[
    {
        "id": 204236,
        "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-1961",
        "page_number": 4,
        "title": "RAS-1961",
        "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n1\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE\n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was originally founded in 1847, but it ceased to exist at the end of 1859. Exactly a century later, on December 28, 1959, it was resuscitated with the approval of the parent society in London - The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society was founded in March 1823 \"for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts, in relation to Asia\". It received its Charter of Incorporation as a royal society from George IV on August 11, 1824. The Royal Asiatic Society is the oldest and most important Society of its kind in Europe, and its standing as the doyen of Societies promoting the study of Asia has been maintained by the devotion of generations of eminent scholars, explorers and others who have contributed through its Journal, in public addresses and in many other ways, a rich harvest of knowledge, both academic and practical, in the service of Western understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has always been done through its branches and affiliated Societies in the East. Branches were formed at Bombay and at Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878, and the Korean in 1900, etc. etc.\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH grew out of a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in 1845. This Society, however, in accord with the contemporary spirit of inquiry and the enthusiasm for better knowledge of Asia in general and China in particular, had contemplated setting up a Philosophical Society; but the movement ended in the establishment of the Asiatic Society with laws drafted by Andrew Shortrede, Editor of the China Mail, framed on the model of those of the Royal Asiatic Society. Sir John F. Davis, the Governor, by reason of his known literary and scientific acquirements rather than his official rank, was asked to be President. He suggested that the Society should seek to be admitted as a Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society with which, as a founder member, he was in close touch and with whose active President, the Earl of Auckland, he had discussions on these lines before he left England.\n\nSo in January 1847 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was founded, and all the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society who wished to join were admitted without ballot or entrance fee on condition of their Society's apparatus and books being handed over to the new body.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205101,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 57,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "52\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nKhan of the Golden Horde (r. 1313-1340) is mentioned together with a very few notes on some nations which belonged to the Golden Horde, the Cherkess, the Alans and Ossetes, the Qipchaq Turks, the Russians (Wo-lo-ssu, from the Mongol Oros) and the Bulgars (Chinese Pu-li-a-êrh). Under the Qipchaq entry we find some data mentioning Russia and the Russians, such as Batus' conquest of Yeh-lieh-tsan which is the Chinese name for the ancient Russian town of Ryazan (1237), adorned with an Altaic prothetic vowel (like Oros from Ros, Rus). And in 1253 the Chinese annals record that a Mongol dignitary was dispatched to register the households of the Russians for taxation purposes. This was under the Great Khan Mongke (r. 1251-1259) under whom there was still a certain unity of command over the vast territories of the Mongol empire. But in later years the cohesion among the ulus was reduced more and more, and the Chinese official sources have little if anything to say of the West.\n\nThe multi-national auxiliaries of the Mongols included some Russians. These were mostly slaves, or prisoners of war, and repeatedly gifts to the Mongol rulers in China of Russian slaves are mentioned. In 1330 even a Russian guards regiment was established in Peking. There were other guards regiments in addition to the Mongol and Chinese soldiers at that time, consisting of Alans (i.e., Ossetes), Tanguts, Jurchen, Koreans, Qipchaq, and \"Western Regions People\", probably from Turkestan. And a Mohammedan (Hui-hui) artillery corps was equally a part of the Mongol armed forces. The Russians who served in the Peking guards regiment were given land north of Peking and settled there as military colonists. Their total number must have been something like 10,000 because the Yuan-shih mentions that figure in 1330. Other Russian troops were, together with Ossetes, dispatched to the Manchurian and Korean borders (Liao-yang Province), and to places in Northern China. As late as 1339 the Chancellor Bayan was appointed a commander of these Russian soldiers but after that date no more is heard of them. We do not know what became of these Europeans who had been a definitely Western element in the multi-national metropolis of Yüan China.\n\nIf official Chinese historiography as reflected in the dynastic annals did not display any great interest in the West, there are at least other fields where we find traces of broader world conception stimulated by a growing consciousness that the world did stretch",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205410,
        "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": 172,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n165 \n\ntimes) as the sole export agent for producers of a special kind of incense which, then as now, was widely used for ritual worship in temples and in the home. Incense is said to have been shipped to Aberdeen by sea from Kowloon Point, to which it had been brought from various parts of the San On and Tung Kwun districts. It was then re-shipped in large trading vessels to Canton, from which it was carried overland to the north to such cities as Soochow. (It is not entirely clear to me why such a round-about route was taken to bring incense to Canton.) The cultivation and trade in this specially-favoured type of incense is said to have received a fatal blow in the early Ching period when the government evacuated the coastal areas to deny the aid and collaboration of their inhabitants to the anti-Manchu ruler of Formosa and his sympathisers.14\n\nSir Show-son CHOW (1861 - 1959). Sir Show-son CHOW who died only a few years ago, at a great age, was one of the most famous members of the Hong Kong community. He was truly a local man as his ancestors had lived in Little Hong Kong for several hundred years. His successful career, though the result of his own merits, was made possible through his father, whose abilities removed him from a farming village to the business centre of Canton and the position of compradore to the Hong Kong and Canton Steamship Company. He was in business in Canton and it was there that his son, the future Sir Show-son, was educated. By reason of this opportunity, and his own undoubted capacity, the son was selected as a free scholar by the Chinese Government as one of the first batch of Chinese youths to be sent to America for a Western education. This was in 1874, when the boy was only 13 years old. He returned to China in 1881 and for the next 16 years held important posts in Korea in the Korean Customs Service and the Chinese consular service in that country. He was President of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company at Tientsin, 1897-1903 and was managing director, Imperial Chinese Railways of North China, Peking-Mukden line, 1903 - 1907. From then until 1910, he was Customs Superintendent of Trade and Counsellor for Foreign Affairs at Newchwang, North China. On his return to Hong Kong after the 1911 Revolution his wide experience, undoubted ability and excellent reputation led to his being appointed to directorships in many firms and public utility concerns. He was appointed a member of the Legislative and Executive Councils and was knighted in 1926. He also",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206534,
        "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": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "76\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\ntrove is not certain. In Lion and Dragon in Northern China (1910), R.F. Johnston used the folklore material he himself garnered in Weihaiwei for purposes that are now regarded as dubious. It is clear Johnston was influenced by the theories of the cultural diffusionists, who attempted to trace everything back either to a common source or to a process of borrowing from other cultures; in other words, Johnston went far beyond the evidence available and indulged in highly conjectural reconstructions of what could have happened in the past. But Lockhart published only two papers on folklore and, as far as can be ascertained, did not engage in any comparative or theoretical study of the subject. However, it seems plausible to conclude that he, like Johnston, must have been influenced by the climate of anthropological opinion in his time, for both were active in this field before the functionalist anthropologists became intellectually influential.\n\nLockhart had a lifelong interest in numismatics and over the years he was able to build up a fine collection of Chinese copper coins. In 1895 the first two volumes of his The Currency of the Farther East, published by Noronha and Co., Hong Kong, was produced in an edition of 250 copies. The third volume appeared in 1898. The collection of coins illustrated in the work — Chinese, Annamese, Japanese and Korean — had been made by G.B. Glover of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, who had supervised the production of the plates printed from blocks. But Glover died before the book went to press and it was Lockhart who supplied the introductions to the three volumes and information about the dates and inscriptions on the coins. In 1915 The Stewart Lockhart Collection of Chinese Copper Coins appeared as a one-volume supplement to the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 'This book,' wrote a reviewer in 1915, 'is the first of its kind, and is calculated to stimulate the interest of those who have wished to collect Chinese cash, but have been hitherto deterred from doing so by the absence of any guide to the subject.'63 In 1967 an authority on coins stated that: this is one of the all-time standard works on collecting Chinese coins, with 2,070 coins illustrated. He has put a great deal of interesting material in the introductory fifteen pages.'64 The publication of the book caused Lockhart many problems, for he and the Chinese engraver he employed worked on the text and illustrations at Port Edward, Weihaiwei, while the book was being set up piecemeal in Shanghai.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206690,
        "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": 238,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "232\n\n \nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n \nSo much for the contents; the background is in many ways even more interesting. As Korea is a peninsula, it is a natural junction of migration routes from the North. Some species cross the north of the peninsula to continue down the coast of China, and these are rare in the Republic of Korea. Others pass through Korea, and then go either south-east to Japan and the Ryukyus, or south-west to rejoin the coast of China lower down. This has been the subject of many years of study by Professor Won, who ringed over 185,000 birds in seven years between 1964 and 1970. Migration in Asia is still comparatively little known, although an intensive programme run by the U.S. Government Migratory Animals Pathological Survey over this period, involving the ringing of several million birds in many countries in Asia, has begun to scratch the surface of our vast ignorance of this subject.\n\n \nThe conservation of wildlife is in most parts of Asia merely a pipedream for the future; though National Parks are being established in a few countries, and in a few isolated instances, particularly in Japan, special attention has been paid to the preservation of endangered species of birds, such as the Japanese Crested Ibis. The Republic of Korea shows an utter disregard for the welfare of the 'commoner' birds, to the extent that very few can be seen near the cities, and those in the remoter agricultural areas are more and more affected by pesticides. On the other hand, fifteen species are designated as National Treasures, and are protected at all times, and a number of areas are designated as nature reserves. The authors express the hope \"that in future the law will not be flaunted to the point where a mounted specimen of a 'National Treasure' may be seen openly for sale in a shop in the centre of Seoul!”\n\n \nTheir hope was fulfilled rather sooner than they might have wished. In April 1971, a nest of the Oriental White Stork was discovered for the first time for at least ten years; this is a species, or subspecies, in grave danger of extinction. Four days after the nest was found, the male was shot a mile and a half away. The offender was caught, and prosecuted, and subsequently given six months in jail for the offence.\n\n \nWith this kind of encouragement, and with the help of Gore and Won's book, let us hope that the future of Korean ornithology will be brighter than the past. This book was, I know, a costly venture, and the enterprise of the two authors and of its publishers, the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207372,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 140,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "132\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nbecame American citizens,93 Meiji Japan held similar views and pursued similar policies. In short, China's response to the basic problems of employing foreign military men, although tinged with specific characteristics of Chinese political culture such as a special emphasis on personalistic relations, was reasonably enlightened, and not fundamentally different from that of other countries, Asian or Western.95\n\nChina's attempt to build a modern, Western-trained officer corps in the T'ung-chih period did not fail because the foreigners she employed refused to become Chinese subjects or to accept Chinese culture. It failed primarily because the Chinese did not use foreign military assistance in a systematic and sustained way, as did, for example, Meiji Japan. Plagued by continual foreign meddling, and unwilling to fundamentally restructure the existing military establishment with its carefully devised system of checks and balances, the weak Ch'ing government neglected to sponsor meaningful, centralized military reform, dooming itself to defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1894-95.97\n\nNOTES\n\n1 See, for example, Edward Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), esp. p. 49, 291 note 75; Henry Serruys, \"Were the Ming against the Mongols settling in North China?,\" Oriens Extremus, 6 (1959), 136ff; etc.\n\n2 For the employment of foreigners under these circumstances, consult Wolfram Eberhard, Conquerors and Rulers (Leiden, 1965); Lei Hai-tsung, Chung-kuo wen-hua yû Chung-kuo ti ping [Chinese Culture and the Chinese Military] (Ch'ang-sha, 1940); Michael Loewe, Imperial China (New York, 1969), 182.\n\n3 Kuwabara Jitsuzo, “On P'u Shou-keng,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, 7 (1935), 44-45; also Su Ch'ing-pin, (Liang Han ch'i Wu-tai ju-chi Chung-kuo chih fan shih-tsu yen-chiu) [Research on barbarian families residing in China during the period from the Han to the Five Dynasties] (Hong Kong, 1967), 2; Wai-ming George Yuan, \"Ko Son-ji (Kao Hsien-chih): A Korean in the Chinese Military Service,” Asea Yongu, 13.3 (1970), 160.\n\n4 See the forward to this work in Li Te-yü's collected writings, Li Wei-kung hui-ch'ang i-pin chih [The collected works of Li Te-yu] (Shanghai, 1937), chüan 2, 10-11 (consecutive pagination). The book is listed in the sections on literature in the T'ang-shu (2:20) and the Sung-shih (2:19a). All references to the dynastic histories are to the po-na edition.\n\n5 I have discussed these challenges and their implications in a forthcoming study entitled . (University of California Press).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208563,
        "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": 20,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "the future we hope it may be possible to organise a small group to visit cultural sites in Thailand (e.g. Chiangmai, Pimai, Sukhothai and Ban Chiang). December might be particularly convenient in view of the projected Hong Kong-Chiangmai direct service by Thai International from April 1. Another small group may be able to visit South Korea at Easter 1980, in cooperation with the Korean Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Plans for these visits have to be made many months in advance and many members have found it necessary in the past to withdraw after initial arrangements have been made. Some sixteen members, for example, withdrew from the proposed Darjeeling-Sikkim visit after payment of deposits which were fully refunded. But this entailed a substantial amount of rearrangement of aircraft, hotels, ground transport, and so forth. Although recent and forthcoming excursions are arranged on a 'break even' basis for the Society, they are at considerably less cost to participants than for individual travel; and it may be necessary to consider levying some non-refundable service charge in future to protect the Society's financial interests. I would like to thank Dr. Shaw for all the time and effort he has put into these excursion arrangements and I am sure those who have participated would wish me to do so. Janie Thomas of Urbis Planning Design has also offered to include interested members of our Society in a trip she is planning for later this year to Shanghai and Peking. All except our very recently joined members have been circulated with information about her proposals.\n\nPublications\n\nWork continues for our proposed publication of photographs with text of old Hong Kong buildings. Many of the buildings photographed — by members of your Council and friends — have since been demolished. Mr. Tony Rydings has played a very active role in this project together with Mr. Ian Diamond. We are now, so to speak, on the home stretch in this publication project with approximately three-quarters of the text assembled and the photographs in place. We would like also to thank Dr. Solomon Bard, Executive Secretary, Antiquities and Monuments Section, Urban Services Department, for much material assistance with the project.\n\nThe 1977 Journal is now being distributed to all members, and Dr. Hayes has already submitted a draft list of contents for the 1978 issue which promises to have a great deal of interesting and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208637,
        "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": 94,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n67\n\nLooking forward, as only Father Meyer can do, he buys a small pig and puts it down in brine, and now and then in addition to our cans of bully beef, we have a slice of salt pork.\n\nSome of us are anxious to get to Hong Kong for various reasons. Bishop O'Gara to see the dentist and Father Troesch, with his procuratorial instinct, to see about food supplies. Permission therefore being duly secured, the Bishop, accompanied by Fathers Benson and Norris, C. P., start out for Hong Kong on foot, as there isn't a car on the road, save occasionally Japanese army trucks or official cars. Father Troesch also succeeds in getting passes for two, and he and Father Meyer trek in to see what is to be seen and what is to be done. We are also rationing our Mass candles and wine.\n\nAfter saying Mass on the sixth at the Carmelite Convent, the Bishop comes up again to see us. With him is a Korean Seminarian from Rosary Hill. As a few of our members are ill, this seminarian is instrumental in securing the services of a Japanese doctor. He seemed rather kindly disposed, but could not do much under the circumstances, though he promised to have the sick men transported to Queen Mary Hospital. Accordingly, in the afternoon, a truck drew up in our driveway and Father Bauer, Brothers Michael and Thaddeus are put aboard. Bishop Valtorta and Father Toomey get permission to accompany them. Fathers Troesch and Meyer return with the news that Bishop O'Gara and Fathers Benson and Norris have been interned in Hong Kong! We may be next, but nevertheless today we again started our language classes.\n\nAnd now for a little retrospect as to what happened in Hong Kong after the 16th, when the writer returned to Stanley. We left the Japanese in complete possession of Kowloon and as their peace mission failed, they returned to prosecute the siege of Hong Kong. The shelling and bombing kept up, and within a few days, they had effected a landing on the Island at North Point, from which place they advanced towards the city and inland to Stanley. Later, other landings were undoubtedly made as they were soon in control of Aberdeen and Repulse Bay. The guns on Stonecutters Island had been silenced as were those on Mt. Davis. Bitter street fighting took place as the enemy advanced to Causeway Bay and through Wanchai. The central part of the city suffered little actual damage, although an occasional bomb or shell fell there. Later on, the worst damage inflicted on property was by the looters, who virtually stripped buildings of all their woodwork for fuel. In many instances.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214113,
        "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": 181,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "150\n\neve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years visits have also been paid to such destinations as Taiwan, Vietnam and various parts of China.\n\nBefore looking in greater detail at what the Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) does, let us review briefly the history of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS 1979).\n\nHistory\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in London in 1823, and it received its Charter of Incorporation as a Royal Society the following year. It is the oldest and most important learned society of its kind in Europe, and it is the doyen of societies promoting the study of Asia. Its membership has included generations of eminent scholars and explorers with a deep understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has, however, always been carried out through its branches and affiliated societies. Branches were formed in such places as Bombay and Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878 and the Korean in 1900 (RAS1979: 15). Such countries as Japan and Korea were never, of course, part of the British Empire, and, in any case, British territory today is reduced to a few small pink dots on the map; such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Gibraltar. Thus the RAS can now be thought of, very much, as an international organisation rather than as being purely British.\n\nAlthough the Hong Kong Branch was first established in 1847, it ran into difficulties and, consequently, ceased to exist after the end of 1859. It was, nevertheless, resuscitated a century later (Hayes 1997: 129).\n\nAchievements\n\nGoing back to the middle of the last century, although the Branch was comparatively short-lived, it was nonetheless productive. With its emphasis on practical projects one of the most conspicuous notches in its belt must have been the proposal that a piece of land be requested",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214300,
        "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": 158,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "122\n\nhis birth and childhood, and my favourite stamping ground in China Taiyuan, the capital of Shansi province, to his first wife, the daughter of John Mesny, a junior employee of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service, the life of whose elder brother, William Mesny, was the subject of my earlier research [vide.: my paper in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch: Volume 32, 1992]. Sowerby roamed far and wide throughout northern China before serving for a while in France as an officer with the Chinese Labour Corps [vide: my Note on Chinese Labour Corps Graves in England in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch Volume 29, 1989]. He then visited Fukien province and met Caldwell whose book on the Blue Tigers of that province had intrigued me when I was much younger. Finally, I was drawn to Sowerby's life story because he was not only a dedicated member of the North China Branch of the RAS in Shanghai for whom he wrote prolifically and eventually became its President, an honour he held for some five years, 1935-1940 but also because he produced his fascinating bimonthly journal on both everyday and exotic Chinese subjects. Since his death nearly fifty years ago he has faded into insignificance and is forgotten by all but those who happen to come across his books and journals.\n\nArthur Sowerby was an explorer and author who lived through very exciting times, first as the son of a Christian missionary in the Chinese interior at the time of the decline of the Manchu dynasty, through the Revolution of 1911 and the fall of the Manchu dynasty to the War Lord period during which he roamed some of the more remote areas of northern China. This was followed by the crises and struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists, the incursions and eventual full-scale invasion by the Japanese, his incarceration in an internment camp in Shanghai during the Second World War, ending with learning during his latter years in retirement, first in England and then in the United States, of the Communist victory in 1949 and, just before his death, of the Korean War when China sent its \"Volunteers\" to aid the North Koreans against the South Koreans and their allies which included the Americans and British. During the last thirty-five or so years of his life he suffered great pain wracked as he was by arthritis.\n\nIt was said that he could speak Chinese ‘like a Chinese.' There is no reason to doubt this as he must have learned it at his ayah's knee though he appears never to have made any effort to learn to read and write the language. During his life in China, the next forty or so years,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215274,
        "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": 51,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "Lighthouse.\n\nXiang-gang: Xiang-gang dian tai dian shi bu, 2001 (originally released as television program \"Hong Kong Geographic\" on April 18, 2001).\n\n1945.\n\nLin, Yutang, 1895-1976\n\nBetween tears and laughter. London: Dorothy Crisp & Co. Ltd.,\n\nLin, Yutang, 1895-1976\n\nThe gay genius: the life and times of Su Tungpo. Melbourne: Heinemann, c1948.\n\nLin, Yutang, 1895-1976\n\nThe importance of living. London: William Heinemann, c1940.\n\nLockhart, Terry\n\nA colonial boy. Davenport: Taswegia, 1989.\n\nMaeter, Hans\n\nSergeant Chung Ming; translated [from the German] by Oliver Coburn. London: R. Hale, c1962.\n\nMarchant, Leslie Ronald\n\nThe turbulent giant: communist theory and practice in China. Sydney: Australia and New Zealand Book Co., 1975.\n\nMy beloved Hong Kong: in the eyes of the hiking buddies. Xiang-gang: You sheng chu ban she, 2001.\n\nNorth, Robert Carver\n\nChinese communism. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, c1966.\n\nPu-i, 1906-1967\n\nFrom emperor to citizen: the autobiography of Aixin-Jioro Pu Yi; [translated by W.J.F. Jenner]. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1979. 2 vols (2nd ed.)\n\nThe revised romanization of Korean. Seoul: National Academy of the Korean Language, Ministry of Culture & Tourism, c2000.\n\nxlviii",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215663,
        "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": 440,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "392\n\nMs. Han did not practice medicine in China in the 1950s or at any other time\n\n*\n\nMs. Leon Comber was a superintendent (not assistant superintendent) with the Malayan police, and acted as assistant commissioner\n\nOn the morning of Sunday, 25 June, 1950, communist forces from North Korea crossed the border into South Korea. The next day, on 26 June, President Harry S. Truman ordered American air and naval forces to go to the assistance of South Korea, and Clement Attlee in the House of Commons expressed support for Mr. Truman's actions.\n\nOn 27 June, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution recommending that all members of the UN furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to meet the armed attack.' The Korean War had begun.\n\nThe unexpected outbreak of the Korean War took all newspapers by surprise but The Times had Ian Ernest McLeavy Morrison, a member of its staff, in the Far East at that time. By August of that year he would be dead.\n\nBorn in Beijing on 31 May 1913, he was the son of the famous Australian journalist, Dr. George Ernest Morrison (4 February 1862-29 May 1920) and a New Zealander Jennie Wark Robin (1889 – 20 June 1923), Dr. Morrison's former secretary who he had married in 1912. Dr. Morrison was known as \"China Morrison\" and was himself a correspondent for The Times during 1897-1912 and later political adviser to the Chinese Government.\n\nHis brother, Alastair Gwynne Morrison was born on 24 August 1915. He ultimately joined the Diplomatic\n\nDr. Morrison and his three sons, Ian, Colin and Alastair, 1917, (Mitchell Library)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215668,
        "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": 445,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "397\n\nNayar had been a journalist on the The Statesman Calcutta before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was appointed a temporary delegate to the United Nations Commission in Korea, replacing another Indian member who was ill, and was in Korea only a few weeks before he was killed. Buckley was 47 and married with no children. He had begun life as a schoolmaster and then turned to freelance journalism. He had joined The Daily Telegraph shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War.\n\nThe Times was informed of Mr. Morrison's death on the same day by Reuters agency, and on August 15 the British Legation in Korea provided a more detailed account of the events leading up to the tragedy:\n\n'I have the honour to report on the tragic accident on the 12th August, which led to the deaths of Colonel M. K. Unni Nayar, the Indian delegate on the United Nations Commission on Korea, and the two British War Correspondents, Mr. Christopher Buckley, of the Daily Telegraph and Mr. Morrison of the “Times”, in so far as the facts are known to me. A South Korean engineer officer also met his death at the same time.\n\n*At about 2.30 p.m., I saw Colonel Nayar off from my house in one of the United Nations Commission's Jeeps. He said that he was going up to the Republican First Division Sector in the Waegwan area. At that time, he was alone. He must have proceeded to the Press billets to pick up two correspondents.' I understand that a North Korean tank was lying knocked out in front of the South Korean line and it is surmised that the party were going forward to...\n\nThe Kimch'on\n\nProbar\n\nKYONGI\n\nTAEQU\n\nUlsan\n\nChangwin\n\nChimuva Kimhae\n\nChanhap\n\nKYONGSANG\n\nMAMIC\n\nPUSAN\n\nWaegwan area, South Korea",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215672,
        "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": 449,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "401\n\nin August 2002.\n\nThe North Koreans quickly crushed South Korean defences at the 38th parallel. The main North Korean attack force next moved down the west side of the peninsula toward Seoul, the South Korean capital, thirty-five miles below the parallel, and entered the city on June 28. Secondary thrusts down the peninsula's centre and down the east coast kept pace with the main drive. The South Koreans withdrew in disorder; those troops driven out of Seoul were forced to abandon most of their equipment because the bridges over the Han River at the south edge of the city were prematurely demolished. The North Koreans halted after capturing Seoul, but only briefly to regroup before crossing the Han.\n\nWhen MacArthur received word to commit ground units, the main North Korean force had already crossed the Han River. By July 3, a westward enemy attack had captured a major airfield at Kimpo and the Yellow Sea port of Inch'ŏn. Troops attacking south repaired a bridge so that tanks could cross the Han and moved into the town of Suwon, twenty-five miles below Seoul, on the 4th.\n\nThe speed of the North Korean drive coupled with the unreadiness of American forces compelled MacArthur to disregard the principle of mass and commit units piecemeal to trade space for time. Where to open a delaying action was clear, for there were few good roads in the profusion of mountains making up the Korean peninsula, and the best of these below Seoul, running on a gentle diagonal through Suwon, Osan, Taejon, and Taegu to the port of Pusan in the southeast, was the obvious main axis of North Korean advance. At MacArthur's order, two rifle companies, an artillery battery, and a few other supporting units of the 24 Division moved into a defensive position astride the main road near Osan, ten miles below Suwon, by dawn on July 5.\n\nComing out of Suwon in a heavy rain, a North Korean division supported by thirty-three tanks reached and, with barely a pause, attacked the Americans around 8:00 a.m. on the 5th. The rain cancelled air support, communications broke down, and the task force was, under any circumstances, too small to prevent North Korean infantry from flowing around both its flanks. By mid-afternoon, the task force was pushed into a disorganised retreat with over 150 casualties and the loss of all equipment save small arms.\n\nThe next three delaying actions, though fought by larger forces, had similar results. In each case, North Korean armour or infantry assaults against the front of the American position were accompanied by an infantry double envelopment.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215673,
        "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": 450,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "402\n\nBy July 15, the 24th Division was forced back on Taejon, sixty miles below Osan, where it initially took position along the Kum River above the town. Clumps of South Korean troops by then were strung out west and east of the division to help delay the North Koreans.\n\nWhile pushing the 24th Division below Taejon, the main North Korean force split, one division moving south to the coast, then turning east along the lower coastline. The remainder of the force continued southeast beyond Taejon toward Taegu. Southward advances by the secondary attack forces in the central and eastern sectors matched the main thrust, all clearly aimed to converge on Pusan. North Korean supply lines grew long in the advance, and less and less tenable under heavy United Nations Command (UNC) air attacks. The U.S. Far Eastern Air Force meanwhile achieved air superiority, indeed air supremacy, and UNC warships wiped out North Korean naval craft.\n\nAlarmed by the rapid loss of ground, Walker ordered a stand along a 140-mile line arching from the Korea Strait to the Sea of Japan west and north of Pusan. His U.S. divisions occupied the western arc, basing their position on the Naktong River. South Korean forces, reorganized by American military advisers into two corps headquarters and five divisions, defended the northern segment. A long line and few troops kept positions thin in this **Pusan Perimeter**. This line was, essentially, the front on August 12, the day that Mr. Morrison was killed.\n\nMr. Morrison's movements in Korea before his death are unknown. Seoul had fallen several days before his arrival, so he would have been forced to arrive in the south of the country, perhaps at Taegu. One assumes he spent the next five weeks, or so, behind the retreating UNC frontline.\n\n\"Morrison, a Daily Telegraph correspondent, and a great friend of mine, Uni Nair (sic), acting as a UN observer, were all killed together. I have always been convinced that Nair probably got them all into trouble. He was notably fearless. While with the Indian army in Italy during WW2, as a PR officer, he thoroughly enjoyed taking visitors into particularly dangerous sectors where their jeep attracted hostile fire. Towards the end of the war, in Burma, he volunteered without training to jump with paratroops in the drop on the outskirts of Rangoon.\n\n'Nair was fond of palm reading. My own, that I would reach a ripe old age, turned out pretty true. But if we asked Uni what sort of future he read in his own palm he always said, after a pause, “A short life and a merry one.”\" (Russell Spurr -- personal communication with the author)\n\nPage 450\n\nPage 451",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215675,
        "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": 452,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "404\n\nIan Morrison's Last Dispatch\n\nPOHANG IN HANDS OF\n\nNORTH KOREANS\n\nAnnex\n\nTOWN IN FLAMES\n\nFrom Our Special Correspondent\n\nBIHAR ARMY HEADQUARTERS, August 12 —\n\nA serious situation has developed at Pohang on the east coast. North Korean forces, who for several days past were known to be working their way south through mountainous country inland from the coast, and who yesterday were reported at a point seven miles north-west of Pohang, attacked the town early this morning and are now threatening the airfield five miles to the south-east. Fires are burning in the town and it may become necessary to evacuate the airfield.\n\nFor several weeks past the South Korean forces based on Pohang have been fighting in and around Yongdok, a small town 25 miles north of Pohang. Their supply line has been the road which runs along the coast. The mountains to the west are some of the steepest in Korea, but they have not deterred the North Koreans from making the obvious outflanking movement. The exact strength of the North Korean force is not known. Three days ago it was reported as two regiments. Probably it consists of a nucleus of regular troops and several hundred guerrilla troops who have long been established in these mountains.\n\nThe allied command apparently minimized their threat, because it was only yesterday that reinforcements were hurriedly rushed to this coastal sector. These consisted of South Korean infantry and a small American task force equipped with light tanks. Exactly what happened is still obscure, but the American convoy was ambushed soon after midnight on the main road 15 miles south of Pohang and pinned down until dawn. Air support was called for, which eventually drove off the North Koreans, believed to have been a number of guerrilla troops, and permitted the convoy to continue after considerable delay.\n\nMustangs were still using the airfield up to 5 o'clock this afternoon, and in some cases pilots were firing their guns only two or three minutes after taking off. The North Koreans had moved south of Yongdok, and pilots claimed to have destroyed two tanks, 10 vehicles, and two ammunition cars. Transport aircraft also were still flying into the airfield this evening and bringing out certain unessential staff such as ground engineers.\n\nAccording to these arrivals, North Korean mortar shells were landing in the general area of the airfield, but it was not under small arms fire. American gunners who have been supporting South Korean infantry in this coastal sector were shelling North Korean positions on the ridge about two miles north of the airfield between the airfield and the port. Large numbers of Korean civilians who had evacuated the town had gathered round the airfield, which is situated close to the shore of the bay, and two ships were standing by offshore in case evacuation should become necessary.\n\nLieutenant-General Walker, commander of the Eighth Army, and Major-General Partridge, commander of the Fifth Air Force, flew over the area this morning.\n\n97",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215677,
        "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": 454,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "406\n\nOBJECTIVE REACHED\n\nThis evening the Eighth Army statement reports that the 35th Regiment of the American task force operating in the south has occupied the high ground east of Chinju, which was the objective of the limited counter-attack launched on Monday. There are reports that Chinju is being evacuated. The Marines have simultaneously occupied the town of Kosong, 17 miles south-west of Masan, against strong North Korean resistance. Pockets of bypassed North Koreans are still giving trouble and are being steadily cleaned up.\n\nThis is some of the most encouraging news of the campaign to date, and shows that where numbers are not too desperate the American troops are more than a match for their opponents. It has to be seen, however, in relation to the complete picture.\n\nThe statement also reports that the North Korean bridgehead just north of Waegwan, which, although resolutely attacked and reduced in size by the South Korean 1st Division, was never finally liquidated, is again being expanded. The North Koreans have again brought tanks into the bridgehead, which American pilots today attacked with unknown results. The pilots report that the North Koreans have built a causeway of sandbags, across the river about 18in. under water (a favourite engineering practice of the Russians in the last war) which is difficult for aircraft to knock out.\n\nIn spite of continued American counter-attacking no progress has been made in reducing the North Korean bridgehead in the loop of the Naktong about 30 miles south of Waegwan. A delayed message from our Special Correspondent in Korea is on page 3.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]