[ { "id": 211480, "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": 196, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "172\n\nteachers. Miss McCorriston, the geography teacher, inspired me to devote much time at home in drawing and colouring maps to pinpoint certain places. Miss Kelley determined that we should know English grammar backwards and forwards and had us forever parsing and diagramming. Miss Davis was an avid horsewoman who stood tall and erect as she whipped up our speed in doing arithmetic mentally while she called out the numbers in quick succession. I cannot recall what Mrs. Crockett taught, but it was in her class that Miss Daniels (who was later married to Charles King), a part-Hawaiian singer of some size and weight and exuding the warmth and joviality of her race, came once in several weeks to lead us in singing Hawaiian songs, using a tuning fork to keep us in key. I cannot recall who my history teacher was. Last but not least of the teachers was Miss Gertrude Whiteman, quite elderly and often the butt of laughter from some of the girls when she adjusted her wig. She was especially kind to me, probably because she knew my Father and also had special affection for the Chinese, having raised a Chinese girl as her foster child. I missed four months of the last year because of our trip to China, but I was able to graduate with the rest of my classmates in June, 1920.\n\nThe transition from elementary to secondary school was not easy. There was much less involvement between teacher and student, and the relationship between them was quite impersonal. As a freshman, I was completely crushed by my English teacher, Dorothy Stendahl, who was also my Sunday School teacher and an intimate friend of Mary Lam, one of my early playmates. Miss Stendahl selected many of us Chinese for her class. She was not only stern and exacting, but also very sarcastic, and I felt she was picking on me unnecessarily. As a result, I had a miserable year and dreaded going to her class. Some years later, I had occasion to meet her socially, but I could not warm to her. Perhaps she did not realize that I had come from a protected home, was exceedingly shy and sensitive, and was not able to deal with aggressive mannerisms.\n\nI had two years of Latin with Clara Ziegler, who would urge me on with my translation of Caesar in Gaul by jabbing her left palm with a finger of her right hand in rapid succession and would finally comment, in frustration, \"You are not like Me Lan!\" My sister had preceded me in her class and had been an excellent student. To myself, I would respond, \"Who wants to be like Me Lan?\" It was poor psychology on Miss Ziegler's part, as it only made me more determined to prove myself.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211818, "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": 233, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "208\n\n12.10.1858 (Tue)\n\nConcert by Mr. Martin Simonsen\n\nN: No review was published.\n\nMr. Simonsen had also visited Hong Kong; there he had given his last recital on September 20, 1858 (CM 23.9.1858).\n\n16.2.1859 (Wedn)\n\nT: Comedy (2 acts)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Whitebait at Greenwich\" (1853)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music by the band of H.M.S. Highflyer\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (E)\n\nR: For the first night of the amateur season \"a very numerous audience was collected and the presence of nearly all the beauty and fashion (we allude to the eccentricities [what may these have been? - JH] of masculine as well as to the elegancies of feminine costumes) of Shanghai imparted to the front benches a very brilliant appearance, which was further enlivened by the smiling faces of two or three laughing cherubs whom we detected nestling under the maternal wing\". For the occasion the drop pictured \"a very faithful (our travels in Italy enable us to state) representation of a most romantic spot on the banks of the Lago Maggiore\". Sink or Swim was found to be a \"dull plagiarism upon our old favourite 'Used Up'\" but it passed off with the utmost special due to the talents and exertions of the actors\", among whom \"Mr. PETREL's Mr. Scampley struck us as well conceived, a swindling roué's impertinence dashed by a sense of uneasiness\", Mr. FARREN (again a stage name after a London actor: William Farren, 1786-1861) sustained Lord Yawnley \"admirably\" and Mr. PICKWICK displayed as Adam Stirling all \"the quaint humour of his immortal ancestor\". Miss WALTERS, however, was thought to have been less fit for the part of Mrs. Stirling. She did not upon all occasions evince that grave decorum which usually characterises the British matron\". Morton's Whitebait at Greenwich was, as on January 23, 1856, a hit. This time Mr. PICKWICK took the part of Benjamin Buzzard in a \"quiet and most natural style of acting\". Mr. Phunago BRUSHWOOD - \"an actor of the Keeley-Robinson school, possessing a racy humour of his own\" played John Small and it was \"a gem of low comedy\". Of course there was Mrs. NESBIT, as well as Miss WALTERS whose portrayal of the servant maid came off much better than her Mrs. Stirling: \"we do not wonder at Mr. Buzzard's having been caught by her saucy face and bright complexion\" (NCH 19.2.1859). (Robert Keeley, 1793-1869, and Frederick Robson, 1821-1864, were both well known low comedians in Britain).\n\n22.2.1859 (Tue)\n\nConcert by Prof. Shonbrun, piano, and some local amateurs.\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (E)\n\n+\n\nR: The concert was given in the (New) Theatre Royal of the amateur dramatic corps, but acoustically it was not very satisfactory. No wonder that many of Mr. SHONBRUN's best efforts and most brilliant passages did not fully reach the audience\", an audience which was not very numerous in the first place, which too has its influence on the sound. For the following concert it was foreseen that \"a small scene will be erected and the wings closed in\".\n\nFor the time being the critic refrained from any strictures on the soloist, except that he hoped that \"on the next occasion Mr. Shonbrun will lead us to a higher class of pianoforte music than that put forward on Tuesday last\". It will come as no surprise that there was a eulogy on the amateurs who participated: \"the tenor solos were given with taste and genuine voice and the recall with which he was unanimously favoured was well merited\". (NCH 26.2.1859).\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]