[ { "id": 205351, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "106\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nTo the North of Deep Bay is Chik-wan Bay, on the shore of which is situated the renowned temple of Tien-hau. To the South is the Bay of Toon-mun-wan, near Castle-peak. The open sea forms the Southern and Eastern boundary of the district.\n\nMirs Bay, the most remarkable of those which indent the Eastern shore of Sanon, is called by the Chinese \"Ti-po Hoi\" 大步海.\n\nIt is worthy of notice, that when the question of ceding Hong-kong to the British crown was brought before the Emperor Tau-kwang, it was asserted that the island had never really belonged to China; and it appears remarkable that, in an official geographical and statistical account of Sanon, in 8 volumes, published about 40 years ago, no mention of Hongkong is made, although islands much more insignificant are accurately included. However, in the list of villages of the Sanon District, the names of Shek-pai-wan (Aberdeen) and Check-chu (Stanley), are found. Among the numerous Straits between the different islands the most worthy of notice are:--\n\n1. The Cap-sui-mûn between Lantao and the two small Islands of Tsing-yeu and Ma-wan; Kai-check-mûn, between the two last mentioned islands and the mainland itself, and Ly-yue-mûn and East-tong-mûn, which constitute the Eastern passage from Hongkong harbour. According to Chinese authorities, the greater diameter of the district, from North to South, measures 380 le, and the lesser, from East to West, 270 le. But it must be remembered that the measurement from North to South extends to the southermost of the small islands which are reckoned as belonging to the district. The district is generally mountainous, and the mountain ridges extend nearly to the shore, leaving only small plains at their feet, which are occupied by villages and hamlets. These mountains have usually a dreary and barren aspect, and resemble those of Hong-kong and the opposite mainland. The granite rocks are scantily covered with soil, and are overgrown with grass. A luxuriant underwood is found in the ravines, but trees are seldom met with, though groves of them, evidently planted, are generally found in the neighbourhood of villages, Buddhist monasteries, and temples. The Chinese are accustomed to burn down the grass on the tops.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208027, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "50\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nLiu-Chi. The group we met were lively and interesting, many having been expelled from universities under Kuomintang control. Another evening we were invited to see a film at the American Army Observer Section which was established there under Colonel David Barrett in July 1944. There was also an invitation to mid-day meal with Marshal Chu Te. My memory is that there was not much conversation as Yu Chin-lung found him taciturn, my Chinese was inadequate, and the others were tongue-tied in the presence of the famous soldier. On leaving Yenan we were each presented with a warm woollen blanket of local manufacture (I still have mine) and I was given a painting, which I had uncautiously admired, by the Bureau chief of the Medical Service. I was also presented with a made-to-measure Army uniform complete with cap and badge.\n\nMedical Work in the Border Region\n\nThe day after unloading we were taken to see the hospital named after Doctor Norman Bethune. Plate no. 17 shows the operating theatre. One of the famous 'three constantly read articles' of Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a eulogy of Bethune, delivered on December 21st 1939 soon after his death.\n\nAt the Bethune Memorial Hospital we were shown how supply difficulties had been overcome, including steel dental picks forged from railway line. We asked about medical supplies from the USSR since 1941 and were told that there had been some, perhaps five, plane loads (say 15 to 20 tons). The supplies we had brought included a portable X-ray with a petrol-driven generator.\n\nThe problems of civilian and military medical work in the Border Region are fully described by Margaret Stanley in a current series of articles in Eastern Horizon*. She was a member of the Friends Service Unit (the successor organization in China to the Friends Ambulance Unit) Medical Team 19 which went to work in the area in 1947. She revisited Yenan in 1972 and writes not only of her memories of the medical work but also the contrast between then and now.\n\n* Vol. XVI No. 3, March 1977 & No. 4 April 1977 onwards. There is also a good picture of what life in the Shensi countryside was like to be gained from the accounts given in Gunnar Myrdal's book Report from a Chinese Village. Penguin.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208628, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "58\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nand he helped others to loosen theirs, at least to some extent. Some, though, spent the whole night with hands tied, but how they managed I do not know. Later the marks on their hands showed for weeks.\n\nTo cap it all, poor Father Bauer still had dysentery, and Father Madison also developed a similar malady. Well, we used the water jar, which so fortunately had been left in the garage. Thus passed our first night in the garage—the Christmas night of 1941.\n\nAltogether we were thirty-four—a Bishop, a Salesian Seminarian, Brother Bernard, two laymen, Mr. Brown and Michael, and Fathers Benson and Norris, C. P., Szeliga, the Polish Salesian, Toomey, Troesch, Meyer, Downs, Keelan, Quinn, Bauer, Reardon, Callan, Allie, Madison, Gaiero, Siebert, McKeirnan, Walter, Moore, O'Connell, Tackney, Knotek, O'Connor, C. M., Charles Murphy, from Scarboro Bluffs, Canada, and our Brothers Michael, Anselm, Lawrence, Thaddeus and William.\n\nDawn finally came, and we welcomed the new day. Fortunately for us the weather was mild, and despite the fact that all except Father Szeliga slept without their cassocks, and some just in trousers and underwear, we felt no ill effects, except a natural stiffness in our joints and bones from the hard floor. The ominous silence of the preceding night continued, and we began to wonder if in reality the war was over or what was brewing. Later we learned that an armistice had been agreed upon about five o'clock Christmas afternoon, though at Stanley sporadic fighting continued until around seven, when the few men still defending the prison surrendered. On receiving telephonic instructions from Hong Kong the big guns at the Fort also ceased firing and the Fort was soon in Japanese hands.\n\nAs the morning wore on we began to think of food and drink since we had nothing in our stomachs since eleven o'clock the preceding day, but nothing seemed to be forthcoming. The sentry peeked in from time to time, and whenever he did so we always managed to turn our faces towards him and slip our hands back into their nooses. About ten o'clock we tried to make signs to the sentry that we were hungry and thirsty but to no avail. Finally, after repeated representations and the offering of a very valuable wrist watch by Father Toomey, the sentry handed in through the crack in the door, his canteen which was about half full of water.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208630, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "60\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nremaining hardtack biscuits and the rest of the milk in the can. In the course of the morning our door was pushed ajar and we were given a pail of water and a few more biscuits. (The water, as we learned afterwards, came from a well nearby, the city water supply having been shut off or the mains broken since some days before Christmas. At our house during that time we had filled all available bottles with the precious liquid and had even drained out the water from the hot water heating system.) With the pail of water was one small cup, and as our hands were still tied, one of the soldiers who brought the water held the cup to our lips and we drank in turn.\n\nDuring the day we continued to clean up the debris in the garage, and succeeded in getting rid of a little more rubbish. We had to work quietly and in the absence of the sentry as we did not wish to excite his suspicions. During the night the rickety wooden bed had fallen apart, and in the morning the old iron bed was taken away we surmised for the purpose of cremating the dead bodies that left us with a little more floor room. As previously mentioned there were a few odd articles of clothing on a line in the garage and these we commandeered as substitutes for pillows.\n\nSo\n\nIn the afternoon of the twenty-seventh our hands were untied by the guards for the space of about an hour, so that we could eat our biscuits and drink our water. This was certainly a relief. We were likewise allowed to go outside for a short period in order to limber up, and were also informed that we could go to a nearby well for more water. Accordingly Father Keelan and I started off in company of a soldier to a house just in the rear of Dr. To's home. As we walked through the little ravine which leads to the beach we could see the vestiges of soldiers' camps, and in the unusual stillness which reigned, Stanley looked very desolate. We drew two pails of water from a rather deep well and brought them back to our brethren. In the meantime, a half dozen of us, under the lead of Father Troesch, were allowed to go up to our house to secure some clothing and blankets. They soon returned bringing with them a few armfuls of odds and ends of clothing, a blanket or two and a few tins of foodstuffs. Someone then brought us a small Chinese firepot; we found a large tin can which had contained the army biscuits and we were allowed to cook a meagre supper just outside our garage door. Hardtack was soaked in a large tin of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208636, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "66\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\n1942\n\nNew Year's Day. The cleaning up process continues and we have little heart in celebrating the day. We are allowed to walk down to the village at the foot of our hill, but no farther, without special permit. Japanese gendarmes have taken up quarters in some of the rich Chinese houses in and around Stanley and soldiers occasionally visit the top of our hill and walk through our house. As Carmel is within our limit of walking, we visit the Sisters, and find them and Father Hessler well. During the hostilities, a portion of their garden wall was broken down, and soldiers demanded admittance from time to time, but otherwise they were not molested. Besides the three Belgian Sisters, there are some twenty Chinese Carmelites and four Italian Canossian Sisters with a number of orphan girls in the convent. These latter had been sent out by the Bishop with the hope that, by reason of their residence in the convent, the Belgian Sisters might not be interned.\n\nThe next few days are uneventful, and we continue our work of cleaning up and getting back to normalcy as best we can. There is still no electricity so we burn vigil lights and candles. We have managed to get a little kerosene oil and found two Aladdin lamps in the attic. We use these on our dining room table and recreation room, but have to be very sparing of oil. As before the war, we retire early and rise late, and each day expect to hear something concerning our fate.\n\nOn the fourth, Father Toomey pays a courtesy call on an officer in one of the Chinese houses below us, and is received very well.\n\nThe next day we were agreeably surprised to see His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, who had walked the eleven miles from Hong Kong to see what had happened to us. He shares our rice and beans and stays overnight. He tells us that food is very scarce in the city and the priests in the Mission House are on rations, so we decide to do the same. Accordingly, we get one dish of rice, a ladle of stew (meat, vegetables and beans) and an ounce of sugar per day. For breakfast we have three prunes, a little oatmeal and a cup of coffee, with a portion of that ounce of sugar allowed. Tiffin and supper are much the same, with rice, stew and a little Jello occasionally. In the village below, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy meat or vegetables. The porkers are gradually being killed off, and the price is rising, and our supply of money rapidly diminishing.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208643, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n73\n\nand soon the Holy Sacrifice is being celebrated on four makeshift altars, each of us taking his turn. After Mass, Father Troesch manages to get a little fire going in our kitchen and soon we have a cup of coffee and a dish of oatmeal. We have already been informed that the Japanese authorities will give us rice, meat, vegetables, tea, salt, and sugar—all of which will be strictly rationed and that we may be allowed to purchase other foods, such as fish and vegetables from hawkers who will come into the Camp. We are to have two meals a day, from the Camp kitchen, now merely a large rice caldron set up on some cement blocks in an area-way on the ground floor of our Block. Our cooks in this general kitchen seem to be some stranded American sailors, whose captain scuttled his ship when the war began.\n\nAs we take stock of our surroundings, we find that there are already some two hundred Americans here, and more expected. Some of these who arrived early began, with typical American aggressiveness, to clean up the place, and when we arrived, our rooms were in a very presentable state. In the other Blocks, there are over a thousand British, and more arriving, in trucks and buses, with more or less baggage. We likewise find five Maryknoll Sisters in Block \"G\". These are the Holy Spirit School staff, who in the beginning of hostilities had been evacuated to the Queen Mary Hospital, where they also served as nurses. The Japanese have taken over the Queen Mary Hospital, also all the other British Hospitals in the Colony and the staffs are rapidly being brought to Stanley. Our sick, Father Bauer and the two Brothers, have also arrived in Camp, Father Bauer being not much improved. In the course of this afternoon, nine Canadian Immaculate Conception Sisters arrived, and were given quarters in one of the British Blocks. We suppose the Kowloon contingent of Maryknoll Sisters will soon appear as well, along with Father Feeney. We are saving a cot for him.\n\nImmediately upon our vacating the House, the Japanese Gendarmerie moved in, and at night, we can see a few lights in the building.\n\nJanuary 22nd—A call for able-bodied seamen on deck for manual labor; some to help in the kitchen, cutting wood and preparing food, others for carrying baggage of new arrivals, and others are set to work carrying cement blocks for the construction of a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208679, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 \n\n109\n\n20- Another community meeting but no further developments on repatriation. At 11 o'clock this morning we were agreeably surprised to learn that Sister Paul and Sister Corazon were on \"The Hill\" and that we could go up and see them. Again Sister Paul moved the adamant hearts of the Japanese and secured permission to enter the Camp to say goodbye to her departing Sisters. We learn that our own names have been handed in to the Foreign Office in Hong Kong for release from the Camp, and our hopes are high. We also learn that Father Tennien is in Chungking, and that Father Briggs and Father Hater are both quite ill. Since Sister Paul and her Sisters have been in Hong Kong, we have been enabled to receive weekly parcels of foodstuffs, and this has helped a great deal. For some weeks a league of softball has been in progress, and today the last game of the season was played between the British and Americans, the score being 15 to 6 in favor of the latter. A Stanley Cup was fabricated by Camp artisans and presented to the winners.\n\n22-The first anniversary of our newly ordained Maryknollers, and they enjoy a Camp lunch at the Maryknoll Sisters' apartments at 7:00 p.m. The repatriation ship, the Asama Maru has been further delayed. Due to some circumstance or other, our rice ration on the 23rd and 24th was very meager, but Father Meyer came to the rescue with his toasted rice which he has been saving for such a rainy day.\n\n25-Rumor hath it that our papers or forms are now on “The Hill,” and that we may get final word any day now to pack up and leave for Hong Kong. Mr. Gunn, an American, and seven others, British and Portuguese, are advised they may leave Camp tomorrow.\n\n26-We were delighted today to receive a visit from His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, who asked permission to come out and say goodbye to the repatriates. He could remain but a short time, and bade the rest of us to have hope, as he felt we would be released in due time. He is also trying to secure the release of the Canadian Sisters. The Asama Maru is now scheduled to leave on the 30th, the repatriates going on board the 29th. The British are still incredulous about repatriation of the Americans. There is now some talk about possible repatriation of British women and children and old men, but nothing definite.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 } ]