755, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "49\n\nDespite the feeling we have acquired simply from his own writings that he had many acquaintances and few friends, that he was neither a European nor a Chinese and was held at arms length by both, that he was God's gift to the girls, that he offered guidance and good advice with great foresight to the Chinese, and was either ignored or his ideas purloined by others, the obituaries, possibly following a policy of avoiding speaking ill of the dead, described him as ‘a great traveller, a great scholar, a soldier, an author and publisher. A cheery man who most people knew, who at 77 walked briskly to and from his office, beloved by many, although not rich in the world's goods he was always ready to help others, and was of a very cheerful disposition. He endured many shrewd blows of fortune but always came up smiling.'\n\nHe must have been regarded both in Shanghai and in Hankow as an eccentric and colourful old man. Everyone would know of him but to what extent he was accepted socially we shall probably never know unless, that is, someone's private correspondence in which he is mentioned comes to light.\n\nNOTES\n\nMason was a young British official in the Chinese Customs on the Yangtze who organised the shipment of arms to and became involved with Nien rebels. Mesny, who knew nothing of Mason's schemes and plot, found himself officially ostracised after being accused by Li Hung-chang of being a rebel leader.\n\nIt is strange that there appears to be no reference to the typhoon in the available Shanghai papers of the day. Also, in view of his complaints about people's refusal to face up to disaster by taking out insurance, why did he not have the Rink insured? Probably, considering his circumstances, he was unable to afford the premium.\n\nThe Tsar-li Hui has been variously described as a minor religious cult, in Shantung province in particular, or as survivors of the White Lotus Society, an anti-dynastic body since its foundation in the fourteenth century through to its final defeat in Shansi in 1815. A number of members then joined the Nien revolt, and here we have a link perhaps between Li Hung-chang's accusation that Mesny was a leader of a Nien rebels during the Mason case.\n\n$\n\nMesny's Chinese Miscellany: Volume 2 item 1431 page 362\n\nBat'uru: 'A kind of Manchu Distinguished Service Order [DSO]' Johnston RF Lion and Dragon in Northern China. Murray: London 1910\n\nWilliam Mesny always referred to himself as 'Knight Ying of the Pa-t'u-lu' BA\n\nThis decoration was intended to correspond to European Orders [sic].\n\nGarrett, Valery M Mandarin Squares. Oxford University Press. Hong Kong. 1990", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212770, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "64\n\nSeptember 1885 March\n\nJune\n\nca 1885\n\n1886 January\n\nca 1886\n\nca 1886\n\n1887\n\n1889/1890\n\n1889 23 January\n\n1890\n\nLived in the Chang-fa Chen, an hotel in Shanghai\n\nHis first child, Pin Mesny, also known as Hu-sheng, born in Shanghai Departed Shanghai aboard the Yangtze for Canton and appointed for service in both Arsenals [claimed that during the years 1884/1887 whilst living in Canton, he suffered from boils, eczema and prickly heat]\n\nMany of Mesny's notes lost in Chungking during the destruction of the CIM missionary premises. Mesny had left them for safe keeping with the Rev G Nicoll\n\nOffice Bearer of the Keystone Royal Arch Chapter of Masons in Shanghai\n\nPromoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General [ennobled for three generations: previously claimed to have been bestowed in 1879] In charge of the China Branch of the New York Life Office, in Shanghai\n\nRepresentative of the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in Shanghai\n\nIntention to publish a monthly magazine in Shanghai to be called Yüleh Pao together with Chiang Chao-ling (friend and sworn brother). to be the organ of the Reform Party\n\nMade two journeys through Anhui and northern Kiangsu in connection with famine relief\n\nJourney through Anhui, around Lake Chao from Wu-hu to Lu-chou Fu, returning 5 February 1889\n\nVisited Wu-chang to warn Chang Chih-tung that he was erecting the Iron and Steel Works in Wu-chang in an unsuitable place\n\n1891 7 September Typhoon destroyed the Olympia Skating Rink, his property in Lloyd\n\n1892 January\n\n1894\n\nMay\n\n1895 September\n\n1896 Mar/Sep 1898\n\nMay/June\n\nDecember 1899 Mar/Oct\n\nRoad, Shanghai, ruining him financially.\n\nMesny involved in the Mason case\n\nInvited to organise a naval brigade for service on the Hsiang and Han rivers\n\nStormy interview with Li Hung-chang in Tientsin Visited Peking and had breakfast with Manchu Prince Su Claims to have volunteered for service in Manchuria [Sino-Japanese War]\n\nEn route to Manchura: Visited Liu K'un-1, Generalissimo of Chinese Forces [afloat and ashore] at his headquarters at Shan-hai-kuan Mesny refused permission to visit camps of Wu Ta-cheng and Wei Kuang-tao at or near to T'ien-chuang-tai Liu advised Mesny to return to Tientsin.\n\nHis second and only other child, his daughter, Marie Wan-er, born in Shanghai\n\nBegan the publication of his Chinese Miscellany Volume 1 in Shanghai\n\nPublication of Volume 2 of his Chinese Miscellany\n\nLegally married to Lady Han, mother of Hu-sheng [or Pin] and Marie Wan-er\n\nTrip by chartered boat to Hangchou\n\nVisited Nanking\n\nPublication of Volume 3 of his Chinese Miscellany", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212799, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "93\n\nthe first anti-foot binding societies in China.\n\nLovatt, W N\n\nEx-Royal Artillery serving in Honan Road in Shanghai. He, with Massagorra, taught Mesny the skills of guns and gunnery in 1864. He later became a Commissioner of Customs in Korea.\n\nMason, Charles H. A. W.\n\nA young Imperial Customs Assistant who was the main figure in the 'Mason case'. He joined the Customs in 1887 and after an involved plot was arrested for smuggling arms into China with the intention of providing foreign weapons for the Ko-lao Hui, a secret society whose aim was to overthrow the Imperial government.\n\nMassagorra, W\n\nFormerly Royal Navy and subsequently mate on one of the large lorchas plying the Yangtze: he, with Lovatt, taught Mesny gunnery.\n\nMayers, W F\n\nChinese Secretary at the British Legation in Peking in the mid-1870s. His best known work was the Chinese Reader's Manual. [Mesny culled a large number of items from Mayer's Manual and included them in his Miscellanies]\n\nRichard, Timothy\n\nBaptist missionary in Shantung and Shansi provinces. He met Mesny in Taiyuan Fu where Richard was superintending a branch of the English Baptist Mission. Richard was renowned for his humanitarian work during the great famine in Shansi in 1877-1878.\n\nSu Chin-wang\n\n[Shan-ch'i ## or Shan Ai-t’ang #E#: born ca 1865]\n\nThe Manchu Prince with whom Mesny had breakfast in Peking in 1892 when Su had not yet inherited his title and was then simply the captain of the Emperor's Bodyguard. A black and white photograph", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "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 }, { "id": 213952, "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": 22, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "“.......I can think of no other organisation that could have provided such a rich and varied experience' \n\nElsewhere Anita wrote,\n\n'My life has been greatly enriched by my membership of the RAS...' \n\nIn addition Kristy Norman, who was born in Hong Kong and whose family lived here for three generations, said that the RAS had been an important part of her life.\n\nLord Wilson, our latest distinguished Honorary Member, also wrote\n\n'It is good to see from the Newsletter how active the Hong Kong branch is being. How splendid to think that you can arrange visits to the Bocca Tigris and the backstreets of Peking. How we would have loved to be able to do things like that when I first came to Hong Kong as a student in 1960.'\n\nWith the continuing aim of serving all sectors of the community,\n\nyour RAS Branch has much to be proud of. The Territory has always been a transient place with people coming and going. We are always sorry to see loyal supporters and good friends leave. In the room previously occupied by the late sinologist, the eminent Professor Joseph Needham, at Cambridge, his Chinese wife wrote Chinese characters on the wall. Translated, they mean:\n\n'A person may leave but their influence remains'.\n\nLectures\n\nAppendix\n\n1997\n\n18 April\n\n23 May\n\nMr Stephen Selby, The Archery Tradition in China.\n\nMessrs Ko Tim Keung and Jason Wordie, Hong ...\n\nxxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214159, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "visits or persons who helped in any other way. We are pleased a number of you who have helped have been able to accept our invitation to dinner here tonight. I would add however that, in spite of their many hours of work, no Council member receives a free dinner this evening!\n\nThe position of Activities Chairperson is demanding and, this year, it has been ably filled by Valery Garrett. Her Committee has consisted of the Reverend Carl Smith, Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase and Joseph Ting, as well as Sarah Parnell, Peter Stuckey, Jason Wordie and Geoffrey Roper. The considerable amount of work put in by Geoffrey, planning and organising the two trips to the China Mainland, underwrote their success. We are extremely grateful to all the above members, together with anyone else who made the past year of activities so eventful.\n\nProjects\n\nProjects carried out during 1998/1999, in addition to the photographic exhibition on the Landmark Bridge mentioned earlier, included two projects in conjunction with the British Association of Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) (see Appendix C). One project was to try to trace seven graves of Europeans buried in Hong Kong or elsewhere in China. The second project, also in conjunction with the BACSA, was to help two of our overseas members, Rosemary Lee and Captain A C Bromfield, research the life of Master Mariner Samuel Cornell Plant, who died at sea in 1921. Research on the latter project is continuing. In another case our member, Dr K Gaseltine, assisted the National Library of China for one week in Beijing (see Appendix C). It is laudable that your Branch has been able to link up with other associations or institutions to undertake these projects and we are extremely grateful to all our members who gave of their time and efforts (and in the case of the library project supported herself financially).\n\nThe RAS Volunteers\n\nIn 1991 a number of RASHKB members, together with members from the Hong Kong Society of Architects, formed a working group to assist the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office with the inspection of buildings. In 1997 this group was reactivated and it now consists entirely of RASHKB members. Believing that one volunteer\n\nxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214409, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "233\n\nappear now next to the thumb, tip to painting, now return to their place back in the reverse position. Generally speaking the Chinese are very good copiers. I saw a copy of Raphael's Madonna in a reduced size, brought from Berlin and another made from it here by a Chinese: it's difficult to distinguish one from the other. They themselves only paint flowers and insects well, copying each little leaf of a flower, each little butterfly's wing with such thoroughness, that they seem to be glued on to the paper. Much beauty is brought to these drawings by the paper itself which is like fine velvet and which the English call rice-paper but which is actually made from the pith of a plant belonging to the family araliacea and known in Chinese as den-tsao i.e. the lamp plant because lamps are made from its thin stems. It is said to grow exclusively on the island of Formosa, at least it is only there that they cultivate it and make paper from it. Paper used primarily for making artificial flowers.\n\nThat same ability of the Chinese - to be satisfied with little together with their imitativeness results in that all artisans and workers here, as well as all household servants - are of their number. A Chinese tailor will guilelessly offer you to chose from a fashion picture of three to four years earlier; a Chinese stone-mason builds magnificent houses according to European plans. But for whatever kind of work it might be it is easier to find a Chinese man than a Chinese woman; and that is why positions which are elsewhere occupied by female servants are here mainly occupied by men. And if it is strange to see a footman in a long tunic and with a long plait by the table, then it is stranger still, as is often the case, to see a similar Chinese in the role of a children's nanny.\n\nIn Hong Kong I had the opportunity of seeing for the first time the drying of tea; and although it was not the preparation of tea from fresh leaves, but the drying of tea that had become slightly damp, the process is nevertheless in essence the same. Cauldrons, in the form of hemispheres, are fixed into the hearth at an incline: their back part is raised sufficiently to allow the plane of the opening to make an angle of up to 50° with the horizontal. A worker, standing before each such cauldron continuously stirs the tea placed there with his hand always in one direction, thus imparting to it a circular motion until, with the fire burning under the cauldron the tea dries as required.\n\nTalking of tea, it would be opportune to mention an incident which occurred while I was in Hong Kong. A vessel carrying tea sank; the cargo was salvaged and sold at public auction. The dealer-speculator, who bought it, took", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214602, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "Being chairperson of the Activities Committee is a demanding position and we thank Valery Garrett for her considerable effort and for a job well done. We also thank her Committee comprising the Reverend Carl Smith, Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, as well as May Holdsworth, Sarah Parnell, Peter Stuckey and Jason Wordie. Others who have helped with the organising of activities include Stephen Selby, Michael Broom and Arthur Hacker. A vote of thanks is accorded to all of them.\n\nProjects and other activities\n\nAgain our Society has been involved in various ways with projects and other activities which sometimes amount to a form of community service. For instance, over the summer we pieced together information for Mrs Victoria Brown of Australia. She was trying to trace details about her great-grandmother, Mrs Miranda Main (née Mann), who served as a school principal in Hong Kong at the end of the 19th and early in the 20th century. When Mrs Brown visited Hong Kong in October of last year, together with Mr S T Chiu of the Antiquities and Monuments Office, he and I showed Mrs Brown the old school building at 136 Nathan Road where her great-grandmother had been principal. Also, RAS members David Clinton and Dr Gillian Bickley met Mrs Brown and provided her with useful information.\n\nWith the help of Council member Tim Ko, we also provided information regarding bullet and shrapnel marks on a wall on Lower Stubbs Road where a great deal of fierce fighting took place when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in December 1941. In another case a lady in England, Frances Howell, was trying to trace details of her relatives who lived in Shan Dong Province and Hong Kong.\n\nAgain, in response to a letter in the press, information was provided for a relative in England regarding Lieutenant Henry Dallas who died in Hong Kong in 1844. Information was obtained regarding both the grave and a monument on the wall inside Saint John's Cathedral up until World War Two.\n\nAlso, our Branch was invited to send a representative to make its views known to a government working party which was looking into the subject, 'Conservation and the Natural Environment.' This is the\n\nxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215196, "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": 292, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "256\n\nTHING\n\nT\n\nNeedless to say, I bought the book (for $8.40!) but for many years until quite recently in fact - could not bring myself to read it properly. This I have now done and have discovered that it is not a book to be trifled with. It should be read slowly and carefully, and savoured, if one is truly to understand and enjoy it. It is, as the Daily Express described it at the time, 'a true story of piercing beauty' and as Ed Murrow said of Winston Churchill, Suyin 'mobilised the English language, and sent it into battle.'\n\nThe book\n\nTrue story? I didn't know that, either, until very recently and this explains how, and why, I came to write this Note. In April 2001 Council Member Jason Wordie wrote a piece about our immediate Past-President Dan Waters in The South China Morning Post. Dan shared with us the fact that he lives in Realty Gardens, Conduit Road, which was the former site of the Foreign Correspondents Club. Dan also noted that behind his apartment block is the pavilion where Han Suyin and Ian Morrison, a correspondent for The Times, used to meet before he was killed during the Korean War.\n\nIan Morrison, circa 1943\n\nHurried e-mail to Dan. Was this the basis for A Many-Splendoured Thing? Yes. But Suyin's lover was called Mark Elliot, both in the book and the motion picture? Yes, but obviously dramatic licence was involved. But Ian Morrison was British and Mark, in the motion picture, was American? Well, maybe William Holden, consummate actor though he was, would have had trouble imitating a British accent. Can I have a look at the pavilion? Sure, come for lunch next Sunday. So I did.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215532, "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": 309, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "259\n\n2. Hong Kong No.2A, piece of Botanical and Forestry Department ground at the junction of Kennedy Road and Garden Road 163\n\n3. Hong Kong No.2B, piece of Botanical and Forestry Department ground at junction of Upper Albert Road and Albany Road, 164\n\n4. Old Government Civil Hospital Site 165 (2,631), open space behind the Old Government Civil Hospital. 166\n\n5. Queen Mary Hospital Site (101), piece of ground on the east side of Pokfulam Road near the Maison de Nazareth. 167\n\n6. Aberdeen Site (98), on the north side of Island Road, 100 yards from the Aberdeen Industrial School, 169\n\n7. Island Road, 170 Shaukiwan Site (363), slopes on side of Island Road near its junction with Shaukiwan Road. 171\n\nFigures in bracket show the number of grave exhumations for reburial between April 1948 and March 1949. 172 The remains in these emergency cemeteries were reburied in the New Kowloon Cemetery No.8 (Diamond Hill Urn Cemetery).\n\nEarly Post-War Cemeteries\n\nThe first cemetery authorized after the Second World War in 1947 was a military cemetery for the burial of the servicemen who had died in the war. It was initially known as the 'Sai Wan Military Cemetery,' 173 which contained about 5.71 acres, situated East of Chai Wan Cemetery 174 and the extension thereof and to the North of the road serving Sai Wan and Cape Collinson in the Colony of Hong Kong.' 175\n\nThis was followed by a 'Prisons Cemetery' in the same year, which was 'being an enclosure of about 5,000 square feet lying 250 yards to the South of St. Stephen's College Preparatory School Building at Stanley,' 176\n\nIt was recorded that as early as 1940, the government had already intended to transfer the government cemeteries for Chinese from the urban area to new sites in the New Territories. However, due to the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216066, "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": 365, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "299\n\nrecently disbanded Weihaiwei Regiment of the British Army, trained by British officers.\n\nDuring the Boxer troubles in 1900 a number of missionaries fleeing south from their threatened mission stations, having passed through Anhui, reached safety at Zhenjiang on the south side of the Yangzi.\n\nExtraordinary case of the Englishman who wanted to be King of China\n\nMesny wrote at length some ten years after the event about a case in 1891 into which he had been drawn and which, according to him, caused his name to be dragged through the mud by Li Hongzhang, the most powerful and senior Chinese imperial official in Peking, and to all intents and purposes ended any future credence he might have had as a business adviser to the Chinese. He began by writing that:\n\n*As I was turning over some old notes of mine I found the following [on Mason] almost begging to be printed so as not to be lost.\" He then described his version of his involvement with Mason and the outcome. Mesny claimed that it was believed by many that he [Mesny] had been involved with Mason [Charles Mason was a junior officer in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, stationed in Zhenjiang), as a member, if not the head, of an illegal secret society. This led to him being ostracised by Chinese officials, as well as the desire of the apprehensive and phobic wife of Mesny to separate herself from him and his apparent connection with rebels, even going as far as wishing to divorce him.\n\nThe story as described in Mesny's article is as follows:\n\n'In the early part of 1891 the Municipal Council at Hankou decided to buy a machine gun as a means of protecting the foreign concession and its inhabitants from periodical riots. I therefore wrote to the municipal councillors offering them a machine gun and 30,000 cartridges.\n\nBy some means or other, Mason got this letter and tried to get the gun too. He first wrote me a letter offering me all sorts of good things if I would engage 1000 foreigners, and raise a force wherewith to capture the best ships in the northern squadron also the Wusong, Jiangyin and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216070, "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": 369, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "303\n\nup to Zhenjiang where he was stopped, searched and arrested for carrying arms. He was returned to Shanghai where he was tried and gaoled for nine months. The Chinese were furious having wanted his head'.\n\nMason's own version described his life in some detail and, in particular, his escapade in Zhenjiang and Shanghai in 1891. He began his book with a lengthy piece about him charting his aims and future some year or so after he had arrived and settled in China as a member of the Chinese Imperial Customs. He had decided to make himself king of a great country, first by forming a band of robbers to attract more desperate men and expand the band until he was strong enough to seize a city and plunder its public treasuries and arsenals. From there on he foresaw that things would move rapidly. As he wrote many years later, describing in a summary of his aims and objectives, he had decided to make himself the King of China because, he reasoned, he was in China, was popular with the Chinese, spoke their language and the Imperial Government was weak. He decided to use the Gelao Hui to further his aims. He planned it for some two years, so he wrote, and then in 1891, at the age of 25, he embarked upon his scheme. The plan was to bring a cargo of arms from Hong Kong and distribute them to Sha's [a Gelao Hui chief] five hundred men in Zhenjiang, and they would then rise and attack the authorities.\n\nHaving purchased the rifles, he had them shipped by coastal steamer to Shanghai where, following an informer's tip, Customs men were waiting. Mason, confronted by a Shanghai-based Customs officer, declared that he had been keeping the shipment under observation of his own volition all the way from Hong Kong. He was at first believed or at least given the benefit of the doubt, and was taken off to lunch by the Shanghai Customs Commissioner, Bredon. Mason, hating himself for being a turncoat, fled Shanghai to Zhenjiang where he was promptly arrested, and interrogated at the Customs headquarters in Shanghai by the local Chinese Imperial Daotai. Having confessed all to him but having also refused to name names, even after having been shown photographs of his mangled, tortured and decapitated Chinese friends, he was put before the British Supreme Court in Shanghai where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year or so in gaol followed by deportation. He never mentions Mesny, nor any aspect of the case as described by Mesny.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216073, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "306\n\nThe last mention of Mason in Hart's letters refers to Mason in 1897 having sent Hart his book The Shen's Pigtail or Other Cues of Anglo-China Life. Mason, wrote Hart, had been in low water at home and twice [Hart] had helped him. Mason was, added Hart, a clever fellow who, before the C'Kiang affair broke out, had just got himself on to the ladder of advancement, and in that matter [the Mason affair] he was to Hart's mind, the victim of mixed motives - he was curious, and he wanted to serve Hart, and got into a quicksand.\n\nHart was much kinder to Mason than ever Mesny would be. Mesny, in his Miscellany some ten years later, related in great detail, both from notes and from memory, the extraordinary story related above of being persecuted by Mason.\n\nMesny also wrote in his Miscellany [6 Feb. 1896] that he had gone through the evidence [on the Mason Case] in the British Blue Books and could not see how any mortal could come to any other than one of two conclusions - either Mason had been paid by the Chinese to get up a bogus scare [to create anti-foreign action] or that he was a mere maniac. Nine-tenths of his revelations had been unquestionably pure fabrication. At the bottom of the page, Mesny added, without offering any evidence, \"I am now fully satisfied that Mason was paid by the Chinese.\"\n\nOn an entirely different aspect of life in Shanghai, we read in a postscript from Mesny on the snobbish attitudes of the British in China that adds colour to our story. The British Consul in Shanghai held a party in May of 1899 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. Mesny wrote in his Miscellany that despite not receiving an invitation, a fact which confirms that he was ostracised by fellow Britons, possibly because of his wife or because he made a point of living among and mixing with Chinese, though it could also have been due to his very pro-Chinese stand, he turned up at the Consulate only to be turned away by the British police at the gate. This short note in the Miscellany describing the slight would appear to have been his method of getting his own back.\n\nAs with most small expatriate bodies, factions existed. Mason described in his 'Chinese Confessions', the problems of a 'British bachelor in the Imperial Customs Service in Zhenjiang, a small Customs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216074, "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": 373, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "307\n\npost on the Yangzi,' a place where John Mesny, William's brother, had also been employed in the Imperial Customs, 'If you belonged to the Duff faction you couldn't speak to a clerk of Bean's if you passed him on the Bund; if you belonged to the Bean faction (and Bean was the drinking, swearing, concubine-keeping Scotsman) you were taboo in three houses where there were wives, and therefore decent entertainment.' But if you frequented Starkey, the hospitable, or Emery with his lawful Chinese wife, you were ostracised by the wealthy faction.\"\n\nTransit passes\n\nYou will recall that Mason, according to the Inspector General of Customs, had a grip on the subject of Transit Passes. E. H. Parker, who retired in 1895 to become the Professor of Chinese in Manchester, had been Consul in Zhenjiang in about 1877/78 and he explained that \"from the first day of his arrival piles of mysterious documents came pouring into the office which demanded immediate attention.42 These were 'Bonds to be signed by British merchants, guaranteeing that the goods brought down under transit-pass were their own property, and undertaking to export them at once. The chief staples were 'donkey-skins, lily-flowers and melon-seeds'. The question he asked his predecessor during the hand-over was 'What do we do with donkey-skins in England?' The reply was that it was no business of the Consul : the British merchant swears they're his, and that's all the Consul has to do with it. After the departure of his predecessor Parker asked one of the British merchants the same question. He replied that he had not the remotest idea what was done with the donkey-skins, but that they were certainly his, 'in a way,' the question of joint interest being a 'custom of the trade'. The export of donkey-skins at the time was enormous, certainly several hundred tons a week. The Daotai was a fine, tall, gentlemanly old man, who had been a Peking Foreign Office clerk. He knew nothing of anything, and only wanted peace and quietness. He, like Parker, thought that donkeys never died, neither had ever seen a dead donkey anytime during their lives, and was quite unable to explain the mystery. He added, however, that he understood from the merchants that the well-to-do classes in England took donkey-skins and tea as a tonic. Parker told him that he did not believe a single donkey-skin ended up in England to which the Daotai added that he had a shrewd idea that melon-seeds and lily-flowers don't go there either'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216338, "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-2003", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "46\n\nown people, and as Denham's editor wrote, its officers expected to exercise the same 'absolute, unquestioned, and unlimited authority over the persons of those who traded to their shores', or came there on any other business: with implicit obedience 'not to what the laws had provided, but to what they [the Chinese officers] thought fit to order'.68 The ever watchful Gutzlaff had noted that 'the poor are generally the sufferers (in the judicial system), whilst the rich expiate their crimes by means of money'. 'The purest virtue is boasted of on paper, whilst cruelty and oppression mark every public act'.70\n\n69\n\nFundamental aspects of the China Trade\n\nA Mutual Ignorance\n\nWhilst those Westerners engaged in the old China Trade became accustomed to the very different world around them, and sent back all manner of items illustrative of certain aspects of its culture (albeit those perceived by Chinese to meet demand) the greater part of those engaged were \"on the outside looking in.\" Little real knowledge of the country could be acquired by the great majority of those coming to China, because of its government's firm determination to confine the foreign maritime trade to one outlet at Canton, and to hedge in its personnel with all manner of restrictions. In this aim, the authorities were at one with the Japanese Shogun, who confined the Dutch to the one small demi-island of Deshima at Nagasaki for over 250 years of limited trading.71\n\nThe restrictions were greatly lamented by some. Major George Henry Mason, author of one of the most valuable early works in English on China and the Chinese, who stayed in Macau and Canton in 1789-90, had complained of 'the very circumscribed limits which are marked out for foreigners at Canton.' It was, he wrote, 'to be exceedingly regretted, that either habitual caution, ungenerous suspicion, or experienced necessary circumspection, should influence the Chinese, even at a distance of fourteen hundred miles from the capital of their empire, to restrain the observing traveller within his narrow compass'. And after describing the tumultuous outcome of an unsuccessful attempt by a party of British officers to gain the city walls of Canton, he had remarked, 'This adventure is related as a convincing proof of the difficulty, if not of the danger, attending inquisitive strangers in China.'72", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]