[ { "id": 204537, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAO\n\nexplore trade possibilities outside the Americas.\n\n13\n\nThe New England states especially took the lead in this expansion of maritime trade, and towns like Salem and Boston soon became busy ship-building and overseas ports. Boston ships sailed east to the Pacific via the Cape of Good Hope, while those from Salem sailed west round the Horn; when, as was inevitable on a globe, east met west in the Far East, they agreed to an east-west boundary line which ran south of Canton and the Philippines; the area of South China was thus in the Salem sphere, and hence most of the early American traders in this area belonged to early Salem, Beverly, and Danvers families.\n\nThe procedure that had to be followed by foreign ships trading with Canton was briefly this. They made their first China landfall amongst the Ladrone Islands; here they took on a pilot from a junk, and he brought them to Macao; anchoring in the roads off Taipa, they made contact with the Chinese officials who were at that time established on the Praya Grande at Macao; on being cleared by them for Canton, the ships were allowed to proceed to Bocca Tigris at the river mouth, where, after a further delay, they were eventually given a Grand Chop, which was the permit to sail up river. The ships anchored at Whampoa, and the almost endless negotiations for discharging their cargoes and reloading with their purchases began. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the foreign floating population of Whampoa ran into thousands, and the sickness, accident, and mortality rates were very high.\n\nUp river, disposal of the dead was one of the easiest of all local business transactions; the Chinese had no such things as enclosed cemeteries, and neither had the foreigners; burials involved no legal or civil procedures; one merely negotiated with a Chinese landowner for a hillside plot and hired a few labourers. On Danes Island, French Island, at Whampoa, Lintin, Capsingmoon, and Cumsingmoon, there lie buried thus hundreds of foreigners whose frail memorials, if they ever existed, have long since disappeared.* In westernized Macao, however, the situation was different. There were enclosed cemeteries there, but they were consecrated by the Roman Catholic Church and therefore were not available to the other Europeans who were\n\n*For a map of the Pearl River estuary see p. 93.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204758, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "J PUBL \n\n50 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\nThe Yao are reported to practise a type of agriculture based on cutting a clearing in the forest, burning the trees, hoeing in the ash and planting a crop of hill paddy, sweet potatoes or peanuts, none of which require irrigation. At the time we speak of, it is questionable whether they were yet cultivating peanuts, which had been introduced into Southeastern China by the Arabs not long before. Chinese books of reference speak of Foochow50 as the place of introduction of the peanut, but in view of the importance of this bean in the ecology of South China, it would be an advantage if Chinese botanists could collaborate with historians to fix the date and point of introduction and to trace the spread of its cultivation over the rest of South China, where it is now the principal oil plant. The sweet potato, also nowadays a vital crop in South China, is likewise an importation, but it comes from the other direction, i.e. from Central America across the Pacific. \n\nIt is quite certain that the Yao were one of the two pre-Chinese people living on the hills of this territory: and it is almost a certainty that many of our present inhabitants are their descendants. In previous studies I have already listed non-Chinese words preserved in local place names. I attempted a number of such identifications in my introduction to T. R. Tregear's Gazetteer of Hong Kong Place Names. Some of my conjectures have been since confirmed and I think many of them were sound; but there is a remarkable reluctance on the part of local Chinese scholars to admit that many of the people now living here can be of indigenous origin, or that their languages and place names can retain words from pre-Chinese languages.1 110 This attitude of mind is the reason why we are now missing so many of the pieces in our puzzle; Chinese scholars have shown remarkably little interest in the identification of the various non-Han peoples of China and their languages, betraying a tendency to group them in large heterogeneous assemblages, and to treat their languages merely as a collection of words, with no attempt to study the way those words were arranged and the way in which the languages expressed ideas which are not found in Chinese thought. This last, however, is a very common fault in the study of languages, and appears to have communicated itself even to those who have been busy inventing electrical translation machines.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204974, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n73\n\nofficial agreement between the two countries to refer to piracy. and Article 52 gave British warships permission, when in pursuit of pirates, to enter any port on the coast. Provision was also made for co-operation between the Royal Navy and the Chinese for punishment of pirates, restoration of stolen goods, and so on, and later treaties and agreements followed the same pattern. Unfortunately, experience proved that the Chinese had undertaken more than they could carry out; and that the provincial authorities were as often unwilling, as unable, to implement the pledges of the Peking Government.\n\nThe pirates on the coast in the 1840's, 50's, and 60's, included British, American, French, and other foreign renegades, who often worked in league with Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and the treaty ports. The system of ship registry then in force in Hong Kong was even more liable to abuse than the present system, and allowed Chinese shipowners an easy means of claiming the protection of certain foreign flags. This increased the difficulties of the Navy, already hard pressed to distinguish between convoy and pirate, and between pirate, trader, and fisherman.\n\nThe most famous renegade among the pirates in the 1850's was an American sailor called Eli Boggs, for whose capture the Hong Kong Government offered a reward of $1,000. This was won by an even more famous American sailor, more often associated with blackbirding in the Pacific, than with piracy on the China coast. Captain Bully Hayes, however, made his debut on the China coast, and when that part of the world became too hot for him he moved south to Australasian and Pacific waters.\n\nHayes first appeared in the Far East in 1854 at Singapore, as master of the American barque, Canton. He was then twenty-five years old. After selling the Canton, which did not belong to him, he appeared in Hong Kong a few months later as master of another American barque, the Otranto, which was probably under charter to the famous American house of Russell and Company. In Hong Kong's Victoria Hotel, and in the company of the masters of two Jardine opium clippers, Long John Saunders of the Chin Chin and King Tom Donovan of the Spray, Hayes made the acquaintance of some naval officers, and for the rest of his time on the coast he was a great favourite with the Navy. During", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205212, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "162 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nwith a Mexican name, was also brought to the Old World by the Spaniards. All of these plants crossed the Atlantic in Spanish bottoms and were then carried round the coasts of Africa and Asia to South China by the Portuguese. In the same way the sugar-cane, the banana and the yam were established in Brazil by the Portuguese and the cassava was introduced into West Africa where it has become the source of one of the staple foods of several countries.\n\nThe sweet potato, of course, presents special problems since there is reason to believe that it may have reached Polynesia in early times as an importation from the Americas. Nevertheless, it is not a native of the vast expanse of islands dotting the Pacific and it is much less likely that it came to China by that route than from the West,\n\nThe \"kind of melon\" of which the author speaks is known today in the Macanese dialect of the Hong Kong Portuguese as bobra Guiné (Guinea pumpkin). This word appears in Chinese characters (romanised as mó-pá-lá kin-ní by Mr. Luis Gomes in his Portuguese translation) in the Ao Men Chi Lüeh,? published towards the middle of the eighteenth century. The Chinese gloss has faan-kwa. It is likely then that this plant was introduced into China from West Africa or Guinea, to use the old name, and that the prefix faan cannot link this plant in any way with the Pacific area.\n\nThe rambutan (nephelium lappaceum), related to the lychee, is a Malayan tree and has a Malay name derived from rambut (hair), because of the hairy coat with which it is covered. This coat is of a reddish hue which no doubt explains the first element of its Malayan Cantonese name hung-mo-tán. The other elements are obviously phonetic renderings of the Malay word. This tree and its fruit were probably introduced to China by the Portuguese.\n\nAs a last comment on the element faan, are the faan-kwai not more often Westerners than people from the Pacific?\n\nOn the peanut, which, as Mr. Barnett says, bears no indication of foreign origin in its name, it appears to me that this plant may have been introduced to South-East Asia by the Portuguese. The botanists seem to agree that it is a native of Brazil and the Spanish chroniclers of the Indies describe it as a food-crop in Hispaniola", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205295, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "50\n\nL. G. ALMER\n\na match-factory in Yau Ma Tei in 1880, and dockyards at Sham Shui Po in the same year. A glass manufactory was also situated here. An early account informs us that Yau Ma Tei, \"the principal village\" and the main centre of development,\n\nhas increased in population and bids fair to some day become an important town. There is a considerable Chinese junk trade at this place, and amongst other industries is a preserved ginger factory. The Military and Police Rifle Ranges are at the back and near the village. Gas works were erected here in 1892.7\n\nThe New Territories came under British control in 1898 on a 99-year lease, and subsequently new communications were developed. In 1900 a start was made with the main road from Kowloon to Tai Po, and in 1906 work was commenced on the construction of the Kowloon-Canton Railway by a private company. In the middle of the 19th century the organization of the State of California and the gold rush to the Sacramento Valley created new lines of commerce to connect Hong Kong with the American Continent. This was also the beginning of a steadily increasing emigration traffic between Hong Kong and San Francisco. Much of the coolie traffic to Southeast Asia, South Pacific, the West Indies and other countries was carried out through the port of Hong Kong. Whalers began to be a frequent sight in the harbour and, in a free port, the Hong Kong shipping trade was booming in the latter half of the century.\n\nBy the close of the 19th century the valley people had come to experience a critical situation demanding economic activities beyond the framework of the traditional system. Stimuli in this process were supplied by the change in the general economic milieu, and the impact of Western industrialism was not only experienced as something negative and destructive, but also as something that directly or indirectly offered a wide range of new choices. Many men grasped at the new opportunities, and soon found advantages in their changed situation. Men from Big Stream Village took up jobs in the road and railway construction across Tide Cove. Others could be found seeking all kinds of employment in the new urban area in Kowloon. The men in Grass Field Village early specialized in masonry and worked on construction sites all over the New Territories, and in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205296, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY\n\n51\n\nKowloon. They engaged in the construction of small bridges, pig-sties, village houses, and urban structures. On the look-out for chances of work, leaving their families behind them in the village, they began to settle, more or less temporarily, in the market towns of the New Territories, and on the Kowloon Peninsula. They lived a life oscillating between the rural and urban areas.\n\nThis uniform specialization in a skilled labour trade is difficult to explain. However, I venture to suggest a possible explanation. It seems reasonable to assume that specialization in the masonry trade was a gradually developing process. Some men were making use of the slack season in farming to obtain an extra income. This was a period when rapid urbanization in Kowloon, and increased building by New Territories emigrants in their native villages, would have raised the demand for such labour. Some success could have encouraged them to work on a larger scale, and to recruit extra hands by way of their agnatic bonds of kinship. The enterprise ramified, and more relatives became engaged. Through the stimulus supplied by the possibility of earning money in a short time when the traditional village economy was suffering from the strain of foreign industrialism, more Grass Field people sought a new income along lines already established by agnatic kinsmen. For a time, most households in the village had male members in the masonry trade. The fact that very few people chose existing alternatives can be explained in terms of a strongly kinship-orientated society.\n\nA more drastic solution to maintain livelihood was emigration abroad. All three settlements have experienced this type of migration. But here also there are differences. Before the Pacific War, Grass Village had only a few migrants working in South-east Asia, while in Big Stream Village nearly every household had overseas members. In fact, emigration abroad seems to have started one generation earlier in the latter place than in the other two valley settlements; that is around 1890. In this generation, several men left for the United States, Canada, and the West Indies. I was told that mostly they entered the new countries illegally. They made a start as recruited crew members of ocean-going ships, and later deserted in convenient ports, thus avoiding poll-taxes and other obstacles to unwelcome Chinese immigration. The next generation, setting out in about the second decade of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205334, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "THE CHINA COASTERS\n\n89\n\non the outside passage, low-powered ships would have done little more than hold their own against the monsoon.\n\nOn the present day ships trading from Hong Kong around Far Eastern and South Pacific waters many of the old China coast customs still survive. The 'sew-sew' women, for instance, are now peculiar to Hong Kong alone, but used to flourish in Shanghai and Singapore in the old days. In groups of two or three these women board every ship soon after its arrival in Hong Kong to darn the socks and repair the clothes of the officers, and every officer soon after his arrival on the coast has his regular 'sew-sew' woman. They are middle-aged women, severely dressed in black with shining black hair strained back tightly in buns, and invariably sporting a few gold teeth. Whichever 'sew-sew' woman an officer employs on his first visit to Hong Kong usually remains his 'sew-sew' woman for the rest of his time on the coast, and no rival will ever try to solicit his custom. The 'sew-sew' women are scrupulously honest, and are allowed the complete run of the accommodation. They go into their client's cabin unattended, and ransack his drawers and wardrobe looking for clothes to mend, and when these have been collected, retire to a sunny corner of the deck to carry out the repairs. When they return with the clothes later, payment is the subject of shrill but good-natured bargaining.\n\nA similar system still operates in Hong Kong with regard to barbers, tailors, shoemakers, compradores, and others. The compradore in this connection is a petty trader, who deals in a wide variety of goods, from toilet materials and patent medicines to dubious literature. Either he or the tailor will also carry out miscellaneous commissions for their clients, such as posting letters and parcels and so on. An older institution than any of the above, however, were the flower boat girls. Like the 'sew-sew' women they were more common in Hong Kong than in the other ports and were an inheritance from the old days at Canton and Macao. When I returned to the coast twelve years after the end of the Pacific War, and after an absence of almost twenty years, I was pleased to find the 'sew-sew' women, barbers, tailors, and shoemakers plying their trades as busily as ever. The flower boat girls, however, had disappeared from the scene.\n\nPearl Buck, in her biography of her missionary father, Fighting Angel, London, Pan Books, 1964, pp. 84-85, has this to say of river steamers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206623, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA\n\n165\n\nthey have revealed a new province of culture, which from its leading characteristics as well as its geography can be seen to link the Chinese classical culture with that of the Archipelago and the Pacific Islands, generally referred to as 'Indonesian'. The reciprocal influence of these two cultures has never been adequately studied, for only in a region on their respective boundaries, such as the China Coast, can this be done.\n\nThese characteristics may be summed up as: 1. use of stone adzes, chiefly rectangular and stepped; 2. working stones with circular borer to make rings, and with stone saws to cut stone implements; 3. pottery made on the turn-table, in both coarse and fine qualities built up by the ribbon technique and decorated with cord, mat and geometrical patterns; 4. lance heads of shale or slate; 5. cylindrical stone beads; 6. rings of hard stone used as ornaments; 7. cultivation, probably by growing grain in cleared patches of jungle; 8. fishing and boatbuilding; 9. cloth-making. The later form of this culture has in addition these features: 10. casting of bronze weapons and tools; 11. use of ceremonial objects of jade, especially in burials; 12. hard, high-fired pottery stamped with the f pattern; 13. leadless glaze, green and brown, applied to pottery.\n\nSecond, they demonstrate the flow of Chinese culture to the south and its replacement of the native culture, in which can be seen traces of the ancient Chinese culture of the Shangs.\n\nThird, they show that this native culture formed part of a culture-province which included not only the Chinese coast provinces but Japan, Manchuria, Formosa and Annam, and whose remoter connexions extend landwards into E. India and N. Asia, and seaward as shown by the adze forms into the Archipelago, the Philippines, and the furthest Polynesian islands. For instance, a highly polished adze with a large tang, of very distinctive form, is found in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand and Hervey Islands.\n\nFourth, light is thrown upon the ancient trade routes of S.E. Asia. Painted pottery, which was not, it seems, made on the China Coast, was imported from Tongking, probably along the West River. Bronze and jade of Chinese workmanship was imported from the Yangtse valley, by which of the three possible routes is uncertain. The Swabue people produced quantities of shale lance-heads, harpoons, arrow heads and rings, sometimes very delicately worked,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206985, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "H. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nEuropean expansion and domination that ended in 1914 provided a more richly fertile environment for this social type. Adventurers do not compose a social group held together by common beliefs or ideology like anarchists, bolsheviks or suffragettes; rather they are supreme individualists and their individualism and egomania asserts itself most brutally in periods of rapid social change, in periods of social dislocation, fluid social boundaries, disorder and political ambiguity. Adventurers surface in greater numbers, then, under particular social conditions; they can impose their will, in the short run at least, by force, bluff, imposture or sheer physical courage,56 either because their social audience is credulous or because their victims desire victimisation, as a martyr seeks martyrdom; for the need to be dominated is as strong sometimes as the urge to dominate. Domination means accepting constraints, and constraint may bring a measure of psychic security and peace.\n\nSouth-East Asia, Central and South America, the Wild West and the Pacific, all provided an ideal terrain for the adventurers' individual obsessions, whether it was the pursuit of power, wealth, status, excitement, luxury or sensuality. And these were areas, of course, where the white man increasingly exercised control, by means of his advanced technology and dominant culture. Mayréna in the land of the Moï and Morès in the Bad Lands of North Dakota, a frontier area only recently cleared of Sioux, lived outpost lives on the margin of civilisation—one became, briefly, the King of the Sedangs, the other, likewise, the Emperor of the Bad Lands. Conditions in these places were perfect for the seigneurial role they sought to play. Such conditions would not be found easily today.\n\nAt this time, two other factors favoured the adventurer class: respect for titles and poor communications. Mayréna succeeded in making dupes of several influential and wealthy persons because they were deeply impressed by his assumed rank—the 'King of the Sedangs' or 'le comte de Drey'. Morès was a nobleman and a grand seigneur by birth; the fact that his name and that of his noble house could be found enshrined in print in the Almanach de Gotha seduced people of lesser rank. The European bourgeoisie achieved economic and a larger degree of political power in the nineteenth century; this parvenu class, ostensibly resentful of social distinctions was, on the other hand, often mesmerised by titles of any kind. This was true even in democratic America: the shady thespians who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208152, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n175\n\nVisitors\n\n20. Mountains have always been favoured retreats, especially in the South. Herbert Giles wrote in 1911:\n\nMonasteries are built high up on the hills, often on almost inaccessible crags; and there the well-to-do Chinaman is wont to escape from the fierce heat of the southern summer. On one particular mountain near Canton, there are said to be no fewer than one hundred of such monasteries, all of which reserve apartments for guests, and are glad to be able to add to their funds by so doing. (Giles 1911: 9)\n\nIt seems that rich merchants from Hong Kong were among their number and have long been accustomed to take their ease, and perhaps salve their conscience, there. For 19th century examples reported by European travellers see Henry 1886:320, and Bourne (1895) who reported the death at one of these places of 'Lo Hok-pang, late Compradore of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank' (p. 35).\n\n21. The monasteries of Tai Mo Shan long benefitted from a similar connection. It is clear from the large buildings that have been erected before and after the Pacific War 1941-1945—in one case they include a splendid air-conditioned lecture hall—that they draw at least part of their financial support from a number of wealthy patrons; although the post-war urbanization of Tsuen Wan has probably reduced their attraction as places of refuge from the heat and bustle of the world.\n\n22. Over many years, such persons from Hong Kong, having no local connection other than an existing or sought-after grave for members of their family or even for themselves, have traversed the mountain's sides with geomancers and finally settled for good locations. Here a splendid grave has been constructed, and sometimes a pavilion also where the family can rest and eat during the arduous visits in successive grave worshipping seasons. In some cases only an empty grave and a ruined pavilion remain, showing that the descendants, concerned over business failures and reversals of family fortunes, have taken up the remains and placed them elsewhere, despite the heavy initial and subsequent cost necessitated by feeing the geomancer(s) and hiring mountain chairs for the party, and paying local labour to carry the construction materials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208697, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n127\n\nhave been uniformly courteous to us, except under the eyes of their masters and I think they realize that their position is a precarious one. They are, however, pretty cruel at times to the Chinese.\n\nExcept army trucks, there is no transport in the city. On the Pokfulam Road, however, the Chinese have resurrected a few very small wooden carts with tiny iron wheels which they laboriously pull along up the grades of the winding Island Road. Only a few bus routes are in operation. The Aberdeen route is running; the University route via Caine Road is in operation, and the Stanley run, with a bus every two hours, completes the service. The trams, of course, are running and quite crowded. Ferry service has been resumed, but on a very limited scale. I speak only for Hong Kong, as I know little about conditions over in Kowloon. As for purely private cars, practically none are seen in the streets, all having been confiscated and shipped to Japan. A taxi service was attempted but the fares were prohibitive.\n\nThe Dairy Farm is functioning under, of course, Japanese management and control. However, over half the dairy herd has been shipped out of the Colony to Formosa and Japan. A few British overseers have been retained. The milk is being sold for thirty yen a small bottle, but it is of very watery consistency. No butter is available.\n\nAs for the once flourishing harbor, it is now bare of shipping, save for an occasional Japanese freighter. Occasionally, a destroyer or two or a small cruiser are seen in the harbor, but they come and go. As will be remembered, the regular east channel leading to the harbor has been blocked with scuttled and burned ships, so all vessels now enter Hong Kong by the west channel, which passes just beneath Bethany, so we have a splendid view of all incoming and outgoing ships. Now and then we will see a steamer limping into port, disabled and apparently sinking. Once a convoy of some seven or eight ships entered and left the harbor, and on two occasions we saw a very large trans-Pacific liner like the Asama or Chichibu Maru enter and leave. On another occasion, a small destroyer engaged in maneuvers ran aground just to the south of Bethany on a point near the Dairy Farm, but was later pulled off by tugs. Before the war, the British were assembling ten thousand ton fabricated ships in Kowloon, and apparently the Japanese found one of these under construction, as later on we saw it under-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208767, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 224, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n197 \n\nSix old muzzle-loading cannons, each fixed to a cemented base, can be seen on the main wall; two on the west and four on the east. They were selected from elsewhere, and mounted there as a memorial.26 \n\nOutside the Walled City, there are several brick houses which had been used as a hospital for the garrison and as dwellings of the garrison families. There had been a cemetery. However, its site cannot be found, and the old brick houses are now used as stores and pig-sties. \n\nSeveral old brick houses can be found at the mouth of the Tung Chung stream. They are supposed to be the guard-houses and the ammunition store of the Shek She Fort.2 The position of the Fort has long been forgotten. Recently, rubble walls are found on a knoll near the Tung Chung Ferry Pier. The walls are now in ruins.28 This is likely to be one of the fortresses of the Shek She Fort.29 \n\nHong Kong. March 1980. \n\nANTHONY SIU Kwok-kin \n\nNOTES \n\n1 It is called Fan Lau (separate the flow) because the promontory lies on a place which separates the waters of the Pearl River and the Pacific Ocean. \n\n* The promontory has the shape of a chicken-wing, thus gaining the name Kai Yik Kok. Kai Yik in Chinese means 'chicken-wing'. \n\n* The promontory is also called Yuen To Shan, because ships which came from the west to the Pearl River used it as a landmark. 'Yuen To' in Chinese means 'sailing from afar'. \n\n* There is a village called the Fan Lau Village situated by the Fan Lau Sai Wan, or West Bay. \n\n* The Fan Lau Tung Wan is also called the Miu Wan or Temple Bay because there is a Tin Hau Temple, rebuilt in the Hsien Fung reign (1851-1861). \n\n• It was called the Kai Yik Fort, as recorded in the San On Yuen Chi 1819 edition and the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 1822 edition. \n\n1968. \n\nsee Armando M. De Silva's \"Fan Lau and its Fort\", JHKBRAS 8;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208986, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "REDISCOVERING OUR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\nBARBARA E. WARD*\n\nAn audience composed mainly of Chinese residents of Hong Kong may well ask by what right a non-Chinese such as myself dares to speak on the subject of this symposium? My justifications are very simple: I am human, I am a scholar, I am a social anthropologist, and I passionately love Hong Kong, which is, after all, a place with which people from my country have been closely identified for more than one and a half centuries and which for more than thirty years I have regarded as my second home. There is, moreover, the further point that, as my husband is never tired of reminding me, I am a village woman by origin and rural society is familiar to me.\n\nI have just said that I am a social anthropologist, but some of you may wonder about this as you know me here as a member of the Department of Sociology. There is not really a problem here. In England, which is where I come from, and in many parts of what we here usually call \"the West\", the distinction between social anthropology and sociology is made primarily in terms of methods and approaches and general topics of interest, rather than in terms of who studies what societies. Perhaps you will understand this better when I tell you that although many of the courses I went to when I was a graduate student at the London School of Economics many years ago were indeed about so-called \"primitive\" peoples in parts of Africa and the South West Pacific, yet many others were about the complex civilizations of India and South East Asia, and the most memorable of all were the ones about China that were given by Professor Fei Hsiao-t'ung in 1947. Moreover, the first anthropological fieldwork I ever did was in London, and our subjects were English Londoners.\n\n* A paper read at a symposium held at New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 10th June 1981. The author, who is well known to readers of this Journal, was then Visiting Reader in Anthropology at the Chinese University, on leave of absence from Newnham College, Cambridge.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211713, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "103\n\nslack period carried over from the previous year. The reason for this stagnation is the political instability of the South Pacific countries like Annam which are imposing a strict quota on imports. As a result, the export value of joss stick has declined very dramatically to less than 40% of that in pre-war years. Moreover, local sales are not satisfactory. Up till now, besides the long-established enterprises like Leung Wing Shing, Leung Wing Hing and Tai Sang Loong which are still thriving in business, the rest of the joss stick factories are barely subsisting. The total number of enumerated factories is about 150 and the total sales value is less than 2 millions.28\n\nNevertheless, from the 1950s, this industry was in a much better position than much of the rest of the economy. Ingrams, quoting from an anonymous article in an American journal, notices, \"Hong Kong means trade. Apart from the British-American Tobacco Company, a few small textile, joss stick and rubber shoe factories and the like, there are no manufacturing factories of more than local importance\".29 However, the influx of refugees from China during the Civil War in the 1940s gave impetus to the industry. Indeed, according to many elder workers interviewed, the market for joss sticks expanded, as many people and refugees recently arrived in Hong Kong thanked the Gods for preserving their lives. Among the refugees were people from Tung-kuan and Hsin-hui who were very skilful in the manufacture of joss sticks. In fact, 80% of the workers in the trade in the late 1950s and later came from Hsin-hui and bore the surname Tai. Equipped with the skill of joss stick manufacture, they were ready to enter this profession as there were few alternative industries open to them.\n\n30\n\nIt became a common practice that the workers in a joss stick factory were provided with meals and accommodation. Thus, the industry was very attractive to newcomers who were not familiar with their new environment. Some entered this industry simply because their relatives and friends were working in one of these factories. After all, the manufacture of joss sticks does not require very high skill. The average period of apprenticeship is only one or two months for male workers. Moreover, the wage system by which wages are calculated on a piece-rate basis allows the workers a high degree of flexibility.\n\nIn the 1960s, the picture of joss stick manufacture was much more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211716, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "106\n\nis expensive and because of its \"burnt\" smell.\n\nSandalwood is obtained from Santalum album, the best of which is found in Sydney, Australia. This species is often referred to as Hsin-shan sandalwood (新山檀香木, US). The core part of the tree trunk, being older, has the stronger scent and thus is most valued and gains the name of Ta hsin-shan (大新山, II). The next rank is called T'ou-tsai (頭材, Bff) and is obtained from the shoot of the tree trunk. The branches and the bark of the tree, being either too young or too rough, are less valued and are termed as Chih-tsai (枝材, literally meaning \"little branches\") and Shêng-p'i (生皮, literally meaning \"tree bark\", ) respectively. An inferior species is called Ju-lai-fên (如來粉, 403) which is a little pungent in smell. Some of the sandalwood, however, comes from Indonesia and is called Di-men (低門, HP) which is not as odoriferous as that from Australia. Sandalwood is also imported from Papua New Guinea and the islands of the South Pacific. It is this type of scent which is most favoured by the public and is used in the production of both joss sticks and incense coils. In 1987, more than 50 factories reported the use of various grades of sandalwood.\n\nBenzoin, in contrast, is obtained from Styrax benzoin from Sumatra, S. hypoglaucus, S. macrothuyrrus from China and S. tonkinensis from Siam. This fragrance has a very strong smell and was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1960s, 60% of the incense wood ground in a single incense wood mill in Shek Kong was benzoin wood (around 200-300 tan per month). Today, less than 30 tan of benzoin wood is ground in a year. Lign-aloe-scented joss sticks, however, are produced with a mixture of wide varieties of Chinese medicinal herbs; examples include Illicium verum, Foeniculum vulgare, Rheum spp., Cinnamomum cassia, Syzygium aromaticum, Nardostachys chinensis, Zanthoxylum simulans, Lysimachia foenumgraecum, Angelica anomala, Kaempferia galanga, Angelica sinensis, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Xanthoxylum and Eleutherococcus gracilistylus. Ch'ien-nan (沉南, £), the common name for this kind of joss stick, was particularly used in Malaysia and Thailand in early days to fumigate the tin mines.\n\nThe last common type of incense powder used is from ordinary sawdust. Though increasingly fewer incense stick factories produce joss sticks with sawdust, at least 20 factories in 1987 had small sections devoted to the production of this kind of low-grade commodity. The end product so manufactured is called Ts'u-hsiang (**粗香**, “crude joss sticks”, H)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212385, "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": 327, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "304\n\nShe first arrived in Hong Kong in May 1857 under the agency of Dent & Co, one of the major trading companies in the rapidly expanding colony. For the next three years the Norna carried general cargo along the China coast between Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports.\n\nIn 1860 Dent & Co. decided to move her to the more profitable tea trade route to Australia. The Norna, under the command of Captain Wilson, received orders to make sail for Foo Chow, load her cargo of tea and proceed to Sydney. For crew, Wilson had eight Europeans and twenty lascars. As was not uncommon at the time, he also took along his wife and young son.\n\nOn the 27th September 1860 the Norna, loaded with tea chests, made her way down the Min River and headed south for Australia where she arrived two days before Christmas. Within two weeks the Norna had completed unloading and sailed in ballast the short distance up the coast to Newcastle. Here she took on coal for delivery to Hong Kong.\n\nOn the 3rd March the Norna had taken on over 400 tons of her cargo and put to sea for the return passage to Hong Kong. Lying in her path in the Western Pacific, just north of the equator, were the Caroline Islands. This group of islands stretch for about 2,000 miles east/west between Palau and Ponape (Pohnpei) and consist of about 560 coral islands, islets and atolls, the majority uninhabited.\n\nAs the evening closed in on the 31st March 1861, the wind had increased to a strong breeze and the Norna was sailing at a steady 10 knots on a west nor'west course. Unknown to Wilson, he had his bows pointed directly at the coral-rimmed Oroluk Lagoon. Somehow his precise navigation had failed him.\n\nAt 2200 hours that night, the Norna struck hard and remained held fast in the coral, her timbers splintered and beyond repair. The following morning Wilson established that the atoll was about 15 miles in diameter with the small half-square-mile island of St Augustine 12 miles to their north-west.\n\nThe crew worked feverishly around the wreck for a week to salvage what they could, and in the three ship's boats rowed across the lagoon to the uninhabited St Augustine island. After ten days", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213387, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 209, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "197\n\nClarke, Samuel R. Among the Fathers in South West China, London China Inland Mission, 1911 (Tarpett Reprint Cifeng-wen Publishing)\n\nCoates, Austin, China Races, Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1983\n\nCochran, Sherman, Big Business in China. Sino-foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890-1940, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1980\n\nCochran, Sherman, and Winston Hsieh, eds. One Day in China, May 21, 1936, New Haven Yale University Press, 1983\n\nCohen, Paul, Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900, in Cambridge History of China 10, Part I, 543-90\n\n— China and Christianity, the Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860-1870, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1963\n\nCohen, Warren I, The Chinese Connection. Roger S Greene, Thomas W Lamont, George E Sokolsky and American-East Asian Relations, New York Columbia University Press, 1978\n\nCollins P M. Siberian Journey Down the Amur to the Pacific, 1856-1857, edited by Charles Vevier, Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 1962\n\nCollis, Maurice, Foreign Mud, London Faber and Faber, 1946\n\nCooper, Thomas Thornville, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats, or An Overland Journey from China Towards India, London John Murray, 1871\n\nCorbett, Charles Hodge, Shantung Christian University (Cheeloo), New York United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955\n\nCox, E H M, Plant-Hunting in China. A History of Botanical Exploration in China and the Tibetan Marches, London Collins, 1945 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)\n\nCravath, Paul Dreman, Letters Home from the South Sea Islands, China and Japan, 1934, Garden City printed at the Country Life Press, 1934\n\nThe Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H Cree. Surgeon RN as related in his private journals 1837-1856, Exeter English Webb and Bower, 1981 (published in the United States as Naval Surgeon)\n\nCressy, C B, China's Geographic Foundations, New York McGraw Hill, 1934\n\nCressy-Marcks, Violet Olivia, Journey Into China. New York Dutton. 1942 (Feb/938C)\n\nCronin, Vincent, The Wise Man from the West, London Hart Davis, 1955\n\nCrow, Carl, Handbook for China, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh. 1933 (Hong Kong Reprint: Oxford University Press)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213549, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "114\n\nof it are hard to come by One of the best-known sources in English, whose descriptions I shall speak of later, is Charles G. Leland. In his book, \"Pidgin-English Sing-song\" published in 1876, Leland polishes off his introduction to the language with the words:\n\n\"There are, in all, not more than thirty altogether foreign or strange words in ordinary use, and a number of these are familiar to all persons of the least general information. What remains can present no difficulty to anyone who can understand negro minstrelsy or baby talk\"\n\nTo the modern person who has not lived in the Pacific Islands or Papua New Guinea, Pidgin English brings to mind partly apochryphal stories of Duke-of-Edinburgh worship and terms like \"mixmaster-bilong-Jesus\" (a helicopter) and \"big-man-box-you-bash-him-teeth-he-cry\" (a grand piano).\n\nWe have set the background to the article. Before we go further, let's just remind ourselves what China Coast Pidgin English spoken in the later part of the last century really did sound like. Listen carefully for the baby talk.\n\n\"O-lo dim Hongkong sai hab dou-mat-ji man tok-gi Ying-li-sı a-la sim mai. Je-sı naau no hap gat; a-la daat man go dai. Je-si naau mai ding-ki you no gen hi-ya wan pr-si Chee-na man tok-gi long daat o-lo dim man sim, fa-san.\n\n++\n\nHistorical background\n\nMacau was occupied by the Portuguese in 1557. They had previously been trading with south China for many years from a place called, in Portuguese, Lampacau\n\nDr Graciete Batalha, who has carried out extensive research on the Portuguese dialect of Macao (Glossario do Dialecto Macaense, Instituto Cultural de Macau. 1988 from original articles published from 1971-1977), has formed the opinion that during this early period of the development of the Macau \"patoa”, the formative influence was not so much the way that Chinese people learned to speak Portuguese, but the manner in which the Macau Portuguese formed the habit of speaking to the Chinese in the Portuguese language.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213969, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "Africa and South-east Asia to be suspicious of the pretensions of local leaders whose personal interests were not always easily identifiable with those of the common man—or, in their new surroundings, the worker in the plastics factory and his family. They had been conditioned by British policy and practice elsewhere to accept a goal of parliamentary democracy and self-determination as the norm; and while admitting that Hong Kong was, in the other cant phrase, “unique,” they saw no reason for it to be utterly different in ethos.\n\nSomeone who appreciated the subtle differences within colonies and between their officials was the last Colonial Service Governor, Sir David Clive Crosbie Trench GCMG MC. Trench had started his service in the Western Pacific, where as a District Officer in the Solomon Islands he had been a wartime \"coastwatcher\" in the mountains, reporting on Japanese activity, and had earned a military decoration during the Allies' reoccupation. He was one of the few Administrative Officers to benefit from the old Colonial Office's unspoken \"seven year rule.\" Under this, those who had spent that length of time in the supposedly enervating climate and mores of the Pacific should be sent to more politically and mentally bracing parts of the empire, the better to come back refreshed when more senior (determined Resident Commissioners in the Western Pacific, who thought seven years only just enough to train their juniors in the proper ways, usually managed to circumvent this best-laid plan.) Trench came to Hong Kong after the war, where he acquired a strong and popular reputation, notably in the Labour Department, as reorganiser of the Fire Brigade and as Deputy Colonial Secretary (DCS). It was no surprise when he went back to the Western Pacific as High Commissioner; there he presided over the creation for the egalitarian Melanesian society in the Solomon Islands of a novel democratic form of government based, via a constitution already adapted for Ceylon, on the pre-war London County Council, with committees instead of ministers (some of whose chairmen, however, inevitably assumed ministerial pretensions.) After three years, he returned to Hong Kong as Governor in 1964.\n\nBefore he had left, Trench had naturally always shown greater sympathy with and understanding of the \"interlopers,\" as the aforesaid subset was vulgarly known, than did some of his senior colleagues. Although relations with a governor were inevitably more remote than those with a senior secretariat officer had been, he contrived not to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214052, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "87\n\nof the Island This was completed in 1904, partly with filling material obtained from Chinese territory. The limits in Victoria of these two earlier major reclamations are marked by Des Voeux Road and Connaught Road respectively. During the next 30 years reclamation continued on the Island, the largest schemes being those at Tai Koo for the dockyard (21ha which included 13ha of land site formation, completed 1908), Wan Chai (36ha, completed 1929) and around North Point (nearly complete before the Pacific war), together with a smaller reclamation at Shau Kei Wan.\n\nSoon after the cession of Kowloon under the Convention of Peking in 1860 there was some reclamation adjoining deep water in Tsim Sha Tsui, primarily for wharfs, and at Hung Hom for the dockyard, to be followed by extensive reclamation in Tai Kok Tsui and Yau Ma Tei and, to a lesser extent, at To Kwa Wan, Sham Shui Po and Lai Chi Kok, the latter two both lying just to the north of Boundary Street. Subsequently an important reclamation was formed by the Kowloon-Canton Railway in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom bays (16ha, completed 1910) primarily for its own use which included three deep sea berths on the extreme south-east tip of the Kowloon peninsula. In the period after 1922 there was considerable reclamation in and near Kowloon just as there was in Wan Chai on the Island. Large areas were reclaimed at Sham Shui Po (26ha, completed 1928), Kai Tak (83ha, completed 1931) and Lai Chi Kok (c35ha), all these areas lying in the New Territories close to the old Kowloon/China boundary with much of the filling being obtained from Kowloon Tong, then being developed as a garden city. Just before the Pacific war, reclamations were also started in three other areas of Kowloon Bay, at Ma Tau Kok, Ngau Tau Kok and Kwun Tong.\n\nRoadworks\n\nConstruction of Queen's Road in Victoria was started in May 1841, only four months after the British landed on the Island, by the Royal Engineers following the alignment of a narrow bridle/tow path high above the beach which extended some 7 kilometres from the water's edge at Kennedy Town on the west to within a short distance of Happy Valley on the east. Another road, from Wong Nei Chong to Shau Kei Wan was built at the same time, a causeway with two bridges being constructed to carry it across what is now known as Causeway Bay.\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "In order to deliver fresh water to the public. It is interesting to note that, in order to conserve fresh water, a salt-water mains system for flushing was investigated in 1921 and again in 1927 but was not pursued at that time.\n\nAirfields\n\nThe original aerodrome was formed on a wedge of land comprising some 10 hectares (350m long by 275m wide) which had been reclaimed from the shallow waters of Kowloon Bay by a private housing development company established by Sir Kai Ho Kai and Mr Au Tak and bounded on the east and west by large open nullahs, with the first plane taking off in 1924. The reclamation then came under the control of Government in 1927 after the company failed. Government subsequently arranged for the airfield to be extended in 1929 and 1931 to some 83 hectares, partly using as a filling material hydraulic fill, obtained by dredging from the harbour, which was then covered with about a metre of decomposed granite and contained by a concrete blockwork seawall extending some 1.2 kilometres. The three open nullahs crossing the airport field were all covered by 1930, the concrete slab decks being propped by central piers.\n\nA short 457m-long tarmac runway, primarily for civilian use on an east-south-east/west-north-west alignment, together with hardstandings, jetty, control building, offices and a new piled civil hangar near the south-western extremity of the airport were completed in the later thirties which enabled Kai Tak to become viable, not only for flying club and military purposes, but more importantly for scheduled commercial operations which began in 1936 at a time when mail took precedence to passengers. One significant improvement noted at that time was the provision of a concrete slipway for seaplanes to replace the old tedious method of lifting them ashore with a steam-operated crane.\n\nReports that three Royal Air Force squadrons were being sent out to reinforce Hong Kong's defences shortly before the Pacific war prompted planning of a second airport, at a site near Pat Heung (Shek Kong). In 1938 the ground was levelled and grassed over but the scheme was abandoned in early 1940 with the realisation that it would be within range of Japanese artillery following their invasion of Guangdong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214063, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "98\n\nprovince.\n\nIn 1941, construction of a 457m-long tarmac-surfaced runway at Kai Tak for military use on an approximate south-east/north-west orientation, which had already necessitated the dismantling of the RAF hangar, was due to start on 8th December 1941, the precise day on which the Japanese invaded the New Territories and attacked Kai Tak airport.\n\nMilitary/Defence Works\n\nPrior to the British administration, there were several forts in the New Territories going back to the early years (17th century) of the Ch'ing Dynasty, the oldest existing fort (1717) probably being that on Tung Lung Chau overlooking the narrow Fat Tong Mun passage in the eastern approaches to the harbour, and the largest still remaining at Tung Chung (60m by 80m) on the northern coast of Lantau, which was completed in 1832. Little remains of the old 4m-high walled Kowloon City, a garrison fort (120m by 230m) with its sturdy granite parapet wall complete with embrasures and watchtowers, which was finished in 1847 soon after the British established themselves on Hong Kong Island.\n\nSubsequently, the British military have been involved in a considerable amount of civil engineering. The Royal Engineers were first involved in 1841 in the early construction of Queen's Road in Victoria. Perhaps their most impressive roadworks over the years, constructed before the Pacific war, have been Jat's Incline, which provides access to the upper levels of the steep hills overlooking Kowloon. Nevertheless, the main military engineering effort was expended on providing defences and back-up facilities (for example, naval dockyards, aviation needs, storage depots, barracks, and hospitals), principally against possible seaborne attack by Russia last century and later against the increasingly land/sea invasion threat by Japan in the 1930s. Novel defence measures included excavation of a cavern at Lei Yue Mun towards the end of the nineteenth century to house the sophisticated Brennan torpedo, which, after launching down a ramp, was controlled from the shore with a wire attached to the rudder.\n\nRegarding defence facilities, at the outbreak of the Pacific war in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215281, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "6\n\nStraits Settlements, but not to Hong Kong. The governor protested to the Colonial Office at Hong Kong's exclusion in 1907, 1910 and 1912 but the Canadian government refused to include Hong Kong within its preferential tariff on the grounds that goods from China might be shipped through Hong Kong's open port and fraudulently obtain the benefit of Canada's preferential tariff.\" So Hong Kong's exports of cement and refined sugar were taxed at the highest rate and soon lost their market in Canada. In 1912 a trade agreement was negotiated between Canada and the West Indian colonies whereby Canadian exports were granted preferential tariffs in return for Canadian preferences on Caribbean cane sugar, cocoa beans and lime juice. The West Indian colonies negotiated this trade agreement directly with Canada and the secretary of state for the colonies raised no objection. These preferences were increased by a new trade agreement in 1920 and were generalised to benefit goods from all empire sources.20 The Colonial Office invited all colonies and protectorates to consider the practicability of introducing preferential rates of duty for goods of imperial origin. But most of the colonial empire was prevented by international treaties from imposing discriminatory tariffs. Northern Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda, being part of the Congo Basin, were forbidden to discriminate by the Convention of St. Germain (1919); Nigeria and the Gold Coast by the Anglo-French treaty of 1898; and Tanganyika, Togoland, Cameroons and Palestine were mandated territories of the League of Nations which prohibited discrimination. By 1932 the only colonies which were free to adopt imperial preference but had not done so were Somaliland, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong and certain islands in the Pacific.\" Canada and New Zealand were the only dominions which granted any preferences to the colonial empire before 1932. Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia and India granted none.\n\nThe world trade depression which began in 1929 convinced British politicians that the liberal principles of free trade which had been followed for the past 70 years must be abandoned. The National government elected in 1931 quickly passed the Import Duties Act which imposed a general duty of 10 per cent ad valorem on all imports. Section 5 of the act granted an entire exemption from the general duty to imports from all colonies, protectorates and mandated territories, provided that at least 25 per cent of the value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire.\" Imports from the dominions and India were exempted from duty only until November pending the outcome of an Imperial Economic Conference.\" A circular despatch was sent by the Colonial Office to all colonies and protectorates drawing attention to the great advantages extended to the colonies by the Import Duties Act and inviting them to give similar preferences to United Kingdom manufactures", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215666, "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": 443, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "395\n\ncorrespondent for The Times in southeast Asia, having previously supplied articles to the paper on a freelance basis. One of the last to escape the invading Japanese, he reported the retreat along the Malay Peninsula and the last stand and surrender of the British garrison in Singapore on 15 February, 1942.\n\nAfter Singapore, Mr. Morrison went to Java before following the campaigns in the South West Pacific under General MacArthur, and later in Southeast Asia under Admiral Mountbatten.\n\nMr. Morrison was a courageous correspondent who never thought twice about entering a dangerous situation to get a good story. During the Second World War he spent a lot of time reporting from the front and shared the soldiers' life in the jungle. He regularly hitch-hiked on Australian or American army transport planes in order to follow the action and provide authentic accounts of the fighting with the Japanese. He often came close to death. In late November 1942 he was slightly injured during an air raid on the Buna front in Papua, and in December 1943 he was involved in a plane crash which resulted in head wounds and fractured vertebrae. This is how he telegraphed the paper:\n\n'Regret involved in airplane accident enroute obtain eyewitness operational full stop hospitalised injuries seriouser than yestertime hope recover soon Dickson Brown newschronicler kindly consented cover next three days thereafter Curthoys sorry disappoint you good story - Morrison'\n\nHis injuries on that occasion kept him out of action until July 1944, when he returned to cover the South East Area Command. He was not out of trouble for long. On 10 December 1945, while reporting from Batavia (now Jakarta) covering a local campaign he was again wounded and cabled the paper:\n\n'Left hospital today. Thumb, in which fragments of Dutch bullet are lodged, will take at least a fortnight to\n\nIan Morrison and family, circa 1950", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215805, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "37\n\nforces to the north would tire themselves out trying to link up with the beachhead. Should the Chinese collapse in the face of a Japanese attack, then an Allied campaign to recapture Hong Kong would be jeopardized.\n\nJapan had an incentive to retain Hong Kong. Besides being a part of Japanese-held China, Hong Kong also lay just outside Japan's Inner Zone. This zone included Japan Proper, Korea, Manchuria, North China, Formosa, the Pescadores, the Ryukyus, and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. Well before the war, the British had already gained an appreciation that a Hong Kong in Japanese hands would augment the defence of the Inner Zone. Moreover, Hong Kong helped guard Japan's LoC to points west and her oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese could still afford to trade space for time by forfeiting many other parts of their Pacific empire to the Allies, but they were certain to defend their Inner Zone and the positions that anchored their LoC to and from it with the utmost vigour. If the Japanese lost Hong Kong, this would provide hope to people living under Japanese rule elsewhere, while it would send a message to the Japanese people that the war was proceeding unfavourably for them.\n\nBy late 1943, the Allies had gained the upper hand over the Japanese in the Pacific. It was the Allies who could dictate where the next move would fall. As China was still in the game, Allied planners began to take a closer look at the feasibility of a Hong Kong campaign. One opponent the Allies couldn't overcome, however, was Mother Nature, so heed was paid to Hong Kong's weather and how it could affect an Allied campaign there.\n\nA timeless enemy\n\nNature at its cruellest is a phenomenon that humanity's best efforts still cannot match. Even during a high-technology conflict like World War II, the weather proved to be as indomitable a nemesis as it had been throughout the history of war.\n\nWith World War II being fought over a greater expanse of the planet than any other war in history, its participants had to endure extreme variations in the weather, like the freezing cold of the Arctic and the Soviet Union to the sweltering heat of New Guinea, or the oppressive humidity of the South Pacific to the barren aridity of North", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215822, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "54\n\nremained an integral part of Allied strategy to defeat Japan. Even if her expected contribution to Allied victory over Japan had been downgraded and a squadron of B-29s based on the mainland was not as promising as a combat-ready Chinese Army, the politics of basing such a new and promising weapon on Chinese soil were thought to be enough to boost Chinese morale.53\n\nThe issue is in doubt\n\nBy the end of 1943, Allied planners had not settled on a decision to drop Hong Kong from the list of future objectives, nor did they elevate its status to that of a territory whose possession was beyond debate. In short, if a campaign in China was likely, a port on the China Coast would need to be opened up, and Hong Kong was a leading candidate for such a port. The development of the war in 1944-1945 would determine Hong Kong's importance.\n\nAs the USN's Central Pacific offensive gathered momentum in early 1944, the adjacent Southwest Pacific offensive under General Douglas MacArthur also stepped up its pace so as not to be left behind. The competing dual advances sped up the Allied timetable, and brought the Allies to within striking distance of Japan by summer 1944.\n\nIn China, it was a different story. Chinese forces here had not faced a major Japanese attack since 1938. When the Japanese attempted to link their possessions in the south (including Hong Kong) with the large portion of China they held north of the Yangtze River with a major offensive in the summer, the Chinese forces standing in the way largely disintegrated without offering much resistance. By early 1945, the Hong Kong beachhead had linked up with the rest of Japanese-held China. By now, the prospect of recapturing Hong Kong from the sea, while still not entirely infeasible, was made harder due to the potential ease with which the Japanese could reinforce Hong Kong from the interior of China. Intelligence reports indicated that the Japanese probably intended to wage a last-ditch defence of Hong Kong like they were already doing in the Pacific.54\n\nJ\n\nThe Japanese eventually overextended themselves in China, while China belatedly began to receive supplies in some quantity once the road link from Burma was reopened and the air link over the Hump", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215832, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "64\n\n53 Ronald Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: the American War with Japan (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), p.489.\n\n54 (1) South China Weekly Situation Report No.4, 30 Mar 45; Series 1/1; War Diary, January-April 1945; also includes South China Weekly Situation Reports Nos.1-23, 9 Mar-23 Oct 45; Ride Papers. (2) South China Weekly Situation Report No.14, 8 Jun 45 (rest of details the same as above).\n\n55 Romanus & Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI, 1959 of U.S. Army in World War II: The China-Burma-India Theater (rpt. Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1976), p.332-334.\n\n56 Adamson & Kosco, p.149-150, 190.\n\n57 Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas Report, Serial 0395 of 11 February 1946; Entry 351; World War II Action and Operational Reports; RG38; NA, Washington, DC,\n\n58 Alderson, p.57.\n\n59 Adamson & Kosco, p.52-53, 185-187. Interestingly, the carriers in question, the USS Hornet (CV-12) and USS Bennington (CV-20), had survived previous Japanese attacks (including Kamikazes) without suffering anything worse than strafing, but they couldn't escape the typhoon.\n\n60 CPS107/1, p.15.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]