[
    {
        "id": 212761,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1992",
        "page_number": 70,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "55\n\non him. Mesny had taken every opportunity to praise Tso and, in good Chinese fashion, looked upon him as his 'protector' or 'patron'.\n\nIn a comparatively brief single-page highlights-only curriculum vitae printed in the Miscellany in 1905, Mesny would appear to have been careful in his choice of words. He used the phrase 'Volunteered for service' not only when he went to Kueichou in 1868, about which he later wrote at length, but also in connexion with 'Manchuria' and 'Peking', the former during the Sino-Japanese War and the latter at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, neither of which has been mentioned elsewhere in the Miscellany. This suggests that he was not taken up on his offers of service, especially as his name does not appear in any of the standard writings on the Boxer era in north China and he does not describe or offer any anecdotes on the subject in his Miscellany.\n\nHis Miscellanies contain a large number of items culled from other works such as Mayer's Chinese Reader's Manual written in Peking in 1874 where Mayers was a Chinese Secretary to HM Legation, and published in Shanghai the same year by the American Presbyterian Mission Press. At one point Mesny claimed that W F Mayers was a friend of his; but reading between the lines one is tempted to see Mesny meeting Mayers over dinner at the Legation in Peking where polite conversation would lead to a discussion on the failure of the Chinese to help build a railway, with Mesny offering advice and suggestions and Mayers, again politely, concurring. This would appear to have been seen by Mesny as Mayers accepting Mesny's ideas and entrusting him with various tasks. Mayers in all probability forgot all about the conversation, but not so Mesny who repeated himself several times in his Miscellanies, explaining how he had offered advice and had been waiting for a follow up from Mayers which never arrived. It is a matter for speculation how often this type of conversation took place, with other parties forgetting, either with or without intent, their talks with Mesny.\n\nMesny periodically advanced oracular statements which in later years would be referred to as 'China-watching'. In 1899 he made several predictions about the 'inadequacies' of the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty and forecast that the end was 'very' nigh with a new reformed China ahead. He also predicted that the Russians for all their implied power would be unable to retain Manchuria against the Japanese who also, Mesny thought, might join up with China making a powerful empire under the Mikado as ruler of the Greater China and Japan. These predictions",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214545,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1998",
        "page_number": 403,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "372\n\nAN IRISH FANTASY\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nA wooden effigy of a Chinese man stands above the front door of a pub called The Chinaman in Rathkeale in West Limerick in the Republic of Ireland. It is claimed by the publican to be a portrait image of the Chinese captain of a powerful sailing ship, 'The Mikado' which had brought a valuable cargo of tea to Foynes some time before 1743, the year when local people got together to honour Captain Wongyu.\n\nThe story goes that some of the Chinese crew were drinking in a wine and spirit store when one of the Chinese crew rushed in from Foynes and announced that a pirate ship had entered the Shannon Estuary and the pirates were plundering towns and villages along the shoreline. Captain Wongyu mustered more than one hundred locals and, together with his crew, they marched against the pirates. In a quick but fierce skirmish the pirates were defeated and the people of the area showed their gratitude by erecting an effigy of him over the door of the building where it stands today. Captain Wongyu died in 1789, some twenty-six years later but did not forget the people of Rathkeale. He is said to have made provision for a sum of money to be sent to the poor of Rathkeale.\n\nThe statue depicts a Chinese man but with a marked European face and beard, wearing a mandarin-style summer hat, and a half-length blue robe over a faded orange robe. I would guess that it was carved by a European who had never studied a Chinese but had seen some 18th or 19th century illustrations. A quite small round [un-Chinese] gilded medallion or disc hangs or is sewn on to the blue robe high up just below his beard, bearing an unintelligible character or squiggle.\n\nIt makes a good story but the Chinese did not sail the seven seas during the 18th century and should a junk have reached the British Isles at that time it would have made headline news. Chinese did not import tea into Britain nor, I suspect, would there have been a great market for tea on the west coast of Ireland at that era. Finally, Mikado",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]