[ { "id": 204595, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n65\n\na daily diary of events he was naturally encouraged to continue, and thus we have a very readable account of the first year at the Legation.\n\nRennie had reached Peking on the evening of March 25th, going on ahead with the French suite and staying the night at the French Legation. The next morning he was up early. \"Before breakfast I visited the Leang-koong-foo, the building which has been selected for the British Legation, and in charge of which Mr. Adkins has resided at Peking during the winter. The Leang-koong-foo, or palace of the Duke of Leang, was originally an imperial residence, given by the Emperor K'ang-hsi (who died in 1722) to one of his thirty-three sons, whose descendants are known as the Dukes of Leang. The present representative of the family, and owner of the Leang-koong-foo, holds a command in the neighbourhood of the great wall. The Duke of Leang has let his family residence in perpetuity to the British Government, at an annual rent of fifteen hundred taels (500 £.), no rent to be paid for the first two years, owing to the extensive repairs and alterations required.\" A visitor at that time described it as “a straggling, dreary, dilapidated building, which time and money might convert into a tolerably habitable barrack for a brigade of infantry, but which can never become a comfortable or suitable residence for a Minister and the few members of his suite.\" Time was to prove him wrong.\n\nMeanwhile the British party arrived on March 26th 1861 and Rennie describes the formal entry into the British Legation. “At three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Bruce, Colonel Neale, and the other members of the English Legation, arrived in Peking, escorted by the detachment of Sikh Cavalry. This morning the French flag was hoisted over the gate of the Tsin-koong-foo, and on Mr.\n\n'Ibid., I, 28-9. A language-student at the Legation, writing in 1885 stated: \"A rent of 1,500 taels, or between £400 and £500, is paid into the Tsung-li Yamen (the Chinese Foreign Office) every year. It is the duty of the senior student to make this payment, and, in order that he might appear at the Yamen respectably attired, a box-hat was, it is said, provided sometime about 1861, and is still at his disposal. But it is not often worn.' \"Where Chineses Drive\". English Student-Life at Peking. By a Student Interpreter, 27. See footnote 16 below.\n\n10 E. B. de Fonblanque, Niphon and Pe-che-li; or Two years in Japan and Northern China (London, 1862). 217.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204596, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "66\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nBruce's arrival the Union Jack was hoisted over the entrance to the Leang-koong-foo.\" In his diary for April 1st Rennie gives a detailed description of the Legation as it then appeared.\n\nThe Leang-koong-foo may be described as consisting of two sets of quadrangular courts, running parallel to each other north and south, with a covered passage between them. These courts contain blocks of buildings, built in the ordinary Chinese style of architecture. The set of squares on the eastern side form the palatial portion, and contain the state apartments. The roofs on this side are covered with green glazed tiles, and supported by heavy columns of wood. The interior, though out of repair, is still very handsome; the ceilings of the state apartments being beautifully decorated with gold dragons, within circles on a blue ground, which again are in the centres of small squares of green, separated by intersecting bars in relief of green and gold. The western division of the Foo is composed of buildings of a less showy kind, but nevertheless fitted up with great elegance and taste. The roofs are covered with ordinary grey tiling. It is in a fair state of repair, and is at present occupied by the Legation. Moral sentiments, painted in gilt letters on ornamental boards, are placed over the entrances of the various buildings in the different courts. Some of them Mr. Wade translated to me this morning. That over the door of the apartments occupied by Colonel Neale and myself means, 'Hall for the nourishment of virtue', and that over the house reserved for Mrs. Reynolds, the Legation house-keeper, shortly expected from Shanghai, is 'Hall for the study and development of politeness'. Arrangements have been made with a Chinese builder, named Choon, for putting the whole in thorough repair; and it has been determined to convert the palatial portion into the Legation residence, retaining as much as possible its Chinese character. The other division of the Foo is to be fitted up partly for the Chinese secretary's department, partly as residences for the student-interpreters, who are in future to learn the language at Peking under the supervision of Mr. Wade.\n\nDr. Rennie was soon out sightseeing, going everywhere on horseback through the dust or the mud of the Peking streets and lanes. At this time, and for long afterwards, the Imperial Canal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204636, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "104\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nThere were also examination titles among the organisers and subscribers to the defence office. There were three scholars, who held higher grades of the hsiu-ts'ai or first degree by examination. One was a kung-sheng, another a sheng-yüan, and the third held the grade of lin-sheng, all normally obtained by additional examinations by a literary chancellor appointed from Peking to examine hsiu-ts'ai in the provinces, though occasionally granted for merit. Another was a wu-sheng ±, a military hsiu-ts'ai, an officer by examination, not purchase. These four were WONGs, almost certainly members of the Tong. A fifth, named TSUI, was a tu-szu or first captain and was probably a serving military officer in the locality. The final title is ching sheng #.\n\nOf these various degree and title holders sixteen were named WONG *. The coincidence is probably too great to be accidental and the number of purchases testifies to the Tong's wealth, whilst the presence of genuine scholars, probably from the Cheung Chau branch, and the genealogical record, confirm its gentry status in the late Ch'ing period. There is no doubt that the main Tong was well entrenched and able to exert an \"interest\" with the district ruler and perhaps also with the prefect and viceroy at Canton.\n\n23 HSIAO illustrates the slight degree of local control on another island, Ch'a K'eng, off the coast of Sun Wui district, Kwangtung, in Rural China, pp. 344-348. For his views on the effectiveness of imperial control see pp. 320-322 and pp. 316-320 for the role of the gentry in local affairs. CH'U, op. cit., chapter 10, also examines the problem in general. Krone's article (see note 22), apparently written from long, first-hand knowledge of the western part of San On shows that the district magistrate and his deputy and sub-magistrates had little control over the population (see especially p. 81), and perhaps wanted it less, e.g. \"... the Mandarin of Fuk Wing (a sub-magistrate) confided to me, in a conversation that I had with him that he had nothing to do but to eat, to drink and to smoke”, though over 200 villages were in his charge.\n\n24 The district association is of considerable antiquity in China. They were known in Sung times: see J. Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion 1250-76 (London, Allen and Unwin 1962) p. 222; see also Y. K. Leong and L. K. Tao Village and Town Life in China (London, Allen and Unwin 1915) pp. 78-9 for \"the guild of co-provincials\" and H. B. Morse, The Gilds of China (London, Longmans, Green 1909) pp. 35-48 for the provincial club with a mercantile bias.\n\n25 With consequent language difficulties. See R. A. D. Forrest (a former Hong Kong Cadet Officer) \"The Southern Dialects of Chinese\", Appendix No. 1 to V. Purcell The Chinese in South East Asia (Oxford University Press 1951).\n\n26 The word \"member\" may have too strong a connection with the modern club where one pays an entrance fee and monthly subscriptions. In fact, one was born into membership of these early district associations and participated in their activities by subscription, as required. Mr. LEUNG Yau (see note 28) confirms this for his own association, the Wai Chiu.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205365, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "120\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nabout. By this hospitality to the dead they hope to avert the evils which the spirits of unburied corpses are believed to occasion. There is also a home for aged men, one or two hamlets for lepers, and a cluster of houses for the blind. In the \"Samon-che\" district record, it is laid down that 200 persons shall be admitted and provided for in these several institutions; and the amount of funds to be expended, and the fields and houses from which the charitable revenues are to be derived, are minutely detailed. But it is well known that the poor and destitute derive little or no benefit from these sources, except the shelter against the wind and rain afforded them by the dilapidated tenements which are provided for them, and in which they may, without annoyance or maltreatment, consume the food which they have been able to procure by begging throughout the day.\n\nLepers are not allowed to enter any village; when they arrive in its neighbourhood they have to stand on a hill, or some other conspicuous place, and call to the villagers, who thereupon come out and supply them with rice, tea, or whatever they may desire. But it sometimes happens that the villagers are rather deaf to the cry of the lepers, and then these unfortunates, who are very revengeful and consequently much feared, enter the village, defile the wells and water tanks, and use every means in their power to communicate the disease to their uncharitable countrymen.\n\nThe blind have a separate establishment allotted to them by the people of Sai-heong. During the day they go about begging, and in their refuge they have no one to care for them, except some homeless strangers with whom they share their daily alms. If one of them happens to die, the others go about collecting money for a coffin, and the necessary expenses of the interment. Whilst I was living at Sai-heong, one of these blind beggars came to me to beg my contribution towards the purchase of a coffin for one of his comrades who had died; the coffins being cheap, I gave him 200 cash. The next day another blind man came to me, and told me that his companion had also died, and requested my assistance; I gave him a similar donation, and the rest of them having learnt this, a third one came two days after the last, and even a fourth made his appearance. Being advised by the people of Sai-heong that the only way to put a stop to this deplorable mortality among the poor blind, was to refuse any pecuniary aid for their interment, I ceased giving this alms, and the deaths immediately ceased also.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205369, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "124\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nward wheel-barrows, and the cost of carriage adds so much to the price at which goods must be sold to remunerate the trader, that the demand for them soon ceases.\n\nThe inhabitants along the coast support themselves principally by fishing. Hundreds of old men, women, and children, may be seen on the extensive flats left by the receding tide, collecting the small fishes, crabs, and other animals which have been stranded; with these they season their rice. The able-bodied men are with their boats at sea. Many of these proceed to distant islands, and remain at sea for several months. Towards the end of the year they set sail for their native villages, and then all the bays and mouths of rivers teem with crowds of fishing-boats, which have returned that their crews may celebrate the New Year with their families.\n\nPik-tow, Sha-tsing, Fuk-wing, Sai-heong, and Nam-tow, are the principal fishing stations. At Sha-tsing and Fuk-wing there are extensive oyster beds. Pik-tow, Kong-ping, and Fuk-wing †, are said to be the head-quarters of pirates. Sham-tsün is the chief place of export from the villages occupied by the Hak-kas, who are often met with in long trains, of from 400 to 600, conveying produce to that place. The northern part of the district is inhabited by populous and powerful clans, not unlike in their constitution to the old clans of Scotland; these live in intimate connection with one another for mutual protection.\n\n+\n\nThe villages in the plain of San-keaou, are almost exclusively inhabited by four clans, Man, Mak, Tsang, and Chang. The villages inhabited by other clans are of no importance, and gradually either become absorbed in the more powerful clans, or are ruined by their hostility, and forced to remove to some other part of the country. For instance, the villagers of Hung-tiu changed their name, and adopted that of the powerful clan which inhabited San-keaou. This was done in order to extricate themselves from the endless feuds, which the aggressive conduct of their neighbours involved them in.\n\nThe people are of a quarrelsome nature, and fond of rapine. They will engage in any enterprise which promises them money, or which will give them an opportunity of robbing.\n\nThe mandarin at Fuk-wing once asked me why we attempted to carry out our missionary work, among a people so depraved", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205373, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "128 \n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nrank among the Seu-tsai, twenty of the senior bearing the title of Nam-shang. These Nam-shang have a small pension from Government, and receive some fees from the aspirants to the examination at Canton, who have to procure from them a certificate in reference to their character and acquirements.\n\nThere are only four Keu-jin in the district; these are all Puntis, and from its western part. They are all engaged in teaching.\n\nThere is only one individual in the district who possesses the degree Tsin-tze +, the famous Chan-kwei-chik of Sha-tsing. This man held office in Peking, but was obliged to retire on account of the decease of his parents. One of his parents dying just as the time of mourning for the other had expired, his exclusion from office was protracted to the term of six years. During this period he led rather an indolent life, occasionally engaging in the healing art; but he was never much known till the time when the differences between the British and the Canton authorities commenced in 1856.\n\nHe then offered his services to the Governor General, promising to inflict severe injuries on the British. To effect this, he organised a force of village braves, and endeavoured to stop the supply of provisions to Hongkong. The district magistrate was not at all pleased with the ascendancy of this man, and in several instances showed his dissatisfaction and disapprobation of Chan-kwei-chik's plans. The latter, however, having been invested with dictatorial powers by the Viceroy, exercised them according to his own discretion, and cared nothing for the approbation of the district magistrate, who was at this time his inferior.\n\nThe measures which he adopted were however unpalatable to the people, who rose against him in the district city, and forced him to retire to his native place. It is said that he also got into the bad graces of the Viceroy, who accused him of having squandered public money, and drawn large sums without effecting anything against the enemy. Chan-kwei-chik is still in retirement in Sha-tsing, and amuses himself by playing on the seraphim which he stole from Mr. Genähr's house in Sai-heong.\n\nNo natives of the Sanon district at present hold any high office in other provinces. Since the commencement of the present dynasty (1644), six natives of this province have obtained the degree of Tsin-tze, and 54 that of Keu-jin.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205382, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT\n\n137\n\nlishment in the district, was made in the year 1848, by the Rev. Thomas Hambley, who established a station among the Hak-kas at Toong-foo, at the head of Mirs Bay. In 1849, a station was established at Sai-heong; and in 1852, besides these two principal stations, other small dependent stations have been formed, where preaching and education have been carried on.\n\nBefore the outbreak of the war, the missionaries were able to live in the country, even with their families, and suffered comparatively little disturbance; they travelled in safety freely over the whole country. Their intercourse with the people was quite unrestrained, and the mission houses were visited by the literati, and by the higher classes of people. The mandarin of Fuk-wing was a guest in the mission house at Sai-heong for a whole week; and the first Seu-tsai at Sai-heong, who has since graduated as a Keu-jin, readily accepted an engagement as teacher in the missionary college.\n\nIt is sincerely to be hoped that the present deplorable war, which has for the time put a stop to the mission work, may in the end cause the country to be opened, and thus enable us to have free access to these people, who are as yet imperfectly known, and who perhaps wait only to have the truth fairly represented to them, that they may receive it and believe.\n\nFootnote. Since writing the preface I have come across the following account of Mr Krone given at pp. 206-207 of Memorials of the Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese..............[by Alexander Wylie, whose name does not appear on the title page], Shanghae, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867.\n\n\"CXLI. # # Kaou Hwać-ć. RUDOLPH KRÖNE, a native of Germany, ordained to the ministry of the gospel, was appointed a missionary to China by the Rhenish Missionary Society. He arrived at Hongkong in 1850, and early in the following year took up his residence on the mainland, having charge of the Society's stations at Fuh-yung and San-kiu, while located with Mr. Genähr at Se-heang. At the same time he itinerated a good deal among the people, adopting the native costume and conforming to many of their habits. In 1855 he was married at Hongkong, and resided successively at Puh-yung and Ho-au. Being obliged to retire to Hongkong for a time, during hostilities between the English and Chinese, he returned to the mainland in 1858, and made his residence at Pu-kak. In 1860 he left China on a visit to Europe, where he spent a good deal of time travelling through Germany and Russia. In 1864 he embarked on his return to China by the Egypt route, but died at Aden on the way.\n\nThere is a long article by Mr. Kröne, descriptive of the district of Sin-gan in the province of Kwang-tung, published in Part 6 of the \"Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society\". Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206288, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n99\n\nOn the 1859 contribution list for Chinese textbooks he appears under his usual name, Leong On.\n\nIn 1876 the London Missionary Society wished to raise funds for a proposed school in Wanchai. The Rev. Mr. Eitel called a meeting of the leading Chinese compradores to present his Society's plans and enlist their financial support. However, he encountered the opposition of Leung On at the meeting. Eitel wrote to Mission Directors in London,\n\nI explained the whole subject, especially dwelling on the point that as soon as our native church is able to provide for all the expenses connected with the chapel it shall be handed over to the native church, and that I intended to insert the same stipulation in the deed for the school building. Unfortunately there\n\na very loquacious compradore present, who lately at an interview with the Governor made himself notorious by his narrow self-conceit, a Mr. Leung On, compradore to Gibb, Livingston and Company. He proposed that we should teach the boys no religion but confine ourselves to exclusively secular teachings. When I positively declined doing any such thing, he coolly proposed that I should hand over the piece of ground to him, saying he would build the school himself and keep it going if the Bible and Christian books were excluded. Of course, I declined this proposal, and stuck to my own plans.35\n\nIt is not surprising that Rev. Mr. Eitel does not mention Leung On as one of the contributors to the school fund, though he quickly raised $585 from other compradores and felt confident that the amount could be increased to $2,500 with more extensive solicitations.\n\nIn 1883 Leung On encountered business reverses and the court appointed Trustees to administer his bankrupt estate. He died in 1890 at Canton, leaving an estimated estate in Hong Kong of $20,000. His son and his grandson succeeded to his position as compradore for Gibb, Livingston and Company, the latter dying in 1962; thus the Leung family served the company for well over a century.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207904, "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-1976", "page_number": 292, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n277\n\nIn the face of criticism one of the items discussed at a public meeting held at Tung Wah in 1875 was the question was it \"advisable to have a Kung Soh or Town Hall built so as to separate the functions of the Committee from that of the General Community in order to avoid further criticism\". There was no consensus of agreement on this question at this meeting. Two years earlier the Registrar General had asked the Committee to select two men from each District of Hong Kong to serve as Headmen of the District Watchmen. The Committee had demurred stating that they would like to see a separation of their duties as the Committee of the Hospital and the leaders of the Kai-fong. The Governor agreed that it would be desirable for such a separation -- the occasion was the introduction of the new Hospital Committee to the Governor in July, 1873. So the relation between the Hospital Committee and the Kai-fong leaders had been under discussion for some time, but no definite action was taken. One of the factors seemed to be that for the Kai-fong to function adequately as a separate body from the Tung Wah Committee it needed a proper meeting hall.\n\nAt the time of the discussion concerning separation of the two groups in 1875, a petition was submitted to the Government for the grant of a site at Possession Point on which the Chinese community might build such a Meeting Hall. When the 1876 Committee called on the Governor as was the custom shortly after its election, he said the matter was under consideration. The Chairman of the founding Committee, Mr. Leong On said that they had been obliged to resort to the Hospital as a place of meeting. This had given rise to adverse criticism in the foreign newspaper and they wished to have a meeting house in order to avoid future complaint. However, though the matter was \"under consideration\" by the Government nothing resulted.\n\nAs we have noted one newspaper editor almost from the foundation of the Hospital had grave doubts about the role the Tung Wah Hospital Committee would play as a representative of the Chinese community and its relation to the colonial administration. These misgivings on the part of a segment of the foreign community were not abated by the course of events. An ever growing outcry against the quasi-political activities of the Hospital Committee appeared in the editorials and the correspondence columns of Hong Kong newspapers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208691, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n121\n\nlyze our feelings. We regretted leaving our many friends in Camp, yet were glad to get out to freedom. What would we find in Hong Kong? Would we be allowed to go to the interior of China? Where are we going to stay in Hong Kong? There had been some talk of our staying with the Bishop in his \"Little Seminary\" and again some mention of Bethany at Pokfulam. So there was an element of mystery and of adventure in our trip that day.\n\nAll went well until our truck reached the top of the Wongneichong Gap on the Happy Valley Road. Here there was a barrier and we were stopped by a gendarme, who demanded that we get out of the truck and have our baggage inspected and examined. We were preparing to do this, when Mr. Yamashita, the young Japanese gentleman in charge of Camp affairs, who was sitting with the driver, got down and tried to explain the situation. It seems that the gendarmes had not been informed by the Foreign Office that we were being released, and the officer in charge of this post gave Mr. Yamashita an unmerciful tongue lashing while he, Mr. Yamashita, being a civilian, stood at attention, bowed repeatedly and never answered back a word. At length, when the officer ran out of breath, we were allowed to proceed, without having our baggage examined.\n\nWe then went into the city, stopping finally at the Queen's Road entrance to the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building, one of Hong Kong's newest and most imposing structures, and now occupied by the Japanese Foreign Office. Once inside, we saw Sister Paul and Sister Famula who had already very kindly arranged for our temporary passes. The Sisters were most helpful to us during our first free days in Hong Kong as we felt just like innocents abroad.\n\nAfter securing our passes and arranging for our baggage, Sister Paul told us that our new home is to be Bethany with the French Fathers, but that before going there we were to have tiffin at the Holy Spirit School. We walked up Queen's Road and then up onto Caine Road, feeling rather strange and out of place, but we reached our destination without any misadventure. At the Holy Spirit School we sat down to a real dining room table, with real dishes and knives and forks and most important of all, with some real food, for which we have to thank the Sisters and Mrs. Leong, the wife of our genial friend, the manager and owner of the Metropole", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208804, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "234\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nIn providing this detailed and thoughtful account, the writer has done an immense service to the present governments of Malaya and Singapore — indeed of the region — as well as to students of Chinese society old and new. It is of greater value because of his own personal involvement in the business of government and in the fact that, as stated in his preface (p. xiii), he had the enthusiastic support of police officers of all ranks and officers of the Chinese Affairs Department throughout Malaya and Singapore who conducted enquiries, collected information and translated documents. It is doubtful whether this work could be done again — it is mentioned that many of the police documents of the last colonial period have been destroyed and we should be deeply thankful that Blythe was available to undertake it at the time he did.\n\nT\n\nThe book is well produced, on good quality paper with solid binding and clear large type. The 18 illustrations are as notable as the contents.\n\nHong Kong, May, 1980.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n'Friendly Societies are very good,' said Mr. Van Dyke. “But I am referring to secret and dangerous Societies.\"\n\n'These qualifying names are purely arbitrary,' said Tek Chiu. “All Chinese Societies are professedly good, and they, all of them, are just what members choose to make them. There is no fixed principle according to which you can draw a distinction between those that are exclusively benevolent and friendly, and those that you call secret and dangerous societies.'\n\n'Is the Broken Coffin Society entitled to be called friendly, or is it justly designated secret and dangerous?'\n\n'It is justly designated secret and dangerous. It is the fault of our Triad Society, certainly, that such a dangerous and criminal clique is not exterminated at once. Such bad sets of men are like bad teeth that ought to be pulled out. But because a man has a bad tooth in his head, he should not be prohibited from eating.\"\n\nLamont continues: A Chinaman is a social being—a tool rather than a member of his community. If he were to cease living a social life, he would cease to be a Chinaman. The Chinaman abroad lives a large part of his being in the 'hoey. The hoey unites men more closely even than the sons of one father in a family. So powerful is the bond of this Freemasonry of China, that if two brothers in a family belong to different hoeys their relationship in such a set of circumstances is more distant than is that which subsists between those members of one hoey who are not relatives in the ordinary sense at all.\n\nTek Chiu's view, that Chinese societies are what members choose to make them, can also be found in Leong Gor Yun's Chinatown Inside Out (New York: Barrows Mussey, 1936), especially Chapter Two.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "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 } ]