[ { "id": 204755, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE \n\n47 \n\nby a very powerful clan surnamed Mo. This clan fell foul of authority early in the Sung132 Dynasty and several slightly different accounts of their misdeeds and eventual extermination are preserved in three different clans, one of which claims descent from the sole posthumous survivor of the massacre. The latest edition of the San On Yuen Chi123 has only a brief mention, but earlier editions may have dealt with the subject more fully. The next clan to settle on the swamp land in these parts was surnamed Chan and I have not been able to find any of their descendants. In the wake of the Mo9s catastrophe came the very successful clan of Tang44 whose branches by the end of the Sung Dynasty132 appear to have held most of the best land in several parts of the territory, including some near Tsuen Wan2 from which they have since vanished. When I mentioned that the Chan1 clan had disappeared I do not wish to indicate that there is no evidence to support the tradition that a group with this surname were among the early Chinese settlers. There are several small families found here and there, often in close association with the Tang:44 but none of them has preserved a tradition connecting itself with these early settlements.\n\nThe Puzzle. I must here leave the subject of the earliest Chinese settlers, since my main theme is what they found when they first arrived. I have mentioned these details generally to indicate the strength of the tradition which indicates that the present Deep Bay152 extended over the Yuen Long\" Valley, up to Sheung Shui130 and over Laffan's Plain.27 On the other side of the territory the sea has been gaining; therefore it is much more difficult to be sure of the original coastline, since when the sea gains, sections of submerged land are often churned away to some depth by wave action, whereas when the sea recedes the contours do not otherwise change. However, we do have the evidence of the cadastral survey completed in the New Territories shortly after the British occupation I believe it began in 1902. Comparing this survey with what is now to be seen sixty years later testifies to three instances (one on Discovery Bay,32 Lantao; one on Tolo Harbour;3 and one on Plover Covel) where the sea has not merely encroached but churned away substantial pieces of arable land leaving in their place fairly deep water. They also testify to the obliteration of three villages106 and thus afford", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205318, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY\n\n73\n\n2 There are indications that this mountain area at one time was inhabited by non-Chinese Yao people; Barnett 1957, p. 261. The present inhabitants, however, are all Hakka- and Cantonese-speaking Chinese, settled here for only about 300 years.\n\n3 The estimated average price for local unmilled rice is (1965) HK$28 per picul for first crop rice. The corresponding figure for second crop rice is HK$36 a picul.\n\n4 Chiu 1964, p. 77.\n\n5 Bot. Report 1906, p. 221.\n\nIt could be added that a fish hawker is touring the area daily. He is from Sai Kung and his route includes Grass Field Village and Plum Grove Village. There are also other occasional peddlers, trading in food and sweets. Some shops can be found at the mining workers' settlement at Ma On Shan. Fishermen call at the pier there every morning. People from Big Stream Village often take advantage of these facilities.\n\n7 S., D. W. 1900, p. 202f. See also Tregear & Berry 1959, p. 12ff, and Hayes 1966, p. 128f.\n\n8 In a village just outside Canton, \"almost all those who went to work on ships were Wongs. This was chiefly due to the functioning of kinship relations in economic life. One who knew of an opportunity in one's own occupation usually recommended it to a kinsman. A Lee already engaged in business in Hong Kong would hire his own relatives as help or recommend them to fellow businessmen who might need help. A Wong in the 'hard labour' business, an activity tightly controlled by secret societies, or in marine work, did the same for his own kinsmen.\" Yang 1959, p. 73.\n\n9 Lockhart Report, p. 557. Census 1911, p. 103.\n\n10 Skinner 1964/65, p. 202. For further details, see Groves 1965a and 1965b.\n\n11 The Ng people in Plum Grove Village have no connections with the former Grass Field people of the same surname.\n\n12 The coastal area of Kwangtung was the scene of a dramatic mass deportation, executed by the Ch'ing occupants as a counter-measure in the struggle against raiding Ming loyalists. This course of action was carried out from 1661. Eight years later the coastal strip was declared open for settlement and an active policy by the Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, A Ke-min, lured immigrants to the waste lands. The main influx of Hakka to the New Territories was in the following decades. If this is correct it may be that the Lau people appeared in this area during the course of this re-occupation. See Hui 1963, p. 89ff.\n\nSee Hui 1963, p. 89ff. However, Professor Freedman (1967) has quite correctly pointed out that the data are by no means conclusive on the effective evacuation of the area.\n\n13 Skinner 1964/65, p. 37.\n\n14 Freedman 1958, p. 50.\n\n15 In the Hakka village in the Tolo Harbour area, studied by Jean Pratt, at the Chinese New Year 'all the men go to the lineage hall in a village across the valley, where they claim their ancestors lived. Pratt 1960, p. 149. But note supplementary information in Freedman 1966, p. 41; this issue, however, has no bearing on my argument. Similar social ceremonialism seems to have occurred among the Cantonese-speaking Punti population. See Hayes 1962, p. 28.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205319, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "74\n\nL. G. AIJMER\n\n16 The still wider surname groups, hsing (M), in Chinese society, based on entirely fictitious agnatic relationships, expressed in at least preferred exogamy, have often indiscriminately been designated 'clans'. See e.g. Lee 1960, p. 134f. and Willmott 1964, p. 33. This purely conventional consanguinal kin group comes close to the sociological concept of 'phratry', and kin group constellations of this kind may be described better as units of this higher order. The Hakka nomenclature may vary but the units discussed are always conceived of,\n\n17 Freedman 1958, pp. 47, 129.\n\n18 Census 1911, p. 103f.\n\n19 Nine villages with Cantonese-speaking Punti population in the same district at the same time display numbers ranging between 346 and 9, with an average of 108.\n\n20 However, Jean Pratt, in her account of a Hakka village to the north of Tolo Harbour in the New Territories, gives an example of a non-symmetrical segmentation, reflected in the establishment of a new ancestral hall; Pratt 1960, p. 148.\n\n21 This also applies to the Hakka village studied by Miss Pratt: 'The three lineage halls are merely buildings in a row like an ordinary dwelling house'; Pratt 1960, p. 148.\n\n22 Freedman 1958, p. 50.\n\n23 Skinner, in discussing the importance of marketing communities, points out that in Szechuan there existed organizations of Hakka 'composite lineages', with headquarters in teahouses in the market towns (Skinner 1964/65, p. 37). I have no knowledge of similar organizations in the New Territories. One would have expected something of this kind in a portion of China where the Hakka groups suffered political strain from the Punti population. Local groupings on a non-kin basis may sometimes have fulfilled a protective function. Such local organizations, with headquarters in small temples, are for instance to be found in the Sha Tin Valley, and in the Three Fathom Cove area. All three villages studied belonged in pre-British times to an administrative organization called Luk Yeuk, focussed on the old government centre of Kowloon City. Freedman (1966, p. 86) sees yeuk organizations as means for weak communities to seek 'protection against being molested by local powers'. For a discussion of yeuk see op. cit., pp. 82-89 and for the Luk Yeuk especially pp. 85f.\n\n24 A map of Hakka migrations is, for instance, provided by Kuo 1964, facing p. 6. But there are also other views as to the origin of the Hakka, see e.g. Barnett 1958, p. 2.\n\n25 Izikowitz 1963, p. 171.\n\n26 One man from Grass Field Village has settled for good in Borneo. He has taken his wife and children there. This is the only instance of permanent overseas settlement I have come across.\n\n27 This particular migration is said to have been encouraged and even given financial assistance by the Chinese Government as an aftermath of the war mentioned below; Dyer Ball 1925, p. 282. Another author thinks less of the generosity of the government:\n\n'Comme ces tribus Hak-ka se montraient particulièrement turbulentes, les mandarins chinois ne pensaient qu'à les éloigner de leur territoire; c'est ainsi qu'en 1864 et 1866, à la suite de nombreuses revoltes, ils furent expulsés dans le sud du Kouang-Si, vers ces marches frontières qui, comme la province de Moncay, étaient peu habitées et dans un état habituel d'anarchie politique.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205749, "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-1969", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "# MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n49\n\nThe resistance movement had now reached a state of readiness. Further subscriptions of silver were obtained and responsibility for provision of rations allocated. On 13th April Ping Shan supplied pigs as food for the militia. By 14th April an advance force was in position on the hills overlooking Tai Po. It was composed of units from Fan Leng, Kam Tin, the Lam Tsuen valley, and Pat Heung. A British party making preparations for the flag raising saw about 150 men on the hills to the northwest. Four or five standards were seen, and the Chinese \"kept up an incessant yelling, beating of gongs, and firing of crackers, or guns, probably jingals ...\" 64\n\nWhen the Governor heard of these events at Tai Po he decided to station a force there immediately. On the morning of 15th April, two units were dispatched from Hong Kong. Captain Superintendent May, in charge of 22 policemen, left by launch for Tai Po. A company of the Hong Kong Regiment* — comprising 125 officers and men — set off overland from Kowloon, with orders to rendezvous with the police that afternoon.\n\nWhen the police landed near the matshed hill they were fired upon by forces from the Lam Tsuen valley, Tai Hang, Pat Heung, and Kam Tin. The militia of Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan had not been committed, although Ha Tsuen was, on this day, responsible for rations. By this time the infantry company was only a short march from Tai Po. Its commanding officer, Captain E. L. C. Berger, could see that the hills were crowded with several thousand militia, displaying six or seven different banners. As they approached the market he noted that the Chinese were uniformed and that the units nearest him occupied good tactical positions.\n\nThe soldiers joined the police on the matshed hill and found their situation difficult. The hills to the west and northwest were occupied by militia. To the east was Tolo Harbour. Twelve pieces of light artillery — probably jingals and mortars — kept up a steady fire on them from two positions. There was also continuous musketry fire. If the aim of the militia had been better, the casualties would have been heavy. Shortly thereafter the militia began an advance but were driven back by volley fire. This was the situation when H.M.S. \"Fame\" arrived late that afternoon.\n\n* A regiment of the Indian Army, with British officers and Indian (Pathan) other ranks, not to be confused with the volunteer unit of this name in present day Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205842, "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-1969", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "142\n\nRONALD C. Y. NG\n\nits appearance, two copies of this significant contribution to the geographical world were presented to the Society by J. L. Southey in 1868, but for a century the authorship and the identity of this 'Italian missionary of the Propaganda' remained unknown.\n\nConsidering the difficulties presented by the rugged terrain and the unsettled times under which the observations were made, the map has a remarkable degree of accuracy and contains a wealth of information. Although it cannot be ascertained whether Mgr. Volonteri had received any cartographic training, either before or after he entered the priesthood, the map displays no sign of amateurism and, indeed, it won several enviable awards in various European exhibitions, including the Milan Cartographic Exhibition of 1894, in the years immediately following its appearance. Other things apart, the fact that it is probably the first ever bilingual map of its kind must place it in a class of its own.\n\nThere are several features of the map that merit close attention. The longitudes shown are reasonably accurate, but the latitudes are some 2 minutes north of their true positions. Apparently Mgr. Volonteri did not make the actual measurements himself, but had copied the grid from a previously existing source. It would be an impossible task to determine which particular version he adopted but it is fairly certain that it had not originated from British sources, for an official map of Hong Kong Island published twenty years earlier by the Government had the longitudes and latitudes in their correct positions. Naval charts might well have been consulted in the process of plotting the coastline because of the inclusion on the map of the depths of water - information which would obviously be of little relevance to the priest who must have compiled the map for some utilitarian purposes. The quality of the coastline has a great variation in accuracy. In spite of the highly irregular coast due to submergence, Mirs Bay, Tolo Harbour, Tide Cove, Hebe Haven and the eastern approaches of Victoria Harbour are not only packed with sounding records but are also depicted accurately down to the uninhabited islets. On the other hand, for the remainder of the map, the accuracy of the coastline is most disappointing. There could be two possible explanations for this. It was either that coastal charting was still in progress and had not yet covered the western parts or that Fr. Volonteri might have improved on an outline from an earlier smaller-scale map for the areas with which he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205985, "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-1970", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "60\n\nLAMARR B. TROTT\n\nmonthly temperature of the air, and the sea surface temperatures of Tolo Harbour shows striking correlation. The temperature of the water falls well below 20°C (14.5°C) during the winter months. This would normally mean that reef-building corals would not be found here, and indeed a reef as such does not exist. However, we do have flourishing patch reefs, often comprised by species of reef-building corals, making this condition in Hong Kong unique biologically. Our geographic position being on the Tropic of Cancer would normally indicate a subtropical climate; however, winter-time cold air and water currents greatly influence the temperature of our environment, whether we consider the land or the sea. Our marine fauna is thus derived from the Indo-Pacific faunal realm, but it is also influenced by more temperate forms. A characteristic of the sea is the fact that the offspring of most marine creatures live for a time in what is termed the plankton, and drift freely in the sea at the mercy of ocean currents. If they can tolerate the conditions of the environment to which these currents bring them, then they become established in that area.\n\nOf other conditions of the marine environment than temperature that are important to Hong Kong, we can mention two in passing. One is salinity. Fresh water from the Pearl River flowing into our waters during and after the rainy season greatly reduces the saltiness of the waters of Deep Bay. The organisms living there must thus be able to tolerate a great change in salinity or be able to migrate to more favorable areas when the salinity becomes too low. Correlated with this is the sediment that is washed down with the Pearl River outflow. Many organisms cannot tolerate great amounts of sediment settling on top of them. Corals are one of the best examples. Thus, our corals are concentrated in areas of the Colony less under the influence of the Pearl River — Mirs Bay, for example.\n\nMy own research at the Chinese University has been concentrated in the area of Tolo Harbour. The site of the Chinese University on the shore of the harbour at Ma Liu Shui makes work in this area ideal. We have begun a general survey of the Harbour, which has included preliminary investigations of the mudflat areas, the level bottom communities, the fishes, and studies on associations between organisms. One of the primary aims of our program is to train students in the marine sciences.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205986, "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-1970", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "ASPECTS OF HONG KONG MARINE FAUNA\n\n61\n\nThe University will have a functional Marine Science Laboratory to be completed during the summer of 1970. This establishment will greatly aid and encourage development of marine sciences in the Colony.\n\nTwo aspects of our studies may be of immediate interest to the Colony. First, we are relating bottom fauna with the fishes that feed on such organisms. This approach has been used in other places for the past few decades as an effort to aid fishermen in finding more suitable fishing grounds. We have noted 146 species of fishes in and associated with Tolo Harbour. As some of our information comes from the Taipo office of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department, there is a likelihood that fishes from Mirs Bay and adjacent areas are also included. Another important study is pollution. By investigating the physico-chemical and biological factors important in Tolo Harbour, we intend to aid Government in guiding the development of communities like Shatin and Taipo, which are located on the shores of the Harbour. A sewage treatment plant will be established at the Chinese University site at Ma Liu Shui, and pollution studies will be correlated with the activities of this plant.\n\nThe Future of Marine Resources in Hong Kong\n\nOf great importance for the future of the colony is the conservation of resources available, whether terrestrial or marine. During the spring of 1969, the University of Hong Kong sponsored the Conference on the Development and Conservation of the Countryside. The essence of the outcome of this meeting was that Hong Kong is in a critical state of planning. We must know what we are conserving, and do our best to plan all development with an eye toward future utilization and needs. Every weekend and holiday, thousands of city dwellers flock to the countryside to commune with nature. Just as a receding tide leaves layers of seaweed, these weekend tourists leave their residue. There is a tendency for everyone in Hong Kong to throw away their trash without thought of where it might land. This is true of the city, the countryside, and the beaches—extending into the water by boating enthusiasts and fishermen. This is on an enlarged scale when considering local industries, sanitary conditions, and indeed, land removal and filling processes. The Conservancy Society of Hong Kong has recently been formed. This organization will", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206162, "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-1970", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "Plate 1. A young one inch long cuttlefish, Euprymna berryi, from Tolo Harbour, Hong Kong.\n\nPlate 2.\n\nA living adult cowry, Arabica eglantina, commonly found in Colony waters in association with coral patches.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206163, "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-1970", "page_number": 243, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "Plate 3. A swimming sea anemone, often found with algae during the\n\nspring in Tolo Harbour.\n\nPlate 4. The technique of using gill nets a sight commonly seen in Tolo\n\nHarbour and other Colony waters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206164, "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-1970", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "Plate 5.\n\nA pair of butterfly fish. Chaetodon modestus, swimming over bed of living coral in Mirs Bay, Hong Kong.\n\n(Plates 1-6 by courtesy of Dr. Lamarr B. Trott)\n\nPlate 6. Polyps of a living coral, expanded for feeding, have the appearance of a cluster of small garden flowers. Photograph taken in Tolo Harbour, Hong Kong, with artificial light.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209696, "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": 353, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n331\n\ndocuments and a list of genealogies recently collected that hopefully will be in the Fung Ping Shan Library before long. For the record, Hugh Baker should at least be mentioned in this connection: after all, he collected most of the genealogies that are currently held in Hong Kong University,\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nThe Marine Flora and Fauna of Hong Kong and Southern China. Edited by B. Morton and C. K. Tseng, Hong Kong University Press, 1982. 2 Volumes, 933 pp, figures, plates and references cited.\n\nThis scholarly work includes over 50 original research papers presenting the results of projects either completed or initiated at a workshop held in 1980 and undertaken to better understand Hong Kong's marine life. It represents studies by 42 scientists from 13 countries concentrating on the North East region of Hong Kong (mainly Tolo Harbour), a region of rich marine life seriously threatened by development and pollution.\n\nIt would be impossible in this review to comment on each of the individual contributions, not only because of the number, but also because of the scope included. The work is divided into four parts: an introductory chapter, papers on taxonomy, papers on ecology, and papers on morphology, behaviour and physiology. The introductory paper gives a broad outline of the geology, climate and hydrology of Hong Kong and thus serves as a most useful background to the remaining papers. In the latter, almost 2000 marine organisms are included, many of them hitherto unknown or little described, representing such diverse groups as the red algae, sponges, corals, polychaete worms, marine insects, crabs, barnacles, shrimps, molluscs, fish and plankton. The ecology section deals with a variety of Hong Kong marine habitats (in particular the coral community) and the fourth and final section investigates aspects of the morphology and physiology of a few selected organisms.\n\nEach paper is well presented and the figures and illustrations throughout are generally of a high quality. The overall production is well executed, and the editors and publisher are to be commended on this, particularly bearing in mind that over 50 individual papers involving some 40 authors were involved.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209697, "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": 354, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "332\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nIn their general introduction to this impressive work the editors comment that it but scratches the surface of our understanding of this rich realm' and express the hope that it will *stimulate other scientists' and thus be 'judged as a success in broadening the biological horizons of Hong Kong and its people'. Although most of the papers represent specialist studies more suitable for the professional marine biologist reader, there is something here for anyone with an interest in Hong Kong biology. Not only are so many members of our marine flora and fauna defined, but the results of the ecological investigations of a variety of Hong Kong marine habitats should greatly assist the reader in appreciating this fascinating subject.\n\nThere is, however, little beyond the first chapter for the general reader. It is here that the implications of development and pollution are discussed and the dangerously high level of pollution in Tolo Harbour highlighted. It is here also that an appeal is made to protect and conserve at least parts of this rich region.\n\nThus the editors' aspiration to stimulate other scientists will undoubtedly be successful but, much as it pains this reviewer to say it, their hope that it will broaden the biological horizons of Hong Kong's people is a faint one. The book is not really aimed at the non-specialist (nor do I believe it could or should have been) and the factors of length, price and scholarly approach will, I am sure, deter such potential readers even from browsing amongst its fruit.\n\nThe book gains its strength from the fact that the history of marine biological research in Hong Kong is brief and has concentrated mainly on fisheries research and development. Thus, together with the proceedings of an earlier workshop on the molluscs of this area, it provides a great deal of invaluable information not previously available to all those interested in the marine flora and fauna of Hong Kong.\n\nLike the participants in this workshop, all of us who have an interest in Hong Kong biology must be grateful to the organizations and individuals who supported this very worthwhile venture.\n\nI. H. HODGKISS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209875, "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-1983", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "112\n\nHaven\".\n\nPui O at present often uses for its name characters meaning \"Shell Harbour\".\n\n1* Yi Long Wan (\"Second Wave Bay\").\n\n1 These villages used to stand just south of Discovery Bay but have since given way to the major housing project of that name.\n\n\" Tai Pak Island is now called Tai Lei (\"Great Profit\").\n\n19 Shau Chau is now called Sha Chau (\"Sand Isle\").\n\n\"Tongkwu is now called Lung Kwu Chau (\"Dragon Drum Island”). \"The Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts (SARDA) has had a treatment centre here since about 1960.\n\n31\n\n* Capital of San On District.\n\n** No villages now survive on Hei Ling Chau, which, after the closure of the leprosarium, is now occupied solely by the Correctional Services Department. The remaining villagers were resited to various places on Lantau in 1952-53.\n\n** Chau Kong is now called Sunshine Island (Chau Kung To), after an agricultural rehabilitation programme for refugee families launched there in the 1950s by Mr. Gus Borgeest (of Hong Kong) and others.\n\n\"Kau Yi Tsai is now called Siu Kau Yi Chau, with the same meaning.\n\n**A prewar periodical magazine containing many items of great interest, including Father D.J. Finn's contributions on local archaeology, 1933-36. These were reprinted, edited by Rev. T.F. Ryan S.J., by Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1958, entitled Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island (M) near Hong Kong.\n\n** Waglan at present uses for its name characters meaning \"Barrier to the Waves\".\n\n#T\n\nRespectively Cheung Shek Pai, Ngan Wu, and Shan Liu.\n\n\" Also known in English as Junk Island. At present the island is known in Chinese only as Fat Tau Chau (\"Buddha's Head Island\").\n\nNam Tong Island is now known as Tung Lung Chau (\"Eastern Dragon Island”).\n\n* This is the Tin Hau Temple (Tai Miu) on Joss House Bay.\n\nAfter partial excavation, it is now listed as an ancient monument under the care of the Urban Services Department.\n\n** Respectively Pak A, Leung Shuen Wan, and Pak Lap.\n\n** These inlets were drowned in the mid 1970s to form the High Island Reservoir.\n\n*Tolo Harbour.\n\nYuen Chau Tsai, see note 2 above.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211220, "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-1987", "page_number": 281, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "256\n\nI had been interested in social history in England and started to look for books about the New Territories, in particular on the Southern District, but soon found there was practically nothing. After a while, I realized that papers had been written but they were usually in journals that were not easy to get hold of in Hong Kong; and there was not very much anyway in English. I suppose that spurred me on to do more than I might have done. I was rather cross about it, I recall, because I gathered that many of the local settlements had been there for many centuries. The Shek Pik village alone was established in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, in the 15th century, and possibly before that.\n\nFaced with a challenge, I began to look around for materials that would tell me more about the district and its people. I soon noticed that the temples and some other buildings contained inscribed tablets, sometimes about the repair of the building and sometimes about law cases in the long ago when the District Magistrate, or the local people after asking the Magistrate, had stone tablets put there commemorating legal decisions. I collected copies of these inscriptions and other documentary material, like land deeds, family papers, account books and genealogies (a point to which I will return later in this talk). I interviewed persons in their homes, and they were nervous for reasons not connected with the impositions of research. Once some people were very fidgety, and I couldn't understand why. This was in a fishing village on the shores of Junk Bay. I looked down, and saw that I was sitting on what I hoped was an expended tin of explosives! They liked fishing with dynamite, and they still do. In fact, there was a letter from a lady from Tolo Harbour in the South China Morning Post only the other day asking 'how come they are still dynamiting?' This goes right back to 1904 and probably earlier, when the reports of the Alice Memorial Hospital contained reports about fishermen coming in with missing hands or legs.\n\nI persuaded other District Officers to get their staff to record these tablets, too, and built up a collection of inscriptions with other people's help of about 30 or 40 of them. However, I couldn't do anything with them. My Chinese was not good enough to handle that material. In any case, some of the tablets were defaced and some characters were hard to read or even missing. It required", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211616, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Tin magnate and businessman Eu Tong-sen had 13 sons and 11 daughters by his many wives, among whom were a few Europeans. He was also told he must continue building, although when he died, in 1941, he had completed only three fantasy homes (all now demolished); one at Eucliff at Repulse Bay and another at Euston in Bonham Road, both in pseudo-Gothic style. The third was an old-world, rambling, English-style country mansion, named \"Sirmio\", which stood on the north shore of Tolo Harbour.\n\nThe author attended a swimming party at Eucliff which contained a large number of paintings — in 1955, and a picnic in the grounds of Sirmio a few months later. At the time, apart from caretakers, both were unoccupied.\n\nWith 1997 approaching the Aw and Eu prophecies regarding building, as stated above, are now being applied to Hong Kong itself, and some believe that, if construction stops, the Territory itself will wither and die.\n\nAcknowledgement\n\nThe author is grateful to Doctor James Hayes for his comments on a draft of this paper.\n\nNOTES\n\n2 V.R. Burkhardt, Chinese Creeds and Customs (1982), p. 174.\n\n3 Remarks of the nephew of J.J. Ropes, letter to the Editor Hong Kong Standard (later 1970s); and Anthony Walker and Stephen M. Rowlinson, The Building of Hong Kong. Constructing Hong Kong Through the Ages (1990), passim.\n\n4 Burkhardt, op.cit. passim; and Anthony Walker and Stephen M. Rowlinson, op.cit. Chapter Four.\n\n5 The author recalls how, when a Chinese woodwork instructor in one of the old Technical College workshops (which was equipped with western-style tools) wanted a particularly good finish on a piece of timber, he would always use his own Chinese plane.\n\n6 The author taught building technology and allied subjects at the Government Technical College (this became the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1972) during his early years in Hong Kong.\n\n8 G.B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong (1958), p. 116.\n\n9 The Craft of Chinese Scaffolding, editor Ho So (Circa 1972); and Jayson Wong, \"The bamboo wonders of territory's high-rise world\", South China Morning Post, 20 September", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212363, "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": 305, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "282\n\nevery week two or three ships travel via Macao to Canton and back again. The small eastern inlet is called Mirs Bay. The western coast of this bay is very broken and rugged. About half way along, a stretch of water shaped like an arm leads off to the west, with fingers which seem to stretch out in different directions (Tolo Harbour). The mainland to the north of Mirs Bay acts like a dam, so that the water cannot penetrate further in that direction; it is forced to turn west where it peters out into sandbanks. This inlet to the west [Sha Tau Kok Hoi] is only used, in practice, by Chinese passenger ferries, cargo ships, and fishing boats.\n\nBetween these two inlets, the Canton River and Mirs Bay, lies the Sinon District, which stretches for a distance equal to about 12-13 hours' walk towards the north from the sea. The width of this District differs from place to place because of the irregular coasts of Mirs Bay to the east and the Canton River to the west. At its widest, the District is 14-15 hours' walk wide, whereas at its narrowest it is only 2-3 hours' walk wide. The inhabitants of the region are mostly Hakkas, but you can also find Puntis, who form a majority especially in the north-western part of the District. Two of the towns are seats of Mandarins, that is, Kaulung [Kowloon] and Namtao [Namtau]. Kaulung is a fortress, situated on the mainland, just opposite Hong Kong. It is occupied by a Mandarin of a lower rank. The Mandarin who is in charge of the whole of Sinon District resides in Namtao, a place on the east coast of the Canton River.\n\nTungfo station is situated in the north-eastern part of Sinon District, on the northern coast of the previously mentioned arm of Mirs Bay, where the waters are turned west and come to an end. The geographical position is, according to mathematical calculations, about 131°54' east longitude, and 22°33′ north latitude. It is 9-10 hours' walk from Hong Kong, and lies in a northerly direction from there. The station can be reached from Hong Kong by two routes only. One route is by water, the second mostly by land. If you choose to travel to Tungfo by the water route, you have to travel first by the China Sea, and then, for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213099, "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-1993", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "149\n\nabout the beds, and growing concern in enlightened circles about the cruelties implied by the corvée. By the end of the Ming, the north and east shores of the Bay were merely home to a few scattered, small, agricultural villages. The waning of imperial interest in the area led to an explosion of piracy. This area had, by the late Ming, become a lightly populated and dangerous part of Hsin An County, insignificant, remote, and probably declining.\n\n5\n\nThe Coastal Evacuation of 1662-1668, the forcible removal of people living near the coast, to deny anti-Ch'ing remnants support, was a traumatic event. Many of the previous inhabitants died - possibly half. It seems likely that, when the remnants of the people returned in 1668-1669, they concentrated themselves in the better lands to the west, around Yuen Long and Sham Chun (Shenzhen), and around Tai Po and Sha Tin at the head of Tolo Harbour, abandoning the declining Mirs Bay area. However, land taxes still had to be paid for this area. Lineages looked, therefore, for tenants or purchasers to take over these more marginal areas.\n\nThe newcomers they found to repopulate the area were Hakkas from the north-east. All the present inhabitants of the northern and eastern parts of the Mirs Bay area are Hakka, and their clan traditions all speak of settlement in the area after 1668. A few villages claim to have been founded in the late seventeenth century, many in the eighteenth, and some only in the nineteenth, in every case by families who had moved into the area after 1668.\n\nSome of the Hakka newcomers living in the north-west quadrant of Mirs Bay became, at least in village terms, wealthy during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Much of this wealth was poured into large reclamation projects. These aimed at increasing the arable land available in the area by filling in the mouths of the bays in front of the villages. These reclamation projects in turn brought yet more wealth to the area. The social status of the local Hakka rose steadily during this same period. In 1805 the Hakka were granted a quota of their own within the Hsin An County imperial examinations quota. Over a quarter of all the early Hakka examination successes from Hsin An County were from the north-west quadrant of Mirs Bay, and this should be seen as evidence of the wealth and self-confidence of the Hakka of that area in the early decades of the nineteenth century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213114, "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-1993", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "164\n\nits foundation. There important roads used to meet near here. The most important was the main east-west road in the county, which connected the county city, Nam Tau (Nantou, ), with the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng, ), via the important market of Sham Chun. * Because of the greater desirability and comfort of water-borne traffic, the section of this road along the north shore of Mirs Bay was not much used. Instead, much of the traffic went by a ferry that ran parallel with the shore, from Sha Tau Kok to Sha Yue Chung.\n\nAt Wo Hang Au, a few miles west of Sha Tau Kok, the road was joined by another important east-west route. This was the road from Yuen Long to Sha Tau Kok via Tai Po.\n\nThe third route was the main road from Kowloon to the north-east. This road carried the traffic from Kowloon to Wai Chau. This road crossed Sha Tin Pass to reach the coast of Tolo Harbour at Yuen Chau Tsai. A ferry carried the traffic from Yuen Chau Tsai across Tolo Harbour to Ang Chung (Chung Mei, near Bride's Pool). From Ang Chung, the road climbed steeply past Bride's Pool and Ah Ma Wat, and then down to the shores of Starling Inlet at Kuk Po. Another ferry then took the traffic across Starling Inlet to Sha Tau Kok. There was also a road which ran from Ang Chung through Luk Keng and Nam Chung, to join the Nam Tau and Yuen Long roads at Shek Chung Au, thus avoiding the second ferry. From Sha Tau Kok the Wai Chau road crossed the shoulders of Ng Tung Shan, and so down to Wang Kong (Henggang, ), and thence to Wai Chau. A branch of this road ran from Sha Tau Kok to Po Kat (Buji, ). This Kowloon to Wai Chau road was more important than might be expected - the long ferry sectors made it more comfortable than the land-based alternatives. The Basel missionaries regularly used it when travelling between Hong Kong and Po Kat, for instance. 50\n\nThis system of roads and ferries was in existence from the Ming at the latest. It will be noticed that the roads do not cross at Sha Tau Kok. Sha Tau Kok stands, however, in the centre of the few miles of road where all the roads run together for a short distance. The site of the market, therefore, was a good one commercially.\n\n* See Map 3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213137, "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-1993", "page_number": 205, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "Year \n\nEvent \n\nSource \n\n1919 \n\n8 serious cross-border armed robberies. The Customs Stations closed in 1918 re-opened (August). \n\nAR JLHG \n\n1920 \n\nRefugees flee to New Territories from communal fighting in border area. Assisted cross-border crimes increase. Sha Yue Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. \n\nAR \n\n1921 \n\nIncrease in smuggling native tobacco from China. 4 piracies (including of the Sha Yue Chung Ferry). Further armed cross-border banditry. \n\nAR \n\n1922 \n\n2 piracies on the Sha Yue Chung Ferry. Fighting between pirate bands in Mirs Bay. \n\nAR \n\n1923 \n\nLarge increase in smuggling, due to disturbances in the border area. Serious cross-border armed raids, an execution in China as a result. \n\nAR \n\n1924 \n\nUnsettled conditions, due to continuous fighting between Sun and Chen Faction armies for control of district. Upsurge in cross-border crime, including 8 armed raids, some mounted by Chinese irregular soldiers. \n\nAR \n\n1925 \n\nBoycott causes considerable trouble in Sha Tau Kok. Huge crime wave of cross-border crime. \"Quite 90% of crimes committed in the New Territories could be traced to persons coming from over the border\". Sinkers enter and terrorise New Territories villages. British troops sent to Sha Tau Kok to restore order. Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. \n\nJLHG \n\n1926 \n\nConditions better, but disturbed conditions across the border lead to boom in New Territories because of the number of refugees seeking houses. Many matsheds erected for refugees. Heavier border policing needed. Mirs Bay fishermen unable to fish except close inshore because of \"disturbed conditions\". \n\nAR \n\n1927 \n\nConditions better, but still troubled near border. Attempted piracy of Tolo Harbour ferry junk. Heavier policing of Sha Tau Kok border area reduces cross-border crime. Border patrol constructed in New Territories. \n\nAR \n\n1928 \n\nIncrease in smuggling. Violence against recent refugee arrivals in New Territories. Chinese irregulars replaced by regulars and disciplined at Sha Tau Kok – Major piracy in Mirs Bay (\"Fean\" case). Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. \n\nASR \n\n1929 \n\nCustoms seek major increase in staff because of increased smuggling (every year until late 1910s). Much better conditions on border because of better policing on Chinese side of border. \n\nAR \n\n1930 \n\nIncrease in smuggling. Kai Miu Customs Station sacked by bandits. \n\nAR, JLHG \n\n1931 \n\nIncrease in smuggling, especially sugar. Sha Tau Customs Station sacked by bandits. 2 Battles with smugglers off entrance to Pearl River (\"Loser Maru\" case). Inadequate customs staff members leads to problems. \n\nAR JLHG \n\n1932 \n\nIncrease in smuggling, especially sugar and cloth. Smuggling on Railway a growing problem. Smuggling through Lok Ma Chau and Sheung Shui a growing problem. Smuggling on Shan Chun River a growing problem. Kai Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. Gun battles with smugglers at Law Fong (twice), Chek Mei, Man Kam To. \n\nAR, JLHG \n\n187", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214641, "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-1999", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "20 \n\nand the upper end of the Market (the Ng clan Ancestral Hall stood next to this road): this path went through the scattered houses of Tung Tau Village. To the south went a path which led to Sha Po Village, the lower end of the Market (where most of the shops owned by Nga Tsin Wai people were), and on to the pier. Of these, the path from the South-East Gate and on to Sha Tin Pass and the pier at Yuen Chau Kok was of major importance.\n\nThe Hong Kong Government did a traffic survey at Sha Tin Pass in late 1904, in an attempt to consider the profitability of the Railway then under planning20, 600 persons a day were recorded as crossing this pass, 280 of them \"carrying goods\" (a good deal of this trade was of fresh fish from Tolo Harbour being carried for sale at Kowloon City Market, and through the Market on to Hong Kong). This was a very summary and unsophisticated survey, and probably under-estimates the traffic (it took no account of the higher numbers passing on Kowloon City market days, and it is unlikely to have been undertaken from dawn to dusk), but still suggests very heavy traffic (even as it stands, it implies someone crossing the pass every daylight minute). The \"goods carried” would have been carried in the standard loads of 75 catties (100 pounds), and hence at least 12½ tons of goods were being man-handled over the pass every day at that date.\n\nBefore the opening of the Railway in 1912, wealthy men would hire sedan chairs and coolies to carry them over the passes. Sha Tin village elders remember the Tai Wai man who was, before 1898, a clerk in the Sub-Magistracy at Kowloon City, and who travelled to and fro by sedan chair, and remember also that, if a villager called a doctor from Kowloon City to visit them, and then the doctor would insist on being carried over the mountains in a chair. All these would have passed under the walls of Nga Tsin Wai.\n\nThis constant heavy traffic along the paths around the village brought business to Nga Tsin Wai. Cakes (Cha Kwo), and tea could be sold to passers-by, and also fruit and so forth. It is not known if any of the Nga Tsin Wai villagers worked as chair-coolies - it is perhaps more likely that the chair-coolies mostly lived in the Market - but there can be no doubt that all this traffic brought a lot of business the way of the village.\n\nJ", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214665, "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-1999", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "44\n\nThe lychees at Po Kong are really abundant.\n\nOf these verses, the reference in line 169 is to a temple near Ma Thu Wai. The reference in lines 170-172 is probably to the ejection of the Ch'ing officials from the Kowloon Walled City. In line 174 the reference may be to the prostitutes' quarter in the Market. The \"hospital\" in line 175 is the Lok Sin Tong.\n\nFor three villages - Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, and Yuen Ling - the poet singles out the orchards and vegetable fields he saw there as particularly significant and worth comment, and at Ngau Chi Wan it was \"herding\" - presumably of meat animals for the market - which he noted as interesting and special. The vast majority of villages visited by Hui Wing-hing were rice-subsistence villages, with almost every inch of arable land used for rice, and the Kowloon villages clearly looked very different. While Hui Wing-hing's attention at Nga Tsin Wai was taken up by the British takeover of the New Territories, there can be no doubt that Nga Tsin Wai, too, was to a large degree a market-gardening area in his time.\n\nAlmost all the coastal villages in the New Territories area had sampans, and added inshore fishing to their subsistence. It is a measure of Nga Tsin Wai's general prosperity that the Nga Tsin Wai village elders believe that their ancestors did not do this: the village had no sampans, and bought its fish - probably mostly from the coolies carrying fish from Tolo Harbour past the village to Kowloon Market. The Nga Tsin Wai villagers did, however, dig clams from the mud flats offshore, together with the villagers of all the other villages in the Kowloon Bay area. They also reared carp in the village moat, and possibly in other fishponds, for sale in the Market.\n\nNga Tsin Wai was never a poor village, but it prospered noticeably during the later nineteenth century. 1902, the date of the Block Crown lease must have been about the most prosperous period of this village community. The village fields were fast being converted to market gardens as the village faced their sellers' market in the growing City. The village had developed good contacts with shipping companies, so that many of the men were able to get good jobs as seamen. Many villagers were also getting good jobs in the Whampoa Docks, where, again, the village developed good contacts in this period. As the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215699, "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": 476, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "429\n\nExecutive, with what he sees as the inevitable concomitant to these developments of a ministerial system - are made fascinatingly clear.\n\nHong Kong was immensely lucky to have had Denis in senior positions throughout the formative years of modern Hong Kong. Without innovative, intelligent, and vigorous officers like him, what would the place have been like? At the same time, Denis, too, was lucky. For much of his early career, he had the sympathetic support of Ronald Holmes as his immediate superior: almost the only man with the imagination to countenance Denis's guerrilla attacks on the shibboleths of administration, and, more importantly, with the intelligence and drive to support them when he was satisfied they were needed. Had Denis had a succession of stolid and lazy lame-brains as his superiors, how long would it have taken for him to have been black-listed as just someone who \"rocked the boat,\" who was \"too clever for his own good”? I wonder if anyone with his flair and instinctive feel for the needs of ordinary people could survive in the Administrative Service of today?\n\nDenis comes over in this book as a man of great intelligence and charm, wit, and decency. His 'horror and disgust' at the things disclosed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption come through, for instance, very clearly. Having worked for him for a couple of years, I know that the book shows the real Denis.\n\nThe book is very well printed by Hong Kong University Press. There are a few errors that should have been caught by the copy-editors (for instance, 'Rodean School' and 'the Ordinance Survey,' both on p. 151). Denis states that he is no historian, and there are a few places where there are minor errors of historical fact, although none that affect the overall value of the book. Among them are the names of the Seven Yeuk of Tai Po (p. 96), the date of the New Market at Tai Po (founded 1892, and not after the building of the Tai Po Road a decade later, as suggested on pp. 96 and 170-171), and the date of the Tolo Harbour arable reclamations (almost all in the nineteenth century, rather than the late eighteenth as suggested on p. 61).\n\nAll in all, this is a book of considerable charm; thoroughly to be recommended to anyone interested in today's Hong Kong.\n\nPATRICK HASE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215815, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "47\n\nHarbour, and engulfed everything in their way up to a quarter mile (400 meters) inland. At least 200 people were killed (a heavy loss, considering that the area was sparsely populated back then), and the Tai Po Road (one of Hong Kong's few major roads at the time) and KCR were temporarily put out of commission, which isolated the survivors from the rest of Hong Kong for two days.26\n\nIn Victoria Harbour (between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island), 28 of the 101 steam vessels present were stranded, resulting in five deaths. Shore facilities on both sides of the harbour were wrecked, including Kai Tak Airfield. Fortunately for this part of Hong Kong, which was and remains the most congested part of the territory, no tidal wave struck here because the eastern entrance at Lyemun Pass was too narrow for enough water to break through. But Victoria Harbour was still vulnerable to strong winds and rough seas, which were what caused all that damage in its vicinity.27\n\nThe implications that the \"Great Typhoon of September 1937” (typhoons didn't acquire female names until after the war) had on a potential Allied landing in Hong Kong were profound. First, all kinds of operations would be impossible during a typhoon. Everyone would worry about how to take shelter from the storm rather than fight the enemy. Given the expected relative positions of the two sides, the Allies were sure to be more exposed to the elements than the Japanese because they were on the offensive and had to establish LoC inland. Second, Hong Kong was intended to serve as a port of entry for LoC into China. With its extensive waterfront facilities, Victoria Harbour would have served as the primary berthing area for ships, and Tolo Harbour was considered a good secondary anchorage. Depending on the path of any typhoon that hits Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour may be afforded some protection by the mountains that surrounded it on the Kowloon side.28 Tolo Harbour (and neighbouring Plover Cove) was roomy and calm enough for ships - as long as there was no typhoon.29\n\nOnce a typhoon hits Tolo Harbour, as it did in 1937, this area is at a disadvantage. Typhoons usually approach Hong Kong from the east or southeast, and Tolo Channel and Tolo Harbour are in the eastern part of Hong Kong. The winds in a typhoon blow in an anti-clockwise direction, which is an arc-like motion from east to west when one is facing north. In the case of Tolo Channel (which is the outlet to the sea", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215816, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "48\n\nfor Tolo Harbour), its entrance faced the northeast, which was like an open door for a typhoon. The 1937 typhoon took advantage of such a tailor-made entrance to surge through it with a tidal wave.3\n\n30\n\nIf a typhoon during peacetime could cause so much damage, then one of similar magnitude during wartime, when the stakes are higher, could really set back the Allied timetable. The Tai Po Road would likely have served as a conduit to funnel supplies north to China, and a disruption to its service (even temporarily) would do much to hurt the supply situation. Moreover, if LoC by land into China were that vulnerable, then LoC by sea to Hong Kong would be even more precarious. Such a supply line would likely come from the southeast and pass through the strait between Luzon and Formosa. This region also happened to be a major alleyway for typhoons, not to mention an area of strong Japanese concentrations if either Luzon or Formosa (or both) continued to be in enemy hands.3\n\n31\n\nDue to their extensive commitment in the Atlantic, Allied merchant shipping and its escorts were more precious commodities in the much larger Pacific. The Japanese had not made it a policy to attack supply vessels thus far in the war, but that did not mean they would not alter this policy as the Allies pushed closer to the home islands. A typhoon, however, would not wait nor discriminate. While ships at harbour enjoy a little bit of protection from a typhoon, ships at sea don't have this benefit. The only option was evasion, and that depended on knowing the whereabouts of the typhoon. As noted earlier, this was an extremely difficult task during World War II.\n\n32\n\nAnother category of shipping in which the Allies weren't as well endowed as they would have liked was landing craft. These vessels were mandatory for Allied operations in the Pacific. But Europe received first priority for landing craft for much of the war, leaving just enough for the Allies to take to the offensive in the Pacific. Hong Kong's ability to serve as a lifeline into China depended entirely on a secure LoC that could be established to it by sea, and this in turn depended on the ability of the Allies to secure Hong Kong from the sea by an amphibious assault. The more landings the Allies carried out, the greater the toll on their landing craft, as the same craft would be used over and over. But landing craft were rather lightly-protected ships, which also made them prone to attrition through enemy action, breakdowns, and the weather.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215829, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "61\n\n28\n\nChic Publishers, 1996), p.12-14. (3) Heywood, p.17:\n\nTyphoon winds that approach Hong Kong from the southeast blow on Victoria Harbour from the north, so Kowloon's mountains can serve as a partial barrier. See Donald Alan Mantner & Samson Brand, An Evaluation of Hong Kong Harbour as a Typhoon Haven (Monterey, CA: Environmental Prediction Research Facility, Naval Postgraduate School, 1973), p.53.\n\n29 Navy Department, \"Advanced Base: Hong Kong,\" p.14-15. However, Tolo Harbour could do little more than serve as a secondary anchorage because shore facilities in Tai Po were limited.\n\n30\n\n31\n\n32\n\n(1) Heywood, p.7-8. (2) Adamson & Kosco, p.12. Although described by many sources as a \"tidal wave,\" the wave would be more appropriately described as a storm surge because it is not caused by the moon.\n\nHKRO, A Statistical Survey of Typhoons and Tropical Depressions in the Western Pacific and China Sea Area From 1884 to 1947 (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1951), p.3 (hereafter referred to as HKRO, Statistical Survey). See also P.C. Chin's Tropical Cyclone Climatology for the China Seas and Western Pacific From 1884 to 1970, Vol. I: Basic Data (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1972) for maps of typhoon tracks for each year.\n\n33\n\nThe evasion option became more popular after the war, probably because of better typhoon location and tracking methods. See Mantner & Brand, p.78-79, 88. The authors cited British and American dissatisfaction with Hong Kong as a \"safe haven\" for ships during a typhoon.\n\n34 HKRO, Statistical Survey, p.9.\n\n35\n\nRomanus & Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, 1953 of U.S. Army in World War II: the China-Burma-India Theater (rpt. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1984), p.12-13.\n\nCPS 83, \"Appreciation and Plan for the Defeat of Japan,” 8 Aug 43, Map F; CCS 381 Japan (8-25-42), sec.6; Geographic File, 1942-45; Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, RG 218; NA, Washington, DC. The map shows that Hong Kong lay within the minimum area required for the air bombardment of Japan.\n\n* United States Army Air Force, B-29 Erection and Maintenance Manual (Dayton,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]