[
    {
        "id": 214185,
        "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": 43,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "6\n\nlaughter to one person and a mere smile to another. Indeed to a third person, the joke may fall completely flat. People often do not agree about what they find funny. Why? Much is physiological and beyond the scope of this paper. Some people take the view that life is not funny and you need to be a philosopher to extract fun from it. Nevertheless, few men or women will confess to a total lack of humour. As Frank Moore Colby (1865-1925) the United States editor wrote:\n\nMen will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humour? The British statesman, William Gladstone (1809-98), is one of the few who was said by his critics to have been entirely lacking in humour (Muir, 1990; XXXII).\n\nSidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) the French novelist wrote: Total absence of humour renders life impossible (one could add, this applies for both Chinese and Westerners).\n\nNevertheless humour is probably not unique to the human race and many canine lovers will tell you can sometimes spot a grin on the face of a dog.\n\nWestern senses of humour\n\nThe brand of humour common in the United States, where people are not afraid to ‘debunk' anyone or anything, is, according to one middle-aged American woman living in Hong Kong, not always the most subtle. It can vary considerably compared to the humour, often based on behaviour or appearance, found in Britain where irony is frequently used and words portray the opposite of what is actually meant. Of course an Englishman may be unable to laugh at a Chinese joke because he has insufficient command of the language.\n\nFor instance, a European and a Cantonese were arguing how America was discovered. The European said Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492, together with soldiers and missionaries. Columbus landed, kissed the ground, and declared the name of the new land 'America'. The Chinese disagreed saying that Fa-Xian (AD 337-422), a Buddhist monk, landed there in a Chinese junk. As he walked up the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215020,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 116,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "72\n\nThe Mairie is only open part-time and we again gained some useful advice and knowledge.\n\nThe Chateau de Fransu, the billet of Col. Fairfax, GHQ Adviser, CLC, is now a logis, mainly for families. During the Second World War it was the local German HQ. [see photograph]\n\nThe Chateau de Thesy in extensive grounds was the officers quarters and mess for the HQ, CLC. It is now being extensively renovated. It is privately owned. [see photograph]\n\nThe Hotel des Voyages, near the railway station, was the main café of the village and was patronised by British Labour Corps NCOs. It is now the Hotel Restaurant Bernard. [see photograph]\n\nWhen visiting, we stayed at the 16th century Auberge du Chateau de Nolette, about a mile from Noyelles-sur-Mer and within easy walking distance.\n\nOutside the church at Noyelles-sur-Mer there is a memorial to those from the village who were killed. We saw some young children playing around it and I was moved to think that those named on the memorial did not die in vain so that future generations may live in peace and freedom.\n\nOn a later visit, a few weeks later, this time accompanied by Keith Stevens, we managed to visit the grounds of both the Chateau de Fransu and the Chateau de Thesy and spoke with the owner of the former and the caretaker of the latter. We also visited the site where possibly the Chinese hospital, with subordinate and ancillary buildings and detention centre had been established. French residents of a lone newish house almost opposite pointed out where they understood the hospital and detention centre had been.\n\nAn unexpected, and to date unexplained, observation was the pair of small white stone Chinese lions concreted on to plinths at a main cross-roads within Nolette, very close to Noyelles-sur-Mer. The inscriptions, in Chinese and French, explain that they were donated to commemorate the twinning, in 1994, of the small village of Noyelles-sur-Mer with the fishing town of Tungkang [Donggang] some forty",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215029,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 125,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "81\n\nthe scars of the beating. They would then be sent to the camp hospital, where a kind Scottish doctor, Major Gray, would do his best to treat them...\n\n'Dead of what? Disease, only attended to when too late. Those who succumbed to harsh treatment, beatings, poor nourishment, the climate and cold. I saw one tied to a tree and savagely beaten. He died. But why such harsh treatment? Because they were not allowed to leave camp to walk in the village. Also, there were problems with the [French] women. This has always been the same throughout history. Some managed to escape at night, for one night. And at dawn, instead of returning to camp, where they knew they would be beaten to death, they would rather hide in the fields, buried in haystacks, where they would be found, weeks later, dead of hunger and cold. After the war many skeletons were found when the camp was dismantled. Many preferred to bury themselves alive rather than to return to the \"hell of Nolette.\" They were buried like animals, standing up, especially at first. Often their heads could be seen. It was only later that gravestones were arranged and maintained properly to erase the awful memories and so that the public could be kept in blissful ignorance of what really happened.'\n\nMonsieur Réveillon recounts: 'In 1917 I was 13 years old. Nobody by then paid any attention to French or English soldiers. But the whole population assisted on the arrival of these \"Little Yellow Men\" with complete bewilderment. They were odd, with their plait down the back, their padded blue sleeveless clothes, puffed-up trousers and slippers of the same material, which did not appear to have a sole and on which they walked silently.'\n\n‘On arrival, the Chinese were directed to the Camp located on sides of the road to Sailly. They live here, slightly in retreat where they have built a pagoda to pray. Only 2 street sweepers, always the same two, have contact with the villagers. Silently, they warm themselves in Mr Réveillon's father's forge. Other workers clean the stables where the English keep their horses. A bamboo stick in one hand, a basket in the other, they remove the manure. They also visit the shopkeeper, who is not always honest and sell them outdated stock hats, belts - at sometimes inflated prices. Apart from these rare contacts, the villagers did not approach the Chinese whose smile, they thought,\n\nww",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]