[
    {
        "id": 204544,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 25,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "20\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nBut the interest of the cemetery is not by any means confined to biographies of those buried there. There are the histories of the ships that brought them there, clippers, men-of-war, whalers and countrymen (ships engaged in the \"country trade\", a term usually applied to the trade which had grown up between India, South East Asia and Canton); there are the interesting professions they followed as merchants, missionaries, military men, beach-combers, diplomats or opium traders; there are the mysteries behind the nameless memorial or the undecipherable or partly decipherable inscription, or the absentees. Of these latter we know of at least two, whose sojourns in our cemetery were but temporary; they are Lord Napier, whose final resting place is amongst his shepherds in Ettrick, Scotland, and Thomas T. Forbes, who is with his family in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, leaving his companion, who was drowned with him in a typhoon, alone in Macao.\n\nMay I conclude my talk this evening by now completing the quotation with which I began?\n\nThere are worse ways of occupying leisure than\n\ntours on foot through noteworthy cemeteries,\n\nso long as one does not overstay one's welcome,\n\nand by praying that I have not detained you too long this evening in the restful peace of the Old Protestant Cemetery of Macao.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204972,
        "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-1965",
        "page_number": 80,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n71\n\nPiracy was firmly rooted along the South China coast. Then, during the First China War, many junks were allowed to act as armed privateers, and when the war was over, became pirates rather than return to peaceful trade. Hong Kong and its neighbouring islands had always been centres of piracy, or the home of fishermen ambitious to earn a dishonest dollar or two from piracy. The new British colony must have appeared like manna from Heaven to these people, and the colony's first years were marked by an increase in piracy. There was a similar increase in piracy around Singapore at the same time. The founding of Singapore in 1819 had resulted in a great increase in native trade in the area, and this suffered severely from attacks by well-armed Chinese junks, which sometimes attacked European ships. Captain James Brooke with his sea Dyaks played a big part in suppressing piracy in these waters.1\n\nThe period between the First and Second China Wars is one of the most confusing in Chinese history. On one hand is the founding of a British colony at Hong Kong, the opening of the treaty ports, and the inception of regular shipping services along the coast; while on the other is the persistence of lawlessness and piracy. In the background is the increasing weakness of the Manchu Dynasty, and during the last years of the period, the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nWhen the East India Company controlled the China trade, there was little need for naval protection in Chinese waters, and the Cantonese were traditionally opposed to the Royal Navy. The large and well-armed East Indiamen and \"Country\" ships were perfectly capable of fighting their way past the pirates who infested the Canton River delta, as were smaller, but faster and equally well-armed opium clippers. In spite of Chinese objections, however, British warships visited Canton on several occasions. Anson called in the Centurion in 1741, on the famous voyage on which he captured the Manila galleon, and Cook in 1779 with the Resolution and Discovery after his three-year cruise in the Pacific. Cook's ships were careened, refitted, and provisioned at Canton, the East India Company advancing the money in return for bills on the Admiralty in London.\n\n1 The first white Rajah of Sarawak.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204974,
        "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-1965",
        "page_number": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n73\n\nofficial agreement between the two countries to refer to piracy. and Article 52 gave British warships permission, when in pursuit of pirates, to enter any port on the coast. Provision was also made for co-operation between the Royal Navy and the Chinese for punishment of pirates, restoration of stolen goods, and so on, and later treaties and agreements followed the same pattern. Unfortunately, experience proved that the Chinese had undertaken more than they could carry out; and that the provincial authorities were as often unwilling, as unable, to implement the pledges of the Peking Government.\n\nThe pirates on the coast in the 1840's, 50's, and 60's, included British, American, French, and other foreign renegades, who often worked in league with Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and the treaty ports. The system of ship registry then in force in Hong Kong was even more liable to abuse than the present system, and allowed Chinese shipowners an easy means of claiming the protection of certain foreign flags. This increased the difficulties of the Navy, already hard pressed to distinguish between convoy and pirate, and between pirate, trader, and fisherman.\n\nThe most famous renegade among the pirates in the 1850's was an American sailor called Eli Boggs, for whose capture the Hong Kong Government offered a reward of $1,000. This was won by an even more famous American sailor, more often associated with blackbirding in the Pacific, than with piracy on the China coast. Captain Bully Hayes, however, made his debut on the China coast, and when that part of the world became too hot for him he moved south to Australasian and Pacific waters.\n\nHayes first appeared in the Far East in 1854 at Singapore, as master of the American barque, Canton. He was then twenty-five years old. After selling the Canton, which did not belong to him, he appeared in Hong Kong a few months later as master of another American barque, the Otranto, which was probably under charter to the famous American house of Russell and Company. In Hong Kong's Victoria Hotel, and in the company of the masters of two Jardine opium clippers, Long John Saunders of the Chin Chin and King Tom Donovan of the Spray, Hayes made the acquaintance of some naval officers, and for the rest of his time on the coast he was a great favourite with the Navy. During",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205325,
        "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": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "80\n\nTHE CHINA COASTERS\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nJames Matheson sent his San Sebastian from Canton to ports in Fukien Province in 1820, to open up new markets for opium, and this is generally considered the pioneer voyage in the China coast trade. Although Matheson was Danish Consul at Canton at this time, and the San Sebastian sailed under Spanish colours, it is correct to describe this voyage as a British venture. The men who sailed the opium clippers, therefore, were the first 'China coasters', and since that time 'China coasters' have considered themselves a breed apart, distinct from the rest of the British Merchant Navy. The tradition of more liberal manning, of better pay, food, and conditions in general, pioneered by the opium clippers has continued to the present day.\n\nMany of the customs and practices of the lordly East Indiamen and of the Indian 'country ships' were inherited by the humbler 'China coasters'. The East Indiaman's captain could, and was expected to, make a fortune from carrying passengers and private cargo, in addition to the company's, and in self defence the latter stipulated a definite scale of perquisites for each member of the crew, from captain down to bosun and carpenter. Generous as this was, it was invariably exceeded. There was a much greater variety of 'pidgin' (=business) on the China coast, although it did not comprise such a high proportion of the China coaster's total earnings. As on the East India Company's ships, dabbling in certain types of 'pidgin' was considered legitimate and carried no moral stigma.\n\nThe most common and profitable pidgin came from deck passengers. It was on the emigrant runs to the Straits and Bangkok that this type of 'pidgin' was most prolific. I was introduced to this on my first ship on the coast, the Antung. The Antung was\n\nThe author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Two of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, and \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206012,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 92,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 87\n\nhundreds were to be seen, and the 1937 census showed Bangkok to have 196,000 Chinese females to 336,000 males. This shortage of female compatriots in the early centuries induced many Chinese to intermarry with the local Malays, Siamese, or Indonesians; and until well into the present century there always seemed a reasonable chance that the overseas Chinese would merge into the local communities. The relaxation of anti-emigration laws and the cheap and easy communications provided by the steam-ships, however, enabled more and more Chinese women to emigrate, and this reversed the previous trend towards assimilation. This factor may have been as important as political developments in increasing tension between the newly independent states of South-east Asia and their Chinese populations.\n\nBy the end of the 19th century the combination of enlightened public opinion and official action had mitigated the worst abuses of the continued coolie trade to South America and the West Indies. At the same time economic developments in South-east Asia were greatly increasing the already large demand for Chinese labour in that region. Rubber and tea plantations, tin mines and rice mills, all required labour which the local populations were either unable or unwilling to supply. As a result the centuries-old emigrant trade from south China increased many times over, and it was with this comparatively recent mass emigrant trade that the China coast steamship companies were most concerned. This became one of the most profitable sections of the China coast trade.\n\nThe domestic deck passenger trade had been important from the earliest days of foreign shipping on the China coast. The opium clippers had only carried European passengers, mail, and specie, in addition to opium; but all other foreign ships on the coast looked on deck passengers as a very important source of revenue. In a country so ill-equipped with roads as 19th century China, shipping played an indispensable role in passenger transport. In 1849, for instance, when the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steam Packet Company was formed and commenced a regular service between the three ports, the cost of a deck passage between any two of these ports was one dollar. The speed, regularity, and safety of the foreign steamships soon enabled them to capture the cream of the deck passenger trade from the junks.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206777,
        "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-1973",
        "page_number": 54,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "48\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nThe Forbes completed the last few days of her passage under sail, in order to reserve a few tons of coal for the river passage. When the Chinese pilot came on board to take her up to Lintin she was under steam with wind and tide against her. He showed no astonishment, however, and quietly gave the helmsman his orders as if everything was normal. At last the captain could stand his bland indifference no longer, and asked him if he had ever seen a steamship before. The pilot calmly replied that this mode of propulsion had once been common in many parts of China, but had fallen into disuse. He knew that everything was alright so long as black smoke came from the funnel, but as soon as white steam appeared he was uneasy. Chinese acquainted with 'pidgin English' came to call a paddle steamer like the Forbes \"outside walkee\", and a screw steamer \"inside walkee\".\n\nAlthough this attempt to beat the monsoon failed in terms of the charter, it was still considered a success. During the passage between Singapore and Lintin coal had been transhipped from the Jamesina to the Forbes three times, each transhipment taking 3 to 4 hours. It was thought that 2 or 3 days could have been saved by speedier bunkering at Singapore and speedier transhipment at sea. That the experiment was not repeated was due to several factors. One was the lack of suitable fuel at Canton; the Forbes burned wood on her return passage. Another was the prospect of objections from the Chinese authorities.\n\nThe most important factor, however, was the greatly improved sailing ships which were being built at that particular time. In 1829, just a year before the Forbes-Jamesina experiment, the first and most famous of the opium clippers, the Red Rover, appeared on the scene. In her maiden voyage the Red Rover made the round trip between Calcutta and Macao in 55 days, carrying 800 chests of opium. She had equally successful passages in the next two years, by which time she had at least three rivals on the run. From then no one thought of employing steamships against the north east monsoon in the South China Sea, and the success of the opium clippers kept steamships out of the opium trade for another twenty years. The Red Rover, like many of her successors and rivals was built in India, at the Howra Dock Company's yard. She was launched in September 1829, and for her first few years was owned by her captain, the famous Captain Clifton, in partnership with",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206783,
        "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-1973",
        "page_number": 60,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "54 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nofficial notice on 18th January 1858 that the mail service between Hong Kong and Canton would be restored, at first by naval ships, and then on 10th February the blockade was lifted. Soon after this regular steamship services were re-established on the river, and the pioneer days of steam navigation in China were over. \n\nMain Sources \n\nBoyd Cable \n\nM. Greenberg \n\nW. H. Hall and \n\nW. D. Bernard \n\nA Hundred Years History of the P. 1937 \n\nand 0. \n\nBritish Trade and the Opening of 1951 \n\nChina, 1800-1842 \n\nNarrative of the Voyages and Services 1844 \n\nof the Nemesis, 1840-1843 \n\nC. A. Gibson-Hill \n\n\"Early Steamships in Malaya” \n\nJournal of Royal Asiatic Society \n\nMalayan Branch, \n\n1956 \n\nE. K. Haviland \n\n\"Early Steamships in China\" \n\nAmerican Neptune, \n\n1956 \n\n\"Early Steamships in China; Hong \n\nKong and the Canton River” \n\nAmerican Neptune, \n\n1962 \n\nK. C. Liu \n\nAnglo-American Steamship Rivalry in 1962 \n\nChina, 1862-1874 \n\nBasil Lubbock \n\nThe Opium Clippers \n\nG. A. Prinsep \n\nSteam Vessels in India \n\n1946 \n\n1830 \n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207122,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 193,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n187 \n\nas the property of three Parsee merchants. Later, it appears, two of the owners sold out and she became the sole property of one Cursetzee Cawasjee. The closing entry says that the “Castle Huntly” was lost on Lincoln's Shoal some four hundred miles south of Hong Kong on 23rd October 1845, while on a voyage from China to Bombay. \n\nLloyd's List confirms that the Master of the ship at the time of her loss was a Captain McIntyre and adds that the Master, Officers, Passengers and part of the crew were saved and landed at Hong Kong. \n\nSome further details obtained from another source indicate that before 1829 the \"Castle Huntly\" sailed with the East India Company, and log books up to that time are still extant. These reveal that in 1829 the Governor of Mauritius was a passenger, and that later in the same year there was a mutiny by the crew. \n\nThe ship is mentioned in a book by Basil Lubbock entitled Opium Clippers, as having sailed regularly in this trade between Calcutta and the Canton River in 1835. It seems probable that when she met her end she was still engaged in carrying opium to China. \n\nThis is the story as well as we have been able to discover it, but it leaves some very interesting questions unanswered. The ship was lost on 23rd October, but the date of Elizabeth Ann's death is given as 21st October. Did she die in Hong Kong waters, and was her body put ashore on Shek Kwu Chau at the start of what was to prove the ship's last voyage? And why choose Shek Kwu Chau, which at that time was Chinese territory? It may have been that the master was anxious to make full use of the northeast monsoon which could well have been blowing at that time of the year. \n\nAgain, whence came the tombstone? It is of granite, but a University geologist has given his opinion that it is not of Hong Kong origin. Was it brought to the island at a later date and placed over the lonely grave? These questions may never receive an answer, but to us of a later generation the odd fact is that Elizabeth Ann's remains are to be found on an island now given over to repairing the damage caused by the trade in which her husband was engaged. \n\nJEAN MOORE",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213396,
        "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-1994",
        "page_number": 218,
        "title": "RAS-1994",
        "content_text": "206\n\n—, Intimate China, the Chinese As I have Seen Them, London Hutchison, 1899\n\nLittle, Archibald John, Through the Yang-tse Gorges, or, Trade and Travel in Western China, London Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1888\n\n1\n\nMount Omer and Beyond, London Heinemann, 1901\n\nLjungstedt, Andrew, An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China, with Supplementary Chapter - Description of the City of Canton republished from the Chinese Repository, Boston James Munroe and co. 1836\n\nLo Hui-min, ed, The Correspondence of G E Morrison, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1976\n\nLoch, Granville Gower (1813-1853), The Closing Events of the Campaign in China the Operations in the Yang Tze-Kiang, and the Treaty of Nanking, London J Murray, 1843\n\nLockwood, Stephen C. Augustine Heard and Company, 1858-1862, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1971\n\nLonsdale, Anne, Merchant Adventurers in the East, London Longman, 1980\n\nLow, John, Into China, London John Murray, 1986\n\nLubbock, Alfred Basil, The Opium Clippers, Boston Lauriat Company, 1933 (New York Reprint. AMS)\n\nLutz, Jesse Gregory, China and the Christian Colleges 1850-1950, Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1971\n\n•\n\n- Christian Missionaries in China (19/20 Centuries), Boston DC Heath Problems in Asian Civilization series\n\nLyster, Thomas (1840-1865), With Gordon in China, Letters from Thomas Lyster, Lieutenant Royal Engineers, London TF Unwin, 1891\n\nLyttelton, Edith Sophy (Balfour b1865), Travelling Days, London G Bles, 1933\n\nMacartney, George, First Earl Macartney, Journal of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, London British Museum, 1897 (Microfilm copy at Hong Kong University Library)\n\nMacartney, Lady, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, London Ernest Benn. 1931 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)\n\nMacfarlane, W, Sketches in the Foreign Settlements and Native City of Shanghai, reprinted from The Shanghai Mercury, Shanghai, 1881",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214954,
        "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": 50,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "of any mention of the opium habit by the Jesuit missionaries and other travellers in China prior to the 17th century. It may therefore be concluded, with some degree of certainty, that there was no general use of opium before the introduction of opium smoking. Spanish tobacco introduced into China about 1620, probably from Philippines, gave rise to the habit of smoking, and later in the century tobacco and opium were smoked as a mixture to enhance the effect of both. The Chinese, on the whole, chose to smoke opium without tobacco. Moreover, while the use of opium as a smoke has been confined to China - elsewhere it is applied in other ways - smoking per se was introduced by the westerners.\n\nThe Chinese recognized early the potential harm of opium smoking: an Imperial Edict of 1729 prohibited entirely the use of opium, except as a medicine. When the import of opium had increased dramatically, another Edict was issued in 1799 prohibiting use of the drug, its importation, and its cultivation at home. Thenceforth opium became contraband, but while the East India Company, which by that time had full control of the Indian opium, and the Hong merchants in Guangzhou (Canton) heeded the Imperial ban, almost all the foreign traders did not, and even 'the Emperor's representatives continued to sanction it.' The illegal opium trade grew enormously. After 1830, for maximum profit and safety, chests of opium were delivered in a fleet of fast, well-armed clippers. It should be noted that these “opium clippers\" also carried tea on the return journey: sometimes engaging in \"tea races” to deliver tea quickly before its flavour was impaired. Again, it may be noted that the growth of opium trade with China was linked with another growing addiction, to tea. Detailed discussion of the opium trade is outside the scope of this paper. However, one point must be emphasised: the often forgotten distinction between Britain and British traders, and indeed, other foreign merchants with regards to the opium traffic. The British government's attitude to the opium trade was, characteristically, one of laissez faire; it was neither encouraged nor discouraged, claiming it was essentially a Chinese problem.\n\nChinese-British Relations\n\nIt is perhaps not to be wondered at that the two great nations at the opposite ends of the globe, totally different in their ways and customs, failed to understand each other; indeed, never truly tried, and finally",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 216182,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 481,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "415\n\nAnd even after the first Opium War in 1841 the secret of tea remained an enigma. As it became possible to travel in China the Royal Horticultural Society of London sent botanist Robert Fortune to procure 'the finest varieties of the Tea-plant, as well as native manufacturers and implements, for the Government Tea plantations in the Himalayas.' (Goodwin p.12) Goodwin describes the torturous process that resulted in the first Assam tea reaching London in 1839. (Goodwin p.148) It was not a huge success, mainly because no one in India knew how to process tea.\n\nFinally, in 1848 Fortune determined that green and black tea came from the same plant, the only difference being in their manufacture. The secret was in a process referred to as fermentation, which is entirely unrelated to fermentation of sugars and starches to make alcohol. It is actually manipulation of the leaves to promote the oxidation of the leaves. (Goodwin p.132/3)\n\nportable greenhouses\n\nEmploying the latest technology Fortune successfully transported tens of thousands of Chinese tea plants to India. (Kit p.61) Goodwin describes this success as a 'mummy's curse' because Chinese teas crossed with Indian teas to ‘become a shrubby Frankenstein's monster, popping up all over the place and spoiling the planters' rest' (Goodwin p.121). Despite this unfortunate genetic engineering disaster by the 1880's Indian teas overtook Chinese teas in the ever-expanding British market. (Goodwin p.221) Initially Chinese teas were blended with Assam tea but ultimately Assam teas held their own. The massive outbound migrations of Fujianese on tea clippers were a direct result of the collapse of the tea industry in China, as the world markets became less dependent on Chinese tea. Hopefully the current intellectual property issues and trade imbalances between China and the USA will be resolved more amicably than those of the 19th century.\n\nWhile Chinese were reluctant to divulge details of the tea manufacturing process there were other sources of information. Lu Yu's Tea Classic of the Tang Dynasty describes the growing and manufacturing process in enough detail for practical purposes. Even if the book was not available in China it was in Japan where it formed the foundation of the tea ceremony. Japan, too, had a thriving tea industry. It is surprising the resourceful tea hunters did not try there.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
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]