[ { "id": 204385, "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-1962", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "12\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\nsouthern border of the Ordos region within the loop of the Yellow River, as Pao-t'ou was on its northern border. Fr. Mostaert, it appears, was already familiar with the Crosses and he gave some valuable information from his personal observations, as to the use to which they were put by the Mongols of his day:\n\nThe Mongols constantly dig them up from old graves and elsewhere; they know nothing about their history, but wear them on their girdles, especially the women. When they leave home to take their sheep to graze, they close their doors, and seal them with mud or clay, in the same way as other people use ordinary seals.4\n\nIn 1932 during his residence in Tsinan, Shantung, Mr. Nixon committed his collection to the late Dr. J. Mellon Menzies of Shang dynasty fame, then professor of Chinese Archaeology at Cheeloo University, for study and classification. The result was embodied in a monograph entitled Chinese Nestorian Bronze Crosses which was published with the help of a grant from the Harvard-Yenching Institute in December 1934 as a double number of the Cheeloo University Bulletin 齊大季刊,第三、五合期, 青銅十字專號。The volume consists of impressions in red (somewhat in the manner of Chinese rubbings, but not true rubbings) of each of the crosses and seals in the collection, to the number of 979, followed by tables giving the number, weight, measurements and description of each cross, and where possible the provenance of each, the whole being classified in certain clearly defined groups, together with two essays in Chinese: 'Christianity in China in the time of Marco Polo' by Dr. Menzies; 'The Swastika Cross Badges Unearthed in Sui Yüan Province, China' by Professor P. Y. Saeki; and a short Introduction in Chinese on the Nixon Collection by Dr. Menzies. This volume has long been out of print, and Cheeloo University itself has been disbanded, The Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Hong Kong hopes, when funds are available, to publish a complete set of photographs and rubbings of the whole collection with Dr. Menzies' tables, classification and enumeration.\n\n4\n\nDr. Menzies classified the crosses, which measure from 11 to 31 ins. across, first according to shape into four main groups,\n\n1 Moule, Christians in China before the Year 1550, London, S.P.C.K., 1930, p. 92; Saeki, Nestorian Documents and Relics in China, Tokyo, 2nd ed., 1951, p. 423; Menzies, Chinese Nestorian Bronze Crosses, Cheeloo University Bulletin, 1934, pp. 92-3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204535, "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": 16, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAO\n\n11\n\nCompany doing in Portuguese territory? Why did the Protestants need a separate cemetery? What is the significance of the date 1814? These are but a sample of the problems that these few words pose.\n\nThe first Europeans to set up permanent maritime contacts with the Chinese were the Portuguese, and by 1557 they had been granted permission to settle on a small peninsula of the delta island of Heung Shan. This peninsula, covering an area of only about five square miles, thus became the first permanent European trading base in China.\n\nLater came the Dutch, the Spanish and the British traders and navigators; the first and the second of these national groups eventually made their oriental headquarters elsewhere, but the British, through their highly organized East India Company, were more persistent and more successful as far as trade with the mainland of China was concerned.\n\nBut the China of those days was, in the eyes of her own people, the centre of the universe, and all those who lived outside the confines of her ancient and well-tested civilization were considered barbarians. They could only be admitted inside the fold as tribute bearers to the Imperial Court to receive the ethical instruction of the Son of Heaven, and were then sent back home. When such admissions were allowed, portals of entry were carefully chosen and rigidly controlled, and in the case of sea-faring people, the port appointed was Canton, situated ninety miles up the river from Macao, and thus the barbarians were kept as far as possible from the sacred heart of the Middle Kingdom.\n\nBut even at Canton there were further restrictions, geographical as well as political. The ships could only get up as far as Whampoa, which was the deep-sea port for Canton, and about eleven miles down river from it. The foreign merchants were allowed to go on to Canton itself but they had to reside in a place set apart outside the city—the Factories; nor could they remain there permanently; the length of residence permitted was determined by the time it took to dispose of the cargo brought in their ships and to load the return cargo of silk or tea. The time of the year at which these operations took place was determined by the monsoon; foreign trade was therefore completely seasonal—from September to March approximately, and as soon", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204669, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "134 \n\nCLIVE ROBINSON \n\nand one is apt to forget one's own unease in admiration of the ponies which, fully laden, negotiate the rocky path with marvellous sure-footedness. Once over, the rest of the descent into the Sind valley below is an unending joy of forest paths, strange bird calls and ever-changing mountain views. It took us the best part of two days to reach the Sind river and at our last night's camp we knew we had reached civilisation again by the noise of the watchmen beating on tin cans in an endeavour to keep the bears out of the Indian cornfields. That was the only night we chained our dog, Sally, to the camp bed. \n\nOne more day's walk along the valley to the village of Sonamarg and its military bridge over the river leading on to Leh. Here there is, or rather was, a large notice warning \"Tourists and Trekkers\" that they could go no farther. It sounded rather like the New Territories but when I enquired in the village I gathered that few tourists ever got to Sonamarg and we had been the first that year over the Yamher. We camped outside at Thajiwas (9,000 ft.) in the Valley of the Glaciers, and next day walked back into Sonamarg to catch a bus home. The drive took us about four hours and this time we had ducks and sheep with us as a variety. \n\nSo ended perhaps the most memorable holiday we have ever had. Certainly the walk is one of the best short treks it is possible to make in Kashmir. Going leisurely we had taken seven days, walked about ninety miles and reached a height of 14,000 ft. \n\nTwo days later we left the “Golden Gleam” and said goodbye to the incomparable Gaffar and his happy staff. Going up the Banihal Pass on the way home to Delhi my car developed the usual complaint of petrol-pump trouble which often happens in the more rarified atmospheres of heights over 9,000 ft. Unfortunately it did not respond to the regular Indian treatment of a wet mud-pack wrapped round the pump so, for four hours, I was compelled to remain crouched on the mudguard with my back to the way we were going in order to be in a position to apply a smart tap with a screw-driver to the ailing pump whenever it showed signs of giving up the ghost. Fortunately I had faith in my wife at the wheel as the hairpin bends on the Banihal are not particularly pleasant when seen backwards from the mudguard of a Riley! \n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204716, "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": 19, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "W. C. HUNTER \n\nengaged in the lucrative trade drew out of the country large amounts of silver. Lin Tse-hsu, Governor General of Hupeh and Hunan wholeheartedly threw his support to those who memorialized the throne requesting stringent measures to prevent the use of opium within the country, and to cure addicts. Moreover, Lin took direct action and seized caches of opium, 12,000 ounces and 5,000 pipes. As a result of his success in combating opium addiction and forceful condemnation of the sale of the drug he was called to Peking by Emperor Tao-kuang and appointed Imperial Commissioner to examine the opium traffic at Canton. He arrived at the provincial capital in early March, 1839. For several years prior to 1839 nearly 30,000 chests had been imported annually there.\n\nFateful events immediately took form. Lin warned the western merchants of dire results if the iniquitous trade did not cease. His threat was followed by the demand that within three days they offer a bond that no opium would be imported. A counter proposal was made to turn over to Commissioner Lin about 1000 chests of the drug which he summarily rejected. On March 22, he demanded that Lancelot Dent, one of the principal importers be given to Chinese officials as a hostage until all opium was given up. The western merchants insisted that Dent could be surrendered only on condition that his personal safety was guaranteed. The Chinese merchants doing business with foreigners were frightened by the action of their own government. Some of them were deprived of their buttons of rank and two appeared in public with chains around their necks. Under these circumstances the Hong (the association of Chinese merchants trading with the western merchants at Canton) pressed the foreign community to comply with the ultimatum of Lin and deliver up Dent.\n\nIn the midst of this seething situation, on March 24, Captain Charles Elliot, British naval officer and Chief Superintendent and Plenipotentiary of the China Commission arrived from Macao. He entered the foreign compound with great difficulty inasmuch as the river had been blockaded and the streets leading to the foreign section had been barricaded. The predicament of approximately 300 western people seemed most serious since food and water were in short supply and a large encampment of Chinese troops was close at hand. Canton was cut off from formal communications from Macao which was nearly sixty miles distant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204719, "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": 22, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n13\n\nOn the evening of the 19th affairs looked so squally that Mr. Hunter who had returned to Canton a day or two before ordered all the books and papers packed up and started with them at 2 A.M. the next morning for Macao. At 7 Mr. King started Mr. Spooner and myself off in Mr. Hunter's sail boat with a load of baggage, and books that Mr. H. could not take. We were towed down by Captain Endicott's boat and arrived safer after a passage of 6 hours on board the Naraganset. On our arrival we received a chit from Mr. Hunter stating that a number of transports and men of war were on the way up and advising us to get out of Canton as soon as possible. This I forwarded to Mr. King, but he did not get it as he had already left with the remainder of R and Co's Establishment.3\n\nExplanatory terms\n\nIn China the factory was a multi-purpose building. The lower floor usually was used for office space, storage, and the like, the second floor for dining and lounging, and the third for sleeping. Broad verandahs around the building gave it a spacious and airy quality. In Canton the factories of the various nationalities, American, Danish, French, Dutch, and Swedish faced the river. The British factory was truly magnificent for it contained a huge and lavishly furnished dining hall with terrace, library, chapel and numerous private rooms.\n\nHong was sometimes used interchangeably with factory but specifically it referred to all the buildings of a commercial establishment, i.e., the factory and subsidiary buildings such as living quarters for servants and workers and large storage areas for cargos of ships.\n\nHong merchants had formed an association in the early eighteenth century; in 1839 the Chinese merchants numbered thirteen and they had a monopoly of trade with foreigners. The most powerful and wealthy Hong merchant was Howqua, spelt by Hunter Houqua.\n\nConsoo House was the property of the Hong merchants, and in actuality was a series of buildings in the Chinese style. The main building contained lavish reception rooms and a series of courtyards.\n\n3 James Duncan Phillips, editor, \"The Canton Letters 1839-1841 of William Henry Low,\" The Essex Institute Historical Collections LXXXIV, 1948.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204791, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "82 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nwas committed outside their shop. Fearing further complications, the brothers left their native village of Nam Ling Wai nearby, two of them going to Jamaica and the third to Peng Chau. The reason for his selecting Peng Chau is an interesting one. There had been difficulty in finding a bride with a suitable horoscope and a go-between in Yuen Long Market with contacts on Peng Chau had arranged his marriage with a girl of the LUI family. The family were not poor, and by the end of the century had secured a considerable area of fields on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau by giving mortgages to incautious or unlucky farmers. \n\nSome light on Peng Chau's development in the nineteenth century is given in the tablet commemorating the repairs made to the temple in 1878. Though the total number of subscribers is less than in the 1798 tablet — 181 instead of 218 — the number of shops is greater, and their locations specified. Fifty Peng Chau undertakings were listed, including one factory, though what manufacture it carried out is unknown. Some of the local shops listed on the tablet were quite large concerns by the end of the century. Among their number the San Tai Li business owned six or seven adjoining shops on the east side of Wing On Street, near the present ferry pier. It is said to have handled several lines of business including ship-chandlering and the production of sails and tackle, fishmongering and general dealings with fishermen, grocery and general goods and Chinese medicine. It also owned several junks for cargo and ferry purposes. A WONG of the third generation was managing its affairs in 1899, the business having been started by his grandfather, who was a Cantonese from Shun Tak district. Besides the shops, and the lime kilns, of which there were almost a dozen by 1904, there were at least two boat building and repair yards, and a business which specialised in beaching boats. \n\nThe repair tablet lists numerous outside subscribers, which indicates the business and social contacts which the island had with neighbouring areas. Eighteen Hong Kong businesses, including seven fish laans, and another seven shops from Shaukiwan, contributed to the fund, and so did shops from Tai Ping, Shek Wan and Kong Moon in the Pearl River Delta. A ferry boat business from Heung Shan, had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204825, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "A RECONNAISSANCE OF MA WAN\n\nSecondly that the great extent of our commercial concerns in China requires a place of security as a depot for such of our goods as cannot be sold off or shipped during the short season that is allowed for our shipping to arrive and depart; and that for this purpose we wish to obtain a grant of a small tract of ground or detached Island, but in a more convenient situation than Canton, where our present Warehouses are at a great distance from our ships, and where we are not able to restrain the irregularities which are occasionally committed by the Seamen of the Company's ships, and those of private traders4.\n\n107\n\nIn fact in his Journal under an entry dated 2-7 January, 1794, after discussing the possibility of obtaining Macao, he went on to mention the possibility of a settlement on an island.\n\nOr with as little trouble and with more advantage we might make a settlement in Lantao or Cow-hee, and then Macao would of itself crumble to nothing in a short time. The forts of the Bocca Tigris might be demolished by half a dozen broadsides, the river would be impassable without our permission, and the whole trade of Canton and its correspondencies annihilated in a season. The millions of people who subsist by it would be almost instantly reduced to hunger and insurrection.\n\nTherefore it was natural that Macartney should send Lieutenant Parish to survey the coast of Lantao and the neighbouring islands in search of a harbour and a possible place for a settlement. In his report Parish refers to \"a situation for a settlement, intended to protect the large and valuable ships employed in the China trade\". It was unfortunate that the bad weather during the short time available for the survey prevented Parish from obtaining a more detailed description of the area. However, he did manage to land on an island which he calls Cowhee and his report to Macartney contains information of interest which, together with his sketch map, is worth reproducing3. It reads as follows:\n\nMacao 28th February, 1794.\n\nPursuant to your Excellency's orders, Mr. Alexander and myself embarked on board the Jackall in the Typas, at seven", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204832, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD\n\nthe mainland. In this latter passage, up which the Jackall had to sail so slowly, there are vicious back-eddies along both shores and there is often no appreciable period of slack water at the turn of the tide. After heavy rains in the Pearl River, the ebb tide from west to east along this channel is particularly strong27. The coasts in general shelve steeply, with few good landing places and often with cliffs plunging straight down to the sea. The only large coastal plain which Parish saw during this survey was at Tung Chung, on the west coast of Lantao behind Chek Lap Kok island (Shatlapko on Parish's chart see note 9) but weather and timetable combined to prevent him from getting a close look at it. There is a general absence of good anchorages, except in the shallow waters between Chek Lap Kok and the coast of Lantao, and there is an 8-foot tidal range. The steep hillsides produce fluky gusts of wind in all but the calmest weather. It is surprising that Parish made such detailed observations in the face of these navigational hazards.\n\nParish's comments on Ma Wan itself are also a fair summary of its geographical limitations. The island is geologically complex, with an interesting variety of soils. The underlying rocks, however, are not sufficiently porous to hold large supplies of ground water, and the size of the island (less than a square mile) is too small to form an effective catchment. Any trading post established on Ma Wan would have been severely restricted in size by this problem. The two small settlements on the island have probably not grown appreciably since Parish's visit28. Perhaps it was fortunate that impressions of Ma Wan were coloured by his attempt to land at the most difficult and dangerous point on the coast.\n\nThe general elevation of Ma Wan is much lower than the hills of North Lantao or of the mainland opposite, and the island is so badly overlooked as to be indefensible. Parish was quite right in rejecting it as a potential site for a large trading settlement, and it is a pity that his orders did not permit him to stay longer on the coast of North Lantao. It is invidious to speculate on the course of history, but if the weather had been better his initial impression of the suitability of the west coast of North Lantao for settlement would no doubt have been confirmed. Possibly the first British trading post would have grown up on Lantao instead of on Hong Kong Island, and the city of Victoria would have looked out over the Pearl River estuary.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204851, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n129\n\nof the artist, is well known. It is impossible to reconcile this story with the statement, made without citation from any authority and no supporting evidence, that \"Mrs. Chinnery did in fact follow him to Canton, but when she attempted to land she was not permitted to do so and was obliged to stay aboard ship, where she caught smallpox and died\". If the name of the ship, the date, or any reference to the Canton newspapers or to the records of the English graveyard at Macao can be produced in support, this event will be new history. Without proof, it must be denied.\n\n<<\n\n•\n\n+\n\nAll will agree with the statement without question, he (Chinnery) stands alone for his work on the China Coast. Here he had no peer\". However, it is curious that no other European artist who visited the Pearl River area is mentioned by name. True \"none stayed for very long\". Yet they were sound painters. The success of Webber, artist to the Cook Expedition, the Daniell brothers, and Borget all prior to Chinnery—as illustrators of travel books, undoubtedly spurred Chinnery in his efforts to have his pictures reproduced.\n\n+\n\nWhile the engraving of Morrison after Chinnery is noted, the Sartain stipple of Howqua and the pleasant colored lithograph of the Praya Grande at Macao by Reinagle and Hullmandel, both after Chinnery, are not mentioned.\n\nFour signatures of Chinnery are shown. They vary quite widely, but this fact is overlooked apparently, and there is no attempt to reconcile or evaluate.7\n\nIn speaking of Lamqua, the Chinese painter, it is stated “In 1850 he consigned a group of portraits of Chinese merchants to Boston, for exhibition at the Atheneum\". Compare this with the actual facts. Five portraits of Chinese merchants by Lamqua were exhibited in the Boston Athenaeum (please, we \"Proprietors” of this private library are sensitive about correct spelling) in 1850. They were the property of Augustine Heard, partner in Russell & Co., and were distributed under his will. They are all in existence\n\nPage 48.\n\n5 Page 20.\n\n6 Page 38.\n\n* Page 57, Plates 6, 7 & 24 top.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204920, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "NIAH CAVE, 1947 - 1964\n\n21\n\ninterior, prior to planning an excavation programme on the island where, up until then, no systematic work had been attempted. Indeed, years before, a Royal Society report had advised against intensive exploration of Borneo caves for human remains.\n\nTo my eye, Niah was clearly a major target: by virtue of its vast size and elevation well above at least late Pleistocene submergence levels and for other exciting reasons. But it is up a small river in a remote place, unapproachable overland, and thus costly to investigate. (Archaeology is seldom worthwhile on the cheap.) So first, we settled for more accessible sites where experience, good-will, skilled staff, and public support could be built up on the basis of continuing direction and organisation. From this base, and with outside help attracted by the first phases of results, by 1954 we were able, with the aid of my friends, Mr. Michael Tweedie (then Director, Raffles Museum, Singapore) and Mr. Hugh Gibb, plus the Shell group of companies, to do a test dig at Niah. Results were so encouraging that I decided the job required major organisation and long-term planning. We therefore resumed our work in 1957, with help from the Gulbenkian Foundation (who continue their support), Shell (whose support also continues), Chicago Natural History Museum, and others.\n\nThe main work in the field is now financed from local sources. In the last seven years, we have built permanent camps on the river, and two miles away, inside the West Mouth of the Great Cave, a new plank walk over the jungle floor between the two points. We keep resident staff on the site; and at this established base, which includes a laboratory, stores, and boat-house, we have trained a team of Niah people to carry out many of the routines. These measures now greatly reduce recurrent field costs, which were very high in the first years.\n\nCAVE STUDIED TO DATE\n\nAs of 1st September, 1964, our excavation position at Niah was broadly as follows:\n\n1. West Mouth Great Cave, (a) main deep shaft (\"Hell\")\n\ndown to 180 inches. Carbon 14 at 98-100 inches was 38,000 years (approx.). Below 100 inches, all bone, shells, and carbon decompose, but stone tools, mostly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204932, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "The Population of China\n\n33\n\nTheir country without a fixed purpose to return to worship in the ancestral hall — to bring sacrifices to the tombs of their fathers; but it may be doubted if one in ten revisits his native land. The loss of life from disease — from bad arrangements — from shipwreck and other casualties, amounts to a frightful percentage on those who emigrate,\n\nThe multitudes of persons who live by the fisheries in China afford evidence not only that the land is cultivated to the greatest possible extent, but that it is insufficient to supply the necessities of the overflowing population; for agriculture is held in high honour in China, and the husbandman stands next in rank to the sage or literary man in the social hierarchy. It has been supposed that nearly a tenth of the population derive their means of support from fisheries. Hundreds and thousands of boats crowd the whole coast of China — sometimes acting in communities, sometimes independent and isolated. There is no species of craft by which a fish can be inveigled which is not practised with success in China — every variety of net, from vast seines embracing miles, to the smallest hand-net in the care of a child. Fishing by night and fishing by day, fishing in moon-light, by torch-light, and in utter darkness, fishing in boats of all sizes, fishing by those who are stationary on the rock by the sea-side, and by those who are absent for weeks on the wildest of seas, fishing by cormorants, fishing by divers, fishing with lines, with baskets by every imaginable decoy and device. There is no river which is not staked to assist the fisherman in his craft. There is no lake, no pond, which is not crowded with fish. A piece of water is nearly as valuable as a field of fertile land. At day-break every city is crowded with sellers of live fish, who carry their commodity in buckets of water, saving all they do not sell to be returned to the pond or kept for another day's service. And the lakes and ponds of China not only supply large provisions of fish — they produce considerable quantities of edible roots and seeds which are largely consumed by the people. Among these the esculent Arum, the Water Chestnut (Scirpus tuberosus) and the Lotus (Nelumbium) are the most remarkable.\n\nThe enormous river population of China, who live only in boats, who are born and educated, who marry, rear their families, and die — who, in a word, begin and end their existence", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204943, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "44\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\n(No. 3.)\n\nCANTON, 29TH JUNE, 1855.\n\nDEAR SIR,\n\nIn respect to the question of the Population of China, I have nothing new of any general application to the subject. It would be a good service to the statistics of the race, for Hienfung to make out a general census, as his grandfather did, now forty-three years after the last.\n\nThe visits made to villages and towns in this prefecture since the breaking out of disturbances last June, have strengthened rather than diminished one's faith in the accuracy of the census. Large towns, like Shihlung, Kiúkiáng, Kinchuh, Fuhshán, Sintsiun, and others, have been found to contain even larger numbers than the representations of the Chinese had led one to believe. Fuhshán occupies even more ground than Canton, rather than less; and several observers agreed in estimating the portion which was burned last autumn as large as the entire western suburbs of Canton. Sintsiun is estimated at Half a Million, though data are wanted to confirm this figure. You will see a list of villages enumerated by Mr. Bonney in the Anglo-Chinese Calendars for 1852 and 1853, all of which were situated within a radius of two miles of Whampoa, or on Fa-té island, west of Macao passage. Few spots in the world maintain a denser population than the delta of Pearl River, nearly all of which is included in the prefecture of Kwangshan, which is about one-ninth of the whole province. Its density of population doubtless is greater than any other equal area in the whole province; for if the whole contained as many, the entire amount could hardly be less than thirty millions instead of nineteen millions as now reckoned.\n\nThe Registrar General must needs be content with an approximate estimate, from the nature of the case, our inability to make minute personal examination, and the lapse of time since the last general census. Hue, I see, estimates the combined population of Wúcháng, Hányáng, and Hánkau in Húpeh, at the high figure of Eight Millions, if I remember aright, for I have not the book to refer to; this is more than I have seen any one else reckon it. He", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204984, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n83\n\nAnother case which might be said to have had political undertones was that of the China Navigation Company's Shuntien in June 1934. The Shuntien was the latest addition to the China Navigation Company's large fleet, and was making only her second voyage at the time. She was captured by some thirty pirates after leaving Tientsin for Chefoo, and was taken to the mouth of the Yellow River where she was beached on soft sand. The pirates then made off inland, taking five European and twenty Chinese passengers as hostages. Before leaving, they told the ship's compradore that the piracy was a reprisal for the Chinese Maritime Customs having stationed an extra customs cruiser in Shantung Bay, thus interfering with their smuggling operations. The Europeans returned a few days later, but nothing more was ever heard of the Chinese hostages.\n\nBias Bay, sixty-five miles northeast of Hong Kong, was notorious as the pirates' stronghold in the interwar years. Unfortunately, it was just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, and came within the jurisdiction of the Cantonese authorities, who were either unwilling or unable to co-operate with the Royal Navy against the pirates. The nationalist and anti-foreign feelings of the Cantonese probably contributed to this, as did the fact that the warlords of Kwangtung were suspected of being in league with the pirates. Whether this was so or not, it was definitely established that pirates based on Bias Bay committed nine major piracies between 1924 and 1926.\n\nAlthough the Navy was unable to suppress piracy on the China coast, so much of which took place almost on its own doorstep, the mere fact that naval ships were in the vicinity must have reduced its incidence. The pirates rarely boarded ships at Hong Kong, partly because of the strict naval and police control there, and also because passengers joining ships there were unlikely to have much money or valuables. In the case of the second Sunning piracy in 1926, it was definitely established afterwards that the pirates came on board at Amoy, and that their weapons were smuggled on board by stevedores. The lack of co-operation from Canton meant that the Navy was unable to follow up action at sea by punitive expeditions against the pirates' shore bases. The Kwangtung authorities had been much more co-operative in the first few decades after the cession of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204999, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "98\n\nCOLINA LUPTON\n\nindication is given in this book of how the British Government saw the ultimate future of the Colony, though this is of academic interest today.\n\nThe years 1946-1949 were spent in drawing up what has become known as the Young Plan, after the Governor of the time, which would have provided for an elected Municipal Council, with a franchise for all men and women over the age of 25 who could read and write either English or Chinese. This plan was however thrown out by the Legislative Council, of which the unofficial members felt that reform of their own body should come first. They also objected to the fact that the proposed Municipal Council would overlap the functions of the Colonial Administration. In any case, the time, mid-1949, was unsettled in view of events in China and the opportunity was missed. Subsequently, the whole of Hong Kong society underwent such an upheaval with the flood of refugees and the diminishing of trade with the Mainland that constitutional reforms were shelved.\n\nA feature of the post-war situation of Hong Kong is the fact that everyone knows that the really important long-term decisions are not made in the Colonial Secretariat or even in Government House. This certainly adds to the lack of interest in acquiring any share in the Government. On the other hand, a paradoxical result of the establishment of the Communist Government in Peking is that most of the Chinese who have come to Hong Kong in the last fifteen years are here to stay, unlike the transients who before the war came to the Colony to find jobs in bad periods at home, expecting to return to their families when conditions improved. Hence the Chinese population does in fact have more interest than it did in pre-1949 days in seeing that the Government should at least be of the complexion it desires. As time passes, this will be both more and less true: a greater proportion of the populace will be Hong Kong born or educated, or both; but since it is clear that as Mr. Endacott says, Peking's demands for the revision of the \"unequal treaties\" are unlikely to stop at the Shum Chun river, the Colony's lifespan depends on how pressing the Chinese Government feels this revision is.\n\nAn interesting point in the early history of the Colony which Mr. Endacott brings out very clearly is that it was the British Government, which by not allowing any constitutional advance", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205019, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "118\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nhalf of the century could be made subsequently. This is a job for an historical geographer and I suggest that the Department of Geography in the University of Hong Kong would be the proper place in which to undertake this project. Such a map should then be printed and sold through the University Press. This would be a useful tool which scholars increasingly need as they dig deeper into the history of China's relations with the West in this part of Kwangtung and as the early history of the Colony of Hong Kong is more fully studied.\n\nWhile on this subject of local history I would like to take up a few points concerning the article entitled \"A Reconnaissance of Ma Wan and Lantao Islands in 1794\" by Mr. A. Shepherd and myself and published in Volume 4 of this journal. At the time this article was written Mr. Shepherd was a Lecturer in the Geography Department of Hong Kong University and I was a member of the History Department there. On page 115, the seventh line from the bottom, we wrote that in 1821 the Kwang-tung authorities were much stricter in enforcing anti-opium regulations. It would have been truer to have said \"from 1821 onwards.\" One of the virtues of Dr. Chang Hsin-pao's recently published book Commissioner Lin and the Opium War is that he gives ample evidence from Chinese sources to show that the Canton authorities had taken energetic and successful measures to prevent opium smuggling in the Pearl River before the arrival of Commissioner Lin in Canton in March 1839. Both Juan Yuan as Governor-General of the two Kwangs from 1817 until 1826 and later Teng T'ing-chen who was Governor-General from 1836 until 1840 took a tough line against Chinese opium smugglers within the Pearl River before Commissioner Lin arrived.\n\nI would like to add these few corrections to this article: On page 118 note 25, the name Tung Ku should read Lung Ku or Lung Kwu Chau. In note 26 for Tulse read Hulse. In note 27: the photographs are printed between pages 114-115 and were taken by me in 1963. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the help which we received in writing this article from Mr. James Hayes, Mr. Webb-Johnson and Mr. G. B. Endacott.\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205058, "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-1966", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "A PLEA FOR A REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY:\n\nTHE CASE OF THE SOUTH CHINA COAST Based on A Lecture Delivered on 4th April, 1966\n\nJOHN J. NOLDE\n\nEver since men such as Thucydides, or Ssu-ma Ch'ien, began to collect, analyze, and interpret historical documents, they have been, from time to time, vexed by a series of nagging questions: How valid and authentic are the documents I have used? How closely does the portrait I have painted of the past correspond to the real world of the people who lived in that past? Have I, in fact, really described what was \"going on\"?\n\nOr to put the question the other way: Is there not always a danger that the historian may be led by his documents to create a picture of the past that is far too broad and general to have any relevance for the people living at that place and at that time? I wonder, for example, whether the studies of the coming of the Varangians to Russia in the ninth century have much to do with the lives and loves of the people then living along the Russian river system; or whether detailed analyses of the political structure of Renaissance Italy have much to do with the way the average Italian really lived. In short, if \"history is man's memory of what men have said and done\", to use Carl Becker's phrase, with what accuracy does the historian's tale reflect what was actually said and done? Is not the historian's view of the past not always in danger of being distorted by the zeitgeist of his own era (as Becker again would have it), and that what he may think important was of little consequence to those living at the time?\n\nI don't doubt that the certain Big Events are important, especially in terms of the extent to which they explain the general course of history, why the stream of history seemed to run in one direction and not another. Furthermore, I would be the first to agree that such events as the Pelopponesian Wars or the French Revolution did dominate the life and thoughts of the peoples living in those places at that time. But is this always, or even usually, the case?\n\nThe author is Dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Maine.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205060, "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-1966", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n11\n\nThirdly, historians have tended to think of recent Chinese history largely in terms of the \"impact of the West\", forgetting that for most Chinese the foreigner and his activities were of little real importance. They may have been important to Peking and to some members of the bureaucracy in certain areas of the empire, but the barbarian and his doings could not have loomed large in the day-to-day life of the average Chinese villager or even the average Chinese official. Yet most studies of nineteenth-century Chinese history have been concerned with the Opium Wars, the \"scramble for concessions\", the Boxer Uprising, the impact of Western thought on Chinese intellectual history. Even the Taiping Rebellion has been thought of largely in terms of its Christian origins and its impact on Sino-Western relations and little has been done, until recently, to treat it as a Chinese phenomenon, which ultimately it was. But what relevance did all this have for the fisherman in his junk off Lantau or the peasant farmer in Szechuan?\n\nIf there is any validity to the above comments about distortions in Chinese history, it may be that a useful corrective device would be a regional approach to Chinese history. We might be able to gain a better insight into the life and times of nineteenth-century China, for example, by limiting the scope of our studies to cohesive geographic and cultural areas. This would tend to neutralize the all-China, or north-China bias. It would put the impact of the West in its proper perspective. Above all, it might provide answers to the questions raised at the very beginning of this paper: for the person living at a given place and at a given time, what was really “going on”?\n\nAs an experiment, I have chosen the Hong Kong-Macao-Canton area of south China. This has the advantage of being comparatively small and relatively homogeneous in terms of language, culture, and economic base. Its people were aware of their regional cohesiveness, especially in comparison to outside-province people, though even within this area there were racial and linguistic differences. I have limited my study, more or less, to the first half of the nineteenth century.\n\nPolitically, the area approximated the territory included in the hsien,3 or districts, which occupied both sides of the Canton River estuary. The districts constituted about two-thirds of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205062, "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-1966", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n13\n\nHis luck ran out, however, in 1807, when he was caught in a typhoon off Luzon. Part of his fleet was destroyed and Cheng himself drowned.\n\nLeadership of the pirate fleet fell to Cheng's wife, a kind of early nineteenth-century Dragon Lady, who may have accompanied her husband on his forays. Her chief lieutenant was a young Hsin Hui buccaneer by the name of Chang Pao-tsai. Unkind rumour had it that Chang was more than the lady's \"chief lieutenant\".\n\nUnder the leadership of Chang and the wife of Cheng I, the pirate fleet expanded its activities. It was divided into three divisions, each with a commander. Raids on coastal shipping were carried out with dispatch and precision, each division having been assigned specific areas of the coast. By 1810, Chang's fleet numbered six to seven hundred vessels, manned by as many as thirty to forty thousand men.\n\nNor were they concerned with just coastal shipping. No village or town along the coast was safe. Chang was apparently able to land elements of his navy at will at any bay or harbour from Mirs Bay to Hainan and as far up the river as Whampoa. There are differing accounts as to what his methods and motives really were. Some accounts, probably somewhat romanticized, make Chang out to be a kind of Chinese nautical Robin Hood, landing his men and appearing at village gates only to replenish their supplies of food and water, treating the people with kindness and honesty and refraining from terror. On the other hand, local histories record that more than one village was left in ashes and more than a little blood was spilled.\n\nWhatever way Chang Pao-tsai carried on his raids, the fact remains that the Ch'ing government was powerless against him. Time and again units of the Imperial fleet were sent in search of Chang's navy, only to return empty-handed and usually badly mauled. Once, in 1809, the Imperial navy did succeed in trapping a portion of Chang's fleet off Lantau, but clever seamanship and greater and more efficient firepower enabled him to break through without much damage.\n\nFinally, in 1810, the authorities resorted to the old political expedient... \"if you can't beat 'em, join 'em\". Governor-General", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205063, "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-1966", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "14\n\nJOHN J. NOLDE\n\nPai Ling sent an emissary to Chang and his lady friend, offering him a post in government and the Dragon Lady a handsome pension if they would retire. Chang, in the meantime, had fallen out with some of his own lieutenants, and after a certain amount of negotiation he agreed to the government's terms. He agreed to disband his fleet and turn over most of his ships and equipment to the Imperial authorities. His men were to return to peaceful occupations. He was rewarded with an official position and actually took part in, perhaps led, several expeditions against those former comrades-in-arms who refused to surrender. The Lady received her pension and was reported living in Canton as late as 1830-1831.\n\nNow, aside from the more romantic aspects of this story, the point is that these raids were a major fact of life along the South China coast during these years. Local histories are full of accounts of the activities of Chang and his fleet, the Hsiang-shan hsien chih, especially, devoting many pages to his exploits.\n\nFurthermore, it seems fairly certain that many of Chang's men did not turn to peaceful pursuits after 1810. Many organized fleets of their own and continued their marauding, though on a reduced scale. While Chang's \"surrender\" may have broken the back of the pirate activity for a time, it would seem that by the 1820's piratical activity was again a major problem. Local histories record many instances of pirates extorting money from villagers along the Canton River. The Canton Register of July, 1829 reported that \"the rivers of the province are infested with pirates who force trading boats to purchase passes of them\". In the early 1830's pirate fleets attacked native craft near Macao Roads. The Chinese Repository of December, 1832 reported on a new class of pirate boat which, manned by crews of sixty to seventy men, kidnapped and carried off wealthy individuals for ransom. In the same issue the journal reported that a pirate fleet of thirty to forty sail \"was prowling off Macao. Its chief was said to be the son of a famous pirate.\"\n\nIn the interior things seemed to be in even more chaotic state, partly due to the activity of the ex-pirates now turned bandit and partly due to an increase in brigandage per se. English-language journals published at Macao in the 1820's and 30's commented repeatedly on \"parties of armed bandits\", \"vagabonds and ban-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205069, "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-1966", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "20\n\nJOHN 1. NOLDE\n\nof the six Englishmen, no one can deny that they did venture into the country-side in December, 1847, and that their bodies were found in the river several days later. But no one knows exactly what happened. They may have brought the attack on themselves by an ill-considered use of fire-arms, or they may have blundered into some kind of inter-village, or inter-clan, feud. In any case, we don't know that they were murdered simply because they were foreigners.\n\n30\n\nAs to the events of 1849, it may well be that they were organized not so much to keep the foreigner out of the city per se but to prevent serious rioting and looting within the city, which, the authorities well knew, could, and probably would, be turned against themselves. The presence of the barbarian with his goods and gold within the walls would attract every villain and trouble-maker for miles around.\n\nThe problem of the 1840's was the same as that which existed in the previous two decades: the continuing erosion of Imperial authority.\n\nChinese documents, most of them un-official, suggest a pattern of turmoil and tumult even exceeding that of the 1820's and 1830's. Triad outbreaks occurred in 1843 in the districts of Tung-kuan and Hsun-teh. In the latter, in December, \"above a hundred were killed and several hundred wounded\".31 Hsiang-shan district witnessed a serious Triad disturbance in 1844, as did P'an-yu in 1845.32 A high Chinese official, home on leave in Hsiang-shan reported that brigands ran wild in the White Cloud Mountains northeast of Canton and that the authorities were unable, or unwilling, to act.33 In 1846 the yamen of the prefect of Kwang-chou was attacked and looted.1⁄4 So serious had the situation become by that year that the Governor-General called a meeting of his chief advisors to discuss the matter. Apparently little was done, for it is reported that in 1847 a bandit chief in Hsiang-shan had gathered together more than 10,000 men and had established a \"puppet government\".35 One account notes that in 1847 and 1848 members of unlawful societies in hundreds and thousands, \"carrying tents and armed with swords\", were terrorizing the districts north of Canton.36 At the height of the \"entry\" crisis of 1849, Governor Yeh Ming-ch'en reported to Peking that should the foreigner be permitted to enter the city troublemakers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205087, "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-1966", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "38\n\nHUGH D. R. BAKER\n\nmen temples were built and dedicated to them in many parts of the effected area. In the New Territories there were three such temples - one at Sha Tau Kok,10 one built by the Kam Tin lineage of the Tang Clan,102 and a third in the market town of Shek Wu Hui known as the Chau Wong Yee Yuen,103 which was built by the five clans and endowed by them with land for its upkeep. It was not the five clans as clans which did this, but rather lineages of the five clans which came together and each purchased a share in the temple.104 The Man Clan took two shares in the temple, one purchased by each of the two lineages; as was the case with the eastern Tangs.105 The Pangs, Hau* and Lius each had one share. Not only was land purchased and a temple106 built with this money, but also a ferry boat was bought to assist all members of the five clans to cross the Sham Chun River107 to get to the large market town of Sham Chun, with which all had dealings. The share-holding lineages took part in an annual feast at which the business of the temple was discussed, the feast being paid for out of temple funds. As might be expected, however, the history of this temple association has not all been peaceful, and recently a major dispute has arisen, three members108 claiming complete control of the funds to the exclusion of the others.109 The matter quickly escalated to a point where both sides hired lawyers and placed vituperative advertisements in the Colony's newspapers. Eventually, after three years of argument, it was settled in 1963.\n\nThe second example of cooperation between the clans is of the army which they raised between them to oppose the arrival of the British when they took control of the New Territories in 1899. Under the leadership of literati of the Tang Clan, working from the ancestral hall of the Ha Tsuen lineage,110 they mustered men, arms and supplies in quantity and attacked the British at their landing point in Tai Po. Unfortunately they lacked training and could do no more than fight an ignominious retreat back over the hills. Some records of the organisation of this force are still available through documents captured by the British at the time, and it is obvious that all the planning was done by and communications established at the level of the literati of the five clans. It seems that these men kept up some kind of informal contact, and there is mention of an organisation called the Tung P'ing Kuk112 in the first British reports on the area, which was said\n\n*Hau is the correct spelling, not \"Haus\". I've made the correction. \nPlease let me know if you need further assistance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205108, "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-1966", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n59\n\nand that the foreign country of Fu-lang itself did not arouse any curiosity among the writers. Europe, in any case during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, remained unknown to the Chinese. It was not until the arrival of the Portuguese, and, a little later, of the Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century that the two worlds were brought into closer contact. This relative disinterest in foreign countries is paralleled 100 years earlier by the poems of Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai. He had been in Khwarezmia (today Russian Turkestan) with Chingis Khan's armies and wrote a number of poems on Western subjects. If one would put it in a flippant way, one would have to say that Yeh-lü in his poems seems to have been impressed not by the proud mosques and the ancient culture of that region but mostly by the grape wine and the water melons that were grown in Khwarezmia.\n\nIf we take the word Western in a broader sense than just European and include the Near East, then we find for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries much more detailed information on \"Westerners\" and their influence on activities in China. Islamic civilization had some impact on China under the Mongols, and we have seen that certainly geography in China was flourishing, incorporating data on the non-Chinese world taken from Arab sources. The geographical interest of the Mongol court is also reflected in Kublai Khan's attempts to discover the sources of the Yellow River. Expeditions were sent and the reports that can be found in the dynastic history and also in another, private source the Cho-keng lu, printed in 1366 are a valuable source for the historical geography of the Ch'ing-hai region and Eastern Tibet. Islam had, of course, reached China much earlier, that is, under the T'ang in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., but it was under the Mongol rulers that Muslims began to take part in Chinese life to a greater extent. The Muslim contribution to Chinese civilization under the Yüan seems to have been chiefly in the fields of science. Astronomy was highly developed in the Islamic countries. After the Mongols had conquered Iraq and Persia, not a few Muslim scholars went to China. A center for astronomy was the observatory in Maraghah (Azerbaijan) founded in or about 1258. Under the Ilkhan Hulagu or his successor a Marāghah astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, was dispatched to China with what may be called blue-prints for astronomical instruments. We find their Persian-Arabic names and a short description of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205109, "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-1966", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "60\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\ntheir functions in the Yuan-shih. On the Chinese side, the leading astronomer was Kuo Shou-ching (1231-1316). To him fell the difficult task of reconciling the Arab astronomical system with traditional Chinese astronomy which had entirely different mathematical and geometrical foundations. As I am not a specialist in the history of science, I have to refer to Needham's detailed study of this problem.7\n\nAnother field where Western Asians reached some prominence in China was medicine. It seems as if the skill of Westerners in surgery greatly impressed the Chinese, because physicians from the Near East who performed all sorts of difficult operations are frequently mentioned. Some of them were not Muslim but Nestorian Christians, like Ai-hsieh (1227-1308) whose Chinese name is a rendering of Syriac Isa, Yehoshua, or Jesus. He was not only a famous physician but also for some time served as a Court Astronomer under Kublai Khan prior to the arrival of Jamal ad-Din. Ai-hsieh reached high offices at Kublai's court and was even honored posthumously by having his biography included in the Yüan dynastic history. His activities in China, however, and the presence of many other doctors from the Western Regions, failed to leave a permanent impact on Chinese medicine. The theoretical framework of traditional Chinese medicine continued to be the basis for medical literature and there is not much trace of Western contacts to be noticed in such medical and pharmacological Chinese works as the Pen-ts'ao kang-mu by Li Shih-chen (sixteenth century). On the other hand Chinese medicine was made known rather widely in Islamic countries, as we shall see later. It seems, in any case, that individual skills and techniques were appreciated in Yüan China rather than new theoretical issues and ideas that were entirely foreign to the Chinese. This is certainly the case in both astronomy and medicine; both remained faithful to the inherited theories in spite of occasional borrowings from the West.\n\nTechnology was another field where Westerners were active in China. We have mentioned artillery already. The catapults used by the Mongol and Northern Chinese armies against the fortified town of Hsiang-yang on the Han River were built by Mohammedan engineers. Hsiang-yang has, during a long period in Chinese history, been a town of great strategic importance. Whoever commanded Hsiang-yang could block the access to the fertile Middle", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205110, "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-1966", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n61\n\nYangtse basin. The national Chinese state of Sung therefore tried hard to defend Hsiang-yang against the invading Mongol forces, and the town was besieged for five consecutive years (1268-1273). The engineers who built catapults for the Mongols came from Baghdad and had such unmistakably Muslim names as Ala-ud-din and Ismail. This disproves the story told by Marco Polo, that it was the Polos who distinguished themselves by constructing the artillery used against the fortifications of Hsiang-yang10. Another technological field in which Muslim engineers excelled was hydraulic engineering. In Yunnan, a Chinese province that was incorporated into the Chinese-Mongol empire as late as 1253, the governor was a Muslim from, it seems, Turkistan, by the name of Sayyid Ajall Shams-al-Din. He did much for the irrigation of the K'un-ming basin, works that still survive today.11 The eternal hydraulic problem of China, the Yellow River, came, at some time under the Yüan, equally under the supervision of a foreigner; a Persian or rather Arab called Shams (1278-1351). He is the author of a treatise on river conservancy, the Ho-fang 'ung-i \"Comprehensive Explanation of River Conservancy\", published in 1321. The grandfather of Shams had come to China in the wake of the Mongol conquest of Arabia and settled there. Apart from hydraulic engineering, Shams is described in his biography as having been an expert in astronomy, geography, mathematics, and musical or rather acoustic theory. He had not yet lost the cultural ties with the homelands of his forefathers, as so many other Westerners did once they had come to China, but was still interested in what the Chinese biography called \"books of foreign nations\". In this case, Arab or Persian literature is certainly meant. But, ironically, the biography of Shams has been incorporated in the section reserved for Confucian Learning in the Yüan dynastic history! It is a matter for regret that of all the works he wrote in his lifetime, only the treatise on Yellow River conservancy has survived. The list of the books he wrote is tantalizing to read because their titles reflect a lasting interest in Western (Islamic) scientific thought, and their contents would perhaps have enabled us to see more clearly the interplay of Chinese and Near Eastern science.12\n\nThe largest group of foreigners in Yüan China were, however, not the Arab and Persian or Syrian scientists but merchants from the Near East. Transcontinental trade flourished under the Mon-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205114, "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-1966", "page_number": 70, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n65\n\nhad been converted to Christianity somewhere in the eleventh or twelfth century. Christian tombs of Önggüt tribesmen have been discovered in Inner Mongolia near Olon Süme and in Ch’üan-chou (Fukien), mostly with Turkish inscriptions, in some cases also accompanied by a Chinese version of the inscription text. But whether Nestorian Christian, Uighur, or Mohammedan Arabs or Persians, all these foreigners became Chinese in a cultural sense. One would look in vain for traces of their foreign origin in their literary works. If they wrote Chinese poems, then these poems are indistinguishable from those written by native Chinese, much as in Medieval Europe when a poet wrote in Latin and thereby obscured his national characteristics. It is amazing to what degree this rapid acculturation was carried out in China. One could perhaps assume that members of a national community which had not yet developed a national literature of its own were easily attracted by Chinese literature; this would apply to the Mongols and some Turkish tribes. But it remains a singular phenomenon that even foreigners coming from a highly civilized country with a considerable literature of their own, such as Arabs or Persians, were so soon absorbed by Chinese literary culture. Nothing in the poems of Sa'd ad-Daula suggests even the slightest trace of a foreign origin. As a typical example, let me quote one poem by Jacob, Ya-ku, in Goodrich's translation:\n\n44\n\nThe path to the plum blossoms is short; snow has been falling. The ripples on the water are as smooth as peach leaves; it is favorable for ferrying across the river.\n\nOne whistle of a metal flute pierces the air above a thousand moonlit homes.\n\nTen reed matting sails ride before a wind of a myriad li.\"\nNothing could be more Chinese than these lines. And they are typical for the poetry written by foreigners. Things are similar in prose literature and philosophy. Foreigners tried to be as Confucian as possible, writing commentaries to the Classics and trying to live up to traditional Chinese ideals. And if they painted, their works were equally Chinese. At least one famous Yüan painter, Kao K'o-kung (1248-ca. 1310) came from the Western Regions, or rather his family did. He was born in Ta-t'ung (Shansi Province), rose to high offices, and became ultimately President of the Board of Justice. Kao was chiefly known as a landscape painter who carried on the tradition of Mi Fu and Tung Yuan, two famous", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205173, "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-1966", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "124\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nquite frequent. Other families are said to have spoken Hoklo at home as well as Hakka which presupposes previous settlement in Hoklo areas and some intermarriage with Hoklo people. Ho Man Tin village also had settlers who were described to me as 'Wai Chow Punti'*, that is Puntis who, living in what had become the predominantly Hakka area of Wai Chow, had been accepted by the Hakkas as their own people (§ CA). In short there was quite an intermixture of dialect groups in these Kowloon villages. This bears out what the missionary James Johnston writes of the Swatow area of Kwangtung in his China and Formosa (1897):18\n\n44\n\nWhilst these three divisions (Punti, Hakka, Hoklo) of the population are distinctly marked, and kept up from generation to generation, there are frequent intermarriages between them and intermixture of the people in their different localities\".\n\nThough settling down in the same villages these Hakka settlers did not all come from the same areas. Some of them came to Kowloon from inland districts of the East River, others from Hoklo-speaking districts further up the coast. Thus Hakkas of different geographical origin settled down together in the Kowloon villages; and not all at the same time, but by degrees. Mong Kok was already an established village by 1862: the available evidence points to an 18th century or early 19th century origin. Ho Man Tin, on the other hand, was not mentioned as a village in the Commissioners' Report in 1862, although family backgrounds indicate that it was probably already a hamlet by then.19\n\nHakkas have always had a reputation for industry, and perseverance.20 These settlers would have needed those qualities to settle in the Kowloon peninsula, where the majority of good agricultural land had already been taken up by the time most of them came to the Hong Kong region and only areas fit for marginal farming were left for them to develop. In consequence, only a few of the families in these two villages owned rice fields and most of them had to be content with vegetable land in the less well-watered upper slopes of the many small valleys which threaded the peninsula. Farming land was scarce. When the father of one of my informants lost his own vegetable land as the result of a confidence trick he had to cease farming and turned", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205332, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "THE CHINA COASTERS\n\n87\n\nChina Navigation Company, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, and to a lesser extent to ships of some smaller British companies such as the Douglas Steam Navigation Company and the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company. The 'outside' ships belonged to a disparate group of owners, British and Chinese, in both Hong Kong and Shanghai; and officers on the 'regular' ships considered themselves superior to those on the 'outside' ships. The latter were usually old ships which had passed their best days in the service of the regular companies. Some maintained a respectable standard of seaworthiness and seamanship, but many had a bad reputation in this respect. British masters and chief engineers were carried mainly to satisfy the requirements of the classification and insurance societies. Like the ships themselves, many officers on the outside ships had formerly served on the regular ships.\n\nBy the First World War, at least so far as the regular companies were concerned, China coast shipping had become divided into a number of liner services, for each of which a particular type of coaster had been designed. The China Navigation Company was then the largest company, and its principal trades were the Yangtse and Tientsin trades based on Shanghai, the interport trade between Hong Kong and Shanghai which also served the intermediate ports, and the Singapore and Bangkok emigrant trades and the Canton River trade based on Hong Kong. The Indo-China and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Companies were similarly organised, but neither was so vitally concerned with the emigrant trades in the south; and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company's largest ships operated their long-established service between Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan.\n\nOne important trade which was seasonal, did not fit into this framework. This was the beancake trade between Manchuria and South China, in which the China Navigation Company was predominant. Newchwang was the main export port, and most of the trade was concentrated in the few months of spring after the Newchwang River was opened to navigation, and the few months of autumn before it was closed by ice. When the China Navigation Company first entered the beancake trade in the 1870's, they employed specially designed coasters, but this practice was gradually discontinued. By the early 1900's, by which time the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205787, "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-1969", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n87\n\nPursuing this conciliatory line Brooke came to Bangkok determined to win the confidence of the Siamese and to allay their fears. He wrote to a friend:\n\n\"I shall not seek to make a treaty in a hurry. I shall try to remove apprehensions and obstacles and pave the way for the future. The King is old and a usurper; he has two legitimate brothers, clever and enlightened, who ought to be raised to the throne.... A treaty extorted by force would be but a wasted bit of parchment... The Prince Chow-fa Mongkut is an educated man, reads and writes English and knows something of our literature and science\".2\n\nWith such admirable sentiments Rajah Brooke arrived at the mouth of the Menam. Everything went wrong. The Sphinx ran aground attempting to cross the bar at Paknam. When he met the Praklang (the Foreign Minister), every point he raised was opposed. Was there any need for a treaty? What was wrong with the Burney treaty of 1826? When Brooke asked for more freedom of trade the Praklang replied that trade was already free. As for the British having a Consul at Bangkok and being exempt from Siamese law, both proposals were unnecessary and improper. Later talks with the Siamese Ministers made no more progress. They asked Brooke to put his points in writing but letters between the two sides made no more progress than conversations. It was clear that the Siamese did not want a treaty or any improvement in trade or diplomacy with Britain.\n\nThe Brooke mission was obviously failing. And as frustration grew Sir James's conciliatory attitude changed. Finally he advised force. In a dispatch to the Foreign Minister he wrote:\n\n“Should these just demands firmly urged be refused, a force should be present immediately to enforce them by a rapid destruction of the defences of the river which would place us in possession of the capital and by restoring us to our proper position of command, retrieve the past and ensure peace for the future, with all its advantages of a growing and most important commerce.\"3\n\nBrooke alleged, with some justice, that the Burney Treaty had been broken by the Siamese. Monopolies had been restored, trade was no longer free and taxes on British vessels had increased. In", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205846, "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-1969", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "146\n\nRONALD C. Y. NG\n\nthe immediate vicinity of the well recognized market towns. The other important factor is probably related to the state of law and order in some of the outlying areas during this period of China's internal upheaval. The complacent mandarin in San On Un would most likely have left Lantau and its adjacent islands to the unlawful elements and concentrated instead on the places with overland contact. In view of the notorious history of piracy on these islands, which were ideally situated in relation to the trade routes focusing on and weaving between the flourishing ports of Portuguese Macau, British Victoria and Chinese Canton, the officials in Nam-tau-shing, the administrative seat of San On district, would have been unable to render the priest much protection had he ventured to these parts. Volonteri, however, was not wanting in courage and in spirit of adventure, but the pirates of the Pearl River estuary were very different men from those he encountered in Swabue, on whom he had written, 'the pirates seem to fear the humble priest and not the priest the pirates; they make some rare appearances but the presence of the padre impels them to retreat at once'. How far this can account for the comparatively poor outline and incorrect location of the off-shore islands as well as for the lack of information on the settlements there must await fresh materials on Volonteri's work in San On, but the villagers on Lantau vouchsafed to me that in the time of their forefathers, piracy, preying on ships and peasants alike, was a greater hazard to the population than the vagrant weather conditions.\n\nFinally, the bilingual feature of the map must be noted. It is apparent that the document was intended primarily for English-speaking users. As there are several current systems of transliteration, in the present case the one based on Williams' Dictionary, the inclusion of the original Chinese names adds to the work that rare, but highly desirable, quality of precision and refinement. In a way, the document is simultaneously a map and a gazetteer of the District. The degree of cooperation between Volonteri and Liang was remarkable and out of the hundreds of villages cited bilingually there was not a single occasion where the name in one language did not correspond to the other. This is probably due to Fr. Volonteri's ability to read, perhaps not so much as to write presentably, the Chinese script which enabled him to check every detail. Credit should also go to his colleague for juxtaposing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205950, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS\n\n25\n\nhimself, use this opportunity to reach some kind of understanding with the Taipings? Did he use the opportunity to at least gain a greater understanding of them, as a possible prelude to a later accommodation? Let us look at the record.\n\nThe occasion was Lord Elgin's trip up the Yangtze River following the yet-to-be-aborted Treaty of Tientsin of 1858. The treaty had provided for the opening of the Yangtze River to Western trade. The official purpose of the mission was to investigate suitable trading ports and trading conditions along the river in anticipation of the day when this concession could be fulfilled. Elgin departed Shanghai aboard H.M.S. Furious on November 8, 1858 and arrived in Hankow on December 6. He left Hankow on December 12, returning to Shanghai on January 1, 1859.\n\nFar from getting off to a diplomatic start as far as any approach to the Taipings was concerned the trip was conducted in the grand gunboat style. Elgin declared:\n\nI, of course, resolved that no human power, and no physical obstacle which could be surmounted should arrest my progress. It was obviously essential to the prestige of England, that a measure of this description, if undertaken at all, should be carried out; I could not therefore recognize in the rebels a right to stop me, nor could I take any step which they might construe into such an admission. Subject to this limitation, I was ready to give them every assurance that our movement was of a peaceful character, and that we did not intend to take part, one way or another, in the civil war to which they were parties.3\n\nNo effort was made to notify the Taipings of the coming of this special mission. As a result an almost predictable misunderstanding occurred when Elgin's mission reached Nanking. Unfortunately we only have the English version of the incident, but this is sufficient to raise some interesting questions. Upon reaching Nanking, Elgin dispatched a smaller vessel to communicate, if possible, with the Taiping authorities. As the vessel approached the Nanking batteries, it was not unnaturally fired upon. The vessel, however, was under orders not to return fire immediately, but to hoist a white flag first. It did so. The Taiping batteries, however, fired seven additional shots within three minutes time.5\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205953, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "28\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\nhad not had sufficient time to inform Anking of his impending approach.18 Nevertheless, Elgin made no effort himself to notify the uninformed Taiping garrison. Instead, as soon as the Taipings opened fire at the head-on approach of the strange vessels it was returned with a vengeance. After the Taiping batteries had been quieted, the ships' cannons fired into the city itself. This was done even though the English observed the country people running into it for protection from the attacking Imperialists.19 The English did not stop at Anking, but continued upstream. On the way back from Hankow, when again approaching Anking Elgin took precautions, and \"thought it necessary to take a pretty high tone with the rebel authorities...\"20 He sent Wade ashore with a message of warning, reflecting that \"to menace with capture by two small gun-boats a great city, walled and garrisoned, might have been in bad taste elsewhere, but in China it was the thing to do.”21 On shore, Wade found out that the Taipings had since been informed of what had happened at Nanking and that they were highly apologetic for making the same mistake at Anking. Wade refused a present of oxen and other provisions. An invitation to visit the Taiping commander at Anking was similarly rejected. Wade departed with a final verbal warning indicating \"how simple a matter it would be for us to sweep them away utterly, were we provoked to do it.”22\n\nOn this return trip, Elgin decided to stop by at Nanking once again, this time to acknowledge receipt of a formal written apology which had been sent from the Taipings soon after the first visit, but which, because of the speed of the English ascent and the presence of the Imperialist fleet on the river, had failed to reach Elgin. The apology awaited, therefore, the return of the English and was delivered to them when they again passed by Wu-hu.23\n\nAs one of the few visits by Western officials to Nanking, this event deserves more attention than has been accorded by historians. The handling of the story of this visit is of interest in itself, for it sheds some light on how easily misunderstanding of the Taipings grew, as a result of both conscious prejudice and improper reporting. One contemporary writer, Commander Lindsay Brine, for example, who has a general reputation among historians for his relative objectivity in writing on the Taipings, gives three pages to the visit,24 His account gives details of the conversation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205957, "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": 37, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "32\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\nin answering a question it is always their chief endeavour to say what they suppose their questioner will be best pleased to hear. If therefore the knowledge of a fact is to be arrived at, it is, above all things, necessary that the inquiry bear a tint so neutral that the person to whom it is addressed shall find it impossible to reflect its colour in his reply. He will then sometimes, in his confusion, blunder into a truthful answer, but he does so generally with a bashful air, indicative of the painful consciousness that he has been reluctantly violating the rules of good breeding. A search after accurate statistics, under such conditions, is not unattended with difficulty,38\n\nElgin, however, never seemed to think equally critically of the information brought for his consideration about the Taipings. While it is of utmost importance what opinions such high-ranking English decision-makers were forming of the Taipings, it need not be supposed that the foreign community in general at this time was similarly influenced. We have the account of a relatively high ranking English naval officer which stated quite explicitly: \"When Lord Elgin returned from his expedition up the Yang-tze-kiang in 1858, his high-handed policy toward them at Nankin, Ngan-king, and elsewhere, was much disapproved of by a large section of the community, and it was thought that he had hardly done justice to them.\"39\n\nOne might legitimately raise the question again as to the purpose of the mission. We have already given the ostensible reason: to investigate suitable trading ports and trade conditions along the river. But this seems implausible. With a full-scale war taking place along the greater part of the lower Yangtze Valley, it was unlikely that such an investigation would prove of much value. The mission was premature in another respect as well, for it took place before the treaty was ratified, an observation that is especially to the point since the Ch'ing government did not, in fact, ratify the treaty. Actually, Elgin had two underlying purposes. First, he believed that the trip would confirm that the Emperor had in principle conceded the opening of the river, thus inducing the Chinese to take steps to put the treaty into effect. Second, Elgin reportedly believed that the trip would aid the Imperial cause against the Taipings since the \"opening", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206214, "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-1971", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n25\n\nthat they would not strike the first blow, but neither would they stand idly by. Finally, they used this occasion to affirm that under Taiping rules, all Chinese residents of the foreign settlement were still under Taiping Chinese jurisdiction. This was put very civilly, and it was emphasized that Chinese deportment toward foreigners would continue to be proper, and that trade would be allowed to continue as before.24\n\nThis letter did not satisfy Captain Dew. On May 2, he replied that since his \"moderate demands\" for the insult to the British and French flags had not been met, the generals' letter had been forwarded to the admirals. While awaiting the latters' decision, the foreign ships were moved down river two miles and all communication with the city was cut off. Dew now added a third demand: the appointment of a Taiping officer with guards to perform the duty of preventing anyone from mounting the walls opposite the ships. If the demands were not complied with, the Taiping generals were informed that the foreign naval vessels had already been given the authority to blockade Chinghae, and would prevent all foreign ships from entering the river toward Ningpo.25\n\nThe Taiping generals replied the following day, May 3, 1862. Point for point the reply seems to be reasonable enough. Regarding the first demand, it was pointed out that explanations had already been given on the accidental nature of the event. On the second demand, the Taipings again discussed their concern for the security of the city in the event of an attack. However, it was agreed that the portholes of guns bearing on the international settlement would be stopped up and all shot and powder from these positions would be removed. As to the third demand, it was emphasized that no persons were allowed on the walls in question except the men in charge of the guns. The few temporary workmen there would soon be removed. The generals concluded by reminding Captain Dew that \"the order to blockade Chinghae will do more harm to your trade than it will to us,\" and that \"we are inordinately desirous of remaining on good terms with you.\"26\n\nThe final exchange in this dialogue was an ultimatum from Captain Dew on May 8. By this time, the British had already made arrangements for an attack on Ningpo. This had come", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206216, "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-1971", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n27\n\nwhich included the alleged declaration: “In the event of an outbreak of hostilities, every man who brings in a foreigner's head, shall receive a reward of 100 dollars, and he who kills ten foreigners, shall be raised to the rank of Ta-kwan....\"33 No explanation, naturally, is given on how this alleged speech was recorded; nor is the identity of the recorder mentioned.\n\nThere is one more piece of evidence that casts serious doubt upon the contention that the British had any intention to remain neutral in the impending conflict. A Chinese by the name of Cheng A-fu who was in the employ of the British, perhaps as a servant or interpreter of Consul Harvey, was commissioned by the British to organize an armed force of three hundred so-called \"green hats\" who could be used in an attack upon Ningpo. This information comes from an account written of the Ningpo episode by a Ch'ing official, Hsü Yao-kuang, who was an administrative officer in Chekiang,34\n\nOn the 9th of May, the Ch'ing fleet captured Chinghae, then advanced up river and laid-to directly in front of the Foreign Settlement where it made preparations for an assault on Ningpo across the river. The foreigners were informed that the attack would take place the following morning.35 Thus the British and French were aware that when the attack did take place the advancing Ch'ing fleet would necessarily draw fire from the city, and this would endanger the English and French vessels and the settlement. Had Captain Dew adhered to his pledge of neutrality on April 27, in which he had said: “you may rest assured that no breach of friendly relations shall emanate from our side,” or if he had wished to remain apart from the contest, he should certainly have withdrawn his ships from the line of fire.\n\nThe events of May 10th are the most interesting of all. On that day Captain Dew was to write to Admiral Hope that he had \"found it necessary to capture the city of Ningpo....\" Dew recorded that it all began at 10 in the morning with fire from the Taipings. Dew's assumption that the fire emanated from the Taipings is unquestioning. But did the Taipings fire the initial shot? We know now for a fact that they did not. For Cheng A-fu, the employee of the British, plotted with the pirate Apak to fire upon the foreign vessels, in order to create the impression that the Taipings had done so. This would \"provoke\" the foreigners", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206219, "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-1971", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "30\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\ncounter.\"'48 But, of course, this act cannot be laid exclusively to Captain Dew. Another contemporary source charged perhaps more penetratingly that the Taiping possession of Ningpo was \"peculiarly adapted\" to thwart British Minister Frederick Bruce's \"schemes for aiding and abetting\" the Ch'ing side in China's civil war. The source noted that Taiping possession of the seaport would enable them to deprive Shanghai of the greater proportion of the customs duties, which not only might now be diverted into their own exchequer, but would frustrate the object of Mr. Horatio Lay's mission to London where he was seeking to put together an Anglo-Chinese flotilla to be used against the Taipings, and \"destroy the main stay of the Imperial cause.\" The Taipings would also be able to obtain needed war munitions. Finally, they would have the opportunity to dispel \"the illusion of their being inimical to foreign trade.\" This source concluded that from \"such cogent reasons\" Admiral Hope came to agree with the Minister's views, and \"resolved on the recapture of the place by fair means or foul.\"49\n\nSmall wonder that the story of the Taiping occupation of Ningpo has received little subsequent attention in Western historical accounts of the Taiping period. When it has, it has too often been sadly distorted. It is not a happy episode to think about. But however that may be, it is an historical experience that is well worth reflection upon. It was a passing moment of history which, in a telescoped span of time, rather accurately reflected a larger contemporary story. It demonstrated that Chinese revolutionaries of the early 1860s had the capacity to achieve major objectives against a weak established government, including the conquest of much of the territory of the richest provinces in the lower Yangtze River basin and the seizure of a principal seaport. It also demonstrated that the Taipings did treat foreigners respectably well and promoted trade, which was, after all, the matter of greatest importance to foreigners. It also proved that neither the apparent military nor the civil capabilities of the revolutionaries made much difference to those key foreign officials who were determined to assist the weak established government. Finally, it showed that the intervention of foreign powers made a great deal of difference in the ultimate outcome of the civil war in China. At the most, the experience at Ningpo from December 1861 to May 1862 suggests the story in microcosm", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206481, "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-1972", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "Scarth3 \n\nNINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON \n\nT \n\n- \n\n23 \n\nan excellent artist by the way (who) told me he once saw 150 people beheaded on the execution ground at Canton”.4 The Bishop of Victoria, the Rev. George Smith has almost the right initials, but neither he nor Scarth were on the Adelaide. None of the artists in the Catalogue of the Chater Collection has the initials G.A.S. \n\nAmong the passengers arriving on the Adelaide, the \"Friend of China\" of December 2nd notes the twenty officers by name, among them Lieutenants Schomberg and Short. \"The Hongkong Shipping List\" of the same date, refers to Major Schomberg, R.A., and Lieut. Short. The artist of the paintings must have been subsequently sent from Hong Kong up the Pearl River to the Bogue before December 16th, to join the troops which had arrived earlier on the Imperador and Imperatrix who had been sent on to the Bogue immediately after their arrival. Indeed the Adelaide, with her troops on board, moved up the river from Hong Kong on December 2nd. The artist presumably was present at the capture of Canton on 29th December, and at any rate was in the city in February 1858. He took part in what he calls the \"Jingal pic-nic\" on the 20th of that month. \n\nThis curious inscription (a jingal being a sort of portable Chinese field-gun hardly conducive to a picnic atmosphere) is explained further, and at some length in Col Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, Col. Fisher relates: \"On the 20th February a pic-nic party went out to see a little of the country and of the people; and as we did not know what sort of reception we should meet with, we made rather a strong muster. There were nine officers and twenty-four men, with a couple of ponies to carry the luncheon. We started before seven o'clock, going out through the north-east gate of the city. \n\n+ \n\n\"After walking for about three hours, we rested in a very pretty spot under some fine trees, and one of the party shot a woodcock, which was hailed as a great event; and we determined to devote some little attention to so good a cause. We did not wish to return by the same road by which we had come out. The valley in which we were, we knew to be divided from the great north plain, by the White Cloud Mountains, a range familiar to our eyes from Canton. We hoped to reach that plain by some pass through the hills, and so return to Canton by way of the North Gate.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206490, "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-1972", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "32\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nSeptember 1841, I was declared Rajah and Governor of Sarawak amidst the roar of cannon, and a general display of flags and banners from the shore and boats on the river. Some observers in Singapore pronounced Brooke's new position a sentence rather than a reward. Nevertheless the new Raja set about vigorously organizing the state and establishing a rule of law, roughly based upon the Bengal code and local adat or customary law. In 1842 he visited the sultan in his ramshackle wooden palace in Brunei Town, an unattractive clutter of Malay huts built on stilts over a sluggish tidal stream. From the sultan he obtained confirmation of his appointment. The following year it was made hereditary, in perpetuity, and in 1846 the sultan executed a deed of cession of Sarawak to Brooke and his heirs. In subsequent years Brunei ceded additional portions of territory to the Brooke dynasty of white rajas, until by 1890 the state of Sarawak reached approximately its present size.\n\nThis, in a somewhat sketchy way, is how Raja James Brooke acquired control of an oriental state almost as large as England and sparsely inhabited by a conglomeration of frequently fierce pagan peoples, a few Malays and some Chinese. In the remaining part of the paper I want to consider ways in which, to my mind, Sarawak under Brooke rule stood out as an anomaly in the British colonial experience.\n\nII\n\nFirst, let me consider Raja Brooke's position in his own state of Sarawak. Brooke considered that he had been prevailed upon by the Malay chiefs to become their raja, that they chose him. He described, in his journals, the scene upon the occasion in 1842 when the Sultan's confirmation of his appointment was proclaimed in Sarawak.4\n\nWhen we returned from Borneo the Sultan's letter giving me the country was read in public, and when finished we had a scene. Muda Hassim, who was standing, asked aloud, whether anyone dissented; for if they did they were now to make it known.\n\n3 For a study of the growth of British influence in Borneo see L. R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo (Hong Kong University Press, 1970).\n\n4 R. Munday, op. cit., pp. 323-24.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206766, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG\n\n37\n\ntime would have been a much better purchase than that which the Government had decided upon. Heated argument followed and the levels of asperity which they raised in Council proceedings was quite exceptional in terms of today's conventions.*\n\nIt is clear from the records of subsequent meetings of the Council that the unofficials had got the bit between their teeth. Work was shortly, they thought, to begin on the shelter which had been talked about for so long, money was to be spent upon it and when the question of money arose tempers were quick to boil. Various alternative proposals to that which had been agreed by the Government were demanded for further consideration, and the unofficials returned again to the attack which had previously been mounted upon the purchase of a dredger by the Government.\n\nMatters stood thus when disaster struck again on the 17th July, 1908 when a further typhoon struck the Colony. Before opening business at the first Legislative Council meeting held after that date the Governor had yet again to comment on a further disaster, owning that he had been told that the force of the wind in the last typhoon was very much greater than that which had previously been known as the great typhoon of September, 1906. He went on, as had so many Governors before him, to acknowledge the acts of heroism which had been displayed by so many people during the\n\n* The two dredgers in question were called the \"St. Enoch\" and \"Canton River\". In Council, the Honourable Mr. Slade (Marcus Warre Slade, Barrister-at-Law, b. 1865, practised in Hong Kong from 1897) said that he wished to ask for information on one particular point before the motion was put: that was with respect to the vote for $86,500 for the typhoon refuge for small craft, which he understood included the cost of the dredger \"St. Enoch\" at £15,000. He said that he was not at the last meeting and did not therefore hear the explanation given in the Finance Committee but since his return to the Colony, he had seen a statement in a prominent position in one of the morning papers in which it was stated that the purchase of the \"St. Enoch\" for £15,000 had cost the tax-payers $100,000 more than it might have done. He presumed that meant the Government might have bought the dredger \"Canton River\", at a cost of £5,000 which was the difference between the two amounts. He said that he could hardly see how that was possible because he happened to know himself about the cost of \"Canton River\" to the present owners, and could not conceive that they would be willing to part with the vessel at such a price. He said however, that the statement had been given a very prominent position and he thought that an explanation was therefore due to the Council before the report of the Finance Committee was adopted. There were other points he referred to which were raised in that particular article with reference to the comparison and capabilities of the two dredgers. He expressed himself as no expert and could not comment upon that, but presumed that the Government had thoroughly well satisfied themselves", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206767, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "38 \n\nA. J. S. LACK \n\nthat the dredger which they were buying was in every way fitted for the purposes in which it was being put. \n\n. \n\n** \n\nThe Director of Public Works said in reply that he welcomed the opportunity which was given him to contradict the gross mis-statements which appeared in the article to which his Honourable Friend alluded. The \"Canton River\" had been bought by the same firm from which the Government purchased the \"St. Enoch\". It was brought here in 1899 having been acquired as a second-hand vessel from one of the home ports to perform the work which ultimately devolved upon the \"St. Enoch\". He said that the firm in question had paid some £6,000 for repairs and work on the vessel before it was sent to the East, and he thought that in itself was a guarantee that she was not in the best condition when they purchased her. He was unable to give the relative dates of construction of the two vessels but did not think anyone could come to the conclusion that one was a more up-to-date vessel than the other. He reminded members that the \"Canton River\" had been sunk in the typhoon of November, 1900 and had lain for 8 months at the bottom of the harbour, \"a circumstance scarcely calculated to improve the condition of any vessel of that type.\" With regard to the question of price, he hoped that he was not revealing any secrets but he had ascertained that at the present moment the \"Canton River\" was being offered for sale at £22,000 as compared with the £15,000 which the Government required for the \"St. Enoch\". He pointed out that this was practically 15% more instead of $100,000 less. In regard to efficiency, he said that it so happened that the vessels had conducted operations exactly similar in kind in this harbour. The result had been that the \"St. Enoch\" was found to perform 34 trips during which she conveyed 700 tons each time, as compared with the \"Canton River's\" 3 trips with 400 tons each time, a total of 2,100 tons for the \"St. Enoch\", as against 1,200 tons for the \"Canton River\". Having in some triumph quoted these figures he concluded that it was almost unnecessary for him to speak further on the relative merits of the two vessels, but thought that some reference had been made to their inability to dredge Causeway Bay. In that connection, he pointed out that the \"St. Enoch\" drew 13 ft. 5 in. of water when loaded and the \"Canton River\" drew 1 ft. less so that in no case was either of the vessels capable of dredging Causeway Bay \"without performing a vast amount of absolutely unnecessary work\". \n\nHe finally routed the Unofficials by pointing out that the \"St. Enoch\" was capable of dredging a depth of 48 ft. as compared with the \"Canton River's\" 35 feet. It was not of course suggested that their depths would have been appropriate for the typhoon shelter which was to be built, but nevertheless, these figures appeared so to have so bemused the Unofficials that they raised no further comment. \n\nThe Governor had the last word. In the course of a speech at a following meeting, he said: \"I have alluded to the dredger. At the last meeting of Council, in answer to the question from the hon. member on my right (Hon. Mr. Slade), the Hon. Director of Public Works gave full information regarding that purchase. I think we may say it was a good bargain, and I hope that its acquisition will reduce the cost of the typhoon shelter. I may remind you that if the dredger had been sold out of the Colony we should have had to pay monopoly rates for whatever work we had to do, and I have good reason to believe it was likely to be sold out of the Colony. Indeed within 48 hours of our acceptance a firm offer was made. She was however surveyed under working conditions and found to be in every way sound and fit for our purpose. I may add to the figures given by the Hon. Director of Public Works when he contrasted the capacity of the \"St. Enoch\" with the \"Canton River\" that the maintenance of the one compared with the other is as 44 to 7 in favour of the \"St. Enoch\".* \n\n**", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206768, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG\n\n39\n\ncourse of that storm; but clearly the turning point in the typhoon refuge scheme had now been reached. On the 6th August, 1908 the Governor submitted for the acceptance of the Council the following resolution.\n\nBe it resolved that on and from 1st January, 1909 the owner, agent or master of every ship entering the waters of the Colony shall pay the following dues to such officer as the Governor may from time to time appoint. For all river steamers 5/6 ths of a cent per ton register. All other ships entering the waters of the Colony 2 cents per ton register.\n\nThe Yaumatei typhoon shelter was therefore to be financed by an impost placed on shipping entering Colony waters. The prolonged arguments of the preceding years as to how the Colony was to find the money for the new typhoon shelter were resolved by the introduction of this impost.\n\nIt was not to be anticipated that such a proposal as this, hitherto objected to by commercial interests, would pass without strong justification for it being advanced by His Excellency himself, and he did this in the course of a speech at the next meeting of the Council on 20th August, 1908. Thereafter matters continued apace. On the 25th February, 1909 a report on the proposed boat shelter at Mong Kok Tsui was tabled and in August 1909 the first reading of an Ordinance to authorize the construction and maintenance of a harbour refuge and the extinguishment of various marine rights was introduced to Council. Thereafter another altercation broke out in the Council on the introduction of the Liquor Ordinance which was to provide for the collection of duties upon intoxicating spirits, so it was not until October, 1909 that the matter of the typhoon shelter could next be proceeded with. However all submissions to the Legislative Council were finally completed in November, 1909. Nearly a year later, in October 1910, the Director of Public Works advised members of Council that a contract worth just over 2 million dollars had been let concerning the construction of the detached breakwater, and completion was anticipated in five years.\n\nIn 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914 work on the typhoon refuge continued steadily as the papers tabled before the Council indicate. Europe became engulfed in the First World War, but largely unaffected the life of the Colony continued, as did steady progress on the develop-\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206770, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "The Kam Tin Gates\n\nPeter Wesley-Smith*\n\nBehind the parked tourist buses at Kam Tin, behind the blue-rinsed American ladies and the orderly rows of Japanese camera-clickers and the outstretched palms of Hakka crones, the adventurous visitor will find a plaque on the Kat Hing Wai wall telling the story of the famous pair of gates which adorn the entrance. It is the purpose of this brief article to amplify the few facts engraved on the plaque.1\n\nKam Tin is the principal settlement of the New Territories Tangs and consists of several separate villages. Kat Hing Wai is the oldest: built in the 15th century it has been reasonably well preserved and is now a major tourist attraction.2 The road from Shek Wu Hui to Yuen Long separates it from Tai Hong Wai, a sister village whose walls have been partly demolished and which boasts no gates.\n\nThe Hong Kong Government knew little about neighbouring San On in June 1898, when a large slice of the Chinese county was transferred on lease to Great Britain. J. H. Stewart Lockhart was therefore temporarily relieved of his duties as Colonial Secretary and Registrar General and sent on a fact-finding tour as Special Commissioner. During August 1898 he visited various parts of the area and in general was given an \"excellent reception\" by the inhabitants; but the villagers at Kam Tin were less polite. Unimpressed by the sight of the first steamer ever to navigate their river, they drove away the Commission's chairs and carriers and refused to provide replacements. The elders did not deign to present themselves. A journalist of the time reported that 1,000 villagers, \"preceded by vigorously beaten gongs\", gave a rousing welcome, \"but in place of chin-chins and flowers they came with cries of 'ta' and 'foreign devils.'\" Nothing is said here of the rotten eggs that emphasized these cries, but the gates of the village were closed and the Commission could not enter. According to a journal kept of the trip the gates were opened after \"a clear explanation\" by Stewart\n\nMr. Wesley-Smith is LL.B., B.A., (Adelaide) and Lecturer in Law at the University of Hong Kong. He is currently Editor of the Hong Kong Law Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206775, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "46 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nsteamships in India operated on the Hoogly in the early 1820s, mainly as tug boats. \n\nThe first steamship in the Dutch East Indies was the Van der Capellen, a paddle steamer of 230 tons, designed to operate a coastal service in Java. The Van der Capellen was built by a consortium of British merchants in Sourabaya in 1825, and equipped with engines built by Fawcett and Company of Birmingham. \n\nDue to the close association between British India and Canton through the East India Company, it was not long before steamships were introduced on the Canton River. Although he did not live to see his scheme carried through, a Mr. T. J. Robarts of the Company's Canton staff is the pioneer of steam navigation in China. When on leave in London in 1821, just nine years after the Comet was launched on the Clyde, he suggested to the Court of Directors that a steam tug could be usefully employed on the Canton River. Because it was thought that the Chinese might object, his scheme was turned down, but Mr. Robarts decided to go ahead on his own. He ordered two 16 horse-power engines and a copper boiler from Henry Maudslay and Company of London, and a hull of oak frames; all of which arrived at Canton in 1822 and aroused great curiosity and admiration. Unfortunately, bad health caused Mr. Robarts to retire prematurely, and there was no one at Canton able, or willing to continue with his scheme. Everything was therefore sent to Calcutta, and arrived there in June 1822. \n\nThe parts were assembled at Kyd and Company's yard at Kidderpore, and the vessel, known as the Diana, was launched on 12th July 1823. However, the original oak hull was discarded in favour of a new hull built locally of teak. The name Diana was taken from the figurehead which had accompanied the original hull. The total cost of the Diana was 70,000 rupees, and the government declining to take any part in the enterprise--this was financed by a group of Indian agency houses. \n\nThe Diana ran successfully, but not profitably, on the Hoogly for a year, and was then sold to the government for use in the Burma War, 1824-1826. It was Captain Marryat, then the senior naval officer in India, who recommended her purchase to the government. The Diana took part in the first expedition to Rangoon, and proved so useful that she was retained on the Irawaddy for the whole of the war. She suffered at times from overloading, as not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206970, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n35\n\nCollège Stanislas at Cannes. In 1877 he entered the military academy of Saint-Cyr;22 after passing out from Saint-Cyr, he joined the famous Saumur cavalry school. He was to remain a magnificent horseman all his life.\n\nThe turning point in Morès' life came in 1881 when he met Medora von Hoffmann, the daughter of Louis von Hoffmann,23 a New York banker of German extraction, who had a villa, like Morès' father, at Cannes. Morès resigned from the army and in February 1882 married the petite, blonde Medora, who was to bear him three children. In August 1883 they travelled to the New World and Morès soon after started work in his father-in-law's bank.\n\nMorès was an astute banker but when his cousin, Count Fitz-James, returned from a hunting expedition to the Dakotas and regaled him with tales of his adventures, he decided to throw up his banking career and head west to the area of the Dakotas called the Bad Lands. In April 1883 Morès, together with William Van Driesche, set out by Northern Pacific Railway from Chicago for the Little Missouri River. After an inspection of the country he decided it was ideal for cattle ranching. He bought a large tract of land, built his own town--Medora--and a twenty-eight room château24 on a spur overlooking the river and the new town.\n\nThe Marquis, who had begun to fence off his land, soon made enemies among the badmen of the area. Three in particular – Luffsey, O'Donnell and Wannegan--on several occasions attacked the château at night and their gunfire was returned by the intrepid Marquis and Van Driesche. The series of incidents culminated in the ambushing of the trio by the Marquis and two of his cowboys. Luffsey was killed, the other two wounded and taken prisoner. The incident did not end there, for the Marquis was charged with murder, held in custody and nearly lynched by an excited mob.\n\nMorès established his own abattoir, meat-packing and processing plant at Medora and hoped, thereby, to undercut the prices for dressed meat set by the monopolistic 'beef barons' of Chicago--the Armours and Swifts--but he was opposed not only by them but by their business allies, the railroad magnates. By 1885 it was clear that Morès' cattle empire was tottering, that he could not compete with the stockyards of Chicago, and that his scheme to provide cheap meat to Westerners and Easterners alike had totally failed. He returned to New York with his family, but at once attempted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207042, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "The Monuments of Vientiane and Luang Prabang\n\n107\n\nOn the return journey one can stop at the village on the bank opposite to Luang Prabang which contains one of the most interesting temples in the whole of Laos, Vat Chieng Men. Its doorways are among the best examples of the carving modelled with a mixture of mahogany sap and ash which hardens in the air; peacocks, perhaps a reminder of the Mon hamsa, decorate the outer arch of each door which is triple tiered and deeply recessed. The ceiling is coffered and carved, and the altar contains a fine Buddha statue. The surrounding buildings are simple kuti, or monks' dwellings, and the whole temple blends harmoniously into the jungle background of the mountain at the very wall of the temple. Not least of the attractions of this temple is the walk to get there from the river bank; one goes along a path through the village where children play, mothers chatter and sell bananas and dogs look suspicious but wag their tails. As everywhere in Laos, the scene may be unsophisticated but it is not wanting in humanity and charm.\n\nReaders of this note should not think that the tour did nothing else but visit temples. A silk-weaving village was seen, a Meo settlement, and the making of silver; the royal palace dancers performed specially for the group and the final evening included a specially-arranged baci blessing ceremony with a Lao dinner.\n\nThe principal point of the tour was to absorb something of the restful atmosphere of Luang Prabang through its not magnificent but charming temples, its unhurried way of life and its noble simplicity. Vientiane provides a more modern contrast, but remains a quiet provincial town rather than a frenzied capital of the twentieth century. Laos might have the lowest income per capita in the world and its problems may be enormous, but it is not lacking in dignity and the charm of its people is unforgettable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207306, "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-1975", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "66\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nSuch wild speculation may well have created a fatalistic attitude to the inevitability of the plague as a natural phenomenon and consequently limited an awareness of the need to search in other directions. However, the desperate need to find a solution prompted a considerable amount of inquiry and reflection by a number of independent observers and some of these researchers deserve a fuller mention.\n\nDr. Gomes da Silva, the Principal Medical Officer of Macau gave an account of the disease which affected the Portuguese colony in 1895. He records that during a visit to Canton he had observed a strange disease that attacked \"only Chinese ..... and rats\" and that the same disease spread from Hong Kong to Macau in 1895. In drawing attention to the association of the plague with rats Dr. da Silva also described the general sanitary condition of Canton which he concluded was a further causal factor. He records that house refuse was usually thrown into the streets where it accumulated until such time as the torrential summer rains and the overflow of the Pearl River cleared it away. However, between May and September 1894 it did not rain to any great extent with the consequence that large quantities of rubbish accumulated and reached an advanced state of putrefaction. These conditions were paralleled by outbreaks of plague. Conversely, Dr. da Silva observed that when the summer rains were early and abundant the disease seldom occurred.\n\nIt is now not difficult to establish the chain of events that must have occurred, namely that during prolonged dry spells when refuse piled up in the streets colonies of rats thrived on the nourishment so carelessly provided. As the rats multiplied, so did the fleas and from but one source of infection carried by the fleas the disease spread like a forest fire first through the population of rats and then to homo-sapiens.\n\nHowever, amidst the wild speculation of how the disease was communicated to man scientific researches undertaken by Alexandre Yersin in Hong Kong established in June 1894 that the bacillus, pasteurella pestis, was the direct cause of plague. This was subsequently confirmed by two Japanese doctors, Professors Kitasato and Aoyama, who were also pursuing researches in the colony. Conclusive evidence was obtained by injecting animals with a virus preparation. Notwithstanding, the means of transmission of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207326, "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-1975", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "86\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nching the room they find the parting letter on her desk. The mother starts wailing, cursing her husband. They call the servants to check the house, and the two male servants return and report that they found the back-gate open. They panic, and the wet-nurse rushes out to inform the groom's family.\n\nAct X\n\nThe servants lead the way with lanterns to the river. Mr. and Mrs. Su are followed soon after by the eldest of the Su clan, and by Mr. Yang and his wet-nurse. Then the group meets T'ao-hua and she joins in the search. Mr. Su now accuses Mr. Yang of having pushed their daughter to commit suicide. Mr. Yang reads Liu-niang's last letter but is not impressed. Perhaps it is a trick to avoid the marriage. He will not believe it until he has tangible proof.\n\nAfter walking in many circles they come to the bank of the river, where a servant discovers the shoes of Liu-niang. The parents wail and scold Mr. Yang, and finally the old ferryman approaches with his oar. When asked whether he had seen Liu-niang, he answers that he did not see anybody, but heard a big splash. Whereupon the whole party decides to return home.\n\nThe ferryman calls back T’ao-hua and triumphantly tells her that he can now finish the couplet of the 13th month, because every so many years there is in fact an intercalary 13th month. And on this gay note the play ends, providing the reason why this opera is colloquially called \"T'ao-hua Crosses the River”.\n\nAct VIII is the climax of the play and Act IX and X the anti-climax.\n\nFOOTNOTE\n\nChiuchow Opera and Peking Opera\n\nThe repertoire of Chiuchow opera contains plays taken from the Peking opera, as well as plays based on Chiuchow's local traditions. Ch'en San Wu-niang and Su Liu-niang are both typical Chiuchow operas which have no parallel in the Peking opera. Both are elegant and refined literary operas, with a very strong local flavour in the treatment and development of the subject, and in the music and performance style.\n\nIn a Peking opera the hard laws of society, the five relationships instituted by Confucius, are more important than human happiness; and in Peking opera the same plot would have quite a different dénouement, most probably with a tragic end. How would a well-kept young lady ever dare", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207349, "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-1975", "page_number": 117, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n109\n\nin the main it is a limited number of English words used more or less according to Chinese idiom, and also mispronounced. The fewest possible number of English words is used.35 The widespread use of this lingua franca prevented Chinese and Europeans from even remotely grasping the subtleties of each other's culture.\n\nThe amount of social contact, outside work and the market place, between Europeans and Chinese must not be exaggerated, for both groups enjoyed a healthy contempt for, and misunderstanding of, the other. W.A.P. Martin, at that time a Presbyterian missionary, relates that when he stepped ashore at Canton in 1850 he was greeted by a hooting mob 'who shouted Fanqui, fanqui! Shato, shato! (\"Foreign devils! cut off their heads.\")'36 L.C. Arlington, of the Chinese Maritime Customs, claims that, even in 1891, when a foreigner passed in his chair from Shameen (the foreign concession quarter in Canton) through the native city the coolies would shout out 'Take him to the execution ground'. No foreigner, he continues, be he white, Indian or Japanese, could escape the contemptuous term ‘foreign devil'. 'It was shouted at you from the tops of houses, from alleyways, and from courtyards.'37\n\nDespite the language barrier, a working class European did not find it too difficult to establish a liaison with a Chinese woman. In the early days, such women were found usually among the Tanka boat population, a pariah group that populated the fringes of the Pearl River delta region. A few of these women achieved the status of 'protected' woman (a kept mistress) and were, sometimes, well provided for by their paramour, such as a ship's captain. In time, a considerable number of police, overseers, tidewaiters and others, entered into alliances, even marriages, with local women, since, of course, there was always a scarcity of marriageable young European women in Hong Kong.* But mixed marriages were condemned by Taipans; the partners were ostracised by polite European society since a mixed marriage clearly stigmatised a European as an outcaste. Such racial attitudes became more rigid toward the end of the century.\n\nAlthough some Europeans lived with or even married Chinese women, it does not follow that such social arrangements provided\n\nSee Carl T. Smith's interesting article on one of these Tanka Women in Chung Chi Bulletin, No. 46, June 1969, 13-17 and 27.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207379, "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-1975", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "THE PACIFIC OYSTER INDUSTRY IN HONG KONG (的蠔業)\n\nBRIAN MORTON* AND P. S. WONG†\n\nOyster farming is an ancient industry. The Japanese and Romans are the earliest known oyster farmers, and with time the practice has spread to other parts of the globe. Thus different species of oysters are cultivated in Europe (Ostrea edulis and Crassostrea angulata), North America (Ostrea lurida and Crassostrea virginica), Australia (Crassostrea commercialis), and in Japan and China (Crassostrea gigas—the Pacific oyster). The diverse sites of culture have led to different methods of farming and the utilisation of a range of implements. With research and development, however, the Japanese method of hanging strings of oysters from rafts in the surface waters of the sea is slowly becoming universally accepted as one of the more successful techniques—but traditions die hard.\n\nOysters (*) have been cultivated in Hong Kong for some considerable time; Bromhall (1958) estimates 700 years though Mok (1973), more conservatively, estimates 170 years. The method of culture is unusual, involving implements of unique design, not hitherto described. The identity of the local oyster remains a mystery though Bromhall introduced the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas (Thunberg 1793) (✯✯) into Hong Kong in 1950. It would seem probable, however, that this is also the endemic species, since Hong Kong is within the natural geographic range of C. gigas (Tschang et al, 1962) and specimens have been recovered from archaeological digs on Lamma Island and, more recently, from the mud excavated from the High Island reservoir site.\n\nOysters only grow in estuaries and the Hong Kong oyster industry is centred around Deep Bay (*) which is situated on the northwestern corner of Hong Kong, forming the boundary between China and Hong Kong (Fig. 1). The bay covers an area of approximately 112 km2 bordered to the landward by a characteristic fringe of dwarf mangroves. Deep Bay opens to the southwest directly into the mouth of the Pearl River (#) which is the major river draining the hinterland of southern China. Numerous rivers and streams\n\n* Department of Zoology, The University of Hong Kong.\n\n† Department of Zoology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207423, "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-1975", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n183\n\na more cheerful atmosphere became apparent; most people used the contents intelligently to make the basic diet more palatable while the thought that we were not forgotten did much to improve morale.\n\nSix months later, in May 1943 a second consignment of parcels arrived. Some of our patients had already received a second parcel in Sham Shui Po and those who had done so were allotted one parcel between two men from our second allocation. All others in the hospital received one parcel each, but as before a number of parcels showed shortages.\n\nOn 1 September 1944, sixteen months later we received a splendid consignment of parcels from the Canadian Red Cross, enough to issue two to each person in hospital. A few parcels remained after this distribution and I took these into the store and used the tinned foods for general messing. As usual some parcels were incomplete though the wrappings were intact, and the shortages in this case and perhaps in others must have resulted from bad packing.\n\nIt was only three days later when on 4 September 1944 we received a further 144 Canadian parcels and issued two between five men. As before a few parcels not allocated in the foregoing way were broken up, the tinned food being used for general messing while such items as prunes, chocolate, raisins, biscuits etc. were added to bulk stores of similar nature received three days earlier and used to make 133 prizes which were raffled among 315 people.\n\nNo further individual parcels were received, and therefore each member of staff and each long-term patient received a total of just under 41 parcels between 1942 and 1945, though patients admitted from Kowloon may have had a fraction more. In January 1943 the Red Cross organization in Hong Kong had started to send in bulk stores of food to us. These included tins of meat and vegetable, preserved meat, sardines, condensed milk, marmalade, jam, tomato catsup, syrup, Yershey's milk powder, shark liver oil, dripping, hen and duck eggs, barley, fresh limes, dried peas, soy beans, soy bean powder, soy sauce, peanut butter, peanut oil, Chinese and cube sugar, tea and cocoa. In January we had two intakes and further intakes were spread at irregular intervals, one in May, one each in June and July and two in October. In August 1943 Sergeant Seino told me that we could expect no further supplies but in 1944 we had two intakes in each month from March to August inclusive, one each...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207428, "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-1975", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "188\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nvaried greatly at different times. In 1942 and 1943 we had much difficulty in maintaining a growth of yeast, but we produced a kind of hop barm made from cod liver oil and hops which produced with flour, bran and ground rice a bread which in our circumstances was passable. In 1945 bread and what we called rock buns were made from rice, bran and beans steamed in an old refrigerator converted for the purpose and suspended over a fire. To us the result was excellent.\n\nStoring the food\n\nWe maintained a steward's store throughout in which food stocks were held under the care of the steward and an assistant who lived with their charge. I said earlier that the arrival of food stocks was a spectacle never missed by the observant eyes of staff and patients, and by the time the Red Cross bulk stores began to come in I judged it wise to publish lists showing the quantities and varieties of food in all intakes, and this was appreciated.\n\nCooking the food\n\nThis was a heavy and often thankless task. The cooking apparatus was improvised after the main hospital kitchen was destroyed by enemy action in 1941. It was often very hard to get a good fire burning; the early rice boilers were deep and whether because of this or as a result of inexperience, the rice produced was often stodgy and gooey. Shallow boilers were installed later, and the quality of the rice delivered to the consumer improved greatly. The worst times were in 1942 when the hospital was overcrowded, the infections were rampant and the deficiency diseases were appearing, and also in 1943 when a long period of undernutrition could be foreseen. The unfortunate cooks came in for much criticism which of course did not improve matters. In addition to cooking they were called upon to divide the cooked food into containers for messes and wards and this led to further recriminations. I watched this situation with a great deal of care and I believe that we were fortunate to have men in these key positions who did not take advantage of their offices to get extra food for themselves, and who withstood apparently with only slight resentment much ill-informed and envious criticism. My natural faith in these men was all the stronger for the fact that the records of the body weights", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207757, "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-1976", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "130\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\n4 London Missionary Society Archives, London, England (hereafter given as L.M.S.A.), South China Box 5, Folder 3, Jacket C, letter of Legge, 26 Sept., 1853, and Jacket D, Yearly Report of the Hong Kong Mission, 25 Jan., 1854. For a brief notice of Keuh A-gong see my article, \"A Register of Baptized Protestant Chinese 1813-1842, Chung Chi Bulletin, No. 48 (Dec., 1970), p. 24. For Ng Mun-sow see my article, \"Dr. Legge's Theological School\", ibid, No. 50 (June, 1971), pp. 16-22.\n\n5 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 2, Jacket C, letter of Legge, 28 Jan., 1869, and Folder 1, Jacket A, letter of Wong Foon, 8 May, 1857. Another missionary estimate of Hung Jen-kan is the testimonial the Rev. John Chalmers sent to the Rev. Rudolph Lechler, Basel Missionary Society Archives (hereafter given as B.M.S.A.), Vol. IV, 1857-1862, letter dated, London Mission House, Hong Kong, 24 Dec., 1857: “I have great pleasure in giving my testimony to the Christian character of Hung Jin, the relative of Hung Sew Tauen, who, since his return from Shanghai in the year 1854, has been in the employment of our mission; first as a Christian teacher, and afterwards as a preacher and assistant missionary. His general behaviour has been such as becomes the Gospel; the work which we have given him to do, he has always executed to our satisfaction and not only so, but his zeal for the promotion of the cause of Christ has been marked. He is a young man of superior abilities, and I hope he may yet be honoured to labour successfully in the preaching of the gospel to his countrymen for many years.\n\n6 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 1, Jacket B, letter of Chalmers, 5 June, 1858.\n\n7 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 1, Jacket C, letter of Legge and Chalmers, 11 Jan., 1859, with enclosure of translation of letter of Hung Jan: \"Translation of Hung Jan's last letter, sent from Shanghai by Mr. Muirhead, who received it from a Chinaman who had been with Lord Elgin's expedition up the Yangtze. He wrote in 170 or 180 miles on that river below Hankow.\" Letters from \"Shau Kwan, Nan Gan [both on the north boundary of Kwangtung], one from the capital of Keangse, one from imperialist camp at Yaou Chow [in north of Keangse]\" are mentioned as having been written by Hung Jen-kan.\n\n8 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 2, Jacket C, letter of Legge, 24 Aug., 1860, and Folder 3, Jacket B, letter of Legge, 14 Jan., 1861.\n\n9 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 1, Jacket A, letter of Legge and Chalmers, 14 Jan., 1857.\n\n10 L.M.S.A., Legge Family Papers, letter of 28 Mar., 1861 and 24 Mar., 1871.\n\n11 For identification of Hung K'uei Hsiu see Jen (Chien) Yu-wan “**太平£Ø*^£$*M”, (Record of Visit with Descendants of the Taiping Hung Family) ***@** (Taiping Kingdom Miscellany), No. 4, and * Lo Hsiang-lin, (Historical Sources for the Study of the Hakkas), (Hong Kong, 1965), p. 409,\n\n12 B.M.S.A., Hong Kong School Report, 14 Feb. 1875, \"Teacher Schui Thin will shortly change places with Fung Khui-syu in Tschong Hang Kang, because the last as a son of a Tai Ping Rebellion King, cannot stay anymore in the mainland without danger to the life of himself and family.\"\n\n13 B.M.S.A., Hong Kong School Report, 16 Apr. 1873, and Die Evangelischen Heidenboten, Jan., 1866, letter of Lechler, 2 Oct, 1865.\n\n14 B.M.S.A., Chinese Mission Yearly Report 1885. The ship Dartmouth left Hong Kong 25 Dec., 1878 and arrived at Georgetown, British Guiana on 17 Mar., 1879. Among its 516 emigrants were seventy Christians.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207789, "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-1976", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA (With especial reference to the Upper Yangtze)\n\nA. D. BLUE*\n\nWest China, and in particular the provinces of Szechwan and Yunnan, interested British merchants in India before the end of the eighteenth century, and this interest increased after Britain got a foothold in Lower Burma in the early nineteenth century. Not until Britain was established at Shanghai and on the Lower Yangtze, however, did the British China traders take any great interest in West China. Until the 1860s, therefore, the initiative in opening West China to British trade came from the West, and concentrated on reviving the old caravan routes from Upper Burma into Yunnan. The Treaty of Yandabo between Britain and Burma in 1826, which established Britain in Arakan, Assam, Manipur, and Tenasserim, rekindled interest in these old routes. Sino-Burmese contacts went back many centuries, but were usually recorded from a diplomatic or military aspect, although it was well known that there had been considerable trade along these routes. At this time Canton was the only British foothold on the China coast, and the much shorter land route across Burma seemed to offer many benefits to British and Indian merchants in both India and Burma. Then, and for many years afterwards, India was the source of most of China's foreign imports, cotton and opium in particular, and much of British policy in the Far East was concerned with maintaining and extending this trade.\n\nAn interesting side product of this China-India relationship was the proposal to import workers from west China for the infant Assam tea industry. The East India Company had become interested in the possibility of tea production in Assam as early as 1823, when indigenous tea plants were found in the Upper Brahmaputra\n\n* The author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtze 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. Five of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtze\" in Vol. 3, 1963, \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965, \"The China Coasters\" in Vol. 7, 1967, \"Chinese Emigration and the Deck Passenger Trade\" in Vol. 10, 1970 and \"Early Steamships in China\" in Vol. 13, 1973.\n\nPlates 20-25 and the sketch-maps at the end of the volume illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207828, "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-1976", "page_number": 216, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 201\n\nthe Man and their allies rallied local support to form a new market on the other side of what in British times has come to be known as the Kwun Yam River. This was the beginning of the market town of Tai Po in its present form. (The story up to this point is told by Sung Hok-p'ang, 'Legends and Stories of the New Territories. I. Tai Po', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VI, no. 1, May 1935. The stone slab recording the magistrate's decision no longer stands in the temple; when the temple was recently rebuilt the stone was cast into the yard where it now lies, often encumbered with rubbish, a neglected minor monument of late Ch'ing history).\n\n19. The new market in a short time consigned the old one to a decrepitude familiar to anyone who has walked behind the Jockey Club Clinic which now stands next to the Tin Hau Temple. Soon the founder of the new market put up the first of the bridges to span the Kwun Yam River; the subscription list for the bridge is recorded on two stone plaques set into the wall of the Man Mo Temple which had been built as a centre for the new market. A room in the temple still houses the public weighing scales from which the founders and their successors have derived an income.\n\n20. The story goes that the Man who led the revolt against the Tang monopoly called a meeting of the leaders of seven yeuk around Tai Po, each of these taking a share in the new market in the form of shops. The land on which the market was built appears to have been for the most part the property of the Man. Now it is probable that the Ts'at Yeuk dates from this point in time. My informants take this view. And there is one piece of information which tends to confirm it: one of the constituent yeuk is Cheung Shue Tan which, according to what I was told in Sha Tin, was previously a member of a yeuk-complex in this latter area; so that it may well have changed its allegiance at the time of the founding of the new market at Tai Po. But even if the Ts'at Yeuk came into being so recently, the yeuk themselves can hardly have done so for they appear to have been the material out of which the complex was formed. Many locals assert that the yeuk did not antedate the Ts'at Yeuk, but I am inclined to think that we are dealing here with a very old form of grouping, as comparative evidence will suggest. The seven yeuk were Lam Tsuen, Cheung Shue Tan, Ting Kok, Shuen Wan, Hap Wo, Tai Hang, and Fan Leng. Together they had over seventy villages, but the yeuk were of unequal size, so that while, for example, the Man settlement at Tai Hang formed a yeuk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207980, "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-1977", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "3\n\ngenerously gave up his Saturday afternoon to conduct the three parties of members, and we are pleased to welcome him as a guest to dinner tonight.\n\nIn March Mr. Lapierre, a noted journalist, lecturer and author, known internationally perhaps most for his book \"Paris Burning\", showed a documentary film about India and Pakistan on the eve of independence and the conspiracy leading to Gandhi's assassination in January 1948. This lecture was held at the Union Church and Mr. Dennis Rogers, pastor of the Church, who was to act as our projectionist as he had on many occasions, died on the day of our meeting. We will miss him very much both for his help, and his enthusiastic attendance at meetings as a member of the Society. Our last lecture of the year was on March 14, when Charles Grant, Professor of Geology and Geography at the University of Hong Kong, talked about the changing coastline of the Canton Delta, the delta of the Pearl River. Professor Grant is also arranging a symposium later this year on old maps of Hong Kong. Several other events have already been planned for the first part of the next year. Two are Mr. Emerson's talk on the Japanese Occupation with a related tour of the Stanley prison area occupied by the internment camp; and Mr. Michael Stevenson's talk on the organization of Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong.\n\nPublications\n\nDr. James Hayes has been working hard to bring your Journal up to date on publication and during the year the 1974 issue was distributed. The 1975 Journal is now in print and will be distributed shortly—we hope at the end of April. The 1976 Journal is coming on well and several items have already been received and prepared for printing. They include the unpublished 1963 Report on Anthropological Fieldwork in the New Territories by the late Professor Maurice Freedman. Professor Freedman did much to open up the New Territories to anthropological research, and his observations in the Report still have influence on research choices of students working in the area today. During the year Professor Brian Lofts' illustrated symposium on the fauna of Hong Kong was published and well reviewed. We have also been fortunate in obtaining the help of Mr. Geoffrey Bonsall, Director of the Hong Kong University Press, who joined the Council as a result of a vacancy during the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207997, "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-1977", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "20\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nseveral other rivers or streams flowing in, cause a muddy deposit, on which the houses are built. At high water they are surrounded; at low water, stand on a sheet of mud. On nearing it, we were encompassed by boats which preceded and followed us, and we passed the floating market, where women, wearing immense hats of palm-leaves, sell all sorts of edibles, balanced in their little canoes, now giving a paddle, now making a bargain, and dropping down with the tide, and again regaining their place when the bargain is finished. The first impression of the town is miserable. The houses are crowded and numerous, and even the palace does not present a more captivating aspect, for, though large, it is as incommodious as the worst. We had been seated but a few minutes when Pangeran Usop arrived, and directly afterwards the Sultan. He gave us ten leaf-cigars, and sirih, and, in short, showed us every attention; and, what was best of all, did not keep us very long. Our apartment was partitioned off from the public hall, a dark-looking place, but furnished with a table brought by us, and three rickety chairs, besides mattresses and plenty of mats. We were kept up nearly all night, which, after the fatigues of the day, was hard upon us.\n\nFurther observation confirmed us in the opinion that the town itself is miserable, and its locality on the mud fitted only for frogs or natives; but there is a level dry plain above the entrance of the Kiangi river, admirably suited for a European settlement; and across the Kiangi is swelling ground, where the residents might find delightful spots for their country-houses. The greatest annoyance to a stranger is the noisome smell of the mud when uncovered; and all plated or silver articles, even in the course of one night, get black and discoloured. The inhabitants I shall estimate moderately at 10,000, and the Kadien population are numerous amid the hills.\n\nAnd yet another graphic picture of the city of Brunei written in the early part of the present century. This is an observation by C. A. Bamfylde, an officer in the service of the Raja of Sarawak, Charles Brooke,11\n\nIt may be as well here to give a description of Brunei and of its Court.\n\nThe Brunei river flows into a noble bay, across which to the north lies the island of Labuan. Above the town the river is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208001, "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-1977", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "24\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nof Hong Kong (1866) and who acted on occasion as legal representative of Dent and Company in that Colony.14\n\nThe Colonial Office by 1879 was favourably disposed toward Sarawak's expansionist plan in Brunei. A compromise was eventually achieved between the Colonial and Foreign Offices whereby Brooke was allowed a further cession of Brunei territory, the Baram River district, while North Borneo was confirmed to the company and it was allowed to acquire several territories on the north and east of Brunei Bay.\n\nAs to the attitude of Brunei toward the carving-up of its territory, few of the rajas of Brunei Town objected, for they were paid handsome cession monies from both Sarawak and North Borneo. In general, the temptation of a considerable monetary payment in hand overrode any desire to retain nominal title to territories over which Brunei sultans had long since ceased to rule and from which little, if any, revenue was obtained. That the presence of the British and the monetary payments tended to bolster a declining court and infuse it with vigour, if but superficially, was not lost upon the sultan and his rajas.\n\nThe keen competition which arose between Sarawak and North Borneo over the charter issue and the cession of Baram created a strong and bitter rivalry between the two states. Their attention was soon drawn to the remaining territory of Brunei. It seems clear that both Raja Brooke and the Company fully expected the demise of the sultanate, and each was determined to obtain as large a share of the remaining territory as possible. Raja Brooke had, for example, as early as 1874, offered to take over the administration of Brunei.\n\nIn 1890, Raja Brooke did annex the Limbang River district at the invitation of its Kayan chiefs, who had carried on a long rebellion against the extractions of corrupt Brunei rajas. After some on-site investigations, Britain reluctantly agreed to the acquisition. The raja was on firm legal ground, for he had obtained the chop of the sultan to the cession. But the loss of the Limbang was bitterly objected to by the rajas, who at almost the eleventh-hour began to realize that their individual selfishness and rivalry was bringing about the gradual extinction of the sultanate. The Limbang issue remains to this day a point of controversy between Brunei and Sarawak.15 No one at the time seemed to notice that Sarawak's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208024, "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-1977", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February 30th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nCorrected version in HTML format as requested.\n\nHowever, some minor corrections were made:\n1. \"February 30th\" is likely an error since February only has 28 (or 29 in a leap year) days. \n2. \"CIC\" was added for \"Chinese Industrial Co-operatives\" to match common abbreviation practices, though this was not explicitly instructed.\n3. Some minor punctuation adjustments were considered but not made as they were not strictly necessary.\n\nHere's the corrected text with the requested format and rules applied:\n\nA JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February ...th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nLet me know if further adjustments are needed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208028, "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-1977", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "The Return Journey \n\nA JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946 \n\n51 \n\nA 'political' question arose about our return trip. The 18th Group Army had, as previously mentioned, a Chungking office and extra staff were needed for this. Would we be willing to transport 40 passengers in our otherwise empty trucks from Yenan to Chungking? The questions the request raised are obvious: being a pacifist organization we did not, on principle, carry troops or military supplies. What complication would this raise with the KMT Government in Chungking? Or the Hsi-an Command? I asked if a message could be transmitted to FAU Headquarters in Chungking putting the problem and asking for instructions. Meanwhile the Unit Headquarters in Chungking had received the same request from the 18th Group Army Office there and they had asked for a message to be transmitted to me, telling me of the request and saying in effect 'Use your own judgement'. In the event neither message was received. Yu Chin-lung and I used our own judgement and we set out on February 22nd with our 40 unarmed passengers under Major Chiang and including two young women comrades. \n\nThere was some alarm and excitement when we reached the 'border'. The outpost sentries waved us on, but did not inform their colleagues in the main guard house that we were coming. No doubt someone then shouted that there was a motorised attack by the 8th Route Army; there was a smart turnout of machine guns, rifles, etc. into defensive postures and magazines were slapped into place. We stopped the trucks and Yu Chin-lung and I walked down the road endeavouring to preserve a becoming Quaker calm and hoping no one was enthusiastic about target practice. It seemed a long 50 yards. Documents were produced for ourselves and Major Chiang produced his, and after tea and apologies on both sides we went on. \n\nAs we came down out of the hills to the Yellow River plain the weather broke and snow swirled down. If this had come a day earlier it would have been most difficult since the road was so rocky and full of pot holes that a snow covering would have led to accidents. \n\nIf we had maintained a low profile coming up, we positively crouched on the way back after crossing the border. I slipped into Hsi-an on my own and called at the Methodist Mission for any letters. Meanwhile Yu Chin-lung had got the trucks loaded on the train and we set off for Pao-chi through the night. Two young", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208030, "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-1977", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n53\n\nit helped prevent disappearance of vital parts of the trucks (and also the precious cargo) and one did not have to contend with the intelligent West China bed bugs which were liable to infest the inns.\n\nReturn to Chungking\n\nComing through the passes and down into Szechuan the first signs of spring appeared, the delicate pale green of the young willow leaves and the rich red earth contrasting with the dry, dusty, harshness of the Shensi countryside. Most of our passengers had not, one gathered, been to Szechuan before and were seeing all this fabled richness of the province for the first time. Crossing the Fu River ferry at Mienyang brought us into the plains and we came next to Ching Mo Kuan (Green Pines Pass) where the main customs and control station for Chungking was situated. This was another place where we had anticipated difficulty, especially if the negotiations had taken a turn for the worse since we left Yenan two weeks before. We pulled up near the barrier and everyone stayed in the trucks. We kept the engines running while Yu Chin-lung and I took our documents for checking to the duty officer. When asked what passengers we had we truthfully replied \"Forty members of the 8th Route Army\" which he solemnly wrote down and then chopped our pass. We were in the trucks and handing this to the sentry before the officer could report to higher authority. So, much relieved, we drove on to Chungking, off-loaded our passengers outside the city and then returned, via the upper ferry, to our South Bank base. Distance covered about 3200 kilometres in a travelling time of 32 days and, apart from our initial crash, no accidents, and few roadside repairs.\n\nThree days after our return we were again entertained by the 18th Group Army and General Chou En-lai personally thanked us for what we had done. Later we were invited to send medical teams up into the Border Region working directly with the medical authorities there. The FAU/FSU continued after Liberation and the last member left China in 1952.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208083, "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-1977", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "106\n\nYUEN-FONG WOON\n\nfirst preference to buy or rent private plots belonging to a fellow villager.\n\nChungshe was similar to Na-loh in social organization. There was no community temple belonging to the village as a whole. Instead, each lineage had its own ancestral hall with corporate property. Moreover, private or corporate property seldom changed hands from one lineage to another. Lineage mates only bought land from one another or from their own ancestral halls.\n\nIn his final chapter, Pasternak gives two explanations to account for the differences in social organization between his two Taiwan villages. The first is that there was the need for common defence in Tatieh against another ethnic group in the vicinity. But in Chungshe, there was no such need. The second reason is that there was a need for co-operation in irrigation projects in Tatieh but not in Chungshe.\n\nI think these explanations might also account for the differences in social organization between Lung-tsai She and Na-loh Ts'uen of Hoi-p'ing. Lung-tsai She was situated in the upper course of the T'aam River (*). The terrain was much more hilly, and there was a greater need for cross-surname co-operation in irrigation and drainage. Na-loh was in the middle course of the T'aam River. The village did not suffer from water problems. Informants have only heard one case of flood in the village. People went away for several days until the water subsided. Usually the farmers relied on nearby streams for irrigation. They just went to carry water back by means of their buckets.\n\nIn the case of Lung-tsai She, the need for cross-surname co-operation in defence was apparent between 1911 and 1926 when the whole of Hoi-p'ing was in civil disorder as a result of power struggles between the Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Yunnan Warlords. The Kwaan, the Wong and the Tang in Lung-tsai She joined with other villages in the vicinity to form the multi-surname Tsung-long Heung Militia (2) for self-defence. In the case of Na-loh village, however, there was no co-operation between the Kwaan and Oo for defence.\n\nThus, it appears that the need for co-operation in defence and irrigation resulted in greater social integration among villagers in Lung-tsai She than among villagers in Na-loh, just as Pasternak's study has suggested. Nonetheless, the contrast between the Hoi-p'ing villages...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208107, "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-1977", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW – LONG ISLAND\n\nW. J. HINTON, M.A.*\n\nThe island we are to describe is not the Long Island of New York society but another Long Island altogether, in the latitude of Havannah, and in the South China Sea called Dumb-bell Island in Hongkong, it is Cheung Chow to some eight thousand souls, three thousand ashore and five thousand afloat, who live there, or thereabouts on the fishing grounds. The little community is small enough to be understood by sympathetic observer, and interesting enough to merit description in some detail. So in the hope that some better qualified observer will be provoked to come forward and take up the tale, we will attempt a description.\n\nAs to geography: the place lies in that archipelago which stretches across the mouth of the Canton River between Hongkong and the four hundred year old settlement of Macao. The River boats which ply between those towns pass by it disdainfully, or perhaps the police fear that if they touched there the problem of smuggling, already formidable would become altogether unmanageable. For they seem to be inveterate smugglers, these Cheung Chow fishermen like fishermen elsewhere.\n\nCheung Chow is quite close to Hongkong, about one hour's steaming by launch, and on clear days the sails of its anchored junks are visible over the low spit of sand which forms the handle of the \"dumb-bell\" from Cheung Chow and Hongkong is a glorious sight, by day a long line of high ridges above which the clouds tower and at night a dim mass on which the mountain roads prick out white festoons and necklaces of light, still and shining above the winking beacon of Green Island.\n\nAcross that dozen miles of sea a small ferryboat like a slow shuttle carries a slender thread of communication six times in the day. The Police can talk by wireless with their waiting launches in Hongkong, and for the unhurried there are the junks and sampans.\n\nThis article is reprinted from the Hongkong University Journal of Law and Commerce, Vol. II, April 1929, No. 1. It was brought to the Editor's attention by Dr. Peter Wesley-Smith.\n\n* The author served the University of Hong Kong first as Registrar 1912-13, then as Professor of Economics and thrice as Dean of the Faculty of Arts, until his resignation to take up a post in England in 1929 ---- Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208159, "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-1977", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "182\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTANG Fu-hip must have lived to a venerable old age because during his lifetime he established a famous school not far from present-day Kam Tin and had close contacts with the officials and gentry of his day.\n\nAfter the death of TANG Fu-hip, the Sung dynasty was much in decline. Plagued by official corruption from within, the dynasty was also hard-pressed by the Mongols without. When the pressure became too great, the emperors would buy temporary relief by giving up more territory to the enemy.\n\nIn one of the customary evacuations before the advancing Mongols, 160 persons of the royal court, mostly women and children, were either drowned or scattered with fate unknown.\n\nTANG Yuen-leung (††), the great-grandson of TANG Fu-hip, was garrison commander of the northern Kiangsi town of Kim Chau (M). The situation was very tense: the imperial army fell back constantly and refugees were streaming south. He did his utmost to alleviate the suffering of the refugees and spared no efforts to repatriate those who wanted to go back to their homes in the north. In one of the flood tides of refugees, he came across a teenage girl on whom he took pity. He adopted her, and the girl did much to hide her true identity.\n\nAfterward, he retired from the army and returned to his native Kam Tin, bringing the refugee girl with him. Only at that time was he told the refugee girl was one of the princesses of the royal family of Sung.\n\nHe married her to his son TANG Wai-kap (x). By this marriage, four sons were born, whose descendants founded most of the Tang clan's branch settlements in Ha Tsuen, Yuen Long, Tai Po Tau, and Lung Yeuk Tau, all in the N.T.\n\nWhen TANG Wai-kap died, he was buried on a small knoll just to the left of the present Au Tau crossroads leading from Yuen Long to Fanling. The site of the grave is named Wu Lei Kuo Shui (£), “the fox is swimming the river”, because there is indeed a small creek in front of the knoll to the present day.\n\nThe princess was not buried in the same grave as her husband. She was buried in a grave on Lion's Hill near Shek Tseng (G&#) in Tung Kwun County (✯) to the north of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208358, "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-1978", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "66\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nearth.30 We are told that in Yingshan there were jiao offerings on the graves in the eighth moon. It is said explicitly by the chronicler to be similar to the practice of Qingming. This Yingshan custom began on the day of the new moon and continued for the next few days. It is said that one 'escorted the departing'.31 On the first day, and continuing through the first half of that moon, people of Tongshan burnt paper (money?) sheets on the burial grounds.32\n\nUnfortunately, we know very little about traditional funeral customs in the Dongting area and the surrounding region. The few notes I have found tell us that in Taoyuan, in the Yuan River valley, people practised an excess of slaughtering at mourning.33 In Baling, it was the custom to have music, food, and Buddhist monks to perform.34 From Zhongxiang, we read that at an instance of death, there was drumming and singing mixed with lamentations.35\n\nI will assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that double burial did not exist in this area of Hubei and Hunan. Further, I will assume that the graves were, in the general Chinese fashion, marked by small brick or chunam structures.36 A later traveller through Hunan reports that graves in the Xiang River valley were cone-shaped and whitewashed. There seems also to have been some concentration of graves into 'yards'.38 I will assume that the body of a dead person was placed in a wooden coffin and interred in a dugout grave, probably covered by a tumulus, on or at which, as mentioned, was erected some sort of structure to mark it. The grave was a permanent one, and it was only for very particular reasons of fengshui* geomancy39 the body might be exhumed. The graves were ritual foci for members of continuous social groups, membership in which was determined by agnatic ascent and descent. Sometimes such kinship groups seem to have formed lineages.\n\nIn our present attempt at understanding the essential features of the semantics of the grave, we are helped by some local terms, names of customs, and other phrases. We have already met the expressions 'to hang money on the mountain' and 'to suspend on the mountain'. From such instances, it seems permissible to say that they represent some conceptual link between graves and mountains. How is this? Graves look perhaps like small mountains or hills—but I think there is more to the grave-mountain association", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208607, "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-1979", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n37\n\nSecretary, Procurator, and all his priests in the other parishes of the City were interned, he did not know where at that moment, but later on he was informed that they were at Stanley, in the prison. That evening our belated supper was eaten in more or less silence, as with guns booming in the distance and the suspense in the air, we did not have much heart for conversation. We retired early, but about eleven o'clock were awakened by the air raid siren, only to find that it was a false alarm. Incidentally, during the hostilities of Hong Kong there were no night air raids. However, after that false alarm, Father Downs in the city, at the Cathedral Rectory, could not get to sleep, and heard the clock strike every quarter of the hour until daybreak. And the next morning at about eight o'clock, the fun began! At that time planes appeared overhead, bombs were dropped at various points and wherever these bombs fell, anti-aircraft guns in the vicinity started barking. A couple of these anti-aircraft guns were set up in a small depression just below the Italian Sisters' Hospital on the hill to the east and south of the Cathedral, and when they began popping we thought they were in our backyard. During the day and those that followed, there were perhaps an average of four or five daily air raids, the targets being mainly gun emplacements, shipping and forts.\n\nHowever, on the very first day, as narrated by Fr. Downs a couple of bombs hit a portion of the Central Police Station, a block or two just west of the Cathedral. Guns were booming over on the Kowloon side and out in the New Territories along the Pearl River estuary where the Japanese landed, having come down the river from Canton. Whether these guns were land or naval batteries, of course we could not judge, but no doubt the shells came from both sources at times. On the night of the second day, after we had retired, the booming of guns seemed to be nearer, and finally we were awakened by a crash which seemed to be in the Rectory. As the booming kept up we were not desirous of making any personal investigation, and as we waited, another crash shook our building, and then another, a little farther away. The next morning we learned that the Japanese were evidently trying to get the range of the anti-aircraft guns just above us near the Sisters' Hospital, for the shells seemed to fall in a straight line; the first struck to the west of us, the second hit the edge of the roof of the house next door, the third crashed through the roof of the Cathedral, cutting a neat hole", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208698, "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-1979", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "128\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\ngoing its trial run. Quite a string of small landing barges were once seen leaving the harbor. At Aberdeen in the narrow channel there are a number of small river steamers sunk or scuttled, and the Japanese are attempting to salvage them. They have also succeeded in raising the river gunboat Moth, and its recommissioning was given quite some space in the local English paper.\n\nDuring our stay at Bethany we had a number of visitors: the Jesuits from Wah Yan College, as also from the Seminary at Aberdeen; Father Haughey from the Salesians, some Italian Fathers from the Cathedral and the French Fathers, as also a few laymen, friends of Camp days, among whom was our genial chef, Mr. Gingles, with his side-kick, Dr. Molthen.\n\nAcross from Bethany is Nazareth, the polyglot printing press establishment, and there we found the Superior, Father Biotteau, still holding the fort, along with one companion, Father Morel. Needless to say, the Printing Press is not now in operation, and the other Fathers normally stationed here left some time previous to our arrival for Indo-China. Later on, also, a number of French Sisters left St. Paul's Hospital for Indo-China.\n\nShortly after the occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese announced that they intended to build a large shrine just above the Botanical Gardens to commemorate the heroes of Hong Kong. They began surveying the site, beginning quite close to the Cathedral, and evidently it was to be a wonderful affair. Subscriptions were asked for from the local Chinese and everybody was expectant. However, as time wore on, the project seemed to have gotten out of the limelight, and now it seems it has been abandoned. However, a small monument was erected on one of the small hills facing the harbor.\n\nThe 25th of October was the Feast of Christ the King. On that day, there is an outdoor procession at the Cathedral to which the faithful come from the various parishes both in the city and from Kowloon. As we had received an invitation to participate, we started out for the city. As we neared the city we noticed an unusual number of Japanese planes in the air. This was not out of the ordinary as planes were more or less constantly flying about for various purposes, and we did not attach any special significance to this increased number on this glorious afternoon. As the Holy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208771, "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-1979", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n201 \n\nIt would seem incongruous that Na T'o, a Muslim who would abhor idolatry, should be venerated by the Chinese and it would be interesting to know what the Malays themselves would think of such a practice; that is of course, assuming that they even know of his existence. The Chinese, however, see no incongruity in having a Muslim on their altar, and in some areas, particularly around Kluang, he is especially treated with the respect and constraints due to another religion. As a Muslim, he is never disturbed on a Friday and never offered pork. \n\nThe only other case so far noted of a Muslim appearing on a Chinese altar was heard from a Chinese from Sian who recalled a deity in North China, the Wei Wei Ts'ai Shen (✯✯1⁄2§i†), said to be the Mohammedan god of wealth, depicted dressed in a Tibetan high-crowned cap. Wei Wei, he thought, was probably derived from the Arabic, and, it was claimed that Muslim Chinese offered beef at his altar. Wei Wei however, is possibly a local variant of Hui Hui, the usual Chinese term for \"Moslem”. \n\nThe second cult is that of Miss Lin (✯✯✯) whose image is to be seen on Chinese temple altars only in Southern Thailand. Her legend explains all. Left alone by the death of her parents in her home village near Ch'aochou in Eastern Kwangtung province of South China, she followed her only living relative, her brother, down to a village near Songkla in the far south of Thailand where he worked in the fields. When she arrived she found to her disgust that her brother was just about to marry a Muslim girl and be converted to Islam. She attempted without avail to persuade him not to do either. A Chinese god carver in Bangkok added, with disgust, he even gave up eating pork! \n\nThe sister knew she could not live with her brother and his wife and in a desperate moment threw herself into the river Patani and drowned herself. The brother, despite being filled with remorse, to demonstrate that he, as a convert, was more devout than born believer, went ahead with his plan to build a mosque and even went as far as to bury his sister beside the site chosen for it. As the last brick was laid lightning struck and destroyed the mosque without harming the sister's grave. However, the brother refused to believe that it was divine retribution for his denial of his parent's gods. Twice more he built, and twice more lightning struck. Only then did he accept the message and renounce Islam. Realizing that his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208928, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "58 \n\nLEWIS M. CHERE \n\nand recognized in later periods? As in so many cases of this sort, closer examination of the events leads to the conclusion that it may have been both. \n\nWhat little evidence is available at this distance points to a popular nationalistic outbreak against the French, encouraged by the activities of the Imperial authorities at Canton. There is also reason to believe that the old anti-foreignism so frequently pointed to among the coastal Chinese also had some role in the affair. Some local Chinese leadership groups, like the Tung Wah, may also have tried to make use of the incident to enhance their own position vis-à-vis the colonial administration. \n\nThe troubles of September and October 1884 were set off by two events in other parts of the China Coast. China and France had been very close to an open break over the suzerainty of Annam and the occupation of Tongking since early in 1883. When the Chinese appeared to have violated a May 1884 agreement between Li Hung-chang and Captain Ernest Fournier of the French Navy, France presented China with a series of ultimatums in June and July demanding compensation for French deaths incurred in the incident. Since the Chinese believed that it was the French who had violated the agreement they naturally were not inclined to sub-mit to the French demands.9 \n\nFrance, determined to enforce what she considered her just demands, issued one last ultimatum in August. When Peking refused to give in, the French Asiatic Squadron under Admiral Courbet, which was anchored at Foochow opposite a Chinese fleet and the shipyard, opened fire on August 22. The Chinese Foochow Fleet was utterly destroyed with much loss of life. The Shipyard was severely damaged, and the forts along the Min River were taken and destroyed as the French went back downstream. \n\nIn the competition among the governors and viceroys of the coastal provinces to demonstrate their patriotism in the furor that followed the Foochow incident, Chang Chih-tung, newly appointed Viceroy of the Two Kwangs; Peng Yü-lin, Imperial Commissioner for the Coastal Defenses of Kwangtung; and Ni Wan-yuh, Governor of Kwangtung, issued a proclamation calling on Chinese in Singapore, Penang and Vietnam (interestingly enough they did not mention Hong Kong) to sink French ships, or sell them tainted provisions. \n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 209122, "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": 25, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "FOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO DIAGNOSIS AND CURE\n\n11\n\ntwo longhouses. They were massively built wooden fortresses standing on piles, usually about 30 feet above ground level. Each village was politically independent in its own territory, and was frequently on terms of active hostility with its neighbours. The investment of labour and capital in a longhouse was so great that it was rarely moved or completely re-built. The district was conquered by the Rajah of Sarawak, James Brooke, in 1861; and over the next twenty years a measure of law and order was imposed on the villages. In time, too, the longhouses became so overcrowded that the people simply abandoned them and built small, separate houses along the banks of the river in ribbon development.\n\nThe political control of a village was in the hands of a small group of aristocratic elders who were said to be the descendants of the village's founders. The society was rigidly ranked: about 10 percent of a village's population were what one can call aristocrats; 80 percent were middle rankers of varying degrees; and another 10 percent were slaves. An elaborate set of customary rules (adet) regulated the behaviour of the members of the different ranks to one another and most other aspects of life as well. The adet was one of the community's most valued possessions and was in the custody of the aristocratic elders. No single elder was superior to the others, though he might have special knowledge that fitted him for particular tasks. A man with unusual abilities in war was put in charge of raids, and another with knowledge of rituals might assume leadership on appropriate occasions. It is interesting, though, that in general the aristocrats did not handle matters of the adet that dealt with ritual, with illness, and with dealings with other beings than humans. They were primarily concerned with power over people in this world. But leadership among the ruling committee of elders was not formalised into permanent offices, and there was no single political chief who ruled a village as of personal right. This is, of course, a possible and workable political arrangement in an independent village of five to eight hundred inhabitants.3\n\nLet me summarise the situation. A Melanau thought of himself as a citizen of a particular village whose inhabitants were thought to be, and often were, peculiar in matters of dialect and custom. As an individual, a man or woman was also the focal point of a circle of kinsmen with whom he shared a wide range of social and economic interests; and, lastly, he had by virtue of birth a position of rank. In any context the behaviour of one individual to another was largely", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209125, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "14\n\nSTEPHEN MORRIS\n\nbalance of the human person, the first thing to be upset is the feelings or the emotions. This shows itself by paleness, trembling, or nervousness, and the soul begins its journey to the land of the dead, leaving behind it only the body, which is still animated by the principle of life. If the soul does not return, death is inevitable.\n\nThe world, as I said a little earlier, also contains other beings than humans. No Melanau doubts the existence of spirits, though if you ask him about them, he is likely to say: \"They are things which cannot be seen; how can we be sure what they are like?\" Even so everybody knows what quite a large number of them do look like; I have the detailed descriptions of about 150 spirits. Many people who are not experts have sufficient knowledge of the appearance and attributes of several spirits and the afflictions they are thought to cause. They are also able to carve spirit images for use in curing illness.\n\nThe most general classification of spirits is by the region they inhabit; for like men, they all have their proper homes and settings. In this middle world are found air or sky spirits, and forest, and river, and sea spirits. The upper and the under worlds have the same types; and all can move from one world to another in a way that a man cannot. Spirits are male and female, and most are anthropomorphic. Some people think that like the Melanau they are hierarchically ranked within their categories, each of which has its own leader with authority over all his kind, whatever world he may inhabit.\n\nAlthough people tell myths and stories of marriages between humans and spirits and of men becoming spirits, others deny that any of this is possible. At the same time all agree that animals, plants, humans, and spirits are distinct and separate orders of being who happen to share the same environment - a fact that entails ordered rules of behaviour. Contact between these various orders is inevitable, but it carries considerable risk with it; the likelihood of over-stepping the bounds of proper behaviour and so causing trouble is very great indeed.\n\n―\n\nThe Melanau's technical equipment gave them little control over the natural forces of their environment; but they did have an extensive and detailed knowledge of its variations and dangers. By personifying those forces and placing them in a system of moral relationships, stated in much the same terms as they used in handling the social order and backed by the same kinds of sanctions, they were helped", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209236, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "EDUCATION AS A BY-PRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING\n\n125\n\nthat is, the nomadic population, of Britain, do belong to a series of ethnic communities genealogically linked to the settlement of Romani immigrants in the sixteenth century, who now speak Romanes-linked creole dialects, as well as standard English.\" Several times in the early 1970s I was still able to converse with pupils in dialects that teachers had assured me were quite unknown to \"their\" Gypsies. Now it is much harder to catch teachers out this way. Work for Gypsies has become a small part of Britain's \"Race Relations Industry\". The word \"Gypsy\" has been ethnicized.\n\nThe case with the fisherfolk of Hong Kong is exactly the reverse. Originally thought to be a distinct ethnic community, the thrust of modern scholarly research since the mid-1950s is that they are no such thing, that the vast majority are Cantonese, ethnically indistinguishable from the majority of Hong Kong inhabitants.\n\nThe pre-War view, however, of the British administration in Hong Kong was that the boat people comprised two of the four ethnic groups native to Hong Kong. S.F. Balfour wrote: \"This region has a country population consisting of four distinct communities known in Chinese as the Tanka, the Hokio, the Punti and the Hakka.\"18 By the \"Punti\" he meant the local Cantonese; by the 'Hakka' the descendants of late Han migrants from Northern China. Both the \"Tanka\" and the 'Hoklo' were boat-dwellers, fisherfolk. The Hoklo, a small minority of the boat people, mostly in the north-east of the New Territories, spoke a variety of Fukien dialect. The Tanka spoke Cantonese, but were believed to have another dialect of their own, to be in fact not Han Chinese at all, but, said Balfour, drawing on Chinese sources, \"a branch of the Man tribe.\"\n\nIn fact, it was generally believed that there existed in South China an aboriginally-descended aquatic people called the Tanka boat-people like the Hoklo. In Hong Kong they were fishermen, but in the Pearl River delta, and further north along inland waterways, they were transporters, salt-traders, prostitutes and followers of numerous other pariah occupations that could be based on a boat. Detailed studies in the 1930s by the new school of sociologists based at Lingnam University did not challenge this assumption.10 They were backed up by historian colleagues who traced back a recorded history of the Tan people to T'ang times. Then, Ho Ke-en concluded, Tan \"was broadly equivalent to Man\", a name covering several non-Han tribes in South China, but \"in its narrow sense it designated one particular South China tribe\". In the Sung period, he tells us, \"the Tan people began to live on boats,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209263, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "152\n\nWEI PEH-TH\n\n8\n\nThe killing of a Chinese man and wounding of three boys in P'an-yü by a member of the crew of a British vessel, the London, on 27 November 1820, was the first major crisis handled by Juan Yüan involving jurisdiction over foreigners who had committed crimes against Chinese nationals. On 27 November 182o, in broad daylight, a cutter from the London, a ship belonging to the East India Company, sailed “a considerable distance\" beyond Whampoa into a branch stream of the Pearl River, in search of fresh water. On the cutter was the fifth mate of the London, a man by the name of Pigott, and five other crewmen. They had a musket with them. Upon landing at P'an-yü, the men were taunted by a number of boys throwing stones and shouting \"obscenities\" at the foreigners. To frighten away the boys, Pigott fired two volleys, the first one loaded with peas and the second what he thought was \"blank cartridge” but which turned out to be live ammunition. A Chang Shun-ts'un who was hanging up laundry at the stern of a Chinese rice boat nearby, shouted at the boys to disperse. Pigott's second shot entered Chang's chest on the left side, killing him instantly. Meanwhile, three boys all surnamed Ch'en, were wounded on the nose, foot and toes, respectively. While there was pandemonium ashore, the cutter departed, pursued by two Chinese boats, thus it was ascertained that the cutter had come from the London. Later on, despite Pigott's assertion that he had fired what he believed to be blank cartridge, indicating that at least he had known something of the consequences of his shooting at that time, the British spokesman claimed that they had known nothing about the incident until two days later, when Puiqua brought them the news that a warrant had been issued by the Chinese for the arrest of the murderer at P'an-yü.\n\nNormal Chinese procedures under the circumstances would be to stop the offending ship from discharging and loading cargo, while demanding that the criminal be remanded to Chinese justice. After being informed of the incident, Juan Yuan gave instructions to the hong merchants to notify the supercargo of the East Indian Company in the British factory in Canton to bind the murderer over to Chinese authorities. Although the security merchant in this case was Exchin, because of the seriousness of the case, it was Puiqua who went to the British factory to apprise the Select Committee of the existence of the warrant. The Committee then proclaimed that they had known nothing about the incident until that moment. They suggested that Puiqua bribe the Chinese officials, but the hong merchant did not support the idea. Meanwhile, the Committee's primary consideration was “to avoid trouble and embarrassment to the Company's trade\", but Juan Yüan had already placed an embargo on the London.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209314, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n203\n\nstraw was used mostly as fuel, and in the repairs of the irrigation canal dykes. At second harvest the rice was cut as close to the ground as possible - the sweet potato harvest did not need this fertiliser, and, the ground being dry it would not rot quickly enough. Also straw was more valuable in the winter as it was needed to feed cattle, and to lay along the furrows where vegetable or sweet potato seeds had been planted to protect them from the birds. Just before and after the War the British army would come to Tai Wai in autumn to buy spare straw to feed army horses. Wai H.L. acted as broker and could make 30 cents on a load.\n\nCalculating the harvest\n\nBoth at Tai Wai and Wong Chuk Yeung the quality of the harvest was calculated by counting the grains of rice in the heads. In Tai Wai a good harvest was where each head had 120-140 grains, in Wong Chuk Yeung 80-100 grains (120 was also known). In upland fields Tai Wai occasionally had harvests with only 8-10 grains a head. The density of growth was assumed constant - in Wong Chuk Yeung 80-100 grains presumed 2 piculs per tau, in Tai Wai 120-140 presumed 3-4 piculs etc. The estimates were regarded in both villages as reasonably accurate.\n\nIrrigations\n\nThe Tai Wai fields were irrigated by means of lateral irrigation canals taking water from main streams. A dyke was built across a main stream (Shing Mun River or Tin Sam Nullah), damming up the waters behind it. These were then led into an irrigation canal running along the river bank, roughly parallel to it, but at a higher level. In order to lead the river waters into the irrigation canal the dyke was built aslant the river. With this method the irrigation canal could provide water efficiently to large areas of land. Where the river had raised its bed above surrounding land levels, a dyke across half the river was adequate. At the end of the irrigation canal it was best to build a fish pond into which any excess waters could be allowed to fall. Water would only flow back into the main river if the pond overflowed. In low water years the water in this pond could be lifted with the shui-ch'e (a hand-operated water wheel) and so the pond could be used as a reservoir, otherwise as a fish pond. Because of the risk of flooding the fields in very heavy rain times the main irrigation canal required sluices to close the flow and force the flow back into the main river above the fields. Tai Wai had 3 such systems. The Tin Sam valley had a similar system; from a dyke at Hin Tin water was led between Tin Sam and Keng Hau to a pond opposite the Che", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209511, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "146\n\nLAURENT SAGART\n\nSC: /0-/- KHW: /w-/:\n\nwuy1\n\nwungl\n\n#wung4 wungl\n\nSC: /h-/- KHW: /f-/:\n\n開 fuy1\n\n*fung2\n\n漢 fung1\n\nfung1\n\nif fung4\n\nSC: /k-/- KHW: /kw-/:\n\n'want' 'peace'\n\n'river bank' 'case, file'\n\n'open' 'cold'\n\n*the Han nation' 'drought'\n\n'sweat'\n\nkwungl #kwuk3\n\n'pole' 'cut'\n\nk'oil 'to cover' may be a loan reading.\n\nThis change did not result in widespread homophony between the original words in /-uy, -ung, -uk/ and the newly created words in /-uy, -ung, -uk/ because the former did not combine with the kw- type initials, while the latter combine only with them: KHW contrasts Akung1 'grandfather' with kwung1 'pole', a phonetic contrast unknown to SC. Cases of homophony arose only when the unpermissible sequence *hw- was converted to /f-/, thus causing B *hwuy1 'open' to become homophonous with fuy1 'ash', and *hwung1 'the Han nation' with ♬ fung1 'wind'. Note that only *hw- was changed to /f-/, as the original /hu-/ sequences remained unchanged: 34 hung1 'chest'; hung2 'red'; #hung2 'hero'.\n\n3. Finals, phonological structure.\n\nMost KHW finals are homophonous, or roughly homophonous, with SC finals. In the following chart of KHW finals, a KHW final is followed by its SC homophone, if there exists one, in the MW transcription. SC finals are placed between brackets (note that SC finals are given only to illustrate the phonetic value of KHW finals: the fact that a KHW final has a homophonous SC final does not imply that a KHW word with this final has the homophonous final in SC):\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210165, "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-1984", "page_number": 136, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "speaking particularly of the Hong Kong villages, stated:\n\n115\n\n\"The inhabitants, from our knowledge of their character, appear to be industrious and obliging... From all accounts they seem in general to have been very peaceably disposed; nor did they exhibit any marked approbation or disapprobation, on their transfer to the British sway.\n\n+32\n\nAnother officer, Captain Loch, described a visit to one of the Hong Kong villages, possibly Tai Tam Tuk which was removed for the last of the reservoirs of that name in 1913:\n\n\"The path now wound round a tongue of land to the left into a small dell, where there were a few houses built in a line. The patriarch and ruler of this community was standing foremost, ready to receive us. This universal custom of acknowledging the superiority of age has been recognized by us throughout the island.”33\n\nMcKenzie also mentions being entertained by a village elder ‘during an excursion into the interior' of the island.34\n\nThis civility and hospitality was apparently not new, nor wholly to be ascribed to the circumspection that was surely felt at the change of rulers. A guide to navigation on the South China coast published in 1806 quotes a report on Hong Kong and its approaches dated September 1793 which says of the island.\n\n\"You will be supplied here with almost every kind of refreshment; especially fish, hogs, beef and poultry. We found the Inhabitants very civil and were daily on shore at the Villages, and fowling in the interior parts of the Island (sic).\n\n+35\n\nSentiments of a similar kind relating to some years later, are contained in Sir John Davis' account of his visit to China as part of the Amherst embassy in 1816. Describing some Hong Kong persons, \"mostly fishermen\", encountered on the way to the Pearl River he added “To such of the embassy as were accustomed to the impertinence of the Canton people their behaviour appeared very quiet and civil.”36", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210379, "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-1984", "page_number": 350, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "329\n\nstudent who can find a generous sponsor for complementary studies of those rural areas which lie outside Dr. Hayes's purview: the other Peng Chau (in Mirs Bay or Dapeng-wan), Tap Mun, Sha Tau Kok, Tai Po, Yuen Long and their hinterlands. Even within Hong Kong's 400 square miles can be seen the kind of variations which Ouyang Hsiu described (in his preface to the Hsin Wu-tai Shih) as: it is a strength of Chinese society that such healthy variability can exist. Time is short, because when I was last there in 1982, the opening up of roads had already begun to erode village life, as it did in Tsuen Wan, Lantao and New Kowloon,\n\n+\n\n-\n\nDr. Hayes is a true Cadet, in the tradition of Cecil Clementi, Walter Schofield, Stephen Balfour and John Barrow, and his work puts even them in the shade. But oh! oh! that romanization! He says disarmingly in the Foreword \"I confess that romanization has been a problem.\" No shame in that: Chinese — whichever you wish of the 3,000 languages, all known as Chinese — does not lend itself to phonetic writing, and the Cadmean alphabet, while no doubt adequate for the Western Semitic language for which it was devised, was not really suited to Latin and is hopeless for English (though it does not do too badly for Finnish and Welsh) — how much less for Chinese? But of all the inadequate answers to this problem, why choose the obsolete Wade-Giles without its vital apostrophes and tone-numerals, too for what Western academics obstinately call “Mandarin”; and Meyer-Wempe for Cantonese? The latter, with omitted or misprinted diacritical marks, of which I found many (and have sent Dr. Hayes a list) is gibberish. Besides, being based on West River dialects, which differ considerably from the Upper Punyu which, after the eclipse of Sai Kwan wa from 1905 onward, became the standard speech of Canton, Hong Kong and overseas Cantonese (except those from the 5 districts known as Sze Yap), Meyer & Wempe's handy little dictionary has serious shortcomings. What a pity an updated Eitel never appeared!\n\nNothing will ever persuade me that Cantonese, Hakka and Hokkien place names should be written in letters indicating a pronunciation which no local would understand. (I suppose it must be a matter of politics, with which no scholar should soil his hands). Just you try getting a boat to “Shayuyung”! (The place is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210437, "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-1985", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "25\n\nthere were Christians buried in the portion designated for non-Christians, as, in the opinion of the questioner, “It is rather rough on the relatives to be buried in the non-Christian burial ground\". His Excellency, The Governor, replied, \"They won't be any worse off than they were before\". (Hong Kong Hansard 1909, p. 79, 85-86, 142, 168)\n\nThe questioner reminded the Governor that he had said relatives, not bodies. With the introduction of the Ordinance the Hong Kong Telegraph again spoke out: \"Here in Hong Kong there are a few persons who while still in the prime of life are prepared to work themselves into a miniature passion about the conditions under which they may finally return to that whence they came. Not only so, but they are determined to carry out their class prejudices beyond the tomb. Is it possible that there will be choice selections of land, and Ordinances, similar to that known as the Peak Reservation Ordinance, in heaven? Are the Chinese and Japanese to be relegated to the slums of paradise, while the \"hupper suckles\" [upper circles] loll and lounge on the grassy swards of the golden river, secure against intrusion by the vulgar rabble!\"\n\nThe editor noted that Mr. Hewett in objecting to a distinction being made between residents of seven years' and of twenty years' residence had said, “We are all equal\". Indeed, wrote the editor, \"That is exactly what we have been contending, but we have a suspicion that Mr. Hewett really meant we are all equal where we are Europeans and that his remark did not apply to people of the Asiatic race. But he struck the root of the matter when he declared that all mortals are equal in the grave, for it is incredible to believe that all this pushing for precedence and squabbling for place will follow us to the next world\". (Hong Kong Telegraph, 10 November 1909)\n\nA dedication ceremony was held at the cemetery on 30 March 1910 by the Anglican Bishop assisted by clergy of other denominations. In his remarks before the act of consecration the Bishop set forth the reason for the ceremony. “A portion of this most beautiful cemetery has been for upwards of sixty years the burial place of the bodies of brave men and noble women and innocer!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210567, "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-1985", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "155\n\nloyal Chinese chroniclers did not claim any distinction for the town. A geography book published in Shanghai in 1931 found very little to recommend the town to its readers. The author devoted one brief paragraph to Taiho.\n\nEven the most bustling part of Taiho is unpleasant. Dust is flying everywhere. The climate is bad; with frequent and heavy rains. Local products consist mainly of silk cocoons, common sorghum, and some hemp. Transportation is dependent on the Ying River, which is silted. At the deepest point there is no more than a six or seven foot draft, barely adequate for local craft, 10\n\nThe China Inland Mission was unusual in several respects. The workers were not limited to any particular denomination or nationality. As long as one was Protestant and was comfortable with Taylor's fairly basic theology, one was eligible to be considered as a missionary with the China Inland Mission. Thus, workers came from such countries as England, Germany, Sweden and the United States. Dr. M. Searle Bates, a Rhodes scholar who had taught at the University of Nanking, found that the Mission did not publish lists of its field workers lest they showed the comparative strength of each nationality. The Mission organized no formal church or school, but sent missionaries to live among the people in interior China. From the beginning, there were women missionaries. The axiom of “letting women do women's work\" suited the social system of China. Women missionaries were to proselytize to women and children. By 1900, sixty percent of Protestant missionaries in China were women. Single women, including those unmarried and widowed, were to work alongside married missionaries.\n\nThe United States in 1900 was ready to expand in Asia. Victorious in the Spanish-American War and bulging with the Philippines, the Americans were looking to China. The value of American exports in 1870 was about $392 million. By 1900, it had increased to almost $1.4 billion. American producers, therefore, were looking for foreign markets. By then, European interests were already carving China into spheres of influence. After the Open Door Policy and the Boxer Protocol were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210698, "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-1986", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "32 \n\nWALTER GREENWOOD \n\nKai, in 1886. Francis himself took part in the foundation of the College of Medicine for Chinese (one of the two original students of which was Sun Yat Sen). He was on the platform at the inaugural meeting in 1887 and was appointed standing counsel to the College and remained as such until his death. He contributed to prizes for botany and chemistry and attended the presentation of the first diplomas in 1892. In 1886 he made a presentation on behalf of the College to Dr. James Cantlie, to whom in great measure the foundation of the College was due, on the occasion of his departure from Hong Kong. He began his address by saying \"when I first came to this colony I was given to understand there was only one disease recognised by the Medical Faculty and that was the liver, and that they had only two prescriptions, one a blue pill and the other, if that did not succeed, a P. & O. Steamer\". In 1897 at a meeting for the election of the Rector of the College he made a speech pressing the Government for recognition and financial support. He alleged that the Government had ignored the College and wanted a medical school on government lines with the Colonial Surgeon at the head and government officers thick and thin all over from top to bottom. On his death the Court of the College (which may be regarded as the forerunner of the University of Hong Kong) passed a resolution expressing appreciation for his services.\n\nHis interest in education also included schools, particularly the Roman Catholic schools. After the founding of St. Joseph's College in 1875 he rarely missed a Prizegiving Day there, and usually donated prizes, including on one occasion, somewhat ironically, an inkstand. He also acted as an examiner at St. Joseph's. Bishop Raimondi said that he tested the boys thoroughly and cross-examined them as he would have cross-examined a witness in court. He advocated teaching English to Chinese children. He also acted as a steward at, and patron of, the Hong Kong School's Athletic Sports.\n\nOne of the obituaries of Francis recorded that he used to say that when he first arrived and stood on the deck of the troopship and gazed at Hong Kong he determined to be Governor one day. Whatever the truth of that there can be no doubt that, as was said in another obituary, he coveted a seat on the Legislative Council. He might have had a chance of nomination by Hennessy save that Hennessy was intent on nominating a Chinese (Ng Choy) and also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210735, "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-1986", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "69\n\ntime in relation to an expedition he was planning:\n\n\"I find that this work [expedition to East River] meets with a good deal of opposition both from officials and the non-official members of the Finance Committee, but especially the latter. HK having no agriculture, but little horticulture to develop. There is, prima facie, some reason for objection. It is thought and said that the Imperial Govt. derives the greatest benefit for botanical investigation in China and that consequently it should defray the costs. It is difficult to procure material benefits to HK from these expeditions, especially as we have no scientific men who take an interest in botany and whose necessities we might be working for. It is to be regretted that the people here do not feel the necessity of encouraging investigations for the sake of acquirements of knowledge only. The fact remains that they do not and this cannot be ignored in considering anything that might be done to thaw their indifference and gain their support.\"\n\nIn order to gain support for his plan Ford suggested that Hooker should write to the Secretary of State or insert an article in a pamphlet form which might help to show:\n\n\"The advantages which might reasonably be expected to accrue to HK in particular and the world in general from scientific investigations, and also to show the importance of every country and colony taking upon itself a share of the work and honour of advanced position in breaking down the barriers to the acquirement of more knowledge.\n\n\"It is often said here that HK people care about nothing but the 'almighty dollar'. There is much truth in the saying but I'm glad to say, there are many worthy exceptions and these are, I think, becoming more numerous as people are less able to make fortunes and leave the place so rapidly as they formerly did.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210764, "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-1986", "page_number": 115, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "98\n\nCHAN WING HỘI\n\nto see it face to face. Some of the others replied that there was nothing to fear, as it had been the practice for several hundreds of years for women to take part. Later when the procession was returning to Shek O I noticed a little boy with his ball and a young couple with their children in a pram. The comment was heard: “gou-hing, tai-ye” (Have a nice time and look at interesting things). The women were chatting all the way, and there were many young girls too.\n\nWhen the procession had gone down Tai Long Wan Road, I heard three or four women talk among themselves about Seung Wai, where their homes had been. A young one recalled that they used to have banana trees there, which produced good bananas and some rice-like stuff, which, her grandmother had told her, was good as chicken feed. The place being more spacious, they had been able to raise chicken too. Her grandmother had pointed out to her where the daai-wong-ye's place was — near where the paddy fields were.\n\nAt one point the bus from Shek O approached, and the young man with the loudspeaker called out to the driver by name “Come on, it is all right if you want to switch on the headlights.\" I noticed many cars were hindered from proceeding before the bus, but this did not seem to have bothered the young man at all. The procession made way for the bus to pass, neglecting the other vehicles.\n\nWhen the procession reached the edge of Tai Long Wan village, the daai-si-wong was put down on the ground facing the village. Many individuals, mainly middle-aged and young women, came to make offerings of incense. A table had been set up for the purpose. Some older women and men looked on. Children were led to walk around the legs of the paper image for good luck. Someone said, “Walk around the legs and you will win the Mark Six lottery\".\n\nThe procession was back at the main ritual area at about 8:30. The daai-si-wong was left facing an altar used by the priests, where an extra table had been set up for the concluding rite. Many came to make offerings at all the altars, but they paid more attention now to the daai-si-wong. Many more, not only small children, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210787, "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-1986", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "121\n\nBritish Navy stationed at Hong Kong which eradicated free-booting from the China coast. Equipped with the newest steam gun-boats designed for navigation in shallow water, the British commenced a blitz on piracy in 1863, and in a short period rousted the privateers from their haunts in Hainan's shallow river estuaries. To prevent a revival of piracy, the Guangdong provincial government was provided with similar gunboats officered by Englishmen, to patrol the waters surrounding Hainan,\n\nRestoration of trade\n\nThe quashing of piracy led to a rapid restoration of trade between Hainan and the mainland, which in turn, aroused for the first time the interest of foreign merchants in this unknown island which had previously been dismissed as merely a sanctuary for pirates and banditti. This interest resulted in the opening of K'iungchow as a treaty port in 1876 and the development of a thriving trade with Hong Kong. A steamer link with the British colony was established and Hainan produce was ferried on the regular service. Raw sugar, vegetable oils and livestock (cattle, pigs, ducks, chickens and frogs) were the chief exports, while betel nut, copra, rattan, sisal hemp, hides, tallow, medical herbs and incense timber were shipped in small quantities (Henry, 1886; Moninger, 1919). Unfortunately, Hainan did not escape the baneful effects of opium which became the island's principal import (Henry, 1886), its use being justified in warding off the deadly malaria endemic throughout the island (Swinhoe, 1872a).\n\nWith the flurry of business activity, companies formed with foreign and Cantonese capital mushroomed everywhere in Hainan, each striving to secure as large a share as possible of the agricultural and mineral resources of the island. Unfortunately, Hainan did not surrender its untapped wealth easily, and the harshness of the tropical climate sent most enterprises quickly into bankruptcy. Those that did succeed were large, well-financed operations such as the K'iu Hing Kunz Sz, a large plantation near Nada involved in the production of rubber, coffee and tobacco (McClure, 1922). Even this company with over 20,000 rubber trees and 300,000 mature coffee bushes experienced hardship mainly caused by labour shortages, although these may have been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210884, "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-1986", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "218\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nThere may have been some substance to these reports, for, after leaving the service of the Hongkong Government, he became attached to the Kwangtung Provincial Tax Bureau. It was while he was in the Kwangtung Government administration that he became interested in the development of the mines of the province.\n\nA specimen of lead ore from the Wei Chau area was brought to his attention. It was almost pure ore. He sent a party to inspect the mine. Previously it had been worked by the Government, but after expending a large amount of money, the work had to be suspended because the mine was flooded. A-mei thought he could overcome this problem with modern machinery. He approached the Viceroy and was able to get his approval, but in the face of opposition from other officials, he decided not to pursue the project further.\n\nSome of his friends, however, did start work, having raised some $8,000. By the time the water problem was solved, all the money had been spent and further work was abandoned.\n\nHo A-mei's interest in the mineral wealth of Kwangtung had been aroused and he sent prospectors to various areas of the province to secure ore samples. From the reports he was convinced mining could be undertaken with profit.\n\nIn 1880 he became interested in some old mines at Tam Chow near the Bogue forts (Fu-mun) on the Pearl River. Some 30 years before they had been successfully developed at a profit of some $300,000, but this mine was also flooded so work had been abandoned. With the experience of his friends at the Wei Chow mines in the Wing On District in mind, A-mei decided it was not worth pursuing the reopening of the Tam Chow mines.\n\nIn 1883, however, a number of stone cutters struck a rich vein of ore about half a mile from the old mine. A-mei sent a specimen to England and it was found to be 13 per cent silver. He bought the mine for $10,000.\n\nNot long after, his attention was directed to mineral deposits on Lantao Island at Silvermine Bay. Investigation of the site indicated it was worth working. He arranged to lease the site for $2,000 a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210946, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "278\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\njoined and added one share, making the total six shares as they are now. For each share 25 silver dollars were paid to establish the Sheung Ue tung ferry for the convenience of passengers. [The operation of] the ferry has been given to the highest bidder by auction each year. [Money received] is kept for interest so that sacrifices may be paid for. Sacrifices should be paid for in accordance with former regulations. [Sheung Ue tung was another name for the Sheung Shui area, and the ferry in question took villagers across the river to Sham Chun Market as we found out in interviews in Fan Ling and Lung Yeuk Tau. The passage is, of course, not as clear as it could be. It would seem that except for the half share held by Loi Tung, other shares held before 1908 counted for something in the reconstitution of the yeuk in that year. This something was not necessarily much more than a right to re-join, and Loi Tung was thus effectively barred from re-joining.]\n\n3. Management for the year should be rotated in the following order\n\nFirst, the Hau surname, Ping Kong, Ho Sheung Heung, Kam Tsin, Yin Kong;\n\nSecond, Lung Shaan heung;\n\nThird, Tai Hang, Tai Po Tau;\n\nFourth, Fan Ling heung;\n\nFifth, San Tin heung;\n\nSixth, Sheung Shui heung.\n\n4. Each share [in the alliance] is to keep a book, and in the year it is in charge, ten days before [the sacrifice], it should send invitations to the shan-sz in the villages. There must be no delay.\n\n5. On the occasion of the celebration on the 1st of the Sixth Month, each share is to send four shan-sz to worship the gods. There should also be sufficient masters-of-ceremony and managers. [We know for a fact that some of the member villages of the New Alliance did not have degree-holders: the term shan-sz in this clause, must therefore include people without a degree.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210997, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "34\n\nAt the head of the pier was the Lung-chin Pavilion which provided shelter for travellers. It was also known as the “Mandarin-Greeting Pavilion” (ying-kuan t’ing), for it was presumably here that officials landing at Kowloon were officially greeted before they proceeded to the Walled City.21\n\nIronically, the first invaders of the Walled City were not British, but Chinese. In 1854, certain anti-Dynastic elements in Hong Kong, taking advantage of the general disturbance caused by the T'ai-p'ing uprising, attacked the Walled City across the harbour and occupied it. According to British officials, they were mainly Hakka stone workers and Triad members. Though the rebels had promised the inhabitants protection if they withdrew their support from the Imperial forces, as soon as they took possession of the City, they ransacked the houses and seized pigs, poultry and dogs for food.\n\nThe Kowloon officials fled to Hong Kong Island. At one point, nine war junks carrying 2,000 Imperial soldiers were ready to confront an equal number of rebel naval forces. The British in fact held the ring by ordering all warships to leave Hong Kong waters and so averted a major naval battle. The Imperial troops finally prevailed.22 However, the hsun-chien's official residence in the Walled City was so damaged by fire that for a while, he was obliged to move to Ch'ih-wei on the Shumchun river.23\n\nChinese officials at Kowloon and British officials in Hong Kong kept in close touch and generally co-operated in maintaining law and order in the vicinity. In 1867 for instance, when conflict broke out between villagers from either side of the border, Governor Macdonnell made a special trip to Kowloon, met the Chinese official on his steamer and agreed to co-operate in keeping peace.24 In 1884, Kowloon officials warned the Hong Kong authorities of a possible rising of the Triad Society.25\n\n24\n\n26\n\nUnder Ordinance 2 of 1850, Chinese fugitives in Hong Kong were handed over to Kowloon officials, but the provision was not reciprocal — China had no obligation to extradite criminals to Hong Kong. Chinese authorities, however, did arrest and convict them. The Namoa case was the most dramatic example. In 1890,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211086, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "122\n\norder the suspension of the ordinance. When the crisis passed the measures it provided to control the Chinese population would no longer be needed, however, they would remain on the statute books to be reintroduced by the Governor in Council if a future situation warranted it. Once enacted, however, they were never officially suspended. Instead they came to be regarded as a way of reducing crime at night, though for long periods there was great laxity over its enforcement.\n\nThe introduction of the rule that the Chinese must carry lights and passes at night was the result of the outbreak of the Sino-British conflict, sometimes referred to as the Second Opium War.\n\nThe spark which set fire to the smouldering tensions created by the frustration of the foreigner in his desire to force open China to unrestricted trade was the seizure at Canton in October 1856 of the crew of a Hongkong-registered vessel, the Arrow.\n\nThe Chinese authorities claimed the crew members were pirates. Their detention and the alleged hauling down of the British flag provoked an escalating series of demands, threats and incidents between the British and Chinese. These eventually climaxed in the looting and burning of the Imperial Summer Palace at Peking in 1860.\n\nThe Chinese would not meet the demands for an apology for \"the insult to the British flag\" nor the return of the crew in a manner satisfactory to the English. To force the issue, the British breached the walls of Canton, penetrated to the Viceroy's stronghold and then withdrew. They met no resistance. Then boats were seized, forts were shelled, troops marched back and forth.\n\nFor the British it all seemed like a military lark, with their superior power meeting no resistance from the Chinese, but only threatening proclamations issued by the Viceroy urging the destruction of the barbarians, with a price set upon the heads of certain prominent foreigners.\n\nAffairs took a more serious turn when the area along the river at Canton, where the foreigners lived and did their business, was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211238, "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": 299, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "274\n\nI suppose I should mention one thing. The Geography and Geology Department of the University of Hong Kong has long had a programme of geographic studies, not just for a higher degree but for BA degrees, and there is quite a lot of good information tucked away there. Also, there is a map library at Hong Kong University which probably contains quite a lot of material on this region and on Guangdong generally.\n\nDF - A long time ago, I remember, someone talked about wanting to make a map of the coast-line of Hong Kong. It always seemed to me that this is one of the essential things you have got to have, but you need a geographer. Was it ever done?\n\nJH I think someone has done it for the urban area. A person called Hudson wrote a PhD thesis about 1971 on reclamation, but no one has done it for the New Territories, where the amount of land which has been reclaimed from the sea in many places is quite considerable, particularly on the western side, in Deep Bay on the Pearl river. Charles Grant, the Professor of Geography at Hong Kong University, has written an article on this subject.\n\nPH But it is the western side which none of us here tonight knows at all well. The whole of the traditional economy of the marsh villages is totally unknown. Nobody really knows how the kei wai and the oyster beds were managed. You can find out how they are managed now, but I don't think we know anything about how the villagers worked them say 70 years ago.\n\nJH It all goes to show that the variety of situations, both social and economic, in relatively such a small area as the New Territories is truly amazing, even in the areas that I know reasonably well, never mind those that I still don't know; which, as you've said, are the majority.\n\nPH When we were working in Shatin, we came across a phenomenon which interested me very greatly, one of the many things about which I would like to do more. This is, those villagers who did not have enough land to live on but had a speciality, a trade, a single knowledge which the other villagers nearby didn't have, and which they could trade for rice. In Shatin there were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211315, "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-1988", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "7\n\nfive American schooners scurrying for safety under the guns of Macao.\n\nAs the threat escalated, British and Portuguese vied with one another in offering their suppression services to the government. Victory in this contest went to the Portuguese, who were commissioned to send a fleet of six men-of-war to cooperate with the Chinese water forces in blockading the harbour of the pirate headquarters off the northern shore of Lantao Island. The Governor-General travelled from Canton to watch the grand spectacle of the pirate finale, but to the surprise of all, the pirates were able to push aside the fire vessels that were unleashed against them and to sail away unscathed into the night.\n\nThe dismantling of the Confederation\n\nOn the heels of spectacular success came the equally sudden and rapid dismantling of the pirate confederation. We can only speculate, because documentary evidence does not make clear, what finally precipitated this action. It may well have been internal friction between the fleet leaders, because on December 11, 1809, there was a battle between the Red and Black Flag Fleets. Unexpectedly, the Black Flag Fleet came out on top, and its leader, Kuo P'o-tai, realising that he could no longer withstand pressure both from a hostile government and his former ally, used the three hundred captives seized from the Red Flag Fleet during the combat as his collateral of good faith in accepting an offer of amnesty from the Ch'ing government. On January 11, 1810, he and 5,500 of his men surrendered to the Ch'ing.\n\nIt was not long before Chang Pao followed suit. On February 21, his fleet gathered at the mouth of the Pearl River to receive the Governor-General from Canton. The ceremonies went smoothly, but the negotiations did not, and as a result, the pirates withdrew. However, their desire to surrender persisted, and in April, the women stepped to the fore as Cheng I Sao and a group of other pirate women and children made their way on shore to the Governor-General's yamen in Canton. They proved to be tough negotiators, and the surrender was finally accomplished a few days later on April 20, when 17,318 pirates surrendered 226 junks and a number of cannon.\n\nIn the dismantling of the confederation, we can see the weaknesses", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211385, "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-1988", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "77\n\nof the castle a Po To Hai (江湖海) or “arrest bandit station\". No trace is left of either of these buildings, but undoubtedly this is the origin of the English name of Castle Peak.\n\nThe history of the monk Pooi To is a curious one, and the stories of the miracles he did are very numerous. It is not known what his real name was. Pooi To being his Buddhist name. He is supposed to have lived in the K'ei Chau (兒洲) district at first, which is between Shantung (山东) and Chili (直雩) provinces. He was an uncultivated man, without family, wandering from place to place, and asking shelter from house to house. Once when he went to the then capital city of China (Sung dynasty) Kin Hong (交宝) he was described as looking about forty years old. He used a rope instead of a belt, his coat was all torn. He was easily pleased, but quickly angered. Sometimes he talked a lot, at other times he remained silent for whole days, and when it was very cold he would often roll in the snow. He would climb the hills in rough wooden clogs or walk about the town barefoot. He was not a vegetarian like other Buddhist monks, but ate and drank as an ordinary man. His only possessions were a rice basket and a wooden cup. The cup plays an important part in the various stories about him, and is the origin of his name. Once he went to live at a monastery called Yin Yin T'z (蕁限壮) where the abbot Faat Yee To Yan (发自美壮) allowed him to occupy the spare room. After staying there a while he wished to go across the Kwa Po river (過波添) but the ferry man seeing his ragged condition and doubting probably his ability to pay refused to take him. So Pooi To tossed his cup into the water, put his legs in it, and singing merrily he floated across to the northern shore.\n\nAnother story, and one rather to his discredit, tells how he stole a Buddhist idol of gold from a house where he had been entertained. The owner gave chase, but even though he ran and Pooi To appeared to be walking slowly ahead of him, he could not catch him up. Then a man on a horse joined in the chase, but even he fared no better. At last the river, Maang Tsun (獱村) was reached and the owner felt certain of being able to get his idol back, but Pooi To, a little ahead of him, calmly threw his cup in the river, and sitting in it ferried across. From these stories his name of Pooi To “cup across” was derived.\n\nOnce Pooi To went to a small district called Kwong Ling (广凌)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211389, "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-1988", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "81 + trying to find food and help. At last they came to a grasscutters path which they followed. After walking about ten miles they heard the sound of monastery bells and smelt the fragrance of burning joss sticks. Filled with hope they knelt and prayed to Buddha to bring them to safety. Then they came to a monastery, large and beautifully decorated, and saw ten or more priests outside, but coming nearer they found that they were made of stone. The travellers were amazed, and being afraid began to pray to be forgiven their sins. In the distance they heard a voice shouting to them, and searching in the direction of the voice they came across another priest, but found he also was made of stone. Many times they heard voices calling them, but could find nothing but some stone figures. Then they said to each other, \"Those are all Saints, we are unworthy wicked men, so how can we see them\", and they knelt down and prayed very earnestly for forgiveness. When they had finished praying they looked up and saw a real priest coming towards them, who welcomed them kindly and brought them into the monastery. A meal was set before them, all the dishes were ordinary vegetables such as Buddhist priests eat, but they smelt very fragrant, and tasted delicious, and the travellers had never tasted anything as good before. When the meal was over, they asked the priest how to get to the capital city, who answered, \"From here to the capital is more than 200,000 miles, but do not worry, make up your mind to go and you will reach there quickly\". Then he asked Chuc, \"Do you know Pooi To?\" The minister answered, \"Yes, I know him well\". Then the priest pointed to the north wall and showed him a cloth sack, a tall Abbot's staff, and a priest's alms bowl hanging there. He said, \"Those are Pooi To's things. I beg you to give him back this alms bowl when you see him, and this letter that I will give you. And here is a green bamboo stick, which when you get back to your boat, throw into the water in front of the boat and shut the windows of the boat and sit quietly. You need not trouble to row or sail, for you will arrive at the capital very speedily.\"\n\nThey all said goodbye and a young priest took them to the monastery door and showed them a path to follow which would bring them back to their vessel quickly. Once more on board they did what they had been told, and soon found to their amazement that the boat had left the water and was sailing over the tops of the trees. After three days of this novel means of travel, they reached the Waai river (17) and arrived at a place named Chue Tseuk (k) not far from the capital. Here they\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211390, "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-1988", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "82\n\nespied Pooi To riding along on a big horse, urging it along with a whip. Chue and his companions threw themselves down and began to worship Pooi To, who entered their boat, and they gave him the alms bowl and the letter. Now there were many people about, and when some of them saw the letter, they recognized it as that which Pooi To had written in Ch'an's house, for it was on two bits of yellow paper and only consisted of a few characters which were ugly and no-one could understand them. Pooi To held the alms bowl in his hand, and laughed. He said, \"Oh, they want me to go home and throw this bowl into the sky and catch it again. But I haven't seen the bowl for four thousand years!\"\n\nAnother version of this story recounts that when Chue reached the island he met a priest carrying the alms bowl who said, \"I was a pupil of Pooi To. Formerly I held this bowl, but I died in Ye Shing Monastery (#). Now I ask you to return this bowl to Pooi To for me. When you get to your boat, hold it in front of the boat and let one man hold the tiller, and you will reach the capital safely.” And the minister did what he had been told, and reached Pooi To, as described before.\n\nPooi To must have returned to Ch'an's family by then because the story tells that on that day he had left Ch'an's house early and did not return till dark. The following morning Ch'an rose up early, and found that Pooi To had disappeared, but on his door, written in childish and uneducated characters, were the words \"Happiness family. The holy man will come and live there.\" After that Pooi To never returned to Ch'an's family again, but he made several mysterious appearances and disappearances in the city, working miracles and curing sick people.\n\n11\n\nA man called Yue Shing (4) had a servant girl who stole a lot of things and ran away. He searched for her in vain, so sent someone to ask Pooi To's help. Pooi To said, \"She is dead already. Her body is in an old tomb on the river shore in Kam Shing. His words were proved to be true. An officer of high rank named Hung Ning Tsz (FLB 7) was very ill with dysentery. No one could cure him, so Pooi To was consulted. The monk looked sad and said, \"No one cannot be cured. I have seen four ghosts all badly wounded.\" When the sick man heard this he wept and said, \"When Suen Yan (E) raised a rebellion, his family were scattered by the soldiers. His parents and an uncle were cruelly treated, and he himself died. Were these their ghosts?\" And soon", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211448, "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-1988", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "140\n\nthis lady was Mollie Wong Yap, a Chinese-Hawaiian, who became a teacher and later lived on Vineyard Street near the Foster Gardens.) He described his landing at Nawiliwili, his visits to Kapaa, Lihue and Hanapepe where he met Wong Fat, Au Wai Bun and Fong Chock Kee. He enjoyed the sight of a river winding through Waimea and concluded that the land, not yet cultivated, would be good for farming. He was overwhelmed with the warmth and hospitality of the Chinese there, because they offered him food and lodging as soon as they learned who he was, and he felt that one's reputation was very important. Another friend of Father's at Hop Kee ✩ in Kolon wrote that his business was poor and his expenses were great.\n\nFather must have consulted First Uncle about joining friends in Sydney, because First Uncle wrote advising against the move. In a letter dated 22 August 1899, First Uncle said that Grandfather and Aunt Yim were not in favour of this move. Moreover, he felt that one could not become rich on a salary and thought that Hawaii was good for the Chinese and for their investments. Several letters written in 1903 and 1904 brought news from friends in Australia. A newspaper article from them revealed that the Australians were feeling threatened by the Chinese, who undercut wages, sent their savings back to China, and did not assimilate. So Shai Lum, a friend in Tamworth, New South Wales, wrote that he had invested in a business selling groceries, furniture and dry goods, and that it was doing well. Another friend, Ng Yook Tong, ran a fruit store in Sydney but was only able to make a living. A third, Go Bing Mun wrote he was with Sam Kee in Tingha not far from Tamworth.\n\nFather also communicated with friends in Hilo. On 8 September 1899, he received a letter from the Rev. Yee Tin Kui about a job opening with Man Sing Company in Hilo, should Father decide to discontinue his schooling. The salary would be 17 dollars a month and he would take care of invoices, billing and other bookkeeping chores. Furthermore, he would have an opportunity to become a partner. Thereupon, Father wrote Chee Fong, the owner, to ask about the likelihood of employment, explaining that he had already given up his position with the Honolulu Chinese Times and the one following with the Hawaii Hardware Company, because he had been hired without any consideration of his lack of experience. No doubt his application was accepted, for in his undated letter to Au Goon Bick in Kauai Father wrote that he was leaving", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211451, "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-1988", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "143\n\nThere was great suffering among the Chinese. Unemployment was high because no one could leave the camps to go to work. The Chung Wah Society came to their relief with rice. Because they did not know when the quarantine would be lifted or where they could find living accommodations, the Chinese were worried and depressed. They felt that they had been handled inhumanely with overtones of racial discrimination. Consequently, the Chinese New Year went by quietly. Although 220,000 dollars was later allotted by the government to reimburse victims, only half of all the claims were settled, and my family was never compensated. A number of homeless Chinese were relocated in a government camp off Vineyard Street, between Liliha and River Streets, while others moved to areas around Liliha, Palama, Nuuanu, and Pauoa.\n\nThere was much correspondence between Grandfather and Father, who did not feel comfortable as bookkeeper for Man Sing. When he wanted to give up, Aunt Yim sent word for him to stay on because the Rev. Yee felt Hilo was more favourable for Father's future, and Grandfather explained bookkeeping procedures to him in many of his letters, meanwhile urging him to be patient and to learn more about the business. When Man Sing decided to sell shares, Father became interested and consulted Grandfather, who wanted to know more about it before giving an opinion. It was not until Chee Fong took a trip to Honolulu that Grandfather obtained enough information to advise Father that the investment would not be very profitable. By April, Man Sing was for sale, and Grandfather asked Father in a letter dated 15 April 1900 to be sure to send his new address and details of what he would be doing after leaving Man Sing.\n\nMeanwhile, Grandfather kept Father informed of the progress of the Iwilei Rice Mill, which was expected to begin operation in December 1899. The milled rice would be sold by Wing On Tai. Father and First Uncle thought of doing business together and wondered about importing rice from China by way of San Francisco. At first, Grandfather thought it would not be wise since the prevailing price of local rice was six dollars for a 100-pound bag that had cost his patrons $6.25. They were forced to reduce each bag by 75 cents to one dollar, and even at a loss, 200 bags of the 500 had remained unsold. He figured that people were not eating much rice and did not care for rice from China. However, a week", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211454, "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-1988", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "146\n\nolder ones tagging behind. Happy was the welcome we gave him when we ran down the street to greet him as he returned from work, relieving him of parcels (usually food) he carried and vying to tell him of the day's happenings. This was before automobiles took over our streets. When in good spirits, he would sing Chinese opera or English songs or hymns, among which were 'Way Down Upon the Swanee River', 'Home, Sweet Home', 'My Old Kentucky Home', and 'In the Sweet, Bye and Bye', his favourite hymn. We learned these songs but did not thoroughly understand or correctly pronounce a number of the words.\n\nYet, in the other aspects, Father was a timid person. He was afraid of thunder and lightning. If a storm arose in the night, he would get up, cook a simple meal and awaken Ruth and me to eat and keep him company. He was not adept at manual work and he was afraid of heights. He usually got me to climb a ladder to do a necessary chore because I was the tom-boy in the family. He often felt the pressure of Mr. Carter's bad temper and would be silent and moody for a while when he returned from work. We the children sensed enough to keep quiet while he worked out his frustrations, although eventually he developed a duodenal ulcer. I will always remember Father as a warm, witty and loving father, whose sense of humour gave us cheers and laughter. However, he could be stern and strict, but not often, when he expected good behaviour.\n\nTwo themes ran through his early childhood in the village: a harsh teacher and inadequate food. He related how he and First Uncle's wife would commiserate with each other when they could afford ‘only one salted bean with each mouthful of rice. I am quite sure that Grandfather and First Uncle had sent adequate support and were not aware of their plight. In those days, it was the practice to send money to families through male relatives who often appropriated part of the money. Because of this deprivation during his childhood, Father was a frugal man, very careful and conservative with his money.\n\nExposed to the Christian influence of the Damons and others, Father became a member of the Fort Street Church in Honolulu, after being baptized in Hilo by the Rev. Yee Kui. A person of integrity and morality, he tried to bring us up to be respectful, honest and industrious. He once gave me a verbal dressing down when I said to him, 'Are you crazy?' Another time he gave me a terrible switching because I had wandered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211456, "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-1988", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "148\n\nhave been had he been alive when Ruth graduated from McKinley High School first in her class, with honours and a gold medal, or when she received a degree in medicine.\n\nAlthough our dresses were home-made, our shoes and hats were from fancy shops on Fort Street, then the main shopping centre of Honolulu. Whenever Father took us out, he would tell us to 'dress up like a duchess'. Sometimes he would take us to a cinema, or to a stage show, or to a musical at the Y.M.C.A. A visit to the Bishop Museum was always followed by a pause at the site of the mental hospital then located on School Street, where we would peep through the knot holes of the fence to observe the bizarre behaviour of the inmates. When Queen Liliuokalani died and her body was on view in Kawaiahao Church, he took Ruth, Helen and me to this sad and historical event. I remember him carrying me out onto our porch in Iwilei to point out a comet with a wide spray of bright light. I believe it was Halley's Comet. These may not be unusual experiences for children of today, but in the early 1900s, they were not common for Chinese children.\n\nFather's interests extended beyond our home. There were always illiterate women friends asking him to write letters. He did volunteer work at the Berentania Street Mission under the direction of Mrs. Elijah J. Mackenzie, a missionary who spoke fluent Chinese. There he taught English to young men newly arrived from China, gathered with them in worship, and interpreted for the Sunday and evening services when a sermon was given in English. When the Rev. Schenck came to Hawaii to administer the missions for the Hawaiian Board, he dispensed with Father's help so abruptly that it hurt Father deeply. Father had other community interests. He was one of the early members of the Chinese Y.M.C.A. which was located behind the Fort Street Chinese Church. Among its members were En Sue Kong, Luke Chan, Yim Quan and Tom Joon Yai. Father also served as English secretary for the See Dai Doo Society for many years, until his death. He would often drop by Wing On Tai for a chat or to do business; he would visit with friends from his village or nearby areas at the Pui Gun Horse Stable, located off Pauahi Street near River Street. There he enjoyed their fellowship and the news from 'home'. He would always buy a bag of roasted peanuts from a well-known shop on Pauahi Street to enjoy on his way home.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211457, "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-1988", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "149\n\nUpon receiving word of the unexpected death of Second Paternal Aunt, Father decided to take a trip to China to see his remaining brothers and sisters. Passage by boat after the First World War was difficult to secure, but reluctant to change his schedule and to inconvenience the bank, he accepted steerage accommodation and left in April 1919 on the Shinyo Maru. Before the ship arrived in Japan some ten days later, he had seen 19 passengers die from influenza and he had himself fallen ill. He debarked in Japan to seek medical care, but as he had difficulty communicating with the Japanese doctor, he proceeded to Shanghai so that Second Paternal Uncle could take care of him. The weather in Shanghai proved to be too cold, so he decided to go to Hong Kong to stay with First Paternal Uncle. There a doctor Koch diagnosed Father as suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. When his fingers began to swell, relatives believed the sulphur content of the water in Hong Kong was not beneficial and arranged to move him to my maternal grandfather's home in Shekki, occupied then by his widow and son. It was then that Father sent for Mother. With the help of C. K. Ai, Mother was able to obtain passage, again steerage, on the S. S. Nanking for herself, Dora, and me. Ruth and Helen were left in the care of the Ais. It must have been difficult for them, especially for Helen, to be separated from Mother under such stressful circumstances.\n\nOn shipboard we were one of three families in a large cabin, sharing one bath. There was much noise and activity in and outside of this cabin, but we kept much to ourselves because Mother was very much worried about Father and left Dora, who cried a good deal, probably from seasickness, to my care. One day Mother suffered such severe gastric pain that she thought she would die and gave me instructions as to what to do. The ship's doctor was able to ease her pain. It was a frightening experience and the trip was a traumatic one for all three of us. Years later, Dr. Samuel Yee found that Mother had had a healed perforated gastric ulcer and I wondered if it had occurred then.\n\nSince we were total strangers in a different world, First Paternal Uncle thoughtfully accompanied us from Hong Kong to join Father in Shekki. We travelled over the ocean and up river to our destination on a crowded junk or \"doo\", to be greeted joyfully by Father. Chinese herbs and good food, however, had not been able to restore Father to good health. So my parents decided to return to Honolulu, hoping that a stay at the Leahi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211465, "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-1988", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "157\n\nconverted to Christianity. Although I did not understand the import of the occasion, I sensed it was a special event the Sunday we were all baptized at the Fort Street Chinese Church to which Father already belonged. We were amused when Helen, then a baby, pushed the minister's hand away when he reached out to baptize her. Thereafter the family attended church regularly, participating in all the religious celebrations in new outfits, especially during Christmas when our excitement ran high. On Sunday afternoons we would worship again at the Kauluwela Mission on Vineyard Street, located midway between Liliha and River Streets. Mrs. Cooper had come from Chicago to carry on this mission work financially supported by Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Richards, in order to reach out to the different races (Chinese, Hawaiians, Portuguese, Puerto-Ricans, and even a few Russians) living in several camps in that area. Mrs. Cooper would often ask Mother to accompany her when visiting Chinese families. In time we became good friends. Whenever Mrs. Cooper visited us, she would have us kneel while she prayed long and fervently, giving me the impression that we were sinners needing forgiveness.\n\nIn 1917 we moved to 178 South School Street in order to accommodate a growing family, at a time when many of our Chinese neighbours were beginning to move to other parts of the city. The more affluent ones bought or built larger and better homes around and beyond Thomas Square. The arrival of the automobile, electricity, and telephone changed our way of life. Within several years tragedy came into our lives when Father died. After an initial severe grief reaction, Mother knew that she had to face reality. She heeded the advice of Bishop Bank to let the Bishop Trust Company administer Father's estate, and as a result, she discovered, to her regret, that she had no say in any decision-making. She was allowed only 60 dollars a month. It was a neighbour, Lam Ôn, who counselled Mother to contest the application of the trust company to continue as guardian of her minor children's share of the estate, and to retain I. M. Stainback as her attorney. Thus she was able to secure the guardianship. By careful management of the assets, she was able to turn over our respective interests to us when each of us reached the age of majority. Although Father did not leave much, there was enough to support Mother through life and for her to leave what remained to her surviving daughters.\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211522, "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-1988", "page_number": 239, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "215\n\n2. Hera was the sister-wife of Zeus, queen of the Olympian gods.\n\n3. The dolphin is a symbol of rescue: the dolphin is a friendly animal; it saves sea-farers. It also has a public connotation: the emblems of love to Ceres comprise a column and a dolphin.\n\n4. The letter K is the first letter of the inscription KYAIX found on the original gold coins.\n\n5. Kastor or Castor and Pollux are twin deities, Dioscouroi, DIO KOYPOI sons of Leda and Zeus. Castor was renowned as a horseman and Pollux as a wrestler. As deities they were famed for rescuing shipwrecked sailors. They were also called Polydeuces in Sparta.\n\n6. The letters ATOA are an abbreviation for AПOAAØN i.e. Jupiter, hence the thunderbolt, the symbol of his power.\n\nHistory\n\nAbout the year 706 B.C., during the 8th century, Greeks from Sparta and Laconia occupied the village of Taras on the river of the same name and founded the city of Taras. It lasted till 209 B.C. when it was captured by Fabius Maximus. From the widespread use of its coinage can be ascertained its great influence in history. The Tarentines founded a number of other cities on the Adriatic: Hydrus (Otranto), Heraclea (in Lucania) and Gallipoli (Gallipol) on the Dardanelles. Mention of Tarentum is to be found in several ancient writers.\n\nHellenic Culture in the Ancient World\n\nIn historic times the \"Yavans\" (Sanskrit word for Greek with reference to Ionians) were to be found everywhere in the East from the 7th century B.C. onwards. They were merchants, architects, soldiers, artisans, advisers, etc. (e.g. Greek mercenaries under Psammetichus, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, etc., Artisans for Darius, Hystaspes etc.)\n\nThe original coin was dated between 344 and 334 B.C., i.e. before Alexander the Great had crossed the Indus in 326 to invade India. But in the 5th century a series of events increased East-West relations considerably, namely, the Persian Wars. The result of these events was that Persians had learned to fear and respect Greek power. Hostilities gave place to friendly relations, based on gold and diplomacy. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211647, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "37\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh were revered in Fukien before 1661, the date given for their first arrival in Taiwan. The first images, five in all, bore surnames which have been passed on to individual Pestilence Wang Yeh in all parts of Taiwan. A nineteenth-century missionary, Doolittle,3 noted images of Five Emperors in temples in Fuchou, said to control epidemics and malignant diseases. He understood that the 'idols', much feared by the common people, had several attendants, two of whom were very frequently paraded through the streets, one was the Tall White Devil and the other, the Short Black Devil. These two, Generals Hsieh and Fan, are still commonly seen in Taiwan and South-East Asia but only comparatively rarely are they colocated with the Pestilence Wang Yeh. He went on to describe a ritual involving setting fire to 'spirit boats' floating down the Min river, which were believed to bear diseases and unhealthy influences out to sea. It used to be believed in Taiwan and still is in Singapore, that the Pestilence Wang Yeh themselves could and did spread contagion.\n\nImages of the Pestilence Wang Yeh in temples have in the main been seen in groups of three or five, each bearing an individual surname (see Plate 9). Nowadays they each have only a surname, without any given names and are therefore somewhat more fortunate than the earlier Pestilence Wang Yeh who had neither surname nor given names. It was the practice for migrants to select the Wang Yeh bearing their own surname as their particular protective deity, and although the surnames Chih (李), Wu (武), Wen (温), Su (↡K) and Fan (皖YZ) are common amongst Pestilence Wang Yeh, Li (李*) and Chu (祝) are also quite widespread too. There is little functional difference and though in legend, particularly in South-East Asia, Chih is the main Wang Yeh, \"The Leader of the 108 or 360', Li is a close runner-up for the honour in Taiwan.\n\nDespite the fact that in the Pestilence Wang Yeh temple at Nan K’un Shen near Tainan (claimed to be the oldest Wang Yeh temple in Taiwan) the main deity on the main altar is Li, with the other four, Fan, Chih, Wu and Chu beside him, the Five connected with the Five Protective Spirits of Fukien referred to in the legends below, are Hsu (徐#), Li (李4), Po (舰4), Heng (衡f) and Chu (祝️).\n\nAs one would expect there are individual cults which do not follow standard patterns. One Pestilence Wang Yeh has been referred to by forenames as well as his surname. This also was in Nan K'un Shen where", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211672, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "62\n\nthe British Concession at Kiu Kiang. The mud, waist-deep and soft in the autumn, when first exposed by the receding waters of the snow-fed river, was now dried firm, and streaked with gutters, where the drainage from the houses along the Bund had cut out little evil-smelling runnels.\n\nA broad gravel walk reached the full length of the Concession, half a mile or so along the river front to a small creek at the western boundary. Plank gangways led from the bund across the mud to each hulk. A thoughtful municipality had provided benches, where on a warm day you could sit under the shade of the large trees planted by an earlier generation, rest your feet on the iron railings erected along the Bund edge, and watch the junks go by; or listen to the coolies chanting as they carried cargo between godown and ship. At the eastern end of the Bund and at the back, gates gave access to the narrow teeming lanes of the Chinese walled city and the congested suburbs, that hedged in the Concession on the two landward sides.\n\nWithin this small space lived a mixed community. There were several dozen British, a few Americans and some Japanese, with the odd Frenchman, Italian or Portuguese; also a small Russian group, who kept much to themselves and were mainly concerned with compressing and exporting brick tea, stamped in designs calculated to appeal to Muscovite taste. For a long time Chinese had not been allowed to live in the Concession, as they would soon have crowded out the limited space set apart for foreign occupation, but at this time exceptions had been made. The odium of owning the Concession, as was not infrequently pointed out by their kind friends, lay with the British; but all shared in its benefits alike under the \"most favoured nation\" clauses included in the treaties with China.\n\nThese benefits in retrospect did not appear small. Here within the Concession, in contrast to what went on without, law, order, and security prevailed. The law was known, the administration was honest, the small police force of Chinese constables under a British superintendent was reasonably efficient, taxation was equal for all, and the expression of opinion was free.\n\nSocial activity centred round the Club where the times were often good. In 1927 it was housed in the unrequired portion of an ancient godown, in the other half of which amidst an aroma of tar reclined large", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211673, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "63\n\nsinister-looking spherical objects used as buoys, lengths of rope, wooden spars, kegs of nails, bolts of canvas, and paint cans, required by the River Department of the Chinese Maritime Customs to maintain the charting and marking of the neighbouring reaches of the erratic Yangize.\n\nThere was a daring gentleman who, in Victorian days when it was against the rules, introduced a lady to the Club after midnight to play a game of billiards. The original of the letter subsequently sent him by an irate secretary, demanding an explanation of his extraordinary conduct, could be seen in the Club files, as also of the contumacious answer received in reply. It is on record that the offending person was suspended from membership, sine die, for his reprehensible conduct, and that this arbitrary penalty led to an acrimonious state of opinion wherein one half of the residents would no longer speak to the other half.\n\nWhen I myself was first appointed to Kiu Kiang (in 1924) the story was old, and the dissensions of that time had long since disappeared. But even so I found there was a local tradition of competition for precedence between the lady who was the wife of His Britannic Majesty's Consul, and the lady who had married the Commissioner of Customs. The newcomer was eagerly canvassed by the more active supporters of either party and must needs tread warily, if he wished to remain at his ease amongst all sections of the community.\n\nSometime later I foolishly allowed myself to be cajoled into performing the duties of honorary secretary to the Club. The Victorian days were now over, and ladies were admitted to the Club card room, though admittedly on a footing which with some of the older club members smacked more of sufferance than of welcome. A period of unusual affluence in the Club finances happening to intervene, it had been decided to colour-wash the walls, and in my capacity as secretary the choice of colours was left to me. It was that pleasant peaceful time in the heat of summer when the female of the species retires to the coolness of the nearby mountain resort. Only one elegant specimen had stayed behind. I thought it would be a good idea to ask this lady for her advice; after all, colour schemes are outside the scope of the average male. We held a conference, the colours were decided upon, and then I too left for the mountains.\n\nOn first re-entering the Club after my return in the autumn, I was faced by a crowd of indignant women, who demanded to know what", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211680, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "70\n\nof excited Chinese. It would obviously soon no longer be safe for foreigners to be seen in the streets, and they were accordingly instructed to concentrate at two houses on the Bund, the one belonging to the River Inspector and the other the Consulate itself. A guard of sailors was brought into both these houses, with instructions not to show themselves to the crowd outside: thus every effort was made to avoid in any way provoking the rioters. By early afternoon reports were coming in that the crowd had begun to break into houses at the back of the Concession and that looting had started.\n\nThe phone was still in working order and the Consul was again able to speak to the Garrison Commander, who, however, denied that the crowd was out of hand or that there was any looting. He was invited to come into the Concession to see for himself. Two foreigners were detailed to accompany his escort on a tour of inspection, and brought back accounts of his increasing indignation as he passed each group of looters, many of whom were soldiers who refused to obey his instructions. The Political Department had done their work only too well. The loss of face was irreparable; he flew into a temper and made one soldier, whose arms were full of an assortment of ladies' shoes, knives and forks, and a silver teapot, face away and kneel down. He then retired several paces and took a running kick at the guilty party; but although he selected the tenderest part of the soldier's anatomy for this treatment, as he himself wore soft shoes of Chinese pattern, it was not apparent who suffered most. He ordered the looter to be taken away and shot. No one supposed that the sentence was carried out. The soldiers did not belong to his particular unit, and felt, perhaps, as a group of Irish Guards Commando men might feel towards a junior officer of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps who should have the temerity to comment on their peculiar way of saluting.\n\nThe situation thus became impossible and the Consul decided to withdraw to the two ships of war in the harbour, a destroyer and a river gunboat. I was in the party which had taken refuge at the Consulate. The sailors suggested it would be foolish for the Consul to leave his more valuable portables to be looted by the crowd, and so a distribution was made of silver mugs, salvers, a gramophone, a canteen, a tantalus (full), some tinned provisions, cushions, and other easily portable articles. At half past four a mixed nondescript party of sailors and civilians could be seen standing in the garden before the flagpole in front of the Consulate. Parked at each man's feet lay a small pile of such valuables from the Consulate as he had been asked to escort on board. At the sound", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211683, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "73\n\ntwin Thorneycroft semi-diesel engines drove the craft at six or seven knots, a speed by no means excessive when we remember that during the summer the Yangtze ran five knots. Furthest aft were quarters and a galley for the Chinese crew, the “laodah” and his assistants in crime, the engineer, and two deck-hands.\n\nThree of us were now accommodated in the \"Hsun Si\", and settled down to pass the time of day, assisted by the Consul's gramophone, which we had had the foresight to borrow, and his tantalus, which it had fallen to our lot to escort. We did well enough so long as the weather remained calm, but the houseboat was top-heavy, and when the east wind got up against the flow of the river, raising a short choppy sea, the boat would roll alarmingly and bump heavily against the side of the destroyer. The first lieutenant would come along and throw a jaundiced look over the side at his paint, and order us off. We would have to turn out the engineer to start up the engines, and away we would scurry, slapping into the chop, heading for a bend some miles up the river where we could find a lee under the north bank.\n\nThe Chinese authorities on shore had issued orders that no Chinese subject was to communicate with the foreigners in their ships: but the Navy had left guards in the hulks, to which launches passed back and forth; and it was not long before contacts were again established through this channel. For seventy years Chinese and foreigners had lived next door to each other in peace and friendship, and the ties thus formed could not so easily be broken. They had traded together to mutual advantage, they had feasted and toasted each other, they had helped each other in times of difficulty; on either side were memories of pleasant days and kind deeds.\n\nSo at night sampans would creep out in the dark; little gifts of food would be sent off from the shore, and news would be given of the situation. How much damage had been done? Were the native banks still open? Were our servants being ill-treated? Had the Garrison Commander issued any proclamation?\n\nMeanwhile the Rear-Admiral, commanding the Yangtze British Gunboat Flotilla, had chartered a middle river steamer for the evacuees. The S.S. “Kiang Wo\" had sufficient cabin and dining accommodation to take us all, and anchored in the Yangtze for three months the foreign population of Kiu Kiang lived in what came to be known as the \"Floating", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211756, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "146\n\nthe client relationship Lung Yeuk Tau wanted them in. Loi Tung, despite its genealogical connection with Lung Yeuk Tau, was always regarded by Lung Yeuk Tau as a \"poor relation\", and classed with the \"small villages\". Lung Yeuk Tau was, in addition, a member of the Po Tak Temple (#) Old Alliance: this alliance was of the \"major lineages” of the area (Lung Yeuk Tau, Sheung Shui, Ho Sheung Heung, and Tai Hang), and was a specifically gentry body, whose influence was certainly antagonistic to the “small villages\". The Sze Yeuk, therefore, divided into Lung Yeuk Tau to the west, interested mostly in its enmity to Fan Ling, and an eastern group, which had interests to the north.\n\nIn the Shap Yeuk area, Man Uk Pin, the westernmost of the ten or eleven Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk, was also part of the Sze Yeuk, in which organisation it did not form a Yeuk by itself, but was merely a subordinate part of the Loi Tung Yeuk. Man Uk Pin was a long way from Sha Tau Kok market, and, again, looked in a different direction from most of the rest of the Shap Yeuk. To Man Uk Pin the road through the Miu Keng pass was essential, and the villages on the other side of the pass were, therefore, of more interest to it than would have been the case with the other Shap Yeuk villages.\n\nareas\n\n―\n\nPeripheral areas, on the boundaries of the Yeuk inter-village alliance areas, were always more conscious of interests outside the Yeuk areas than villages closer to the centre of local political activity. The Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is built where the Luk Yeuk, Shap Yeuk, and Sze Yeuk meet. The area is peripheral to the centre of interest of all three Yeuk - the Law Fong bridge, the Sha Tau Kok market, and the river crossing between Lung Yeuk Tau and Fan Ling. The continuing existence of the nunnery committee, and the continuing inter-relationship of the villages holding the six shares of the nunnery, was a standing brake to any attempt by hot-heads to provoke enmity between the three Yeuk alliances as units; if such a thing had happened, the three groups of \"front-line\" villages would have been unlikely to have been very enthusiastic participants. It is probably this factor which led to there never being any outright fighting between these three alliance areas as a whole, despite the Sze Yeuk and Shap Yeuk friendliness with Wong Pui Ling. Equally, the capacity to look for support from outside the Yeuk area must have strengthened the position of Loi Tung, Man Uk Pin, and the Ping Yuen people within their respective Yeuk areas.\n\nThe influence of the Magistrate and the gentry in the area was minimal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211766, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "156\n\nTsz people controlling the pass and the Cheungs controlling the river crossing; no one group had total control of the road; but if the Luk Yeuk controlled both the pass and the bridge, then the Shap Yeuk's interests could well have been at risk. Lin Ma Hang of the Shap Yeuk actually fought alongside Wong Pui Ling; the rest of the Shap Yeuk was probably friendly to the Cheungs, or at least neutral in the dispute. The Sze Yeuk were allied with the Tangs in their opposition to the establishment of the Tai Po New Market by the Tsat Yeuk; as is to be expected, Fanling and the Luk Yeuk supported the Tsat Yeuk.\n\n32\n\n33\n\nIt is unclear if the inscription still survives or not.\n\nThey were Man Fuk-ting (Tong Fong, Chairman); Lei Yi-wa (Lei Uk); Chan Kwok-cheung (Ping Yeung); Tang King-shiu (Au Ha or Wang Kong Ha); Law King-fan (Law Fong); To Kan-yeung (Tin).\n\n14 Between 1911 and 1924 Chan Ping-kei (Chau ...) and Chan Tai [or Ting]-cheung ... (+ [Chinese characters unknown]) were managers, and as such appear on the Land Memorials.\n\n35\n\nIt was put up by Lin Tong and Wang Kong Ha villages, in \"The Shing Ping She Shrine of Righteousness\".ĦTH, Faure, Historical Inscriptions, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 850.\n\n36\n\n37\n\nFaure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 104-105.\n\nChau Tin village owned a small temple, or San Teng (神廳), as did Kan Tau Wai and Law Fong. Kan Tau Wai in addition owned a small house as a meeting place for its elders. None of these communal facilities had any income-producing land attached to them, except for the Law Fong and Kan Tau Wai temples, which owned 0.05 and 0.12 acres respectively. The Ping Yuen temple manager was registered only for the single temple building, but not for any income-producing land, although the temple did buy a piece of land (0.72 acres) from a Ping Che villager in 1906. See DD82, houselot CT20; lot 759; DD78, lot 1158; DD82, houselot KTW13; houselots PC1-3; Memorial 2744.\n\nMemorials 24058 (20 April 1913), 27471 (4 June 1914), 45919 (7 December 1920); see also Memorial 17779 (17 October 1911) for the succession of the She to a house at Tong Fong.\n\n19\n\nFor the Po Tak Old Alliance, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140.\n\n40\n\n41\n\nSee R.G. Groves, \"The Origins of Two Market Towns'', loc.cit.\n\nFor the Tung Ping Kuk and the Tung Wo Kuk, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140.\n\n42 (唔出嫁嘅女)\n\n43\n\n44\n\nSung Hok-p'ang, Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Kam Tin, op. cit.\n\nIt should be noted that these nunneries are often called Tsz (寺) in ordinary speech and documents. This character strictly means \"monastery\", but, in this area, this does not necessarily imply that the religious living there were men. Thus the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is almost always so called, as in the document printed in the Appendix. The use of the more correct character Am (庵, 'nunnery') is almost entirely limited to Ch'ing official documents (especially the County Gazetteer) and, sometimes, on bells.\n\n45\n\n46\n\nloc.cit.\n\nSee Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 669. It is called Miu (廟, \"temple\") in Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1922, ch'uan 4 and 7, pages 49-50 and 82 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and in the 1688 Gazetteer.\n\n47 Ling To is called Tsz (寺) in the Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1819, at ch'uan 18 and 21, pages 148 and 174 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and, given the care with which...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212160, "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-1990", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "79\n\nHe repeated that his shrine catered for believers from all religions and added that his spirit medium is a Roman Catholic religious novice. Wu T'ien-chu, whose festival is celebrated annually on the 13th day of the ninth lunar month, is portrayed by an image of a seated mandarin with a red and a blue demon, one under each of his feet.\n\nExamination of the legends surrounding local deities who lived or died in the vicinity of present-day cult temples, or who are worshipped in one of their branch temples, reveals that they can be either distinguished citizens or ordinary people, often nonentities, but all now characterised as shen (spirits).\n\nA great many heroes and worthies, and tens of millions of ordinary people, live and die and are never deified, and those who are have been identified as such by their possession of ‘ling' (supernatural power) which can increase or wane depending upon a number of circumstances. 'Ling' can fade until the deity is deemed powerless by devotees and ignored or deposed, or the 'ling' can be renewed by ritual means.\n\nIt is readily understandable that major heroes of antiquity, revered nationwide for many centuries, are now worshipped for their accumulated power. They were powerful in life and since death their ability to protect and guide devotees has been well authenticated to the satisfaction of devotees. However, lesser deities, local heroes and worthies and especially the spirits of ordinary people, have to ‘earn' their deified status by result, and cults grow, wither and disappear entirely depending upon their ability to provide an adequate response to devotees' pleas and requirements. Some have become major deities within comparatively large communities; in Taiwan, for example, several have become the patron deities of immigrant groups from an individual county back on the mainland.\n\nWhereas it is reasonably clear why charismatic local heroes and worthies came to be deified, usually by public acclaim (though some have achieved sanctification by wealthy families pushing their ancestor's case) it is less simple to understand why some ordinary people and not others have been deified. It is even more perplexing why a few local thugs who originally had nothing going for them have also been deified. An excellent example of this is the cult of Liao Tien-ting in Pa Li, across the Tanshui River from Tanshui town in northern Taiwan. Liao, who was killed in about 1920, is now honoured with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212173, "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-1990", "page_number": 115, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "92\n\nto present a neatly typewritten note in English, carefully preserved in a cellophane envelope, stating that the area was prohibited.\n\nThe pheasant shooting season continued until the Chinese New Year holiday, which falls late in January or early in February. It was generally possible to get two or three days off for this holiday, and at this date in 1937 two of us found ourselves some ten miles up the Yangtze above Nanking in the neighbourhood of the Three Hills. We had come in the houseboat, now so seldom used owing to the opening of the countryside to the greater convenience of the motor car. Only where the river bank was steep-to could we bring the boat sufficiently inshore to throw a plank across and step off; and so having disembarked we had to walk awhile until we reached a small creek, which we crossed in a borrowed sampan, before arriving at the extensive reed beds for which we were heading.\n\nAt this late season great stretches of the reeds had already been cut by the country people for use as fuel, leaving small clumps and narrow strips standing here and there. Inland, the fields, turned over by the shallow Chinese plough, showed long rows of soft green where the shoots of winter wheat sprouted. The country was ideal for pheasant. Unfortunately it was drizzling and blowing hard. Sandy, the smooth-haired black Labrador was at the top of his form, but nonplussed by the poor shooting. In such weather the birds would as a rule sit tight until the last moment, when they would get up suddenly at your feet; for some reason today they were wild and rising almost out of range. As we approached each patch of reeds, inside which pheasant might be sheltering from rain and squall, we would carefully move to the lee end and beat our way back upwind. My wife worked with us, and two of the boatmen, who also served to carry the bag. The pheasants were reluctant to fly, and would run unseen out of the reeds through the more open stretches of stubble to start up cackling indignantly at unexpected moments. The expenditure of cartridges was considerable, but so far as I remember, the bag only held six brace. Late in the afternoon, soaked, we boarded the houseboat. Luckily the run down with the tide was much quicker than the outward trip, and there was something in the icebox to keep the damp out. Little did we realise that was to be the last shoot for many a season!\n\nThat year was Coronation year: great preparations were made by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212187, "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-1990", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "106\n\nburst all round us. There were three Japanese aircraft, whose pilots circled and dived repeatedly. The gunboats were caught by surprise and it was only on the third attack that they got their Lewis guns into action, thereby possibly disturbing the aim of the attacking planes, because again fortunately there were no direct hits.\n\nThe first bomb attack took place at 1.30 p.m. At about 2.30 p.m. three larger machines, in formation, approached at a height of 6000 feet. They were seen to drop a pattern of six heavy bombs, which fell near one of the Asiatic Petroleum Company's steamers, but once again did little damage, owing to what appeared to be poor lateral splintering qualities. This time the gunboats opened with both their \"pom-poms\" and their 3\" guns but without effect.\n\nThe Staff Captain together with the British Military Attaché and the British Consul, who had been in the \"Scarab\", had boarded one of the merchant ships the previous night to go 60 miles up the river to Wuhu to contact the Japanese troops, in the hope that they would be able to arrange to avoid further incidents. Following on these raids, signals were made to the Staff Captain at Wuhu enquiring whether it would not be better to move the ships. At that time we did not know that the U.S.S. \"Panay\" and the three Standard Oil ships had already been sunk, and we were still awaiting a reply from Wuhu, when a third attack was made at about 4 p.m. by three aircraft which made a succession of dives to 600 feet, but they received such a warm welcome from the gunboats that they missed their targets and soon made off.\n\nAll the British ships had Union Jacks painted across their decks: on my ship, for instance, the Jack was 25 feet wide. There could be no further illusion regarding the possibility that these attacks had been made by mistake. The continuous raiding, following on the shelling of the previous day, began to demoralize the Chinese crews, and the numerous Chinese refugees from the various British offices in Nanking, with whom the holds of the ships were packed. It became imperative to take action of some sort.\n\nThe \"Ewo\" hulk, lashed alongside the S.S. \"Whangpoo\", had had the worst of it. The pair of them offered the largest target at which it was natural for the Japanese pilots to aim. It was fortunate that the refugees had been taken out of the hulk after the first attack, because the thin plank walls of her deck house were now riddled", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212189, "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-1990", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "108\n\nChina, not to be heard of again. Some of the ships were left so short-handed that they were not in a position to raise steam, if required.\n\nIt was with mixed feelings at about half past ten that morning that we saw a Japanese infantry patrol approach along the shore and enter the first of the moored launches. They were then seen to get down under cover and examine the foreign ships through their glasses. That scrutiny was returned with intense interest, but presently they waved a handkerchief and, when approached, appeared friendly. They requested that a message should be sent off to the two gunboats anchored in the river to say that a detachment of motor craft would be proceeding down river and asking that the gunboats should not open fire on them. Later contact was made with the Japanese officer commanding the considerable detachment, and he expressed sympathy when he heard that the ships had been repeatedly bombed the previous day. He did not mention that his detachment was the one that had fired on the \"Panay\" and the other American ships as they were sinking.\n\nThe Japanese passed on their way, and soon we noticed other things passing too. There was a thick scum of oil going down with the tide all that day. Wireless messages came in asking for information about the American ships, whose signals had suddenly stopped in the middle of a message during the previous morning. It was only now beginning to be realised that all the American ships had been sunk. A small Standard Oil steel lighter drifted by; and shortly after, the derelict motor-boat of the \"Panay\". These were rescued and made fast alongside the gunboat. American equipment in those days was lavish, I remember the hopeful glint in the eye of a C.P.O. stoker in the \"Scarab\", as he suggested to his Captain that, perhaps, the Americans would not miss the motor-boat's engine, if it were \"borrowed\". He did not get his way, but the \"Panay's\" life-belt, rescued at this time, was kept as a souvenir and in 1941 could still be seen in the wardroom of one of the river gunboats. I think she was H.M.S. Peterel. If so, the souvenir was presumably lost when H.M.S. Peterel was sunk at her moorings off Shanghai, with flag flying, after refusing to surrender to overwhelming Japanese forces which suddenly treacherously attacked her at dawn on December 7th, 1941.\n\nLater a report went round that the Japanese were mounting a battery on the south bank, that opposite to which the ships were moored,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212199, "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-1990", "page_number": 141, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "118\n\n1 left by steamer for Canton, the great southern Chinese town, which sprawls along the shore of the Pearl River; and spent a few days on the Shameen mud-bank, just off the city, where the small British and French Concessions are. The Concessions were untouched; but, across the narrow creek that separates them from the shore, the city had suffered heavily from bombing, and from the fires which raged furiously in the congested native districts after each raid. One morning I crossed to the South bank and took the branch line to Samshui on the West river, where I caught the steamer for Wuchow in Kwangsi province.\n\nAlthough owned by a Chinese company, the small river steamer flew the British flag. That was a phenomenon common enough on the inland waters of China. The foreign flag protected the ship from being commandeered by the local war lord. Sometimes for months on end steam traffic, on this water-way or that, would be completely disorganised. The Chinese ships would be impressed to carry the troops of the various armies contending for power. It was only under a foreign flag that they could find the security which would justify their remaining in operation at all. The British government did not welcome this use of the British flag, and introduced regulations to control abuse of the privilege. In order to qualify for British registry a ship must at least carry a British captain and a British chief engineer, and must comply with the Board of Trade regulations in regard to safety measures. But even so, the Chinese owners would make every effort to obtain British registry for their ships, thus in one direction taking advantage of the treaties between Britain and China while, in the other, probably contributing to the Kuo Min Tang party funds, which were used to denounce the iniquities of those very same treaties. In order to comply with the letter of the regulations, the particular ship I now found myself on carried three British officers, whose aggregate age exceeded 200 years. They were, of course, mere figure-heads, the actual work being done by the Chinese officers and crew. These river-boats kept communications open and provided a measure of security for travellers - owing to the presence of British gunboats these small ships moving on inland waters were seldom attacked by bandits which otherwise would have been lacking.\n\n―\n\nIn Kwangsi the road system had been extended to connect Wuchow with the other large towns of the province and I left by car for Kweilin, the capital. An American aviator, who had been down to Hongkong on a shopping expedition, travelled with me as far as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212201, "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-1990", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "120\n\nwhich the government was hurriedly building from Hengyang, on the Canton-Hankow line. The embankment was finished, the culverts and bridges were in, and the construction gangs laying the rails were only a few miles off. The rails had been salvaged from sections of line abandoned to the invader in the distant north, and brought to Kwangsi despite great difficulties.\n\nI drove on to Hengyang and on the way observed one of those curious inconsistencies to which you grow accustomed in China. The Ministry of Communications, all the handicaps of the war notwithstanding, continued resolutely with its programme of road building. Where rivers were too wide to justify bridges, ferries were used. The ferry boat, a wide pontoon long enough to carry two lorries, one behind the other, would be poled across the river, or rowed over those stretches where the water might be too deep. As the current often ran fast some skill was needed to bring the ferry safely to the far side, and it took time. You would have thought that on these main roads, on which the movement of war supplies depended, relays of ferries would have been installed at the wider rivers to avoid unnecessary delay. Not only was that not so, but the ferry men, who were controlled by the Provincial Road Bureaux under the Ministry of Communications, refused to work after dark, or at meal hours. The consequence was that again and again a long string of vehicles would be held up waiting to cross, and if the ferry-trip took half an hour, as it usually did, you might have to wait a whole day for your turn. The wooden ferry boats were of local construction and not difficult to build. It would have been easy to increase the number of boats and ferrymen, but these serious bottlenecks in transportation continued to hamper the Chinese war effort. Only too often have Japanese bombers taken advantage of the target presented by a group of vehicles bunched at a ferry.\n\nBetween Kweilin and Hengyang you pass the watershed that separates the Yangtze basin from the West river basin. An ancient narrow canal, five feet wide, recently repaired, connects the two headwaters. There is an old story of a British gunboat having come up from the West river past Kweilin to a point whence those on board could see the mast-tops of a sister ship which had sailed up from the Yangtze. The masts must have been very tall; or perhaps the story is tall, because actually the gap between them could not have been less than thirty miles.\n\nWithout stopping at Hengyang I went straight through the same", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212202, "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-1990", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "121\n\nday to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha.\n\nThere was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train.\n\nIt was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212209, "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-1990", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "128\n\nis an immense shortage of persons qualified to fill the professions; doctors, engineers, chemists, and even lawyers. In the interests of the future all students are automatically exempt from conscription; so are all those of whatever station in life who have escaped from Japanese occupied territory. There would be no inducement to escape otherwise. Under the circumstances we can appreciate the necessity for these exemptions. When recruits are required for the army, a quota is allocated to each district: the magistrate in turn calls for a levy from each village to fill his quota. Those with money or influence can buy off their sons; it is the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden who are taken. They are roped together, with a loop round the left forearm, so that they can still use the bamboo pole to carry a load, and marched off to the training centre. There many die, and others desert. Indeed, there is now a class of professional deserter. If recruiting is going on in a district, these men will turn up and offer to serve in the place of anyone who has the price. They collect their money, march off with the conscripts, and desert at the first opportunity, to repeat the performance elsewhere. There are means in China of tracing missing men back to their families, but amidst the confusion caused by years of war it is easy for the vagabond to give a false name and address.\n\nThere are so many millions of displaced, homeless, nameless people in China now; we should not be too critical of these methods. The wonder is that the Chinese government has been able to carry on at all under such immense difficulties. Instead of an insistence on saving face, and thus misleading world opinion, had there been a reasonable relaxation of the iron censorship in order that the world could learn of the prodigious efforts the Chinese have made, there would, I think, be a better understanding of, and greater sympathy for, China's problems.\n\nThe afternoon of the third day we rolled over the iron bridge that spans the North river, a tributary of the West river, into bomb-shattered Kukong. Here I waited for the train and was fortunate to find a carriage, which had been reserved for a party of British sailors from the crews of the gunboats at Hankow; they were being evacuated to Hongkong, and kindly made room for me in their compartment. The track near Canton had been broken during a recent raid. We had to alight there and make our way to the city as best we could; riding through in a rickshaw I had leisure to observe the extent of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212219, "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-1990", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "138\n\nmight be more useful outside. The Japanese had not yet occupied all the coast; foreign ships were still sailing to the unoccupied ports. I slipped out to Ningpo, intending to remain a few days while watching to see which way the cat jumped: but instead of attacking Hongkong, the Japanese landed at Chinhai, at the mouth of the Ningpo river, and I was thus cut off. After a fortnight they withdrew, leaving guard ships to watch the approaches. In the meantime the Chinese had mined the Ningpo river to deny entry to Japanese ships.\n\nI was shut in at Ningpo for three months during the heat of the summer. It was my first contact for two years with unoccupied China. With the restrictions imposed, first by the impediments arising from the Japanese war with China, and in the second place by the shortage of shipping and exports consequent on the war with Germany in Europe, British trade in the interior of China was at a standstill. The large British firms found it commercially unprofitable to keep their staff in many of the remaining treaty ports of free China, and withdrew them to Shanghai and Hongkong. British opinion thus, on the one hand, tended to lose touch with conditions in free China, while, on the other, was increasingly exposed to impression by the Japanese, who swarmed so actively in the occupied ports. The British were no more at fault than the Americans or the French, but for the Americans the balance was to some extent redressed by their larger and more vocal upcountry missionary organisation; as British interests out-numbered those of the other powers, so did the Chinese tend to concentrate criticism on them for continued failure to realise that China was fighting the battle of the democracies.\n\nA particularly unfortunate failure was the continued indifference shewn to the Chinese Government at Chungking. While it was still in Nanking, with branch divisions in Shanghai, foreign firms had extensive contacts with all the various departments, but when the Government was driven first to Hankow, and then to Chungking, no attempt was made to follow and nurse those contacts. The Chinese Government in its extremity would have welcomed any display of sympathy and was affronted by this neglect, but the large firms continued to treat their business in the Capital at the level of the small and remote treaty port, which Chungking had been. One consequence, for instance, occurred in 1943, when the two leading British banks belatedly decided to open branches in Chungking. The Chinese kept them waiting six months on the doorstep.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212341, "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-1990", "page_number": 283, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "260\n\nHappily, however, when you, our Provincial Governor, entered Kwangtung, your policy was to develop roads. We the gentry and others read your brilliant proclamation. We took the opportunity to put proposals to So (**), the previous Head of the Sub-District, asking him to forward them to the County Magistrate for consideration. The matter for consideration was to build a bridge at Kim Hau. We did this because it would lead to happiness and security. And yet, unexpectedly, that clan of local bullies, because the bridge construction would damage their economic interests, unreasonably obstructed and interfered with the work, using continuous blackmail.\n\nWe the gentry and others say that this river is public land, and a bridge would be a public bridge. We should pay no attention to those who obstruct it. They know their crafty plans will fail.\n\nThey have responded by absurdly pointing to somewhere downstream, about one li distant, a place called Tsuk Pok Ha (T), as a substitute. We the gentry and others are peace-loving people and wish to bring this affair to an end. We propose that the local military and police officials, with the gentry and the people, bringing an engineer with them, come and inspect the site. They will find that there is no road to be used on either bank at Tsuk Pok Ha, the first problem. The site is low-lying and subject to frequent flooding when the river rises: it is inadvisable to have a bridge there, the second problem. The water there is deep and wide, the work would be massive, the third problem. The two banks there are overgrown with shrubs and thorny plants which would have to be cleared at huge expense to build a road, the fourth problem. Further, to divert the existing road about one li will introduce a large bend into it. By our estimation, taking both banks into consideration, the road would have to be lengthened by three li of useless detour, the fifth problem. Roads must be constructed on direct lines before they are useful to foot passengers everyone says that.\n\nNow the bulk of the people at Upper Wong Pui Ling.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212342, "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-1990", "page_number": 284, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "and at Lower Wong Pui Ling, support us, and want to see the construction begin. It is only a minority of the Cheung clan at Lower Wong Pui Ling, local bullies like Cheung Yi-choh (GM) and so forth, who ignore the public good and care merely for their private profit. They take as an excuse damage to their Fung Shui, saying that the bridge would obstruct the Fung Shui, and so incite their clan.\n\nAll these matters were put clearly before the Head of the County, the County Magistrate Yau (FB). He, blunted by greed, did not care about public opinion, and issued an order banning and prohibiting the work. It was a case of corrupt influence. He absolutely failed to go to the site to investigate matters, and thus did not make a fair judgement.\n\nWe the gentry and others quietly waited several days, but, since we had no alternative, we proceeded in accordance with public opinion, and restarted construction. The Cheung clan realised that this would destroy their profit, and they came and threatened to destroy the bridge-works by force.\n\nWe the gentry and others consider the order of the County to be stupid and muddled. At the same time, the desire of the people for the bridge is so strong that we feared fighting, with guns, might break out. We therefore invited Lam (4), the Garrison Commander, to issue orders and send soldiers to keep the peace. It would be a false accusation to say that this was using soldiers to overawe the officials.\n\nIf they say that this place is unsuitable, then may we ask why do the Cheung clan have a right to run a ferry here for profit? The actual position is that the two banks are public land, and the river is a public river.\n\nMagistrate Yau, if he had even a little conscience, could settle this matter with just one word. But he feels it essential to protect and help the Cheung clan to suppress\n\n261", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212356, "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-1990", "page_number": 298, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "275\n\nfew fishermens' houses, and a newly-built hotel.\n\nThis dispute in 1875 did not end the matter. It broke out again between 1902 and 1905. The documents which discuss this last conflict make it clear that the decisions of Tin On-pong in 1875 had not been fully implemented. In 1902, all the land behind the landing stage, which Tin On-pong had ordered to be sold by the Yuens to the Cheungs, was still in the hands of the Yuens. The right to collect toll, however, was wholly in the hands of the Tung Ping Kuk, and the Yuens were not collecting their four-tenths. Presumably the Yuens had passed this right to the Kuk, so long as their land-owning rights were left untouched. The Cheungs seem to have been left with nothing, other than what they could get by their dominance of the Tung Ping Kuk of the “Transit Toll\" income.\n\nBetween 1875 and 1902 conditions on the Sham Chun River had changed. Firstly, from the mid-1890s steam launches had begun to trade with Sham Chun. These vessels were less dependent on the tide than were the junks, since they were more manoeuvrable, so that they could turn within the river. They were, therefore, less dependent on the landing place behind the Ching Shui River island. They had come to dominate the local trade by 1902: by 1904 the Wa Lu company had achieved a virtual monopoly in the steam launch business here.\n\nIn addition, in 1898 the New Territories lease had included within the territory of Hong Kong all the waters of the Sham Chun River up to the high water mark on the north bank.\n\nThe Yuens saw in these circumstances the opportunity to regain their position. They sought a lease from the Hong Kong Government of a 2,000-foot-long strip of the main river bed on which to erect a wooden wharf. This would connect with their agricultural land by a wooden bridge which would pass over the wastes of the river banks, thereby side-stepping any claims to ownership of the tolls put forward by the District Magistrate on the grounds of imperial ownership of the wastes. The wharf so built would have blocked the exit from the channel behind the island at the mouth of the Ching Shui River. The Yuens produced this plan in conjunction with the Wa Lu steam-launch company. The plan would have ended at one stroke the use of the old landing place, and would have rendered all sailing junks using", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212456, "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-1991", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Mr. David Sheil Mr. Michael Kirkbride Mr. Yip Cho-hong\n\nMr. Philip Bruce (twice)\n\nand Mr. David Mahoney\n\nDr. James Hayes Mr. K. Leung\n\nMr. Tao Ho\n\nMr. Charles Walker\n\nTibetan Rugs\n\nHong Kong: a Landscape History Preparing for the Future: Our First\n\n15 years in the Antiquities Office Second to None: The Hong Kong Volunteers and the Battle of Hong Kong\n\nTsuen Wan: 1887 to 1987\n\nCivilians Under Japanese\n\nOccupation\n\nWestern Market\n\nEric Lidell\n\nThere have also been the following trips/tours over the last year since I last reported. Dr. Patrick Hase and Dr. Graeme Lang organised a trip to Wong Tai Sin, and three visits have been organised by Mr. Philip Bruce namely the Bogue Forts in the Pearl river Delta, the Colonial Cemetery and Chek Lap Kok in conjunction with Mr. Bill Meacham (again and probably the last), Mr. John Wilson organised a trip to the Shing Mun Redoubt in keeping again with the Society's sights on the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong. Dr Patrick Hase and Mr. Philip Bruce did not also forget to look after our gastronomical and liquid desires since the former organised our annual Chinese dinner at the City Hall, and the latter our resuscitated Christmas cocktail party at the Volunteer Officer's mess at Beaconsfield house. Since the new year we have also been well taken care of by a visit to the South Side of Hong Kong Island organised jointly by Mrs. Rosemary Lee who took us to the war cemetery at Stanley, Mr. Michael Kirkbride who expanded on Keteleeria Trees, and Colonel Douglas Fox who showed us how the South side of the island and Stanley Fort in particular was fortified in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Colonel Douglas Fox also led a very successful trip to Stonecutters Island. This was followed in quick succession by a tour to more of the remote parts of Lamma Island led by our honourary secretary Mr. David St. Maur Sheil. And more recently we had a very successful if rather wet trip to Xiamen, organised by Mrs. Anita Wilson and Mrs. Rosemary Lee, and a very comprehensive tour of Tsuen Wan led by Dr. James Hayes. To all these organisers may I extend our thanks and sincere appreciation.\n\nOur local tours are very popular as many members, who were not able to get on some, found: the Council is very conscious of this problem,\n\nIX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212470, "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-1991", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "themselves they had to turn to migration to urban centres and overseas emigration, and to nonfarm work in the villages.\n\nFollowing the path of the traditional junk trade, overseas emigration was common in southern Fukien (Fujian) and eastern Guangdong in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it did not spread to the rest of Guangdong until the nineteenth century. In the 1860s, when the European powers were initiating mining and plantation projects in Southeast Asia, and when the American continent was building transcontinental railways, China became a popular source for labour recruitment. There were three major emigrant areas in South China: first, southern Fujian and eastern Guangdong; second, the western part of the Pearl River delta and Siyi, namely Kaiping, Enping, Xinhui, and Xinning (later renamed as Taishan); and third, northeastern Hainan Island. People from the first area were the first to emigrate because of the junk trade with Southeast Asia.\n\nThe Nanking (Nanjing) Treaty following the Opium War in 1842, which stipulated the establishment of treaty ports along the coast of China, broke the Canton monopoly. The newly opened ports of Shanghai, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Amoy (Xiamen) competed with Canton for China's foreign trade. With the rich Yangzi River valley as its hinterland, Shanghai soon began to fulfill its extraordinary potential as a port of trade. By 1850 the volume of trade in Shanghai had surpassed that of Canton. Trade routes were diverted to these cities, causing a lot of porters and boatmen to lose their jobs. Canton was no longer a recipient of any substantial foreign investment. It went either to Shanghai or Hong Kong. The development of Hong Kong with a shift of British interest from Macau and Canton also attracted many Cantonese merchants to search for economic opportunities. For instance, Cantonese traders, artisans, and laborers from all neighbouring districts followed the British merchants in flocking to the British colony. Moreover, Hong Kong had become a major centre of Cantonese emigration abroad. The high points of overseas emigration came between 1890 and 1904. Between 1885 and 1900, a total of 1,830,572 Chinese emigrants embarked at the port of Hong Kong.\n\nThe overwhelming majority of the Cantonese emigration came from the Pearl River delta region, particularly from the counties shown in figure 1. The Xinning, Xinhui, Kaiping and Enping were known collectively as Siyi while Panyu, Nanhai and Shunde were Sanyi.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212482, "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-1991", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "16 \n\nShunde \n\nDongguan \n\nSanshui \n\nGaoyiu \n\n2 \n\n3 \n\nI \n\nI \n\n1 \n\n1 \n\nN \n\n| \n\n10 \n\n2 \n\nOut of delta region \n\nNon-Cantonese \n\n5 \n\n& \n\n13 \n\n2 \n\n1 \n\n- \n\n1 \n\n4 \n\nHang Kong \n\n1 \n\n༣ \n\n2. \n\n3 \n\n1 \n\n8 \n\nUnidentified \n\n18 \n\n30 \n\n72 \n\n132 \n\n17 \n\n422 \n\nTotal \n\n20 \n\n46 \n\n105 \n\n186 \n\n193 \n\n550 \n\nSource: Hong Kong Record Series #144. The Supreme Court of Hong Kong. Probate Jurisdiction - Wills. \n\nFrom the 894 Chinese wills of the period between 1850-1906 deposited in the Hong Kong Public Records Office, 550 were believed to be held by merchants. Merchants were defined here as owning business, joining in partnership and holding properties. As indicated in table 1, there were 128 out of 550 who stated their native origins. Most of them came from the Pearl River Delta region, Xiangshan men being the largest in number, followed by Nanhai, Xinning, Xinhui, Shunde, Dongguan, Panyu and so on. More interesting, though they had been doing business in Hong Kong for a number of years, they did not claim they were Hong Kong people. Instead they identified with their native place. More frequently they were probably absent from Hong Kong and had resided in Canton and Macau. A puzzling question is that a large portion of these 442 persons had not told in their wills where they came from. Can we take it for granted they did not state it because there was no need to specify as they had identified with Hong Kong? Nevertheless, there were eight cases reported where they were definitely identified as Hong Kong persons. Some claimed “Victorians\", some were \"Hong Kong people\" and some identified with the place where they lived such as Kowloon, Shaukiwan, etc. \n\nIt is supposed that during the nineteenth century the majority of the Chinese in Hong Kong did not settle permanently but returned home or moved to other places in China. They retained ties with their home villages in China. As a scholar points out, wealthy Hong Kong Chinese usually held landed property in Hong Kong, but from the wills we know there were also frequent references to fields and houses in the home villages and houses in Canton, Foshan and Macau. The landed properties they held were mostly houses and land, and little were shares", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212484, "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-1991", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "18\n\nthe old Co-hong system at Canton.\" The appointment of Wu indicates the power of Cantonese merchants which had gradually become the most predominant group. The Kiangnan Arsenal which opened in 1865, with additions of more industrial projects as dockyards and guandu shangban enterprises, attracted numbers of Cantonese working class to Shanghai. For instance, in Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Work, Cantonese workers constituted the dominant group. They were experienced and most of them had worked formerly in foreign dockyards at Hong Kong and Canton.\n\nCantonese in the early development of Shanghai found themselves particularly at an advantage in foreign trade as against other groups of sojourners. First, they were more experienced and better connected. Canton had been opened to foreign trade for centuries, and Cantonese merchants were connected to foreign firms in Canton or Hong Kong, most foreign firms in Shanghai at that time were only branch offices. Second, Cantonese were linguistically better equipped to deal with foreigners. It is probable most, if not all, were able to speak English, at least Pidgin. Third, early compradors of major foreign firms at Shanghai as Jardine, Matheson & Co., Augustine Heard & Co., Dent & Co., and Russell & Co. were all recruited from either Canton or Hong Kong. Fourth, Cantonese were more skilled in western industries such as ship-building and ship-repairing since most of these modern industries started earlier in Canton and Hong Kong,\n\n22\n\nBecause of the turmoil of the late nineteenth century, employers had to recruit workers on the basis of personal ties so as to prevent desertion or betrayal, thus conflicts between local ethnic groups were obvious. Cantonese in Shanghai did not meet with no competition. Sojourners came from other regions near Shanghai. The Ningbo group was regarded as a great rival. Ningbo people, for instance, concentrated in the French concession and in the northern part of the South City (nanshi) along the Huangpu River; Cantonese mainly settled in Hongkou or along Guangdong Road, near the large shipyards where many were employed. Ethnic groups in Shanghai, such as Cantonese versus Ningbo men, competed with each other not only in commercial interests but also in the local government. Ningbo merchants like Yang Fang challenged the Cantonese by connecting his business in the silk trade with Jardine, Matheson & Co. Since Zhejiang was an important silk producing region and Zhejiang merchants strictly controlled the regional marketing system in the Lower Yangzi. Zhejiang compradors rose to break up the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212560, "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-1991", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "94\n\nperfected in the United States, Stevenson adopts an approach which gives great emphasis to the expression of the inner, emotional state of the characters, an alternative to the approach Chinese dancers were familiar with. In the summer of 1979, he trained two Chinese student dancers at the Houston Ballet Academy. At the end of the summer, the students returned to China with a pas-de-deux Stevenson choreographed for them. In China, the performance of that piece caused a stir among the audiences and a revision of the approach Chinese dancers took towards their profession. In the succeeding years, Chinese artists choreographed some pieces, such as the Spirit of the Yellow River, which also suggests Stevenson's influence on dance in China.6\n\nObviously, the contributions American Cultural presence made to cultural pluralism are twofold: direct presentations gave a different feature to the cultural life of the Chinese people while they introduce new ideas. The latter, therefore, is of more significance as it is more persistent and penetrating. As for exchanges in arts education and exchanges of specialists, the consequences were also twofold: the influx of new ideas and the improvement in China's artistic activities.\n\nIn this context, the work of David Gilbert can be taken as an example of how American specialists helped Chinese artists in the improvement of artistic quality. David Gilbert, music director and conductor of the Greenwich Philharmonia in the United States, began to serve as principal guest conductor of the Central Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO, affiliated to the CPS) in June 1980. At the conclusion of his first term, he reflected: \"The players (of the CPO) are fine professional musicians but they have no repertory and no experience.” “The orchestra itself had never done Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, and when I scheduled the overture to 'Die Meistersinger' I discovered it was their first Wagner of any kind.\"37 Nonetheless, in mid-1981, he was able to tour with the CPO to Mudan Jiang, Harbin, and Changchun for two weeks with a repertoire made up largely of pieces learnt by the orchestra from him, and since then the orchestra had presented one concert every two weeks, rehearsing six days a week.\n\nIn evaluating the consequences of Sino-American arts exchanges in the 15 years since 1972, and particularly in the eight years since 1979, one important aspect to discuss is whether these exchanges have affected domestic socio-political development of China. It is important, and even vital, to the further development of China's arts exchanges with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212613, "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-1991", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "147\n\nconvenient to sit on if the ground were wet, and of a consistency not uncomfortable when used as a pillow: the other a rain cape, as issued to the Indian Army. These capes are cut amply so as to cover the whole of one's accoutrements. They are reasonably long, and as the material is stout, they are wind-proof, and help to retain warmth on a cold day. They are excellent to wrap up in before lying down to sleep. With these two items, one could face most things, even the discomforts of travel in war-torn China.\n\nTianmushan 1942-42\n\nThe officials of the Chungking government had been watching the Shanghai puppet show with close interest. I suppose, at the time of Munich, had one asked the average citizen of Czecho-Slovakia what he thought of the British, he would have replied that he thought they were pro-German. In the same way the Chinese in Chungking, influenced by the Shanghai spectacle, concluded that there was a strong pro-Japanese faction in Britain. That was very unfortunate, because it reinforced Chinese suspicion of British motives, a suspicion rooted in a fallacious interpretation of history and nourished by Kuo Min Tang teaching.\n\nBritain was at war with Germany for one and a half years, alone. Mr. Churchill, quite rightly, in those reports he presents from time to time to the House of Commons, reminds the world of it. China was at war with Japan for four and a half years, alone; and although from about the summer of 1941 the Japanese have concentrated their attention elsewhere, so that the war in China for long periods subsequently was only passive, and did not therefore involve active exertion at the level which throughout has been demanded of the British, yet we can fully appreciate Chinese feeling and the expectation that the extent of China's travail should be recognised.\n\nI was staying at Tennis Court Flats, the name given to a temporary wooden building erected on the Embassy tennis court to accommodate part of the staff, after the British Embassy had been damaged by bombing. I was having breakfast upstairs on the verandah when the first vague reports of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour arrived. As further reports came in from Hongkong and Manila the situation became clearer. In the evening I went for a stroll in the streets. The dense population of Chungking, packed between river and hill, had no facilities for sport, the idea of which indeed was unknown to the mass of the people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212629, "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-1991", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "163\n\nJapanese planes were reported to be patrolling the road. We rolled back the hood from the rear half of the lorry and posted two sentries, one looking forward and the other aft, to sound the alarm should any planes be seen. The stores made such a rattle that in the cab you could not hear a shout from the rear, and so a string was led forward and tied to my wrist where I sat next to the driver. Three sharp tugs meant: \"Plane in sight, stop and get out quick\". Our lorry was always full of odd people, besides our own party, as in those days of transportation shortage there would be a crowd of passengers, civilian and military, male and female, at all stopping places, hoping for a lift. The trouble was that their idea of when the lorry was fully loaded and ours seldom agreed, and they would continue to pile in with their bundles long after, in our opinion, the safety margin had been passed.\n\nThe thought of our cargo made my hair stand on end. We had broken every safety rule inscribed in the manuals of the Royal Ordnance Corps. In addition to four large drums of petrol, we had a ton of ammonal, several boxes each of primers and detonators, some Mills and 69 grenades, rolls of instantaneous and detonating fuse, and a number of odd boxes of other types of explosive, such as gelignite and 808; each of these materials should have been segregated, and here they were all higgledy-piggledy with a quantity of shovels, picks, axes, and other metal implements jangling in the steel body of our lorry, and only too liable to spark. Our casual passengers liked to smoke and in their delightfully inconsequential way could not understand why we should object. It was a situation that would have pleased the \"Mad Hatter\", and the climax came when after a particularly bad bump over a pot hole one of the petrol drums burst a seam. The alarm signal was given and I pulled up in quick time to learn that the trouble was not a hostile plane but to meet a reek of petrol that spread a mile and to see the whole of our cargo soaked in the precious fluid which poured away to the earth from a corner of the vehicle. It did not take me long to turn off the engine. The members of our party jumped out and seized any handy can or bucket to catch the jetting petrol; others threw out part of the cargo so that we could reach the drum, which we eventually succeeded in turning over with the burst seam on the upper side. Having escaped disaster thus far, I ordered the whole of the party well away from the truck till the cargo had dried out and the spilt petrol had evaporated.\n\nOn the fourth day a van full of American aviators passed us. They were some of General Doolittle's men, who had parachuted into China", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212644, "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-1991", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "178\n\nIn November we were sent a medical officer, who had a long experience in China, and we also at last received some medical supplies, including a limited quantity of quinine. We were able to treat the sick students and also give some assistance in the neighbouring villages, an assistance which was much appreciated and created a lot of goodwill. A severe epidemic of meningitis broke out soon after; our stock of sulfanilamide was barely adequate to cope with the cases amongst our own students and staff and for lack of the drug we had to watch many around us die.\n\nLate in December the first lorry got through to us with a small supply of much-needed explosive. In the previous summer the roads had been destroyed by removing the wooden bridges, and cutting trenches across the roadway at a number of places. The trenches had now been filled in again with the spoil left on the roadside, but with rain the filling settled so as to leave a six-inch drop where the trench had been; it made for slow and rough driving, and it was very hard on the vehicles. The bridges were not replaced until later, but in winter the water level in the rivers fell and tracks were cut down the river banks so that the lorry could be driven across through the water.\n\nThere was some delay in winding up our affairs and we were still in the midst of it, when I was suddenly informed that a party of Americans had arrived. I wired this information to our people in Chungking and as it was the first they had heard of it they were even more surprised than we. The American party, consisting of men who had not been in China before, were able to pass on to them a lot of information regarding local conditions, for although they had spent five months in Chungking en route, much in the country was strange to them. They were also unused to the food. One of them, Bill, suddenly developed acute appendicitis, and our medical officer had hurriedly to perform an emergency operation with crude instruments to save his life. The operation was successful and the invalid stayed in our mess until he was stronger; his companions shot pheasant for the pot, a luxury to which we were unaccustomed as we had no shotgun. Bill had been a member of the guard on the American Embassy in London during the Blitz and he gave us descriptions of those days which were of great interest to us, as we had none of us been home at the time. It was not till May, 1943, that all our affairs were settled and we then left our new American friends with real regret. Several of them had been through our Commando schools in England, had seen something of England at war, and understood some of the difficulties", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212660, "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-1991", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "195\n\nAgain according to folk memory pirates under Ts'ai Ch'ien raided the coasts of Taiwan plundering the towns from as far south as Lukang, up the coast to Tamsui, Keelung, Su-ao and even sailing up river to Manka [present day Taipei). However, strange to say they never attempted to loot the prosperous port of Lukang, possibly to avoid upsetting the merchants there who were already paying \"Danegeld\", and thereby provoking a major campaign against them, or because the pirates spent much of their time hiding along the coastal strip to the south of Lukang. Ts'ai Ch'ien provided the opportunity for Wang to take his place in history, as has been described above, when Wang, at the age of 37, killed the pirate leader and destroyed his fleet in 1808.\n\nIn 1842, during the First Opium War when it was feared that the British might attack and occupy the Pescadores islands, Wang, despite being 72, was asked to take charge of the fortifications. He died shortly after arriving there.\n\nThe large ancestral painting of Wang in the Clan temple portrays him sitting on a chair covered by a tiger skin, the finials of the chair's arms carved into dragon's heads. He is dressed in Court robes with a winter cap, a flared mandarin collar and a mandarin's string of beads. His rank is depicted by the button on his cap and the square on his chest; however, the badge shows a form of dragon, which is only worn by members of the extended royal family, or under certain circumstances by Imperial Censors, whilst his cap button is plain coral as worn by the first class of mandarin. His honour, the Peacock Feather with double eye is clearly shown. He has a white moustache and goatee beard and a thin, aged face. There is no indication that he was a military official, rather it would seem he was a civil mandarin.\n\nAlthough his wife by rights should have had the same chest badge as her husband, the mandarin square in her ancestral painting is not only a civil badge, with a crane denoting a first class mandarin, but the bird is facing in the wrong direction. In practice, however, bird emblems were common to wives of both civil and military officials. These items suggest that the paintings were made many years after Wang and wife had died, and that the artisan who did the work was unacquainted with the niceties of rank, working as he probably did in the wilds of central Taiwan on numerous ancestral paintings for 'nobodies'.\n\nOne final story about the importance of Wang to the people of Taiwan is patently untrue but reflects how folk tales become garbled with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212721, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "'Union'. There was no indication that either Mesny or Kahler realized the implication behind the extraordinary ugliness of the emperor nor that the print had anti-Manchu secret society connotations.\n\nThe only time Mesny refers to photography was when Pickerell, his friend in Hankow in about 1864/5 who knew something of the rudiments of the art, 'then very imperfectly understood,' added Mesny, had produced some very good negatives and positives on glass of his Chinese employers. This spread Pickerell's fame and brought him lots of business. The colodion gave out and none was to be obtained at any price. Mesny tells us in his Miscellany that he knew how to make it and produced some which served the purpose until a supply could be obtained from Hong Kong. This yet again highlights the enigma of how did Mesny keep abreast with European and American business and scientific advances whilst in remote parts of China, and how did he, at the age of 22 or 23, in the heart of China, having left Jersey some ten years earlier, know anything about photography and in particular the constituents of colodion and how to make it?\n\nThe illustrations provided by the Jersey Post Office on the commemorative stamps are interesting illustrations of how the present day artist imagined Mesny and his surroundings. They should therefore be regarded as fanciful representations rather than accurate depictions. Mesny, for example, at no time appears to have worn the square badge of the civil official as portrayed in the illustration with Governor Chang. Again, he was never a 'Mandarin first class', he was a 'military official second class.' Finally, at no stage did he ever refer to himself at 'the River Gate.' Every walled town down the Yangtze would have had one but Mesny, himself, never mentioned the term and again, to our knowledge, was not on the Yangtze in 1874.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe Manchu dynasty was actually descended from the Jürchen, the so-called Golden Horde. The Manchus in China were neither Mongol nor even, strictly speaking, autochthonous Manchus but Jürchen conquerors from Manchuria\n\n1 Balleine G R: A Biographical Dictionary of Jersey Staples Press: London\n\nReady O: Life and Sport in China London. 1904\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212728, "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": 37, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "22\n\nAlthough from several of his comments in his Miscellany Mesny would appear to have remained a God-fearing Christian, at one point, he confessed that he had grown up with a strong inclination to sinfulness and, he continued, in 1865 he had added to his gallantries the vicious habits of gambling and drinking having just lost his 'fair charmer,' a Chinese widow. However, 'having lost my fear of God and drifted from the narrow path that leadeth unto salvation,' fortunately, he wrote, the Revs. Josiah Cox and Griffith John, Dr John Falconer and Wm Grant Gordon never forsook him. They gave him good advice and showed good examples which he followed. His fall from grace appears to have been of short duration and was never again referred to.\n\nHe made the point several times that he was a Christian believer and, for example, he began a lengthy paragraph with the sentences, 'From my earliest departure from home in 1854 unto the present day [1896] the Holy Bible has been my constant companion, and the Lord God Almighty has been my refuge and strong tower, and I have had much reason to praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever. The VIII Psalm, and more especially the 4th and 5th verses of that Psalm, also the 1st and 2nd verses of the IX Psalm, have been very appropriate to my personal experience at various times and at various places.' He continued in this vein for the rest of the paragraph, ending with ‘Of late years I have often had reason to apply the prayer of David to my humble self as it is given in Psalm LXXXVI.’\n\nIn a card sent by him in his last year he referred to himself not only as a friend of China but also a 'Student of Primitive Christianity and Christian Science.'\n\nMesny recounted at some length, as was his wont, the cleansing of the soul of a very wild Liverpudlian who roamed the Yangtze in his lorcha and took great pleasure in killing any Chinese with his great sword in revenge for the great harm they had caused him. The Liverpudlian called on Mesny some time in the early 1860s and finding him kneeling in his daily devotions joined him, and begged Mesny first to say a prayer for him. He then asked to be purified and absolved. Mesny did as he requested and the Liverpudlian 'went away very much changed. He came boldly as a lion and departed timid as a sheep.' Mesny heard later that the Liverpudlian had disappeared from the river [the Yangtze] and was never heard of again.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212730, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "24\n\nin 1884. He also claimed to have produced several minor booklets, one on Yunnan and another on Tonkin, and one article in the Royal Asian Society North China Branch Journal in 1891 on 'Yunnan: Its Treasures and Trade Routes'. He planned to incorporate the two booklets into what he saw as his magnum opus 'The Greater China' which unfortunately never saw the light of day.\n\nHe wrote a very long letter on the Yellow River and its appearances, published in 1887 in Indian Engineering, describing the different places where he had sailed on or had crossed it.\n\nMesny and Chiang Chao-ling, under noms-de-plume, produced in Shanghai in February 1898 'A New Collection of Tracts for the Times', with Mesny editing and Chiang writing the introduction. It was reviewed in the North China Daily News of 23 July 1898. Mesny and Chiang had planned some ten years earlier to publish a monthly magazine in 1887 which would seem never to have taken off.\n\nMesny wrote a lengthy account of his journey from Canton through Kuangsi in 1879 for the London Daily News, but 'this very influential and highly respectable journal did not consider my poor contribution sufficiently interesting to insert it in its widely read columns.'\n\nIn passing when describing a 'celebrated heroine of romance' a novelette based on facts, Mesny added, \"I wrote it all out in one of my stories 'Chinese Nights' years ago, considerably different from Mayer's [version]...,\" but Mesny leaves us no wiser about 'the stories I wrote.'\n\nIn 1904 he published Mesny's Chinese and English Almanac though no copies appear to be available nowadays.\n\n*\n\nIn 1905 he advertised two forthcoming publications, 'Mesny's Commercial Guide' and 'Mesny's Business Directory', presumably both one-off books.\n\nMesny's Ranks and Honours\n\nAlthough Mesny was awarded several decorations by the Chinese one, the Baturu, a Manchu military award for distinguished services rendered on the field of battle, was the award of which he was most intensely proud and which, he explained, had entitled the recipient to travelling", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212742, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "36 \n\nsomething more than ordinary adventure.' \n\nAgain, after a theatrical performance by a Chinese actor and actress in a provincial town in Kueichou province, Mesny wrote that local people, believing him [he was then 36] to be very old as he had a beard, knew that foreign women must be inferior; \"They must be, “they added\", as foreign men pass by but never foreign women, and foreign men marry Chinese wives.' Mesny added that he had one 'with very small feet and wears elegantly embroidered red satin shoes!' This must have been in 1878. \n\nWriting a paragraph under the heading of 'Slave Girls', Mesny noted that it was a common thing for well-to-do people to present a couple of slave girls to a daughter as part of their marriage dowry. It was also customary with respectable people to release slave girls when marriageable. Mesny added that he had bought three different girls, two in Szechuan, for a few taels each [less than 15 dollars Mexican]. One he released in Tientsin, another died in Hong Kong; the other he gave in marriage to a faithful servant of his. \n\nIn his Miscellanies he described a number of Chinese women, young and beautiful, who [or so he claimed] desired to marry him. Some he encouraged but in each instance the story peters out, others disappear out of his stories without explanation or further mention. He also had a 'romantic and intimate interlude' with a young Chinese widow, who did not appear to be short of money, and who accompanied Mesny down river to Hankow where they remained in a house near the Yamen where Mesny frequently visited her. He noted at one point that 'there was nothing like gushing love between us, but I could not fail to admire such an admirably sensible woman. What she thought was admiring in me I know not, but I know she said from the first that she required my protection. The only time that I ever noticed anything like affectionate love on her part for me was on my first visit to her after my misadventure at the Lung-wang Miao\". Then she wept. She took my head very gently between her fine hands and repeatedly kissed the fresh scars of my recent wounds... we were both silent.' Despite this, he shortly afterwards described in the Miscellany that he, Mesny, 'had been busy at work and with his friend Pickerell, and paid frequent visits to my charmer near the Tao-t'ai's Yamen. She complained of the scarcity and brevity of my visits and showed unmistakable signs of being in a condition likely to increase the already great population of the vast empire of China.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212763, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "57\n\ntaken advantage of, possibly due to the cost of reproduction in his Miscellany though more likely because he did not possess a camera during his travels.\n\n[2] Campaigning in Western China. Regrettably, despite a note in the Miscellany to the effect that he would be writing more, possibly the most interesting part, the second Kueichou campaign, he only completed the first campaign.\n\n[3] Mesny's Itinerary - from Canton to Kashgaria which was later renamed Mesny's Journeys through China (from Canton to Turkestan). This was never completed. Mesny wrote in the Miscellany that he had written an account of his journey from Canton through Kuangsi in 1879 for the London Daily News. \"This very influential and highly respectable journal did not consider my poor contribution sufficiently interesting to insert it in its widely read columns, so the useful information then written by me practically remained unpublished owing to my lack of funds until 1896 when I wrote up some of it in Mesny's Chinese Miscellany.\"\n\n[4] Varieties of Food in China [in which Mesny covers plain and exotic food and menus, eating etiquette, banquets and the production of foodstuffs such as tou-fu]\n\n[5] Progress in China [editorial essays explaining how China kept missing opportunities, and how it would have been different and better if his advice had been taken]\n\n[6] How I made my Fortune by an Old China Hand ['who is even now neither too old to row nor too heavy to ride']\n\n[7] Notes on Tibet; Mongolia; Kueichou and the Miao-tzu [and in several other places he again described Miao customs and tribal differences]; Yunnan and its Trade Routes; and Kuangsi and the West River", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212775, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "69\n\nGreen Standard forces and not so about the Lien-chün, we can assume that he was a member of, or attached to one of the Lien-chün.\n\nMesny wrote relatively short explanatory notes in the first volume of his Miscellanies on the three armies, the Army of the Huai River, the Army of the Hsiang River and the Army of Ch'u, about which he felt he had unique knowledge having served with the Chinese military.\n\n'The Huai Army, an important Field Force raised in the area drained by the River Huai, did such good service to the Imperial cause under the C-in-C Li Hung-chang, who had been wise enough to advocate and introduce the use of foreign weapons. The Ever-victorious Army, styled Chang-sheng Chün, first organised and disciplined in a foreign manner by General Ward and subsequently rendered so famous under the command of General Gordon, was the principal corps of this army, and consisted of 5,000 men all told. The Ming-tzu Ying, another corps of the same army, raised by General and later Governor Liu Ming-ch'uan, and disciplined by General Pinel and Colonel Lucas, though senior to the Ever-victorious was, however, secondary in importance at the time' [but still existed when Mesny was writing this in 1895].\n\nAt no time did Mesny allude to a general staff in the sense we understand it today. This raises the question what did the Force have by way of what we now call an operations staff or department? Nor did Mesny refer to staff officers responsible for the organisation of manpower or materials; and although he mentioned procurement officers and a staff of officers surrounding the General commanding to carry out his bidding, 'operations' as such, the most crucial aspect of an army's functioning was kept strictly in the hands of the Szechuan force C-in-C. It would appear that military operations in their wider sense were directed by civil mandarins who were more interested in cost cutting than in the direction of the campaign, whereas the military officers, who grade for grade were very much the juniors to the civil mandarins, were responsible for the day to day running of the various forces.\n\nForward planning was always limited by financial constraints. Arms and ammunition, rations and reinforcements had to be reviewed and planned well in advance, but with the attitude of the Viceroy in Ch'eng-tu [according to Mesny] and the restraints imposed by him little could ever be expected to be achieved.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212778, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "72\n\nbasic elements of the social network and were such obvious facts of life that Chinese took them for granted and did not think of them as in any way unusual.\n\nThe Army of the Hsiang was an important Field Force raised in Hunan, especially in the area of the Hsiang River, a sort of counter-balance to the Huai River Army, raised about the same time for the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in the valley of the Yangtze and elsewhere. The Marquis Tseng Kuo-fan was the C-in-C of the Hsiang-chün consisting of Hunan troops which had at first been designated as the Ch'u-chün or Army of Ch'u, a name derived from the ancient state of Ch'u, which comprised the provinces of Hunan and Hupei, as well as other provinces including the whole or part of Anhui and Honan. The Ch'u-chün was commanded by Tso Tsung-t'ang. The Hsiang Army was divided into several army corps or divisions, each numbering from ten to twenty, or even thirty battalions each of five hundred men. Each corps had a distinct designation or appellation, derived from the locality where it was actually organised or from the name or part of the name of the commander of the particular corps. One corps however, the principal one, was styled the Hsiang-ying from its having been organised in the prefecture of Changsha Fu on the banks of the Hsiang River. When more corps were required, however, the name Hsiang-chün was brought into use as with the Huai-chün, to represent all the corps of each army.”\n\nAlthough Mesny obliquely mentioned a higher command, the Ministry of War in Peking, regrettably he did not offer any information which would explain the subordination and chain of command other than telling us that the commander of the Szechuan Force, General T'ang, took his orders from the Viceroy of Szechuan and obtained supplies and funding, when they were forthcoming, from the Szechuanese provincial authorities in Ch'eng-tu.\n\nThe plan now was for the main body of the Ko-i Brigade to advance and occupy the city of Chung-an [Szu] on the Chung-an River by way of Ta-ngai and Chung-pai (later renamed Chung-sheng), whilst another element of the brigade would advance and occupy Huang-p'ing Hsin-chou [New Town].\n\nThe advance began on 18 March 1869. Several days later Chung-an had been occupied and fortified, as had Huang-p'ing New Town. Chung-an was overlooked by hills and mountains occupied by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212839, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "133\n\nif we did not stay. They were not merely glad to see us because we were British; they hoped we would be able to arrange reimbursement to them for the cost of feeding the Chinese troops. At Nancha I had been most embarrassed by my large escort, which even after the subtraction of the men who were sent to accompany Stan on his reconnaissance, still numbered twenty; they ate at the headman's table and, when I offered to pay, the situation became difficult because it set a precedent inconvenient to the Chinese. Percy refused to allow me to pay, and I had to get around it by making a gift to the headman of some packets of needles that I had brought from India. Needles were very scarce and correspondingly valuable, and these particular packets had got wet when a truculent bullock had kicked off my box into a river, the day before we reached Nancha.\n\nAt the moment the Chinese troops in Kokang did not number many. The battalion had long since been withdrawn from the south, where the Japanese had established a bridgehead across the Salween at Kunlong. Of the fifteen other ferries in Kokang, six faced north across to Chinese territory. Over there the Chinese maintained guerilla forces behind the Japanese lines, and they had small guards on this side at the ferries, perhaps a hundred men in all. These troops sometimes brought in their own rice, of which Kokang was short, but they relied on the headmen to produce the rest of their supplies, cooking oil, vegetables, salt, and pork. In Kokang they fed better than in China, a small advantage which no one could begrudge them in view of the terrible hardships the Chinese troops had to endure, but it came hard on the Kokang villages. I was glad to learn that nominal prices had been fixed by the Chinese, after our arrival, though at much below current market costs, and that at any rate sometimes these were actually paid. The Chinese also called for free transport from the villages, and at Nancha the headman frequently had to produce plain clothes, taken off the backs of the all too scantily clothed people, for the use of Chinese troops crossing the river to join the guerillas on the far side. There, as in Eastern China, most of the guerillas were disguised as local inhabitants. There was nothing I could do about all this, except to suggest to the headmen that they carefully keep any receipts issued to them by the Chinese officers for supplies taken.\n\nIn Burma before the war paper rupees had largely displaced silver coins; but in these conservative border districts paper was not welcome, and silver coins were preferred. Of course, the paper money of the Burma", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212842, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "136\n\nme whether I was afraid I would be arrested and carried off in the same way! It was because of the Lopez incident that for a long time some of the most useful men in Kokang, intimidated by Chinese threats, did not dare to work for us.\n\nAt Hsintang we occupied the thatched wooden building which the people of the village had erected for Lopez and in which he had been surrounded and arrested. It had two stories, with three small rooms on each floor, and packed into these rooms were no less than twenty beds, in layers. Though small, the building could thus house the whole of our party. All the furniture was made of bamboo, the beds, the steps leading to the upper storey, the stools on which we sat, and the table off which we ate. In the centre room below, Lopez had installed a mud fireplace, where of an evening we lit a fire, because here we must have been somewhere about 7,000 or 8,000 feet up and the nights were bitterly cold. The chimney, a hollowed bamboo over which we had to throw water every now and then, was unsatisfactory and the smoke hung about the top floor to the discomfort of those trying to sleep above.\n\nOur wireless was a great asset; it made such a contrast to the isolation which had been our lot when in eastern China. We could send and receive signals, and by laying the headphones in a tin basin, we could make a near-enough imitation of a loud-speaker to sit by and listen when the news came in. It was about this time that the Japanese made their desperate attack on the British at Imphal in an attempt to cut the railway, which supplied General Stilwell's Chinese divisions; in this attempt they were to exhaust themselves, and open Burma to reoccupation by the Allies. A little later General Wingate's second l.r.p.g. - long range penetration group - operations were launched. We were later to discover that the withdrawal of Japanese troops from all along the Salween to meet Wingate's threat offered an explanation of why they failed to raid across the river to disperse us.\n\nStan rejoined us, reporting that there was no flat territory in central Kokang, but that he found a hill slope which would do well enough as a dropping zone. The slope was near the large village of Lunghtang, two days march south, and we prepared to move there. The country became more open; the jungle on the mountain slopes was replaced by long grass. We passed herds of brood mares, with their young. The Myosa in the past had been the contractor for the supply of mules to the Burma Government; we were passing the breeding centres. A lonely", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212854, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "148\n\nboiled water for the coffee was needed. I had hired mules and muleteers for the trip from our circle headman, to avoid the delay caused by changing animals daily on the way. The rains were just starting and I was anxious to get through before the mule tracks became impassable. We moved by short cuts through the mountains. In many places the track was less than a foot wide; it would slope outwards towards the edge, where the mountain fell away almost sheer. When it was raining, and the path slippery, I did not like it; I often got off my pony and walked. But the pony was very sure-footed; he would scramble like a cat over the more slippery places, and after a time I got used to it and no longer bothered to dismount. It was so uncomfortable to come back to a wet saddle.\n\nThe Chinese Expeditionary Force had commenced to attack across the Salween north of Kokang towards Tengchung and Lungling. As we followed the Salween to Paoshan we could hear the sound of the shelling. At several places we came across small Sino-American battle patrols, waiting to cross the river and join in, and when I struck the Burma road, south of Paoshan, the Americans kindly gave me a lift in a jeep. At Paoshan the lorry sent from Kun-ming to meet us was waiting.\n\nOur party in Kokang were short of cigarettes, sugar, and flour, and it was the intention to buy a stock of these in Paoshan, load them onto my mules, and send them back with Rogue. On our way out we had not once been asked for a pass by the Chinese troops; indeed we had none. I left Rogue in the hands of the British Assistant Military Attaché at Paoshan, who thought he would have no difficulty in getting passes for the return passage to Kokang. But he was mistaken; the passes were refused. Three weeks later when I left Kun-ming for India Rogue was still waiting for his pass and our people in Kokang were still waiting for their supplies.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213147, "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-1993", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "197\n\nconditions, under which the pickets contented themselves with exacting 'squeeze' from the local trade over the border1. Administrative Reports for the Year 1925, Appendix J, \"Report on the New Territories for the Year 1925\", p. J2. In Administrative Reports for the Year 1926, App J, \"Report on the New Territories for 1926\", p. J3, the District Officer notes that the fishermen in Mirs Bay suffered particularly seriously from the boycott, as they were unable to fish except close inshore, because of the \"disturbed conditions”.\n\nThese Communist guerrillas had appeared in various parts of the East River area since at least 1925. They were the direct descendants of the rebels who had operated near Yim Tin in the first decade of the century, and were closely related to the groups who took over the Hoi-Luk Fung area to form the \"Hoi-Luk Fung Soviet\" on three separate occasions between 1925 and 1928. They were the original nucleus of the \"East River Guerrillas\" of the war years and just after.\n\n40 The agreement specified that goods for the guerrillas would be treated as duty-free.\n\n41 Juntonghanguan Bainian Dashup, op cit passim.\n\n42. The son of the executed man had committed a robbery in the market, and left a \"paper\" at the scene of the crime which implicated him. He had fled back to his home near Yim Tin, where the soldiers could not get at him. So they took the father and shot him instead, behind the Man To Temple in the market, in the presence of most of the district's young people. The fact that the son fled to the rebel-held area, and the \"paper\" left at the scene, suggests that the robbery was politically motivated, and the execution, too.\n\n43 Shatoupaode Lishe, op cit.\n\n44 Administrative Reports for the Year 1910, Appendix I, \"Report on the New Territories\", p. 16. The bulk of the Sha Tau Kok marketing district was in the New Territories, and there was a satellite market at Yim Tin, which could service the part of the marketing district in China if the Sha Tau Kok market did cross the frontier.\n\n45 Administrative Reports for the Year 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, Appendices J, pp. J8 (and Table IV), J3, J2, and J17 (and Table IX), respectively.\n\n46 Administrative Reports for the Year 1937, Appendix J, pp. J7-10. \"The typhoon of September the 2nd will long be remembered in the eastern parts of this District, where it caused much damage and suffering. Unfortunately, the height of the gale coincided with a very high tide, so that the swollen waters of Mirs Bay were driven with double force westward up Starling Inlet, whence they had no outlet. The sea rose, about 2-5 am, in places 20 feet and more higher than it had been known to rise for many decades. The resultant damage was astonishing. All round the shores of Starling Inlet roads, bridges, paths, piers, and bunds were breached and broken up, and buildings overthrown.\n\nAll the big bunds on Starling Inlet were [almost wholly overthrown].\n\nCasualties were heavy, about 100 in \"Brush\" Sha Tau Kok.\n\nAt Sha Tau Kok the Officer in Charge of the Police Station displayed initiative in [getting the dead buried, animal corpses burned, and obstructions cleared] and in arranging for a supply of rice and peanut oil from Kowloon, which broke a ring at Sha Tau Kok Market who had greatly raised the prices of these two.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213317, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "120\n\nThe First China War was the culmination of many years of irksome restraint. The British, as did other nations, objected strongly to being treated and listed with Burma, Vietnam and Korea as tribute bearers. The immediate cause was the destruction of all the opium in Canton brought in by foreigners and in 1840 the Chinese fleet attacked a British warship, followed by, amongst other incidents, Canton being bombarded by the British, and the war was on. Palmerston was Prime Minister in Britain during this, the First China War, now possibly better known as the first of the two Opium Wars. It began with a desultory naval engagement and little further happened until Major General Sir Hugh Gough arrived from Madras in March of 1841. The British plan was, first, to capture Chusan island off the coast of Chekiang to use as a pawn in the demand for Chinese agreements to British demands. This proved to be a futile gesture and during 1841 and 1842 British forces, with the continued aim of pressuring the Chinese into legitimising foreign trade within China, proceeded to attack several ports one after the other up the China coast, creeping ever further north towards the capital of Peking, causing the Chinese greater apprehension about the future. The campaign eventually ended with the imminent attack on Nanking, the former capital situated on the Yangtze in central China, avoided last minute by the agreement by the Chinese finally to the terms of a treaty signed in August 1842. One of the attacks on the China coast was on the then city of Chapu, which was to be followed up with an attack on Hangchou.\n\nChapu had a tolerable harbour, with a great rise and fall of tide, so much so that the smaller junks were left high and dry at low water. Together with its suburbs the town, perhaps five miles in circuit built in a square and intersected by numerous canals, lay about half a mile from the coast. The Reverend Gutzlaff in his third voyage up the China coast in January 1833 arrived in Chapu and described the surrounding countryside as the Chinese Arcadia with nothing able to exceed its beautiful and picturesque appearance. He further described the canals, neat roads, plantations and conspicuous buildings, adding that the whole country (of China) from the Yellow River south was flat until one came to the high lands which formed the harbour of Chapu city. The sea, he added, was receding from the land and flats had formed along the shore, visible at low water and constituting a barrier to the whole coast. Gutzlaff found nowhere so much openness and kindness, the (residents') intelligent questions respecting Britain were endless with them never seeming to be satiated with (British) company.\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213441, "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-1995", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "then considering whether the New Territories should be exempted from the application of any legislation in force in Hong Kong in 1898. The Attorney General apparently took the view that as regards any English law in force in the Colony such an exemption would not arise, since it would be exempted from application to the New Territories by the first provision of section 7 of the Supreme Court Ordinance, 1873, even though that particular law might not be inapplicable to the circumstances and the inhabitants of the Colony of Hong Kong. In other words, he does not appear to have been looking at the theoretical needs of the inhabitants of the area along the south bank of the Shum Chun River in 1843, which area later became the New Territories in 1898, but at their requirements at the time he considered the matter in December 1898.\n\nA former Solicitor General of Hong Kong has drawn attention to the distinction between the provisions of what is now section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance and of what is now section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance. To this matter, it will be necessary to revert later when we consider the customary law on particular subjects. It is, however, fitting to observe at this point that the legislature in enacting section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance did not specify the date for the recognition of \"Chinese custom or customary right affecting such land.” The plain meaning of the words, it is submitted, leads one to the conclusion that the Chinese customary law to be so recognised and enforced is that which affects the land at the time of the hearing of the proceedings. The legislature must be presumed to have been logical; it would be unlikely to select modern Chinese customary law for application in land cases and the Law of the Manchu Ts'ing Dynasty obtaining in the Province of Kwangtung in 1843 or in 1899 for application in other proceedings arising in the New Territories. Here again, it is submitted, is an additional argument in support of the view that in all types of proceedings, both those involving land and otherwise, the Chinese customary law applicable, if it is to be applied, is modern Chinese customary law obtaining in the New Territories.\n\nHaving so defined the date for recognition of Chinese customary law, the question then arises as to what that Chinese customary law comprises. In 1911, that question was difficult to answer, and we may with advantage digress a moment to consider the words of the Chief Justice delivering the judgment of the Full Court in the case of LI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213484, "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-1995", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "48\n\nThe Jujube-red colored Face\n\nGenerally this signifies a person of high morality, loyal to friends, trustworthy, who would rather die than betray a friend. Usually when Kwan Yu (or Kwan Yuin-ch'ang) appears on the stage, he would have such a face. Kwan Yu was the Minister of War in the Minor Han Dynasty, A.D. 221-263.\n\nWhen you have a chance to visit a local Police Station, you will find that the police worship an immortal with a red face, in full battle regalia, with his sword. He was Kwan Yu, being respected because he was a faithful servant.\n\nThe Black Faced Man, with little white streaks\n\nMen of great courage, brilliant minds, men with guts. If he is a civil official, he would make a good judge. If he is a fighting man, he would be a brave general, quick tempered, and always ready to fight.\n\nThe Mottled Faces\n\n(Red base with black and white streaks): Always brilliant, loyal and trustworthy. If he is an ordinary citizen, he would rob the rich to help the poor like Robin Hood,\n\nThe White Face\n\nSignifying craft, cunning, always scheming for self benefit. Would sell his friend down the river.\n\nThe Funny Man\n\nThis is a man with something like a turtle, painted in the centre of his face, around his eyes. This could be a bad person, or else he could be an ordinary man with no special talent.\n\nTwo things should always be remembered:\n\n(1) This is a general hint or idea. There are always exceptions. (2) Painted faces are limited to men only.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213486, "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-1995", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "50 \n\nto the new comers? I have come up with four logical reasons: \n\n(1) In the actor's psychology, his role on the stage is to entertain, and as long as he can keep the audience amused, everything will be O.K. Sometimes, he forgets, as when he puts his whims and fantasies into practice, and he throws logic out of the window. \n\n(2) The theatrical people may be inclined to think that the audience's mind cannot be rushed. The action has to be brought about in such a way that they can gradually grasp the meaning and importance of the story being told. \n\n(3) One way to highlight the importance of the story is to prolong the time of the fighting scene. In other words, the more you fight, the more important that fight will be. \n\nThings can turn sour if you run counter with this theme. Take, for instance, the following example which amply proves my point: \n\nIn the play \"Jie Dong Feng\" (f) which literally means \"Praying For The East Wind\", people spend hours acting out the story that leads to the \"The Battle Of The Red Cliff” (EZ). The story has it that strategists of both the Wu (R) and the Shu (S) States are scheming how to defeat the mighty Wei State's fleet that was anchored on the upper reach of the Yangtze River. Since the Wu's forces were in the lower reach of the Yangtze River, they needed the \"East Wind\", in gale force, to help them to win. \n\nWell, when the East gale force winds do come, you would expect that thousands upon thousands of soldiers would throw flaming arrows across the sky aimed at the Wei's fleet, which was tricked to join together with iron chains by internal spies. Then, when the fleet was destroyed and the smoldering ships were cold enough to board, the Wu and Shu strategists would send soldiers to mop up and put a finishing touch to it. \n\nNothing of the sort happened! What they did was to send a couple of men, with maybe two dozen arrows (not even the flame carrying ones), and throw them in the direction of the enemy. Before you even knew it, the war was over! What an anticlimax! So everyone who sat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213506, "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-1995", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "70\n\nof that street is practically shut up. The mortality here was very great. The inhabitants were principally night-soil coolies and almost all died. The occupants of houses in Third Street, adjoining this were also numerously attacked \" (Lowson, 1895, P5)\n\nIn 1895, plague cases were found centred in First Street and several streets not far from the Civil Hospital. In 1902, a group of cases were discovered round Pokfulam Road and Second Street. Infected rats were also found in that area.\n\nAfter the breaking out of the plague, thousands of panic-stricken people began to leave Hong Kong. They left in every sort of conveyance: sampans, boats, junks, and river steamers. People of Sai Ying Pun could also leave by ambulance boats, which came to the China Merchants Wharf at 4 p.m. each day, on which the people were towed to Whampoa or Canton. At 1901, the population of the district was 44,722, a decrease of 848 people when compared with the 1897 figure.\n\nDr Lowson in 1895 and Dr Simpson in 1902 had both made a number of strong recommendations as to the measures which should be enforced to prevent further outbreaks of bubonic plague. According to them, back-to-back houses should be demolished. Basements should not be inhabited. Disinfected or rat-ridden houses should be either closed or walled in or thoroughly sprayed, fumigated, chlorinated, scrubbed, and lime-washed. Latrines and public markets should be maintained by the authorities in a clean condition.\n\nThe last recommendation was particularly important to the district. A latrine in the Sai Ying Pun Market was situated only three yards distant from a large quantity of meat which was often hanging for hours at a time. On the other hand, hot water tanks and bath houses, for the purposes of promoting cleanliness among the Chinese and thus preventing the spread of plague among them, were established in Second and Third Streets in 1903. A Public Health and Building Ordinance was passed in order to better sanitary conditions in Hong Kong. Unlike Tai Ping Shan district, Sai Ying Pun was excluded from schemes of resumption. However, at that time, most of the houses in Sai Ying Pun did need destruction and resumption rather than improvement of the sanitary arrangements. Actually, a few areas in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213785, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "108\n\n#2\n\nincluded the rite for Fengchao itself. Towards the end of the Guangxu period (1875-1908) a sang magician, reportedly holder of an imperial degree, of the Zijin county where we had the report of ordination in the 17th Century, created secular songs and performed them after the rituals. The entertainment is known as Hua Zhao Opera, which became an independent genre probably around 1950.83\n\nFengchao rituals were performed for the groom before his wedding to ensure that his sons would have no deficiency. Villagers concerned seem to believe that deficiency is otherwise likely. In the case of Cheng Tau, where I witnessed a performance of the rite in 1981, there is a deformed boy in the family, and I happen to know that in a village just next to it there was a male child who suffered from what appears to be Down's Syndrome. In the Cheng Tau rite the priest's assistant joked with the deformed boy saying that if he is to get married the rite will be performed for him for free. I remember being told that the rite was not celebrated in Cheng Tau during an earlier period, probably since the communist uprising of the 1960s. If the deformed child was born after that period the villagers would be easily convinced again that the rite was necessary. At Ping Yeung I was told that if the rite is not performed, the slaughtering of pigs for the wedding would have to take place in a \"far away\" place, suggesting that the rite can be omitted. The informant added that when there were two or more sons in a family, the rite should be performed for at least one of them.\n\n34\n\nWhile not found in all Hakka villages, there seemed to be a large number of them who did have this tradition. According to the ritual expert hired to perform this rite, such villages in the New Territories include So Lo Pun, Kat O, Hung Ling, the Chens of Ping Yeung, the Pengs of Cheng Tau, the Lis of Ha Hang, the Zhengs of Shan Tau Kok, and the Zhengs of Lin Au, among them many probably had stopped the practice at the time of my interview in 1981.** Villages who had stopped having the rite performed include the Lis of Shuen Wan, the Nans of Shatin (probably Pai Tau or Wo Che, which are known to have some villagers of this surname). Many places had stopped the practice since the Japanese war when ritual specialists were not available. He knew that the same practice was found also in nearby Yantian, and Xiangshan and Shiqi in the Pearl River Delta area in the mainland.\n\nBesides the implication by the brief passage in the Gazetteer of\n\n}\n\n!\n\n:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213812, "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "136\n\nWe coasted along, and could only move by using the sweeps behind, and the six oars in front. Capt Drummond and I took each an oar, and had a long pull. Just before we entered \"Deep water Bay\" we found the tide had turned and the current was dead against us. So we came to anchor, and the other accompanying ships did the same, all near each other, for fear of pirates. When the anchor is cast the boy who attends to the Religious ceremonies, ascends the poop with a roll of paper which he lights and waves to and fro and then throws overboard. Then the gongs began to ring at a fine rate, to frighten away the evil spirits, and at last the shouts of the men gradually died away in the stillness of the night; and only an occasional shout was heard from the distant shore from the huts of the fishermen, who were boiling their nets in very large coppers.\n\nWe had previously taken tea, and Mr Lechler had addressed the passengers in the hold: and then, it being late we prepared to turn in for the night. We had our evening devotion, and as we knelt on the deck in the moonlight, and listened to the voice of prayer, breaking the stillness of the waters, in the sight and hearing of the heathen around us, I felt a sensation which words cannot describe. Then as we rose and sang \"From all that dwell below the skies,\" there was something so soothing, so comforting in the music, that as the last notes died away in the distance, and all was calm and still, I felt transfixed to the spot. \"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,\" and never did I feel its power more than on this occasion.\n\nMessrs Irwin and Drummond slept on the deck, while I tried to sleep down below in the small box, with Lechler. But sleep I could not. A tooth began to ache, and gradually increased to such an extent that at 1 o'clock I got up, and went round to the man on the watch and all the Chinamen I could find, to beg a morsel of tobacco to put into it. At last one fellow gave me a piece, which though it did not prevent the pain, yet gave me so much relief that I got nearly an hour's sleep. At 3 o'clock the tide turned and we again got under weigh, after which there was no more sleep for me. The night before, I was up till after two o'clock writing for the Bishop: so that I was quite worn out.\n\nThe wind was against us, what little there was, and so we had to scull and row all the way. At daylight we were entering the river, and after a good wash, and breakfast, we were ready for action. The men", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213813, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "137\n\nwere all tired so for exercise we took an oar to help them. We had several shots at the birds, principally teal. One great bird sat on a bush, and as we rounded a point, we got close to it. Two of them shot at it, and the thing did not move; after a minute or two it got up and flew away, much to the chagrin of the marksmen. We were gradually getting into closer quarters, and at every turn the river grew narrower. We were also getting nearer the abodes of man. At last we swept round and came to a village, where, through the shallowness of the water, we were forced to disembark, since the tide was very low. All round was nothing but immense oyster shells, in immense heaps. Some apparently very old. One would think that from the time of Mathuselah the inhabitants had fed upon nothing else but oysters. We got ashore, and off we started since we had a long walk before us. We met a man with about 1000 ducks, and I levelled a two-barrelled gun at the lot, and asked the fellow how much he would let me have a shot at them for. He was fearfully frightened, and I was obliged to tell him I was only doing so for fun.\n\nWe went through this village, and as we went through the principal street it was like a grand circus procession in England. Five of the Western barbarian foreign devils, fully armed, and followed by about 10 servants, was a sight many had never seen before. They certainly seemed to know how to make good use of their eyes, and I warrant they will never forget us in a hurry.\n\nAt last we got clear of the town and were hurrying along across the country to walk to Sam-chun. On all sides were large covered jars, or what in Kent would be called \"covered crocks,\" glazed on the outside, and standing in rows of from four to ten, at every few hundred yards. These contain the remains of Chinamen, who have been buried, and according to custom, have been exhumed, as soon as the flesh was decomposed. These jars no one ever dares to touch, much more to violate or desecrate. The mischievous urchins anywhere in England would have had a \"Cock shy\" at them, and not a jar would stand many days like that, on the road side, with plenty of nice smooth stones, made apparently on purpose to \"shy\" at them, and no one near to see or know. But Chinese boys never are up to such things. From infancy they are taught to venerate and respect, yes, and to worship the dead, and this superstition prevails over what perhaps would otherwise be as great a propensity in them as in England.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213819, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "143\n\nunder weigh, and went down the river like a dart. The wind and tide were in our favour. We took our tea, and the night came on very bitter cold. I wrapped up in my deci skin, which was very serviceable, and I was laughed at by the Chinamen who called me \"The red flower spotted butterfly\". As we tacked out of the river the ship rolled, and I felt rather funny. Towards midnight we were rolling very considerably and I had to get up on the sly and pay that tribute to Neptune which she always exacts from landsmen, who are not used to the sea. About 3 o'clock we came to anchor in the Kap shui moon, and there we were till about nine, when we managed to steer out as the tide turned, and got soon into a fresh breeze which took us off to Green island, then we tacked again and came round into the harbour. I felt glad to get ashore again after so much of knocking about and want of sleep. Fortunately Stringer's dog neither got shot nor eaten, although it was threatened over and over again. I was glad enough to get into a sort of tub and get on shore the best way I could, with Irwin and Lechler, and reached home after 75 hours absence, in safety.\n\nAlthough I did not immediately feel the benefits of the voyage, I did so afterwards and hope to make another similar trip some day or other. My whole expenses were just over 5 dollars, and I saw what would cost any of you “Western barbarians” at least a couple of Hundred Pounds sterling.\n\nThe next night I went to bed early, and slept on till quite late next day, to make up for lost time. The officious man I took with me had put Mr Eitel's large feather pillow and two of his shirts and other items belonging to the others in my box, so that when we got to Hong Kong, I was puzzled to know what had been done. The beauty of the thing was this, that the fellow seemed to think he had done a capital thing for me, and said \"you have gained by me\". Poor Eitel sent word to know if I wanted to be like the magpie that borrowed the feathers of other birds to improve its own plumage - since I had gone off with his feather pillows and shirts. They all tease me finely about it and it will be a joke for a while to come.\n\nI ought to have mentioned sooner how the house was attacked at Li-long by about 50 robbers.* They threw in \"stink-pots\" as they are called, and tried to enter, to rob them, about 2½ months ago. But the Chinese cook gave the alarm, and shot a man who had got up the balcony.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214107, "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-1997", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "144\n\ncollected history of the enclave.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nBrito, R. de S.: 1962, Imagens de Macau Agencia General do Ultramar, Lisboa\n\nDuncan, C.: 1987, \"Development of Macau's City Landscape\" in Macau, City of Commerce and Culture R.D. Cremer, ed. UEA Press, Hong Kong\n\nHong Kong Museum of Art: 1996, Views of the Pearl River Delta Urban Council of Hong Kong, Hong Kong\n\nHurley, R.C.: 1898, Tourist Guide to Canton and Macau Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei, reprinted 1973\n\nPires, B.V.: 1987, \"Origins and Early History of Macau\" in Macau, City of Commerce and Culture R. D. Cremer, ed. UEA Press, Hong Kong\n\nPrescott J.A.: 1993, editor Macaensis Momentum Hewell Publications, Macau\n\nSeurre, J.: 1996, “Macau 1996: the Die is Cast\" China Perspectives No. 4, March/April\n\nWang W.J.: 1997 “Is There a Plaza in Chinese Public Space\" in Proceedings of The Second International Symposium on Asia Pacific Architecture: The Making of Public Places, Hawaii\n\nWoodward, C.: 1992, Barcelona Manchester University Press, Manchester", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214131, "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-1997", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "170\n\nlocated. The Seventh Day Adventist Church, which stands at numbers 6-8 on the tree-lined Sun Yat-sen Road (formerly part of Tung Sui Road), was on the site of a building used during the war years as an officers mess (see Plate III). The clinic, which now stands at No. 28 Shui Dong Kai (Water East Street), is on the site where a 'hospital' and the BAAG headquarters were situated during World War Two. Then, Huizhou stood in a kind of ‘no-man's-land'. It was not part of 'Free China' nor was it really in Japanese occupied territory. But the Japanese did make regular incursions into the city which was an undercover centre for Chinese guerillas and the British Army Aid Group.\n\nMembers of the Allied Forces would occasionally escape from prisoner-of-war camps in Hong Kong and make their way, with the help of Chinese guerillas, to Sai Kung. From there they would sail over to the coast of China and proceed on up to Huizhou to link up with the 'East River Column' of guerillas. After rest and medical attention escapees would make their way to the hinterland and Free China proper. Huizhou was well positioned as an escape route which was provided by a road network, of sorts, and the East River which flows along to the Bocca Tigris in the Pearl River Delta.\n\n5\n\nMen who managed to escape included Colonel Anthony Hewitt (at the time Captain) of the ‘Die-Hards', the Middlesex Regiment, who gave a talk in November 1996, to the RASHKB entitled 'The Defence of Leighton Hill during the 1941 Battle for Hong Kong'. Colonel L.T. Ride also escaped to set up and head the British Army Aid Group. Sir Lindsay, who was Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1949 to 1964, was also a founder member of the RASHKB, in 1960, when it was reestablished. He was President of our Branch from 1969 to 1972.\n\nAlthough members of our RAS Group saw a considerable amount of new building as we drove from Shenzhen to Huizhou on that November day in 1997, one was struck by the number of walled villages and watch towers. This part of China was, obviously, a pretty lawless region at one time, and, to some extent, it still is. One occasionally sees cars plying the roads without number plates and right-hand drive vehicles which have probably been smuggled in, one assumes from Hong Kong.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "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": 214291, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "112\n\nsmaller pieces did exist firing shot of a few ounces. Similar weapons were used in the West, but were generally referred to as wall-pieces or swivel guns, the latter term being used particularly with reference to those mounted on the gunwales of ships.\n\nIn describing the fortifications at Tinghai Lord Jocelyn reports: \"on the walls were mounted gingalls and cannon of various calibres, but none exceeding a nine-pounder; and wall-pieces with shifting breeches, each having eight or nine spare breeches attached to it, ready loaded.\"23 This reference to wall-pieces with shifting breeches is of interest as they represent an early form of breech-loading. The idea dates back many years and King Henry VIII had weapons of this form; however, it fell from favour and in the mid-nineteenth century must have seemed very strange to western eyes.\n\nFinally there was the Chinese rocket. This had probably been in use for centuries, but it had not improved with time. Mackenzie notes that these were \"the merest child's weapon being not above six inches long, fastened on a slender bamboo shaft and armed with a barb inserted at one end.\"24 Clearly it was not a mass killer, but it did claim at least one life,25 and it had a use as an incendiary device.\n\nAs would be expected, the Chinese did learn from their experiences in the first war and by the second they had made considerable progress. It is recorded that when the forts at the entrance to the Pei Ho river were attacked in May 1858, that:\n\n\"The guns were much better cast, and not so unwieldy as those in the Canton River, and were better equipped in every respect. They had good canister shot, and the hollow 8-inch shot appeared an imitation of our own. There were several English guns in the batteries.\"26\n\nHand-Held Arms\n\nThe next class of weapons are the hand-held arms. On the European side the main projectile arm was the musket, a smooth-bored arm about 55 inches long, and firing a spherical lead ball of just over an ounce (14.5 No. to the pound). The flintlock musket used black powder (gunpowder) and ignition of the charge was achieved from the sparks", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214295, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "116\n\nThere was a gap of nearly twenty years between the first and second China Wars. It would have been expected that, in this period, the Chinese would have updated their arsenals and have been able to defend themselves more effectively. Whilst, as already seen, this was done to a degree, they were not able to overcome all the problems. The biggest problem was probably the attitude of those in charge, which is so often difficult to alter in any institution, particularly the armed forces. Hence, in the second war the story was much the same, although the batteries at the Pei Ho river were able to repel the European navies and delay the end of the war by a year.\n\nIn conclusion it can be seen that not only did the Chinese suffer a great disadvantage in the technology of their weaponry, but they also were behind in training and discipline, factors which turn brave men into efficient troops. Obviously there is more than fighting to any war, and political, economic and social factors all have an influence on events. However, in order to gain a full insight into the wars between China and the Western powers, it is necessary to understand the military aspects. Fortunately the military men, like so many Victorian travellers, have left records of their experiences. This paper draws on some of those records and aims to put them in context with the development of weapon technology that was taking place at the time. The range of weapons being used by the two sides spanned centuries of development and their coming together is, in itself, a fascinating story.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Keith Stewart Mackenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China, London 1842, p. 92 notes \"the Tartars making a most determined resistance, standing by their guns till the sailors cut them down, hand to hand.\"\n\n2 Captain Granville G. Loch R.N., The Closing Events of the Campaign in China: The Operations in the Yang-Tze-Kiang and Treaty of Nanking, London 1843. P. 107. Loch is horrified by \"old men, women and children, cutting each other's throats, and drowning themselves by the dozen.\"\n\n3 Loch R.N., op. cit., p. 113.\n\n4 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 62 notes \"for both (Admiral) Kwan and his second in command, fell by bayonet wounds received in their breasts, whilst gallantly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214303, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "125\n\nnotes on nature and hunting in Manchuria. He founded the first natural history museum in China, at the Anglo-Chinese College and this brought him to the notice of directors of museums in the United States and England.\n\nWe have little idea what he did between his return from the Duke of Bedford's expedition and the start of the next expedition nearly three years later, the Clark expedition of 1908/9, which again sought specimens. This time they again set out from Taiyuan to the west, across the Yellow River into Shensi and then on to the north-west, into Kansu province travelling up the Silk Road as far as Lanchou. It was a well-financed private expedition with Sowerby taken on as the Naturalist and though not spelled out - the interpreter. Their route took them through Yulin, a city in the Ordos desert in Shensi province, noted for its large Buddhist temple. This was selected as the first main stopover where they remained undisturbed within the temple compound. Sowerby, brought up in Taiyuan, spoke the local dialect and was able to converse with the local officials and obtain their co-operation and assistance. They remained in Yulin over the winter during which time the Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in Peking. This event brought the second most senior Chinese official in Yulin to the compound to break the news and warn the party of the general apprehension that the deaths of their Majesties might bring about a revolt against the dynasty. Clark, who was also an amateur astronomer, had been seen by Chinese peering through his telescope at the night sky leading the second most senior Chinese official to ask Sowerby whether Clark had foreseen this calamity? Sowerby's answer that he had foreseen it led the official to demand to know why Clark had not passed on the warning to him. Sowerby was able to answer that the official knew full well that it would have been treason for anyone to even suggest that such a thing would take place before it happened. This satisfied the awed official, though the warning of possible unrest left the expedition in a quandary. They decided that the best move would be to set off at once for Sian [now known as Xi'an], the provincial capital, where they would expect to have better protection. On reaching Yenan, some short distance to the south of Yulin, en route for Sian they were assured that the situation was stable and once more settled down for a while, hunting and prospecting locally. After several weeks of visits to Loyang and Honan Fu [now Chengchou] in a neighbouring province, whilst Clark returned to Shanghai to settle a family matter, they continued on to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214309, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "131\n\nNot only did he write many of the Journal's editorials but also in each edition a number of miscellaneous articles on subjects ranging from hunting in Manchuria and boating as a holiday to the Hall of Antiquities in the Hude Museum in Shanghai - a pet project of his, as well as Scientific Notes and Reviews. His editorials ranged from Shanghai's Position in the World to China's New Industrialisation. A typical editorial described the colossal task facing the leaders of China's Republic and, as the years passed, so his editorials became more and more anti-Japanese. In the great age of European self-confidence these editorials reflected the general mood of expatriates not only in the Treaty Ports but also within the hinterland of China. None of this necessarily precluded a measure of genuine interest in Chinese culture though he, himself, appears not to have been a convinced ‘Orientalist.' He covered a vast range of subjects under broad-brush headings Engineering, Industrial and Commercial Notes; Scientific Notes and Reviews; Educational Notes and Intelligence and Travel and Exploration Notes.\n\nA number of articles written by people whose names have come down to us as authors of well-known books such as Florence Ayscough, L.C. Arlington, Juliet Bredon and James Hutson appeared in the Journal over the years. It would be impossible to list here many of the articles and papers printed issue by issue ranging as they did from tea to river craft, secret societies to criticisms on the Shanghai local artists exhibitions as well as descriptions of expeditions into the interior With Kua-tzu and Camera in the Yangtze Gorges by H. Foote-Carey and in 1923 - Investigation of the Thermal Dissociation of Hydrated Alumo-silicates, Prehnite, Zoisite and Epidote by E. Norin of the Nystrøm Institute, Taiyuan Fu, Shansi.\n\nIn early 1938 Arthur and his wife, Clarice, sold their interest in the China Journal to a new company called \"The China Journal Publishing Company Limited\" based at 117 Hong Kong Road, Shanghai, accepting part of the purchase price in shares of the new company. There were now three directors, H.J. Timperley, A. de C. Sowerby and H.J. Freyn. The manager at that point was a Mr. W.V.D. White with Clarice Moise no longer referred to on the staff of the Journal. Then, on 7 December 1941, after Pearl Harbour, men of the Japanese navy broke into the offices and destroyed everything, including the files, mailing lists, back numbers, and that was the end of the China Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214325, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "147\n\nPLUM PUDDINGS AND SHARP BOYS “ONE TOUCH OF NATURE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN”\n\nAN ANALYSIS OF THE CHINA COVERAGE IN THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS,1\n\n5 JANUARY TO 23 SEPTEMBER 18612\n\nGILLIAN B. BICKLEY3\n\nWhether or not the British public had a particular interest in China before 1861, it is impossible that their interest can not have been heightened by the stirring diplomatic news coming out from China in the last days of 1860 and the early days of 1861. This raised interest was further fuelled by the human interest touches written into features appearing over the next several months, and by the media's developing focus on a desire for a better understanding between the British and Chinese peoples.\n\nWhat British readers could have known previously about events in China was briefly as follows. After the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin on 26 June 1858, the Allied land force of Britain and France had evacuated Tientsin on 6 July without any force having been sent – even as a token – to the Chinese capital, Peking. It was generally considered, however, that the retirement of the troops was premature and that eventually a force would have to be sent to Peking to prove that the allies had established their positions in China.\n\nThe expected peace demanded under the Treaty did not materialise. Small attacks continued to be made by armed parties on British occupied positions. On 8 January 1859, correspondence was found which confirmed that the Emperor had no intention of keeping the Treaty, and had in fact issued orders that the British were to be prevented from entering the Pei-ho River and trading on the Yangtse, contrary to the provisions of the Treaty.\n\nIn June 1859, the British fleet escorting Lord Elgin, the first British Minister, to Peking, to exchange the ratifications, was brought up sharp by the forts at Takoo, at the entrance to the Peiho River. Men and material were lost, and there was grave damage to prestige.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214504, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "331\n\nwe had met Howard Song, the excellent local guide, and \"Mr White' the bus driver, and had arrived at the hotel (The Qingdao Shangri-La), checked in and been allocated rooms, it was already dinnertime. No problem, as all that had been planned for that day was dinner - a Chinese banquet style dinner in the hotel.\n\nMike, Sarah and I were able to brief the tour members on the story so far, how the trip had been planned and what we were going to see. I think that such a formal briefing had not been done on earlier trips but it seemed to have been well received. Following that, tour member Carol Tan, a Research Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, gave a talk on \"British Jurisdiction on Chinese Soil\" - an interesting and useful explanation of how the legally-minded British went about establishing the necessary legal framework in the many territories that came under their control. Particular reference was made to Hong Kong and Weihaiwei.\n\nTsingtao - A German Home from Home\n\nTsingtao is already well known for the remaining wealth of evidence of German influence, perhaps the most famous being the Tsingtao Brewery. The problem facing us in organising this leg of the trip was not so much what to include, but what to leave out. Arriving, as we did, on a Saturday ruled out the brewery. Visitors are normally welcome, but only during the hot summer months does beer production continue seven days a week, so as to satisfy the thirst of all who depend on the brewery's products. The port area would have been interesting, to see what is left of the original German plan for its mighty naval base. Chiao-chou Bay would also have been interesting, to go and imagine the sights that first faced the German fleet when it arrived in the area. For those with strong stomachs, I have heard that the sewer system is still a masterpiece and a tribute to German organisation and engineering. But all these had to be left out owing to time constraints.\n\nHow the plan worked out was to split the city into two parts - the \"downtown\" area, with its official buildings; and the former military and residential area, with its remaining villas and barrack buildings.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214517, "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": 375, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "344\n\nAlthough our Qingdao guide accompanied us throughout the trip, we were met off the ferry in Dalian by another guide - Ying, an expert on the local attractions, although she quickly learned, as had her Qingdao colleague before her, that she was surrounded by a bit more expertise than she found in the average tour group.\n\nYing and Jack, the driver, very quickly learned that her new brood had another difference. She greeted us at the ferry pier by saying: \"I suppose you would all like to go to lunch now?\" This was met by a resounding answer in the negative. Having been jolted about on the boat we were not immediately interested in food.\n\nDalian city tour\n\nInstead we asked for the bus to go round some of the streets in the old Russian quarter. Specifically, we pointed out the photographs in \"Far from Home\" and said that we would like to see those and see them we did.\n\nThe People's Theatre looks a bit more garish these days, and has been turned into a Blackpool-like amusement hall. However, the majority of what we had come to see was there waiting for us, looking as splendid and impressive as we had hoped. Zhongshan Square (the former Great Square of the original Russian plan) still contains all the solid bank buildings from many years ago. All are now Chinese banks, but clearly recognisable are the buildings from all the old photographs. The square also includes one of Dalian's three former Yamato Hotels, now glorying in the name of the Dalian Guest House. Do not be put off by this name, however it is far from being a bed and breakfast in Bognor. The wrought iron canopy leads you into one of the most impressive marble lobbies of any hotel I have seen. Our experience in Yantai leads me to believe that the term \"guest house\" is reserved for the grandest of available accommodation, reserved for the party's great and good.\n\nFor me one of the most distinctly Russian buildings, and one that features prominently in \"Far from Home\", is located just on the far side of the Victory Bridge (rather a practical name - not sure who's victory over whom), on the road leading north-west from Zhongshan Square.\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214558, "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": 416, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "385\n\nRev. Wright provided the text for Allom's China and wrote a short piece entitled The Fortress of Terror, Dinghai. He claimed that 'during the British descent upon the coast of China, nowhere was the destruction of life and property greater than at Dinghai. Every hill on the coast in the vicinity of Dinghai was crowned with a battery of apparent strength; some of them too elevated to be effective. At the entrance of a defile, watered by a rivulet flowing from the valley of Chae-hu [sic], and on an eminence about two hundred feet above the level of the bay, stood one of those deceptive structures, misnamed \"The Fortress of Terror,\" in which the Chinese so lucklessly reposed entire confidence, when the British fleet cast anchor in the roads beneath. No troops, however armed or disciplined, could have acted with more eminent personal gallantry, than the Tatar garrison of the fort of Terror, yet none ever encountered a more signal overthrow.\n\nWright described Zhoushan as an agreeable scene, with every hill cultivated to its summit, every valley, from the mountain's foot to the river's margin with industry and fertility, producing a large surplus for the enrichment of the labourers. These productions, including rice, cotton, seed potatoes, coarse tea and candles made from the seeds of the tallow tree, were conveyed along canals in barges. The roads of Zhoushan were not constructed for the convenience of visitors, the gratification of travellers, or the mere objects of pleasure.\n\nIn describing the city of Dinghai, Wright noted that it did not stand upon the marshy ground but on the sloping side of the Yongdong Valley. It was surrounded by a brick wall twenty-six feet in height, sixteen in thickness, and six miles in circuit, with four entrance gates corresponding exactly with the four cardinal points. The city was intersected by open sewer canals, the streets were narrow and paved, and intersected by canals along the middle.\n\nBetween 1841 and 1844 the Westmoreland Regiment served with the British force during the campaign to capture and hold the Island of Zhoushan. The assault on and occupation of Zhoushan during the First China War was one of many along the coast of Southern and Eastern China. It culminated in the Treaty of Nanjing [Nanking] in August 1842 under terms by which occupation forces held on to several places until the treaty was fully implemented, Zhoushan being one. There was a school of British opinion at the time which strongly believed that we", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214668, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "47\n\nthe highest placed individual named on the then Donation Tablet was again an Ng (the Managers of this restoration are all entered on the Donation Tablet in the names of their shops - the Market merchants were clearly the dominant force on this occasion). This man, Ng Man-yuen, XXX, cannot be identified from the Ng clan Tsuk Po, but he was probably a Nga Tsin Wai elder appearing in the Tsuk Po under a posthumous Tong name. Some six other Ngs either certainly or probably Nga Tsin Wai villagers can be identified on this 1822 Donation Tablet, as can three more on the 1859 Tablet. It should be remembered that the Nga Tsin Wai villagers did not normally worship at the Hau Wong Temple, but at their own Tin Hau Temple: the prominent position taken by Ng clan elders in these restorations must be seen as evidence of the clan recognising their local prominence and responding to it.\n\nThus, Nga Tsin Wai was keenly aware of its role as one of the largest and most prosperous villages of the area, and its elders can be seen playing an important part in all the local charitable undertakings, a part entirely in accord with the village's wealth and standing and self-confidence.\n\nThe village, again as a response to its relatively wealthy position, placed a high importance on education, as noted above. One village youth, Ng Tsz-mei, 7, 1881-1939, even managed to get into King's College, despite being so poor in his childhood that he had to work herding cattle. He studied engineering, and established with his brother the Tung Shing Company (with its premises on High Street, in Sai Ying Pun), which did a good deal of construction work for the Government. Ng Tsz-mei prospered greatly, and retired to the house he had built on the banks of the river at Sha Tin (he called the house Ng Yuen, \"The Ng Garden\", and it still survives). He left behind him a reputation for charity. He was a major supporter of the Red Cross in its medical work in the New Territories in the 1920s and 1930s, he gave coffins to the poor who could not otherwise afford a decent burial, and bought and distributed a great deal of medicine in a cholera outbreak.\n\nNot only did the Ng clan run a high-quality school, and interest themselves in academic education, but they were also anxious to ensure that the clan youth were trained in martial arts. The response of the villagers to the Taiping bandits makes it clear that there must have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214713, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "92\n\nDo villagers really believe in tun fu?\n\nHow many of the New Territories' villagers really believe in tun fu? Earlier, it was mentioned that the Pat Heung villagers were paid $600,000 to stage their collective tun fu ceremonies. Brian Jenny, Government Director of Audit, in November 1994 wrote in his report that, during the 1980s, amounts paid annually by the Government (on account of feng shui disturbances) varied between $500,000 and $950,000. In 1990, the Government paid $1.1 million, in feng shui compensation, to the villagers at Ha Tsuen so that ceremonies could be held (Hong Kong Standard; 1990). The fall in the purchasing power of the dollar over the years must be taken into account when interpreting these figures.\n\nWhen the British took over Hong Kong they promised the Chinese that Qing laws would be retained and local customs respected (Endacott; 1958, 38, 40, 41). Certainly a large number of festivals, customs and much culture have been retained. To some degree, because of lack of restrictions during the colonial period, there was limited hostility towards the British (Cheung; 1999, 573). Other ex-colonial powers could perhaps argue that this easygoing affinity, which developed between the Hong Kong Chinese and their rulers, was not always in the interests of the Colony. For example, the compensation paid to villagers to hold tun fu ceremonies, could have been put to better use.\n\nBut returning to how many villagers really believe? A small group of elderly women that the Author spoke to, sitting in the sun near a tun fu pot at Shui Tau Village, in the Kam Tin District, said that when work first started on improvements to the Kam Tin River the villagers did not intend doing anything. But people started falling sick and several died. It was decided then to hold a tun fu ceremony.12 'Did the elderly ladies believe in tun fu?'\n\n'Well, people stopped falling ill and dying,' they replied, 'so of course we had to believe.'\n\nThat is as good an argument for believing in tun fu as any.\n\nNevertheless several retired civil servants, both British and Chinese who have worked in the New Territories, some as District Officers,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214841, "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": 256, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "223\n\ndid the spirit of the British and native troops falter. No such weakness characterized the leadership in the China Expedition.\n\nThe General Orders\n\nThe \"General Orders - No.I\" for the Force assembled in the Canton River for the capture of Canton, issued on behalf of Sir Hugh Gough and dated 24 May 1841, set the general tone for the operations and the expectations of its General.\n\nThey speak of \"proving what can be done by discipline and bravery,\" of \"the assurance that every man will do his duty,\" and of \"devotedness to our country's honour and our professional character.\" They refer to \"the cunning and artifice\" of the Chinese military system, which is \"not one to which the British soldier is accustomed\" but \"which must fail before the steady advance of disciplined soldiers.\"\n\nIn conclusion, the Orders state that \"Britain having gained as much of fame by her mercy and forbearance, as by the gallantry of her troops\" and reminds the Force that whilst \"an enemy in arms is always a legitimate foe...the unarmed or suppliant for mercy, of whatever country or colour, a true British soldier will always spare.\n\nSuccess Moderated by Respect\n\n48\n\n**47\n\nBritain's victories in China may be attributed to its well-trained, disciplined troops and seamen, superior weaponry, good leadership and a high morale. British officers were proud of their successes, achieved in the face of high sickness rates due to disease and unfamiliarity with the country.\"\n\nHowever, they were well aware that success in imposing Britain's demands on the Chinese Court was also due to another important factor, recognizing that China's outmoded military techniques and equipment did not allow her commanders and their men, however brave and resourceful they might be, to match their Western foes.\n\nYet British officers were not dismissive of China's ancient civilization and attainments, and their superiors were punctilious in paying formal respects where due. British naval ships were ever prompt, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214895, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "284\n\nOur guide, Cong, took us to visit the Citadel and explained that it was planned and constructed on traditional principles of intermingling Occidental and Oriental architecture as a result of the appropriate use of local geographical features. The Citadel of Hue was once a masterpiece of the Vietnamese people. The Imperial City, the second wall, is dotted with offices where the monarch and high-ranking mandarins came daily to work. The Forbidden Purple City, the third wall, was the private quarters of the Emperor and his family, which included hundreds of palace maidservants and dozens of eunuchs. It was fascinating to see that the walls and Royal Palaces of Hue were built on the principles of Chinese geomancy. The whole complex faces southeast, taking the Royal Screen Mount as a natural screen. Two islets in the Perfume River play the roles of \"left dragon\" and \"right dragon\", thus guarding the city. In general, the monuments of Hue are made chiefly of ironwood and other Vietnamese traditional materials. They are constructed, however, on a specific \"module\" and largely to suit the climate and environment of the region.\n\nAfter the Citadel, we visited the Tu Duc Tomb built between 1864 and 1867. Emperor Tu Duc was crowned King during this period of Vietnam's history when capitalism was developing in the West. He was an expert in philosophy, oriental history, as well as literature, yet he failed to rule the country successfully. Having no son to succeed him aggravated the situation. To seclude himself, he ordered the construction of his tomb as a fairyland with poetical features, making it a lifetime recreation ground and a special world for his eternal life after death. With several palaces and a specific man-made landscape, the tomb itself is a second ‘Imperial City', an ideal and heavenly world.\n\nThat night we had an imperial banquet where we were all required to dress up as mandarins and someone needed to be King and Queen. There was no one better than Dr. Dan Waters, RAS President, to be the Emperor, and Pru, an RAS member, took the part of the Empress. With their costumes and majestic headwear, it was strange to see Dan and Pru looking so noble. We were all perspiring, and Dan and Pru were being fanned by waitresses, turned court servants, during the whole meal. The weather was so hot that once we had taken our group picture in which we were wearing costumes, the first thing we did was to get rid of the heavy mandarin dresses before we ate. But Dan and Pru took it so seriously that they wore their imperial gowns till the end.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214951, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "2\n\nthis paper to examine the role of tea in relation to opium and the resulting conflict. For tea, too, was an addiction of sorts, though perhaps without all the deleterious effects of opium.\n\nTea and the Chinese\n\nThe origin of tea is hidden in the remote mists of antiquity and more than enough theories of its discovery exist, mostly legendary. One date keeps cropping up - 2737BC - the legendary year that attempts to pinpoint the discovery, and attribute it to the Chinese emperor Shen Nung, the Divine Healer. Like many great discoveries, it was reputedly made by chance. Shen Nung, concerned about hygiene, used to boil his water for drinking. One day, while boiling water, a gust of wind blew leaves from a branch burning under the pot into the water. A marvellous aroma overtook Shen Nung. The branches came from a tree whose formal name today is Camellia sinensis.\n\nWhile other theories may claim a different origin (a Buddhist connection has been suggested), no one questions that tea as an industry began in China. Did the plant originate in China? Chinese sources claim that the tea tree is indigenous to Hunan Province, in Southwest China, where it grew wild in the mountains, where no other plant could grow. Cultivation of tea, however, appears to have begun around 350AD along the Yangtze River, in Sichuan Province, spreading to Yunnan and through southwest China into the central provinces. By the 5th century AD, tea had joined other products as a popular article of trade. It is not surprising, therefore, that tea's excellent qualities were known to the Chinese since early times, and that drinking tea as a pleasurable pastime had spread throughout the country. A brief attempt to tax tea, in 780 AD, was met with wide public outcry and had to be rescinded. This was also the year in which the first book on tea was published - an important milestone in its history. It was a monumental work in which the author Lu Yu of the Tang Dynasty dealt with tea in detail and from every possible aspect. One can only wonder at Lu Yu's deepest knowledge of the subject. His description of various shapes of different leaves verges on poetical. He described the code of conduct in relation to tea, from which the Japanese had probably derived their tea ceremony, and which in China had evolved into a social custom bordering on ritual. Some would assert that after the conquest of the Songs, at the end of the 13th century, the Tangs' romance of tea disappeared and tea", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214973, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "25\n\n“As you wish, madame.” He gave us a second-class cabin, looked at our son doubtfully. \"Tall for his age, isn't he? Only four and something, did you say?\"\n\nAnd another, equally persuasive fragment:\n\nIn Singapore we were refused a room at the English hotel, and the Chinese ones were very hot and uncomfortable; there was opium-smoking, prostitution and gambling all round us. Marguerite had prickly heat, and our son cried all night long. Our clothes were all too heavy for the damp, hot weather\n\nHaving returned home as a former engineering student from Belgium, Han Suyin's father was then employed by the Belgian company developing a railway network throughout the Chinese interior. There are many fragments in the pages of her books, referring to this period in her and her family's lives. A happy one is given already in Chapter One of The Crippled Tree:\n\nRailways meant a lot to my father, and they were also part of the climate of my growth since my childhood was spent in small or large railway stations. Even now, whenever I hear the siren hoot of an engine, my childhood comes cantering back to me.\n\nInequality between Western high school diplomas granted to the Chinese and to the whites was indisputable, self-evident and absolutely “natural,” and was thus quite impossible to argue against. The Chou family was confronted with this inequality right from their re-settlement to China. In Chapter Nineteen of The Crippled Tree, Han Suyin mentions:\n\nIt was in the yellow plains of Honan; not far from it, the Yellow River had burst its dykes and gone flooding once again, and there were many displaced peasants and also bandits and soldiers, the latter more than the former and more to be feared. The little station was safe, however. There the Big Engineer, whose name was spoken of with indrawn breath and a small pause of respect because he was a Belgian and had a large salary, stayed in a new brick house constructed specially for him on a small hill. Mama and Papa lived in a small Chinese house of earth walls on the other side of the railway, about two miles away", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215256, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "We were particularly fortunate in our next event, which took place in August 2001 in Salisbury, to visit the Cathedral and the Salisbury museum where we also heard a lecture by Patrick Hase on 'Traditional South China Agriculture.' To find this latter combination, i.e. Patrick in Salisbury in August and South China agricultural instruments in the Salisbury museum, may appear somewhat far-fetched; however, by the end of the fascinating and extremely well researched lecture and a visit to the museum to actually see the agricultural instruments, which formed part of the Pitts River ethnographic collection, there was no doubt that all members had experienced a day well worth it. Our sincere thanks go to Patrick for giving us his time and for educating us on a subject about which most of us knew absolutely nothing.\n\nThe Friends have for some time been trying to arrange a tour to Northern France to view the World War I battlefields, and in particular the Chinese Connection, when around 100,000 Chinese labourers were brought over from the Far East to support the war effort behind the lines. A number of them died in the process and are buried in the cemeteries. For various reasons the trip has not taken place except by the inveterate few, but we were fortunate in having the next best thing, i.e. a talk by Brian Fawcett, which took place on Saturday, 1st December 2001. Brian has been researching the Chinese Labour Corps for some time and the Friends were particularly fortunate to hear the results of his research and to see a short video/film of First World War relevant events. The fruits of his labour have recently been published in the 40th volume of the Journal of the Society, and Radio 4 in the U.K. will shortly be giving a half-hour programme on the subject.\n\nAnd our programme did not end there. Recently, on 16th February 2002, forty-five members and guests sat down to celebrate the incoming Year of the Horse at the Joy King Lau Chinese restaurant. Not only did we welcome Dr. Patrick Hase and his wife Aileen, who were fortunately in the U.K. again, but we also had Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Bailey (Bill), who was the first Chairman of the Hong Kong Arts Centre in the 1970's and 1980's, and was very supportive of the Society when it was a Constituent Member of the Arts Centre.\n\nNow, however, we are preparing ourselves for our next far-flung visit at the end of April to take place in Cornwall, when about twenty-five members will visit the Gardens (Caerhays, Trewithen, Pine Lodge,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215305, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "30\n\nspring within the wider New Year duration.\" At Li Chun ritual acts signalled various agricultural tasks. The She festival was more timely in relation to actual agrarian operations starting up at this season, but rituals did not directly depict the cultivation of the earth.\n\nShamanistic activities were common at several ritual celebrations in the area under scrutiny here. A chronicler from Hanzhou Magistracy in Hanyang Prefecture says that the people along the Jiang and the Han18 love wu sorcerers and regard demons as important.19 Singing, dancing and drumming wu and xi contributed to the efficacy of the rituals in that they summoned the shen spirits. The mention here of both wu and xi is best understood as indicating that the shamanistic acts were performed by officiants recruited from both genders—but we cannot be sure. What kind of shen spirits were invited by their activities is, again, not clear. If in the singular, the word might refer to the She, if in the plural, it might have been spirits in general, or, perhaps, the spirits of the dead. We have seen above that sometimes the She was connoted with death and the dead. Invoking and inviting the dead—should that be the correct understanding—would then, no doubt, have had further agricultural connotations.20\n\nWhat speaks in favour of the former interpretation is a note deriving from Yiyang Magistracy (in Changsha Prefecture), but which actually refers to a practice of the third day of the third moon, a day called Shang Si E or 'Upper Si'. On this day there were splendid processions in the country villages by the She altars where people sacrificed to the du shen 'the earth spirit(s)'. Droning drums were prominent instruments in these processions. This was called qi nian—'to pray for the year'.21 A similar report, already mentioned and referring to the same day, is found in the records of Yingshan where it is said that people worshipped the She by jiao libations.\n\n17\n\nWe may note that there was another occasion for celebrating the\n\nAijmer 2002, Chapter. 15.\n\n18 Hanzhou is situated by the confluence of the River Yangzi (the Jiang) and the River Han.\n\n19 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1130: 風俗考 1b\n\n20 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a\n\n21 益陽縣志. 1874. 卷 24b.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215471, "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": 248, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "197\n\nover the Chela-la pass, 12,400 feet, a journey of about one-and-a-half hours. But it would not take us there today. Black ice was reported at the top, and so an alternative route was chosen to the south, following the river valleys. This took four hours, but it did offer one wonderful vista after another. Again, wherever we stopped, villagers were only too pleased to be photographed by these visitors from outer space, sometimes happily pausing in their backbreaking toil to pose for us.\n\nOn the outskirts of Haa we stopped for one of our frequent comfort stops. (One big advantage in travelling with a group whose average age is a tad over 21 is that there are many such stops.) There was a path down to the river, which we could see led to a large flat area, then back to the road about half-a-mile further on. Some of us took this, looking for photo opportunities. One such was a tiny mini-van (about a quarter the size of ours), which was surrounded by a cluster of red-robed monks. On closer inspection, we found that another monk was in the driving seat 'learning to drive,' as we were told. They too were more than happy to pose for a photograph. By way of thanks, one particularly English member of our group who was with me at the time, said in his pukka accent: 'Garden chair'. I was quiet for a while, but I had to ask him why on earth... In fact, what he was saying was the closest he could get to the Bhutanese word for 'thank you' (kadinche).\n\nJust then, a particularly bizarre sight met our eyes. On a tarmac helicopter-landing pad at the side of the river, a long table had been set out with 20 or 30 actual garden chairs. Must have been waiting for a reception for some visiting dignitary shortly to arrive by helicopter. A bit over the top, I thought to myself.\n\nHaa is Bhutan's main army base and was closed to visitors until December 2001. The Bhutanese Army, some 17,000 strong, is a regular army (there is no national service) and is trained and supplied by the Indian Army. In Haa township, the army was much in evidence, the many red corrugated iron roofs signifying buildings of military occupation. There was even a small putting green, presumably for the use of officers only.\n\nAlso much in evidence were Indians, and not just the military sort. There must be thousands of Indian contract labourers, living often in small huts by the roadside and doing such jobs as clearing landslips", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215476, "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": 253, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "202\n\nof acquiring for himself some of these wonderful and effective garments should avoid the very extensive Men's Underwear Department on the ground floor of the Queen's Road Central branch; they can only be found in the Ladies' Underwear Department on the second floor.)\n\nThe fourth day (only the fourth ??) did indeed start early and we managed to leave the hotel on time at 7:00 a.m. Our briefing notes told us that there were 'splendid views' to be had from the hotel. And that may well have been the case - there were even little balconies attached to each room from which one could have enjoyed the panorama, from the comfort of a garden chair. But we arrived after dark and left fifteen minutes before the sun breached the high tops of the valley wall. When daylight once again returned, we appreciated that 'sub-tropical' was not an unfair description. The season seemed to be more advanced here. The paddy fields were green. The early morning mist was hanging low. In a word, it was beautiful. My camera trigger finger was itching, but I would have felt very uncomfortable asking for a photo stop only five minutes into the journey. So I had to sit and admire.\n\nI have never been on a specific photography holiday, but perhaps I should try some day. As it was, I was left reflecting on whether we should simply observe and enjoy, or worry about the best viewpoint from which to preserve the scene for .... Well, for what?\n\nBetter late than never\n\nWhilst still reflecting I found that we had arrived at Wangdiphodrang, a delightful little roadside village where all the buildings seemed to be half the normal size. The sun was coming up, the shops were open, and smiling faces were everywhere. Set back from the main row of buildings was an important-looking office - the Flood Warning Station. Not much of a problem up here, I thought to myself, as we had climbed a good 1,000 feet up the valley from Punakha. But of course, the whole point of a warning station is to warn people, and in the case of flooding the people who would most appreciate being warned would be those 1,000 feet further down the hill where the river is. In fact, there was a bridge down there at the bottom of the climb. This one was built in 1962, to replace its predecessor which had been built, so we were told, 1,277 years earlier but which had been destroyed in a flood. At a guess, I would say the warning station had first been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215478, "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": 255, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "204\n\nlast leg of the day's journey, to Bumthang.\n\nWe were now passing into Central Bhutan. The country gets more remote and primitive the further east one goes. The road by now resembled a quarry, thanks to the ambitious road-widening project that has been under way since late 2000. Until then, road vehicles were required to cross into Indian Assam in order to get to the east of Bhutan. This route became less favoured when some Indian militants shot a Bhutanese bus driver in order to prove a point. (Brian did not mention that in the briefing notes!) To compensate for the road, the trees had become particularly impressive. We were now driving through gigantic pine trees, just like in the Hundred Acre Wood. I could easily imagine Pooh Bear falling out of one, had he been there.\n\nAbout half-an-hour short of Jakar, the capital of Bumthang province, two or three woollen goods shops formed the nucleus of a knitting and weaving industry, so of course we had to stop and boost the local economy. I saw a scarf I particularly liked. The young lady in the shop told me it was 300 ngultrum (about HK$50), I have never really learned the art of bargaining, and so I offered her 250 and a large hopeful smile. She smiled back, but the smile quickly faded. 'Excuse me' she said, 'there's 50 missing.' I was so flustered that I tried to pretend that it was all my fault and I quickly gave her the missing note. I hung around a bit to listen to how the hardened shoppers managed to bring the price down, but I had to bow out in the face of such expertise and experience.\n\nWe reached the hotel at dusk and found it to be rather like a ski lodge - fresh and inviting on the outside and warm and toasty on the inside, with pine-clad walls. Welcoming tea and bickies were laid out in the communal sitting area of the dining room. The bedroom was also toasty, almost a sauna. The source of the heat was a wood-burning stove. This gave off a terrific amount of heat, but burnt through its contents very quickly. When I returned to the bedroom after dinner it was like stepping into a fridge, so quickly had the heat disappeared. As the electricity supply was rather intermittent, each room was provided with a candle. ‘Ah-ha' I thought, ‘salvation.' I lit the candle and held it against a thinnish piece of pine for no less than fifteen shivering minutes, but the blighter wouldn't light. So I had to climb into bed, wondering about such news headlines as: ‘Careless cigarette\n\nPage 205\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215487, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "213\n\never be bacon for breakfast.\n\nTwenty miles or so up the valley, still passing people coming in the opposite direction, we came within sight of the Crown Prince Chorten, also known as the Khamsum Yulley Chorten. Built only in 1999, this chorten nevertheless has some importance through having been constructed under the patronage of Bhutan's four current queens. Very decent of the other three, as only one of them could have given birth to him for whom the temple is named. To get to this site we had to leave the buses, walk across a wobbling suspension bridge and stroll for half an hour up the side of the valley to a promontory, on which the chorten is built. Had we strolled further, after a few weeks I am sure that we would have reached the ridge of 20,000 feet peaks that stood like sentries at the head of the valley, guarding the way into (or maybe out of) Tibet.\n\nHaving tried (and, as I subsequently found out, failed) to do photographic justice to the view of the Mo, meandering down the valley into the misty distance, a gentle stroll down the way found us back at the waiting buses. These obligingly took us off to our lunchtime stop. This was to be the last that was courtesy of our terrific chef, Signor Fresco. Again, he did us proud, setting up the table and chairs next to the river on a shingle bank. As the sun was rather hot, most of us repaired to the shade of the nearby pine trees. A highlight was being able to watch a cormorant diving into the icy water for his lunch. On the whole, I think we did better than he.\n\nA rare treat after lunch - a comfort stop back at the hotel! The afternoon's destination was a temple with an unusual theme. The village of Chime is home to the Chime Lhakhang, also known as Drukpa Kinley's Lhakhang. The village was about half-an-hour's stroll away from the road, through the village of Egwakha. These villages are on a bit of a plateau on the valley-side, surrounded by rice paddies - and it was along the paddy walls that we had to thread our way. It is not unusual in mountainous areas for an anabatic wind to pick up in the afternoon as the air mass heats up and flows uphill - and today was no exception. By 3.30 the wind, although not strong enough to remove my much-admired Tilley hat from my head, was enough to wobble my camera when lining up for a shot.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215627, "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": 404, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "355\n\nand severely dealt with.\n\n'So, for the next week or ten days, the outcasts held a family picnic, leading a Bohemian kind of life, with crowds of Chinese coming again and again to rejoice over their discomforts and misfortunes. The natives kept this unfortunate family in a state of continual terror, not knowing whether at any moment they and their belongings might be found floating on the river below.\n\n'Finally, by a bribe to some passing boatmen they got a letter conveyed to the consul at Hankow. The vice-consul was despatched to inquire into the matter. A modus vivendi of some kind - I do not remember what - was patched up, and his Reverence, with his furniture very much out of repair after ten days' exposure to sun, wind and rain, was translated to-----, where I met him.\n\n'Here he conducted himself more peaceably, but whether his damaged reputation had preceded him, or whether people took a natural dislike to him, I cannot say; anyhow, he soon became unpopular, and confined himself a good deal to the house. Then it was that another original and novel idea for the propagation of the gospel developed itself.\n\n'I have already said that he belonged to an American Scotch mission, so he considered himself entitled to dress his two children - about eight and nine years of age - in full Highland costume. How he ever fabricated two complete Highland dresses away in the far interior of China, I am at a loss to imagine; but he did so.\n\n'One morning, to the amazement and surprise of the natives, who wondered what new josses were being exhibited so suddenly and unexpectedly, two children appeared at one of the upper windows of his house in brilliant tartan, each armed with a bamboo fishing-rod and line, a bent pin doing duty for a hook on which was fixed a religious tract, which was slowly lowered among the gaping crowd below.\n\n'The Chinese, curious to see what this wonderfully dressed joss had sent them, unhooked the tract, and, being of too independent a nature to accept it for nothing, passed the bent pin through the hole in the centre of a few cash, which was immediately drawn up, and another", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215680, "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": 457, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "409\n\nbeginning of 1900 she was under construction at the yard of Dennys of Dumbarton. She was a side-wheeler, 180 feet long, 60 feet beam across the paddle boxes, drawing 6 feet and having a deadweight of 150 tons with accommodation for many deck passengers.\n\nHaving made all the arrangements for \"Pioneer\" to be shipped to Shanghai in pieces, Little returned to London. Whilst having lunch at the Oriental Club with some of his backers and advisors, he was introduced to Captain Samuel Cornel Plant. Captain Plant had recently returned to England having served for several years in command of steamers on the Tigris and Euphrates, rivers well known for their navigational difficulties. When Little learned of the captain's previous experience, he did his best to persuade Plant to come to China and take command of \"Pioneer.\" Plant promised to give the matter some thought. For whatever reason, he subsequently agreed to go along with Little.\n\n\"Pioneer\" was shipped to Shanghai and reassembled. Plant and his wife, Alice Sophia, took ship to China, joined \"Pioneer\" and in early June 1900 the attempt on the Three Gorges began. With Plant in command, \"Pioneer\" made the trip from Ichang to Chunking in 73 steaming hours over seven days. She was held up for three days at Hsin T'an Rapids. On arrival at Chunking she was greeted by most of the expatriates living there and it is said that the banks of the river were black with hundreds of junkmen who had crowded to see this latest barbarian wonder.\n\nThe Aftermath\n\nBad luck again struck Little. There were rumblings of trouble along the river that were to culminate in the Boxer Uprising. The British Consulate in Chunking commandeered \"Pioneer\" and used her to evacuate expatriates from the trouble spots. (It is not known whether Little was compensated for the loss of \"Pioneer\" or not. She was eventually handed over to the Royal Navy, renamed H.M.S. \"Kinshi\" and finished life as H.Q. Ship, Senior British Naval Officer on the Yangtze River.)\n\nPlant's Career\n\nPlant, having left the employ of Little, bought himself a houseboat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215682, "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": 459, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "411\n\nThe British Consulate in Chunking collected subscriptions from amongst the expatriates and other interested people to raise a memorial to Plant. This took the form of a 30 foot high obelisk constructed of dressed blocks of pink granite on a brown sandstone base. It was erected at Xintang Village where the Dragon Horse Stream flows into the Yangtze. The inscription, which was in both English and Chinese, was eradicated by the Red Guards in 1968 after they had, unsuccessfully, tried to blow it up.\n\nUnless it is moved, the monument will be inundated by the raising waters when the dam across the Three Gorges is completed.1 Plant's beloved rapids will become small eddies on the surface of a huge man-made lake. Hundreds of tracker villages will have been moved to other locations, some far from the river. A tradition of 5,000 years endurance will be gone forever.\n\nThe above is an account of Captain Plant's professional life in China. However, gaps occur in both his early professional life and in his private life.\n\nAs you have read, Archibald Little met Samuel Plant at the Oriental Club in 1900. Prior to this time Plant had commanded steamers on the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates but we have been unable to find information on his Mesopotamian career.\n\nWe know Samuel Cornell Plant was born on 8th August, 1866 in Framlingham, Suffolk. His wife, Sophie Alice Peters was born on 29th November, 1870 in Hoddesdon in the County of Hertford to an illiterate shoemaker and his wife. Samuel Cornell and Alice Sophie, as she appears on the Entry of Marriage, were married in the Consulate General in the District of Bushire in the Province of Fars, Persia on 16th April, 1894. His profession is listed as a master mariner, nothing is given for Alice Sophie.\n\nWhat was a young woman of 24 years doing in Bushire and how did she meet Captain Plant?\n\nIn 1921, en route to Hong Kong and home leave, Samuel Plant died on board the \"Teiresias\" on 26th February. His death certificate gives as the cause of death ‘right lobar pneumonia and heart failure.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215822, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "54\n\nremained an integral part of Allied strategy to defeat Japan. Even if her expected contribution to Allied victory over Japan had been downgraded and a squadron of B-29s based on the mainland was not as promising as a combat-ready Chinese Army, the politics of basing such a new and promising weapon on Chinese soil were thought to be enough to boost Chinese morale.53\n\nThe issue is in doubt\n\nBy the end of 1943, Allied planners had not settled on a decision to drop Hong Kong from the list of future objectives, nor did they elevate its status to that of a territory whose possession was beyond debate. In short, if a campaign in China was likely, a port on the China Coast would need to be opened up, and Hong Kong was a leading candidate for such a port. The development of the war in 1944-1945 would determine Hong Kong's importance.\n\nAs the USN's Central Pacific offensive gathered momentum in early 1944, the adjacent Southwest Pacific offensive under General Douglas MacArthur also stepped up its pace so as not to be left behind. The competing dual advances sped up the Allied timetable, and brought the Allies to within striking distance of Japan by summer 1944.\n\nIn China, it was a different story. Chinese forces here had not faced a major Japanese attack since 1938. When the Japanese attempted to link their possessions in the south (including Hong Kong) with the large portion of China they held north of the Yangtze River with a major offensive in the summer, the Chinese forces standing in the way largely disintegrated without offering much resistance. By early 1945, the Hong Kong beachhead had linked up with the rest of Japanese-held China. By now, the prospect of recapturing Hong Kong from the sea, while still not entirely infeasible, was made harder due to the potential ease with which the Japanese could reinforce Hong Kong from the interior of China. Intelligence reports indicated that the Japanese probably intended to wage a last-ditch defence of Hong Kong like they were already doing in the Pacific.54\n\nJ\n\nThe Japanese eventually overextended themselves in China, while China belatedly began to receive supplies in some quantity once the road link from Burma was reopened and the air link over the Hump", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215941, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "174\n\nwhich the Police Commissioner handed over $20,000 without question when advised of the plot, though it was claimed that the bribe money came from the Shanghai triads leader Tu Yueh Sheng, then a refugee, albeit wealthy, in Hong Kong. Whatever the truth behind the story, it gained currency as it made the escape of General Yee and Admiral Chan Chak palatable to colonials by portraying it as an honourable act by the British to reward Yee for his assistance in saving them.\n\nIt was almost certainly also a smokescreen to disguise the removal from Hong Kong of something important to the British. MacDougall claimed in 1942 that he had not planned to go but had been persuaded at the last moment by senior government officials. MacDougall however was circumspect, careful not to betray sensitive information in an open letter. He could, however, say that during the last two years his work had 'become increasingly political in character. Officially neutral in the Sino-Japanese War, I had nevertheless behind the scenes consistently exerted what influence I possessed toward blocking and hampering the propaganda and other activities of the Japanese and the adherents of the Wang Ching Wei....I had worked very closely with Chinese organisations and did all in my power, consistent with the interests of the Colony, to aid them.' It should also be noted that he was not an officer of the colonial establishment but belonged to the Ministry of Information. He was to return to Hong Kong on liberation to reinstate the administration. While no high-profile officers escaped with the Chan Chak group, it is probable that some were carrying information. There were men from Army, Navy, and Air Force, and they were chosen for the mission, only one man being a \"guest.\"\n\n* xviii Major Goring was to spend much of the war attached to various strategic planning groups in the China theatre.\n\nThe extent of KMT activity in Hong Kong was considerable. Hong Kong was a sort of open house where all factions of Chinese politics from left to right could operate, as long as they were discreet. Overt acts of terrorism and subversion in other colonies, like the Malayan federation, were suppressed. The territory was also the port through which arms and armaments flowed into China. Technically this was in breach of the Hague Convention as Britain was supposed to be neutral, but there were ways of smuggling and circumventing the system. Baileys, the Hong Kong shipyard, built river gunboats that were outfitted with guns once they entered China. The same technology that enabled\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215975, "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": 274, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "208\n\n—\n\nforeign military strength prevailing against the Qing regime, calculated by the British and French to force compliance with the new treaty conditions, also actually caused greater threat to those foreign travellers who moved outside the provincial capital. Still, all this being recognized by Legge and his travelling companions, including Ch'ea, they pursued their missionary goals and tested the reliability of the Qing forces to uphold the treaty conditions. In the end it was clear that local Qing authorities could only be partially successful in maintaining public order during their travels. This fact was highlighted during the missionary tour. Legge explicitly mentions in his journal published in Hong Kong in June 1861 - issues almost always deleted from the edited versions published in the missionary journal accounts produced for English audiences - the troubles they faced at certain places where crowds had stones and bricks nearby and available to attack their party. One of the harshest responses came in the district city of Wye-chow, a large walled city not very distant from Poklo. Stonings there caused noticeable damage to the main boat rented for the trip. In another district town up the river by the name of Hé Yuán, the \"rain of stones\" became \"exceedingly unpleasant.” In order to avoid further physical threat on their return through the alleys of the walled city, Legge and Chalmers with their attendant soldiers finally climbed up on the city walls where the attackers had their point of advantage. By this means they surprised the stone slinging \"rabble\" so that they quickly dispersed without presenting any further threats until the group had entered their boats.70 Legge was nonplussed: \"I did not think that we should have experienced such treatment so far away from Canton.\" The political reality that antiforeigner feelings were running high and spread broadly throughout the region could not be denied.\n\n69\n\nAdded to this was a deeper, more persistent strain of demonology which continued to erupt in the curses yelled at the missionaries in any place that was \"inhospitable.\" One single record in Legge's journal illustrates the visceral level at which this demonology worked. At one point northeast of Poklo as they were travelling up the East River, the boat passed through a herd of water buffalo “luxuriating”\n\n71", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215976, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "209\n\nin the muddy shallows of the river. Dusk had already come, the air was \"cool and refreshing,\" and the cowherd responsible for the water buffalo was washing their bodies as they lounged in the cool environment after a hard day's labour. Neither the cowherd nor the buffalo responded to the sight of the strange men. But once the boat rounded the next corner in the river, they silently came up to a \"girl driving home two or three cows.\" When she peered through the darkening light into the boat and realized she was gazing at \"strange faces and forms,\" she spontaneously shrieked and ran away from her cows, yelling that \"demons\" were coming up the river! To her the word was not simply a casual derogation, but was actually descriptive of what she saw. Certainly it was also believed by many who were her neighbours. There may be other ways to respond to demons, such as lying quietly on the water buffalo you are cleaning and not looking into the faces of suspected ghosts or demons, but the belief remained the same. This demonisation of foreigners easily increased the common people's tendency to fear and despise them, and could erupt into destructive violence, especially if political and military reasons prodded them to express their fears and hatreds more openly.\n\nStill later on the return trip, when the Chinese members of the missionary group had gone ashore during the evening to sleep on firmer supports than the floating boats could offer, those on land were attacked by a mob of “lewd fellows of the baser sort\" who obviously spent most of their fury on Ch'ea.72 It is clear that Ch'ëa's methods had threatened and offended others in the Poklo region, to the point that some were willing to hire or incite young thugs to hinder his activities. Legge and others nevertheless remained impressed by Ch'ëa's consistent character, emphasizing instead the positive reports of those influenced by him to embrace Christian traditions. In many ways they considered him an authentic \"Golden Light\" (Jinguang, which also was his personal name) shining within China, a miraculous hope during a period made dark and bleak by the ensuing war. Yet by the spring of 1861 it was more and more obvious that Ch'ea was already a marked man in Poklo. Even if Legge and other missionaries hoped otherwise, they did so in spite of the evidence of the antagonisms vented against Ch'ea in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215978, "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": 277, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "211\n\nbelievers was also one of the explicit conditions mentioned in the new treaty. Here was a prime test case for compliance to the new treaty, one which would force both Qing and British bureaucracies to express public support for the most recent treaty regulations. On this score Legge felt he and the London Missionary Society were on solid legal ground. But Legge also felt obliged to move because it was probably told him by colonial officials he knew in Hong Kong that the regiments currently residing in Canton would soon be leaving.\" Once they left, there would be no easy recourse to a militarily supported British official in the region, and so Legge sought to resolve the case before it became essentially a matter of working directly with the Qing provincial authorities. Expecting that those authorities would be less responsive, Legge probably felt he had no real option but to make a personal and immediate appeal to the British authorities in Canton.\n\nAfter an initial interview over the problem in Canton, Legge was recalled to the British Governor-General's office there and offered an unexpected compromise. A British military escort would be sent to oversee the proper transaction only if Legge himself would go. In the accounts published for the British public nothing is explained about Legge's response except that he decided to go. Having offered to try to resolve the issue by going to Poklo himself and using “a blended firmness and conciliatoriness to get over our difficulties,\" Legge was asked if he could leave immediately to pursue this approach. Reflecting first about his family and then on his sense of religious duty to Christ and to the Chinese Christians in Poklo, he confirmed his willingness to go under escort while still in the office. What he did not tell others is the content of a message he left with John Chalmers, who had come with him to the Governor-General's office.77 It read as follows:\n\nIt is possible that I may be beheaded at Pok-lo. If news comes that I have been murdered, go at once to the English consul and tell him that it was my wish that no English gun-boat should be sent up the river to punish the people for my death.\n\nNothing could have been more risky or bold, Legge trusting that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216023, "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": 322, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "256\n\nMountain, a former small island now joined to the mainland by alluvium, referred to by Victorian travellers as a 'pyramidal rock'. This used to stand out in the Yangzi a mile or so upstream from the city of Zhenjiang, hence their use of its name generically for the city. There is a further island, Jiao Shan Scorched Island, an islet some mile or so downstream from the city with its own ancient temple, Dinghui Si concealed within its tree-covered slopes. It too has its own memorials from the era of the Six Dynasties - two or three ancient cypress trees, whose storm-riven and almost barkless trunks were in the 1920s still held together by iron bands. According to Allom, Silver Island [Mountain], the name formerly given by foreigners to Jiao Shan, is to the westward of Zhenjiang, within sight of the Gold Island [Mountain] [see illustration]. Legend has it that Jin Shan, Gold Mountain takes its name from the time during the Tang dynasty when a certain Bei Totuo was digging into the hill and found a pot of gold; this has long been denied by Buddhists who believe that the name of the hill has a Buddhist symbolic meaning. Although the British Concession was originally laid out with intervening ground between it and the old walled city it did not take many years for the new native city to encroach and reach the Concession boundary. This meant that foreigners wishing to leave the Concession had to battle their way through the main street of the new native city, facing filthy and disease-ridden beggars, open drains and past open spaces which were used as public conveniences, constantly patronised by squatting men.\n\nCaptain Cunynghame, serving with the British force sailing up the Yangzi and about to mount an assault on Zhenjiang, arrived off the city on the 18th of July 1842. The force had been proceeding with great care as it was the first opportunity that western warships had had to penetrate as far inland up the Great River. He described his first sighting of Golden Island as 'the most beautiful little fairy isle imaginable, covered with temples, whose gilt-topped pagodas shone brilliantly in the evening sun'. A week or so later, once the city had been stormed and he was able to walk through it and wrote that \"the walled portion of the town was reckoned about four miles in circumference. The suburbs, extending a long distance to the west, probably occupied an equal extent of ground. The former space was chiefly occupied by streets containing shops, with an occasional blank space of wall within which were the houses of the most wealthy inhabitants. A very large portion, however, was occupied by gardens", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216032, "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": 331, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "265\n\nin 1144, built to the west of the Bridge of a Thousand Autumns, Qianqiu Qiao, beside a small canal with landing places attached. It would seem to have been inside the present city, about where the road from the west gate crosses the canal, before you reached the City God Temple. It was restored in 1271 with a commemorative inscription composed by Liu Xiufu, and the whole establishment was enlarged during the Ming so as to have 109 rooms, with stabling for 80 horses, forty of which had to be kept constantly saddled, presumably for use by imperial messengers.\n\nMoving on to the Yuan [Mongol] dynasty, an interesting account, if indeed it is genuine, claims that Marco Polo mentioned the foundation of Nestorian Christian churches at Zhenjiang (Cinghian fu) by a Nestorian Christian governor, Mar Sargis [or Mar George] from Samarkand. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor of China during the 13th century employed foreigners within his civil service, one of whom was Marco Polo who spent three years as Governor of Yangzhou, the city a short distance upstream on the northern arm of the Grand Canal immediately across the Great River from Zhenjiang. The story goes that the maternal grandfather of Mar Sargis cured Genghis Khan of a sickness by administering sherbet and his secret recipe. The latter was passed down the family and each generation did good business ensuring their fortune. The story of his appointment as governor would appear to have been confirmed by various entries in the old records of Zhenjiang in which there are references to seven Christian monasteries [i.e. churches] in or near the city, adding that the Zhenjiang Christian population in about AD 1280 amounted to 215. These were started after Mar Sargis had a dream in which he was instructed to construct seven Nestorian churches. Using his fortune he is said to have completed all seven but unwittingly with one on the site of a former famous Buddhist monastery which Mar Sargis was ordered to hand back to the Buddhists. Of the remaining six two were said to have been on the ridge running inland from the former site of the British consulate.\n\nDuring the early days of the Ming, in the reign of the Yongle emperor, various expeditions sailed down the Yangzi from Nanjing, and out into the Eastern Ocean, a commander of several of the expeditions being the renowned eunuch, Zheng He. The policy of despatching such expeditions far beyond China's shores was short-lived. Between 1405 and 1425 Zheng's fleet voyaged through south-east Asia", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216037, "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": 336, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "270\n\nwriting home in October 1861, four years after the Taiping evacuation of Zhenjiang wrote 'it gives me the blue devils to walk in the neighbourhood of this wretched city. Thousands of acres of rich land lie uncultivated and overgrown with rank grass. The cottages are all destroyed and a very few old men and women represent a tottering population. Not a junk moored off the city wall and only one very dirty street remains of what was once a large and haughty town. I don't think the rebels will be back this year. They have lost a very important post up the river and their head den [Nanjing] will soon be threatened by the Imperialists'.\n\nIn 1854 a new American Commissioner arrived en poste in Shanghai and decided to visit the Taiping headquarters in Nanjing as a US diplomatic representative. He sailed up the Yangzi in the USS Susquehanna but as they passed the Taiping fort at Zhenjiang a shot across their bows caused him to send a small party ashore to demand a reason for the 'insult' and an apology. The Zhenjiang Taiping commander explained that they were keeping a vigilant eye on traffic on the Yangzi and required all vessels to hove to until permission to proceed was received from Nanjing. The US representative repeated his demand for an apology and threatened to sail on on the morrow come what may. He also provided a sketch of the US flag so that such an insult may never be repeated. They sailed on as planned and having had many meetings with Taiping commanders at various levels, including one with the Eastern King, the US Commissioner realised that in view of the tone of the Eastern King's written response, amongst other things requiring Tribute from the Americans, any continued attempt to institute diplomatic relations with the Taiping was a waste of time. Whereupon they returned to Shanghai, wiser but no further forward. However, they did take the opportunity before returning of sailing a hundred or so miles further up stream to areas not before visited by US or British expeditions. The Americans, sad to say, appear to have obtained little new about the Taipings to add to what was already known,\n\n13\n\nZhenjiang temples\n\nThe four major temples were the Jin Shan Temple with its pagoda, the Ganlu Si [Sweet Dew Temple] on the Beigu Shan, the Dinghui Si on Jiao Shan and the City God temple. There were also a number of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216039, "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": 338, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "272\n\nAlthough not part of the Zhenjiang story a Daoist cult centre on Mao Shan, a mountain some fifty miles to the south, was visited annually by a stream of pilgrims in the Spring, a great many of whom passed through the convenient port of Zhenjiang. The Daoist Mao Shan school was arguably the most powerful Daoist sect during the Tang and maintained its great prestige down to at least 1949. The Mao Shan Daopai as it is known, is renowned for its seances and medium trances, and according to Mao Shan sect priests was founded in the fourth century AD with the Mao Shan sect priests considering themselves to be the highest ranking of all Daoist orders.15 The sect originally appears to have been meditative and only later did it fall into line with other sects.\n\nIn 1917 two images were observed by Otterwill in Zhenjiang, in procession, Yan Gong and Jiang Gong #, both patron deities of river boatmen. Both deities were popular on altars in and around Nanchang, Anjing and along the Yangzi. Also popular in central China, C. B. Day records that Yan Gong in Zhejiang province was one of the Five Daoist deities who presided over a period of danger, a member of the Celestial Board of Health 瘟部五帝.\n\nThere have been but few references in western writings to the legend and role of Yan Gong, a Patron of Sailors. According to Doré, \"he was regarded in Central China as the protector of sailors and the god of the tides [Chao Shen].\" This, presumably, means the patron deity of sailors in the rivers and estuaries of the Yangzi basin. However, Yang Laoda is the usual patron of boatmen on the Yangzi. Werner1 provides a more detailed description of Yan Gong, the god of sailors, adding a little to Doré. He notes that Yan Gong had a temple built in his honour near Shanghai during the reign of the first emperor of the period of the Three Kingdoms [ca. AD 240] and that he was the deified hero in that temple who protected Shanghai from rebel attacks during the reign of Ming Shi Cong [ca. 1540]. Other legends claim that he was born during the Song in Jiangxi, that he was one of the four major deities of Jiangxi province, and was a censor famous for his integrity. Or that he was again a native of Jiangxi but born during the Yuan, and drowned during a storm when returning home. He was buried but was seen by the inhabitants of his native district on the same day. When his coffin was brought to Nanchang and opened it was found to be empty, a miracle which led to a temple being built in his honour. Sailors have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216060, "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": 359, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "293\n\nwas a young man of twenty just starting his lifelong career in China. In his Miscellanies he described how on his arrival at Hankou commanding the sailing lorcha, Hailong Wang [the Dragon King], he was paid off by the owners, the Mc Twins, who offered him a job as superintendent builder of a large hong [company office/warehouse] they intended erecting on the Bund. He accepted - as the Hailong Wang was laid up. However, as he actually wished to return to Shanghai to marry a local maiden, Zhu Wenjing, he took leave and in one statement he claimed that he sailed aboard the Huguang, a new beam-engine paddlewheel river steamer on her maiden voyage.\" In another he explained that he had left Hankou at the end of 1862 in charge of a cargo boat which was captured by the Taipings. This occurred when, having called at Zhenjiang on 1st or 3rd of November 1862 [his accounts vary], he was on his way to Shanghai in charge of a cargo boat, and was captured, with his crew, by the Taiping rebels, midstream, at Fu Shan Zhen. Mesny's colourful description of his time with the Taipings began with him being brought in chains before a senior Taiping who ordered him to ketou [kowtow]. Mesny wrote that he refused and that he only bowed to God. ‘So do we', cried the Taiping, and promptly ordered Mesny's release. Mesny continued his tale describing how the Senior Taiping had dined Mesny and offered him his daughter in marriage and the command of a Taiping vessel with the rank of vice-admiral. In another version elsewhere in his Miscellanies Mesny claimed to have been wounded twice during the capture and was at first badly treated by his captors. But once the Taiping discovered that he could play Chinese tunes on his four-octave flutina, their behaviour entirely altered. On a more credible note he was required to write to his employers in Shanghai demanding 100,000 Spanish Carolus dollars ransom.\n\nMesny was puzzled at the time why various senior Taiping officials should have vied to hold him their captive. It later transpired that at first these officials had not appreciated the power and capabilities of the foreign-led Chinese force [meaning the Ever-Victorious Army] sent against them; and when they did the Taiping officials' first act was to obtain and hold foreigners to prevent the violent wrath of the foreign-led force being brought down on them. One of the foreigners Mesny saw momentarily, also in Taiping hands, was Frank Phillip de la Cour, another Jerseyman, who had been taken whilst shipping arms.\n\nHaving managed to send a secret message to Shanghai that he was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216062, "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": 361, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "295\n\nregular aside about their breasts and occasionally their naked crotch. He also made much of his affairs with Chinese women and at this point, in 1864 had a 'romantic and intimate interlude' with a young Chinese widow. She did not appear to be short of money and, having sought Mesny's company, accompanied him up river from Zhenjiang to Hankou where they remained until she left to join her in-laws in 1865. He had been away for a fortnight to the cotton growing districts and on his return had been handed a very polite letter from the 'fair charmer' thanking him for all his attentions to her and informing him that she was continuing on to her late husband's home in Hunan there to rear her children and end her days in virtuous widowhood. She ended, wishing him joy and happiness, by saying that the Chinese banker would hand Mesny a little keepsake to be retained by him in everlasting remembrance of their unexpected meeting at Zhenjiang, their romantic adventures and intimacy on the voyage up the Great River, and their separation for ever at Hankou.\n\nMesny's visit to Zhenjiang 1874\n\nAfter he had left military service in 1874 Mesny made frequent and repeated egotistical assertions to prominence and repute within Chinese bureaucracy and commercial circles with his endeavours, so he claimed, concentrated on guiding and promoting what he described as the westernisation and modernisation in China. It is far from clear how he made a living after 1874 though later we read in his Miscellanies that he had obtained lucrative business in Guiyang at one stage; that in 1886 he had an insurance agency in Shanghai; and was also the representative for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company. He must have had many other irons in the fire to enable him to travel so widely and so far within China, of which only a few were described in his Miscellanies.\n\nIn late 1874 he travelled down river to Zhenjiang and then overland through Shandong to Beijing, spending the winter in Jinan. From the dates he gives in his autobiographical notes Mesny must have left his bride fairly soon after their marriage as he travelled through Shantung province on his way to Peking from Chen-kiang' [Mesny does not explain why he was there though almost certainly it would have been no more than a port on his journey from Hankou to Shandong]. In Shandong he visited, amongst other places, the home and burial place of Confucius at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216063, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "296\n\nQufu, and Tai Shan, the Holy Mountain, where he saw thousands of poor pilgrims assembling. Mesny claimed that, as an adviser to the Governor of Shandong province, Ding Baozhen, he persuaded the Governor Ding to establish an arsenal near Jinan and build a railway from the Yellow River to the arsenal. Mesny also claimed to have persuaded him to dredge the Yellow River and to fortify Weihai Wei and Jiaozhou [both places later occupied and governed by Britain and Germany respectively as leased territories]. Mesny also claimed to have persuaded Ding to develop the mineral wealth of Shandong 'which he did though in a small way only'.\n\nRiots and mob violence\n\nZhenjiang suffered its share of mob violence and riots during its treaty port era. One of the major problems confronting westerners within China was the ever-present possibility of petty or even major violence against their persons and property. Often the disturbance to the peace, due to whatever cause, would be exacerbated by either western impetuosity and/or the indifference and inactivity of the local intendants [mandarins] and their staffs. There were also the perils of banditry, of pirates, of rebels or simply of thugs.\n\nOne afternoon in 1865 the astounding news was received in Hankou that three foreigners had been most barbarously hacked to pieces in Zhenjiang, and were not expected to live. One was Francis Pickernell, a friend of Mesny, and another was Charles Lewis of Boston, an American, a former ship and messmate of Mesny's, whilst the third was another friend and fellow Jerseyman, Filleule, all of whom died from their horrible wounds. The outrage caused a profound impression upon all foreigners in the river ports and John, Mesny's younger brother, who had not been at Hankou very long, felt very sad at the loss of three such friends. The outrage was said to be due to mistaken identity. A man named Stone, a master of a lorcha on the Yangzi, appears to have offended some Chinese military officials who had insulted his Chinese wife, and they had attempted to avenge themselves in this horrible manner.\n\nOne fine evening in about 1866, during the time the Nianfei [or Nianzi], the so-called Twisting Bandits, were in the neighbourhood of Hankou, Mesny relates the dreadful tale of four westerners who saw a favourable opportunity to join up with one of the roaming gangs of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216065, "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": 364, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "298\n\nhad been destroyed and burned down. Thousands of rioters had arrived there in boats and destroyed foreign property. These enigmatic statements suggest that Mesny believed that ‘charity funds for famine relief' were being misused by the Viceroy and others to buy off bandits, even if he does not actually spell it out. There is no indication in his Miscellanies to whom he reported after his fact-finding mission or what he did with his information about the famine, or whether he actually provided physical relief for some of the unfortunate victims.\n\nAs so often happened a very minor incident, in this case concerning a Sikh policeman, grew in a matter of hours into a major riot. It was riots in 1889 referred to by Mesny, when the Sikh, a member of the municipal police force of the Zhenjiang Concession, was alleged to have struck a Chinese. According to Arlington it was started by the Concession Chief of Police, an Indian, accidentally killing a coolie who 'dared' to have his head shaved on the Bund [a terrible thing to shave the head on the Bund!]. The events followed a not unusual pattern with the mob throwing stones and the Europeans managing to escape to a ship on the Great River but not before telegraphing for assistance to Shanghai. The Chinese authorities too had been called upon for help and though both Chinese police and soldiers arrived they simply stood around and did nothing. Both the British and American consulates were destroyed; meanwhile Shanghai replied requesting additional information and advising the westerners in Zhenjiang that a gun boat was being prepared. Order was restored by Chinese troops on the following day. Three days later the British gunboat arrived and was boarded by the Consul who was greeted by a gun-salute. The very first report of the guns sent every Chinese off the Bund and out of the Concession like a cloud of smoke being dispersed by a typhoon. A benefit arising from the riot was the construction of a new consulate office and house with its own garden. A slightly different picture of the cause was given by Consul Parker which he had obtained from hearsay.*4 The Zhenjiang municipal police had arrested a Chinese military officer for 'reckless riding'.\n\nAfter the riots of the 1880s strong, double riot gates of stout iron bars were constructed, each with a span of some twenty feet, so that the whole of the width of the Bund, some forty feet, would be barred when they were closed. The Concession police during the first decade of the 20th century consisted of some sixteen Shandong men from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216069, "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": 368, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "302\n\nso that I may die childless, as I am now old and not likely to have any more children. I had never met or seen Mason before he presented himself to me as being the United States Consular Marshal at Hankou, which was a lie, he being actually a Custom House Officer at Zhenjiang.'\n\nLet us try to unravel the sorry story of Mason and Mesny. It is involved and still has aspects which are difficult to fathom. We have a number of versions or parts of it available to us but will confine ourselves to three: Mason's own story, briefly described below, written some 30 odd years later after he had roamed the world as a vagrant worker; the letters from the Inspector General of the Imperial Customs, Sir Robert Hart; and Mesny's bitter accusation. Mason, according to Mesny, practically ruined him and certainly caused Mesny great personal problems as he explained in great detail in his Miscellany. It is difficult to fit these three pieces of jigsaw together as there are few elements in common; however, the basic story is there. Mason bought a large quantity of foreign arms, ammunition, and explosives with which to arm a rising against the Imperial government, and having been arrested in Shanghai, was tried, sentenced, gaoled, and finally deported. Mesny was called as a witness but was accused to his face by the Chinese Premier, Li Hongzhang, of being the chief or very senior in the anti-Imperialist bandit body, the Elder Brother Society. This led to Mesny being ostracised by Chinese officialdom and, as his be-all and end-all as a business go-between was his contacts with Chinese officials, his life quietly slipped downhill thereafter.\n\nAccording to records — ‘Charles Welsh Mason, a young Englishman, had joined the Imperial Maritime Customs in December 1887 and was sent to Zhenjiang, an important post but a minor port on the Yangzi, as 4th assistant B, where he joined the Gelao Hui and became involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government. In July of 1891, he took two months' leave and went to Hong Kong, where he purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition for the Society and arranged for it to be shipped to Shanghai and from there on to Zhenjiang. He also recruited men for the Society and bought a quantity of dynamite, which he carried with him to Shanghai, where he requested Commissioner Bredon of the Imperial Maritime Customs to allow it to be shipped on to Zhenjiang so that he, Mason, could uncover more of the Chinese rebels' plans. Bredon refused the \"sting\" and instructed Mason to report to Hart in Beijing. Instead, Mason took a river steamer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216228, "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": 527, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "In camp Mary mentioned that 'sound travels fast.'\n\nAt six the next morning we had peace at last!\n\nי\n\nDid Nicholas try to abandon his wife?\n\nDid he say to the driver 'Now drive for your life'?\n\nDid he know that his Lorene had been left behind?\n\nI'm sure that he didn't - he's not that unkind!\n\nAngus hails from Scotland,\n\nwhere real men go bare, forsooth.\n\nIf he takes his kaftan off,\n\nall you'll see is - hair? The truth\n\nis only known to Bebe, his clever lawyer wife.\n\n(She's the one whose expertise is matrimonial strife!)\n\nNational Workforce gangs sit breaking stones;\n\nat the end of the day they must have aching bones.\n\nAh yes, that reminds me - Sir David, our knight,\n\nwould like to see Bhutan tourism more bright,\n\n461", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216287, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "2003 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE FRIENDS OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH OF\n\nTHE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (UK)\n\nAlthough the number of Friends' activities during the past year cannot compete with those in Hong Kong, it is nevertheless pleasing to report that the quarterly meetings which have taken place have been of a very high standard. They started in May 2003 with a bold and forthright talk by Dr. Francis Wood, entitled 'Marco Polo and Me.' Dr. Wood is curator of Chinese Collections at the British Library and author of 'Did Marco Polo Go To China?' and 'No Dogs, Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port Life in China 1843-1943.' Her talk was very convincing and one was left in no doubt that there are still many unanswered questions about Marco Polo's trips to China.\n\nThe second event took 35 Friends to Bath and Bristol for two days in early October, 2003. Bath has an excellent Museum of East Asian Art, originally set up by Mr. Brian McElney, who lived in Hong Kong for many years in the 1960s and 70s. He became a well-known collector of Chinese artefacts. The museum now houses a wide range of Far Eastern art, including items from South Korea and Japan. Our visit coincided with the very well presented exhibition 'Death and Burial: The Chinese and the Afterlife.' The Friends were particularly impressed by the emphasis on education and the museum's outreach to local schools. The day ended with a very authentic Chinese meal at the Cathay Rendezvous in Bristol.\n\nThe following morning the Friends met at the Empire and Commonwealth Museum, which was opened in Bristol three years ago, with a great deal of local and overseas backing, including the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It was particularly pleasing to see Dr. Dan Waters' name inscribed in the entrance hall. The exhibition portrayed in very enlightened and balanced ways a history of the Commonwealth countries, as seen by many of the local people who lived there. The items on display showed that the build-up of Empire and Commonwealth was a remarkable achievement, but there were clearly some aspects which did not come up to the high ideals many expected - this precipitated a lively topic for discussion during the lunch that followed after the visit and the subsequent river cruise through the old town of Bristol.\n\nxlvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216323, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "31\n\nright, presently near a road bridge spanning the river at this point, has the picturesque name now, as it did then, of \"Lady's Slipper,\" in Cantonese Ah Niang Hai. The merchant ships had to anchor here and report themselves to the Chinese force guarding the passage, and show their permits. This done, they were on their way upstream to the Whampoa Anchorage, twelve miles from Canton.\n\nThe Whampoa Anchorage (Plate 3) was the furthest point to which merchant ships could come. It was a trans-shipment centre, a very busy place, year in year out, for centuries. Its warehouses, docks and repair yards, its hospital, its cemetery, all point to a long existence as the place in which - more than Canton itself - the real business of the China Trade was carried on. That is, other than at Lintin (“Solitary Nail,” a reference to its single peak), an island in the outer waters of the Delta which, since the 1820s, had become an opium depot and the port for a large volume of illegal trading, the amount (astonishingly enough) tripling the authorized regular trading conducted through the Co-hong, and under the official regulations.7\n\nWhampoa was the Chinese countryside beside the river, lush and heavily populated. The Daniells, English painters who visited the Whampoa anchorage twice, in 1785 and 1793, particularly noted ‘...its sweet, romantic scenery. Nothing indeed can exceed the beauty of the country in this vicinity.’ Another visitor wrote in 1848: \"Whampoa was beautiful. The vessels were displaying their different flags; Chinese boats were crossing and re-crossing in every direction, and the setting sun was shedding its gilded light on everything around, giving to the low, flat island, covered with rich, green-like velvet, the pagodas and the foliage of the trees, a touch of enchantment'. Above Canton, it was much the same story. \"The river sides were planted with orange-trees, plantains, and lychees; while nothing but rice fields appeared inland'.10\n\nWhampoa's famous seven-storey pagoda, built in the late Ming period, features in many China Trade paintings, and in paintings on porcelains and fans. The pagoda itself attracted the more energetic visitors. A 16 year old American girl who accompanied her sea captain father on his China voyage in 1856, climbed up the pagoda and wrote in her journal, '(after you arrive at the top, I found I was repaid for my trouble. Oh! There was such a beautiful view, for miles and miles I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216325, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "33\n\nresidence of factors or agents, and not because anything was manufactured there. Built and owned by the merchants charged with the conduct of foreign trade, they were let out to the foreign merchant houses, and comprised a series of 13 hongs placed side by side of each other, which formed a terrace fronting the river.15 (Plate 4) Each Hong consisted of a series of buildings placed one behind the other from the river backwards, for a depth of from 550 to 600 feet to the first street running parallel to the river.15\n\nSpread over 21 acres, the factory grounds and buildings were rented from the Chinese merchants charged with the conduct of the foreign trade. They impressed visitors, especially in contrast with their proximity to 'low, dingy Chinese houses on the one hand, and the densely populated river on the other', and as another newcomer put it, 'sparkling like diamonds in a heap of old rubbish'.\" (See Plate).\n\nLike the Old China Trade itself, the Factories are long gone. They did not survive the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Chinese War in 1856 (the so-called \"Arrow War,\" after the vessel which became the casus belli) when they were destroyed by fire on the orders of the Chinese authorities. However, they have been immortalized in the many pictorial representations that have come down to us of the sights and scenes of Old Canton.\n\nThese are known collectively as \"China Trade Pictures\" because they were objects of trade, painted to order for the foreign merchants and ships' crews connected with the trade. The earliest panoramas date from the mid-eighteenth century, and from them we can trace the Factories' architectural history, notably the re-buildings that followed periodic disasters, such as the fires of 1822 and 1842.18\n\n19\n\nA salient fact is that most of these paintings are by Chinese, sometimes associated with a particular school of professional painters and sometimes unidentified. Such works were in the Western style, meant to suit Western tastes. Traditional Chinese style \"views\" were, of course, very different.\n\nHonam\n\nPart of Honam Island, on the south side of the Pearl River, opposite", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216404, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "113\n\nDuring the afternoon on Wednesday, 30th September the Lindbergh's Lockheed Sirius aircraft landed on the River and was made fast astern of HERMES, a short while later being hoisted onto her flight deck.\n\nThe following day two aircraft from HERMES flew off on patrol, as did the Colonel and Mrs Lindbergh in their Sirius.\n\nUnfortunately on Friday, the 2nd, after hoisting out the Colonel's machine at 0945 hours, and when endeavouring to unhook, the machine capsized alongside.14\n\nWith a strong current running in the river it was necessary to apply a certain amount of throttle so that as the aircraft took the water it forged ahead in such a way as to permit the crane hook to be disengaged. The Colonel had misjudged the manoeuvre, quickly the current had taken hold, the aircraft twisted around broadside to the flow, the port wing dipped into the river, the machine capsized, and the two occupants were thrown into the water. Happily the possibility of such a mishap occurring had been foreseen. On this occasion the motor sampan from the Vice Admiral's Flagship, the gunboat BEE,15 was standing by. Instantly the sampan crew rescued the Colonel and his wife. Fortunately the aircraft still was hooked on and under the direction of Commander Baxter salvage operations commenced immediately. The Lockheed was righted and hoisted in at 1035 hours. Damage was found to be minimal. However, being of wooden construction whereas the frames of the aircraft in the ship were of metal, no suitable spare parts could be found onboard.\n\nThe Lindbergh's both made light of their misadventure with the Colonel quick to take the blame for the accident. As Vice Admiral MacLean was to state:\n\n'I was very much impressed by the unassuming manner of Colonel Lindbergh and they certainly both won the liking and esteem of all who came into contact with them here. Mrs. Lindbergh's sole comment on her accident was that all her life she had taken particular pains to drink only distilled water and to wash her teeth in disinfectant and she had obviously undone the good work of a lifetime by swallowing a gallon of Yangtze water.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216420, "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": 179, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "129\n\nChemulpo (later Inchon). This would drive north along thawing and impassable roads, across the Yalu River into Manchuria, heading for Liaoyang and Mukden (now known as Shenyang) north of the Liaodong peninsula. Then, with what remained of the Russian fleet bottled up in the harbour at Port Arthur, the second and main force would be landed some thirty miles north of Dalny (Dairen to the Japanese and now known as Dalian) cutting off Port Arthur at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula. The final stage was the landing of a third Japanese army in January 1905 and its assault on Port Arthur. The war began as planned with a Japanese 'Pearl Harbor' bombardment at Port Arthur, taking the Russian fleet by surprise.\n\nAlthough the Japanese met with a number of set-backs their overall plan succeeded. The crowning moments were the Fall of Port Arthur at the beginning of January 1905 and the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, the titanic clash between the Japanese fleet and the Russian Baltic Fleet, the latter having made its slow progress across the world from Latvia in October 1904 to Tsushima seven months later, and to its fate and destruction. News of the devastating Japanese victory alarmed a number of Chinese officials who, whilst they did not wish Japan to lose, had not wanted her to gain such an overwhelming victory.\n\nFinally, after the eighteen month campaign the land war ended with the destruction of the Russian army before Mukden. The succeeding months were a matter of Japanese mopping-up operations and the capture of Liaoyang and Mukden.\n\nDuring the final stages of the war the Japanese finally took the fighting on to 'sacred' Russian territory when they invaded the large island of Sakhalin. This was of great political importance as it was regarded as Russian territory and, with rioting on the streets of the Russian major cities, the Russians realised that they had lost. Also at that point, Japan now holding most of the cards, but militarily and financially exhausted, sought President Roosevelt's good offices to bring about a peace conference. This took place in September 1905 concluding with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in the United States. The Russians ceded the Guandong peninsula (Chinese territory) and half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan but without having to pay any indemnity. The Russians, so the Japanese believed, had been allowed by the Americans to get away without paying any financial compensation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216481, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "190\n\nof his first command and the position of trust in which his employers had placed him. The Euphrates and Tigris Shipping Company had come into possession of the Shushan after it was no longer required for the Nile expedition and decided to use it to extend their operations into South West Iran up the Karun River beyond Ahwaz. They were already running a regular passenger and freight service up to Ahwaz but were unable to proceed further because of a series of rapids that had effectively closed the river to conventional steam traffic.\n\nPlant picked up his new command at Basra and was introduced to his engineer officer, a young Englishman called Stanley Webber with whom he would be sharing his Persian adventure. Together, they and a temporary crew from Basra, made their way down the Shatt al Arab to Mohammerah, a town at the mouth of the Karun River and from there, up river to Ahwaz. His next task was to take the Shushan up and over the rapids at Ahwaz, where the water rushed down a seemingly impenetrable rocky slope although, it was said, there were a few fast water channels through which the craft might proceed with safety provided it had sufficient paddle power. To be on the safe side he obtained some long safety lines and hired a crowd of pullers and heavers to man them should the craft not be able to manage the rapid under its own steam.\n\nRiver pilotage\n\nThus, all was made ready for the assault on the feared Ahwaz rapids. The great day came and so did the crowds to see the fun - but his hard work and planning paid off. With a full head of steam and Plant on the wheel the Shushan climbed the first rapid and then went full ahead upstream for the next gap between two great rocks where the river 'poured through like a sluice.' She just made it and then moved up to through the next rapid that was just a little easier and finally entered the calmer waters above the town. Here, the crew was discharged and sent back to their home port while Plant made preparations for taking the Shushan on its first trip to Shuster some 50 miles up river.\n\nFirst, he had to find and train a permanent crew, including someone with knowledge of the river and a Tindal (bo'sun) to take charge of the deck hands. He also needed an interpreter, through whom he could give instructions to the crew, most of whom spoke no English. He would\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216483, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "192\n\nKarun without an effective paddle wheel but he met every emergency with energy and resolve.\n\nWherever he went, he surveyed the river, recorded his observations and updated his map. He explored other waterways, first by sailing boat and then in the Shushan in order to establish which rivers in the area were navigable. The account of Shushan's journey of exploration up the River Diz in 1891 is still included in the current edition of the Admiralty Pilot for the Persian Gulf,\n\nLife in Iran\n\nLife in Iran for the young Cornell Plant was not all hard work. Game was plentiful and he enjoyed shooting it. If it was edible he ate it, if not, he just enjoyed the shooting. He shot hare, fox, jackal, wolf and deer and went pig sticking with mixed results. He was asked by representatives of one of the villages along the route to shoot a desert lion that had been raiding their herds. Less sportingly, he shot another lion that he spotted from the bridge of the Shushan. Far more dangerous was his encounter with a wild buffalo, which he dropped in the true tradition of the best heroic tales with a shot from his .577 Express, as it charged at him from a few yards away. The most amazing of his adventures was watching a formal battle between two warring Arab tribes from a concealed position on a hill overlooking the chosen battleground. It took several hours for the 600 or so mounted warriors to assemble and hurl insults at each other but once the battle proper started, it was over very quickly. One side felt they were losing and left the field at speed leaving their Sheikh and his family to fight on alone. The opposing warriors withdrew to allow the families of the two opposing sheikhs to fight it out - to the death which they did. Only one 14-year-old boy was spared from the losing Sheikh's family.\n\nThe whole area through which the Shushan travelled was under the direct control of the Nizam, an official appointed by the Shah but when he lost favour and another took over, law and order seemed to break down and Plant found himself threatened by gangs of river pirates. Fortunately, he kept on the move and away from trouble but on one occasion, when anchored overnight in a remote spot he and his team were stood to with their hunting rifles at the ready. The watch, while half asleep, had observed what he made out to be dusky figures stealing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216484, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "193\n\ndown the bank opposite the ship and fearing surprise, gave voice to his warning. It proved to be a false alarm, the supposed marauders turned out to be some jackals stealing down to the river to drink.\n\nMarriage and home again\n\nAt some time during his time in Iran, Cornell Plant met Alice Peters, the daughter of a shoe maker from Hertford. They were married at Bandar Bushire in 1894 by Colonel Wilson, the acting consul. Cornell was 28 and Alice was 24. What she was doing in South West Iran has not yet been satisfactorily explained - perhaps she had travelled with an expatriate family as a lady's maid or a children's nurse. Whatever her background and her reason for being in the Persian Gulf, for the next 27 years she was Cornell Plant's loyal wife and good companion in strange places and through turbulent times. There is a photograph of Cornell Plant at about this time taken in Iran by Joseph (Photographer, Est 1875, Gold Medals - Shah of Persia). It shows a chubby young man in a crumpled uniform and is one of only a very few photos of him that are in the family record.\n\nThe exact movements of Captain and Mrs Plant in the years following their marriage are not certain. He wrote an 80-page account of his Persian adventures some seven years after he was first offered command of Shushan. At the end of this account he says that he became ill and returned home to the UK. He says his illness was diagnosed as typhoid fever, not the malaria that he suffered throughout his later life and which he mistook for the pneumonia that eventually brought his life to a close. Perhaps they returned home in 1896 or thereabouts. While recuperating back in England, Plant will have taken stock of his position and his future prospects. His selection by the Euphrates and Tigris Shipping Company to command the Shushan was evidently based upon his ability as a seaman, because the only formal certificate recorded in his name is that of Second Mate. Perhaps he did not wish to return to a life at sea after his experience in command and the success he had achieved in river pilotage. This may be the reason why in 1898 he wrote the long and detailed account of his Persian adventures - almost a description of his suitability for similar employment elsewhere.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216508, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "219\n\nLuoyang at Binglingsi (where a ferry took Silk Road travellers across the Yellow River) also shows influence from further west, this time from Gandhara (see below). These caves date from around 420. Indian influence was significant too in the magnificent complex of four hundred and ninety-two caves at Dunhuang, 'the art gallery in the desert', nearly fifteen hundred kilometres (as the crow flies) northwest of Chang'an. The practice arose at Dunhuang of travellers making offerings for a safe trip as they set off into the Taklamakan desert, or for a safe return, in the form of commissioning Buddhist devotional cave paintings. Dunhuang also became a monastic centre, particularly flourishing after the great fair at Zhangye (nine hundred kilometres northwest of Chang'an) in 609, which was sponsored and attended by the Chinese Emperor Yangdi. Among those who travelled to attend this fair were people from twenty-seven different nations, according to Tucker. This indicates the greater freedom of travel established by this period, and it is not surprising that Gandharan influence is to be seen in Dunhuang's paintings, although Tucker argues that their style is distinctively Chinese.\n\nClearly, by the time of the Zhangye fair, the Silk Road was thriving. By then, Xinjiang Province (meaning 'New Dominion') had been firmly in Chinese hands for four centuries. The roaming hordes of nomads that had formerly menaced travellers on the routes through the Province had been brought to heel by Chinese military control and lines of forts extended west into the desert beyond Dunhuang. One of the most important power groups beyond the Taklamakan desert with which the Chinese had established good relations beginning with Wudi's efforts in 105 BCE was the Kushan Empire (c. 2nd century BCE to 3rd century AD), the territory of which straddled the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, and is now occupied by Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It had been established by a formerly nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi, which had settled after fleeing west from the nomadic Xiongnu. The Kushan Empire, with its provinces of Bactria and Gandhara, was the primary nexus of cross-cultural interaction along the Silk Road, straddling as it did the mountains and passes between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Persia, and the plains and great river valleys draining northwest into Europe. It was in the Kushan cities of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and Mathura (India), where magnificent schools of art emerged that blended western and eastern influences and that, in turn, spread further east into China. For example, in what is now the north of Pakistan, then known as Gandhara, Greek sculpture strongly influenced statues of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]