[
    {
        "id": 208639,
        "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": 96,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n69\n\ninto a small flat. They, as well as the Dominicans, lost heavily in property and investments, and many wealthy Chinese families are practically penniless. The Sisters held on to the Holy Spirit School, Sister Paul fighting a great battle for it; but of course, they lost their Convent and School at Kowloon. The Canossian Hospital was hit by a bomb and burned to the ground. The Precious Blood Hospital in Kowloon was hit by a shell and destroyed. One of the churches in Kowloon City was confiscated and razed to make room for an extended airfield. All schools have been closed down, and the Italian and French Sisters, with their immense compounds, are suffering.\n\nThe day after Bishop O'Gara and Fathers Norris and Benson went into Hong Kong, the Japanese issued notices to the effect that all enemy nationals should assemble on the Murray Parade ground, bringing with them only handbags and leaving their homes in the custody of caretakers. Not realizing exactly what was in the air, most of the inhabitants of Hong Kong did so, and after they had assembled, were promptly marched off to dingy Chinese hotels where they were interned. The quarters were naturally poor, ill-furnished, and crowded, and the food was meagre. They were allowed no intercourse with the outside world, and were kept in this durance vile for some two weeks, when they were transferred to the Civilian Internment Camp at Stanley.\n\nFrom the seventh to the fourteenth of January, we lived a life of expectancy. We finished cleaning up the premises, tried to carry on language classes, and read a good deal. One day during this time, some Japanese soldiers came up in a truck and borrowed fifteen of our dining-room chairs. They said the officers were having an important meeting nearby and would return the chairs later. We were mistrustful of them, but later the chairs came back, with thanks. One of the soldiers insisted on taking a group picture, and of course, we obliged him. A few days later, some of our tables were again borrowed, but this time, they did not reappear. “So sorry, our tables now!” For a time, there was a threatened water shortage, but the supply came on again.\n\nWith no opportunity to buy food, our supply is gradually dwindling. On the thirteenth, we had no more prunes for breakfast. Just coffee and oatmeal, the hardtack biscuits also being used up. The last of these began to get a bit wormy, but hunger did not notice the worms.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211689,
        "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": 104,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "79\n\nCommandant of the near-by Gendarmerie post promised us protection, he took no steps to implement his promise, and we had a number of invasions from parties of Japanese soldiers, on and off duty, sometimes searching for arms, sometimes frankly looting watches, jewellery and other small valuables. My wife had a polite but firm way of dealing with these intruders, and in the end they got nothing from us but some cigarettes.\n\nOn January 3rd Mr. Gimson (the Colonial Secretary) and Mr. Alabaster (the Attorney-General) came up the hill to find out what had happened to us. They told me that they had spoken to Mr. Yano (who had come back to Hongkong temporarily as Consul-General) and the Gendarmerie people about us and the other Embassy and Consular personnel who were in Hongkong (Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Rich, Evans, Herrett and Miss Howkins) and we were to be given special consideration. This was comforting but in the event did not mean very much as there was the usual confusion between the different Japanese authorities, none of whom seemed to pay the slightest attention to the others.\n\nThen on January 5th notices were posted up in different places instructing all enemy aliens to report at the Murray Parade Ground between 10 a.m. and noon for internment. The notice said they could take what luggage they could carry in their hands and that they must leave the rest of their property in charge of some responsible person. This notice only came to our knowledge on the Peak at 9 a.m. People didn't know what on earth to do. If they started off immediately, walking down the Peak, they could get to the Murray Parade Ground in time. But there were old people, babies and invalids. Most people thought it would be dangerous to disobey a peremptory order like that, and they struggled down the hill as best they could, taking a suitcase or pushing a pram and abandoning everything else to the looters.\n\nFor my wife and myself there was no problem as we couldn't walk, so we decided to stay and hope for the best, and a good number of others followed our example. As it happened, things turned out all right, as Sir Arthur Macgregor called later in the day to say that he had arranged with the Gendarmerie that the people still on the Peak might remain temporarily but must be ready to move at a minute's notice. However, the Police post had gone, we were in difficulties about food and water (we had eaten the last crust of three-weeks-old bread that morning), and we had had an unpleasant visit from a party of Japanese soldiers at 2 a.m. We were completely alone in the flat, other flats in the building had already been looted, and generally the situation was unpromising. So we asked Sir Atholl to try",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216097,
        "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": 396,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "330\n\nthe long queue. After a few words from him and a few glares from odd people lined up, formalities were completed. My barging in seemed, more or less, to have been accepted.\n\nIn January 1955, I remember going to a new workshop which was being built for the government Public Works Department at So Kon Po, on Hong Kong Island. There, old women were straightening nails, for reuse, which had been knocked out of timber formwork into which concrete was poured. They were paid $1.50 a day. Tradesmen were paid $5.00.\n\nWhat were my other impressions of the winter of 1954/55? I could not get over how crystal clear the sky was as I stood on Hong Kong Island gazing northward over the Kowloon foothills. Leading on, jumping to 1964, businessman K.A. Watson of the Traffic Advisory Committee, said: 'Hong Kong might one day have a smog problem as bad as Los Angeles unless action is taken to eliminate vehicle exhaust fumes.' No one took much notice.\n\nIn those days if one spoke of 'the Government' one meant the one in Whitehall. But if one wrote 'government,' with no definite article and a small 'g,' then one meant the administration in Hong Kong. Interestingly, during the 1957/58 legislative year, only one question was asked in the Legislative Council among the eight unofficial (non-government) Councillors and they only, between them, made a total of 12 speeches.\n\nHong Kong was a pretty colonial place in those days and there was always a military parade with bands marching along the streets of Kowloon on the morning of 21st April. It was a public holiday and the Queen's Birthday. It was a jingoistic occasion with a few Britons carrying furled umbrellas and wearing bowler hats. In the 1950s the Murray Parade Ground was regularly used, near the Garden Road-Queen's Road corner, opposite the cricket field where Chater Garden is situated today.\n\nWe went into \"whites\" on about 1st May and this, for most of us in government at least, meant shorts with shirts tucked in and knee-length socks. We changed back to heavy clothing on about 1st November. My old boss, typical of the more senior, used to come down on the Peak",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]