[ { "id": 205329, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "84 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nChina coasters came from all parts of the Commonwealth, but with a preponderance of English, Irish, Scots, and Welshmen. There was never any lack of Welshmen, and no coaster was complete without its Jones or Evans, invariably prefixed by 'Dai' or 'Taffy'. Australians and New Zealanders were not uncommon, and there were also a few Anglo-Indians. In my time, however, I can recall only one Canadian and one South African. One pleasant feature of coast life was the friendship and harmony between deck and engine departments, something still too rare on home ships. The small number of Europeans on the average coaster may have contributed to this, seldom more than three mates and four engineers, with the radio officer often a Hong Kong Chinese.\n\nThe riverboats were a special species of 'China coaster', and many of their officers spent their entire careers on the Yangtse. The Lower Riverboats, which ran between Shanghai and Hankow, operated a fortnightly schedule, of which three days were spent in Shanghai and two in Hankow. During the summer months of high water, however, some Lower Riverboats continued to Ichang, which extended their schedule to three weeks. Jardines, the China Navigation Company, and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company each had a daily sailing from Shanghai to Hankow, calling at the intermediate ports, of which the most important were Chinkiang, Nanking, Wuhu, Anking, Kiukiang, and Yochow and Shasi on the Middle River between Hankow and Ichang. The China Navigation Company's Lower Riverboats left the French Bund at three o'clock in the morning, so that they could navigate the tricky Lungshan Crossing at the estuary in daylight, and it was not unknown for junior officers to miss their ship. By catching an early morning train from Shanghai, however, they could rejoin at Nanking in the afternoon, an extreme form of pierhead jump.\n\nIf riverboat men were a special species of 'China coaster', the men who sailed on the Upper Yangtse were a distinct sub-species. The Upper Riverboats ran between Ichang and Chungking, the section of the Yangtse which included the famous and spectacular Yangtse Gorges. The men on these ships had some justification for considering themselves the aristocrats of the China coast. The slightest error in navigation, or the slightest engine mishap, would almost certainly have meant a serious casualty. The Gorge boats", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205785, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n85\n\nCrawfurd obtained neither better relations nor easier trading conditions. What is more he was received by King Rama II's officials in a most ungenerous manner. Dr. George Finlayson, the Scots medical officer and naturalist on board their ship the John Adam records this impression of the dwelling given to the mission by the Siamese: \"A habitation was provided for the British envoy, a miserable place, an out-house with four small, ill-ventilated rooms, approached through a trap-door from below...\" An official of low rank was sent to them. All he wanted was presents for the King. Finlayson goes on: \"In the urgency to obtain and the frequency of the demands of the Court for the gifts there was a degree of meanness and avidity at once disgusting and disgraceful\". The King seems to have been petty as well as rude. On one occasion the Foreign Minister called on Crawfurd to help retrieve two pairs of \"ordinary glass lamps\" on which the King had set his heart. The lamps had been promised, said the Foreign Minister, to His Majesty and sold by a member of the John Adam's crew to somebody else!\n\nFortunately the Crawfurd mission was not treated in such a mean manner throughout all its four months' stay at Bangkok. Dignity was restored by a Royal audience and there was much friendly talk. But he got no improvement in either trade or diplomacy. Crawfurd also tried to get the Siamese to accept a Consul and to obtain exemption for British merchants and crews from the harsh justice of Siam's law, but in these matters he had no success. He comments in his account of the Mission: \"If the subjects of a free and civilised Government resort to a barbarous and despotic country, there is no remedy but submission to its laws, however absurd or arbitrary\".\n\nFour years later, in 1826, the East India Company sent another mission to Bangkok. By this time the first campaign against the Burmese had been fought and won and there was a new king on the throne of Siam, Mongkut's half brother, Rama III. The mission was led by Captain Henry Burney, a nephew of Fanny Burney and military secretary to the Governor of Penang. He was much more successful than Crawfurd and came away with a treaty which somewhat improved matters. The Burney Treaty did not, however, go very far. It obtained a certain amount of goodwill regarding the frontier and the Malay States but Kedah was still accepted as Siam's vassal. Trade was to be free and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205968, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n43\n\nin academic performance, and a significant number excelled at sport. The fathers of the cadets were in most cases members of the older professions — law, medicine, and especially the church, although two, for example, were M.P.s.29 Few, if any, of the fathers were businessmen or shopkeepers, and none could be regarded as aristocratic. In sum, the typical cadet came from a solid, though not rich, upper middle-class family, went to a public school, but not to the most prestigious, and then went up to one of the older universities, where he read classics or history and was noted for his application to study and interest in healthy recreation. The bounder, the aesthete, the hearty, and the rake, were not represented in the ranks of the cadets. The origins of the Scots were humbler; many had schoolmasters for fathers, whereas the Irish tended to come from the smaller landed families, from the parochial gentry rather than the squirearchy.\n\nTwo things should be noted about the curriculum vitae of the typical cadet. Firstly, it fitted him for the type of job he was expected to carry out as a colonial civil servant in Hong Kong – the need to apply himself with diligence and intelligence to a series of prosaic tasks, and to sustain interest in the minutiae of bureaucratic life; and secondly, the common social background and education of the cadets helped to create an esprit de corps, a class and caste feeling, and an intuitive understanding of other cadets, which helped maintain morale and discipline within a hierarchical service. Cadets, it may be surmised, understood one another without the need for excessive interpretation of motive.\n\nGiven this common background, training, and the fraternity of class, cadets came to the field with many shared assumptions about, and attitudes towards, the people they governed in the colonial territories. Robert Huessler, for example, argues that the attitude of British Colonial officials 'was not unlike that which they maintained from childhood towards the lesser orders at home. One ruled the people and protected them from local and foreign injustice. Otherwise one lived apart'.30 Perhaps a better analogy would be the model prefect at an English public school. The model prefect is expected to be fair, just, upright, dignified, and withal concerned about his charges. However, he is not likely to support ideas of equality and permissiveness; he must exercise authority.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205979, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "54 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nSt. Andrews 2, Aberdeen 2, Glasgow 1). Sir Joseph Kemp attended Cape University, South Africa and Edward Wynne-Jones the University of Wales. \n\nThese university-educated gentlemen represent a social stratum lying somewhere between Mathew Arnold's Barbarians and the Philistines. A large number of them had been educated in schools animated by the ideas and ideals of Arnold's father, Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby. \n\n28 Alexander Macdonald Thomson (1863-1924), Educated at Aberdeen University. Lecturer in Mathematics, Naini Tal College, India, 1884-5; Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Aberdeen, 1887; entered the Hong Kong Civil Service, and attached for one year to the Colonial Office, 1887; Treasurer 1898-1918. Retired in 1918. He is the only cadet who retired to live in the United States (San Mateo, California); most cadets, including the Scots, settled in the Home Counties on retirement. \n\n29 Norman Lockhart Smith (1887-1968) was the son of Hugh Crawford Smith, M.P., Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Lewis Audley Marsh Johnston (1865-1908) the son of William Johnston, M.P., Ballykilbeg, Ireland. \n\n30 Robert Huessler Yesterday's Rulers, Syracuse, New York, 1963, p. 98. \n\n31 In H. R. Wells and Lam Tong Chinese Documents and Petitions, Hong Kong, 1931, some examples are given in Chinese, with English translations. There are also some interesting specimens of petitions received by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs from Chinese in Hong Kong. In the section on the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs in the General Orders of the Hong Kong Government, 1924, we read: \"Before taking action affecting bodies or classes of people, the Chinese Government is in the habit of issuing proclamations explaining the action to be taken and the reason for it and the Chinese in Hong Kong expect the same notice to be given. It is desirable that whenever the Head of a Department finds it necessary to take notice of any slackness in complying with the law, or to put a stop to gradual encroachments on the part of individuals, or to bring some new regulation into force, he should first consult the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and ask him to notify the people affected in the same way\". \n\n32 Margery Perham Lugard, vol. 2, London 1960, p. 302. \n\n33 Ibid., p. 367. \n\n34 Geoffrey Robley Sayer (1887-1962), Educated at Highgate School, London, and Queen's College, Oxford. Hong Kong Civil Service 1910; Director of Education 1934-6; retired 1938. \n\n35 Stephen Francis Balfour (1905-1945). Educated at King's College, Cambridge. Hong Kong Civil Service 1929; died in internment during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. \n\n36 Walter Schofield (1888-1968). Educated at the University of Liverpool. Hong Kong Civil Service 1911. First Police Magistrate 1934-1937; retired 1938. Schofield was noted for his work pre-war on the geology and archaeology of Hong Kong, in which fields he was a pioneer scholar. \n\n37 Roger Soame Jenyns (born 1904). Educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Hong Kong Civil Service 1926; resigned in 1931 to join the British Museum. He is a noted expert on the arts of the Far East and has written extensively in that field. \n\n38 Robert Andrew Dermod Forrest (born 1893). Educated at Aberdeen University. Hong Kong Civil Service 1919; Inspector of Vernacular Schools; Immigration Officer 1940. Lecturer in Tibeto-Burman Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206528, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "70\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\ndepressed and the Grant-in-Aid was increased, but not to its original figure. Lockhart had received the administration of a territory that could never be a great financial success.\n\nExcept for two periods of leave, in 1909 and 1918, and short absences from the Territory, such as ceremonial visits to the Chinese Governor of Shangtung at Tsinan, Lockhart was continuously in charge for nearly nineteen years. Weihaiwei was an extremely healthy place, free of malaria, with a climate like that of a northern European country and Lockhart was able to indulge in the recreations he loved most. He rode nearly every day or played a round of golf on the mainland on Yuan Shih-k'ai's parade ground. The dedication to Lockhart of Johnston's book, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, reads: 'In memory of two moonlit nights at Lutao-k'uo, five frosty mornings at Pei-K'uo Temple and a hundred breezy gallops over the hills and sands of Weihaiwei.'\n\nIn 1904, Johnston, then Acting Assistant Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong, had been appointed to Weihaiwei and the two men, who had worked together previously in Hong Kong, soon became close friends. In 1919 Johnston accepted an appointment as tutor to the ex-Emperor of China, P'ü-i,37 and Lockhart in his report for that year spoke of the 'great loss to the service. He had served uninterruptedly in Weihaiwei since 1904 and had proved himself an officer of exceptional administrative capacity, his intimate knowledge of the Chinese, their customs, and their language having won for him a high place in the esteem of the native population with which his duties brought him into such intimate contact.'38 They were both Scots but their friendship, it would seem, was based not on tribalism but on a mutual admiration for Chinese civilisation.\n\nLockhart left Weihaiwei on 23 April, 1921, on H.M. Ship Cairo, a passage having been placed at his disposal by the Commander-in-Chief, China Station. His popularity with all classes of the Chinese population 'was evidenced by the erection of two \"Pei\" (commemorative tablets) in his honour and the presentation of numerous addresses and scrolls, two \"myriad name\" umbrellas, one dress of \"myriad name robes\" and a bowl of pure water (the symbol of purity of administration).'39\n\nLockhart had been popular mainly because he understood the Chinese and left them alone. As he wrote: \"There is in China a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207332, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "92\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\ncolony of Hong Kong. In 1845, Charles May, a London police officer, was brought out to organise the new force. Most of the early police recruits were obtained locally from the army, navy, and merchant marine; but in time policemen were recruited directly from Britain or from other colonial territories. The quality and morale of the force was never high. Norton-Kyshe writes that in 1850 a European constable got only $15 a month,\n\nvery far below what the humblest in the Colony required, so that, in the case of steady men, they only accepted the position in the hope of something better turning up. But to this class, unfortunately, the chief objection was the readiness with which they yielded to the temptation offered by the many public houses about, and many of the deaths among the European constabulary were ascribed to their excessive indulgence in ardent spirits, a great portion of which, sold by the low tavern-keepers, was of the most abominable and deleterious description.4\n\nBecause of the demoralised state of the police, Sir Richard MacDonnell, Governor of Hong Kong, reported in 1869 to the Secretary of State that he intended to substitute Scottish for English constables. Altogether forty-five Edinburgh constables were enlisted in 1872. But the Scots contingent proved as susceptible as their English colleagues, for the next year several were dismissed from the force. As a group, they, too, had succumbed to the blandishments and corruptions of Hong Kong. In 1897 it was found that almost all the police—European, Chinese, and Indian—were receiving money illegally from Chinese gambling syndicates, including a British Deputy Superintendent of Police.\n\nBecause of the general shortage of European personnel in Hong Kong, police were often seconded to, or allowed to apply for, positions in other departments. The scarcity of suitable Europeans was, in the main, a consequence of the growing attractiveness of Australia as a land of opportunity, especially after the discovery there of gold in 1851, and of the rapid development of Shanghai, which soon became viewed as an arena more accommodating than Hong Kong for the adventurous and ambitious. Turnkeys at Victoria Gaol were often policemen; and the various Inspectors of Brothels (a post established in 1858), who came under the control of the Registrar General, were in nearly every case former police officers, for the principal duty of such functionaries was to detect", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207344, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "104\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nrecommend that the remedy for Hong Kong destitution be left in the main to private charity and to private effort, but that the Government should do everything in its power to organize by law private charity which may then be supplemented by State aid.25\n\nThe government's main contribution was the burial of defunct paupers and the shipping home of destitute British seamen. As Dr. Eitel concluded in 1880, all that the law offered European destitutes was 'fine or imprisonment, with or without hard labour'.26\n\nThe Europeans who worked as overseers in the dockyards, factories and other industrial enterprises, the ships' captains, mates and engineers, all led more circumspect lives in their Kowloon terraced homes than the soldiers, sailors, and merchant seamen. They looked down on the destitute, improvident, or wandering portion of the European community with all the fierce contempt of the British lower middle classes. Their values were those of the skilled mechanics and clerks of Greenwich, Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. Their wives entertained other wives and their families to high tea, the table set with fish-paste sandwiches, jellies, custards and cakes; they attended religious services regularly, though usually at a nonconformist chapel, and if Scots, at the Presbyterian Union Church. Their children went to the Kowloon British School (for foreign children only).27 They looked forward to retirement, a pension, and return to the homeland, having bettered themselves in the colonies. They formed the elite of the European lower classes in Hong Kong; but they were excluded, nonetheless, from the grander world of Taipan, administrator, and professional man.\n\nThe question why lower class Europeans came to, or remained in, Hong Kong is not difficult to answer. Some, such as beachcombers, were at the end of the line, at the end of their tether; they were trapped there (temporarily at least) by poverty, circumstance, and character. Soldiers, sailors and merchant seamen were transients or temporary sojourners; and the decision to come to Hong Kong was made not by them but by their superiors. Inspectors, supervisors and overseers stayed in Hong Kong primarily because most experienced a degree of upward mobility. They formed an intermediary class—an amorphous middling class—between the Chinese masses and the Taipans and officials. In Hong Kong, they were no longer at the bottom of the pecking order. Some, of course,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207346, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "106\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nIn 1881, a missionary wrote:\n\nVictoria has been called 'the city of palaces', from the extensive hongs and numerous and elegant residences. The men who principally hold its commerce in their hands are real merchant-princes. They furnish their mansions at great expense, and in the style of the home aristocracy. Their tables abound with every native and foreign luxury, and a liberal hospitality is dispensed toward casual visitors from distant parts of the world,30\n\nThe ostentatious and extravagant mode of life adopted by Taipans enlarged the gap between high and low status Europeans, Taipans and pong-paân. The standard was set by the Taipan and all strove to follow, but many lacked the means to put on dog. We are told that every foreigner (a term that signified European), whose salary was above seventy-five dollars gold a month (police, turnkeys, and inspectors were therefore excluded) retained a passenger chair, that is, a sedan chair, carried by either two or four coolies, who were uniformed, often in striking and colourful liveries designed by their employers.* The Governor, imitating the Mandarin style, was borne by eight bearers in scarlet dress. A man's social standing was given not only by his occupation but revealed by such social indicators as the elegance of his private passenger chair, membership of the Jockey Club or the Hong Kong Club (a sanctum sanctorum indeed), numbers of servants retained, sports played, and recreations indulged in.\n\nMuch of this extravagance, this open flaunting of wealth, was a direct consequence of the parvenu origins of the Taipan class, many of whom were hard-nosed Scots from respectable but needy Lowlands families, who had done well on the China coast and wished to demonstrate the fact. But another factor operated in the early years - the feeling that life was fleeting and chancy in Hong Kong, with its high mortality and morbidity rates for all classes of people, so that life should be enjoyed to the full.\n\nThe European lower orders were excluded from the social world of merchant and official and forced either into isolation within the circle of their own occupational and status group or into a segment\n\nFor an illuminating insight into this situation see the Commission on chair and jinriksha coolies in Sessional Papers, 1901, No. 47.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207347, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n107\n\nof the underdog Portuguese or Eurasian communities. The one social event that united—for one evening—all classes of European was that great Scots tribal festival, the St. Andrew's Day Ball. Celebrated on November 30, it ushered in the Hong Kong season, a season that closed with the Volunteer Ball.* The St. Andrew's Day Ball was open to any Scot or his friends who could afford the price of a ticket. Held in St. George's Hall, a spacious ball-room within the City Hall edifice, it was attended normally by over a thousand adults. Although an Army chaplain inquired plaintively: \"Why should pig-iron turn up its nose at ten-penny nails (in Hong Kong)?\" for one evening at least status distinctions between retailers and wholesalers were partially ignored, although the proceedings were always dominated by the chieftains of Jardine, Matheson and Co., the patriarchal Scottish hong,\n\nThe European lower orders were excluded not only from the more amusing social life of the colony, they also had little say in its government. In 1885, for example, the total number of ratepayers was eighty-two: from this small group the unofficial members of the Legislative Council normally were elected or chosen. The pong-paân were thus totally unrepresented in this, a British colony. Their names, moreover, are not found on the lists of Justices of the Peace, Special Jurors, and those of members of official and other important committees. They were of course sworn in on occasion as common jurors.\n\nWhy did the European lower orders experience such treatment from the well-to-do and influential? Partly, it was a consequence of social attitudes formed in the homeland: Victorian notions about the ordering of social classes and occupational groups, such as are analysed in Thackeray's The Book of Snobs. However, in early Hong Kong another notion was also prevalent: the view that there were 'dangerous classes', a term that connoted the lumpenproletariat, a class of persons spawned in the new industrial cities of Europe, 'those who had so miserable a share in the accumulating wealth of the industrial revolution that they might at any time break out in political revolt as in France'.32 Predictably enough, working-class Europeans were often viewed with some suspicion; there was fear that middle-class control over them would cease to prevail in certain\n\nFor the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force see James Hayes' article in this Journal Vol 11, 1971: 151-171.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207429, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n189\n\nof men employed on duties connected with the storage, preparation, cooking and distribution of food showed losses of the same order as those displayed by men employed on other work.\n\nDistribution of food\n\nUntil our situation stabilised towards the end of 1944 on a ration strength of about 200 patients and staff, the method of distributing cooked food caused many difficulties. After our nursing sisters left, the nursing orderlies in charge of wards carried on in the traditional manner, drawing the ward entitlement of food from the kitchen and serving the appropriate portion to each patient on a full diet. An even distribution was a skill which some of these young men did not readily acquire, and there were endless complaints of maldistribution in wards. After food prepared for the meal had been issued from the kitchen, none remained there from which to make up shortages.\n\nThe first solution was to appoint in each ward a patient whose standing with his fellows was good, and he was given the duty of drawing and distributing the ward ration. This man was not required necessarily to have senior service rank. For example, one was a Dutch naval petty officer, another was a well-known member of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, some were British and some Canadians. These men eventually came to exercise power and to maintain discipline in wards, and they were of great value to medical officers in charge of wards, to the sergeant major, and to me.\n\nEven this measure, however, did not completely restore confidence, and eventually wards and messing units drew their dry rice from the store according to the numbers in their messes into their own containers, in which it was then cooked and served. This measure brought about a further improvement, but it was not until the era of reduced numbers and of stability, for the most part in health and improved rations, that the problem was really overcome.\n\nOfficers on the staff had their own mess throughout. They were nine in number in Bowen Road, reduced however to six when we moved to Kowloon. In Bowen Road, this mess had a tiny electric stove with two rings in a small adjacent annexe, which in peace time had served the orderly medical officer when he was resident on duty. The mess was under the charge of a very efficient sergeant of the Royal Scots, Robert Lockie, who had been wounded and had been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207471, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n231\n\nmore than a casual call during an afternoon's stroll but I would never have expected such a call to have been made by chance and at the very least they probably wanted to see for themselves the conditions in which we were guarded. When they left the guards and ourselves resumed our normal behaviour, not unlike the chattering of birds, stilled while the hawk is overhead and resumed when the danger has passed.\n\nIt is not difficult now to attribute some at least of the searches which took place about this time to the prevailing mood of the Japanese in Hong Kong. Suspicion of foreigners had been fostered assiduously in Japan before the war and xenophobia flourished exceedingly when war began. The turn of the tide against the Axis powers I suppose did nothing to soften this feeling. In Hong Kong Dr. Selwyn-Clarke was arrested in May 1943 to face charges some of which sound grotesque, and I have given a short account of his subsequent experiences. In July 1943 the Japanese gendarmerie arrested a number of men in Sham Shui Po. Under torture the names of others who had sent and received messages from Waichow via Chinese drivers of ration lorries were extracted and Colonel L.A. Newnham late Middlesex Regiment, G.S.O.1 British Troops in Hong Kong, Captain D. Ford 2 Royal Scots and Flight-Lieutenant Gray, R.A.F., were implicated. These three officers were tried by Japanese Court martial in Stanley in December 1943 and shot the same month. They had endured interrogation, a word now thoroughly debased, for many months and their condition at the end was described as deplorable.\n\nAgainst the background of events outside which I have just described we were in a position of some privilege in Bowen Road, but it seems likely that there was some link between the two situations. It could easily be that the Japanese inspections of some of our medical and electrical equipment was carried out by men capable of detecting apparatus usable for radio communications. Some of the searches certainly seemed aimed at the detection of concealed radio apparatus. We were lucky that nothing on which suspicion could feed was discovered, but my scalp always crawled a little while the searches were in progress.\n\nWe had a number of visits from Japanese doctors who wanted to see our patients, principally at this time those partially blinded by the deficiency diseases. My diary records that we found one such doctor, a lieutenant-colonel, to be courteous to our patients.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207529, "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": 297, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\nAttached to Staff -- Table 2\n\nRfm Archibald\n\nPrivate Rfm Baxter\n\nCambon\n\nPrivate Caruso\n\nRfm Davidson\n\nPrivate Frankiewicz\n\nPrivate Kashton\n\nPrivate Kohut\n\nRfm Woodridge\n\nCorporal Young\n\nRfm Snively\n\nO.S. French\n\nQ.M.S. Hamlen\n\nB.S.M. Lobban\n\nC.S.M. Collings\n\nSergt. Lockie\n\nCorporal Carter\n\nP.O. Waardenborg\n\nCanadian Army\n\nR.N. R.A.S.C. R.A.\n\nH.K.V.D.C.\n\nR. Scots\n\nR. Sigs.\n\nR. Netherlands Navy\n\nAppendix \"D\"\n\nRoll of QAIM.N.S. and Canadian Nursing Sisters, British Military Hospital, Bowen Road (Incomplete)\n\nMiss E. M. B. Dyson\n\nMiss Mirian Beaman\n\nLieut (Miss) Kay Christie - Canadian Service\n\nMiss Gwendelene Colthorpe\n\nMiss Mary Curry\n\nMiss Freda Davis\n\nMiss Molly Gordon\n\nMiss Brenda Morgan (Killed)\n\nMiss Margaret North\n\nMiss Kathleen Thompson\n\nMiss Daphne Van Wart\n\nLieut (Miss) May Waters Canadian Service\n\nMiss Joan Whiteley\n\n289\n\nNotes:--\n\n1. To my great regret I have not got the names of the members of the Hongkong Auxiliary Nursing Service.\n\n2. The two members of the Canadian Service were repatriated to Canada in November 1943.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210693, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "27\n\nsaid that no man loved Ireland more dearly, and there was no warmer heart in Ireland than his. He asked why Irishmen loved their country more than the English, who were daily getting more cosmopolitan, and the Scots who were daily getting more English, loved theirs. He suggested that the reason was that the Irish were a little less selfish and a little more generous, and gave preference to strangers over their own. They loved Ireland as their mother because over the last thousand years they had suffered and laboured much. That had made them patient, enduring, witty, generous, self-reliant, hospitable, brave and reckless. They had great learning to be proud of. Before St. Patrick came, and their Saxon friends were still going about painted, Ireland had laws and a recognised society. St. Patrick had little to do but introduce the spirit of Christianity. Irish immigrants were the backbone of countries where they lived and had succeeded everywhere. One fault that the Irish were gravely charged with was that they drank too much and were too fond of whiskey. He exhorted all present to resolve not to bring discredit on their country by excessive drinking, and to give up drink for six months to help the Duchess of Marlborough's Famine Relief Fund. After that he recited a poem entitled “Dear Ireland\".\n\nAs to Queen Victoria, in 1893 speaking at a meeting of the General Chamber of Commerce called to discuss the coining of a British dollar, he expressed opposition to anything bearing the Queen's head being made in a foreign country. At a meeting of the judiciary and legal profession in 1901 to pay respects to her memory he began his speech, which was twice as long as those of the Chief Justice and Attorney General combined, by describing himself as \"the senior member and actual, although not official, leader of the local Bar, and the solitary representative among the higher members of the profession of the Irish race and Roman Catholic community.\" He said “Loyalty to the throne is a duty most strenuously enforced on every member of the Catholic Church. The personal loyalty of Irishmen to the sovereign has always been conspicuous, the few contemptible exceptions only making the loyalty of the vast majority the more conspicuous\".\n\nHe was a public person, interested in most things that went on and ever ready to express his view about them. His talent for oratory ensured that his views were often heard. He was connected with many societies and clubs and because of his legal training was much in demand to sit in committees. He was ambitious and a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212195, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "14\n\nThe business section of Hongkong is compressed into so small an area that the hotels are just round the corner from any office. It would often be convenient to meet for cocktails before a meal, and in this way the habit had grown of doing business outside the office, either seated at a small table, or with one foot on a brass rail.\n\nWhen the Chinese Government evacuated Nanking in November 1937, the various Purchasing Departments moved to Hongkong, which, with the closing of the Yangtze, had become the main port of entry for supplies into China. The ships docked alongside at Kowloon, or discharged their cargoes into lighters in mid-harbour.\n\nThe railway between Hongkong and Canton had been completed nearly forty years previously, but the railway from Hankow on the Yangtze to Canton was only opened to through traffic in March 1937. That was before the war with Japan broke out, and in line with its anti-foreign policy, the National Government refused to connect the Hankow railway at Canton with the line from Hongkong. The intention was to inconvenience transhipment of cargo at Hongkong on to the railway and to favour use of the small steamers which sailed up the shallow waters of the Pearl River to Canton. This shortsighted policy was now quickly reversed and a connecting loop put in so that cargo loaded onto rail at Hongkong could go straight through without further handling to Hankow.\n\nMy business was mainly with the Chinese Government Purchasing Departments, and very efficient they were. They drove such hard bargains that the staff might have been Scots, though most claimed to have been trained in the States. The Hongkong government gave every facility for the traffic and there can be no question but that the existence of Hongkong as a British colony at this time was a great help to the hard-pressed Chinese.\n\n―\n\nAs regards the administration of Hongkong by the Colonial Office, by almost any western standard it was good. It was essentially better than anything that could be found in China or in Chicago but it was by no means perfect. The administration suffered from the defects of bureaucracy.\n\nThe civil servant who enters the colonial administration must pass a stiff examination; but once he has passed it, he can expect regular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212271, "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "190\n\nbegan the habit of studying from 3:00 to 8:00 am, carrying the habit with him into his missionary life in Malacca (1839-1843) and Hong Kong (1843-1872), maintaining it even through his twenty-one years at Oxford.\n\nII. Legge's Scottish Inheritance\n\nAlthough Legge mentions numerous sources and authors in his autobiographical reflections written just a year before he died, the most profound early influence came from the 16th century Scottish intellectual, George Buchanan. Two of Buchanan's works had a long-lasting effect on Legge: the paraphrased psalms and his History of Scotland. Much more was elicited from Legge as a consequence of his exposure to these two works than might be initially expected.\n\nLike many pious Scots, James' mother memorized the Psalms and often sang them during her daily work. While he was in grammar school, Buchanan's paraphrased psalms became a great attraction to the young Legge.\n\nThese rhyming psalms provided Legge with a stylistic framework into which he rendered the Chinese classic, The Book of Odes, (*) among other works. Some of Legge's most astute translations of the terse Chinese poems from this classic, first published in 1871, reflect the paraphrastic flexibility which Buchanan achieved in his work. A few years later Legge published a metrical version of the same Chinese classic, rendering its poems in everything from stylish English to Scottish drone, pursuing the goal of portraying the rich variety of language and style The Book of Odes itself contains. Here the influence of Buchanan is particularly clear.\n\nBuchanan's influence on Legge went beyond the medium of Chinese verse. Before entering Oxford, Legge also rendered into English the whole of the Hebrew Psalter in similar paraphrastic poetry, accompanied by a critical introduction, as was his custom. For reasons unknown, this manuscript was never published.14\n\nHaving recognized the mnemonic value of rhymed paraphrases, Professor Legge also prepared a rhymed piece which cleverly related to new students the titles, order, and distinctions of the many dynasties within traditional Chinese history.\n\n35", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214189, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "10\n\ncannot, usually, stand the smell of cheese, be able to understand the complex English? But you can argue, too, how can the British, who cannot enjoy a succulent chicken's foot for breakfast, understand the Chinese? The latter believe you need to 'eat the part to nourish the part' (DE). By eating chicken's feet, for example, you can walk faster.\n\n4\n\nOf course there are people like Lucy Sheen, a Chinese who was brought up in Britain, who played Portia in Julius Caesar at Bristol Old Vic (Rosser, 1990;8). But she still had to overcome racial stereotyping. She recounts how, to use her own words, ... the Dickhead of a critic said, about her acting, 'It doesn't matter if one can speak the language. If one's not White forget it.' Lucy also recalls how she was taken home to meet her new Chinese boyfriend's parents. They were really chuffed that at last their son had met a nice, real Chinese girl. All went well until she opened her mouth!\n\nOf course, even within Britain itself there are traditional regional differences. There are ‘cockneyisms' with rhyming slang; where 'apples and pears' means 'stairs' and 'tit for tat' stands for 'hat.' This contrasts with the humour of those who believe they belong to the 'posh' set, although the latter is not usually racist and a person is readily accepted if they have personality. You also have the realistic, often macabre humour of the Scots and the Irish, the down-to-earth humour of the English North Countryman, and the japes, recounted time and again, in the slow drawl of rural folk.\n\nUnless you have lived in a country for some considerable time many jokes may be obscure to a foreigner, even if he or she is fluent in the language. A knowledge of local affairs is often important. A man who was once asked why he did not weep at a sermon when everyone else was shedding tears replied: 'I don't belong to this parish' (Bergson, 1956;64). Similarly, the author recalls seeing a show in New York when he failed to appreciate many of the jokes. American humour often centres around family conflict (like American soap operas), bar-room buddy banter, practical jokes, bragging and tall stories although the French claim that practical jokes and tall stories are important aspects of their humour as well (Zeldin, 1983:74). In turn the Danish sense of humour, which is often sarcastic, can shock the average Frenchman. Similarly, Dutch humour can be abrasive, cynical and, on occasions, teasing and aggressive.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214206, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "27\n\nOf course obscene jokes and a preoccupation with excrement and body functions are common in many societies and have raised smiles, like other familiar jokes, for centuries. For example, instead of saying a Chinese laughed, one can say: 'Saw teeth but did not see eyes.' Because of physiognomy, one is hardly able to use this expression about Europeans.\n\nIn most countries satire survives partly because it tweaks the authorities. In England, there is the Yes, Minister series, which has stood the test of time, just as there is an assortment of tales about party leaders in China where jokes go back decades. Over the last half century many certainly do not conform with Communist Party intentions. For example, with a play on words, the late elder statesman, Deng Xiaoping, was sometimes ‘insulted' by calling him 'Little Bottle,' which the sound of his given names suggests. Certainly it is not the done thing in China to insult the leaders and humour, like most things, is expected to serve the state.\n\nTwo other anti-establishment jokes, which went the rounds not too long after the Communist government took over in China in 1949, run as follows:\n\nA parrot said, 'I'm smart, I listen to people and mimic what they say.'\n\nA government official replied, ‘I'm smarter, I only copy what our leaders say!'\n\nThe second joke runs:\n\nTwo men had a fight and one contestant bit off the other's nose. The case went to court. The man being tried insisted his opponent bit off his own nose. 'But how could he possibly do that?,' enquired the magistrate, 'His nose is situated above his mouth.' 'Simple' came the reply. 'He stood on a chair to get at it!' This joke seems to fall rather flat on most Westerners (and indeed on many Hong Kong Chinese) for whom it is not sufficiently subtle.\n\nAlthough not considered good taste today, as mentioned before, just as there are English jokes about the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214219, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "40\n\nAppendix B\n\nHumour\n\nPresent Meaning\n\nSome believe the only nation that had the word 'humour' in its language, where the word was associated with the meaning of 'being funny,' were the English.\n\nThe French, for example, have such words as the equivalents of 'comedy,' 'wit' and 'buffoonery,' but their word, 'humeur,' means 'disposition' or 'mood.'\n\nSimilarly the Chinese characters for 'humour' are believed merely to imitate the sound of the English word. The term is said to have been introduced into the Chinese language in 1924 by the eminent Overseas Chinese scholar Lin Yutang.\n\nAlthough the Germans, the Italians and the French enjoyed upper-class wit and proletariat clowning, but, so it is claimed (Muir, 1990; XXIX), only the English took pleasure in the middle area: which included the recording of small significant human traits. Muir maintains in Humorous Prose that:\n\nWit is concerned with ideas,\n\nBuffoonery is concerned with deeds, and\n\nHumour is concerned with people\n\nAlthough it appears somewhat of an exaggeration, Sir William Temple, diplomat and essayist (1628-99), claimed the English (not the Scots, Irish or Welsh) gave the world humour (Muir, 1990; XXIX). It was, he believed, a product of the 'richness of the English soil.'\n\nThe human, stubborn behaviour of the English, so he said, needed a free society and a temperate climate before it could flourish.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214753, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "132\n\nLai, S.S. The Surrender of Japan: Before and After, Hong Kong, Ming Pao Publishing, 1995. (Chinese publications)\n\nLeason, J. Singapore: the Battle that Changed the World, Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1968.\n\nLiddell Hart, B.H. History of the Second World War, New York, Da Capo Press, 1999.\n\nLiddell Hart, B.H. Strategy, second revised edition, New York, Meridian, 1991.\n\nLindsay, O. The Lasting Honour: the Fall of Hong Kong 1941, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1978.\n\nLindsay, O. At The Going Down of the Sun: Hong Kong and South East Asia 1941-45, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1981.\n\nLondon Gazette: Supplement, 29 January 1948. “Operations in Hong Kong from 8th to 25th December, 1941”\n\nMorris, J. Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1997.\n\nMuir, A. The First of Foot: the History of the Royal Scots, the Royal Regiment, Edinburgh, Royal Scots Historical Society, 1961.\n\nNeillands, R. A Fighting Retreat: the British Empire 1947 - 1997, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1996.\n\nOrwell, G. The War Commentaries, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1987.\n\nOxley, D.H. Victoria Barracks, 1842-1979, Hong Kong, British Forces Hong Kong, 1979,\n\nPonting, C. Armageddon: the Second World War, 1995, Chinese translation by Rye Field Publishing, Taipei, 1997. (Chinese publication)\n\nPriestwood, G. Through Japanese Barbed Wire, New York,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214759, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "138 \n\nThe Diary \n\nSunday 7/12/41. Much talk about war with Japan but no one seems to think anything will happen. We, the RAF in Hong Kong, are a very small crowd; seven officers and sixty men with five aircraft, two Walrus and three Vildebeeste. Group Captain Horry sails for Singapore on the Ullyses leaving Wing Commander Sullivan as our CO. I have the doubtful honour of being IC of our one and only flight and have three other pilots FO Gray, or Dolly, who is also signals officer, FO Baugh, or Whimpey, equipment officer, PO Crossley, or Junior, a New Zealander just arrived from Singapore and with very little flying experience. PO Thomson the Colonel, our adjutant, is a VR who came to Kai Tak with me from Singapore last June. Finally we have an Australian, PO Hennessy, just arrived from Singapore to start a fighter operations room. The joke is that everything is being prepared for the arrival of fighters but they are not expected for a month. With only five obsolete aircraft and one aerodrome our prospects are not rosy and it looks as if we might finish up in the army if war comes to Hong Kong. During the day the news gets worse and all precautions are taken, everyone being confined to camp. I take a Vildebeeste with full bomb load on a test climb during which I try to imagine where would be the best place to drop them and what would be my chances if attacked by fighters. But everything is peaceful and Hong Kong looks quite beautiful far beneath. We park the Walrus on the water and disperse the Beests but what wonderful targets they make. The 2nd Battalion Royal Scots and two battalions of Rajputs and Punjabis are in their positions in the New Territories, the island being defended by two battalions of Canadians raw recruits, and, only just arrived, the Middlesex Battalion man the coast defences. Finally the volunteers, four thousand Europeans, Chinese, Portuguese etc. Our Navy has one destroyer, ten MTB's and a few gunboats. Not a very formidable force especially as we shall be completely cut off from outside help and our food and ammunition supply is only sufficient for a hundred days. Still everyone seems cheerful. I am duty officer and wonder if I shall get any sleep. \n\nMonday 8th. I am disturbed early as the Colonial Secretary rings up to say that war with Japan is imminent. Hell there goes my sleep and I wake the other officers. Over breakfast we are told that we are at war with Japan. We dash down to flights just in time to hear an ominous roar of planes and nine bombers escorted by over thirty fighters", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214761, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "140\n\neverything off just before dark. The AIS is full of naval personnel all trying to find accommodation and food. After a mad scramble, manage to find a bed and retire early, tired and hungry.\n\nThursday eleventh. Commander Millet OC AIS asks me to form antiaircraft and defence posts for Aberdeen as RAF only people with machine guns. I fix up four posts on the roof with tommy gun posts on the verandahs. The AIS makes a wonderful target being only half a mile from the naval dockyard. A hospital has been set up next door to the armoury. For breakfast we get one slice of bread and a little butter and tiffin is the same. For supper, if we're lucky, we get hot stew. Intensive bombing of Aberdeen harbour causing heavy casualties. How we curse the bombers and wish we had a few Gladiators which would make short work of them. Jap fighters are quite slow.\n\nFriday twelfth. Up early and drive in to HK. Buy food, cash a cheque and have a steak at Jimmies. Send cables to Pam and Mother. HK shelled from Kowloon. All our troops evacuated from Mainland. Hear that Walter Rosa, Dick Stanton, Houston Boswall and Bell who messed with us at Kai Tak have all been killed. Small party of Indians still fighting on Devils Peak. Royal Scots fired on in Nathan Road by Chinese fifth columnists using automatic weapons but Scots wipe the whole lot out. Chinese reported assisting Japs on large scale. Amazed at sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, also Jap successes against Americans. No one however doubts the final outcome and we realize that HK is only small fry in a tremendous issue.\n\nSaturday thirteenth. I set up antiaircraft positions on Bennetts Hill and Reservoir Hill with RAF personnel. CO goes to battle HQ, leaving me in charge. Dolly goes to Little Saiwan and the Colonel to Stanley. After much sweated labour get guns etc. in position. Whimpeys is in charge of Reservoir Hill and I of Bennetts Hill. I return to AIS for the night and at midnight there's a hell of a commotion and everyone is roused as the Japs are supposed to have landed on Aberdeen Island. Whole thing a farce and return to bed.\n\nSunday fourteenth. Set up positions on Bennetts and start digging holes in side of hill for billets. Junior and I dig like mad but, owing to rocks, make little progress. Quiet day except for a few air raids. Bed extremely hard and rain comes in.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214762, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "141\n\nMonday fifteenth. Contact Canadians who have positions at foot of Bennetts. They are very helpful bringing us hot tea and helping us in our digging. Am now in the army without a doubt and under the orders of Major Baillee of E Battalion Winnepeg Grenadiers with hqrs at Wanchai Gap. More heavy bombing of Aberdeen harbour, heavy casualties to Naval personnel caused by explosions of torpedoes and depth charges.\n\nTuesday. Japs attempt landing at Lye Mun but party wiped out by six inch guns. Heavy shelling by Japs of Wanchai Gap and Stanley bombed. Driving the staff car into HK I have a lucky escape as a stick of bombs meant for the Thracian in Deep Water Bay drops on the road just behind me.\n\nWednesday. Hennessy goes to Canadian hqrs on Col Sutcliff's staff. Intense bombing and shelling of island defences. One stick aimed at us misses. Another day of hard work and very little food. During the night enemy warships shell the island and shrapnel shells burst right over our heads giving us an uncomfortable time. Two cruisers and one destroyer had been seen the previous night. One six inch shell of British make struck the AIS and knocked a large hole in the wall of MTB repair shop, also completely writing off my car.\n\nThursday. Enemy succeeded in landing on island last night and forced their way into Happy Valley despite heavy casualties. Scots and Canadians fail in attempt to drive them out. Japs in large numbers assisted by fifth columnists. Landing covered by intense artillery and naval bombardment. News muddled and rumours of all kinds are rife.\n\nFriday nineteenth. News still confusing but Japs push into Wong Nei Chong Gap. My positions were designed against attack from the West not East and we have to improvise a new line. Lt Campbell takes a party of men to go to the assistance of Canadians trapped in Wong Nei Chong, their place being filled by Chinese volunteers. Major Giles RM arrives with a small party. Eventually the Chinese go, much to our relief, as they are much too jumpy. Junior now in charge of Bennetts with Giles and myself commanding a sector running from the foot of Bennetts to Mt Nicholson. Situation very tense and we spend a sleepless night. Pours with rain all night and bitterly cold. Everyone soaked through and half dead by the morning as we had no protection against", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214763, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "142\n\nthe weather. Spend half the night pouring rum into semiconscious men who are dead tired after sleepless nights with very little food. We have no reserves and everyone has had a gruelling time. A Canadian sergeant from Campbell's party returns to our pillbox at midnight in a state of mental and physical collapse and reports that all his party have been killed. A few hours later another Canadian arrives in a similar condition and with the same story. Worst night I can ever remember and never was the dawn more welcome.\n\nSunday twenty first. Naval personnel recalled by the Commodore for defence of the dockyard, leaving us seventy Canadians. We all carry a good supply of grenades as the Japs are very skilled at getting to close quarters without being spotted. The Jap soldiers wear rubber shoes and are as stealthy as cats. They carry a bag of grenades, automatic weapons and a light rifle of quarter inch calibre. They always attack at night and from all directions. Their snipers seem to be everywhere. Japs now using their mortars and artillery much more, being firmly entrenched on Shu Shun Hill. Our artillery do some excellent shooting at Shu Shun and Japs run in all directions. No one seems to know where the Japs are or how many there are. The High Command, whose daily communiques reveal nothing, seem to know less than anyone else. Chang Kai Shek's army reported attacking Japs in the rear and we are told to hang on as they will be with us in a few days.\n\nMonday, Japs break through Middle Gap and are now very close to us. Scots take a heavy toll and retake some positions but Japs always come back in strength. There is no doubt now that the Japs have a very large force on the island, well equipped and experts in this guerilla warfare. Spend the night on continuous watch. The men very jumpy as every sound has to be investigated. If only one could see them instead of this hide and seek. In several cases the Japs have crept up to pillboxes and dropped grenades down the airshaft, killing everyone inside.\n\nTuesday twenty third. Several Canadians who had been given up as lost return with amazing stories. Many wounded Indians come through our lines kitless but not broken. Heavy shelling of Bennetts. Just before dark enemy start terrific bombardment of our positions. Hundreds of shells whistle just over our heads. Major Baillee rings up constantly and seems very jumpy about our positions. At two am he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214770, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "149\n\nwho bring them food. Japs get very strict about buying food at the wire and many Chinese get beaten up, women being stripped naked in full view of everyone. Indians are getting unruly. Several deaths from dysentry.\n\nEighth. Florrie and her amah arrive with more food. She tries to cross the road but I signal her back. No parcels get through as a General is expected to visit us. My boy also arrives. What a disappointment.\n\nNinth. Jap General arrives with an escort of twelve cars and troops manning machine guns in lorries. He drives to the gods hut, steps out, has his photograph taken, and drives off without a word. What a farce. Many wild rumours but as usual no truth in them.\n\nTenth. Bed collapses again during night. Our roof leaks from the effects of a bomb but so far the weather has been perfect. The flies swarm everywhere due to the filthy condition of the camp. All buying at the fence stopped, the Japs torturing any Chinese who come near the fence.\n\nEleventh. Florrie arrives again and I receive a parcel of bread, butter, milk, and tomatoes. What a treat and the six of us make short work of it. Rumours even wilder: Tokyo reported bombed, Japs suffer severe naval defeat. Hitler committed suicide, and Japs evacuate Malaya. Have grand supper of coffee, bread, butter, and jam.\n\nTwelfth. All buying definitely stopped, many Chinese beaten up.\n\nThirteenth. Many sick with tummy trouble. One feels fairly fit but completely lacking in energy. Twenty Scots arrive from Fan Ling, amongst them being Potato Jones, who commanded the company at the Shing Mun Redoubt, and Lieut Thompson, who was hit by a grenade and is practically blind. Japs refuse to take him to hospital which will probably cost him his sight. Florrie brings another parcel. I throw a message to her across the road screwed up in a cigarette holder.\n\nFourteenth. Everyone's stock of food running low. Rumours still wild but always good news and we think are going well.\n\nFifteenth. Florrie comes again but Japs won't allow parcels", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214775, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "154\n\nFourteenth and fifteenth. Florrie brings a huge parcel including a Chinese mingtoia blanket, sheet and pillow case, and food. What an angel and one I hope to repay her. Another death from dysentry and many more sick.\n\nWeek ending twenty second. Slightly warmer but was thankful for that blanket. Singapore has fallen which is a severe blow. Cholera outbreak in colony and we fear it will reach the camp as sanitary conditions are awful and men in very low state, especially Scots. Two men killed at Kai Tak by a landslide. At GOC's conference he gives us the daily news from BBC as there is still a set working. Japs shoot two Chinese who were marched through the camp onto the jetty where they were shot in the back. Food bad and little of it but worst of all, practically no medical requisites.\n\nWeek ending twenty ninth. Florrie turns up every few days and tells me the Japs have turned her out of her flat and pinched all her jewellery. I wish I could help her and I tell her to leave the Colony. Governor's chief of staff and retenue visit the camp. Another two hours on parade. Much warmer and Chippy, Tressider and I cut each other's hair off. We look extremely funny but it feels cool. Two Scots escape and Japs have rigid check on evening parade. Wet and cold again and running short of footwear. Owing to fifth columnists in the camp Japs suspect we have a wireless so GOC orders it to be destroyed. A three hour parade in the rain and Japs search our rooms. They find a couple of wireless sets. No more BBC news now, just wild rumours. Two Scots who escaped have been shot. A proclamation is read to us forbidding escapes, all who are caught will be shot and severe reprisals taken against our comrades. Malnutrition very noticeable. Personally I feel very fit thanks to Florrie's parcels.\n\nWeek ending seventh March. Japs interview my wireless people but I had prepared them for it and the Japs get nothing out of them. Florrie still sending parcels. Chippy also gets one from his wife. The women of HK are doing grand work, little do they know the difference their presence and gifts of food make to us. Usual two parades a day and life is becoming a little monotonous. Japs send for me and Fam escorted out of camp by George, the Jap WO, and a Portuguese interpretor. I am taken to the camp commandant's office where the officers are very pleasant and give me some cigarettes. I ask the English...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215055, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "We were made to wait\n\nA\n\nVERA BÁziř iwi ALA\n\nTootey Ar kur dad para U\n\ns' at de\n\nweday.\n\nBezuckt\n\nbetakka kick som\n\nsend a site ak\n\n+\n\nDig\n\nA\n\n#celár\n\nDow\n\n1\n\nJetta\n\nwww.\n\nBet the\n\nEl Macerade m\n\ndicht den steht in\n\n995.\n\n麻藥\n\nL/CPL Stuart McKay (pipes and drums, 1st BN Scots Guards) playing a Lament at the shooting post, Town Hall, Poperinge, Belgium. November 2000\n\n107", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216183, "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": 482, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "416\n\nThere is one further chapter to the Assam tea story. In 1907 the Japanese introduced Assam tea to their colony of Taiwan in an effort to protect the Japanese green tea industry. This concern was justified; since the first shipment of oolong from Taiwan to the USA in 1869 Formosa's tea industry grew rapidly. (Zeng interview) Assam tea is still grown in northern Taiwan and consumed in the Chinese manner and has become a connoisseur's item for the modern Taiwanese Epicurean item with Fine Aged Assam Tea from Danshui [Tamshui] fetching high prices. (Ho interview)\n\nREFERENCES\n\nKit Chow and Ione Kramer, All the Tea in China, San Francisco, China Books and Periodicals, 1990. (Excellent reference with bilingual compendiums available at the Flagstaff Tea Museum)\n\nJason Goodwin, The Gunpowder Gardens; Travels through India and China in Search of Tea, Penguin, 2003 (Originally published in 1990 this entertaining and well researched travel book lacks end notes and an index)\n\nHo Chien, Ye Tang Tea Culture Research Institute, interview 8 Sept 03\n\nCharles Gutzlaff, China Opened; or, a display of the topography, history, customs, manners, arts, manufactures, commerce, literature, religion, jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire, London, Smith, Elder, 1838. (The Reverend Karl Frederick August Gutzlaff, for whom a street is named in Hong Kong, acted as a translator for Jardine's opium transactions up and down the China coast in exchange for being permitted to proselytize after hours.)\n\nSusan Leiper, Precious Cargo. Scots and the China trade, National Museums of Scotland Publishing, Edinburgh, 1997. (A beautifully illustrated panegyric)\n\nAnthony Wild, The East India Company, trade and conquest from 1600, London, HarperCollins illustrated, 1999\n\nZeng Zhixian, author and China Times tea correspondent, interview 8 Sept 03", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]