[
    {
        "id": 204284,
        "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-1961",
        "page_number": 52,
        "title": "RAS-1961",
        "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n48\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nand makes a kind of extract of tea. They put that into another mixer, added a good chunk of butter, some soda, and some salt, and go on pounding until they get a well-mixed soup. It is excellent provided that the butter was good to begin with.\n\nQ: Is it true that some monks can move objects by sheer thought?\n\nA: Marco Polo described a contest between various religious personages at the court of the Great Khan at which they were put through their paces to see who would be the best chaplain to the Crown. He chose the Tibetans because their representative could make a cup rise from the table to his mouth. That was quite a long time ago and I haven't seen it done myself, but that's the story.\n\nQ: Is there any truth in the story of an operation to open the \"third eye\"?\n\nA: None whatsoever. The book which describes it is an utter fraud. It was written by somebody who had never been out of England.\n\nQ: Are the roofs of the Kumbum Monastery really gold?\n\nA: Unfortunately I have never been there but I have read accounts of it, and quite obviously it is a little bit too modern. You can have dances put on for a sum of money. But I assure you that the golden roofs in Tibet proper, although they are not pure gold, are well-coated in the stuff.\n\nQ: Is it true that Tibetans place no importance on gold and jewels, despite an abundance of them underground?\n\nA: There are certainly some gold mines in Tibet, but nobody knows whether the resources are very great. It isn't quite true to say that they don't place any importance on gold and precious stones—they like them very much. They use them as the principal offerings in religious places. All the butter-lamps are made of gold in the holy places; the scene in the holy of holies, the cathedral in Lhasa, is quite fabulous. The main image, behind large iron-mesh curtains, is surrounded by huge gold butter lamps, all blazing with butter—a wonderful sight.\n\nAlthough Tibetans used to dig for gold, it became rather an imposition, because the peasant would dig it out and then the landlord would come and say \"This is my gold\", so in general they stopped digging. Tibetans did not use much money of any sort—it was mostly barter.\n\nQ: Is there capital punishment in Tibet?",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704",
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    {
        "id": 205347,
        "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-1967",
        "page_number": 109,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "102\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n2 This figure is given in the table at p. 145 in Sessional Papers, i.e. Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, for 1906 (Hong Kong, Noronha & Co., Government Printers) included in \"New Territories: Land Court, Report on Work from 1900 to 1905\". The figure is for all private lots demarcated, and includes house lots as well as agricultural land.\n\n3 Colony Census of 1911 in Sessional Papers 1911, pp. 103 (22, 26 and 37-38).\n\n4 See Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong in The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 8 April 1899 at p. 541. Also Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JHKBRAS), Vol. 3 (1963), pp. 144-145 and Vol. 4 (1964), pp. 146-150.\n\n5 This information is based on my own extensive enquiries in the Hong Kong region. They corroborate the usual accounts given in many books, among them E. T. Williams, China Yesterday and Today (London etc., Harrap & Co., 1923) pp. 118-136, Chapter VI, \"The Village Republic\" and E. T. C. Werner, China of the Chinese (London, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1920), pp. 161-165, \"Local Government”.\n\n6 See p. 12 and notes 15-17 of my \"The Settlement and Development of a Multiple-Clan Village\" (Shek Pik on Lantau Island) in Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories (Hong Kong, Hong Kong Branch of Royal Asiatic Society, n.d. but 1965),\n\n7 See also my note \"Village Credit at Shek Pik, 1879-1895\" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, No. 5 (1965), pp. 119-122, for interest rates of 50% of principal per annum, simple interest, from a money loaning Tong in the same area. This Tong's varied means of doing business are paralleled in the surviving papers showing Cheung Kwong-chuen's agreements with local farmers,\n\n* See Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China, Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368-1911 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 33-38, \"It would not be an exaggeration to say that in Ch'ing times practically anybody who could afford a little over 100 taels could obtain the chien-sheng title and the right to wear the scholar's gown and cap\", p. 34.\n\n* For more details of the area see my article \"A Mixed Community of Cantonese and Hakka on Lantau Island\" in Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, cited at note 6 above.\n\n10 His name heads the list of twenty-six persons who presented a commemorative red and gilt board on the occasion of the last major repair to the Tin Hau temple at Ham Tin, Pui O dated the equivalent of 15 January 13 February 1915.\n\n11 For a brief account of this village see the article referred to in note 6 above.\n\n12 The Census of 1911 lists 5,694 Cantonese and only 944 Hakka out of an estimated land population of 6,710. See Sessional Papers 1911, p. 103 (22). I have my suspicions about the Hakka figure but have not yet counter-checked by other means. For alleged Cantonese domination see inter alia K. M. A. Barnett, \"The Peoples of the New Territories\" in J. M. Braga (ed) The Hong Kong Business Symposium (Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 1957), pp. 261-265, and G. N. Orme's \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912\" in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 44 where he says that the imposition of British rule led to the freeing of the neighbours of",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206422,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 239,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS \n\n213 \n\nwe find, when he writes about family law, an attempt to describe the law in terms of formal (rather static) relationships. The dynamic element, how the law responds in practice to the needs and expectations of the people subject to it, is missing. Surprisingly, this element is also missing where one would most expect to find it in his consideration of commercial law as it was developed in the Mixed Court at Shanghai. Much of the book is concerned with Family Law and as such is still of interest though, consisting as it does largely of statement without exposition, it is of diminishing value in the light of modern anthropological techniques. But it is to the chapter on Commercial Law and to the Appendix of Mixed Court cases (at p. 142) that the reader will look forward most eagerly. \n\nThe Mixed Court at Shanghai developed over the years its own distinctive brand of law, not consciously but in consequence of the cultural and commercial interplay which was the hallmark of Shanghai. Though the law administered between Chinese parties may be Chinese, the context within which the disputes arose could not be called wholly Chinese and the Court's decisions themselves display a 'mixed' character. Shortly after the publication of Jamieson's book, A. M. Kotenev's much more considerable work, Shanghai: its Mixed Court and Council, was published1 and from it we may learn considerably more about the operations of that court. But, even so, many of the questions which arise in our minds are left unanswered and we are given, for example, little elucidation on the true legal position of the compradore, on his rights and his liabilities. Perhaps Jamieson was too close to events to be able to consider these wider conceptual (though, at the same time, essentially practical) matters but, nevertheless, he fails to point out the basic principles behind the decisions to which he refers and the reader is left unenlightened. He confines himself to description and, in so doing, wrote a less valuable book than he might otherwise have done. \n\n3 \n\nLooking at this book through the eyes of the nineteen-seventies, it appears disappointing. But, though it does not really live up to the enthusiasm of its re-publishers, at a time when interest in the formal study of Chinese Law is waxing fast, it is most valuable to have available once more a work which is part of the history of the development of Chinese law from its earlier ‘feudal' stage",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206423,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 240,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "214\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\ninto a modern system of law. No less important is the way in which this book tells us much of western attitudes towards Chinese law and of the ways in which the westerners attempted to come to terms with a system which was so unlike their own. Though we might today criticise Jamieson's comparative law approach and his defective anthropology, his book was a creature of its own time and of his own intellectual experience, and as such it must take a place on the sinologists' bookshelves.\n\nNotes\n\n1. A. M. Kotenev, Shanghai: its Mixed Court and Council, (Shanghai: North China Daily News and Herald Ltd, 1925; now reprinted by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei, 1968).\n\n2. But see now Hao, The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, Cambridge (Harvard U.P.), 1970.\n\n3. pp. 124-126.\n\nHong Kong, 1971.\n\nDAFYDD EVANS\n\nCHINNERY AND CHINA COAST PAINTINGS, Henry and Sidney Berry-Hill, 64 pages text, 144 photographs, F. W. Lewis. Publishers, Ltd., England 1970, U.S.$30.00.\n\nThe writers operate a picture gallery in New York City. In 1963 they published George Chinnery 1774-1852, Artist of the China Coast, which was reviewed in this Journal, Vol. 4, 1964, pp. 128-132.\n\nIn spite of severe criticism of their previous efforts, the authors, in another volume under the present title, persist in claiming that Chinese Port Scenes painted in Cantonese style were influenced by Chinnery and therefore are \"Chinnery School\". Even though there are numerous pictured examples in both books that Chinese Port Scenes before, during, and after Chinnery do not change and bear no resemblance to English painting, the authors plod on with their futile theory. For some 26 illustrations in the List of Plates marked \"Chinnery School\", substitute “Chinese artist\".\n\nObviously this book is written for the inexperienced collector. It lacks bibliography, an index, and a comprehensive table of contents. The text is largely a lyrical history of China from Macartney through the Arrow War. It positively oozes opium and frequently lacks accuracy.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206476,
        "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": 24,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "18\n\nDR. F. I. TSEUNG\n\nthe 7th century taught that the mouth should be cleansed with water several times after each meal so as to preserve the teeth.\n\nSir James Cantlie, teacher of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, once speaking before a medical congress in England said that the Chinese knew a great deal of fundamental hygiene. As illustrations, he mentioned the light, loose and comfortable Chinese dress, and the habit of drinking tea. This general adoption of tea as a beverage is a distinct step of progress. It saves people from many intestinal diseases caused by contaminated water such as typhoid, dysentery, cholera and diarrhoea, etc. The present day habit of taking cold drinks and ice creams is a common source of infection for these diseases. It seems that the ancients were wiser, in this respect, than we moderns. Now, a few words about Chinese medical education and administration in the early days.\n\nState medical examinations may be said to date from as early as the 10th century B.C. The Chou Rituals () state that at the end of the year the work of the doctors was examined and the salary of each fixed according to the results shown. If the statistics showed that out of ten patients treated, all got well, the results may be regarded as very satisfactory. If, however, one out of ten died, the results may be regarded as good; if two out of ten died, only fair; if three out of ten died, poor; and if four out of ten died, bad.\n\nRegular medical schools were organized in the Sung dynasty, about the 10th century, first in the capital and later in other parts of the country. In 1076 A.D. an Imperial Medical College was founded. At first it was put under the Tai Shang Szu (✯✯✦) (Imperial Court of Sacrificial Worship) but later transferred to the Kuo Tzu Chien (F) (Directorate of Education). Three hundred students were enrolled, with a staff of medical officers to teach them the three branches of medicine; namely, medicine, surgery and acupuncture. After examination, the candidates were classified into grades. The best ones were given official appointments or ordered to compile and write medical books, or engaged as teachers. The second grade ones were given a licence to practise. Those who were not satisfactory were required to study again; while those who failed were ordered to change their profession.\n\nOfficers and other medical staff were appointed to the prefectures and districts, the number depending on the size and importance of the places. These positions were often filled by men selected by...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206511,
        "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": 59,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n53\n\nmaster a foreign language then memorialize requesting that he be rewarded.\n\nAs regards duties on foreign goods at the ports, it has been agreed that at present twenty per cent of the value of the duties shall be deducted and handed back, and a joint record maintained'. Also there are barbarians who are helping to manage revenue matters20. It should be made absolutely clear how much revenue is to be collected each month, so that it does not result in misappropriation and embezzlement. But in future, after the amount withheld has been cleared, let Prince Kung and others further concentrate on deciding what appropriate regulations ought to be fixed so that after a period of time malpractices do not grow up. As regards any other arrangements to be made let them also carefully deliberate and memorialize from time to time.\n\nFor an examination of the implications of these two important documents the reader is referred to Banno's China and the West, pp. 223-236.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Harvard University Press, 1964.\n\n2 Bruce to Russell, No. 51, May 23, 1861, FO17/352.\n\n3 Teng Ssu-yü and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West, Harvard University Press, 1954, 47-48; 73-74.\n\n4 Masataka Banno, China and the West 1858-1861, 220-221.\n\n5 Meng Ssu-ming, The Tsungli Yamen: Its Organization and Functions, Harvard University Press, 1962, 20-21.\n\n6 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang, formerly of the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Hong Kong, now Special Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto.\n\n7 The Chinese text is in Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo (#MR#&*) Hsieng-feng, 71: 17b-26.\n\n8 During the time of the Three Kingdoms Liu Pei, the founding ruler of the Kingdom of Shu, invaded the Kingdom of Wu in order to avenge the death of Kuan Yü. He suffered a crushing defeat and died soon after. After the accession of his son to the throne in 223 B.C. the chief minister Chu-ko Liang sent Teng Chih as an envoy of good will to Wu, which resulted in a rapprochement between the two states. See San-kuo chih, chuan 35 and 45 for the biographies of Chu-ko Liang and Teng Chih.\n\n9 In fact the emperor was at the summer palace at Jehol. Since the emperor had fled from the enemy the term hsing-ying ('travelling headquarters') was used rather than pi-shu shan chuang ('avoiding the heat hill palace') for reasons of face.\n\n10 At this time the prince-ministers in charge of the travelling headquarters were Tsai-yuan, Prince I, and Tuan-hua, Prince Cheng. Ministers of the imperial presence at this time were: Prince I, Prince Cheng, Su-shun and Ching-shou. Of these Su-shun was the dominant figure and was entrusted with the main responsibility for affairs at the travelling headquarters (also referred to in English as \"the temporary court\"). There were four Grand",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206899,
        "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": 176,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "170\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nto have visited twenty Asian countries; and while critics of later generations found some of his facts mixed with folk-lore and fable, his descriptions of community existence, family relationships, flora and fauna provided—and still provide exciting reading based on observations which the editor regards as both acute and just.\n\nThese expeditions (in part commercial in part diplomatic) comprising fleets of the largest vessels then afloat, are chiefly significant, however, as unprecedented feats of naval organisation and navigation. In this, 'the Elizabethan age' of Chinese expansion, the Chinese excelled as fighters, traders, diplomats and navigators. Appendix 3 provides informative notes on Chinese ships and seamanship. The European of the time might have had more accurate charts, and such instruments as the quadrant, but the Chinese had long used the lead-and-line, the cross-staff and the compass, and they even made rough calculations of longitude ‘by noting the number of watches which elapsed during the run at a speed estimated from the time taken by the ship to pass a floating object'. But Cheng Ho's last voyage (1431-3) marked the end of the heroic age of maritime expansion. The Ming court lost interest in sea power and its imperial implications, and with this curious and sudden withdrawal from the dawning international order, the doors closed on a unique period of Chinese history.\n\nMr. Mills has not been daunted by the complicated question of texts, and he compares and evaluates the various versions. His own translation is based on the definitive text established by the distinguished Chinese scholar Feng Ch'eng-chun, first published in Shanghai in 1935. Appendices contain a gazetteer of southern Asian place-names known to the Chinese in 1433, as well as an expert and fascinating commentary on 'the Mao K'un Map' which indicates the presumed courses of Cheng Ho's various itineraries. Here, an attempt has been made to identify all the names and legends, five hundred and seventy-seven in number.\n\nFormerly Puisne Judge of the Straits Settlements, the editor belongs to that select band of British administrators and proconsuls who were not simply colonial servants, but who in addition might be explorers or archaeologists or scholars of distinction. Only a scholar of great learning and infinite patience could have made this outstanding contribution to history.\n\nJanuary, 1974.\n\nGERALD S. GRAHAM",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207281,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 49,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "MERCHANT ORGANISATIONS IN IMPERIAL CHINA\n\n41\n\n5 Ho Ping-ti, \"Salient Aspects of China's Heritage,\" in Ping-ti Ho and Tang Tsou, eds., China in Crisis (Chicago, 1968), I. 1:34-35; Ho Ping-ti, Hui-kuan shih-lun, pp. 33-34, 37-40.\n\n6 See John Fincher's article on provincialism in Mary C. Wright, ed. China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900-1913 (New Haven, 1968).\n\n7 Ezra F. Vogel and Tamako Yagai, “Japanese Studies of Chinese Guilds,\" unpublished paper delivered at the Seminar on Problems of Micro-Organs in Chinese Society, 1963; Peter J. Golas, \"Early Ch'ing Gilds,” unpublished paper delivered at the Conference on Urban Society in Traditional China, 1968.\n\n8 Ch'üan Han-sheng, Hang-hui chih-tu, pp. 99-101; Peng Chang, “Distribution of Provincial Merchant Groups in China, 1842-1911,\" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, Seattle, 1958), pp. 51-55.\n\n9 The others were from (1) Chihli, (2) Shantung, (3) Nanking, (4) Wusih and (5) the Shansi bankers. See A. M. Kotenev, Shanghai: Its Mixed Court and Council (Shanghai, 1925), p. 253 n.\n\n10 Lai Lien-san, Hsiang-kang chih-lüeh (A brief account of Hong Kong) (Hong Kong, 1931), 115-17\n\n11 For a detailed account, see Fang Teng, \"Yü Hsia-ch'ing lun,\" (On Yu Hsia-ch'ing) in Tsa-chih Yüeh-k'an (Monthly miscellany), 12.2:46-51 (Nov. 1943); 12.3:62-67 (Dec. 1943); 12.4:59-64 (Jan. 1944).\n\n12 P'eng Tse-i, \"Shih-chiu shih-chi hou-ch'i Chung-kuo ch'eng-shih shou-kung-yeh shang-yeh hsing-hui ti chung-chien ho tso-yung\" (The revival and function of urban handicraft and commercial organizations in late nineteenth century China), Li-shih yen-chiu (Historical studies) 1:71-102 (1965).\n\n13 T'ung-chih Shang-hai hsien-chih (Gazetteer of the Shanghai County for the T'ung-chih reign), ed. Yü Yueh (n.p., 1871), 2:21-28.\n\n14 Ibid.\n\n15 Nan-hai hsien-chih (Gazetteer of the Nan-hai County), eds. Chang Feng-chieh, et al. (n.p., 1910), 6:106-13.\n\n16 Sixtieth Anniversary of the Tungwah Hospital: A Commemorative Issue (Hong Kong, 1930).\n\n17 They were Ai-yü, Kuang-chi, Kuang-jen, Ch'ung-cheng, Shu-shan, Ming-shan, Hui-hsing, Fang-pien, Jun-shen.\n\n18 \"Reports of the Special Committee appointed by H.E. Sir William Robinson, KCMG, to investigate and report on certain points connected with the Bills for the Incorporation of the Po Leung Kuk, a Society for the Protection of Women and Girls\" (Hong Kong, 1893).\n\n19 E.g. see Hsiang-shan hsien-chih hsü-pien (A continuation of the Gazetteer of the Hsiang-shan County), ed. Li Shih-ch'in (n.p., 1923), 4:18a-20b, in which it is stated that a number were founded during the Kuang-hsü reign (1875-1908).\n\n20 Song Ong Siong. One Hundred Years' History of the Chinese in Singapore (Singapore, 1967), pp. 277, 309, 424, 432; George W. Skinner, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand (Ithaca, 1958), pp. 2-13.\n\n21 Nan-hai hsien-chih, 6:10b.\n\n22 Shang-hai hsien hsü-chih (A continuation of the Gazetteer of the Shanghai County), ed. Yao Wen-nan (Shanghai, 1918), 2:38a.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207996,
        "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": 35,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n19\n\nin insurrection; but being disunited, they have not thereby improved their condition: the Bornean Government always threatening them with calling in the Kayans to subdue any opposition. The Muruts and Bisayas of Limbang are the most impoverished people I have ever met,\n\nMy own findings concerning the sultans of Brunei during this period show quite conclusively that they supported and frequently had financial interests in pirate fleets.\n\nBrunei throughout the nineteenth century is pictured by most authorities as a decrepit principality whose chief characteristics are political weakness and anarchy.\n\nBrunei is in a state of anarchy and the sultan too mixed up with trading affairs and piracy to care for administration of justice or the welfare of the country.8\n\nThat less than sanguine description was written in 1854. Almost twenty years later the situation remained generally unchanged:\n\nThe picture that has been presented to us is of an aged prince devoting the last years of his life to the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth... ruled by his petty rajas, whose first aim is their own aggrandizement.9\n\nBy the middle of the 19th century the physical look of Brunei, built over the mud flats of the Brunei River, had changed only in terms of its now lack of pretension and prosperity from what Pigafetta had observed three hundred years before. The following is a description of the place by Raja James Brooke of Sarawak—taken from an 1841 entry in his journals. It describes the town and Brooke's reception by the sultan's court, and contrasts rather vividly with that of Pigafetta.\n\n**24th At 7 A.M. the state-boat, a shabby concern, decorated with yellow flags, arrived; at eight the letters were borne away under a salute. Thus we had a second time the satisfaction of getting rid of the mob at an early hour.\n\n\"25th At 9 A.M. I started with Williamson in the gig, with the long-boat in company, carrying the presents. On approaching the town, before the ebb had run long, it appeared to be a very Venice of hovels, a river Cybele rising from the water. For those who like it, the locality is not ill chosen. The hills recede from the river, and form an amphitheatre; and",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208039,
        "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": 78,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "62\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nThat is, the Tangs, as well as the other large landholding clans, first established rights over cultivation-value; their claims to ownership rested primarily on their identity as \"first-cultivators.\"23\n\nThe priority of cultivation-value is best revealed by a brief examination of tax assessment in Hsin-An. Land has traditionally been classified according to its production potential. At the time of British occupation, first class land (甲) yielded two crops of paddy annually, or one crop of sugarcane. Second class land (乙⺕) was capable of producing one crop of rice, or one crop of sugarcane. Third class land (丙) \"was generally devoted to the cultivation of peanuts, sweet potatoes, millet and other hardy crops.\"24 This classification scheme was recognized by the Hsin-An Magistrate in 1582, a mere nine years after the creation of the county. Different rates were fixed according to whether the land was considered to be first, second, or third class land.25\n\nThus, by the time of the great Hakka influx, little cultivatable land was available in the county. The landlords, who often lived miles away from their fields, were eager to take on tenants, and offered the migrants “reasonable rents.” Rent-value was assessed by a simple extension of the tax assessment value; i.e., rent-value was extracted from an already established cultivation-value.26\n\nOnce fixed, tax-rates and rent-rates seldom, if ever, changed. The tax-rates listed for the three classes of land in the Hsin-An Hsien-chih, which had been in force for decades prior to the publication of the gazetteer in 1819, were quoted in the petitions concerning the Tang holdings in Hong Kong, written in 1842. Similarly, there is strong evidence to suggest that landlords were generally powerless to impose greater rent-burdens, and, as we shall see, were occasionally forced to lighten the rent.27 Rent-values were often stated in all bills of sale between landlords.\n\nThe increasing alienation of rent-value from cultivation-value was reflected in the inability of landlords to locate their plots of land when called upon to present evidence to the Land Court. Furthermore, there were often significant disparities between the market-prices of the \"skin\" and the \"bones.\"28 Tenants were occasionally able to manipulate the system to their own advantage:\n\nFor generations, landowners have been content to collect their rents without ever having taken the trouble to enquire into the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208469,
        "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-1978",
        "page_number": 193,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "WOODBLOCK PRINTING\n\n177\n\nThe book burning incident was followed by a great literary activity. Efforts were made to replenish the supply of books by seeking out and reissuing works of classical literature from the time of Confucius (孔子).\n\nWriting was no longer restricted to bamboo and wooden slips but was also done on silk cloth, either with a bamboo pen or an animal hair brush. The ink was a black substance obtained from the varnish tree. Later on, silk rags had been cut up into pieces and soaked to form a pasty mass that was then dried and became a sort of paper. Ink was also developed, using lamp-black mixed with glue.\n\nEvidence shows that paper made from hemp fibre was used in the period of the Western Han Dynasty (140-87 BC). A knighted court eunuch of Eastern Han, 105 AD, named Cai Lun (蔡伦), developed the use of much cheaper substances like plank bark fibre from paper mulberry and rattan trees as raw material for making paper. But people were still using bamboo or wooden slips and silk cloth for writing. Not until 403 AD was an order issued by the Emperor of Eastern Jin Dynasty that no more bamboo or wooden slips were allowed to be used for writing, except on the occasions when an official was being knighted (册封).\n\nAs early as the second century (175 AD), the Eastern Han Dynasty impressions are believed to have been made from pages of text cut in flat stones on which the characters were sunk into it. Before that time, textbooks were all handwritten manuscripts and were copied one from another. Errors and missing words usually occurred. In order to standardize all textbooks, the government carved large model stone books and had them erected in public places to show to the people.\n\nClassical texts of these Late Han stone engravings contain copies of calligraphic model-writings by the famous calligrapher Cai Yong (蔡邕) and led to the development of a true reproduction process. The in-imprint technique (stone rubbing) improved and eventually was developed into woodblock printing.\n\nThe development of woodblock printing\n\nThere is no concrete evidence as to the exact date when woodblock printing was invented. According to literary records, it is a...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209281,
        "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": 184,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "170\n\nNG LUN NGAI-HA\n\npart in affecting the social and political attitude of the students. The Anglo Chinese schools in Hong Kong were modelled on the Western pattern, in their curriculum, textbooks and teaching method. In addition, Chinese students here had frequent contact with British school-masters and fellow students of different nations and religions for starting from 1867, the Central School was opened to students of all nationalities and the enrolment included English, Portuguese, Americans, Japanese, Indians, Filipinos and others. The interflow of ideas and experience went on in their daily intercourse not only through formal lessons but also through simply being mixed in a class, in their recess and games. The interchange of ideas was further facilitated by the publication of a school magazine, which contained not only school news, but also interesting articles by staff or students.\n\nAs a youth and student, Dr. Sun Yat-sen spent his most formative and impressionable years in Hong Kong, and learnt much that could serve as a stimulus to his political awareness. It was never the intention of the Hong Kong Government to include any political content in the school curriculum. Care was taken, in fact, to avoid arousing any national sentiment among the Chinese students, and Chinese history was not taught in government schools. Yet, in a number of ways, some more subtle than others, the curriculum did stimulate political awakening and ideas of reform. In the Central School, topics like \"Patriotism\", \"The Follies of Foot-binding\" and \"The True End of Education\" were often set for English composition. Lessons on the history of England, such as the growth of parliamentary government or the Industrial Revolution, might directly or indirectly activate the minds of the students on the problems in China. What would a young man from China think of his local magistrate when he read about the municipal council in England, the rising influence of the merchant class, or the workers in the West, knowing how humble peasants fared in China? The impact of these lessons of course depended very much on the personality and mind of the individual. This explains why the Central School produced during these years officials of the Ch'ing court, reformists, as well as revolutionaries.10\n\nHong Kong from the mid-nineteenth century onward was an important centre for the publication of journals and newspapers containing news and articles from Hong Kong, China as well as the West. The more important early newspapers were the China Mail, the Hong Kong Daily Press and the Hong Kong Telegraph.11 These papers formed the important backbone of the China coast newspapers of the time.12",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209397,
        "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": 54,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "32\n\n3.\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nmembers who were not elected but appointed. Even when colonial cities obtained a Municipal Council in one form or another as Hong Kong did in 1883 with the Sanitary Board, the later Urban Council, and Singapore in 1856, while it was still under the Bengal Presidency the main government rested in the hands of the Governor and the other appointed Councils. Furthermore, in these cities, if legislative measures had to be taken, approval of one foreign authority was necessary—the one in the metropolitan country.\n\nThis was in sharp contrast to the administrative system which prevailed in the Settlement. There municipal government consisted of a Municipal Council which was elected from among the foreign ratepayers in accordance with a written constitution termed the Land Regulations. If important byelaws had to be made these had to be approved by both the Council and the general body of foreign ratepayers assembled in Public Meeting as well as by a majority of the foreign consuls and ministers at Peking. This whole procedure was rather unwieldy when it was necessary to answer the new problems which were posed when the population of the Settlement increased (from 15 foreigners in 1844 to 38,940 foreigners and 1,120,860 Chinese in 1935), and when industrialisation gained pace from the 1920s.*\n\nAs regards the administration of justice, Shanghai equally held a special position. All foreigners belonging to countries having a treaty with China enjoyed extraterritorial rights, that is, in law cases they were tried by their own consuls according to the laws of their own country. This did not obtain in other colonies; there, strangers were prosecuted under the laws of the colony.\n\nAs for the Chinese in the Settlement they were tried by a so-called Mixed Court, in which a Chinese judge and a foreign assessor sat together on the bench.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209414,
        "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": 71,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "49\n\nplace was occupied by Japan, which had outstripped the Anglo-Saxon population in the Settlement. Japan got another seat in 1927 and although they pressed for more representatives these demands were resisted.41\n\nChinese representation\n\nThe Settlement was really a foreign one in so far as its government was dominated by non-Chinese, but with the advance of time, introduction of new ideas among sections of the Chinese population, the increase of this population itself and the resulting problems, it was evident that some mode had to be devised for representation of Chinese on the Municipal Council, if not at Public Meetings. The very first proposal for native representation was made in 1866 by the Commission which had drafted the new Land Regulations. It was proposed that a Board of three Chinese was to be established to advise the Municipal Council. This scheme was apparently not approved by the foreign ministers, for it was never put into practice.12\n\nA second attempt was dodged by the ratepayers in 1906. After the Mixed Court riots a new move was deemed necessary to improve contact between the Chinese and foreign sections of the population. Chinese merchants proposed a Consulting Committee which could express native opinion, especially that of a business nature. The Municipal Council inclined to agree with this scheme, but the ratepayers objected to it on the ground that they feared the body would be government infiltrated.\n\nAnother effort was made in 1915 when a Chinese proposal to set up an Advisory Board which would include members of different guilds was passed at a ratepayers meeting, but rejected by the foreign ministers.\n\nFour years later there was agitation among the Chinese residents for direct representation on the Council. This campaign was partly engendered by a threatening increase in taxation, partly by the heightened feelings of nationalism. Both the Municipal Council and the ratepayers objected to direct Chinese membership and as a temporary measure an Advisory Committee was installed in 1921. This body was to be recruited by the Chinese Ratepayers Association which was formed in 1919. The Committee did not",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209424,
        "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": 81,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "59\n\nSerious measures were taken to change the whole social and political structure of the town.\n\nNOTES\n\nPreliminary note:\n\nAlthough the present paper is to a great extent based on fresh research, the following works have been of considerable use as they contain material about the government of the International Settlement:\n\nFeetham, Justice Richard: \"Report to the Shanghai Municipal Council\" 1931-1932.\n\nJohnstone, W.C.: \"The Shanghai Problem\", 1937.\n\nJones, F.C.: \"Shanghai and Tientsin\", 1940.\n\nKotenev, A.M.: \"Shanghai, its Mixed Court and Council\", 1925.\n\nMontalto de Jesus, C.A.: \"Historic Shanghai\", 1909.\n\nPort, F.L. Hawks: \"A short history of Shanghai\", 1928.\n\n1 The International Settlement at Shanghai was formed in 1863 by the amalgamation of the original British Settlement (formed in 1845, but later increased in area) with the so-called American Settlement in the Hongkew area which had grown up without formal establishment in the 1850s, and early 1860s, and which had been formally recognised by the Chinese earlier in 1863. The French Settlement (formed in 1849) always remained separate from the International Settlement. Outside the area of the foreign settlements lay the old Chinese city and suburbs: these remained under Chinese rule, and became subject to the Greater Shanghai Municipality when that was set up by the Chinese authorities in 1927.\n\n* Cf also Treaty of the Bogue, article VII, \"ground and houses, the rent of which is to be fairly and equitably arranged for, shall be set apart by the local officers in communication with the Consul.\"\n\n3\n\nPopulation figures for intermediate years are, 1,666 foreigners and 75,047 Chinese in 1870, and 6,774 foreigners and 345,276 Chinese in 1900. Of the 13,536 foreigners resident in 1910, 4,465 were British, 940 Americans and 3,361 Japanese. Of the 38,940 foreigners resident in 1935 no fewer than 20,242 were Japanese, as against 6,596 British and 2,015 Americans.\n\n+ * Text of the 1845 Land Regulations (LR) is in Shanghai Almanac 1853.\n\nIt is not too fanciful to suppose that persons willing to move to as remote a place as Shanghai in the 1840s were likely to be particularly strongly imbued with the contemporary belief in individualism, with its consequent hatred of despotism and paternalism; this almost certainly assisted in the speedy breakdown of the 1845 Land Regulations to something far more individualistic in tone.\n\n• North China Herald (NCH) 30.7.1853.\n\n* J.H. Haan: \"De opkomst van de International Settlement te Shanghai 1845-1865. Een historisch — politicologische analyse\" (\"The rise of the International Settlement at Shanghai. A historical-political analysis\"), unpublished manuscript University of Amsterdam, 1977; chapter II. Cited as Haan \"Shanghai\".\n\nCf NCH 22.7.1854; text of draft LR in NCH 30.7.1853, 27.8.1853; final version in 8.7.1854.\n\nNCH 22.4.1865.\n\n10 NCH 17.3.1866.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209477,
        "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": 134,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "112\n\nW. ALLYN RICKETT\n\nunfortunate that some of its worst features have been incorporated into the Chinese Code, including the use of analogy (Article 79) and a broad classification of \"counter-revolutionary offenses.” Articles 90 to 104, dealing with such offenses require the court to determine the motive for a range of acts which might or might not have as their purpose \"overthrowing the political power of the dictatorship of the proletariat.\" For example, Article 102 stipulates that \"using counter-revolutionary slogans, leaflets or other means to spread propaganda inciting the overthrow of the political power of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist system\" is to be punished by a fixed-term imprisonment, detention, surveillance, or deprivation of political rights for not less than five years. Since the classification of a presumed offense as counter-revolutionary then depends on a subjective interpretation of motive in this type of case, it is difficult to know when the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and press become counter-revolutionary.\n\nIt is understandable that since this is their first attempt to produce a general criminal code, the compilers were reluctant to give up the useful tool of analogy to cover any gaps in the law that might appear later on. The drafters of the Code were, however, not oblivious to the dangers inherent in the application of analogy and therefore stipulated that its use had to have the approval of a Higher People's Court. The articles dealing with counter-revolution are a far more serious matter. Again they are understandable given the turbulent history of modern China, the on-going civil war with the Kuomintang on Taiwan, and the hostile treatment accorded the People's Republic by most of the world throughout most of its history, not to mention the general paranoia which seems to take hold of most societies going through a revolution. However, it is precisely because of these articles and the psychological condition which produced them, that one continues to feel some concern for the future in spite of all the positive steps that have been taken since the fall of the Gang of Four.\n\nThis concern is further strengthened by another disturbing factor. I mentioned earlier that one of the characteristics of the period following the Anti-Rightist Movement was the development",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212576,
        "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": 130,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "110\n\nbuildings, traffic congestion and increased costs, erecting stagings became impracticable.\n\nWith the advent of death the 'blue lantern' used to be hung outside the house. This corresponded to the matt black 'mourning boards' that were fixed outside a home in Britain. The latter went out of fashion in the early part of this century.\n\nThe three important events in a Chinese life are birth, marriage and burial. If a person is not 'buried well' he may suffer in the next world. A great deal of money can be expended on a funeral and giving a parent a good 'send off' epitomises filial piety. Relatives are unlikely to haggle over cost. Although the undertaking profession has few bad debts, and is said to enjoy a profit margin of from 30 to 45 per cent, it is not seen as a salubrious occupation: 'Such men are bad luck and their touch is very filthy.' Misfortunes of the deceased can be transmitted to the toucher. In slang, a corpse is known as 'salt fish' (MA).\n\nThe Day Before the Funeral\n\nIn sub-tropical Hong Kong there used to be a 48-hour limit for storing corpses. With refrigeration and 70 to 80 per cent of bodies being embalmed, which includes injections, this is no longer so. A cadaver can be kept for two months. The ceremony in this study took place seven days after death and close relatives arrived at the 'Hong Kong Hotel' (slang for funeral parlour where a funeral is known as the 'complete menu') the day before, at three o'clock.\n\nA multi-storey funeral home contains many halls to cater to both Christian and (like this one) non-Christian funerals. Two large 'blue lanterns' hung outside the hall. These are in fact white, with the family name in large, purple (at a Roman Court this was the royal or imperial colour) characters and the deceased's age in smaller red characters. On that day and the day of the funeral close relatives were 'not allowed to kill'; namely to eat meat, fish or eggs. Also, sexual intercourse should not take place during the mourning period.\n\nIn addition to the deceased's 16 by 20 inch photograph, incense was burning on the altar. Western candles (candles are normally burnt in pairs) symbolised Christianity and Chinese candles Buddhism, another example of hedging. Also on the altar were tasty snacks that the dead person",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212607,
        "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": 161,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "141\n\nThe Mongols conquered Burma in 1287, but the conquest did not last long; and a later invasion was repulsed in 1769. The British came in the nineteenth century to occupy Lower Burma. The French established themselves in Indo-China, whence they intrigued into Upper Burma, producing a situation not unlike that which, ten years later, led to the Fashoda incident on the Nile. The British, who had been having trouble with King Thibaw, decided to forestall French projects, and march on Mandalay. Upper Burma was annexed and the Court of Ava sent into exile. The British are not Burma's real problem: they have, as usual, provided stability and security. The danger lies to the West and to the East, where 400 millions in India and 450 millions in China, hem in a small country. It is not as if Burma is densely populated; the density is only 64 to the square mile, as against 295 in India and 145 in China.\n\nBurmese intercourse, facilitated by easy sea communications, has been greater with India than with China. In 1936 the overland trade with China amounted barely to a paltry 1,000,000 rupees. The subsequent increase brought about by the opening of the Burma road was quite artificial, the result of the blockade of the China coast by the Japanese. When the artificial conditions cease, the trade will revert to its normal channels, round by sea, and over the Indo-China railway or up the Yangtze.\n\nOwing to the relative short range of Indian pressure, overwhelming Indian penetration was what the Burmese had to fear most in the past, but signs are not lacking that the psychological effect of the building of the Burma road, and subsequently the behaviour of the Chinese troops, who retreated through Burma in 1942, may have changed the emphasis. Time will show.\n\nAlready in 1941 the most virulent whispering campaigns flourished, aimed at the Chinese, and directed more especially at the alleged graft and incompetence on the Burma road. That the Japanese were behind these campaigns is as probable as the plausibility which these rumours derived from the actual state of affairs on the road. Later, there were mixed feelings, when the Chinese troops entered Burma to take part in the defence; it would not be too strong to say that in many native quarters their entry was viewed with suspicion.\n\nAs is known, part of the Chinese troops retreated in 1942 into India, where they were reorganised and trained by American officers, but paid and equipped by the British taxpayer, under reverse lease-lend. It may be news, even to General Stilwell, that the idea of training and equipping\n\n!",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212762,
        "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": 71,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "56\n\ntogether with his regular recommendations to the Chinese government, such as the one for the Chinese capital under a new regime to be moved from Peking but not to Nanking which would, he suggested, be the natural Chinese choice, but to Si-an, nearer central China and better able to be defended from invaders, were interspersed amongst other more mundane factual paragraphs.\n\nVery occasionally his stories verged on the salubrious, but were never risqué. He described Patriarch Lu Tsu, one of the Eight Immortals, as the author of an extraordinary work on the art of massage. By a certain process of massage, if systematically continued for some time, it was possible, so wrote Mesny, to deprive young men and women of their desire for sexual intercourse. They were practically rendered impotent and maintained so, without injury to their health or intellect. This was practised in Szechuan and Hupei provinces, especially in the large monasteries and nunneries of the Taoist and Buddhist priesthood, wherein celibacy was strictly enforced and easily maintained.\n\nMesny was not above writing very puerile articles. One such in 1896 was a parody on the subject of the Shanghai Mixed Court in the British Concession, referred to by him as the 'tribunal of injustice', which is now practically impossible to understand without knowledge of the personalities of the day, whom Mesny disguised behind pseudonyms. It filled some five columns on four pages and may have amused some readers and rid Mesny of some of his spleen, but a century later it reads so poorly that it is embarrassing. Something at the Mixed Court had so upset Mesny that he must have rushed into print, writing in the vein of many similar letters to the press in England at that time signed by 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' etc.\n\nThe contents of the Miscellany included serialised weekly parts running for a couple of months or so on substantial subjects such as:\n\n[1] The Taiping Rebellion or the Life and Adventures of a British Pioneer in China. This provided many pages of detailed and often petty experiences, such as his voyage up the Yangtze in 1868, where he repeats minor incidents often ad nauseam. Better descriptions of, for example, voyages up the Yangtze have been written by other westerners, such as Little, with excellent photographs, something Mesny appears not to have",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212820,
        "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": 129,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "114\n\nits population. With the fall of Tengyueh, soon after, the rebellion was finally suppressed. Survivors of Sultan Suleiman's family took refuge with King Mindon at the Court of Ava in Mandalay. Two years later a British consular official, Margary, who had been appointed with the consent of the Chinese government to accompany a British expedition, which was to leave Bhamo to explore a commercial route to Tengyueh - now called Tengchung - was murdered under treacherous circumstances near the latter town. It was thought at the time, but not proven, that a Chinese official, named Li Su Tai, whose mother was Burmese, was implicated: the incident led to negotiations between the Chinese and British governments and was settled by the Chefoo Convention.\n\nAfter the British occupied Mandalay and Upper Burma in 1885 they sought to define the boundary between Burma and China. The question was not found to be easy because the Chinese advanced claims to large sections of territory which had obviously been part of the Kingdom of Ava. However, a considerable length of boundary was agreed upon and marked by enormous stones: they are the size of a small cottage, I suppose to discourage easy removal, and each stone is numbered and its position is marked on the quarter-inch map. The length of border left undefined made for an unsatisfactory situation, not unlike that between the United States and Mexico before that boundary was fixed, or like the situation which now exists on the border between China and Tibet. Various attempts were subsequently made to agree the undelimitated part of the boundary, and by 1942 only a stretch of the frontier from just N.W. of Tengchung up to Tilset remained undemarcated.\n\nThe railway from Haiphong, through Indo-China, reached Kun-ming in the early years of this century and so opened the province to French influence; whether, however, owing to strong local conservatism or a lack of enterprise on the part of the French, their influence appears to have left little mark. It was only with the opening of the Burma road in 1939 that Yunnan for the first time felt the full impact of the modern world.\n\nI had had no previous experience of western China. I knew that Lung Yun, the Old Dragon, as the Governor of Yunnan was generally called, had for long been almost independent of the National Government. It was only with the transfer of Government troops to Burma through Yunnan in 1942, and their subsequent retreat to Yunnan, where they remained, that the Chungking government had established a partial",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213452,
        "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": 48,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "15\n\nfarmers agree that the farmers are absolute owners of the soil in perpetuity, but have been paying money or produce to the clans for generations, which the clans claim to be rent payable to them. The case for the farmers is that the land is and always has been theirs absolutely free from rent, and that the amount paid by them to the clans was the Government land tax, which they claim to pay direct to the Hong Kong Government without the intervention of the clans... The system of payment in produce is one of the farmers' troubles because the measures used by the clans are larger than those intended by the deeds, and are not the measures in general use in the district.\n\nThis \"taxlord\" problem was settled by the Land Court which found the status of the clan taxlords to be \"under Chinese law... entirely illegal\" and disallowed their claims as “untenable”. In some cases, however, grants of Crown land were offered them in compensation for loss of income.\n\nGrants of Crown land to the clans were registered under the Crown lease in the name of the clan's ancestral temple, that is, in the name of mythical grandfather or Tang. The tradition is that a proportion of the rent from such land is set aside for the maintenance of ancestral halls, for the upkeep of schools and for other objects connected with the clan's welfare. No clan land may be sold or mortgaged without the consent of all the clan members who may, of course, number hundreds.9\n\nSuch clan land (tso) sometimes is leased to one of the families within the clan and they pay an annual rent to the clan accountant who is usually one of the male heads of the families within the clan who so serve for a fixed period in rotation. Sub-letting by such a family is not permissible and, if it occurs, the lease is usually cancelled. Alternatively the various families of the clan may cultivate the land for a year at a time in rotation and at a fixed annual rent. A third method whereby clan land may be leased within the clan is by auction of the tenancy for the following year. The proceeds of the auction are devoted to the worship of ancestors and for the education and welfare of clan members.\n\nThat type of land tenure has a close resemblance to the traditional tenure of ancestral land or sheung t'in described by Lockhart's memorandum.2",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214334,
        "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": 192,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "156\n\nfor what lustre could our arms acquire in a contest wherein it seemed evident that all the superiority of warlike science, discipline, and equipment would be on our side and all the slaughter on the side of the Chinese?\n\nIt is represented by The Illustrated London News that there had been a concern, similar to that frequently expressed at a later period, relative to twentieth-century interventions of western powers in a variety of countries: a concern as to \"how far our demands could be enforced without shattering to atoms the machinery of the Imperial [Chinese] Government.\"\n\nThe same article praises Elgin for \"having in a few months pushed his way through this crowd of uncertainties, obtained all he went out for, and returned to England without having lost an army, without having sustained a serious check, without having been overreached by mandarin duplicity, without having inflicted any large amount of suffering upon the Chinese population, and without having shaken the Manchu dynasty from the imperial throne.\n\nIt commends Elgin because \"There was nothing vainglorious, extravagant, vindictive, nor gratuitously humiliating in the terms he set out with insisting upon from the Emperor.... Lord Elgin knew when to forbear, and when to insist - when to show patience, and when promptitude. He could wait when it seemed expedient, and he could advance with boldness and rapidity when it was necessary. The very vengeance he inflicted was levelled at property rather than at persons, and was designed to punish the Emperor and his Court rather than the [Chinese people].”61\n\nReaders' Response\n\nReaders' response to this coverage must have been mixed. Several at least would have felt unease when reading of \"Looty, a small Chinese dog, belonging to Her Majesty\" - a diminutive dog found at the loot of the Summer Palace, brought back to England and presented to Queen Victoria. \"It is supposed to have belonged to the Empress or to one of the ladies of the Imperial family. By what name it was known to its small-footed62 mistress will in all probability remain a mystery. It has, however, appropriately enough, been renamed Looty....Her Majesty",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215765,
        "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": 64,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "Transitional wares and their forerunners.\n\nHong Kong: Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, 1981.\n\nKotenev, Anatol M.\n\n+\n\nShanghai: its mixed court and council: materials relating to the history of the Shanghai Municipal Council and the history, practice and statistics of the International Mixed Court, Chinese modern law and Shanghai municipal land regulations and bye-laws governing the life in the settlement. Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald, 1925.\n\nKotenev, Anatol M.\n\nShanghai: its municipality and the Chinese. Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald, 1927.\n\nLam, Susan YY. and Sze, Jane\n\nPast visions of the future: some perspectives on the history of the University of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2001.\n\nLiao Disheng, Zhang Zhaohe, Cai Zhixiang\n\nXianggang li shi, wen hua yu she hui. 1, Jiao yu xue pian. Xianggang : Xianggang ke ji da xue Hua nan yan jiu zhong xin, 2001.\n\nLiao Disheng, Zhang Zhaohe, Cai Zhixiang\n\nXianggang li shi, wen hua yu she hui. 2, Tian ye yu wen xian pian. Xianggang: Xianggang ke ji da xue hua nan yan jiu zhong xin, 2001.\n\nLiao Disheng, Zhang Zhaohe, Cai Zhixiang\n\nXianggang li shi, wen hua yu she hui. 3, Tian ye yu wen xian pian. Xianggang: Xianggang ke ji da xue hua nan yan jiu zhong xin, 2001.\n\nLee, Kuan Yew\n\nMemoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. Tai-bei: Shi jie shu ju, 2000.\n\nLiang, Ellen Johnston\n\nArt and aesthetics in Chinese popular prints: selections from the Muban Foundation collection. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002.\n\nlv",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]