[ { "id": 209000, "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-1980", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "130\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nthat he had not seen before, particularly in the countryside. He was surprised by what he saw. His closest Chinese friends in Peking and Shanghai had not told him about such things. Perhaps they were unaware of them. China is a large country.\n\nMy experience and his raise an important question about methodology, about epistemology. How can we learn what is really happening in China? The answer is: not by going there. By going there one can learn much, particularly if one is lucky (as I was). If one has spent many years reading about China, one can learn particularly much. One is able to observe what is meaningless to those with no background in Chinese studies. My own visit in May helped me to understand a great deal that I had not understood before. It also confirmed a great deal that I had understood correctly. Chinese friends have admired my article, \"The Chinese Art of Make-Believe,\" published in the May 1968 Encounter. One Chinese friend gave me the ultimate compliment: \"I do not see how you, who are not Chinese, could have written this article.\"\n\nThere are many reasons why it has been hard to learn much about China by going there. Before 1977 there were too many Potemkin villages, designed to make a desired impression on the visitors to whom they were shown. More important is the fact that at any time in the past two millennia the people in China's principal cities have tended to be poorly informed about life in the countryside. So far as I know, every major revolution has started in the countryside. Equally important is the Chinese preference for talking about the way things are supposed to be rather than about the way they actually are — the preference for orthodoxy. All of us prefer orthodoxy in certain situations. But for us it is less natural to let our preference lead us into make-believe.\n\n——\n\nFor example, the abbot of Chin Shan told me in 1960 that it lay in the middle of the Yangtse River. He was very firm about this. But others had told me how they had walked on foot to the monastery gate. I confronted the abbot with their statements. He was indignant. “I did not tell you a lie,” he said. “Chin Shan is in the middle of the river. It is true that before the years when I was abbot the river had changed its course and silted up on the south side of Chin Shan.” The orthodox location of the monastery was still in the middle of the Yangtse, which had been changing its course, back and forth, for centuries. Why pick the years after 1900 as the time to locate the monastery?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209294, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "BRO. TSUNG LAI SHUN IN MASSACHUSETTS\n\n183\n\nrobe. Their headgear was particularly ill-adapted to our winters, and after a while they were forced to make application to their rulers in China for permission to adopt hats which would give them better protection. In due time the permission came and in consequence, a few days later, the Lai-Sun women appeared on the streets waving masses of Chinese clothes crowned by the very latest creations of the up-to-date American milliner. And the combinations were often startling.\n\n+\n\nThe family were punctilious in the discharge of their social obligations, in this respect, too, living up to their Chinese customs. It seems that the social customs of China demand that the ordinary \"call\" be repaid as soon as possible. The Lai-Suns were very particular about this matter. They usually returned a call on the following day, and commonly the entire family participated in this function. Persons who received these visitations describe them as decidedly novel and interesting. And the appearance at the door of a house of the eight smiling Celestials was a spectacle whose general significance strongly suggested the sallying forth of the famous Peterkin family—\"Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John and the two little boys in their India-rubber boots.\"\n\nDuring the latter part of their residence in this city the Lai-Suns lived in a house on Bay street, Mr. Lai-Sun having at that time returned to China. The exact reason for his return was not made public at that time, but the general explanation was that the conservative element in the Chinese government had succeeded in discrediting the policy that had sent the Chinese young men to this country. And so Mr. Lai-Sun went back to China, and in the course of a year or so his family followed him.\n\n[The first page of the following article is missing]\n\nCHINESE STUDENTS FAMOUS AT HOME\n\n(continued From First Page)\n\nsilk rustling, they made an imposing procession. Mr. Lai-Sun had impressive dignity and the family were punctilious in the extreme regarding their social obligations, there never being any neglect of the proper etiquette, if the Lai-Suns were able to ascertain precisely what the occasion demanded.\n\nThe Lai-Suns spoke English fluently and were evidently people of means. The daughters of the family were amiable and attractive and made a remarkable record of marrying out of their race. One, Annie,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209598, "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": 255, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "233\n\ndescribed as a \"fairy play\". It was an ambitious effort with 100 performers, 50 children, 50 trained birds and a special corps de ballet of 25 and an orchestra of 25. It was a great success. In keeping with the title the theatre was decorated in blue. As the performance was in aid of the Prince of Wales Fund, massive oil paintings of the King and Queen and Prince of Wales painted by Yee Cheong of Wyndham Street,* were prominently displayed.\n\nA similar production, not quite so lavish, was put on the next year. It was a fairy ballet entitled \"Snow White and the Frog Prince\". It was in aid of the Belgium Relief Fund.\n\nAnother very elaborate production was \"Kismet”, an oriental extravaganza, in 1916. It was in aid of the Star and Garter Fund. All the productions during the war period were in aid of some war related fund. Original music for \"Kismet\" was written by Mr. Norman Peterkin of the Robinson Piano Company.\n\n\"Pinkie and the Fairies\", yet another extravaganza, was staged in 1919. It had over sixty performers. The late Sophie Weill Odell appeared as one of the fairies a proper introduction to a long association with the stage through her impresario husband Harry Odell. The programme for \"Pinkie and the Fairies\" listed all the productions of the A.D.C. since 1870.\n\nNot all Sinclair's plays were along the exotic line. In 1916, there was \"The Angel in the House\" the success of this play depended on subtle satiric portrayal of character. It put a great demand on an amateur group. Even more demanding was the 1925 production of Shaw's \"St. Joan\". It was hailed as the greatest triumph of the A.D.C.'s existence. \"A great play, magnificently acted\" \"Memory fades and achievements diminish; time weaves a dusty web over the past and the glamour of a praise-worthy act wears off. History never dies, nor will this epoch-making performance of the A.D.C. be forgotten when the social history of Hong Kong is compiled\".\n\nSinclair also appreciated the sophisticated humour of Noel Coward. \"I'll Leave It to You\" was staged by him in 1922, It had been Coward's first play produced in London, some two years previous to its Hong Kong appearance.\n\n* Hong Kong Daily Press, 1 Apr. 1884, Advertisement: Yee Cheong, portrait painter, studio corner of Wyndham and Wellington Streets.\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216444, "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-2003", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "153\n\nrecruit Chinese labour for the South African mines had been discussed and taken before the outbreak of the war).\n\nNOTES\n\ni The Russian's naval port at Port Arthur was built beside the small Chinese town of Qingniwa now part of greater Dalian (called Dalny by the Russians). The Chinese town was known to the Russians as either the Chinese town or the Old Town.\n\nii Mukden was Fengtian in Qing times; also Shengjing.\n\nThis consisted of revolutionary agitation, with strikes, riots and mutinies in the army and navy - including the mutiny on the Potemkin in Odessa in June 1905.\n\niv The IG In Peking: Vol. II: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 1971: Hart's Letter 1319 of 28 February 1904\n\n* Ernest Brindle: With Russian, Japanese and the Chunchuse - The Experiences of an Englishman during the Russo-Japanese War: John Murray: London: 1905 (A number of observations provided by Brindle have also been quoted within this article)\n\nv Sakuya Takahashi: International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War: Stevens and Sons, Ltd: London: 1908 - Chapter IV: Section I\n\nvii Newchwang [(Niuzhuang) is a town some 30 miles inland and connected by the River Liao with its port, formerly Port Newchwang, and known to the Chinese as Yingkou. Newchwang had been a Treaty Port with Western resident businessmen and missionaries since 1861.\n\nviii Some four months after the outbreak of the war foreign newspaper correspondents were complaining that neither the Russians nor the Japanese allowed them to see much of what was going on. Both belligerents claimed that war was too serious an affair to let plans be spoiled by correspondents. Japanese reports were considered more reliable and Russian accounts were not taken seriously.\n\nix [C]hun[c]huse was probably the Russian romanisation for Hong Huzi.\n\nx Shao Yuchun: Minzu Lao Yingxiong - Wang Delin: (Wang Delin, Old Hero): in Tan Yi [ed] Dongbei Kangri Yiyongjun Renwuzhi: Vol 2: 1981\n\nxi Mancall and Jidkoff: Les Honghuzi de la Chine du Nord-Est: 1970\n\nxii War in the East: Virtue and Co.: London: Volume VI\n\nxiii International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War: Chapter IV: Section II\n\nxiv Illustration in Japan's Fight for Freedom H.W. Wilson: The Amalgamated Press: London: 1905 - Volumes I and II.\n\nxv * Hart's letter No. 1387 dated 29 October 1905", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]