[ { "id": 209268, "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-1981", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826\n\n157\n\nopium grown in Turkey, the British cultivated poppy in India and brought opium into China. Selling this commodity for cash only, the British hoped to reverse the balance of trade at China's expense. In 1821, to put an end to this smuggling of opium into China and silver in the reverse direction, the Tao-kuang Emperor reiterated the court's anti-opium policy. As a result, Juan Yuan adopted strict measures against opium importation through the port of Canton. This thinking was behind his taking action against the hong merchants later on that year, in the wake of the Terranova case, especially when he removed the button from Puiqua's hat.\n\nIt was in the memorial requesting the removal of Puiqua's button that Juan Yüan's attitude on opium was revealed. He was concerned with the harmful effects of opium addiction. “Opium is grown overseas, but its harmful effects are most keenly felt in interior China. Its most serious damage lies in the moral degradation of the populace”.* The memorial also showed that Juan Yüan had known the sources of opium. He concluded that there were three major groups of foreign traders who carried opium in their cargo from West Asia and India.\n\n41\n\nThree major groups of foreign traders are the sources for our opium. Among these traders there are a number of merchants who come from across the Atlantic Ocean. They pick up cargoes of opium on their way to China. Moreover, the British merchants, in their private capacities, also bring with them this contraband commodity when they come to Macau. The Company, franchised by the British sovereign, does not officially engage in the opium trade itself. The American ship owners and captains constitute the last group of opium smugglers. They, not having any king to restrain them, bring in the commodity themselves in the holds of their ships.*2\n\n42\n\nThese foreign traders worked with the Chinese merchants in Canton and Macau who provided them with the marketing machinery to distribute opium. For this reason, Juan Yuan blamed the Chinese merchants, especially the hong merchants, for the thriving illicit opium trade.\n\nThe hong merchants are so close to the foreign traders that, although their smuggling activities could be kept dark from the officials, it is impossible for the hong merchants not to be aware of them. How can foreign ships bring contraband commodities for thousands of miles without being assured of a market here first? They, therefore, must work hand-in-glove with the hong merchants. The hong merchants appear to consider only their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209700, "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-1982", "page_number": 357, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n335\n\nthing rarely if ever seen in books on landscape architecture, a guide to the plants used.\n\nSince every kind of climate and ecological environment is included in this book covering all of China, it would be of great interest to know how botanical variety is adopted in different kinds of gardens.\n\nH. Y. SHIH\n\nOver Hong Kong Lew Roberts, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong 1982, 97 Colour Plates.\n\nOver the last few years the South China Morning Post has published a number of volumes of photographs of the highest quality, both having regard to the photography and to the printing. This volume is almost certainly the best of these, since it is simply by far the best photographic record of Hong Kong yet published.\n\nThe 97 plates of this volume are all aerial photographs, and give a very wide ranging view of Hong Kong, with 28 plates of Hong Kong Island, 17 of Kowloon, and 49 of the New Territories, and of subjects ranging from Government House to squatter areas, duck farms, and junk heaps.\n\nObviously, any volume of aerial photographs is bound to be short on reflections of the human element: a particular problem in a city such as Hong Kong where the vitality, colour, and bustle of the street-level community is so important in the creation of the spirit of the city. By photographing from the air, even though from a low flying aircraft and with razor sharp reproduction, almost all of this street-level vigour is lost. It is very much to Mr. Roberts' credit that, despite this huge disadvantage, he manages to suggest a substantial amount of the human element in his pictures, and in many of them actually manages to provide a new perspective on human activity. Thus, his photographs of the Aberdeen Junk Yards (No. 36) conveys the chaotic, busy nature of those yards perhaps better than any other type of photograph could. His photographs of Ocean Park (No. 39), the Shaw Brothers Studio (Nos. 88 and 89) and a Mai Po marshes village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211817, "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": 232, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "207\n\nplays; the wood scene we thought very effective and true to nature\". This is one of the few times that at least some slight attention is paid to the staging of a piece. (NCH 8.5.1858).\n\n28.9.1858 (Tue)\n\nR.B. SHERIDAN: \"The Rivals” (1775)\n\nT: Comedy (prologue, 5 acts, epilogue), and two other, unnamed, light pieces\n\nC: Officers of H.M.S. Retribution\n\nTh: On board ship\n\nR: This must have been a long night for in addition to Sheridan's The Rivals (a full-length five-act comedy in which Mrs. Malaprop was played by \"Mrs. Taylor\") there were two other light pieces of which the titles have not been recorded. Small wonder then that \"our reporter did not wait to see as the hour was late and he had to rise early to see the comet\" — which had first been observed on September 15. (NCH 2.10.1858)\n\n2.10.1858 (Sat) and\n\n6.10.1858 (Wedn)\n\nConcerts by Mr. Martin Simonsen, violin, and some local amateurs.\n\nProgramme:\n\nCharles Auguste DE BERIOT (1802-1870): Seventh air with variations, Martin SIMONSEN: \"Sounds from Home\", Heinrich Wilhelm ERNST (1814-1865): **Andante” (= Elegie?), N. PAGANINI: \"Carnival of Venice\", Some German songs.\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (C)\n\nR: That the scarce recitals by professional musicians did not draw the same public attention as the amateur actors has already been pointed out in the Survey. On October 2 the attendance was not large, but for the sixth \"a considerable improvement\" was observed and it was hoped there would be a full house on the 12th so that the artist would not be left **with cause to regret his visit to this remote place”. The critic, \"'T.\", gave himself an air of the specialist when he wrote that \"though we do not find any attempt at the dignity and breadth of style which are the characteristics of the greatest performers of the age, we are glad to recognise an execution at once brilliant and lively and in some respects really astonishing\"; and he regarded Mr. SIMONSEN as \"a worthy member of that particular school of which De Bériot was one of the brightest ornaments (De Bériot was a famous violinist who had been forced by illness to end his career in 1852). It must be assumed that the writer had heard other musicians in Europe — where else? — with whom he could draw a comparison. These were the days without radio, gramophone or compact disc! He was apparently a lover of more serious music, for he added wrily: \"We presume it is necessary occasionally to introduce pieces of a light and striking character, but for our own part we deprecate the production of such solos as 'Life on the ocean' **. As to those who assisted Mr. SIMONSEN \"T.\" found it **creditable to this small Settlement that it can produce so able and numerous a body of amateurs who evidently study music for its own sake. We venture to ask them to persevere — it is a science which will amply reward its followers, which will repay a thousandfold its earnest students\". (NCH 9.10.1858). In well-to-do circles in Britain a musical education was considered a mark of good breeding and probably a number of residents had acquired their instrumental skill in youth. Others could profit from the piano lessons that were advertised in December 1858: they were given \"at moderate charges\" and persons interested should apply to \"D.D. at Mr. W.H. Moore's, Hongkew\". Why all would-be artists in Shanghai were so mysterious about their true names remains an enigma. The initials D.D. do not suit any of the residents in the *Shanghai Almanac for 1858'. W.H. Moore is listed in it as a pilot.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211885, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "275\n\ntossing about. Great blame is therefore due to those who saw it for not describing what they saw, and to those who ought to have been on the lookout for not seeing it.\n\nJust before dark we saw another ship in the distance, quite disabled, or rather nearly so, and laid to. We steered close under her stern, and found the crew all right, and preparing to set her to rights. She was a Dutchman from Cape Town, bound for Batavia, Every sail in her was blown to rags and gone, except two spankers which helped to keep her steady. Yet she laboured fearfully. Instead of being thankful that we were not so badly off, the captain kept laughing at the poor fellows, and saying how mortified they must feel to see us going on so well under the circumstances.\n\nOn Sunday as they were clearing the wreck away, a lot of the upper rigging fell on the new yard that had been put up, and snapped it off as clean as possible, to add to our troubles. I expected no other, and am only surprised it did not give way during the storm. It will take two days to \"scarf\" the pieces together and put it up again, and even then it may not stand.\n\nI do not know how long it will be now before our journey will end. I am almost disheartened about it. Three months gone, and not yet got to St Paul's Island or Amsterdam, in the Indian Ocean. As to you ever hearing from me again, it seems out of the question altogether. This storm will have put us by very considerably and no mistake. I dare say you all very much wonder you have not heard before, but I have only this consolation, that it is not my fault. I am continually thinking of home, and picturing in my mind all the pleasures of the country in May and June, while here I am tossed on the ocean, in the depth of winter, where the cold is enough to freeze anybody, with everything damp and cold. No more going round the Cape for me while my name is John Fryer, if I can avoid it. It is worth a pound a day to put up with all the inconveniences, and were it not for the thought of what I am going to do, I could not endure it at all. It is now dinner time, three o'clock, so I must now stop.\n\nThursday, June 6th\n\nSince my last entry our circumstances have been much on the improve. Yesterday we got the topsail yard up, and the sail bent. The old yard\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211886, "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": 301, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "276\n\nwas \"scarfed\" together and \"fished\" and \"dowled\", which operation has rendered it nearly as serviceable as a new one. We cannot use more than about a quarter of the sails yet, and it will take a long time to get the new masts up, and new sails made. Yet we are going along quite favourably considering, with a strong favourable wind.\n\nYesterday we were on the look out for St Paul's and Amsterdam, two small islands in the Southern Ocean. Through the chronometer's being out of order on account of the storm, we had made a wrong reckoning, and did not pass between the islands till after ten o'clock at night, when the captain came and told me to look out of my window and see them, as I was gone to bed. It was too dark to see more than the bare form of them. In fact Amsterdam was the only one I could see from my side of the ship. It is simply a rugged rock, about 15 miles long, and quite uninhabited except by sea-birds, of which a great number were soon flying round the ship.\n\nThis morning when I went on deck they were far out of sight. We ought to get to Java in 12 days if we were in good trim, but in our shattered condition we shall perhaps make nearly double the time. There will be a short stay also at Batavia to lay in stock of masts and spars to repair with. As yet we have been wonderfully favoured by the wind, and notwithstanding the storm and the fortnight tossing about in the Channel, we are four days ahead of the last voyage the ship made to Batavia. We shall now soon be going northward into warmer weather.\n\nThe captain was quite knocked up with the storm, and has not yet got over it. He does not take his meals with us yet, and Capt Moate and I are in no hurry for him to do so, for we get on far better by ourselves. In fact I may say we are good friends, and have been so all the voyage. We have never had a misunderstanding between us, and as long as he does not swear or talk improperly I do not much mind him as a companion, especially as he is a far better scholar than I am, and has resided at Hong Kong, so that I know by this time what I must expect when I get there. I have got him to read some good books, and now and then a little serious chat with him, which he submits to just to oblige me. I know all his personal history, and in fact could write an account of his life with tolerable accuracy. He is thoroughly disgusted with Capt Harper, who is quite an uneducated man, and thinks he is a perfect gent. For my own part, I never disliked anyone more than I do him. I can hardly be civil to him at times; for he acts in such a disgusting manner", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214249, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "70\n\nthe primary one in China being as the Lord of the Underworld known as Yen-lo Wang. In later Brahmanist mythology he is one of the eight Lokapalas, the guardian of the south and judge of the dead. He was the son of the sun, with a twin sister Yamuna - regarded by some Hindus as the first human pair. An image of Yama is present in both the Pi-yun Ssu and the Ta Pei Ssu.\n\nIn northern China images of Yen-lo Wang have been noted in several old temples where he is portrayed as a benign elderly human, dressed in court robes and cap of dynastic China. In the Kuan Yin Hall of the Ta Pei Ssu in Peking his image depicts him thus, with his hands held palms together before his chest. He has no unique characteristics and is known simply as Yen Mo Lo. He is referred to by the temple staff as Yama and appears to have no other title and is looked upon by the monks as the Lord of the Underworld. In the Pi-yun Ssu he is a general wearing armour under his colourful robes and has an axe clutched in his right hand. His left hand is held across his body pointing with two of his fingers. He has dark skin, round eyes, a short black beard and moustache and a scarf swirling behind his head hanging down in front of his body.\n\nThere is also Yen-mo Hu-fa, a Lama Buddhist [Tantric] deity, whose image stands in the Lama Temple in Peking. It is typical Tibeto-Mongol iconography, swathed in silken robes obscuring the body leaving only the fierce head and the raised right arm visible. The head, which looks somewhat like a blue pig with gold eyebrows and red mouth, has a row of skulls across the top of the head mounted on a coronet, with a fiery nimbus behind that. He is holding in the air in his right hand a short rod [a heavenly cane] with a miniature white skull mounted on the top. Without the silken robe the deity is revealed standing on a blue horse or mule which, in turn, is prostrate on a naked human. The deity has another small blue-skinned demonic figure standing before him, facing him and holding its hands up towards the deity in supplication.\n\n14] Sagara known in Chinese as P'o-chie Lung-wang and P'o-chie-lo\n\nSagara is the Naga King of the Ocean Palace north of Mount Meru,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214406, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "230\n\nHONG KON\n\n(from the notes of a Russian traveller)\n\nOf the many islands, scattered along the shores of the extensive Chinese empire, the English selected for themselves a small island not particularly distinguishable for its fertility, almost bare, of little use to China; but with a good harbour and lying on the route from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean - hence very useful to them - and founded a city here, a depot for trade not only with China but with neighbouring islands. The city, whose proper name of Victoria is hardly known even to its own inhabitants, looks over the strait separating the island from the mainland, and consists of one main street following the course of the shore; it's called Queen's Road, although neither the present, nor any future queens of Great Britain are likely to travel on it; a number of other smaller streets run parallel to this main street or cross it at right angles. The latter rise up the mountain so steeply, that the houses behind stand a whole storey above the ones in front and that is why all of them have a wonderful view of the harbour and the picturesque shores of China. Magnificent too is the view of the city from the harbour. The houses, arranged in the form of an amphitheatre at the foot of the hill, are shaded by groups of trees; the main street is interrupted in the middle by an avenue, from which a garden with convenient, winding paths, runs further up the mountain, so that the mountain itself, previously completely bare is now covered to a certain level by shady bamboo lanes or groves of various trees. People building houses here mainly tried to shield themselves from the burning rays of the tropical sun, which is why the houses all have something in common: each one has, without fail, a covered balcony, and has some semi-dark hall through which the breeze blows; also shutters are an essential accessory of windows. The best building, in my opinion, is where the beautiful is united with the useful, which is - the barracks of the regiment stationed here. The two-storeyed peristyle surrounding it gives it the appearance of a Roman temple and shields it on all sides from the sun's rays. The Governor's House built recently on an elevated site in the middle of a newly cultivated garden, would have been one of Hong Kong's best adornments, were it not obstructed by extensions which completely obscure it. Other magnificent buildings I must include are the hospital, the club and many private homes. The western part was the first to be settled and is now nothing very much: - narrow streets with small houses", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214508, "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": 366, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "335\n\nhand in hand, being photographed left, right and centre. It was, after all, Saturday - a popular day for weddings - but the sight was somewhat surreal. Especially as perhaps none of them realised the more sombre use to which the ground they were walking on had once been put. The presence of so many beautiful brides and their dashing grooms explained another sight that greeted us in the road outside the park, that of dozens of taxis decked out with flowers, Mr and Mrs Mickey Mouse dolls, cabbage patch couples, and all manner of wedding paraphernalia. Our guide explained that wedding motorcades can only use taxis - no private cars are allowed to take part - and only a maximum of four vehicles can be used per wedding, otherwise traffic jams become too problematical.\n\nWhat happened next was the only time that we had a serious difference of opinion with our guide. We were taken to a temple of sorts that had an “antiques and works of art\" shop attached to it - and there we were left for an hour. As our time was so tight none of us were pleased at being given this normal tourist treatment. Did our guide not realise that we were far from being normal tourists? Quiet words were had with him, and to be fair there were no further such occurrences during the remainder of the trip. I have a picture of him at a fort in Port Arthur, sitting with his head in his hands. The caption must be something like: \"Why did I have to end up with this lot?\" To put the record straight, I was so pleased with how he had looked after us that, when we parted at Dalian airport, I gave him my copy of \"Far from Home\"; he was clearly delighted and touched by this.\n\nTo the southwest of the hill, along Fu Shan Road, is what is now the Ocean University of Qingdao. The university is housed in buildings that once constituted the enormous Bismarck Barracks. In full view of the Governor's residence, these barracks once housed upwards of 4,000 military personnel. The buildings have been preserved well. The former military parade ground is now a series of sports fields.\n\nFrom the barracks it was onwards to the sea to Badaguan, formerly a popular residential area for the Germans, and apparently still a popular residential area, but for whom? Party officers? There seemed to be an air of privilege about the area still.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]