[ { "id": 207343, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "# EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n103\n\nThe European lower orders were not, of course, totally neglected by their superiors. The church and the various missionary societies, such as the Mission to Seamen, did their best to elevate the moral tone of the less fortunate. Various institutions were established to cater to their needs—a Sailors' Home at West Point, close to the Seamen's Church, St. Peter's, and a Soldiers and Sailors' Rest at East Point. By the end of the century, there was also a Union Jack Club, a Royal Naval Seamen's Club, a United Services Club, an Institute of Marine Engineers, complete with technical library and librarian, and a branch of the British Mercantile Marine Officers' Association (the last two catered for a merchant navy elite). A Seamen's Hospital had also been opened.\n\nThe military authorities, in turn, strongly backed the work of the Army Temperance Association and the Independent Order of Good Templars, a society of abstainers formed in America in 1851, which had ramified over the Anglo-Saxon world. No doubt all these associations, societies, and clubs did sterling work and restrained some servicemen from seeking the scabrous temptations offered by Tai Ping Shan or Wan Chai; but they did not offer enough to the average soldier or sailor, only tea and buns, prayers and uplift, draughts and dominoes, and the ministrations of lay missioners, missionary ladies, and army and naval chaplains.\n\nIn 1889, the Hong Kong Ladies' Benevolent Society was founded 'for the purpose of rendering assistance in cases of sickness, want, poverty, or distress arising from time to time amongst persons other than members of the Portuguese or Chinese communities'. The society helped defray the passage home of destitute Europeans and educated orphaned European children; in some cases, it paid the rents of the hard-up and obtained employment for those stranded in the colony.\n\nWhat the government felt about poor whites is mirrored in the report prepared by Dr. Eitel in 1880 on the treatment of paupers in Hong Kong:\n\nIn the case of British destitutes, anything done by the Government over and above what is now being done in furnishing such destitutes with board and lodgings in the Gaol, would tend to make the condition of a 'beach comber' or destitute here more eligible than the lot of the hardworking seaman or stoker, and consequently put a premium on loafing and idleness... I would", "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": 209202, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "# THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAI QUESTION IN THE 1920'S\n\n## CARL T. SMITH\n\n### Introduction\n\nThe events leading up to the passage by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong of Ordinance No. 1 of 1923, entitled, “An Ordinance to Regulate Certain Forms of Domestic Service\" interested me as an historian of the Hong Kong Protestant Church. It was the first time Chinese Christians in Hong Kong had worked as a group on a social question. Previously individual Christians had written or spoken about public issues, but the organisation of the Anti Mui Tsai Society in 1921 was the first major effort of a large body of Chinese Christians to campaign for social change. Of added interest was the enlistment of the labour unions to support its efforts and the active part women took in the campaign.\n\nDr. Sun Yat-sen in planning the Revolution of 1911 had received the support of secret societies and other groups whose members were from the labouring class. After the revolution some of these elements began to organise as modern labour unions. In the 1920's their desire to express themselves, gain benefits and be recognised as a political force was strengthened by the success of the Russian revolution. Communist organisers were particularly active in Canton. In February-March 1922, the Seamen's Union conducted a successful strike in Hong Kong.\n\nAt the same time that labour was asserting itself, there were efforts by women to change their traditional status in Chinese society. One of the features of the fight against the practice of buying domestic servants was the support given by the Chinese members of the recently organised YWCA under the leadership of Mrs. Ma Ying-piu. The mui tsai question involved the misuse of young girls and the conduct of their mistresses. It was to be expected, therefore, it would attract the concern of enlightened women. Other than the organisation of the wives of the Directors of the Po Leung Kuk (Society for the Protection of Women and Girls) as a committee to visit the Society's Home and check on its management, there was no active participation by women on the side of those who wished to preserve the system.\n\n### I\n\nPage 105\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209220, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAJ QUESTION IN THE 1920'S 109\n\nthe YWCA, the Seamen's Union and a large representation from other unions. The unions were again expressing themselves after the 1921 seamen's strike.\n\nTwenty speakers secured the floor to present their views. All but three were in favour of the Bill. One of the speakers in favour was Mrs. Ma Ying-piu, representing the YWCA. For a woman to address a mixed public meeting of Chinese was an unusual event in conservative Hong Kong.\n\nAs soon as the meeting opened under the Chairmanship of Mr. Lo Chung-kiu, the Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Directors, there were signs the meeting might not be as smooth as its organizers had planned. A question of procedure was raised regarding the Chairmanship: why should not the meeting elect its own Chairman as it had been convened by the Kai Fong and not by Tung Wah? The Chairman replied it was invariably the practice for Tung Wah to appoint the Chairman for meetings held on its premises. The matter was not pushed.\n\nThen began a succession of speakers supporting the Bill. Their remarks were frequently punctuated by applause initiated by the large section representing the Seamen's Union. They particularly acclaimed the speech of Mrs. Ma. She put forth the thesis that it was women who were principally responsible for the system. They did most of the buying and selling and were responsible for the mistreatment of the girls.\n\nMr. M. K. Lo spoke in favour of the Bill. Although the Hon. Mr. Chow Shou-son and Mr. T. N. Chau were present, they remained silent.\n\nA speaker from the YMCA attacked the rich, instructing them that they should use their wealth to develop industry to provide employment for the poor instead of selfishly hoarding their wealth and using labour in their homes they need not give wages to.\n\nThings began to get out of order when a speaker against the Bill asked why everything was being done for women when men coolies were being sold daily. Voices were raised demanding the Chairman rule the speaker out of order. But he was allowed to continue though he could hardly be heard above the uproar of protests. He eventually had to stop. At this point there was a stamping of feet and repeated cries of \"vote\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209221, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "110\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nThe Chairman seeing that the meeting was getting beyond his control announced that there would be no further discussion and declared the meeting closed. Pandemonium broke out. The meeting began to take on an angry tone. Some, fearing trouble, slipped out. The crowd was standing on its feet shouting for a vote and began to press forward in a threatening manner toward the long table at which the Chairman and his supporters sat.\n\nAt this point Mr. M. K. Lo arose and eventually quieted the crowd sufficiently for his voice to be heard. He asked permission of the Chairman for the use of the hall for a few minutes. He pointed out the irregularity of closing a meeting without taking a vote to ascertain the sense of the meeting on the issue under discussion. He suggested that as the Chairman had closed the meeting, a new Chairman should be elected who could then take a vote. His idea was warmly approved. Backing down, the original Chairman, after some hesitation, then reopened the meeting and asked for a vote. By a show of hands the meeting overwhelmingly expressed its support for the Bill. The organiser skulked away chagrined and shaken.\n\nMeetings of Anti Mui Tsai Society and of Labour Unions\n\nIn a spirit of jubilation the Anti Mui Tsai Society convened a delayed general meeting on January 15, 1923 to follow up the success in thwarting the hopes of the merchants who had called the Kai Fong meeting at Tung Wah. It unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Bill, though it noted that the Ordinance had excluded suggestions for an employment bureau and an industrial home. It expressed surprise that at the recent Chinese Chamber of Commerce meeting three of the representatives of the Protection Society on the joint draft committee for the Bill had spoken in opposition to it. These were Messrs Wong Kwong-tin, Ip Lan-chuen and Wong Ping-suen.\n\nThe meeting of the Anti Mui Tsai Society was followed a few days later by a meeting of three hundred delegates from 154 labour guilds of Hong Kong at the Chinese YMCA. Mr. So Chui-chung, the Chairman of the Chinese Seamen's Union, was elected Chairman. In his remarks to the meeting he reminded his listeners that they had methods to bring their grievances before their employers, but servant girls had no such opportunity. It was therefore, he said \"the duty of Labour to second efforts of people interested in abolition.\"\n\nDr. Yeung Shiu-chuen as a representative of the Anti Mui Tsai", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212803, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "97\n\nthe barrel resting on a second man's shoulder.\n\nKang sì: a baked mud or brick bed used in northern Chinese homes, warmed in winter by hot air from the kitchen flue passing through it.\n\nKo-ino Hul #₺★ : A powerful secret society; the Elder Brother Society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch’ing government and punishable by death.\n\nKowtow : 'knock the head': The ceremony of prostration common in China, chiefly performed before the emperor, in religious ceremonies, and by inferiors to superiors as an humble apology.\n\nInternational Settlement together with the French Concession [Shanghai]: Colonial enclaves where privileges but not political control were enjoyed. The Municipal Council of the International Settlement, against which Mesny occasionally railed, eventually regarded itself as independent even of the UK and US Governments. Most foreigners regarded their presence in Shanghai, despite increasing Chinese nationalism, as in the best interests of the Chinese. Foreigners were divided socially and economically into businessmen, officials of all kinds including police officers and customs officials, missionaries and others such as be-shored seamen, refugees, later mainly White Russians and German Jews, and 'stayed-on' westerners who had married Chinese women or had nowhere better to go.\n\nLartigue railway system: Mesny would appear to have been acting as the local agent for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in China [in 1886] though whether authorised on a retainer or on commission we shall probably never know. The Lartigue system was invented during the 1880s by Charles Lartigue, a French inventor who, having observed how camel loads were balanced on either side of the animal, invented a monorail which after a tentative experiment in France was chosen as the system to be used for the Bally-Bunion to Lisowel Railway in a remote corner of Ireland in 1888.\n\nThere is no indication that the line Mesny proposed between Wu-sung and Shanghai, ever got beyond Mesny's fertile imagination. Wu-sung, the town at the junction of the Yangtze and the river which leads up to Shanghai, was where ships first berthed before sailing up the Wu-sung River to Shanghai,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213840, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "165\n\n55\n\nrepresentatives of the rocket associations bid for the rockets Physical violence is avoided, but competition remains keen among bidders who strive to show superiority over each other in terms of wealth and power' To decide who in the winning group can take the representation of the god home, another ceremony should be held whereby the temple keeper, after placing on the temple altar a list of members of the rocket association and reciting a “song to invite the god\" (#), casts the divining blocks thrice for each member The winner is he who passes the divination three times in a row.\n\n1\n\n50\n\nIn addition to the representative associations from villages such as Mok Ka's Yu-ch'ing tang W, upper Ling Per's Ch'un-ying t'ang #*, Ngau Au's Ch`un-lu t’ang San Tau's Ch'un-ch'ing tang # , and so on, other units such as social clubs and recreational societies also form their own rocket associations. According to Hayes's observation in the 1960s of the concomitant celebration of the Houwang feast day and the reopening of the Houwang Temple after the first major repair in 1909, among the rocket associations, two were fishermen's groups, (one from Tung Chung and the other from Tai O) and one was formed by the Seamen's Union from Hong Kong which came to Tung Chung for the festival for many years.\" Many native Tung Chung seamen had joined the union. By forming the associations and attending the festival, members of the same profession can also exchange information and news of their trade. In this sense, the festival functions tend to promote solidarity not only among villagers, but also among colleagues.\n\nFor local residents of different surnames and various social backgrounds, the Houwang worship and its all-pervasive influence provide them with the social bond of union and the ideology of territory identity, through which the Tung Chung community seems to have become a culturally self-sufficient entity Even the fishermen settled in the district seldom visit the Empress of Heaven Temple at Chak Lap Kok or Ma Wan. Like other Tung Chung villagers, they pay homage mainly to the Houwang, the principal deity of the locale, and participate quite actively in the “bid-for-rockets” contest during the annual feast day festival.\n\nThe Houwang's Birthday celebration also provides the local community with an opportunity for contact with the outside world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 } ]