[ { "id": 204863, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n141\n\nASIAN PERSPECTIVES. The Bulletin of the Far Eastern Prehistory Association, Edited by Wilhelm G. Solheim II. Volume VI, Nos. 1 & 2, 1962. Hong Kong University Press, 1962. Illustrated. HK$25 per number.\n\nThis issue of Asian Perspectives contains much of value for all students of Far-Eastern Prehistory—for the interested layman no less than for the expert.\n\nThe journal is divided under three main headings: Regional Reports, Topical Report and Notes, and Original Articles.\n\nThe regional reports cover the following areas: Eastern Asia and Oceania, Northeast Asia, Mainland China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Polynesia, New Zealand and Australia. All the reports have detailed bibliographies, invaluable for further reading and for the comparison and co-relation of work in the various fields of research. Especially interesting are the full note on A. P. Okladnikov's report on important archaeological discoveries in Mongolia in the Northeast Asia report, the notes in the Southeast Asia section which include P. I. Borikovsky's report on recent work in Vietnam and the inclusion, for the first time, of a regional report from Madagascar. The author of the report from Mainland China feels that the volume of work being done there and the problem of obtaining published results, make complete coverage difficult at the moment; but to have such a report at all, with a comprehensive list of references is useful. The Indonesian report is detailed and well-illustrated and covers field work and research in Java, Bali and Flores, Sumba and Timor. Those who have seen some of the Neolithic material discovered in Hong Kong will find the illustrations in this section particularly interesting.\n\nThe topical report is on the linguistic sessions of the 10th Pacific Science Congress held in Honolulu in 1961; again the bibliography is extensive.\n\nThe range of subject of the articles in the third section, Notes and Original Articles, is wide, but in this issue of the journal, predominantly archaeological. They include articles on the problems of archaeology in Madagascar, on the work of French prehistorians in Vietnam, on archaeology in North Borneo, Easter Island and in India. A. P. Khatri writes on A century of Prehistoric Research in India, paying tribute to the \"father\" of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207401, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n161\n\ntroops, in my opinion, put up an excellent resistance from the static strong points which were the mainstay of the defence plan. They were pitted against a numerically superior and much more mobile enemy and no blame should be placed on them for the fact that our resistance was broken in under three weeks, nowhere near the ninety days originally judged to be desirable. These views imply no criticism of the defence plan for the circumstances of the Colony decided the plan. The defence was further prejudiced by the huge population of non-combatants in Kowloon and Victoria. Given the conditions under which our troops had to fight, I believe that our defeat could never have been avoided except by avoiding hostilities altogether. I believe we could have accepted any loss of face which a pre-war withdrawal, leaving only internal security forces, would have entailed. Having said that, however, the troops thereby released from Hong Kong would probably have been used in Singapore and almost certainly would not have changed the outcome there. One can only sympathise with the Governor and the G.O.C. and their staffs in their task of defending a Colony whose fate was sealed long before the fighting and they and the troops did their jobs well. The story unfolded slowly but inexorably after the style of a Greek tragedy.\n\n26 DECEMBER 1941–7 AUGUST 1942\n\nThe Japanese were slow to move in to take control of the hospital though they did concentrate our fighting troops at once and moved them to prisoner of war camps. For years I wondered why the hospital and indeed the whole of Hong Kong was spared the large scale rape, murder and looting which seemed to be the reward for Japanese troops upon the capture of large cities in China. The case of Nanking in December 1937 was the best known of these, when the city was given over to the victorious Japanese troops and for some weeks suffered on a huge scale.\n\nIt was not until I read the Official History of the War Against Japan that the probable explanation appeared in Volume 1. The Japanese attack on Hong Kong was made by the 38 Division reinforced by additional troops. The division had three regiments, the 228, 229 and 230 Infantry Regiments. The 228 regiment was transferred from Hong Kong to Davao on 18 January 1942 and thence to Amboina and Timor. The 229 regiment and one battalion", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208936, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SILK AND SILVER: MACAU, MANILA AND TRADE IN THE CHINA SEAS IN THE\n\nSIXTEENTH CENTURY\n\n(A lecture delivered to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society at the Hong Kong Club. 10 June 1980.)\n\nJOHN VILLIERS*\n\nIn the second half of the 16th century there developed a pattern of trade in the China Seas and the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos of which the two chief entrepôts were Portuguese Macau and Spanish Manila. Other centres were also involved, notably Japan in the north, Malacca, Timor and the Moluccas in the south and Mexico on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. All these places played a role in the development of a vast and complex trading network that depended primarily on supplying Macau and Manila with two commodities — silk and silver — which neither produced.\n\nThere was of course a highly developed trading system in the China Seas long before the Europeans arrived, but it so happened that they came on the scene just at a time when Chinese naval and commercial power was waning and Japan was in the midst of a period of feudal anarchy. It was therefore relatively easy for them to penetrate this system, and even at some points and for a limited period to dominate it. By the mid-15th century Chinese seapower had greatly declined and the famous mission of the eunuch-admiral Cheng Ho had no successors. The reasons for this decline are complex and need not detain us here. Suffice it to say that in 1420 the Ming navy consisted of some 3800 vessels. By the end of the century it had almost disappeared. By 1500, death was, at least in theory, the penalty for building a three-masted sea-going junk and in 1551 it was decreed that all communications with foreigners overseas would be treated as espionage.\n\nPrivate trading by the eunuchs and others continued during this period, but in the face of increasing official hostility, and Chinese merchants trading in South East Asian ports had to conduct their\n\n* Mr Villiers is Director of the British Institute in South-east Asia (Singapore),", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208937, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SILK & SILVER: MACAU, MANILA TRADE\n\n67\n\naffairs clandestinely. This greatly encouraged them to develop autonomous merchant communities with what amounted to extra-territorial rights. The most important of these Chinese merchant communities at the end of the 15th century was in Malacca.\n\nShips went to and from Malacca as far as India and China, trading in a wide variety of Indian and Chinese goods which were exchanged for the products of the Indonesian islands. Malacca, the \"city made for merchandise\", was essentially an entrepôt the very existence of which depended upon its carrying trade. It had an excellent and easily defensible harbour, protected on either side by the narrow straits between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula and strategically placed, as Pires put it, at the end of one monsoon and the beginning of others. When Afonso de Albuquerque captured Goa in 1510 he was quick to see that Malacca's unrivalled position as an emporium and as a centre for the dissemination of Islam in South East Asia made it essential that he gain control of it also. He could thus fulfil Portuguese obligations to the Holy See and acquire a base for their commercial activities in the archipelago, in particular the carrying trade in spices and other precious goods from Indonesia to Goa and Lisbon in which the Portuguese sought to gain a share, if not a monopoly.\n\nAt the other end of the maritime area with which we are here concerned was another important trading centre. This was the Ryukyu Islands. The inhabitants of these islands, known to the Europeans as Lequeos or Loochoos, were actively engaged in the carrying trade between the northern and southern parts of the area from the 13th to the mid 16th century. The islanders carried to the south Chinese porcelain, silks and other textiles, metal goods and drugs, Japanese weapons and armour, lacquer and gold, all of which they exchanged for spices, aromatic woods, dyewoods and exotic beasts and birds from the Indonesian archipelago — goods that they could sell in China for several hundred times the buying price.2\n\nTechnically this trade with China remained an imperial monopoly and was carried out under the pretence of tribute. As Ming seapower dwindled and piracy in the China Seas accordingly grew, and as the Portuguese extended their trading activities in the years following their conquest of Malacca in 1511 into the Indonesian archipelago and beyond to the spice islands, to Timor and the Solor Islands, to Makassar and eventually to Macau—so the Ryukyu trade became increasingly circumscribed until it was con-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212830, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "124\n\nsupport refugees from Hongkong until positions could be found for them. I had obtained them through the recommendation of that organisation, as also the two wireless operators. Although they had volunteered for active service, in the interests of security, I had been unable to explain to them the exact nature of our work and they were already beginning to show symptoms of uneasiness the nearer we approached to the front. Rogue, whose real name was a long Portuguese word ending in Rogue, too difficult to spell or pronounce, had also escaped from Hongkong. He was originally a Portuguese subject from Timor, half Chinese and half Portuguese by blood. At one period of his life he had served in the Chinese Army, and at another he had commanded a small Portuguese vessel sailing out of Macao. He was very tough, always cheerful, always ready to do what was asked of him, and brave as a lion. Wherever he is I hope the British government will look after him for the excellent service he gave while with our party. Lao Teng was the cook-boy who had joined me in eastern China and who continued to look after me, until I left China. He was not only an excellent cook, well able to accommodate himself to all the food and fuel crises to which troops are exposed, but he was a personal friend, usually singing and laughing, and always ready to turn to and prepare a meal after a day's march, however long. He looked after me like a mother; I hope we may meet again one day.\n\nOwing to the limitation imposed by the numerous demands on the single R.A.F. 'plane received each week at Kun-ming, our clothing and equipment was peculiar and modest. We hoped to have further supplies dropped to us in due course, but in the meantime the party was dressed in a mixture of uniforms which would have given occasion for comment had they appeared on the square at Wellington Barracks; as Stan said, watching the men jump out of our lorry on arrival at Paoshan, he wondered what the heck was going to jump out next. What our American friends thought of us Heaven only knows; they were too polite to tell us.\n\nAs far as Paoshan we had moved by lorry; we were now to take to our feet, with pack animals to carry the baggage. The Chinese would not allow us to proceed directly to Kokang, but insisted that we should go via Shunning; it meant covering two sides of a triangle. The instruction was not unreasonable because it was at Shunning that the headquarters of the army, covering the portion of the front which included Kokang, lay.\n\nThe Chinese system of providing coolies, in areas where coolies carried the baggage, or pack animals, where such were available, was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 } ]