[ { "id": 207340, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "100 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nbesides music-halls and lodging-houses, the haunts of vagabonds well known to the police.19 \n\nThe spectacle of Jack Tars, returning from the grog-shops of Tai Ping Shan and Sai Ying Pun, tipsily and rowdily weaving their way along Queen's Road, affronted respectable Britons. A Wesleyan missionary complained in 1894 that the colony was always upset by the arrival of a fresh man-of-war whose crew once ashore would behave like wild animals. \"They drink like fishes,\" he complained, \"ride round the town in rickshaws, making night hideous with their shouts, eat over-ripe fruit from street stalls, are stricken with cholera, and die in a few hours.\" He insisted that for soldiers and sailors (and possibly for most others in the East at the present moment) \"total abstinence is a duty\".20 \n\nThe Wesleyan missionary, a fervent supporter of the temperance movement, misunderstood the reasons for excessive drinking among servicemen in Hong Kong. It was not due to innate depravity or irreligion. Soldiers and sailors drank because of the tedium, the hideous boredom they had to endure as pariahs in Hong Kong. They were totally excluded from polite European society; there were no young white women of their own class to walk out with; there were few entertainments, except lugubrious church or mission functions, provided for them. Off duty the only pleasures available, apart from a climb up the Peak, a jaunt in a sampan, or a visit to the Botanical Gardens, were the drinking dens and brothels of the more welcoming Chinese quarters of the town. \n\nSailors, in particular, led almost completely isolated lives in the Far East. News from home could take months to reach their ships. Often they spent over a year without going ashore on leave. Walter White, a ship's painter, joined H.M.S. Scout at Sheerness in 1859, left England in that year and did not return from service on the China Station until 1864.21 His experience was typical. He spent New Year's Day, 1862, in Hong Kong and put up at the European Hotel, a hostelry overlooking Tai Ping Shan. From the verandah of his hotel, he wrote home, \"you can sit and look down upon the teeming, squalid living, jangling and evil smelling Chinese quarters.\"22 But it was in this teeming quarter that White and his naval companions were obliged to spend their evenings of leave, \n\nMajor Henry Knollys epitomises the life of the British gunner in Hong Kong in the 1880s thus:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207797, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "170 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\ndays later rumours of an ambush by Chinese and Shan tribesmen led to Margary deciding to go in advance as scout, and he left the main party on 19th February with five Chinese companions. Three days later word came back that he had been murdered at Manwyne, with rumours that 4,000 Chinese troops were on their way to annihilate the whole expedition. Before Browne had time to recover from this blow, the camp was attacked by an advance guard of the Chinese force, but was beaten off by the Sikh and Burmese soldiers. Next day confirmation of Margary's murder came from the King of Burma's commercial agent at Bhamo, and on 20th February Browne's whole expedition retraced its steps to Mandalay and Rangoon.\n\nMargary's murder, and deteriorating relations between the British and the King of Burma, prevented further expeditions from Burma; but ironically led to further progress on the Yangtze,\n\nSir Thomas Wade, British Minister at Peking, took advantage of the Chinese government's failure to protect Margary to press for further trade relaxations, and the result was the Chefoo Convention of 1876 between Wade and Viceroy Li Hung-chang. This provided for the opening of five more ports to foreign trade, and of the 400 miles of the Middle Yangtze to foreign shipping. Among the new treaty ports was Ichang, located at the upper end of the Middle Yangtze and 400 miles below Chungking, the main port of Szechwan. When the Convention was ratified in 1885, a supplementary clause provided for Chungking to become a treaty port; but not for free navigation on the 400 miles of the Upper Yangtze between Ichang and Chungking. This was granted after the Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan on the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.\n\nMore than ten years before this, however, the remarkable Archibald Little had appeared on the Yangtze scene. Little began his career as a tea taster in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon started up business on his own. He was attracted to the possibilities of trade in Szechwan and West China, and fascinated by the problems posed by steam navigation through the famous gorges of the Upper Yangtze. He made a trip by junk from Ichang to Chungking in 1883 to investigate trade and navigational prospects, and in 1887 attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking, by the Kuling. This was a Clyde built stern-wheeler of 450 tons", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208485, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n193 \n\nBut in recent months the mud-skis have been used by illegal immigrants, first to help them float across the bay and then to negotiate the mud flats and swamps of the Mai Po marshes. \n\nYesterday Sgt-Major Wilson demonstrated how they were used. \"They can move faster over the mud than a man can run over firm ground,\" said Sergeant Major Chris Wilson yesterday. \n\n\"If it's thick mud the illegals stand on the skis and push with their feet and they can shoot across mud and water at a tremendous speed,\" he said. \n\n\"If they cross thin mud or water they lay down and put out one leg and make a swimming motion and they can travel very fast.” \n\nThe Army Air Corps has adapted one of its Scout helicopters to play a very special role in rescuing refugees from the deep mud and treacherous swamps in the marshes. \n\nThe small helicopters are now equipped with nets and the crews hover over the swamps and drop out the nets to pluck illegal immigrants trapped in the mud to safety.” \n\nReprinted, in part only, from the South China Morning Post, 18 June, 1979 \n\nThis item was brought to my notice by our printer and Honorary Life Member Mr. Y. F. Lam (Hon. Ed.) \n\nTHE SAINTLY GUO (Sheng Gong) \n\nProfessor G. E. Guldin doubtless will be delighted to learn that the cult of Sheng Gong is alive and well and thriving in SE Asia. In his interesting article on Little Fujian in the 1977 Journal (JHKBRAS17(1977); 112-129) he surmised that Hong Kong may have the only Sheng Gong temple left functioning in the world. He will be surprised to hear that although there is only the one temple dedicated to Sheng Gong in Hong Kong, there were at least twelve in Singapore, six in Malaysia (1970) and twenty-seven in Taiwan (1969), all dedicated to this deity. This, of course, does not include the hundreds of images of the Saintly Guo seen in secondary positions in temples throughout SE Asia and Taiwan. More than half of the temples dedicated to Sheng Gong in Taiwan (16 out of 27) are within a thirty-mile radius which includes Tainan, and Kaohsiung South-West Taiwan. Only four are in towns and the remainder", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209246, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "EDUCATION AS A BY-PRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING\n\n135\n\ndiseases. This preaching, and a number of healing miracles, enabled a church to be started among the Cantonese-speaking Shui-sheung-yan in Sha Tau Kok, a small port that straddles the China-Hong Kong border. After 1949, when the original church was closed by the Chinese authorities, a new church was established on the then uninhabited island of Ap Chau; and around it a new village drawing on Cantonese-speaking fisherfolk from all over the north-east of the New Territories of Hong Kong was established, which has steadily improved its prosperity to the present day. The villagers live in rows of new cottages, built with overseas assistance. In the middle, there is a square with chairs and tables shaded by trees, a meeting room, and a separate church building with a high roof, plain whitewashed walls, and hard benches, like the older type of country Nonconformist chapel in Britain. Here the villagers, led by the village elder who is also the pastor, meet for prayer and Bible study at 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day, except on Saturday, when they hold their main services of the week. Then many young people who have had to take jobs in the urban area come back for the day, even though there are now congregations in other parts of the territory. On Sundays, people go down to Hong Kong to do their shopping.\n\nThe decline of the numbers involved in fishing, despite the start of sea fish-farming, has also led to substantial emigration. This phenomenon has also occurred in other fishing villages, such as Kau Sai.* In fact, while no more than 500 Ap Chau islanders remain in Hong Kong, there are some 800 now in Britain, mostly restaurant owners or workers. Philip Chan, son of the village elder of Ap Chau, now attending an inter-denominational Bible college in Edinburgh, put it: 'In Edinburgh, you can see Ap Chau in miniature.'**\n\nThe observation of John Wesley, that the sobriety and hard work consequent upon religious revival bring prosperity within a generation, is now borne out in the well-appointed church that has been converted from an old, stone-built scout headquarters. This prosperity does not seem, however, to have lessened fervour, as the church, which in Hong Kong has for some years not been to any extent a proselytising one, is now making plans to evangelise among other Chinese restaurant workers in Britain. Its meetings in Britain are always in the afternoon, convenient for waiters, as its Hong Kong service hours are for fishermen.\n\nNevertheless, in Britain as in Hong Kong, at present, apart from a few Malaysians, its membership is largely Shui-sheung-yan, and it crosses the divide between poor and rich. Although based on a religious mobilisation, it has, therefore, an ethnic character of a kind. It is the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210166, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "116\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThis did not mean, however, that local villagers were not averse to minor piracy and smuggling, and generally to taking advantage of opportunities for gain. There are too many accounts of villainy from the surrounding waters for us to rule out the occasional initiative. In this connection, the remarks of a Chinese brigade general ordered by his superiors to cooperate with two young British naval officers against pirates thought to belong to villages in the present day Yuen Long area of the New Territories, has to my ears the ring of truth to it:\n\n\"Having seen these eighteen villages we have, becomingly and properly, together admonished the people thereof, and I think that they will be compliant and obey our orders. But this is merely an affair of vagabonds who rob with violence and make forays, who are not in the same category with confirmed rebels and pirates.”37\n\nThe English officer in charge commented:\n\n\"It must clearly be borne in mind that piracy in China differs from piracy elsewhere in this respect that there the pirates live on the land and only put to sea occasionally to carry on their depredations... Nor is this state of things confined in this vicinity to the neighbourhood of Deep Bay. Piratical villages exist along the whole coast wherever the native traffic is sufficient to render such an occupation remunerative.\"38\n\n+39\n\nWriting specifically of Hong Kong itself on 11th April 1846 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in his annual despatch on the state of the Colony, Sir John Davis observed that “A principal obstacle to the Chinese commerce of the place is the system of piracy which infests the approaches from the east and west. In another despatch dated 26 February 1848, Davis commented on the subject as follows: \"The former prevalence of piracy has been checked (as appears best proved by the increase of native trade) through the active exertions of Captain Loring of HM's ship 'Scout', by whom nearly 300 pirates were captured in the last year, and delivered over to the Chinese government.\n\n1540\n\nWhether the Hong Kong villagers joined in such behaviour", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211777, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "The Rivals. 1861 saw some entertainment on board H.M.S. Scout, and in March 1864 there was a Prussian ship, the Gazelle, in port, and its amateur society performed three plays, two of which were by Kotzebue and Körner, whether in German or English is unknown, but the audience \"frequently expressed their approval by enthusiastic applause”. \n\nAs was stated in the introduction, there were times in the history of Shanghai when the Settlement was threatened from outside and foreign troops had to assist in its defence. Thus in the early sixties several regiments were brought down to the city. Both the British 31st and 67th regiment came out in 1861, to sail home in July 1863 and July 1865 respectively. The Royal Artillery started operations in 1862. After the military tasks had been largely completed in 1863, there was time left for whatever amusement could be organised — among these, of course, theatricals. Mid-March 1863 the amateurs of the 31st staged Lover's The White Horse of the Peppers and Brough's Crinoline \"before the largest audience of the season\".\" Some weeks later the Royal Artillery scored an equal success. Shortly before their return to England the 67th amateurs put on Selby's The Unfinished Gentleman on June 17, 1865, which was \"well attended and gave great satisfaction\".\" On more than one occasion the officers and local amateurs joined forces for the staging, for instance, of Morton's farces Where there's a Will there's a Way and Fitzsmythe of Fitzsmythe Hall on March 26, 1863 \"before a crowded audience of subscribers to the fund for defraying the expenses\".42 \n\nTravelling Companies \n\nUntil the heyday of theatrical entertainment in Shanghai during the years 1864 and 1865 only one professional company visited the city: On August 9, 1856 Messrs Baker, Woodward and Montgomery (\"formerly of the New York Serenaders\") advertised that they would give, on the 14th, a \"Grand Ethiopian Musical Soiree\" which “could not fail to please all lovers of fun and harmony\" and at which among others \"the sidesplitting Negro farce 'The Nigger Doctor and his Patient, or The First Lesson in Surgery' \"' would be performed. Ethiopian Soirees were another name for the minstrel shows given by blackened whites; they originated in the early 1830s and became hugely popular, especially in America, but later also in Britain,40 and to some extent in Shanghai too. These Ethiopian entertainments were given sometimes by amateurs (May 15, 1854) and sometimes by touring companies like the one mentioned above and later, in November and December 1864, by the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211786, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "176\n\nOr perhaps Miss Durable might suit your views. Such beauty on a stage is rarely seen\n\nHow well too they contrived their Crinoline! Oh! Bachelors give up your wretched lives.\n\nAnd take these beauteous damsels for your wives\". 85\n\nWith hindsight it is of course easy enough to see the wit and irony of these lines and for contemporaries they must have been crystal clear.\n\n96\n\nNot many other accounts have been left to us, but some photographs of a French amateur performance in the early seventies have been published, and there is the following amusing description of a staging on board H.M.S. Scout, when she lay in Shanghai in 1861, of J.M. Morton's farce \"Lend me Five Shillings\" by one of the participants:\n\nJimmy Towers and I, being the only ladies, had to go ashore to be measured for our clothes which we thought was great fun and I must say Towers who was a handsome boy, when made up and after judicious padding and paint made a most bewitching Julia. I, being rather thin, had to be padded up also and as the sun had taken such liberties with my complexion it required a great deal of paint and labour to make me presentable, and as it was a ballroom scene we had low-neck dresses and bare arms. However we were a success and I believe that those who came off shore never knew that Towers was not really a girl. A discussion then arose as to what to wear under our dresses, and it was decided that white duck trousers were admirably fitted to represent an important article of feminine attire. This, as the sequel proved, was quite correct. The play went on well, until getting too near the footlights I had to turn quickly to prevent my clothes catching fire [candles were used JH] and being unable to manage my crinoline properly, it flew in the air and a young wretch right behind remarked in a voice loud enough for anyone to hear: 'Look at her drawers'. This of course raised a great laugh at my expense\". (see also Appendix III, p. 91-93.)\n\n―\n\nDespite the often benevolent attitude of the local paper, the actors were well aware of their limitations, as witness the prologue by Peter Proteus on February 18, 1857:\n\nAnd tho' our Acting may not be the best\n\nApprove what's pleasing and forgive the rest\n\nRememb'ring what we all must e'en confess", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212611, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "145 sentries were mounting guard on it. With this information brought back the number and weight of the charges could be calculated; the charges would then be made up and fastened to wooden forms made to the requisite patterns; the correct lengths of detonating fuse would be cut, the primers, lashings, etc., prepared, and the other details of the raid worked out, such as covering parties, carrying party, pass word, rendezvous and so on. Then at the appointed time, usually of course at night, the raid would be made on the target. If all went well your trained demolition party, consisting of the right number of men for the job, working as a team, each responsible for a part, could lash on all the charges, connect up the primers and detonating fuse, and retire in very quick time, while the leader stayed behind to light the safety fuse as soon as the party was clear. The raiding party would then move as rapidly as possible to safety, dropping a scout or two to watch the result of the explosion from a distance, and to bring back the report of success or otherwise. As such raids might often be made under fire, the importance of accurate work and speed needs no emphasizing. One mistake in wrongly estimating the measurements, calculating the charges, fixing them, and connecting the fuses, results inevitably in failure. It is particularly unfortunate if, in the dark, what with rain, perhaps, and a general state of flurry, one of the men slips and lets a charge drop into the river; because a failure will put the enemy on his guard, and what can be attempted once is seldom successfully attacked a second time.\n\nTo discourage enemy repair gangs, a special team would usually be detailed to lay booby-traps round the job, and other men would prepare booby-traps along the line of retreat to prevent the enemy following up too rapidly All this is ticklish and dangerous work where the mistake of one man may imperil all; so it is important that a strong esprit-de-corps animate the raiding party to ensure that all have confidence in each other. In other words a very high standard of training was called for.\n\nBooby-trapping has its fascination too. The object is to leave a modicum of explosive, encased in metal - that provides the splinters to do the damage in some place, through which the enemy is likely to pass, but concealed in such a way that he can not see it, and set with a spring which he will unwittingly set off. You can put booby-traps anywhere. In the ground they are called mines, and standard containers are supplied for the purpose. But the ordinary booby-trap that you put behind a door, or under a floor board, or in a suit case full of clothes,\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215651, "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": 428, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "380\n\nthe gunpowder store, on one of the uppermost platforms. (Figure 4) Today it is kept locked, but is no doubt empty. Photographs from about 1900 show there was another building alongside the fort. This has been demolished to make room for the road that now skirts this side of Taipa.\n\nReclamation was instigated to provide for a pier which is now situated besides the Fort. Today the land in front has been filled in and a pleasant garden occupies the area. (Figure 5) On the slope at the side of the fort is a memorial to the victims of an explosion on the frigate D. Maria II in 1850. This is inscribed A MEMORIA DAS VICTIMAS EXPLOSAO DA FRAGATA D. MARIA II EM 1850. ERECTO EM 1880. It is a sad reminder of the dangers to which seafarers were exposed in those days.\n\nSecurity of Taipa Island was eventually taken over by the police and the fort was used as a police station until 2000. It is now a base for the Scout Association of Macau. Its continued official use has meant that there has been no pressure to change the facilities and there are no signs of any major modifications to them.\n\nA Nineteenth Century Cannon\n\nAlthough there are a number of old cannon within the fort, most have been placed there in recent times. However, an original one, dating almost from the time of the fort's construction, is at the front corner nearest to the pier.\n\nThis gun is an interesting example from the middle of the nineteenth century, a period of great change in the design of cannon. Similar guns quickly became obsolete and were replaced, so it is very unusual to find such a piece still in place, complete with the original mounting3. Figures 5 and 6 show the cannon, still pointing out across the straight between Taipa and the island belonging to mainland China.\n\nThe cannon is marked 'C.A. & Co. Boston,' and dated 1855. The maker was Cyrus Alger and Company, a firm founded in the U.S.A. in 1809. Their foundry was on Dorchester Avenue, Boston and they supplied the United States with cannon balls in the war of 1812 and later in the Civil War. They made both cast bronze and cast iron cannon, the basic alternatives for cannon up till the middle of the nineteenth", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]