[ { "id": 204581, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "51\n\nRECENT CHANGES IN THE\n\nCHINESE LANGUAGE\n\nA lecture delivered on 18th June, 1962\n\nMA MENG, B.A.*\n\n*Mr. Ma Meng is Principal of the Language School of the Institute of Oriental Studies in the University of Hong Kong.\n\nRecent changes in the Chinese language, so far-reaching in many respects, should not escape attention by anyone interested in studying China. Comments on this subject, both in Chinese and other languages, have appeared quite regularly in recent years.† Most of these deal directly with the simplified characters and the adoption of romanization in place of the traditional ideographs — radical changes, which, however, form only one part of the latest developments in Chinese language reform.\n\nAlthough the extent of these changes has varied in different historical periods, the long process which led to the drastic reforms of recent years began only after China's contacts with the West in the late nineteenth century. The limitations imposed by the traditional language were felt more keenly as the demand for Western knowledge increased. As the traditional language seemed no longer adequate to cope with the new situation, the need to reform it began to appear imperative. The first efforts aimed at language reform came from a small number of intellectuals, including Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, a leader of the 1898 reform movement who also advocated radical political changes aimed at westernization. Their efforts soon bore fruit. Between 1890 and 1913 there appeared no less than six plans for language reform, all aimed at standardizing the spoken language and simplifying the written one. Both of these measures were considered necessary preliminaries to more thorough reforms. The last of the six plans for reform provided for a script based on the Peking dialect and was very similar to the Japanese Kana. This plan proved quite practicable and has therefore been adopted.\n\n*I should like to express my gratitude to Miss Li Chi of the University of California from whose work, Studies of Chinese Communist Terminology (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Studies, East Asia Studies, Nos. 1 and 2, 1956; Nos. 3 and 4, 1957) I have drawn information in preparing this paper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204721, "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-1964", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n15\n\nand not knowing what is to happen. At night the police cleared the Square and posted a strong guard.\n\nMarch 25\n\nForeigners employed in all the Factories cooking their own meals and preparing food for each other, some carrying provisions from one Factory to another, and others taking buckets to the river for water.\n\nSome sailors and lascars who happened to be here when the embargo commenced have been distributed amongst some of the residents to assist in cooking.\n\nWe have clubbed together all in our Hong, and make one mess, cooking by turns. We have Mr. Snow our Consul,1 Mr. Forbes2, Green3, Delano, Kings, Low, Spooner, Gilman, Miranda and Dasilva two Portuguese clerks in our office, natives of Macao, and myself, in all eleven.\n\nSome go and milk the cows who have been removed to the yard in front of the Danish [Factory], another cooks, while others wash the plates, knives, forks and so forth. We find it a great bore, while the moment one goes out of the Factory he is watched till he returns.\n\n26th* Mouqua4 tells us the cows shall be looked after today, he had them supplied with grass, and says a shed shall be erected to keep them from the sun.\n\nAt night the Chinese brought into the square all the boats belonging to English foreigners to prevent any escape.\n\nMarch 26, 1839\n\nThis morning a linguist purser10 from Ahtore's establishment brought in a Chinaman to act as cook and left us six loaves of bread which he had secreted in his sleeves.\n\nThe cows, having been compelled to stand in the Square opposite the Danish Hong with a hot sun pouring upon them, are becoming quite desperate. This morning on going there I found a Chinaman who had prepared for them some food and was on the point of giving it to them when the police came and drove him away.\n\n* Hunter wrote 26th at this point although he started another entry for 26th a few lines later.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204800, "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-1964", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "PENG CHAU\n\n91\n\nThere are said to be over 230 islands within the Crown Colony of Hong Kong. See Hong Kong Annual Report for 1962 (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1963) p. 319.\n\n? I am not well acquainted with the Chinese records, but there seems to be little information on Peng Chau available in the San On Gazetteer, or Gazetteer of the San On District, last edition 1819, but reprinted by Kwangtung Printers, Canton, 1933.\n\n10 A lucky day of a winter month of the third year of Chia Ching.\n\n11 A lucky day of the third winter month of the 57th year of Chien Lung.\n\n12 It is customary to do so: in fact the 1878 tablet states whether subscribers are local or from various other places. I base this statement on experience of many such tablets, but there are always exceptions to disprove the general rule. Tablets may be considered generally to be reliable, but are subject to occasional errors and omissions.\n\n13 A lucky day of the third winter month of the year, third year of Kuang Hsü (January/February 1878).\n\n14 The nineteenth day of the seventh Moon of the fifteenth year of Tao Kwang. There is nothing on the tablet to indicate that it was the only one erected. If it was, it confirms the island's importance as a fishing centre,\n\n15 This date and the number of boats stated cannot be confirmed. It is given in a short manuscript account of Peng Chau in Chinese, available locally, compiled anonymously a few years ago,\n\n16 On Cheung Chau a Peng On Tong existed in 1898 when, together with two other Tongs, it held a lease of land for a boatshed. These appear to have been organisations of Tanka fishermen. The Peng On Tong and its boatshed still exist, though its affairs have been managed by several generations of a prominent Punti family since at least 1910 (BCL and Land Registers).\n\n17 For some information on the origins of the Tanka see K. M. A. Barnett \"The Peoples of the New Territories\" in Hong Kong Business Symposium (Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 1957) p. 261 and his Introduction, pp. 2-3 to T. R. Tregear's Hong Kong Gazetteer (Hong Kong University Press, 1958).\n\n18 The local name for trawlers is ... The smaller types of Tanka fishing craft using the anchorage in 1898 are described as * and *. Then there are Hoklo boats of a similar type: one usually equipped with cars and styled #, and a variant called, literally \"chicken hair claw\", which was the type of boat used by Mr. CHUNG and his fellow Hakka fishermen. I am told that the first are principally shrimp boats and the latter mainly used for catching fish. There is a good description of such craft on p. 53 of Orme's Report in Sessional Papers 1912 quoted above, which is also useful for a contemporary account of the boat people. A list of the various types of local fishing craft (modern) is given in Table I, pp. 45-51 of Stanley S. S. Yuan's paper on Fishing Junks, which was read to the Engineering Society of Hong Kong in the 1955-56 session and published in January 1956 in volume IX no. 2 of their Proceedings. A diagram showing six local types is on p. 55. For an interesting account of the Hong Kong fishing fleet before the Japanese War, see Reports on the Fisheries Industries of Hong Kong by S. Y. Lin, apparently written between 1938-48, of which there is a typescript copy in the Library, University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205865, "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-1969", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\nBOOK REVIEW\n\nSHEUNG SHUI: A REVIEW\n\nARTICLE.\n\n165\n\nPROBLEMS RELATING TO SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG.\n\nMORRIS I. BERKOWITZ*\n\nThe rural resident of the New Territories is a resourceful and competent person. He wrings from a largely inhospitable terrain both a way of life and a livelihood, frequently in the face of extremely destructive natural forces. Now, however, the tremendous growth of Hong Kong and the development of his countryside for cities and industrial sites, threatens both his way of life and his livelihood. An unprecedentedly large flow of social scientists have of late descended upon these rural residents to document their way of life, hopefully before it is fundamentally changed. Among the earlier arrivals in this group is H. D. R. Baker who has done an unusual and profitable study of the village of Sheung Shui.1\n\nDr. Baker has attempted an extremely useful task: he has tried to do a major structural study of this village in an effort to carefully understand the differences between village, community, and lineage and to identify the functions of each of these entities in relation to each of the others. In order to do this, Mr. Baker begins with a detailed introduction to the history of the lineage which serves as a background for the three central chapters of his book which are concerned with the lineage as a ritual and kinship group, the lineage as a community, and segmentation within the lineage. This core is followed by briefer discussions of the leadership of the lineage, the interaction between members and those people who live within the lineage village but are not members of it. He concludes his discussions with considerations of how the lineage relates to outsiders, including other lineages, and some brief comments on the processes of change which are affecting the traditional form of lineage organization.\n\n* Dr. Berkowitz is currently Senior Lecturer and chairman of the department of Sociology and Social Work at Chung Chi College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on secondment from the University of Pittsburgh, where he is an Associate Professor.\n\n1 Hugh D. R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui. London: Frank Cass, 1968, pp. xiv, 237, 50/-.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206612, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA\n\n163\n\nquartz and jade, and stone beads, adzes and lance heads were discovered. Some of the pottery bore makers' marks, which seemed in some cases to resemble archaic Chinese characters. To deal with the problems raised by these and the ornaments on much of the pottery, the chief of which was a symbol resembling a long f and showing several variations, Prof. Shellshear invited the collaboration of the late Father Finn, S.J., a distinguished scholar in the Regional Seminary at Aberdeen, Hong Kong, and a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. Father Finn devoted himself thenceforward to a careful study of this site and its culture, and published thirteen papers in the Hong Kong Naturalist on the subject, basing his work on a profound study of archaeological literature in neighbouring countries, Japan, China, Indo-China, the Straits and elsewhere.*\n\nThis study was greatly aided by the decision of the Hong Kong Government to have the site excavated at its own expense. In five weeks' work about half the undug portion of the sandbank was excavated to a depth of 6 to 7 feet, and some thousands of pottery fragments, a large number of other objects of stone, quartz, jade, bronze and even two or three partly of iron, were unearthed. Father Finn conducted this excavation, and included the description of the results in his articles.\n\nFather Finn also worked at other sites on Lamma and Hong Kong islands, and during visits to St. John's Island (where St. Francis Xavier died), and the Swabue district near Swatow, discovered more sites. The latter district gave very interesting and important results, which have recently been outlined in a paper by Father Maglioni in the Hong Kong Naturalist.\n\nIn 1932 Professor Shellshear brought the facts then known about Hong Kong's prehistory before the scientific world at the Prehistorians' Congress at Hanoi, whose proceedings were published by the École Française d'Extrême Orient as the Praehistorica Asiae Orientales (Hanoi, 1932). Father Finn summed up the results of his work at the Lamma Island site at the Manila Congress of the same body in 1935.†\n\n* A list of publications on local pre-history that includes those mentioned at various places in this article can be found at the end.\n\n† Whose proceedings were not published. I have Mr. Schofield's notes and can make them available to anyone who may wish to consider filling a gap in our published records.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206689, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n231\n\nGore's acquaintance with Western sources, I suspect that little of relevance has been missed. But as an example of space wasted where it was at a premium, I quote in full the status given for the Pied Kingfisher; \"Rare winter visitor. There are a number of old records between November-February, but none since February 1917. It seems that it has decreased in numbers in recent years”. I would need the pen of A. E. Housman to do justice to that last sentence.\n\nBooks of this type stand or fall on the quality and comprehensiveness of the coloured plates, provided the author has been fortunate enough to be able to raise the funds for these. In this book these are generally disappointing, partly because the colouring is inaccurate, as it is in every species on Plate XXV (this could be the fault of the printer rather than the artist), and partly because the pictures just do not look like the birds they are supposed to represent. Plate XXXIII, of admittedly difficult species, would have helped as much if it had been omitted altogether, and the plates of hawks, besides being inaccurate in colouring, are of little use for identification because they do not show the birds in flight, when they are far more likely to be seen, and far easier to identify. Captions are not always correct; on Plate XXXIV, a picture of the Grey-spotted Flycatcher is captioned \"Broad-billed Flycatcher\", a particularly sad error as the species are similar, and the inclusion of this particular species on the plate was presumably intended to point out the distinctions between them. Some care has been taken to maintain the correct scale, although it is a little disturbing on Plate XIV to find the Hazel Grouse looking larger than a female Ring-necked Pheasant.\n\nIn spite of these faults, this book compares favourably with almost all other books available on the birds of Eastern Asia, though Kobayashi's Birds of Japan has better plates (but an inadequate text in Japanese only), and Smythies' Birds of Borneo is better on both counts. However, the fact that two individual books can be mentioned in this way, as the only books at all adequate for any part of this vast region, is an indication of the magnitude of the task which the authors set themselves, and in general the satisfactory way in which they have fulfilled it. I know that Professor Won would like to improve his Korean text, and would like to get better pictures done, and it is to be hoped that this book will be sufficiently successful to enable him and Mr. Gore to produce a revised and improved edition.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208614, "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-1979", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "44\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nand apparently their proposals were rejected, as upon their return firing recommenced, and in earnest. Shells again came whizzing into Hong Kong and onto the Peak. Looking out of our rear windows, we could see these shells strike the bald rocky face of Hong Kong's famous Peak, and amid a cloud of smoke, rocks began hurtling down the sheer sides of the mountain.\n\nThe Bishop's letter of appeal to the Governor evidently bore fruit, for today four of his priests, Fathers Spada, Grampa, Riganti and Ziliolli were released from their internment. And they had their own tales to tell. As they were hustled off on the outbreak of the war, they were taken to Stanley Prison and placed in the southernmost block of cells, with a garden space attached, in which they were allowed to walk. For the first day or so their food rations were very meagre and some were treated rather roughly, but as things began to get organized their treatment improved. At one time a bomb fell quite near their quarters. With them also interned were about thirty Japanese civilians, The Bishop rejoiced at their return, but was much concerned with the others still detained.\n\nWith the return of these priests to the Cathedral, Father Downs began to think of ways and means of getting back to Stanley. He had come to the Cathedral at the request of the Bishop, mainly to take over the procurator's work in the absence of Father Bruzzoni, but with conditions as they were, there was little business to be transacted, and at best, Italian bookkeeping was a terra incognita to him. But how to get to Stanley, in these days of topsy-turvy. Application was made to the Food Distribution Bureau, but they had no immediate solution. Father Toomey was consulted by telephone as to the possibilities from his end, but to no avail. Finally, on the sixteenth, Father Toomey did arrange with a Mr. Brown, a civil contractor working with the British Royal Engineers, who were in fact living in our House at Stanley, to call for him at the Cathedral and take him and his handbag to Stanley. They left after tiffin, and what a ride! It was during an air raid, and our car was the only one in motion. We literally tore through Wanchai and up the torturous Happy Valley Road, with brakes screeching at every turn, and occasionally we had to retrace our steps in order to make a turn properly. Just over the top of Wongneichong Gap we came upon a spot in the road covered with dirt and debris. Just a few moments previous a bomb had landed on the hillside just above", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209208, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAI QUESTION IN THE 1920's 97\n\nlarge number of coolies and members of local labour guilds. An unusual feature was a group of interested Chinese ladies.\n\nThe Chairman, Mr. Lau, listed a number of questions that had been put by various individuals. He and Mr. Ho Fook put the following before the meeting:\n\n1. Is it a fact that servant girls are brought up for prostitution? 2. Are servant girls slaves?\n\n3. Are servant girls kept for the sexual purposes of their masters, who, when tired of them, sell them?\n\n4. Has the Chinese Government passed any law to abolish the practice of keeping servant girls?\n\n5. Can owners of servant girls ill-treat them as they please?\n\nThe Chairman proceeded to comment on the questions. The first concerned purchase of girls, to be trained as prostitutes. A distinction should be made between two kinds of purchasers of girls; one bought them for domestic service, the other for prostitution. The first group are respectable people who are jealous of their good name and do not wish to be linked with those who purchase girls for prostitution. As to mui tsai being slaves, slavery does not exist in China, furthermore these girls have never been regarded as slaves by the Chinese.\n\nThe speaker put forth the thesis that there are safeguards in the system to prevent the girls being sexually exploited. Parents are allowed to visit them periodically and thus would know if the child had been misused. If a master wishes to take his servant girl as concubine he must obtain the consent of his wife, the girl and her parents. If the girl had been seduced by her master and then married out, and the husband of the girl finds out her virginity has been taken by her former master, the old master would lose face before his relatives and friends, to say nothing of the views of his wife and concubines. Some masters secretly took on a servant girl as a concubine setting her up in her own establishment and later recognizing any children she bore as legal heirs. In other cases when the wife discovered what had happened, she often made it so miserable for her husband that he was forced to return the girl to her parents accompanied by a liberal bribe for silence.\n\nThe only attempt of the Chinese Government to abolish the system was an effort by the Canton Commissioner of Police Chan King-wa soon after the establishment of the Republic. The girls were ordered to be handed over and were placed in a large hostel especially built for the purpose. Mr. Lau Chu-pak said the scheme failed because the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209602, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "237\n\nAnd then a good old China Hand you'll Be.\n\nSuch references brought drama down to the daily life of the theatre goer in Hong Kong.\n\nHOME GROWN PLAYWRIGHTS\n\nThe Hong Kong Daily Press in 1894 published a play by Henry E. Pollick entitled \"Soso: A Drama of the Day\". It does not seem to have been staged in Hong Kong.\n\n\"The Cook: an Idyll of the Peak\" was produced at the Theatre Royal in 1912. It was written by R.M. Crosse, of the Royal Artillery. The plot revolved around a search for a cook when a mess of the 445th Regiment, comfortably stationed at the Peak, had to replace their competent cook who had disappeared a few days before the expected arrival of the Brigadier General.\n\nTwo years later Mr. Crosse wrote another more ambitious piece which he characterized as \"a musical stunt in two acts\" entitled \"The Idol's Eye\". The first act was set in England at a garden party. The second act's setting was the How Kwik monastery in the Province of Kwangtung. One of the principal characters Lai On is the \"boy\" of an official in the Chinese Maritime Customs. He penetrated into the monastery to secure the Idol's jade eye by the pretext of becoming a novice. In case any should have been put off from attending by the problem of the language a Chinese character might use, they were informed that “Lai On speaks both grammatical and ‘Pidgen' English during the piece. Grammatical English is used where Lai On would naturally talk and think in Chinese. 'Pidgen' is reserved for his conversation with foreigners\". The How Kwik monastery scene enabled Mr. Crosse to introduce Chinese religious ceremonies and temple music into the play.\n\nAt the time, the public was being captivated by musicals with an Oriental setting, and Mr. Crosse, who was soon to return to England, hoped to have his work produced there. I do not know if he was successful.\n\n† Pollick may not have been a resident of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209776, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "13\n\neven though removed from the rest of the new settlement, as a possible site for their operations and accordingly bought Marine Lot 52 at the first land sale in June 1841. When the government took over their godowns and property in the Victoria Barracks area, they began building in 1843 on their lot at East Point (according to a source dated 1849). However, an on-the-spot report published in January 1842 describes a visit to the east end of the island and mentions buildings being built there: \"At Mr. Gillespie's [in Wanchai] the road crosses a granite bridge [at the present junction of Queen's Road East and Stone Nullah Lane] and ascends rather suddenly to a gap cut through a hill which commands a view of the whole valley and village of Wongneichung and the road to T'ai Tam winding up. If one pursues the branch which crosses the valley and goes on east one arrives at the village of Sookon-poo, at present a sequestered, well-wooded, and very pretty part of the island. From the west end of this village a point runs out into the sea whereon a European building has already been commenced. . . the road to the cast terminates at the village of Soo-kon-poo.”\n\nJardine's built a range of houses and shops just beyond their Marine Lot at East Point. These were for the convenience of their employees. The presence of the firm attracted Chinese who settled just beyond Jardine property. Their settlement, built in a haphazard manner, was an extension and enlargement of the old So Kon Po village. In 1847 the Government cleared the area and laid out some thirty lots, which were then sold to shopkeepers. Near the centre of these lots was built the So Kon Po market. This area is the core of the present Jardines Bazaar.\n\nIn 1843, a Hong Kong newspaper commented on a statement made in The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review that the government in Hong Kong had granted to private individuals whole villages of the original inhabitants of the island. The local newswriter claimed this was untrue:\n\n\"The only village near any location in allotment is that at the Point. It is true the proprietors (wishing perhaps to be Laird of that ilk) did, for protection, enclose it within the ring fence of his own allotment, but at the request of the villagers themselves. The Government, however, immediately", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210756, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "90\n\nCHAN WING HOI\n\nDaai Si Wong and Baak Mou Seung, an altar for the dead to receive blessings, an altar for Tin Hau and local earth gods, paper images of Yuk Wong and his underlings, and the festival office. Except for the dead, the spirits noted on the altars were the usual ones found in jiu festivals. Among Tin Hau and her companions were gods of Shek O itself. The Daai Si Wong, a deity related to the underworld like the Baak Mou Seung, had the important role of overseeing the ghosts which came for the offerings.\n\nOn one of the altars, there were 105 spirit tablets of ancestors to whom offerings were to be made. Mr. Lau, the restaurant owner I talked to, did not think this a new feature of the festival. But he associated the spirit tablets with the Chiu Chau and Hoklo newcomers. Those immigrants had left their ancestors at their native places. Because it was not easy to return to these places to sacrifice to them, it was necessary to entertain and make offering to the ancestors through the festival. The indigenous villagers had no need to set up the spirit tablets of their ancestors there. They worshipped their ancestors at home where they had set up their altars. Whatever the validity of the reasoning, what Mr. Lau said suggested that very few of the locals had put up spirit tablets for their deceased relatives in the ritual. More than half of these tablets bore only the characters hin-hau or hin-bei, indicating they represented only either the father or the mother. I think this indicates that the other parent was living, and this must mean that these tablets were set up for the recently deceased rather than ancestors of old. In the case of many jiu festivals in single surname settlements, the spirit tablets of the common ancestors were included on one of the festival altars. Here the ancestors were parents of people who had paid for the privilege of leaving the tablets there.\n\nIn a broader sense the ritual site should also include the other areas delimited by flag posts (faan-gon). There were four of those posts at Shek O, marking out the north, south, east and west corners, I was told. In addition, there were two each at Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. We learned from the New Territories that faan-gon posts were indications set up for wandering ghosts to inform them they might enjoy offerings at the jiu. However, responding to my question about the faan-gon posts, a local woman replied that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211188, "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-1987", "page_number": 249, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "224\n\nturned the soil in the Wongneichong Valley for a park. The incipient park already bore his name.\n\nGovernor Bowen was one of Hongkong's unpopular administrators. He was regarded as pompous with an over-developed sense of his own importance.\n\nThis antagonism towards him may possibly have been one reason why the park had received support as a memorial gesture. It would be an indirect expression of the public's disapproval of its late administrator if he were deprived of having his name perpetuated in Hongkong by a public amenity.\n\nDr. Ho Kai reminded the meeting that if looked at in another way the change of the name from Bowen to Victoria was not entirely complimentary to Her Majesty. It was rather like, as he expressed it, offering her \"cast off shoes.\" This remark was greeted with loud applause.\n\nDr. Ho Kai reserved his most serious objection last. It was he said \"a class objection.\" The park would not be welcomed by the Chinese.\n\nThough he did not say so openly, it meant that the community could not expect the Chinese to assist in this aspect of the plans for the jubilee.\n\nThe park would be too far from the centre of town. Not only the Chinese but other less affluent sections of the population would find it too remote.\n\nDr. Ho Kai admitted that for residents near the park and those who liked to take long walks the park would meet a need, but, on the other hand, for the great majority of people living in the town the park would be quite useless, at least for some time to come.\n\nThere were suggestions that circumstances might change. “We speak of having tramways, of the Praya extension, and of connecting east and west, but in regard to this I may use the words of Mr. Chater and say that Government does not undertake these", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211469, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "161\n\nfaith, the Lam Toy's and Lam Quan's, who became our life-long friends. By this time Chinese women were freer to visit with each other, and Mrs. Lam Quan taught Mother how to sew Western style dresses for us children, to bake cakes, to make delicious ice cream (which was a great treat in those days), and to use Western medicine. When Mr. and Mrs. Ai took a trip to China in 1913, their son, Samuel, would often play with me or Helen. One afternoon while he, Mung Yee Yap and I were playing ball, the family dog, tied to a mango tree, bit Samuel repeatedly when he tried to retrieve a stray ball. I stood immobilized and horrified by his screams. He happened to be wearing clothes his friend had loaned him when his head became wet while playing in a stream, and the unfamiliar scent must have provoked the dog. Fortunately his sister Bessie, who happened to come to the front door, rescued him. It was also traumatic to hear Samuel's scream while he was being treated on the back porch by Dr. Francis Wong-Leong.\n\nAmong Mother's non-Christian friends was the first Mrs. Siu Kit who lived in a small lane behind the Dutro's. She had come from China with her oldest child to join Mr. Siu, who ran a butcher shop at the corner of King and Aala Streets. She bore five more children, but the youngest died of whooping cough before he was even a month old. After the death of this infant, Mrs. Siu seemed to have no will to live, and, again, pregnant, became very ill, possibly from influenza. She died in 1919, insisting to the end that Mr. Siu had taken in a concubine in his village. There was no foundation to her accusations, because only after her death did he go to Japan, where he met and married a young girl from the village selected by his family to be his second wife. This second Mrs. Siu also became our life-long friend, who looked upon Mother as a surrogate parent and was always generous and thoughtful. She found the care of five undisciplined stepchildren and seven of her own a difficult responsibility. When the exchange rate was very favourable, Mr. Siu retired to Shekki with his whole family but gradually sent his children, two or three at a time, back to Honolulu. He died during the Japanese occupation of China. Mrs. Siu returned to Honolulu after the Second World War to live with her daughter, Siu Ying Chun, and died in 1985 while on an extended visit in California.\n\nThis was a worry-free and happy period of my life in spite of the fact that occasionally I had a stormy time with Mother, who did not spare", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211511, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "204\n\nCanton three days later. Rev. Mr. Kollecker informed the German Consul. After investigation no evidence was found to confirm the report.\n\n\"The Christians in Canton were to celebrate the wedding of one of the most respected Christians of Canton. Deacon Wong* of the Barmen Mission in Tung Kun was also there. There appeared the Christian Dr. Sun, recently of the College of Medicine. He was very excited and told the Christians they would not be able to celebrate the wedding that day. The surprised questions of the guests caused him gradually to convey the news that in the evening a revolution was planned and he was one of the leaders. The revolutionaries planned to overwhelm Canton and make it a stronghold. Later they would march to the north and overthrow the ruling dynasty. After that Sun left the wedding party. The guests had not caught their breath before a court servant appeared and asked for Dr. Sun. Some four hundred vagabonds had arrived from Hong Kong who would be the core of the army of the Reform party. On the same boat were weapons and gunpowder packed in boxes. The government received news of it and immediately made enquiries. After a short while they found traces of the revolutionaries. They rounded up those they could get hold of. After a few days the authorities discovered hidden weapons of the Reform party. These were found in a house where a German and an Englishman had lived recently. Nothing could be found out about the German, but the Englishman, known as Mr. Quick, had been involved in a recent revolution in Honolulu and had to leave there for that reason. Both foreigners were able to escape. The enquiry which followed uncovered several Christian members of the American Mission who were implicated in the plot. Sixty involved persons were beheaded, among them were two Christians. The American Consul intervened on behalf of a third Christian because a missionary had pledged himself for his good conduct, but he was quite embarrassed by it, because the suspect escaped and could not be found. Governor Ma, one of the highest officials of Canton, died. It was suggested that he himself had been one\n\n* Deacon Wong must have been Wong Him-ue:1(1847-1907), who after establishing and serving a congregation at Tung Kun City, came to Hong Kong in 1898 and established the Rhenish Mission congregation (Lai Yuen Ui) now located on Bonham Road. He was the son of Wong Yun (1817-1914) a member of Gutzlaff's Chinese Union and later assistant in the Rhenish (Barmen) Mission, Wong Him-ue was the younger brother of the Rev. Wong Yuk-cho (1843-1903), pastor of the To Tsai congregation, Hong Kong. He was well-acquainted with Sun Yat-sen and a supporter of the revolutionary cause.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211781, "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": 196, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "171\n\nLocal amateur musicians\n\nThe resident amateurs, about whom \"Philharmonic\" was so full of praise, generally performed in combination with a professional artist — although there were exceptions. Thus, there was the amateur concert in aid of the Lancashire Relief Fund, mentioned earlier, on April 17, 1863, at which among others Beethoven's \"Egmont\" and Weber's \"Freischütz\" overtures were played on the pianoforte; furthermore, glees and songs were sung by a small choir of gentlemen. In November 1864, another charity concert was given, this time in aid of the repairs fund of the \"Hongque Free Episcopal Church\", organised by the \"Shanghai Vocal Quartette Club\".\n\nBut it was far more usual that a professional artist sought the assistance of some local amateurs in order to diversify the evening somewhat. Otherwise the chance was great that the public would be bored — despite the alleged love of Shanghailanders for music witness the remark in the Herald of October 1, 1864: \"people here hardly care to sit for two hours to listen to a performance on the violin, however well the instrument is handled; some variety is required\". So the instrumental recitals were alternated with vocal exertions by the amateurs, as e.g. on February 22, 1859, when the critic was dissatisfied with the main interpreter, Prof. Shonbrun, but on which occasion the amateur tenor solos were thought to be given \"with taste and feeling\". At a following performance of the same pianist he was again surrounded by singers one of whom even ventured to tackle the great tenor aria from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.\n\n62\n\nThe Germans, despite their small number (about 200 in 1865), were generally active in the cultural field. Even before they had their own Club, a Singverein \"Germania\" had been established as early as before 1859 although the regularity of the organisation may be doubted for, at one time, there was not even a conductor, resulting in an \"evident want of confidence and decision by which the general effect was much impaired\". Little was heard of it in subsequent years, but it may have been the fore-runners of the German \"Liedertafel\" which existed in the early seventies and which was then led by Mr. Hogquist.65\n\nGarrison music\n\nThe concerts that were given by the bands of the several military forces", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211807, "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": 222, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "197\n\nfrom Shanghai on the 20th. Despite that, the \"soirée\" was \"kept up to a late hour with great spirit\". The programme consisted of tunes by Dabney, de Costa and Tripp: one of them was called \"Japanese make yourselves ready\" (NCH 26.5.1855).\n\n23.1.1856 (Wedn)\n\nE. MAYHEW: \"Make your Wills” (1836)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nW. BROUGH: \"No 1 Round the Corner\" (1854)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Whitebait at Greenwich\" (1853)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: D\n\nN: Once more politics crept into the theatre since, due to the Anglo-French campaigns in the Crimean War, \"the proscenium was very tastefully emblazoned with the arms and ciphers of the Allies”. The drop scene now represented the \"Lake of Geneva with the far famed Castle of Chillon” (far famed because of Lord Byron's poem \"The Prisoner of Chillon\"). For a change the Herald allowed itself some criticism of the amateurs, but about the costumes only: \"We are perfectly aware of the great difficulties which beset the wardrobe department of the Theatre here, but still we think that two or three alterations might be made with advantage. It must be remembered that the assumption of a part on the stage requires the submergence of the individual into his assumed character. Proteus must not be more unlike his last shape than the actor must be unlike his mere self and the difficulty of effecting this is enormously increased by an appearance in every-day costume. In melodramatic pieces some decided change is absolutely necessary because success depends on the power of exciting the sympathies of the audience for the various situations of the actors and it is quite impossible that the desponding accents of one young gentleman or the grasping villainy of another (both of whom we know to be very good fellows and far from desponding or hypocritical characters) in the garb of 1856 can excite these sympathies. In Farce it is less important because the effect depends upon a successful appeal to our sense of the ludicrous and this may be done by situations which are quite within the range of every-day life. (...) It also struck us that a little more attention to the chronology of dress would be attended with increased effect; there were two or three anachronisms: for instance the mob cap of Mrs. Foreright (a most admirable 'make-up' by the way) hardly accorded with the modern elegance of Clara; or the venerable beard of the implacable Mr. Ireton with the modern costume of his disinherited son. It is astonishing how greatly unity in these matters adds to the effect of such performances and in spite of the difficulties of such performances and in spite of the difficulties of securing dresses we think a consultation between the Manager and the performers might produce a harmony which would be attended with the best effect”. The music too was thought to be \"ineffective\", but for the remainder it was, as usual, amusing, with Whitebait at Greenwich as the hit of the evening. The character of Buzzard — by no means a graceful one — was played with great effect and we heartily congratulate Mr. SLOWCOME upon the power he displayed\". In Make your Wills the reviewer could not \"forbear mentioning the excellent impersonation of Joseph Bragg by Mr CLAY\" (NCH 26.1.1856).\n\n21.2.1856 (Thur)\n\n—\n\nJ.S. COYNE: \"The Infanticidal Farce\" (1846)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nMrs. C.G.F. GORE: \"A Good Night's Rest\" (1839)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Slasher and Crasher\" (1848)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211842, "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": 257, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "232\n\nnot heard before and of which the best that can be said is that they are decidedly original. They seemed an imitation of the noise of braying of donkeys, but still they elicited great applause from the gallery [which was generally not regarded as very complimentary JH] perhaps from a certain feeling of sympathy. An amateur played Weber's \"Aufforderung zum Tanz\" with a \"perfect feeling\". To conclude the evening Mme SIMONSEN sung the \"Valse de concert\" (composer unmentioned) in which \"she displayed her powers more than in any other piece she has sung\" (SCR 22.5.1865).\n\n24.5.1865 (Wedn)\n\nH. MAYHEW: \"The Wandering Minstrel“ (1834)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.P. PLANCHE: \"The Knights of the Round Table” (1854)\n\nT: Drama (5 acts)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Mounted Rangers\n\nF: Music by the Band of the 67th Regiment; prologue read by Capt. Markham\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\n―\n\nR: In lieu of the old time favourites, Messrs Brushwood, Pickwick, Newcome and Mrs. Nesbit had come new faces. Most foreigners had not yet made Shanghai their permanent place of residence, so turnover in the theatre too was rather high. Tonight could be admired Mr. SMALLWEED who, in the Knights of the Round Table, as \"the blameless king shewed a keen appreciation of his part and while he delivered the burlesque passages with much humour, proved by the taste with which he pronounced the prophetic eulogium on the Queen of England that he need not necessarily confine himself to broad burlesque in order to gain well-merited applause\"; Mr. Edmund (also a member of the Amateur Burlesque Company) won golden opinions as Launcelot, whereas Mr. PEEKT as Merlin \"displayed much cleverness in personating feeble old men\". In The Wandering Minstrel \"Mr. R.T. Larff, better known to the theatrical world as Mr. Wynnge (did this mean that he had two stage names? JH) sustained the reputation he has already gained as a low comedian and makes us the less deplore the absence of the well known and inimitable Brushwood” (last recorded performance 10.5.1860). Of course the female roles were taken by men, which led, as it always does, to some ridiculous scenes: \"The company possesses great strength in the important particular of lady performers. The only drawback which, however, is immaterial in burlesque, lies in the great height and muscular development of the fair ones\". Yet Miss Mary MIDDLESEX \"bore away the palm for natural feminine get-up\" and \"nothing could excel the dash which Kate COVENTRY threw into the part of the vivandière\", (NCH 27.5.1865). That not all patrons were equally pleased became evident from the Shanghai Commercial Record (5.6.1865) when it wrote: \"an allusion which was considered too personal led to a corresponding in our columns\" (i.e. the \"Shanghai Recorder\" which to the great regret of all historians treating the history of foreign Shanghai can no longer be found). At the end of the evening a number of toasts were proposed, among others to \"Alabaster, to whose exertions much of the success of the company was due\". This was a reference to Chaloner Alabaster (1831-1890), the British vice-consul who was also active in the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In conclusion the Herald reported that \"the arrangements were excellent and notwithstanding the warmth of the evening and the crowded state of the theatre, the air within the walls did not become oppressively hot. Punkahs were slung over the front seats and during the temporary pauses kept up a current of air\",\n\n27.5.1865 (Sat)\n\nPerformance by Mr. Benjamin Seare. Programme unknown (reading, etc)\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\nR: Both the Herald and the Record agreed that Mr. SEARE \"is possessed of great talent\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212305, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 247, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "224\n\ntwelve o'clock gun firing is due to the liberality of Mr Magniac (a partner) of Messrs. Jardine Matheson and Company, who, when the Home Government ceased to provide this small return for the heavy Military Contribution forwarded annually from this Colony, purchased a gun, etc. and had it fixed up at Messrs. Jardine's, where it is fired daily.\n\nAlthough their gun is still at East Point, not far from where Jardine's started trading in 1841, their head office moved to Central District as long ago as 1864. It has been said there is not one field of commerce in which it does not hold a prominent position and its 'tentacles' extend to interests in many other firms.\n\nHong Kong Land\n\nThe Colony's leading businessmen have usually had considerable interests in land, and it was thus fitting that two of them, Paul Chater (later Sir Paul) and James Johnstone Keswick, should be prime movers in the Hong Kong Land Investment and Agency Company which was incorporated in 1889. The latter, as Taipan of Jardine's, following in the footsteps of his great-uncle William Jardine, was also founding chairman of Hong Kong Land. James was the first of six Keswicks, spanning five generations, to hold the position.\n\nThe company soon began buying sites and erecting office buildings. Between June 1904 and December 1905 it erected Hong Kong's first 'skyscrapers', five major buildings each of five or six storeys, which dwarfed the two and three-storey structures surrounding them.\n\nHong Kong Land acquired Humphrey's Estate and Finance Company, which owns residential property in Mid-Levels, in 1972, and for 14 years 'Land' had a controlling interest in the Dairy Farm, Ice and Cold Storage Company. Today, the latter is once again an independent public company. In its centenary year Hong Kong Land owned some six-million square feet of commercial space of which five-million is in the so-called 'Core Central' area. The firm has been described as \"... perhaps the most valuable property company in the world and certainly in the region ....\" Whether this is true is not known. Certainly, today, some Japanese companies hold considerable interests in real estate on a global scale.\n\nL", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213992, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "27\n\nlife bore evil influences. One could visit a soothsayer or some such person. He could advise whether one should perform rituals or what one should do to dissipate any evil influences. Once on the job of scaffolding, early in the morning especially, it is important that no inauspicious words are spoken. If something inappropriate is said it could be that it will actually come about. In addition, in the old days scaffolders wore a special belt which was believed to keep evil away and ensure safety. This belt was worn all day except when eating or going to the toilet. At night, it was hung by the bed in a special position where it can offer protection.\" Today, a scaffolder's 'belt' normally consists of a length of the same nylon that he uses to tie the scaffolding members together. A bundle of these nylon 'thongs' are tucked into his 'belt' and he pulls them out, one at a time, while he works aloft. His knife and his snips he will carry in his pocket.\n\nAlthough bamboo appears to be rather flimsy, and structural analysis has never really been a practical proposition, the advantage is that, as a material, it bends before it breaks. Few accidents have been recorded which are the direct result of faulty bamboo or insecure scaffolding.\" The Hong Kong Government Labour Department groups all accidents, which are classified as 'falling from heights', together. It does not have a separate category concerning bamboo scaffolding.\n\nVisitors to Hong Kong often take an interest in scaffolding and a Mr Malcolm Goodieson, from Mildura, Australia, raised, among other points, the following:\n\n\"Are sufficiently high safety standards enforced with regard to scaffolding?\n\nIs there a need to impose further control measures in the interests of public safety\"\n\nMr Goodieson continued:\n\n\"I have never before visited a place which had bamboo scaffolding. Nor have I been to a place where so many workmen behaved more like daredevil acrobats than construction workers.\n\nMore recently, an \"Occupational Safety and Health Council', complete with an education and Information Centre, has been set up. As mentioned before, however, little has been written about bamboo", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214210, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "31\n\none foot in the grave.' Such expressions could help to bring about death. Nevertheless, in Cantonese slang, a corpse is sometimes described as 'salt fish' (hàm yú), one imagines because of the smell. In the context of not joking about death Mary Rafferty, the then new chief executive at the Matilda Hospital, on the Peak in Hong Kong, seems to have put her foot in it when she told one of the Chinese doctors: 'I'm checking up on you to see if your patients are still alive' (Cheng, 1998). It did not seem to dawn on the good lady that you do not make such remarks in Chinese society.\n\nA retired English, Hong Kong government servant was, as his son described it, showing off to a lady friend how he could swim under water. He suffered a heart attack and died. 'What a wonderful way to go,' was how his middle-aged son, with a grin, described it. When the author related this event to a number of Chinese they were unable to appreciate the 'joke' in quite the same light.\n\nThe English sometimes play with sentences and the meaning of words, as may be seen from the joke quoted earlier in this paper, about Lewinsky, Gore and Clinton junk bonds. Similarly the Cantonese, with the homophonous nature of their language, play with similar tones with which two or more characters are pronounced (Smith, 1988:149). They love puns and double entendre, which Westerners do not always appreciate, in which their rich and complex language abounds (Bolton 1997:299). Chinese have a great deal of fun playing with homonyms in their conversations around dining tables. For example two pairs of Chinese characters, both pronounced faat choi but with slightly different tones, mean either 'hair vegetable' (fà cài) (a blue-green algae) or, alternatively, 'become wealthy' (fā cái). There are countless examples. Similarly, a lecturer who taught in the ‘electrical' engineering department of a college varied the tone of the word 'deen' (meaning electrical) so that it sounded as if he taught in the 'crazy' engineering department.\n\n... \n\nThe word for 'fry', in Cantonese, is pronounced chaau. But the same sound is also slang for 'speculate.' People joke about a certain Mr Wong, in Hong Kong, who changed his profession from cook to stockbroker. The pun is that he used to chaau food but now he chaaus shares!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214311, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "133\n\nSeveral questions remained unanswered. We have no idea what happened to Mary, his first wife who is not referred to anywhere after 1911. R R Sowerby recorded their marriage and added that she bore him a son.... \"there is one son of the marriage, now [1956] living in Australia.'\n\nAnother aspect of Sowerby's life about which we know nothing is the financial side. His father is unlikely to have left him much if anything. He is unlikely to have earned much teaching in Tientsin or working for the wealthy American. His printing press would not have been cheap and his and his wife's collecting hobby again reflects an adequate income. He had several business directorships, was the manager of China Industries and, of course, had an income from the Journal. During his earlier years he did, of course, receive financial support from Mr Clark during expeditions. There is no doubt that there was money; perhaps brought into his life by his second wife? The 1938 and 1939 China Hong Kong Lists record the Sowerbys as living in the area beyond Bubblingwell, and near the American Country Club, at 34 Lucerne Road, a very upmarket address. Of tangential interest only, their neighbours at No. 33 were Captain and Mrs J V Davidson-Houston, the British Assistant Military Attaché, whose autobiography of the era was quite gripping.\n\nSowerby's works include The Naturalist in Manchuria, A Sportsman's Miscellany, Sport and Science on the Sino-Mongolian Frontier, A Naturalist's Notebook in China and, in joint authorship with Robert Clark, Through Shenkan.\n\nMy sources have included The Passing of the Manchus, Through Shen-Kan and also Sowerby of China, a privately produced short booklet published in Kendal in 1956 by R R Sowerby.\n\nPost Script\n\nSince submitting this article to the Editor of the Journal, I have been fortunate to come across the 'Obituary of Arthur Sowerby' written in 1954 by Professor Frank Drake of the University of Hong Kong who had the great advantage of having personally known Sowerby.' It has thrown a little more light on the life and times of our subject and I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215389, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "115\n\nDAR2032AM\n\nKNMUGA*Y\n\n如耶路撒冷陷落時, Agippa 號野雞 Hastings #ENBAHNB (VOTA\n\nKO 200 989 KARPRAKA\n\nASSANT (GDOM) A\n\n在隨後的歲月裡，繳何職和另一位立豬石鹼瓤鵝\n\nAMAMURAMAH · BMW IMA\n\nof Henry May · A. W Brown · WA\n\nPH M Taylor MMA Tha** M\n\n* - Wong Leung humt? • Young Him- Pongi門，麗金榴，豐義理，確镗芬·西蘭\n\nJ\n\nThe Presentation of The Tribute\n\nApril 28, 1910 was a typical April day, fine but cloudy with a light breeze, temperature 78°F and humidity 80%. Contemporary events included the arrival of Halley's comet, in its 76-year orbit, which was \"plainly discernible to the naked eye at Hong Kong during the early morning”. It\n\npromised to be \"as brilliant and awe-inspiring as it must have been at the times of the fall of Jerusalem, the death of Agrippa and the Battle of Hastings\". Mark Twain died, and a Frenchman won a £10,000 prize from the Daily Mail newspaper for flying in stages between London and Manchester at 200 feet and 33 miles per hour.\n\nThe deputation received at Government House was introduced by Dr Ho Kai with his fellow legislator Mr Wei Yuk. Those present included: the Hon. Sir Henry May (Colonial Secretary), the Hon. Mr. A.W. Brewin (Registrar General). Capt. PH. M. Taylor (aide-de-camp). Messers Lau Chu-pak, Ng Hon-tsz, Ho Fook, Ho Kom-tong, Wong Leung-him, Yeung Him-pong, Wong Kum-luk, S.W. Tso, Sin Tak-fun, Fung Wa-chun, Cheung Si-kai, Li Sui-kam, Lau Yuen-chuen, Leung Fui-chi, Yu To-shan, Chan Sik-lam, Li Yau-chun, Chau Siu-ki, Wo Wan-cho, Wo Tsai-yang, Lo Kun-ting, Siu Yim-Eai, Sam Pak-ming, Li Wing-kwong, Chan Wan-sau, Mok Man-cheung, Tam Hok-po, Leung Kin-en, Chan Kang-yi, Lau Pun-chiu, Chiu Yee-ting, Chan Pak-yee, Wo Tsa-wan, Yiu Ki-yun, Li Po-kwai, Chan Chuk-hing, Tsang Yik-kai, Chan Lok-chun, and Ho Mok-lok.\n\nThe Governor received The Tribute together with an album of red morocco leather, which bore his monogram in silver and contained the address in both Chinese and English.\n\n和一本發行紀念冊，紀\n\nDr Ho Kai CMG, Legislative Council member, (1880-1914); founder of the Alice Memorial Hospital (1886) and co-founder of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (1887).\n\n何啟爵士，立法局議員（1880-1914年）；雅麗氏醫院的創辦人（1886年）和香港華人西醫書院的共同創辦人（1887年）。", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215802, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "34\n\nBETWEEN THE NINE DRAGONS AND A DIVINE WIND: HOW HONG KONG'S WEATHER MIGHT HAVE AFFECTED AN ALLIED INVASION TO RETAKE THE TERRITORY*\n\nCHOHONG CHO\n\nSynopsis\n\nIn the War in the Pacific during World War II, the question of whether or not to engage Japan directly in China was a major one for Allied planners. If the Japanese weren't enough of a problem, an age-old factor - the weather - certainly would have provided the Allies with additional concerns. The Pacific and Asia are home to some of the most extreme weather in the world.\n\nHong Kong, a possible target in any Allied campaign in China, played host to some of this extreme weather. What this study attempts to do is to consider how Hong Kong's adverse weather conditions could have affected an Allied operation to recapture it from the Japanese.\n\nBackground\n\nAfter Hong Kong fell to the Japanese in December 1941 and Great Britain was expelled from the Pacific, only the U.S. was left to face Japan in this theatre. The U.S. itself was in bad shape, as most of its Pacific Fleet had been mauled at Pearl Harbor. On the Asian mainland, Japan was still busying herself with China and Britain. A stalemate had developed with the former, while the latter was being pushed out of Burma into India.\n\nHowever, the U.S. Navy's (USN) aircraft carriers were not caught in the Pearl Harbor debacle, and during much of 1942, they bore the brunt of the action against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the Pacific. In a series of three engagements with the IJN (at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal), with inferior numbers accompanied by\n\n*The author would like to thank Mr. Ko Tim-keung for bringing a draft of this article to the attention of the Hon. Editor, and Professor Elfed Roberts for his comments on an early version of the draft.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215842, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "74\n\nThe coloured and inscribed cloth banners presented in recognition of services rendered were the least expensive of presentation items. They were needed in considerable quantities at some major events, and could be seen stacked in piles on the table at which the principal guests sat. This was just as well, since they had all to be presented by one or other of their number. They were made up by firms specializing in the production of flags and banners of all shapes and sizes. They usually bore four Chinese characters, aphorisms betokening diligent or whole-hearted service to the people, and the like, together with the name of the individual or body for whom it was intended. (Plate 15) As often as not the aphorisms came from the Chinese (Confucian) classics and have become proverbs in everyday usage.\n\nChrome or silver-plated items like dishes or figurines obtained from specialist firms were presented to deserving helpers or supporting organizations. Again, these were inscribed as appropriate to the occasion - especially the dishes, which often carried the four-character phrases - and named the event and date, together with the name of the individual or organization concerned (Plate 16)\n\nMore substantial items were prepared for the presiding officials, who might be presented with scrolls, couplets or paintings. As often as not, the scrolls and paintings would already have been framed. It mattered not that the official or guest whom the association wished to honour was Chinese or foreign. The same token of appreciation was applied to all, facilitated by the practice of equipping foreigners with Chinese names. In China up to 1949, missionary doctors and educators were frequent recipients of such tokens of gratitude for services rendered, and there must still be many examples of the kind to be found in their homes across the globe and on the antique market. So, too, it was in Hong Kong. Like many other officials, I was the recipient of such traditional literary tokens when serving in the district administration in town and country.\n\nSometimes a Committee would have invited an artist friend of their acquaintance to attend the occasion, and would prevail upon him to paint something for the principal guests. Our President, Dr. Patrick Hase, and I still have the pictures of tigers painted for us by Mr. Ng Shan at a gathering of the Ap Lei Chau Kaifong Association around 1974, when we were serving together in the Urban Services Department.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]