[ { "id": 206666, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "208\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nit is easy to see what it was like in 1841 when Britain occupied Hong Kong.\n\nUniversity Hall began life in the early 1860s as Castle Douglas, the fanciful creation of Douglas Lapraik, an early Hong Kong ship-owner (see J. Llewellyn's article from Volume XI, (1967-68) of Outpost, the annual magazine of University Hall Students' Association). The house and estate were sold to the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (hereafter called the French Mission) in May, 1894, rebuilt and extended, and renamed Nazareth House.\n\nThe Mission figures prominently in today's tour, since we shall visit the Maison de Béthanie, opposite Castle Douglas, that also belonged to it. Before proceeding further to describe Nazareth House and Béthanie, I shall mention something of its work and history.\n\nAccording to Samuel Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1917) p. 378, the Société, all of whose members were French, was, at the time he wrote, a society of secular priests who, without being tied to any religious vow, devoted themselves to the propagation of the Catholic faith in the Far East. It originated in the middle of the 17th century by some French priests proceeding by invitation to Tonkin to assist the work of the Jesuits there. Its first missionary to reach China proper was Mgr. Pallu in 1681. It had no Superior-General but was administered by the heads of the different Missions, and by the Directors of the Seminary in Paris.\n\nThe Society provided more workers and more martyrs than any other of the bodies that evangelized the Far East. At the time Couling wrote, it had under its care 12 Vicariats with 462,321 Christians, and more than 160 of its members had been made bishops.\n\nBesides its Missions in China, the Société had in Hong Kong a famous printing house, the Nazareth Press, which began its work soon after the first Nazareth House was opened in Macau in December 1884. Nazareth House soon moved to Hong Kong, to Tai Ku Lau, Pokfulam, (see below) 1885-1891, then to Richmond Terrace above Kennedy Town in the Western District of Hong Kong (1891-1895) and then to Castle Douglas, renamed Nazareth (1895-1953). The printing press went with it in all these removals.\n\nThe Nazareth Press was a notable achievement. It occupied a special building at Tai Ku Lau, with the presses on the ground floor and the setting rooms above. A special extension was later built", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206667, "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": 215, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n209 \n\nat Castle Douglas. It was a very large building as befitted the size and importance of the Press, and can be seen on the old photographs on view in the entrance corridor at University Hall. \n\nAn account by the Rev. Fr. Leon Trivière states: \n\nThe press used 67,899 matrices, which shows how much work was carried on at this house. Thousands of examples of catechisms, prayer-books, works on dogma and morality, spirituality and meditation, the pastorate, canon law, sermons, catechesis, liturgy were brought out. These books were published in 28 languages: Chinese, Annamite, Latin, French, English, Chamorro, Tibetan, Laotian, Malay, Tho (Cao-Bang), Cambodian, Japanese, Thai (Chau-Laos), Banhnar, Portuguese, Kanaka, Lolo, Tagalog, Yap, German, Italian, Siamese, Kanao, Korean, Dioi, Palau, Spanish and Ainu. Notable among the publications of Nazareth Press was an amazing collection of dictionaries printed in twelve languages. A certain number of them were honoured by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, and sought after by great Universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, London, etc. ...or by famous Libraries specialising in Oriental Languages. Numerous works by missionaries attached to the École Française d'Extrême-Orient, the Académie Stanislaus and other bodies engaged in scientific research, were printed at Nazareth \n\nNazareth House. Considerable building alterations and additions were made to Castle Douglas by the Mission, including, some years after its occupation, an extensive reconstruction of the original building which was in danger of collapsing. The additions included dormitory accommodation, a chapel, a library and the printing house. The new House was first used in May 1896 and the chapel was blessed in October of that year. A life of prayer and work on editing, translating, printing and proof-reading was inaugurated at the former Castle Douglas, and was to continue until the Japanese Occupation in 1941-1945. The house continued to be used by the Fathers in those years, but printing stopped. Work began again after the war; but with the establishment of the People's Government at Peking in 1949, continental China was soon closed to foreign missionary effort, and in 1953 the Central Council in Paris decided to give up Nazareth House. It was bought by the University of Hong Kong in 1954, to be used as a Hall of Residence for students.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206669, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n211 \n\nWe shall then walk to the Cemetery, five minutes walk through the grounds. I have not been able to re-visit recently, and you must look for yourselves. Father Caminondo states that there is persistent vandalism against the crosses on the headstones. From 1875 up to now, he writes, four bishops and 94 priests have been buried here.\n\nPokfulam Village. There is nothing attractive about the present village, which mostly consists of small single-storey stone or wooden structures erected in haphazard fashion round the single row of old village houses that constituted the original village. The village is listed in the Chinese district gazetteer of San On (1819 edition) and thus pre-dates the British occupation of Hong Kong in 1841. The Chan (1) clan of Pokfulam, which probably settled the area in the 18th century, is still there today. They are Puntis, from Po On district. The Chans owned most of the agricultural land in the area, and fished by line and stakenet from suitable points on the coast. One of their stakenets is still in use today. Many of the fields above the Hong Kong Waterfall (see below) still belong to them, and up till 1941 were used to cultivate rice. (This was prohibited after the war on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, as part of a government campaign against malaria).\n\nWe shall not enter the village which has now little of interest, but will walk to the point indicated on the sketch map* from which we can see the Red Brick Pagoda erected, according to the date on it, in 1916. Three old residents, born in 1897-1900, say that it was erected by decision of the village leaders with subscriptions from all residents. It was built to counteract the bad influences of a then new culvert constructed under the Aberdeen Road, near the point from which we shall observe. Its wide black mouth faced onto the village, and made the villagers uneasy. An epidemic in which many residents became ill, and a supernatural event in which a goddess appeared to one of the villagers in a dream, decided the issue, and the pagoda was built. It is named Ling Tap (). The image inside it is of the goddess, known as Li Ling Shin Che (4). She is said to be of local origin, but I have not yet been able to check this thoroughly.\n\nWe then walk into Tai Ku Lau. This was the building occupied by Nazareth House between 1885-1891. It was a European house\n\n* Not printed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208603, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\nNOVEMBER\n\n33\n\nPat Wong, an old Maryknoll friend from our first days in Hong Kong, and now visiting the Colony from his new home in Honolulu, took the new men to their first Chinese banquet with no casualties reported.\n\nThe Kongmoon contingent among the new men, with Father O'Melia as guide and teacher, take off for the Tan Chuk Seminary in the Wuchow Mission as the new site for the Language School; a safety precaution in view of the worsening conditions between the Japanese and the British-American bloc. Father Siebert, assigned to Kaying, will leave for there later on.\n\nThe Stanley staff went to the dock to greet the S.S. Van Buren and the other new missioners but they were not on board - a mystery!\n\nBrother William arrived from Shanghai where he has been staying with Father Whitlow for some time. He is unable to return to Korea at present.\n\nFather Don Hessler arrived from Kweilin by plane for a rest after his recent bout with typhoid. Father Barney Meyer goes to the Paris Foreign Mission compound, \"Nazareth,\" for a retreat preparatory to his coming jubilee. Father Feeney and Father Bauer arrive, the latter for treatment at St. Paul's for a bad case of dysentery. The end of the month brought Passionist Bishop Cuthbert O'Gara by plane from Kweilin.\n\nPART II: WAR AND OCCUPATION, DECEMBER 1941 -- AUGUST 1945\n\nWith the proximity of the Japanese across the border, the atmosphere in the Colony was rather tense. When Canton fell to the Japanese, there was a mass flight of refugees to Hong Kong. It was then estimated that some one hundred thousand came in 1939, bringing the population of the Colony at the outbreak of hostilities to approximately one million six hundred thousand, and it was thought that at the height of the influx, some half a million were sleeping on the streets.\n\nThen, on the fateful date of December 8th, the quiet of the Maryknoll House was rudely broken by the events of what was, no...\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208692, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "122\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nHotel. Well, we did justice to that meal! Sister Paul also lost no time in informing us that we had every hope of getting out of the Colony within a few weeks, and that even then she was working on our necessary passes and permits to go to Kwongchauwan. Right then and there we signed our forms, affixed our photographs (she, in her admirable foresight, had even these all prepared) and after the second group had arrived and carried out their part of the program, it was time to sit down to another real honest-to-goodness meal. Of course, these were still wartime meals, but we enjoyed them hugely. Then we trekked down to the bund, caught the eight o'clock bus to Aberdeen, and soon were knocking at the door of Bethany, where we were heartily welcomed by the Superior, Father Bos and Father Chaye, the Belgian priest, who, it will be recalled, was once our fellow-internee at Stanley. They were the only two priests in the House, and the rest of it was at our disposal. Our rooms were all prepared and we lost no time in getting under real covers and settling down to rest, after such an exciting and memorable day.\n\nThe next morning found us saying Mass at real altars in a real Chapel, and sitting down to breakfast table at which we enjoyed some of the food which again Sister Paul had previously provided. She had also very thoughtfully engaged a cook and a house-boy for us, and everything was shipshape.\n\nBethany is a sort of Rest House for sick and aged Paris Foreign missioners, and the scriptural inscription over its main portal is pregnant with meaning: \"Magister, quem amas, infirmatur” \"Master, he whom thou lovest, is sick.\" Just across from Nazareth is the Retreat House and Printing Press of the same society; it is situated on a knoll overlooking the beautiful South China Sea, and on the slopes of its hill are the graves of a hundred of its valiant missioners who have labored in almost all parts of the Far East. Its little Gothic chapel has a charm all its own, and must be redolent of memories for those who have spent some time within the walls of Bethany. Needless to say, we Maryknollers were delighted to have this haven of refuge and we are all more than grateful to the French Fathers who have been so uniformly kind.\n\nOn the Monday following our arrival, we went to the city in company with Father Troesch in order to secure our ration cards and to register our names and addresses with the proper precinct.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 } ]