[
    {
        "id": 204756,
        "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-1964",
        "page_number": 59,
        "title": "RAS-1964",
        "content_text": "48\n\nK. M. A. BARNETT\n\n17\n\nstrong corroboration of traditions, which might otherwise be thought apocryphal, of the disappearance of other villages, including the large village of Lik Yuen,84 half way down what is now Tide Cove.16 For all that, one cannot be absolutely sure. An old Hoklo155 boatman at Tai Po, who fortunately spoke reasonable Cantonese (for I cannot manage the Hoklo language) told me that \"fifty years before he was born, Hong Kong Island was joined to the mainland. It obviously was not. But remembering what has been observed by other field workers, that \"fifty years\" is commonly used to mean any time too long to be remembered, what the old man was passing on was clearly a tradition among the Hoklo that Tuk Ngo Kong45 a name for Victoria Harbour which apparently only the Hoklo language now preserves was long ago interrupted by a strip of land. It may well have been so, and I have provisionally marked it so. For if it were, it would tend to explain the curious demarcation of responsibility between the military commanders of Nam Tau and Tai Pang40 and the apparent fact that ships went through Sheung Sz Mun127 rather than through the present Hong Kong Harbour. It might also explain why Kwun Fu Cheung was more important for the collection of salt than for defence.\n\nThere is also some slight reason to believe that Ma Wan and Tsing Yi,13 which are now islands, were 1,000 years ago connected to the mainland and to one another, and that the channel between Chep Lap Kok1 and Tung Chung was considerably deeper than it now is.\n\nBut I must emphasize that the picture on the south and east side is still sketchy. It would greatly facilitate the work of the historian if his geological colleagues could be persuaded to take their eyes off remote aeons and fix them on to this comparatively recent period so as to obtain some degree of certainty regarding the position of the shore-line at the time of the first Chinese settlement.\n\nThe Missing Pieces. To move away from the shore up to the hills, the first thing that would strike the eye of any us, if he could be transported by time machine into the tenth century, would be the profusion of trees. A former Director of Agriculture told me that the remains of huge trees had been discovered some distance below ground during preparatory work for one of the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211012,
        "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-1987",
        "page_number": 74,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "49\n\nHong Kong at the turn of the century, together with their educational implications. In particular, they may shed light on the role played by such \"middlemen\" as compradores and interpreters in the interaction between the ethnic groups in Hong Kong. There can be little doubt that this role had significance for educational developments as well as for economic and social growth.\n\nIf such insights can be gained, comparisons suggest themselves with the roles (including the educational roles) of other types of middlemen in other societies, ranging from the bourgeoisie in late medieval Europe, to the Lebanese and Indians in parts of Africa, the Creoles in the Caribbean and the southern states of the United States of America, and the Peons in the French Colonial Empire. But before such tempting generalisations can be made, a \"micro-study\" needs to be considered on its own merits.\n\nThe significance of English Made Easy, (or snapshot 1)\n\nThe text of Mok Man Cheung's English Made Easy is, of course, bilingual. It includes a number of proof-reading and other errors. Much more important, however, is the evidence it provides about the social realities of Hong Kong at the time. In this sense, it is a mine of information relevant especially to the social history of education and, more generally, to the social history of early twentieth century Hong Kong. It also offers opportunities for making inferences, rather than being presented with conclusions from which all individuality and sense of live debate have been distilled.\n\nMok's preface, for example, incorporates a dignified but \"hard sell\" approach to his readers. He identifies his target audience or market as \"beginners of the English language\" and, also, \"business men who have acquired a few ordinary English words and desire to learn more without a teacher by the aid of the character of their own language.\" There was already existing in Hong Kong a thriving private tuition business. The \"tutors\" or \"coaches\", who ranged from fully qualified European teachers, moonlighting, to scantily, if at all, qualified Chinese and other non-Europeans, striving to make a living by 'playing the system',",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215790,
        "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": 89,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "22\n\n76 Gullick, Malaya, Chap 4 p 43\n\n77 the petition 1857 to House of Commons (cf. Buckley, supra, p 758); Hansard 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 988\n\nHansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 990 - 991;\n\n-\n\nTurnbull, 'Convicts in the Straits Settlements, 1826-67', JMBRAS, xliii, no 1 (1970) p 88\n\nP 98 - McNair, the Superintendent of convicts in Singapore, remarked in his report for 1858/59 how well the convicts worked at brickmaking and roadbuilding, which made them 'still a positive advantage to this colony'\n\n7\n\nBlundell, in his Annual Report for 1858/59, pointed out that Singapore owed all its roads, canals and public works to convict labour\n\n79 Turnbull, Ibid, p 89 - Indian convicts were allowed a freedom that astonished outside visitors (for example, Lord Elgin in 1857 cf. Walrond T, Letters and Journals of James 8th Earl of Elgin, p 189) They often worked on roads and buildings without guards, sometimes they were employed as domestic servants or in government offices, and they could earn and keep wages\n\n80 Turnbull, Ibid, p 90 - those who did abscond were invariably given up by Chinese and Malays to claim the rewards on their heads\n\n81 Turnbull, Ibid, p 91 - In 1833, a European overseer was murdered by a convict; in 1852, there were two clashes between police and convicts in Penang; in 1853, a group of Sikh prisoners attacked their peons in Singapore\n\n82 Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 991; for example a Ceylonese convict, Tickery Bandah, who was released in 1864, settled down in Malacca as a shopkeeper, writer and amateur lawyer. He even kept up a correspondence with the King of Siam (cf. Cameron, supra pg 376; Turnbull, supra (on convicts), p 91)\n\n83 Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 988\n\n84 Turnbull, supra (on convicts), p 91\n\n85 Their origins are obscure.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]