[ { "id": 212916, "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-1992", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "210\n\nthe day we would be off to the beach annex of the Chefoo Club where there were rowing boats and canoes. From nine in the morning till lunch time and all afternoon a crowd of us were in and out of the water, rowing out to the raft which was a converted junk with diving boards. I got so brown that summer that the mark of the swimming trunks was still visible at Christmas time!\n\nHolidays at Home\n\nA great part of school life was the holidays at home. Home at this time was in Tung Shan Terrace off Stubbs Road, when my father was building the Chinese Methodist Church in Wanchai—the triangular red brick building at the junction of Hennessy Road and Johnston Road.* This was home not in a flat but a three-story house, with a garden overlooking Happy Valley. At the back we had access to Bowen Road which was a safe place to play as there were no motor vehicles. Those holidays I remember chiefly for rambles up to Sir Cecil's Ride and a major hike over to Tytam from Wong Nei Chong Gap. And we went to a school pantomime at the Central British School (now King George V School) where the bad guy called himself “ZBW my middle name is trouble you\" ZBW being the embryo Radio Television Hong Kong. We had our first family car here, an Austin Seven with a folding roof and went for picnics to the beaches at Repulse Bay and Big Wave Bay, and at Stanley where a new prison was being built. Although it was winter in Hong Kong the climate was comfortable for us from the north and we had no hesitation in swimming.\n\n—\n\nOur journeys home in the winter holidays were considerable undertakings. Of course there was no air travel nor was rail travel possible. Instead we went by sea on the B. & S. ships of the China Navigation Line. These were coasters of about 7,000 tons which made their way up and down the China coast carrying cargoes of all sorts, a small number of passengers in cabins and a much larger number of deck passengers. Sometimes we were able to get a ship that went all the way from Chefoo to Hong Kong but often we had to get off in Shanghai and wait in the China Inland Mission hostel for a suitable connection. Some luckless schoolmaster had to accompany some twenty or so children more as far as Shanghai on these journeys. They were carefree days and I have wondered how we all survived. We would sit up on the taffrail undeterred by the possibility of toppling over into the sea. I remember getting into frightful trouble from practising throwing a penknife into the cabin bulkhead. In the ports we watched\n\n*Since demolished [Editor]\n\n—\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213294, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "96\n\nIn the sub-tropics, in a place like Hong Kong, because of ionisation by the wind or the sun's rays, or during a thunderstorm, static electricity is commonly prevalent. Weather-sensitive people frequently feel 'depressed', irritable and nervy. Many suffer from 'typhoon head', when the atmosphere is 'heavy'. Statistics are said to show there is more violent crime in southern France when the Mistral, a strong, cold, dry wind, blows. The reason people feel such effects is because of electrically charged particles, static electricity, in the atmosphere. Ions, neutral atoms and molecules can release or take on electrons which become electrically charged in the process. Later, after the storm has passed, because of the upsurge of negative ions, those same persons feel on top of the world.\n\nBecause of factors outlined above, it could really be that, as the fung shui master maintains, metal coins and crystal have parts to play in reflecting radiation. Also fortune plants, with their non-calcified, non-woody stems, serve a useful purpose in purifying the atmosphere and reducing ions. Such precautions help promote harmony and peace in the home or workplace.\n\nMankind has always been subjected to the interchanging forces of nature. These include heat, magnetism, electricity, chemical action, motion, and natural (solar and stellar) radiation. People may find these, in some forms, disturbing. They upset peace of mind. In the modern world new technology and invisible forces have also to be considered. These include man-made radiation; toxic agents; germ warfare; nuclear-energy plants; electrical and electronic systems; computers and communication systems; radio and television waves; and space travel (Smith, 1993:96). All these can affect vibrations and energy flow to some degree. Although belief in fung shui is unlikely to die, and it will likely remain part of Chinese culture for a long time to come, nevertheless methods of dealing with it must change.\n\nCertainly, in some circumstances, fung shui can be a barrier to progress. In the case of the business establishment that the author visited, together with the fung shui consultant, the management delayed redecoration, on one occasion for several months, because it was not considered 'an appropriate time to hammer walls'.\n\nIt is only comparatively recently that conservation has been taken seriously, by 'Friends of the Earth' and similar associations. It is no longer...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213342, "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "# THE STUDY OF LOCAL HISTORY IN HONG KONG: A REVIEW - \n\nELIZABETH SINN \n\n147 \n\nFor the past few years, local history in Hong Kong has been enjoying a popularity which is quite unprecedented. Hong Kong's main historical museum, the Hong Kong Museum of History which attracted 224,756 visitors in 1995, will be replaced in 1997 by a new museum with an exhibition area three times its present size. In the New Territories, a brand new Heritage Museum devoted to Hong Kong's history, is scheduled to open in 1998, and it will be even larger. A recent school heritage festival, designed to heighten students' awareness of historical monuments and their conservation, created great enthusiasm. Local history is now often the theme of radio and television programmes and everywhere one turns, one sees books on Hong Kong history in both English and Chinese. On the academic front, Hong Kong history courses are offered at four universities and the number of postgraduate students working on the subject has also been growing.\n\nThis paper seeks to trace the history of the study of local history in Hong Kong, to see how from very humble beginnings it has reached the stage of maturity today. It will examine the changes in approach, method and focus over time, and survey the various groups of practitioners in the field in the past 50 years. Lastly, it will look at some of the problems.\n\n## Defining Local History in Hong Kong \n\nHong Kong, not being a sovereign state, and being geographically very small - its total area is only a little over 1,000 sq km - it might be justified to some extent to categorize all historical studies about the territory as 'local history'. However, despite its smallness, Hong Kong is actually a very compact place. Its high population density and the richness and diversity of its historical experience make it possible to study its history on a macro-level as well as a micro-level. In this paper on local history, I shall only be referring to studies done on a sub-territorial and micro-level. Admittedly, the boundaries are hard to define, and it is not always possible to classify works as macro-level or micro-level studies in any clear-cut way.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213359, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "164\n\nover HK$4 million to do a Territory-wide survey of historical buildings almost a year ago, work has yet to start partly because they are unable to line up enough qualified people to lead the survey (the Heritage Museum will be flying in scholars to help with its exhibitions - one a Canadian anthropologist who has been doing work in Hong Kong on and off since the 1960s, and the other an English design historian who returned to teach in the UK four years ago).\n\nThere are simply not enough bodies! The same 10 historians or so are burdened with research projects; advising the museums and AMO, advising radio and television programmes, exhibitions, even film; being interviewed by local and international newspapers; adjudicating photo competitions and students' projects; designing teaching materials for secondary schools; besides doing a full-time job of teaching and administration! Although a number of postgraduate students have written on Hong Kong history for their degree, many became secondary school teachers, civil servants, joined the private sectors, even the museum system as administrators, rather than pursue a career in research.\n\nThe problem is, unlike England for example, there is no army of amateur local historians (or local history societies) who study their own parish, church, village, street... as a hobby. In Hong Kong, local history is much more a consumer item than a participatory item. Despite the increased participation in projects by school and university students in the last decade or so, there is little sustained effort after the project is completed, few taking the initiative to continue research as a hobby. Thus, the main burden still falls upon those few scholars, every one of whom is spread desperately thin. There is a yawning gap, and what is missing is what we might call 'middle management' - budding scholars who can take on a project independently, without the supervision of a more senior scholar.\n\nOne worries also that the glamour of the marketplace might lure scholars away from serious scholarship. Why bother with painstaking collection and analysis of materials, criticism of text and interpretation of data when all one has to do is tell a good story to sell books? How does one strike a balance between pursuing serious research, which is almost by definition esoteric and exclusive, and serving the public?\n\nThere is another minor problem: items for research are now becoming much more difficult to come by. One effect of the growing popularity of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213659, "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-1996", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "Council Member, together with his wife, back to Hong Kong last December. We hope Immediate Past President David Gilkes will also come back to see us. We sincerely hope, too, that he and Edith, who also attended so many of our functions, will enjoy a long and happy retirement together.\n\nPersonalities are obviously important. They help to make a society. That is why it was especially interesting, in December 1996, when Professor P. S. Erasmus G. Harland lectured about his forebear, Dr. William Aurelius Harland, who took up a position in 1843 at the Seamen's Hospital in Hong Kong. He served in the Colony as a prominent physician until 1858 and translated several Chinese medical works into English. During his time in the Colony he was, of course, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, first time around. That is from 1847 to 1859. During that period the Society proposed that the Botanical Gardens be established. It was a pity our Branch slumbered for a century.\n\nMembership\n\nYour Council decided, in January 1997, that, with manageability being a consideration, the optimum membership was probably about 650. But with so many leaving Hong Kong with the change-over, this figure is largely academic. The President, Dr. J. R. Jones, wrote in his 1960-61 Branch Report.\n\nAs we are a Royal Society, we do not go out into the highways and byways to recruit members.\n\nSince then, conditions have altered. We need to keep membership up to ensure adequate funding. In this regard public relations, including radio, television and press interviews, play a part. As at 22 March 1997 the membership stood at 500 locally, with an additional 85 members overseas. The number of local members could, in fact, be fewer than 500 as, unfortunately, some members do not inform us when they leave the Territory.\n\nWith a spirit of localisation prevailing in Hong Kong, but within the framework of an English-speaking Society, we have, over the past few years tried to encourage more Chinese to become members.\n\nxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214157, "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": 15, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "together with his wife Edith, re-visited Hong Kong. So did Past President Dr James Hayes who gave an entertaining, illustrated talk to our Branch about his army days, in Hong Kong and Korea, in the early 1950s. We were delighted to see these three old friends once again.\n\nIt is always sad when old friends depart, for whatever reason, and we are sorry to have to report the passing of two of our overseas members in Britain: the Reverend Cyril Clarke and Mr G Harden. We are also sad to record the passing of Lady May Ride who was a strong supporter of our Branch from 1960 right up to her death after she had moved to England. May they all rest in peace. In addition other members resigned and some left, we later discovered, without informing us which complicates the keeping of our records. As a matter of general interest, there appears to be no founding member (who joined in 1960) who is still active in our Branch today.\n\nMembership drive\n\nBecause of reduced membership, strenuous attempts have been made to increase numbers in various ways. For instance a successful photographic exhibition, on the Landmark Building's Overhead Walkway in Central, was mounted at the end of May, 1998 (see Appendix C). The major organisers for this event were Robert Nield and Tim Ko, assisted at planning stage by Philip Bruce and Arthur Hacker. Their efforts were greatly appreciated as was the help of a large number of other members, including Dr Michael Lau who did the Chinese translation.\n\nIn addition to the successful Landmark Exhibition (no pun intended), the RAS message has been spread in various other ways. This has included the President and members giving talks to, or liaising with, approaching 20 associations, such as the Corona Society, Dante Alighieri and the Hong Kong Natural History Society. Reciprocal arrangements with other societies are obviously important and, in some cases, other associations have been very supportive. Councillors have also taken part in radio and television programmes and our Branch is to be allocated space by the British Consulate on the Internet. For all this assistance we are grateful to many different organisations.\n\nWe are also grateful to RAS members Bob and Sally Bunker and\n\nXiv\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214197, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "18\n\npeople believe, and there appears to be truth in this (with greater use being made of the Chinese language since the Handover), that Hong Kong as a city-state is becoming more Chinese. Although this can affect the development of Hong Kong humour it is expected to be more than offset by globalisation and the world-wide effects of radio, television, the Internet and information technology.\n\nThe late Lin Yutang postulated that a Chinese believes, while getting in a few puffs while standing in front of a no-smoking sign, that the world is a stage where drama and high comedy abound. Life is a huge farce and one must not take matters too seriously, whether they be government reforms or funerals (Lin, 1936:65). The latter have a certain amount of 'gaiety' about them. Sending a person on his or her last journey to confront the final mystery of life should, it is believed, be expensive. The Chinese consider only Europeans (Lin insists) take funerals seriously and try to make them solemn affairs. What is wrong at a funeral in getting a few words across to a pal, about horse racing or morning walks, when you have not seen him for a long time? The man who takes life too seriously and obeys all the rules (according to Lin), and keeps off the grass when nobody is looking, appears ridiculous. In addition Chinese humour often takes a tolerant view of vice and evil. Instead of condemning them outright why not make fun of them? Lin Yutang believed humour could transcend cynicism and be used for other and better purposes than reconciling oneself to one's down-trodden position.\n\nAccording to Lin Yutang (1936:64), first-class humour is to be found in the Confucian Analects. \"After all, Confucius is quoted as having said, because Tsai Yu napped during the day:\n\nRotten wood cannot be carved nor a wall of dried dung trowelled. How would I rebuke him?\n\nA saying like that is always good for a chuckle.\n\nMuch humour is to be found in Ming dynasty novels, in Hong Kong's New Territories' folk songs (largely forgotten except among the elderly), and in the poetry of the drunkard, Li Po (alias Li T'ai-po), who lived in the eighth century. He made much of the solace and lib-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214200, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "21\n\nBut, while comparing Chinese and western humour, with the latter propagated by television, radio and other forms of the mass media, it has to be borne in mind that the peoples of many countries are changing their way of life. The world is fast becoming a global village.\n\nAmusement in language\n\nIn the mid-1950s, the author recalls, a fashionable colour in Hong Kong was described in Cantonese (a vibrant, vivid language) as ‘duck's excreta green'. This tickled foreigners but was (and still is) good descriptive, serious stuff to our Chinese friends. They never seem to realise, however, that any of their own surnames, such as Mr Wu, Mrs Ma (meaning horse), Mrs Lung (meaning dragon) or Miss Ng (which is difficult for some Europeans to pronounce), may strike the average Westerner as funny. Yet the author has never really understood why his family name, 'Waters' (which hardly ever strikes Europeans as comical) (probably meaning his forebears lived near a river or a lake), is often considered amusing by Chinese. A Chinese physician once wisecracked: 'Dan Waters, please pass some water;' while a Chinese architect quipped, 'Dr Waters has been inspecting waterworks structures all morning.' In other examples just the mention of the name Green, Whalebelly or Goodbody strike many Chinese, understandably perhaps, as comical. We British have become accustomed to such names. However, the countless Chinese firms with names like Lee Kee Motor Boat Service, No-Squeak Wong the cobbler and Au-Choo the medicine shop, do strike the average Westerner as good for a chuckle.\n\nThere is a Chinese saying which, when translated, goes something like this:\n\nWalking we will not change our family name. Sitting we will not change our given name.\n\nIt really implies we are digging our heels in and sticking to our principles. Nevertheless, Sir (now Lord) David Wilson did change his name when he came back to Hong Kong to become Governor in 1987. He had served in Hong Kong before and his Chinese name had previously been romanised as Ngai Tak-ngai (Spurr, 1995;246). The Chinese, however, who read far more into a name than the average European,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214212, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "33\n\nThen there is another tale which goes as follows (Giles, 1925: Joke64): A Chinese chess player was proud of his ability, although on one occasion he lost three games in a row. The next day a friend asked him how he got on. 'I didn't win the first game,' he replied, and my opponent didn't lose the second.' 'As to the last game, I asked him to agree to a draw but he wouldn't.' Many Westerners talk as if face, which really amounts to 'worth' in the eyes of others, is only important to Asians. U Thant, the Burmese diplomat who was made Permanent Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1962, was fond of saying: 'Face is very important to Europeans.' While the author does not disagree, it would appear Asians place even more emphasis on it than do Westerners.\n\nMuch has been made recently by the media about senior civil servants not being tolerant of Radio Television Hong Kong's political satire when the foolishness of the establishment has been highlighted in an amusing way (Yeung, 1998a). It amounts to what is accepted (especially in the West) as good clean fun being taken seriously by some Hong Kong government servants (Yeung, 1998b). It largely boils down to the fact that, when the joke is on them and they lose face, civil servants are unable to accept it in good heart.\n\nAlthough a bit of a struggle at first, many Japanese politicians have now, apparently, learned more recently to accept criticism, passing it off by describing it as a form of 'art' and saying the attention he receives shows that he must be popular.10 'After all, we do not criticise those who we do not think much of, but we do criticise those who we love and esteem.'\n\nWhen China's President, Jiang Zemin, visited Hong Kong in 1998, a photograph in the Hong Kong Standard, on July 1, showed him travelling in the back of a car with his seat-belt unbuckled. Most Europeans (and some more westernised Chinese too) took this as good, mischievous fun. A letter in the same newspaper, on July 5 from a Chinese living in the United States, however, asked whether, if during colonial days a member of the British Royal Family who was visiting Hong Kong, or a British governor were caught not wearing a seat-belt, whether it would have been publicised (and by implication made fun of) in a similar way. This Overseas Chinese felt it was wrong to publish the photograph of Jiang Zemin in the Standard. In fairness, of course, until", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214216, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "37\n\n(15) Humour changes over time and many Chinese, for example Singaporeans, have become Westernised in various ways, including regarding their sense of humour.\n\nThe Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), and its vicious aftermath, even though it was for many Chinese largely of their own making, had a profound effect on China physically,\n\npolitically and morally. But the Chinese have considerable capacity for survival boosted largely by their philosophy of life, acceptance of realism, and capabilities to surmount the vicissitudes of life with understanding, limitless grace and (it must be stressed) with considerable humour.\n\nNevertheless, where there are differences in senses of humour, the more a Westerner learns about and appreciates Chinese culture, or when a Chinese understands Western culture, the more he or she 'extends' his or her own sense of humour in an alien culture. More rigorously chronicled jokes and more well-researched material will assist this process.\n\nBut with time, improved travel facilities and communications, including radio, television, the Internet, other forms of the mass media and information technology, the world is becoming more of a global village. In spite of Hong Kong becoming in some respects more 'Chinese' since the 1997 Handover, from Britain to China (including more use being made of the Chinese language), the merging of western and Chinese cultures will continue. This will, in the end, result in differences being narrowed and Chinese and Westerners laughing more at each others' jokes. Laughter will then cross the Great Wall more easily.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214599, "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-1999", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "himself a Hongkonger at heart and one of us. He helps the Branch in many ways albeit at a distance.\n\nWe are sorry to have to report the death of Sir Robert Black, at the age of 93. Sir Robert was Governor of Hong Kong from 1958 to 1964. While serving in the Colony he was Patron of the RASHKB and, on one occasion, he even chaired a Branch meeting. This was the first time a governor had chaired such a meeting since the days of Sir John Bowring in the middle of the 19th century. Sir Robert was also our first Honorary Member, a position he held until his death.\n\nWe also regret having to record the passing of member Jeanne Bromfield, in May 1999 in England. She, together with husband Tony and family, lived and worked in Hong Kong, as a teacher, from the 1950s until relatively recently. She attended RAS functions regularly.\n\nWe are also sorry to have to record the passing of RAS member Dr Alan Birch who taught at the University of Hong Kong for many years. He made a major contribution to local history and many students passed through his hands. His monuments are around for all to see.\n\nMembership drive and public relations\n\nRealising that if our Society wishes to attract new members it is not desirable to hide our light under a bushel, some emphasis has been placed on public relations. This has included appearances by members on television and radio, on both English and Chinese programmes, and reports in the press. A number of our members have also been engaged by other societies to lecture to their memberships. In such cases they usually take the opportunity to mention the RAS. We must also thank RAS Member Sydney Cowell who sent out details of the RAS to a number of his colleagues and friends. As a result, new RAS members were recruited.\n\nWe are grateful to Council member Julia Chan who arranged for a RASHKB exhibition to be held in the foyer of the Main Library of Hong Kong University. This attracted considerable attention among staff, students and visitors. Plans are being laid for similar exhibitions to be held at other venues in the Territory.\n\nxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215134, "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": 230, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "187\n\nvirtually cut off the supply to the waterfall other than when they are overflowing, for instance after a heavy storm.\n\nApart from pleasure boats and other small craft, Tai Tam Harbour was used more in the 19th century than it is today. During the period 1806 to 1819, long before Hong Kong was taken over by Britain, James Horsburgh, a hydrographer with the East India Company, surveyed the waters around the Island. He wrote that Tai Tam afforded shelter from almost all winds (Liu Shuyong, 1997:24). It is not of course a harbour as we sometimes know it with wharves and godowns. It is an inlet, which provides a place for ships to shelter. To illustrate again the Harbour's use as a place for protection from the elements mention is made of ‘tactical manoeuvring and target practice,' in February 1878, by the Royal Navy (White Ensign-Red Dragon, 1997; 39). It continues, 'The 20th February being very misty the fleet remained at Tytam Bay.'\n\nPeople naturally ask when exactly were the two Obelisks first erected; who erected them; and what purpose did (or do) they serve? As a start, with the aims of answering such questions, two Chief Inspectors, H J W Chetwynd-Chatwin and Keith Francis, both then serving in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, arranged an informal meeting, in 1994. The meeting took place in a bar at a police officers' mess in Wan Chai. It was followed by a curry lunch. About a dozen people were invited who, it was felt, could contribute. They included the Government Director of Marine and RASHKB member R S Hownam-Meek who spent his career in shipping with Jardine. A couple of weeks or so after the meeting the topic of the Obelisks was raised by Radio Television Hong Kong. Little of real substance emerged from the meeting or the ‘phone-in radio programme. The late Arthur May, then a retired civil servant, did however ‘phone in to say that, as a youth, he went to live at Tai Tam in 1919. He also recalled that when he sailed around the Harbour in the 1920s the two Obelisks were definitely already there.\n\nThe Hydrographic Data Centre, at Taunton in England, maintains that information was received from the Commander-in-Chief, China, that two beacons, each 30 feet high, had been erected. These were first inserted on Admiralty charts by 'Notice to Mariners 755' of 1900 (Atherton, 1996:94). I have a chart showing Tai Tam Harbour, dated 1894, which shows the Obelisks, but Atherton informs me that this is a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215573, "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": 350, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "300\n\nRecreation\n\nCertainly man cannot live by rice alone and provision had to be made for recreation and welfare. What facilities were there? One imagines in the early 20th century a limited amount. But in the years leading up to Waglan becoming automated, in the 1980s, colour television, stereo music, radio, a small library, darts, ping-pong and mah-jong, all accommodated in the air-conditioned recreation room, were available (Port Services Division; 1987).\n\nLet us now turn to the actual men who manned the lighthouses.\n\nLighthouse personalities\n\nIn 1838, Grace Horsley Darling (1815-1842) became the heroine of Britain when she and her lighthouse keeper father rescued nine of the crew of the good ship Forfarshire. It was wrecked near the Longstone Lighthouse on one of the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast, England. It is fitting that Darling's name is still recorded in English dictionaries and encyclopaedias although today people are more likely to hero-worship figures like astronauts, film stars and footballers.\n\nWhat about Hong Kong's keepers and others associated with lighthouses? What sort of men were they? Let us look at some of them.\n\nJames Arthur William Deakin's father was a British soldier who married his Chinese wife in 1935.42 He served as a gunner on Mount Davis when the Japanese attacked in December 1941. Later, as a child, James was called upon by his mother to put food parcels through the wire fence of the Shum Shui Po Prison Camp where his father was incarcerated.\n\nWhen he grew up, after attending the then Government King George the Fifth Secondary School, Jimmy Deakin went into government service. In the late 1950s he was posted to the Marine Department from the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Division of the Public Works Department.\n\nAllen Lack informed the author that he had known Deakin earlier, as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215586, "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": 363, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "313\n\nLee Kar Hung (1999, March 16), Principal Queen's College, letter to Author.\n\nLighthouse Digest, Canada, www.LighthouseDigest.com\n\nLongfellow, Henry Wadsworth, part III, The Theologian's Tale, Elizabeth IV.\n\nNavigation News (1998 November/December), front cover, magazine of Royal Institute of Navigation.\n\nPearson, Lynn F.(1998) Lighthouses, Shire 312 Album, Shire Publications Ltd, Britain.\n\nPort Services Division (1987 December), Waglan Lighthouse, Welcome Aboard, Government Marine Department, one page brochure.\n\nRull, Peter (1999 February 23), Lighthouse Keepers, letter to Author.\n\nSinclair, Kevin and Nelson Ng Kwok-cheung (1997), Asia's Finest Marches On, Policing Hong Kong from 1841 into the 21st Century, Kevin Sinclair Ass. Ltd. Hong Kong.\n\nVideo (2001), Hong Kong's Lighthouses, Radio Television Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]