[
    {
        "id": 211480,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 196,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "172\n\nteachers. Miss McCorriston, the geography teacher, inspired me to devote much time at home in drawing and colouring maps to pinpoint certain places. Miss Kelley determined that we should know English grammar backwards and forwards and had us forever parsing and diagramming. Miss Davis was an avid horsewoman who stood tall and erect as she whipped up our speed in doing arithmetic mentally while she called out the numbers in quick succession. I cannot recall what Mrs. Crockett taught, but it was in her class that Miss Daniels (who was later married to Charles King), a part-Hawaiian singer of some size and weight and exuding the warmth and joviality of her race, came once in several weeks to lead us in singing Hawaiian songs, using a tuning fork to keep us in key. I cannot recall who my history teacher was. Last but not least of the teachers was Miss Gertrude Whiteman, quite elderly and often the butt of laughter from some of the girls when she adjusted her wig. She was especially kind to me, probably because she knew my Father and also had special affection for the Chinese, having raised a Chinese girl as her foster child. I missed four months of the last year because of our trip to China, but I was able to graduate with the rest of my classmates in June, 1920.\n\nThe transition from elementary to secondary school was not easy. There was much less involvement between teacher and student, and the relationship between them was quite impersonal. As a freshman, I was completely crushed by my English teacher, Dorothy Stendahl, who was also my Sunday School teacher and an intimate friend of Mary Lam, one of my early playmates. Miss Stendahl selected many of us Chinese for her class. She was not only stern and exacting, but also very sarcastic, and I felt she was picking on me unnecessarily. As a result, I had a miserable year and dreaded going to her class. Some years later, I had occasion to meet her socially, but I could not warm to her. Perhaps she did not realize that I had come from a protected home, was exceedingly shy and sensitive, and was not able to deal with aggressive mannerisms.\n\nI had two years of Latin with Clara Ziegler, who would urge me on with my translation of Caesar in Gaul by jabbing her left palm with a finger of her right hand in rapid succession and would finally comment, in frustration, \"You are not like Me Lan!\" My sister had preceded me in her class and had been an excellent student. To myself, I would respond, \"Who wants to be like Me Lan?\" It was poor psychology on Miss Ziegler's part, as it only made me more determined to prove myself.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "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": 214202,
        "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": 60,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "23\n\nYet mime performer, Philip Fok Tat-chiu, who worked for the Hong Kong Government before emigrating to Australia as recently as 1992, although a relative newcomer, seems to have made a success of his life 'Down Under.' The greats in the field of mime include Sid Caesar, the contemporary French master Marcel Marceau and, of course, Charlie Chaplin himself (Lee, 1999).\n\nAnother form of entertainment, Chinese 'cross-talking' (‘double voice' as it is known in Cantonese,) is much like American vaudeville. It needs one serious performer with a deadpan face and one comic to deliver the punchline. Acting out 'sketches,' like those performed by Ho Bo-man and Chou Chi-hung in Guangzhou, using every-day hilarious situations with rapid-fire exchange, amount very much to the art of language and repartee (Cheung, 1996:5). Slang is important. Jokes can be about portable telephones, which no self-respecting person-about-town can manage without, or about climbing up the beam of a torch (flashlight) in the dark. Isn't it slippery and dangerous? What happens when I switch the torch off?! Maybe the banter is stupid, but gags like these can serve a useful purpose. They can help motivate people,' says comedian Harry Wong of Metro Radio. 'Something useful can come out of such jokes.'\n\nAfter the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) ended the 'Gang of Four' was a popular target for 'quick-fire twosome' acts in China, although many tried (and still try) to steer clear of politics. But unless one possesses an extremely good knowledge of Cantonese there is limited chance of a European understanding a great deal of this rapid-fire talk. In fact at a Chinese banquet, with one European and the remainder Chinese, when the conversation is in rapid-fire Cantonese interlaced with slang, if the gwailo appreciates six out of 10 jokes he or she is not doing at all badly.\n\nOf course there are jokes which people of most nationalities, if they can grasp the language, can laugh at. Like the chap in northern China who always ate at a government canteen.\n\n'All the time cabbage!' he nagged, 'cabbage, cabbage, cabbage! 'Can't you give us a choice?'\n\n'Of course you can have a choice,' came the chef's reply.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]