[
    {
        "id": 207272,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 40,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "32\n\n9\n\nWELLINGTON K. K. CHAN\n\nShanghai during the 1900's is shown by the fact that out of the fourteen largest merchant organisations, seven of them were Landsmann guilds. Canton was unlike Shanghai in that commerce there was dominated by the local Cantonese. But even Canton had at least one fairly large Landsmann guild—the Chü-ho t'ang. It was founded in 1860 as an offshoot of the Ch'ao-chou (i.e. Swatow) Landsmannschaft (Pa-i hui-kuan) through the help of the naval garrison commander in Canton, who came from Ch'ao-chou.10\n\nThe functions of these Landsmann guilds resembled their parent Landsmannschaften. Chü-ho t'ang in Canton, Ssu-ming kung-so and Kuang-ch'ao kung-so in Shanghai all owned land for relief work and cemeteries for those who were waiting for permanent burial at their ancestral homes. Social values of this sort loomed large in the thinking of the Landsmann guilds, just as they did for the Landsmannschaften. The well-publicised struggle between the Ssu-ming kung-so and the French Consulate in Shanghai for half a century (1849-1898) was not over some commercial interest, but over the Ningpo merchants' insistence to maintain their cemetery grounds and the French desires to level that area. Ultimately, the French had to back down.11\n\nThe Ssu-ming kung-so's preoccupation with the cemetery shows at once its strength and weakness as an institution which contributed to social and economic integration. The traditional trade guilds were primarily concerned with avoiding competition from among its own members. Their regulations were cast in the \"thou-shalt-not\" vein. Their vigorous growth during the late nineteenth century helped to curb intra-trade competition.12 In contrast, the concern of the Landsmann guilds went beyond class lines and the economic self-interest of their members. They thus had broader orientations. Their aim was not to restrict or to negate, but to assert positively the rights of their entire group. Their weakness was, however, also obvious. They seldom considered the interest of the whole community. The Landsmann guilds were at best a stepping stone toward organisations that could claim community-wide representations.\n\nCharitable Halls (Shan-t'ang)\n\nAnother new institutional development took place sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. As war and economic decline",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207277,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 45,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "MERCHANT ORGANISATIONS IN IMPERIAL CHINA\n\n37\n\nthat it became a coordinator of commercial activities between Swatow merchants living at home and elsewhere.31\n\nBut neither of them became fully community-wide organisations. In Newchuang, the city was divided into two parts, east and west, and each elected one president and one vice-president on an annual basis. These four officers then formed a governing committee with all the business transacted in their names. In Swatow, the assembly was divided territorially into two divisions, each electing annually twenty-four leading firms as representatives. From them officers were selected and again paired to assure each division equal representation.\n\nA variant of these guild assemblies was the Chungking Assembly (Pa-sheng hui-kuan), which was composed of the eight major provincial Landsmannschaften in that city. The assembly operated as a committee made up of the presidents of the Landsmannschaften of Kwangtung, Chekiang, Fukien, Hukuang, Kiangsi, Kiangsu, Shansi and Shensi.32 Its responsibilities were to represent the merchants' interest vis-a-vis the local government. It also performed municipal duties such as running a fire brigade, a police force and a social welfare service.33\n\nWhether an assembly of this sort was composed of Landsmannschaften or trade guilds seems to be determined by whichever group happened to dominate the local scene. In Chungking, the dominant group was the provincial Landsmannschaften. In Canton and Swatow, where commerce was controlled by the native Cantonese and Swatowese, there was no confederation of provincial Landsmannschaften to play a leading role. Hence Swatow's Wen-nien-feng Assembly was based on a number of the large firms from the various trade guilds. In Canton, a somewhat different arrangement took place. Prominent merchants from the community joined the boards of the large charitable halls which then performed roughly the same roles as the guild or Landsmannschaft assemblies.\n\nIn Shanghai, both the Landsmann guilds and the trade guilds were influential. Since there was no prominent group of merchants who were natives of Shanghai, one assumes that practically all the prominent trade guild leaders were leaders in the various Landsmann guilds as well. There was, however, no consolidated assembly in a formal way, although we know that informal consultations between them often took place when decisions had to be made on issues of community-wide interests.34\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209666,
        "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-1982",
        "page_number": 323,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n301 \n\nsatisfaction of all, both parties agreed to give the disputed piece of land to the experimental farm of the welfare center for furthering the work of agricultural improvement. \n\nThis passage is taken from Chang Fu-liang When East Met West, A Personal Story of Rural Reconstruction in China (New Haven, Connecticut, Yale-in-China Association, 1972) 50-51. It will be seen that whilst the team tactfully used firecrackers in the final solution, it was not in the form originally insisted upon by one of the parties to the dispute! \n\nIn another recorded village case, this time from Amoy in the Fukien province, provision for the use of firecrackers in the settlement of offences against the community was included in the village rules. Describing ownership and management of seaweed growing areas in the early 1930s, the writer, who was one of the professors at Amoy University, stated: \"The rocks are jealously guarded and no one is permitted to pick up a single seaweed from another person's grounds. If such a case is discovered, the person will be fined by the village committee a sum of $50.00 and besides will have to set off a quantity of firecrackers as a means of confessing his offence against the owner\". (Tseng, \"Seaweeds of Amoy”, Lingnan Science Journal 12, No. 1 (1933), 49). \n\nAssociations in urban milieu seem also to have used fire-crackers in the course of disciplining their members. E. T. Williams describes how the Swatow Guild, comprising persons from six nearby hsien, fined those members who failed to participate in the celebration of the birthday of the Queen of Heaven, the guild's patron saint, no less than 10,000 firecrackers. At least, there was provision for this in its rules! (Williams, op. cit. 200). \n\nFar from home, a party of Chinese miners on the phosphate workings on Ocean Island were only placated and a serious riot averted by the offer of fireworks by the District Officer trying to settle a dispute with their employers and the native Gilbertese workers. This happened in the 1920s, and the Chinese were almost certainly Kwangtung men since recruitment was carried out by agents in Hong Kong under the supervision of the Hong Kong authorities. The District Officer was the future Sir Arthur Grimble.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210870,
        "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-1986",
        "page_number": 221,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "204\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nThe Tong brothers, King-sing and Mow-chee, were strong supporters of any scheme to introduce modern scientific, commercial and industrial ideas to China. They participated in the organisation of the Chinese Polytechnic Institute founded in Shanghai in 1874. Its object, as set forth in the prospectus, was “to bring the sciences, arts and manufactures of Western Nations in the most practicable manner possible before the notice of the Chinese.\" The proposed means of doing so were through exhibitions, lectures and classes, and a library and reading room.\n\nAt the time of Tong Mow-chee's 60th birthday celebrations, it was stated that \"the Tong family had played an important part in the history of the trade relations between foreigners and Chinese in Shanghai, and they may be said to be the leaders of the party of progress in the initiation and development of commerce after the style of foreign countries.\"\n\nAs compradore of the leading foreign firm in China, Tong Mow-chee held important positions in Chinese business associations such as the Canton Guild at Shanghai, the Hankow Tea Guild and the Canton-Swatow Opium Guild. In these organisations he was called on to use his ability as arbitrator when disputes arose. In this his early experience in San Francisco in diplomatic negotiation proved of great help.\n\nTong Mow-chee died in Shanghai on July 6, 1897. A description of his funeral and a sketch of his life was published in the North China Herald. Some of the statements in the biographical account do not agree with contemporary documentary evidence about certain facts of his life.\n\nThe description of the funeral procession depicts a form of Chinese pageantry that has now all but vanished. \"The coffin was of very heavy and expensive wood which had been painted and varnished, over and over again, until the outside coat of the coffin was over an inch thick, which would enable it to defy damp and wet for years. A handsome gold-embroidered red satin pall covered the coffin, which took relays of 32 men each time to carry it. Many beautiful and expensive banners were to have been unfurled for the occasion, but rain prevented it.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    }
]