[ { "id": 204724, "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "18\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nwears a conical hat made of stout rattan capable of turning aside a cutlass, on it in front is written in large characters the name of the Hong, white on black ground, and every man is furnished with sandals made of twisted grass which lace over the instep. A pair of loose trousers, and a loose jacket tied with a sash about the waist complete the dress.\n\nThe coolie from No. I has just run in to say that the mandarins know he is inside the Factory and that he must be off. I locked the front gate and barred it inside and I tell him to shut himself up in his room.\n\nThese 500 men from the Hongs are posted from the creek to the entrance of our Factory in one line beneath the Company's arch and in the passage way. They are stationed on both sides, as each carries a large rattan shield their appearance is uniform and good, and a finer looking set of men I never saw. They are cheerful, and as we are all known by them they are exceedingly civil and do not molest us in the least. They nearly all know me personally and I often get such a crowd of them about me to talk over the news that sometimes I have a difficulty in escaping them.\n\nAt night they march out headed by the oldest member of the body, in parties, one Hong at a time, on patrol. Starting from their station they cross the front of the Factories, go up and down China Street, then return to their tent, when another party immediately goes the same round.\n\nThe Hong merchants constantly remain under the arch of the Company's Factory except when off on the business of the day. They relieve each other regularly at night, sleeping in large chairs, and the linguists have erected a large shed of mats in the middle of the Square where they also remain on watch. This is the land force. On the water are 200 of the Nam Hoe's guard,14 100 of the Kwang Hups, and a few of the Governor's1. They are distributed in boats lying close to each other and drawn up in three lines along the whole front of the Factories. The first and second line, separated from each other by a space of 100 feet, consist of large boats usually employed in carrying tea. Their bows look towards the Factories. The third row consists of Chop boats. They are placed so close side by side as to render any escape utterly impossible, and never were measures taken to prevent escape with such eminent success as those adopted to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204917, "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-1965", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "NIAH CAVE, 1947 - 1964\n\nA lecture delivered on 2nd September, 1964\n\nTOM HARRISSON\n\nArchaeology, the past, is everywhere. There is a lot more of it than of the present, of course. But it takes observation and experience to find and analyse it! Once the methods are learned, there is archaeological work to be done everywhere in the Far East. Hong Kong is alive with it. Studies so far have only scraped, no, only touched the surface of Hong Kong's prehistory. But a lot of hard thinking and training (and financing) will have to be done before much can be expected in the way of major results. Major results are there to be won, I feel sure.\n\nPerhaps I can best illustrate what is involved by a case history from quite another place, Borneo, where I have lived since early 1945. In Borneo no serious archaeological work had been done and there was no idea of doing any when I started serious work there after the war years, in 1947. In this short article, I will stick to one of the main sites we have developed - one of many, but currently the best-known and, indeed, one that is becoming famous. Twenty years ago, however, no one outside a small district in Borneo had ever heard of Niah in Sarawak,\n\nBorneo is far from Hong Kong and the madding crowd. But all our recent work has shown that great streams of influence had emanated from or passed through Hong Kong and down to Borneo for centuries and even millennia in the past. Indeed, it was one major source of cultural influence among several.\n\nThe great cave assemblage in the Subis Mountain limestone massif at Niah, Sarawak, the west side of Borneo, has been a local focus of human activity, for many thousands of years. But it was unknown to non-Asians until only recently. In 1947 - 48 it was the subject of initial archaeological reconnaissance when I made a long overland tour of West Borneo caves, coastal and inland.\n\nMr. Harrisson was in Hong Kong attending the Second Conference of Asian Historians, 31st August - 5th September, 1964. His talk was illustrated with two new films taken by his wife on Borneo's \"living past\". His Niah and related work has recently been recognized by the award of the Founder's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society and a Prince Philip Medal from the Royal Society of Arts.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205618, "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-1968", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "164\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nhusband's family were Hakkas from near Tam Shui and they had then been in Ngau Tau Kok for three generations.\n\nThese accounts are selected from others known to the writer, and are intended to illustrate a feature of old village life in the Hong Kong region at the end of the last century and, no doubt, for centuries before.\n\nBy way of a postscript it appears that travelling Hakka craftsmen were not only to be found in South China. Agnes Smedley's book The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1956) mentions regular visits from such persons at his home when he was young. He was born in a village near the market town of Ma An Chang in I Lung (四川) district in Szechuan in 1886. The following extracts are of interest:\n\nFrom time to time during the year, itinerant artisans left the big towns and cities and came along the Big Road, wandering from village to village to work for such families as needed their special skills. Carpenters, metalsmiths, mat weavers, cloth weavers and others, all were skilled artisans who owned and carried their own tools of trade... An old weaver, whom General Chu referred to simply as \"the Old Weaver\", came each winter to weave cloth from the cotton thread spun by the women of the Chu family. The coarse woven cloth was then dyed an indigo blue, hung on long bamboo poles to dry, after which the women cut and sewed it into garments for the family, into quilt coverings or other uses of the household... These itinerant artisans were a part of the peasant economy. Coming from the big towns or cities, they were much more advanced and independent than the peasants, to whom they brought new ideas. They were even folk historians and some of them could read and write. They lived in the homes where they worked, and each evening the family gathered about to listen to their talk... The Old Weaver who wove cloth for the Chu family each winter seems to have been a Hakka also. He was a grim old fellow with a scalding tongue who would set up his long narrow loom in the courtyard or, if it was too cold, in the kitchen, and begin his weaving... the old man's long brown hands worked as swift as light. He could weave twenty chih, some twenty to thirty feet of cloth, a day, for which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205994, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINATOWN IN HONG KONG:\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN\n\nDAFYDD Emrys Evans\n\nIt seems unrealistic to talk of a 'Chinatown' in a place as obviously Chinese as Hong Kong. But for a very long time, there was indeed an area thought of by the Europeans as a part of the city into which they would not normally go. This area has, right from its inception, been known as \"Tai Ping Shan' or Mountain of Peace, after the Chinese name for the mountain the Europeans called Victoria Peak. When the British arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1841, the north shore of the island was substantially unoccupied, there being nothing more than scattered huts between the village of Sai Ying Pun in the west and Wong Nei Chung in the east. The principal site for the new city lay in the present Central District of Hong Kong, and the first areas built up by the Europeans (apart from the waterside godowns and houses which extended from the Central Market to Causeway Bay) lay around the present Central Magistracy but rapidly extended within the first three years of the Colony's existence east and west of that spot. Although a small number of Chinese obtained grants of land in this area it is true to say that the town was exclusively European (with, of course, a number of Parsee merchants from British India) from the line of the present Garden road as far as the present Aberdeen Street and up the hill to Hollywood Road. At the time of the Colony's inception there were never more than a few hundred Europeans contrasted with several thousand Chinese who came as tradesmen and artisans. Where, then, did the Chinese live?\n\nApart from the small town that Jardine, Matheson & Co. built out at East Point, there were three principal areas where the incoming Chinese settled at first. It is known that in the early days after June, 1841 a good many matshed huts sprang up on the hillside to the west of the area later to be the site of the main part of the town (and these were destroyed by the great typhoon in August, 1841) and one stretch of the waterfront was 'taken over'. As early as August 1841 the 'Lower Bazaar' was forming in the area of what later became Jervois Street and Bonham", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206022, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "J\n\nA NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES\n\n97\n\nand none at all of that cross-thread I mentioned, which all the time we are speaking one phrase is guiding us away from a score of similar phrases which are not what we mean. This constant unconscious avoidance of saying what we don't mean is the pattern we must all set up when we would speak a second, third or fourth language.\n\nI hope what I am about to say will help you in this task. For most of us, when children, were crippled by being brought up to talk only one language; to those whose minds have been thus crippled, like the girls of Manchu China whose feet used to be bound in childhood, the idea of \"thinking in a language\" is as natural as the unnatural tiptoe tottering gait seemed the \"natural\" way for women to walk. The unbinding of bound feet was, I am told, a very painful matter and after a certain age could not safely be done.\n\nSo come, if you dare, and let me unbind your linguistic feet.\n\nEnglish is a language of the Indo-European family: a family the branches of which extend from Sanskrit, Old Persian and their descendants in South-Central Asia, through the Slavonic languages of Eastern Europe, Lithuanian and the Celtic languages (originally of Asia Minor, but now found only on the Atlantic and Baltic shores), Ancient and Modern Greek, the languages of ancient Italy, through Latin to the modern Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Rumanian and Catalan, Old Norse and Icelandic down to modern Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, Gothic and Old High German down to the modern German dialects and Dutch; then again overseas with the Colonizers to North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa and as a second language of convenience in the shape of a special kind of English\n\n- back to India again where it may all have started.\n\nA great deal of work has been done on this family of languages, but it is well for us to remember that it is less than 200 years since the identity of such a family was observed and not much more than a century since Indo-European linguistic studies were firmly established.\n\nBefore that, and to some extent ever since, European scholars were taught to regard Latin and Greek as the only models of linguistic organization: therefore any language had to be studied", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206412, "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-1971", "page_number": 229, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n203\n\nin the upper Aberdeen reservoir area, known to me, that may also have been connected with charcoal burning.\n\nIt would assist if walkers who come across pits of this nature would be kind enough to report them to me, with a map reference, in order to build up information on this little known subject.\n\nOne last point. Herklots asks why kilns are located so high up on the hill sides. Village people have reminded me that there is no point carrying wood down to a kiln when it is easier to put the kiln near the wood supply and carry the charcoal down to the village or the shore.\n\nHong Kong, 1970.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nWHAT INSPIRED SIR JOHN BOWRING'S HYMN?\n\nProf. Carrington Goodrich's reference to the hymn \"In the Cross of Christ I glory\" (Notes & Queries, JHKBRAS Vol.9(1969) pp.151-2) is interesting and although it shows that John Bowring wrote the hymn before he ever visited Macao, the tradition of a very close connection with the ruins of Macao's San Paulo is a very strong one.\n\nI have personally heard from two very knowledgeable persons that Bowring was a great admirer of the old church:\n\nMr. Henry Hyndman was a local resident who was particularly interested in the personalities of old Macao. He was born in 1828, educated in Macao and then Singapore, and worked in Hong Kong and Shanghai before he retired to Macao. In the final stages of his life (he lived to be 98 years old) it gave him great pleasure to talk about the people he knew, among whom was Sir John Bowring, who visited Macao frequently from 1849 to 1859. Mr. Hyndman recalled seeing the English visitor at the foot of the ruins and of how, later, after he was Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John's name came to be associated with the hymn.\n\nIn 1927 to 1928, Sir Cecil Clementi, then Governor of Hong Kong, used to visit Macao and on one occasion at dinner in the residence of the Governor of Macao, Sir Cecil spoke of his youth", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206938, "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-1974", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "deity in Hong Kong, particularly among the boat-people. There are many temples dedicated to her in the Colony. This particular temple is believed to date from the Sung Dynasty, and with the nearby rock-carving, dated 1274, provides a popular place for pilgrimages. These three last trips were organised by our Vice-president, Mr. James Hayes, who has an extensive knowledge of the history of Hong Kong, particularly its rural areas.\n\nThe ten lectures covered a wide variety of subjects. The first lecture of the year was delivered by Professor Murray Groves, head of the Sociology Department, University of Hong Kong. Professor Groves had lived in New Guinea and worked there as an anthropologist, and he talked about a sea-faring people, the Motu, and their musical styles. His talk was illustrated with slides and tape recordings. The second talk was about Chinese paintings in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art: a Gallery of international reputation, situated in Kansas, and housing one of the major comprehensive collections of oriental art in the U.S.A. The talk was delivered by Professor Chu-tsing Li, Research Curator of the Gallery, and was illustrated with slides. Later in the year, Professor Winston Hsieh of Missouri University, talked to us about the Canton Delta Project which he is currently heading. The Canton Delta has great significance for scholars of Chinese social organization, urban studies, foreign trade, revolutionary movements and overseas emigration, and it is particularly rich in Chinese and Western source materials. The project is interdisciplinary and we look forward to hearing more about its activities.\n\nIn September Professor P. B. Harris, who heads the Political Science Department of the University of Hong Kong talked to the Society on \"Maoism and Rousseauism\", and in November Mr. Henry Lethbridge of Hong Kong University's Sociology Department described the exploits of two adventurers extraordinary who visited Hong Kong in the late 1880's: David de Mayréna, soi-disant King of the Sedangs in Indo China, and the Marquis de Morès. Both died later in mysterious circumstances. Mr. Lethbridge specialises in the social history of Hong Kong, and participated in our symposium last year on \"Hong Kong: Chinese tradition and the growth of a town”.\n\nDr. Hugh Baker, who also participated in our first symposium which I organised in 1964 on “The Social Organization of the New", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206940, "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-1974", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "5\n\nof disease and urbanisation in Singapore and Hong Kong. Finally Dr. Shih Hsiao-yen, Curator of the Far Eastern Department of the Royal Ontario Museum, and Adjunct Professor of the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, talked on the relationship between Chinese tomb figurines and monumental sculpture. Dr. Shih, who is presently visiting professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, illustrated her talk with many striking colour slides.\n\nOur overseas trip this year, which took place over five days at the Chinese New Year, proved very popular. It was, like our previous Thailand excursion, very ably led by Mr. Michael Smithies. Forty-one members joined the party, starting at Vientiane, proceeding to Luang Prabang, and returning again to Vientiane. They visited museums, Vat, a silk-weaving village, and other handicraft centres, caves and ceremonies; and they saw a rare performance of classical dancing given by the Royal Lao dancers. It is hoped that we may continue to arrange at least one overseas trip a year and we have already received offers to lead future excursions from two of our members. I regret to say that our proposed trip to China has not advanced very far. On the advice of the China Travel Agency we revised our original proposals, suggesting several small groups of ten to fifteen members—and also the possibility of diversifying, some groups making a longer (approximately three weeks) trip to take in Peking and other northerly areas, and some making a shorter (about ten days) trip to places within Kwangtung Province to include museums, potteries and archeologically interesting areas. Recently members of another learned society in England made a trip to China and we can only hope that we are not too far down China's list of priority groups.\n\nARTS CENTRE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE\n\nA few words about the progress of the Hong Kong Arts Centre and our participation. The Society became a constituent member of the Arts Centre in January 1973, paying its entrance fee in February of that year. The Society had long wished to have its own premises both for holding lectures and discussions and for housing its library and archives, but despite efforts it was never able to afford to fulfil these wishes and now with astronomical rents it is clearly most unlikely that it ever will. We joined the Arts Centre so that when its buildings are completed we may enjoy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207016, "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-1974", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "BRIDGEMAN'S LETTERS FROM CHINA AND HONG KONG\n\n81\n\npulled down and so there is an end to all amateur acting for the future.12\n\nShortly after the ignominious end of amateur dramatics in Hong Kong, Orlando found a pastime to his taste. Perhaps his interest originated with the visit to the Macao aviary, for he began to keep birds, but even this seemingly innocuous pastime had its hazards.\n\nMy only amusement here is in keeping birds. I have a great many canaries and remarkably fine one(s). They sing beautifully and in the daytime I sit in my balcony and read and listen to their beautiful singing. They are at times almost too much, for the moment one begins they all strike up and sing and try (to see) which can make the most variations.13\n\nEarly in the new year, he found another small amusement, the band, and a new problem, rats.\n\nMy chief amusement here is listening to the band at practising hours, so heavily does our time hang on our hands. I walk occasionally for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and the rest of the day I read and write. You talk of mice overrunning your house, our places are so full of rats that even whilst we are reading and writing in our rooms they come out and play in the middle of the floor. They eat up the legs of our tables and chairs which are made of camphor wood and of which they are very fond. Your description of one being found drowned in the milk is certainly very nasty, but even there you are better off than us, for we have not even the luxury of milk for them to drown themselves in. Although in China, I have not tasted one cup of tea half so good as I have in England.14\n\nWithin a few months, Bridgeman had acquired a taste for Chinese tea and was even admitting a fondness for it.15 He even went as far as to admit that some of the best tea he had ever tasted had been in Hong Kong. He became such a connoisseur of tea that he insisted on keeping his own teapot at mess as the other officers didn't brew it quite to his liking.\n\nBy his own admission Orlando had few close friends while stationed in China and Hong Kong.16 His letters give the impression he led a very isolated and solitary existence. Occasionally though, mention is made in his letters of individuals of interest to the present day student of nineteenth century China. Thomas Francis Wade,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207072, "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-1974", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "HONG KONG PLACE NAMES\n\n137\n\nTan Ka175, three kinds of Hakka137 and Hoklo138, Pun Yue Cantonese is widely understood but less widely spoken, particularly among the old men and women whom one consults for place-names. To this difficulty, combined with a simple misprint, is to be attributed the map name of the mountain north of the Lam Tsuen140 Valley. It is Tai To Yan1—Razor Cliff. The Nam Tau dialect pronounces this Tai Tau Yang, which became Tai Tan Yang by misreading the final letter of Tau.\n\nEven with field workers who are fluent in the local languages, it is not easy to keep the record straight. Country people the world over take a delight in mystifying strangers. Add to this the Chinese convention against direct question and answer, and it will be seen that the chances of a surveyor, working against time, getting a correct list of the names of topographical features, or even of the chief villages, are not good. The wonder is not that there are so many mistakes, but that any of the names are right.\n\nFinally, the best maps (such as they are) are not readily available even to many public servants, and the mountaineer and hiker, from whom corrections might come, often has to content himself with an old battered copy of an extinct edition.*\n\nFor all these reasons I welcome Mr. Tregear's gazetteer as I welcomed his map. As far as I can see from a careful check of the draft, all the important names are there, and they are down correctly. Such omissions as there are result from the fact that some features have an English name but no Chinese one—or if they have, nobody can be found who remembers it.\n\nOne thing which has not been included is a translation or explanation of each name. The reason will become clear to anybody who cares to read the second part of this paper, in which I have listed the principal elements of local place-names, for the understanding of some of which we have to extend our inquiries back to the days before the Chinese came to these parts.\n\nBefore the Chinese\n\nIn a talk to the Rotary Club130 of Hong Kong on 8th November, 1955, I said:\n\n'Under our very noses, and separated from our time by not more than 600 years, we have a linguistic problem which no one has\n\n* The position is now greatly improved as a result of new and extensive re-mapping of the Colony. See JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207629, "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-1976", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "and living in a resettled village, on their field observations relating to urban development. In November we had a talk on diplomatic systems in East Asia as part of general philosophies of state by Dr. Frank W. Ikle and in December Dr. Ralph Smith, a visiting historian specialising in Vietnamese society at the School of African and Oriental Studies spoke on the Cao-Daist and Hoa Hao religious sects. Another visitor to Hong Kong—visiting professor in anthropology at The Chinese University—Professor Francis L. K. Hsu, spoke to the Society in January giving his views about Chinese motivations and values and comparing them with Western values and motivations as he sees them. In February we held our symposium: this time on Architecture and the development of Hong Kong. We were fortunate enough to obtain the kind services of Mr. Tao Ho here, a well-known local architect and designer, who gathered a team of experts to talk on problems of community and town planning, building, mass transit and the historical development of ethnic clusters in relation to building. This was very well attended and there was some lively discussion. We look forward to seeing the papers in publication: Mr. Ho is presently editing them for the Society. The last lecture of the period was given by Professor Daffyd Evans of Hong Kong University who spoke on early European residents in Hong Kong. We look forward to seeing some of these talks in print in the Journal.\n\nForeign tours are now an established feature of our annual programme. This period included a tour of Burma guided by Mr. Michael Smithies, a former Secretary of your Society, now resident in Indonesia, who has led past tours so successfully. It was organised this end by Ms. Helga Werle of your Council. This was also a very successful venture and I understand that it has been followed by a reunion of tour members who are anxious to have more of the same.\n\nFor the future: Ms. Werle and Mr. Smithies, and also Dr. Leigh Wright are offering tours abroad—to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia, Korea, and Borneo—dates will be decided on the basis of majority response to several offered to members in a recent circular. A visit to Tai Mo Shan is also planned for this weekend (April 3), and will include the Shing Mun or Jubilee Reservoir. Talks and notes will be given on history and ethnography of the area, plant and insect life, and birds of upper Tai Mo Shan—by Dr. James Hayes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207716, "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-1976", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "\"PATTERNED BANDS\" IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG\n\n89\n\ntinued to wear the style of dress and patterned bands of their own native areas.\n\nMore broadly speaking, these aspects of women's dress and adornment serve as an assertion of Hakka identity. It is primarily Hakka women in the New Territories who wear patterned bands, the black-fringed hat, and small ornamental aprons. They also use distinctive forms of jewellery. There may be some use of these forms by other groups and individuals, including speakers of some variants of Cantonese, but they are most generally characteristic of the Hakka.\n\nWith the modern development of Hong Kong and heavy immigration, regional and ethnic distinctions are breaking down, so that these differences in dress are now less significant, and indeed are unrecognized by many people. In Tsuen Wan, only the most elderly of the indigenous Hakka people still wear traditional clothing. Virtually all can speak Cantonese, and intermarriage with Cantonese people is common. Patterned bands are rarely worn, and many of the young people know nothing about their existence, much less the technique of their manufacture. They are astonished to find that their mothers have this skill. The middle-aged and elderly women still have some treasured bands secreted away in their dowry chests, however, and the way in which they show them and talk about them demonstrates the significance they had until two or three decades ago.\n\nThis is not yet true of the more rural areas of the New Territories. A visit to the market towns of Tai Po, Yuen Long, or Sai Kung will show these traditional forms to be still in use among older women, with some available for sale, although it is unlikely that they will remain as these areas develop into urban centres like Tsuen Wan. Patterned bands are also still being made and worn in Tung-kuan County, Kwangtung, not very far from Hong Kong, according to visitors to a Hakka brigade of a commune there.12 Another visitor saw a different variety still in use in T'ai-shan county, in another part of Kwangtung.13\n\nA large collection of these bands exists at the National Minorities Institute in Peking, according to the anthropologist Fei Hsiao-t'ung.14 However, they are kept there as examples of minority handicrafts, specifically from the Yao, Miao, and Tung peoples. Dr. Fei said that they are also known in Tibet. As the backstrap", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207993, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "16\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nporcelain cup full, the size of an egg, of a distilled liquor made from rice. We ate also rice and sweetmeats, using spoons of gold shaped like our own. In the place where we passed the two nights, there were always burning two torches of white wax, placed on tall chandeliers of silver, and two oil lamps of four wicks each, while two men watched to look after them. Next morning we came on the same elephants to the sea-side, where, forthwith, there were ready for us two praus, in which we were re-conducted to the ships. The city is entirely built in the salt water, the king's house and those of some chieftains excepted. It contains 25,000 fires or families. The houses are all of wood, and stand on strong piles to keep them high from the ground. When the flood tides make, the women, in boats go through the city selling necessaries. In front of the king's palace there is a rampart constructed of large bricks, with barbacans in the manner of a fortress, on which are mounted fifty-six brass, and six iron cannon. During the two days we passed in the city many of them were discharged. That king is a Moro and his name Raja Siripada. He was forty years old and corpulent. No one serves him except women who are the daughters of chiefs. He never goes outside of his palace, unless when he goes hunting, and no one is allowed to talk with him except through the speaking-tube. He has scribes, called Xiricoles who wrote down his deeds on very thin tree bark.\n\nThus Pigafetta's description of Brunei.\n\nII\n\nThe nature of the traditional kingdom in the Malay world differs markedly from the western conception of state. In very general terms it consisted of a ruler and his followers whose kampong or court was at a relatively strategic location such as on a narrow strait, (e.g. Malacca), at the mouth of a large river, or at the confluence of two streams where his forces could collect tolls on water traffic and his city could act as a trading center or entrepot. From his court the sultan's power radiated outward along the coasts, up rivers and along waterways as far as both his revenue collectors could operate, and his ecclesiastical title as sultan was respected. His kingdom or “empire” had no bounds as such. He \"owned\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208010, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945 33\n\nTweed Bay Beach provided pleasure for many internees. During the summer months they were allowed to swim there, under guard. During the summers of 1944 and particularly 1945, however, many had to forego this pleasure as it required walking down and up a very steep flight of stairs and many simply did not have the energy due to lack of food.\n\nAlthough the Japanese had meticulously planned their capture of the Colony, apparently they had not formulated plans for dealing with the enemy civilians. Not only was it several weeks after the surrender until the internees were interned in Stanley Camp, but once they had been interned, the Japanese had little to do with them. A few necessities, namely a minimal amount of food, were provided, but the internees were left to run the Camp themselves. They soon began forming committees. The three main national groups — American, British, and Dutch — remained independent but did cooperate on such matters as welfare and medicine. At the beginning of internment, there were approximately 2400 British internees, 300 Americans, and 60 Dutch. Being such a large majority (and after repatriation in June 1942, only about twenty Americans remained), the British really ran the Camp. Five committees were elected, and each struggled with similar problems of food, housing, medical matters, etc. It is of interest to note that very few Government servants were elected to serve on these committees because there was strong anti-Government feeling in the Camp, largely due to the blame most internees put on the Government for the quick surrender of the Colony. An internee wrote:\n\nThe first impulse that ran through camp would, on a larger social stage, have been called revolutionary. On every side, by almost every mouth, the former leading men of the colony were bitterly denounced. They were held to blame for what had happened in Hong Kong. Along the camp roadways where people gathered to gossip, one heard the same angry talk of the government servants' complacency, stupidity, and shortsightedness.*\n\nThe Governor, Sir Mark Young, was not interned in Hong Kong. The next highest Government official in the Colony was the Colonial Secretary, Franklin C. Gimson, who remained in the city for the first few weeks but did go to Camp to attend meetings from time to time.\n\n* See also H. J. Lethbridge's article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208014, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945\n\n37\n\nfruit and ice cream for the children. In their departure there was promise that our own repatriation would follow.\n\nThe writer's own repatriation did not follow until the war ended.\n\nSoon after the second repatriation, the Camp was stunned by the news of the executions of seven internees who had been involved in possessing a radio set. The troubles had begun in April 1943, when the Japanese arrested several internees concerning the radio set and passing messages in and out of Camp on the ration truck.\n\nMilitary trials were held and the seven internees were sentenced to death. On October 29, 1943, a group of children passing the prison saw a van drive out. As it went by, English voices shouted out, “Goodbye, boys\". The van drove down to the jetty in Stanley Bay and internees at Bungalow C, as well as others, saw seven men walk from the van to the hillside. They knelt beside trenches and were shot. Apparently to lessen the impact of the executions, the Japanese announced that about 700 persons would be repatriated \"shortly\". This never took place.\n\n1943 was a particularly bad year. In April, an internee returning from treatment at St. Paul's Hospital in Causeway Bay was found to have a large sum of money hidden under his bandages. At this time a number of British bankers, including Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, the Chief Manager of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, had been kept in the city to work on liquidating non-Axis assets in the bank. Furthermore, the Director of Medical Services, Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, had been allowed to remain in the city to assist with medical matters. Soon after the discovery of the money, both Sir Vandeleur Grayburn and Dr. Selwyn-Clarke were arrested. Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke and Lady Grayburn were sent into Stanley. In August 1943, Sir Vandeleur Grayburn died in Stanley Prison. His body was released to the internment camp and medical examination revealed that he had died of malnutrition. He rests today in Stanley cemetery. Dr. Selwyn-Clarke was kept in the prison until December 1944, when he was transferred to Kowloon. In 1975 he published his memoirs, under the title Footprints.\n\nSpeaking of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, this is a good point to talk about medical treatment in camp. The internees were fortunate that\n\n* Sino-American Publishing Co., Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208024, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February 30th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nCorrected version in HTML format as requested.\n\nHowever, some minor corrections were made:\n1. \"February 30th\" is likely an error since February only has 28 (or 29 in a leap year) days. \n2. \"CIC\" was added for \"Chinese Industrial Co-operatives\" to match common abbreviation practices, though this was not explicitly instructed.\n3. Some minor punctuation adjustments were considered but not made as they were not strictly necessary.\n\nHere's the corrected text with the requested format and rules applied:\n\nA JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February ...th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nLet me know if further adjustments are needed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208120, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND\n\n143\n\npainted to the eyes, and clad in gay garments. Behind these a band of native musicians, youths dressed in gaudy clothes, provide the melody and rhythm. The dragon shakes his head and stamps his feet to the rhythm, the bearers grunt and sweat, the musicians fiddle and bang and blow, the spectators spit and chew, laugh and talk, admire and applaud. The last player disappears round a bend in the street and another procession begins to form itself with much good-natured chaff and chatter. Meantime the dragon processions which have already been sent off wander through the distant fields, and the curious rhythm of the dance rises and falls in every corner of the glens.\n\nSo much we have seen for ourselves, but our kind host, who has lived on the island for many years, tells us that on the great day of the feast, all the small processions meet at the special matshed, where are assembled also some of the local gods, as well as visiting deities who have been brought by the folk from other towns and villages. All these gods are then carried in procession to the Pak Tai Temple to make their how to the occupant. Following this they are carried about a mile to the temple of the Queen of Heaven, the Lady of the fisherfolk, through the streets densely packed with fishermen and townsfolk, and thousands of visitors. At this temple the processions stand aside, and the gods in their chairs of state are raced back to the special matshed. The first god to arrive, even if he arrives in several pieces, brings to his devoted supporters the best of luck during the year.\n\nIn the afternoon the cones are overturned and there is a scramble for the cakes, which are then eaten with the happiest consequences for all concerned. It would be interesting to hear more exactly what these benefits are, for the whole feast looks like an ancient fertility cult.\n\nWe are much indebted in this account to notes jotted down by Mr. A. C. Franklin, and kindly put at our disposal. The opportunity to witness the Moon-cake festival was also due to his kindness. If we have not reproduced all the interesting and suggestive comments which those notes contain, it is because we hope that he will find time to throw them into literary form and publish them. Meantime we would welcome corrections, and an elucidation of the meaning of the feast from our students, some of whom might well take time to visit Cheung Chow for that purpose.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208167, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "190\n\n4. The War\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nAs stated, the war lasted for 3 years and followed the usual intermittent, spasmodic pattern of such events. During this time, each side made excursions into the other's territory, pulled down houses and set fire to them and killed each other. Thirty-four names are recorded as having died in this time, exactly 17 on each side (see section 6 below).\n\n13\n\nThe war was finally settled by the mediation of elders from a neighbouring village, as stated in the Tsuen Wan tablet, though it did not name the village in question. However, Dr. Johnson's informant has the story: 'No one could win because few people fought. They retreated after a few had been killed. It lasted three years. It was settled by a man in Chuen Lung13 of the Tsang surname, who was rich and not involved on either side. He found it very troublesome for his village to be used as a battlefield. So he didn't talk to either group, but took some livestock and money to Shing Mun and said Tsuen Wan wanted to talk. Another day he did the same thing in Tsuen Wan. He deceived both sides. They thought he was being a middleman. They had a peace talk in Chuen Lung, each thinking the other side wanted peace. They negotiated what should be given to each side, then there was peace.'\n\n5. After the War\n\nAs usual in such local struggles, the names of those killed in the disorders were commemorated and venerated thereafter. Dr. Johnson's informant stated that: 'the names of the people killed from Tsuen Wan were written on paper and put behind a big tablet in the Tin Hau Temple.14 They were worshipped every year. Later CHAN Wing-on, an educated man,15 spent a lot of money repairing the temple and built a small chamber for them and put their names on stone to be worshipped. It is called the Heroes Hall.' As noted below, it appears that the same thing happened in Shing Mun.\n\n6. Relics of the War\n\n(a) Shing Mun As stated earlier, the Shing Mun villagers were removed in 1928. The old village temple to the Hip Tin Kung (神) i.e. Kwan Tai (關帝) was also resited, to a...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208213, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 252, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "236\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE BIRDS OF TAI MO SHAN*\n\nBare hillsides are not the best places to find a wide diversity of birds, and Tai Mo Shan is no exception, though it does harbour a number of species rare or absent elsewhere in the territory. The Upland Pipit, apparently a montane derivative of the common Richard's Pipit, is resident there, and may be seen with one form of Richard's in summer, and a paler form of the same species in winter. The Crested Bunting breeds there, though it goes down to the valleys for the winter. Francolins are abundant throughout the year.\n\nThe most notable species is David's Hill-Warbler, which has recently been rediscovered after a lapse of fifteen years. This species certainly breeds, but has not been seen in winter. Its close relative, the Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler, is certainly present all the year round. Twenty years ago, the Chinese Babax used to breed on Tai Mo Shan, but in spite of rumours to the contrary, there has been no definite record of this species since.\n\nIn winter there is always the chance of a Kestrel, or even an eagle, but in general the terrain is even more barren than in summer. Only where gullies encourage thicker vegetation will you find a sprinkling of the commoner birds, bulbuls, coucals, Violet Whistling Thrushes, and others; most of the other records from the area are of transients which do not really belong there.\n\n \n Upland Pipit\n Anthus sylvanus\n \n \n Richard's Pipit\n Anthus novaeseelandiae\n \n \n Crested Bunting\n Melophus lathami\n \n \n Francolin\n Francolinus pintadeanus\n \n \n David's Hill-Warbler\n Prinia polychroa\n \n \n Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler\n Prinia flaviventris\n \n \n Chinese Babax\n Babax lanceolatus\n \n \n Kestrel\n Falco tinnunculus\n \n \n Eagle\n aquila sp.\n \n \n Violet Whistling Thrush\n Myiophoneus caeruleus\n \n \n Bulbul\n pycnonotus sp.\n \n \n Coucal\n centropus sp.\n \n\nHong Kong, 1978\n\nMICHAEL WEBSTER\n\n* Mr. Webster gave a talk on this topic to Members who joined the visit to Tai Mo Shan, 3rd April 1976, the other notes for which are given at pp. 157 seq above.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208393, "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-1978", "page_number": 117, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "SHIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED\n\nFREDRIKKE SKINSNES SCOLLARD*\n\nIn April of 1977 I had the opportunity to visit the pottery-producing town of Shiwan for the first time with the Oriental Ceramic Society tour. At that time for foreigners, group travel to China from Hong Kong still involved months of waiting for approval, and the individual trip needed for my own research of Shiwan pottery was an impossibility. The day spent in Shiwan however, was sufficient to establish a few acquaintances and to discover that fundamental archaeological research was in progress.\n\nIn May of the same year I gave a talk to the Oriental Ceramic Society titled \"Shiwan Reverberatory\". The reason for the choice of that title was that in ten years' experience studying Shiwan pottery, I have met with a great deal of resistance to the study of these wares. Art historians feel they are a coarse and unimportant local product with little esthetic merit, and even most non-specialists more often than not react with \"I just don't like it.\" In a first lecture on Shiwan pottery, I therefore did not expect to gain immediate converts to this art with a very different and unfamiliar esthetic. Rather, the choice of the title indicated that I felt the subject was worthy of much more attention, and that I hoped, over the next few years, my audience would have repeated opportunity to see and study Shiwan pottery, thereby slowly gaining familiarity with its esthetic.\n\nIndeed, over the last two years, more attention has been paid to these wares. In October of 1977, the Hong Kong Museum of Art in cooperation with the Leal Senado of Macau, staged an exhibition of 139 pieces and published a full colour catalogue. Mr. Lawrence Tam delivered an excellent talk to this Society on the subject, and Mr. Nigel Cameron critiqued the exhibition with his \"Second Thoughts on Shekwan\" in the South China Morning Post.1 At present, the Fung Ping Shan Museum of the University of Hong Kong, in cooperation with Guangzhou museums, is preparing a joint exhibition on Shiwan pottery for the fall of 1979.\n\n* Ms. Scollard holds Masters' degrees in the History of Art (Hawaii) and Chinese Literature (Chicago). She is Associate-in-Research, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208582, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "12\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nCairo Conference at the end of 1943, Roosevelt offered Chiang Kai-shek, behind Churchill's back, American support in preventing Britain from getting back Hong Kong if Chiang would cooperate with the communists in fighting against Japan and establish a representative government in China. Roosevelt's idea was that on regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong, Chiang should \"make a grand gesture and make it a free port.\"49 At Teheran in November 1943, during a break in the Cairo Conference, Roosevelt raised with Churchill the question of the possible return of Hong Kong to China, and the latter refused even to discuss the question.50\n\nAt his secret meeting with Stalin during the Yalta Conference, on 8 February 1945, Roosevelt again mentioned his hope \"that the British would give back the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China and that it would then become an internationalized free port.\" He added, however, that he knew Churchill \"would have strong objections to this suggestion.” At the conference proper, however, Roosevelt did not raise the question of Britain's return of Hong Kong, although references were made to the colony on several occasions.52 Later, in the spring of 1945, Roosevelt used Bernard Baruch, a financier and a friend of both Roosevelt and Churchill, as a messenger to press the British prime minister on the matter of Hong Kong. Roosevelt was now additionally concerned that the Soviet Union might make use of Britain's presence in Hong Kong as an argument for opening a port of her own in China.53 In April 1945 when General Patrick J. Hurley was sent by Roosevelt to talk with Churchill over the retrocession of Hong Kong to China, among other subjects, the latter replied that the colony would not be yielded \"over [his] dead body.\"54 The truth is that already by 1944 Roosevelt had become increasingly reluctant to offend the sensitivity of Churchill who by then was no longer \"subservient to the friendly strength of the United States\" as he clearly had been in 1941-42.55\n\nBritain was not slow to perceive the American weakness. Moreover, by 1944 American enthusiasm about China and Chiang Kai-shek had somewhat cooled down. Roosevelt, as it has been mentioned, had for some time been troubled by the disunity between the nationalists and the communists, and by growing criticism of the autocracy of the Chiang regime. Discussion and criticism of the Chungking government and its conduct of the war increased remarkably in the United States following the American recall of General Joseph Stilwell under pressure from Chiang Kai-shek,56", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208602, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "32\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nMaryknollers in the Wuchow Mission, visited Stanley in response to many invitations received from his Maryknoll patients in Kwangsi. (After the Red take-over of Wuchow, he was arrested and jailed together with Bishop Donaghy and Father Kennedy. The two Maryknollers could hear his screams of pain in another cell for many days, and finally they were brought to the doctor's cell to cut down the body, which was hanging from a cross-bar, obviously to be used as \"witnesses\" to the good doctor's \"suicide.\")\n\nFather Joe Reardon and Sister Marie Regis, attempting to get to Hong Kong by way of Swatow, were turned back by the military. They returned to Kaying and took the only other route open, via plane to Shiu Kwan. However, when they reached this city, other difficulties were encountered and they were compelled to journey on to Kweilin in the West where, after a visit of some days, they succeeded in getting a plane for Hong Kong.\n\nFather Bill Whitlow and Brother William, coming by way of the Philippines, stop over-night on their return to Japan.\n\nOCTOBER\n\nFather Arthur Allie, the only representative from Korea to visit us in a long time, arrived by an evacuee ship, the Anhwui, from Japan. He is seeking medical treatment here.\n\nThe \"Double Tenth\" passed with the usual firecracker spree and subsequent rush to medical clinics for treatment of powder burns. Mr. Wei, the manager of R.K.O. pictures in Hong Kong, who very kindly lends films to us, came to visit bringing \"The Great Commandment\" which was enjoyed immensely.\n\nThe first contingent of new missioners arrived on the 15th, aboard the Pan-Am Clipper from Manila. They are Fathers Kruppelmann, Brennan, Winkels and Siebert. The rest of their classmates will follow along later.\n\nFather General arrived via Macao and, at dinner, gave us a talk outlining his journeys and future plans. There was some mystery about his reason for leaving us immediately for the States after coming from Japan, but he promises to be back here by Christmas. We did not know it at the time, but it seems he was bearing a message to our State Department in Washington from those in Japan who were trying to avert a war between Japan and the U.S.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208615, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n45\n\nthe road, and had showered down this debris. We halted not, but sped on, and finally turned into the lower road at Repulse Bay. Here Mr. Brown had some business to transact with his Chinese foreman and workmen who were engaged in demolishing the bathing beach matsheds, lest they be an obstruction to defending troops, or a hiding place for invading forces. Another dash up the hills and around curves brought us breathless but happy to Stanley, and Father Downs was indeed glad to get back among his confreres.\n\nArrived at Stanley Father Downs found the situation rather tense, though not quite so \"hot\" as at Hong Kong. During his absence he was told that Stanley was fairly quiet, except for occasional planes passing overhead, when they dropped a few bombs on and near the Prison, one also hitting Dr. Hackett's, the Prison Doctor's house, demolishing one wing of it. Of course, \"Big Bertha\"—a 9.2 inch gun at the fort on the promontory to the south of us—kept up an intermittent booming day and night, shelling enemy positions on the mainland. When \"Big Bertha\" spoke, she shook our building and made our windows rattle twice, but we did not mind that.\n\nLong before the outbreak of hostilities British Government and Army officials had visited Maryknoll at Stanley with a view to taking it over in whole or in part if any emergency arose. At one time it was intended to be a hospital, but the Army seemed to have prior rights and they decided to take over a part of our building. Accordingly when Japanese planes began flying overhead and Japanese troops began attacking His Majesty's Crown Colony of Hong Kong, His Majesty's Royal Engineers came out to Stanley and occupied the western end of our building: that is, the servants' quarters downstairs, with the classroom and room adjoining, the recreation room upstairs together with two small private rooms close by. Our Ford V-8 was immobilized, our garage taken over by a number of coolies, and the Engineers prepared for eventualities. They brought out with them quite a supply of food, in the way of huge sacks of rice, soya beans and large tins of army biscuits or hard-tack. The five or six Engineers and Mr. Brown ate at our table with us, and we shared their food, so that we were quite a family.\n\nAs in Hong Kong the delivery to Stanley of daily food, such as meats, vegetables, bread and so forth by the Dairy Farm and Lane", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208622, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "52\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nin through the broken windows. Some started immediately to go through the house, while one, apparently a petty officer of some sort, made signs that we were all to come downstairs. Father Meyer tried to explain to the leader, who knew a very little Cantonese, that this was a religious institution and that we belonged to the Catholic Church. This did not seem to make much of an impression and the Japanese insisted we all come down. We accordingly obeyed and were told or rather motioned to sit down on the tile floor in our front hall, we foreigners at the right and the Chinese, our servants, at the left. The Japanese soldiers looked pretty well tired out. Evidently they had been in the night's fighting, and were accustomed to rough fighting. Over their helmets they had a small net, into the meshes of which they had inserted small branches or shrubs, which certainly went far to make them indistinguishable on the mountains. Evidently they had not eaten much in the past few days, for they immediately began carrying out our food supplies, and eating them on the lawn outside.\n\nAs we squatted on the floor the soldiers, laden with the spoils, passed and repassed us. Some carried our personal effects, others cases of goods from our storeroom. A few carried out blankets and bedding evidently for their wounded comrades. But for the smokers, the straw that broke the camel's back was when they began carrying out carton after carton of cigarettes which many of the men had purchased and had in their rooms. As the Japanese soldiers carried out these cigarettes they would toss a pack or two to the Chinese sitting on the floor with us but nary a pack to the padres; this perhaps to show in what seat the foreigners were now sitting. From time to time packs of army hard-tack were also thrown to the hungry Chinese, and our own tins of milk, fruit and bottles of various things were being sampled right before our own eyes. Not one of us had had breakfast, and it was not until about eleven thirty that some kind-hearted soldier began to think of us and give us a can of cherries. This was passed around among the thirty-five of us, and with two or three cherries apiece the contents soon disappeared. Next a bottle of ginger ale came along, but how far it got I couldn't venture to say; however some of us got at least a swallow. Then a can of sausages went the rounds and each, or I hope each, got a bit on the end of a fork. To top off our repast another tin of cherries came along, along with some hard-tack, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208631, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n61\n\ntomato catsup, and we soon had a cupful of each of delicious stew, or what have you. We were allowed to go not more than a few feet away from our garage, such desperate criminals we evidently were. But this was far enough to exchange a few words with the British soldiers who had come in two nights before. They gave us a little tea, and said they were pretty well supplied with food. That night, when we were tied up again after our supper, the guards tied our hands not behind our back as heretofore, but in front, and as a consequence we slept a little more comfortably.\n\nThe twenty-eighth. Our bonds were removed, we were again allowed to go outside to cook our meals. There happened to be a few straggling vegetables growing within the ambitus of our permitted area, and these went into our stew. For cups and dishes we used the milk cans which we had the day before, and the hard-tack container was our all-purpose kettle. Fathers Meyer and Walter were our capable cooks, and as we were allowed to get water from a well we did not fare too badly. After cooking our meals we had to return to the interior of the garage, though finally our bonds were entirely removed. About this time we came across a few burlap bags and when we were allowed outside we managed to pull up enough dried grass to stuff these bags for pillows. Providentially the weather continued mild and we did not suffer from cold.\n\nAs we were preparing our noonday meal we heard a truck rumble by, and from it a cheery voice hailed Father Toomey. The truck stopped and even pulled into our driveway, and Major Kerr, a British officer whom Father Toomey knew very well, jumped down. Major Kerr, knowing Japanese, was acting as interpreter for the time being, and was even now with the British prisoners in the room adjoining us. Seeing our plight, he promised to do what he could for us and a little later managed to bring out a few cases of food for us and for the British soldiers. We also asked him to see what he could do about getting us off the cement floor of the garage and, after a conversation with an officer, we were allowed to go upstairs in the house where there was at least a wood floor. Accordingly, we lost no time in moving our very few effects to this new domicile.\n\nWe had not been upstairs for more than a few hours when a Japanese officer called us all to come down. We lined up in front of him, and in broken English he said, \"Japanese. English. Finished\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208691, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n121\n\nlyze our feelings. We regretted leaving our many friends in Camp, yet were glad to get out to freedom. What would we find in Hong Kong? Would we be allowed to go to the interior of China? Where are we going to stay in Hong Kong? There had been some talk of our staying with the Bishop in his \"Little Seminary\" and again some mention of Bethany at Pokfulam. So there was an element of mystery and of adventure in our trip that day.\n\nAll went well until our truck reached the top of the Wongneichong Gap on the Happy Valley Road. Here there was a barrier and we were stopped by a gendarme, who demanded that we get out of the truck and have our baggage inspected and examined. We were preparing to do this, when Mr. Yamashita, the young Japanese gentleman in charge of Camp affairs, who was sitting with the driver, got down and tried to explain the situation. It seems that the gendarmes had not been informed by the Foreign Office that we were being released, and the officer in charge of this post gave Mr. Yamashita an unmerciful tongue lashing while he, Mr. Yamashita, being a civilian, stood at attention, bowed repeatedly and never answered back a word. At length, when the officer ran out of breath, we were allowed to proceed, without having our baggage examined.\n\nWe then went into the city, stopping finally at the Queen's Road entrance to the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building, one of Hong Kong's newest and most imposing structures, and now occupied by the Japanese Foreign Office. Once inside, we saw Sister Paul and Sister Famula who had already very kindly arranged for our temporary passes. The Sisters were most helpful to us during our first free days in Hong Kong as we felt just like innocents abroad.\n\nAfter securing our passes and arranging for our baggage, Sister Paul told us that our new home is to be Bethany with the French Fathers, but that before going there we were to have tiffin at the Holy Spirit School. We walked up Queen's Road and then up onto Caine Road, feeling rather strange and out of place, but we reached our destination without any misadventure. At the Holy Spirit School we sat down to a real dining room table, with real dishes and knives and forks and most important of all, with some real food, for which we have to thank the Sisters and Mrs. Leong, the wife of our genial friend, the manager and owner of the Metropole", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208715, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n145\n\ninterest in the Church on the part of the people. At the same time, Father Tom Brack was assigned to Hong Kong with the task of refurnishing the partially vandalized Stanley House. After four years in the hands of the Japanese Army, less than ten rooms could be adequately furnished. He flew to Canton from Chungking, via Shanghai, by U.S. Army planes and by the S.S. Fat Shaan, from Canton to Hong Kong. On his arrival, he reported that the Stanley House looked just the same as it did in pre-war days. There was no structural damage, and the only external signs of war were some chipped bricks caused by sporadic machine gun and rifle fire. The interior, of course, was quite different and needed a great deal of renovating, repairing, repainting, and restoration of the furniture and equipment which had practically all been burned or looted. Father Tennien, when he arrived shortly after the cessation of hostilities, had done a great job of repairing the floors and making some new furniture under no little difficulties, as materials were hard to come by at the time. However, there still was much to be done before the house could be considered as restored to its former self.\n\nThis work comprised the making of all new altars, room furniture, repair of windows, doors, and floors, and, in other words, to restore all that had either been carried off or destroyed by invaders. The hardwood floors had also been badly scarred in many places, as the Japanese soldiers used to cook their food on small stoves placed directly on the wooden floors.\n\nAt this time, there were as yet no transportation facilities in the Colony, except for the tramways in the city proper, and only a few buses in Kowloon. All the other buses had either been shipped away or destroyed. So, in order to get to town, one had perforce to thumb his way along the road. After a while, however, Father Brack got hold of a weapons-carrier which did yeoman service for quite a while.\n\nOne of the earlier visitors to Stanley was Father John Joyce, who arrived from Kong Moon in a small motor launch, but because he had no passport, he had to stay overnight in the launch and talk his way through Immigration officials the next morning. Free to enter Hong Kong at last, he had to thumb his way to Stanley like everyone else. Had he come a bit later, some new jeeps bought by Father Tennien through the good offices of Father Sheridan in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208841, "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "202\n\nTo\n\nand\n\nsites were also rendered ineffective by the emperor's golden pen. My knowledge, the elders knew of four sites. One of them was on Tiu Chung Chau at Kau Sai in Saikung. The fungshui of this site was ‘a golden bell hanging on a silk thread'. Every year at the Double-ninth festival, nine buffaloes came to worship at the grave; there was also the sound of a bell being struck. A second site was at Yuen Chau Chai at Kei Leng Ha Village. The fungshui name was 'the general comes down from his horse to drink three cups of wine'. In the middle of the sea, there is Wu Chau (with the adjacent island of Sam Pui Tsau) that resembles a pig, three cups of wine and two cups of tea. Another site was at To Tau Tsui at Wu Kai Sha, which is opposite Nga Chau (usually nowadays called A Chau) in the Tai Po Hoi. The fungshui name was crows going into the ocean. Legend has it that in the old days a mud embankment connected Wu Kai Sha to Nga Chau which sank into the sea after the emperor put down the dragon. The embankment has not been seen again. One more site was on Ap Chau opposite Kat O. The fungshui name was 'precious duck going through the lotus'. The legend is that Ap Chau used to be able to swim between Sam Mun Kan and Mirs Bay. Later, it was blocked by a duck pole, that is, the place currently known as Hak Ngam Kok. After that, when paddy ripened in the Yim Tin Village area near Sha Tau Kok, there was no rice grain on the stalk, because it was all eaten by the duck. After the emperor put down the dragon with his golden pen, the head of the duck... and then there was grain again.\n\nI know about the fungshui of only these four grave sites.\n\nhe cut off\n\nPassage 2\n\nRecorded by Ho Kei Fook\n\n\"An extraordinary person saw that Huang Hsiao-yang [rebel in the Canton area in the early fifteenth century] had features fitting to make him emperor and gave him a bamboo shoot to plant at home. When the 'bamboo grew to the height of his brows', he was supposed to be able to make an arrow out of it which he could use to kill the emperor with and thereby take over the throne. Huang planted the bamboo shoot as he had been instructed and a bamboo stem grew", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209018, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "148 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nFung Yuen is a coastal valley cutting deeply back from the coast of Tolo Harbor, about a mile and a half deep and perhaps a half mile wide, flanked by hills falling sharply down to the sea on both sides. The eastern hill, the abode, geomantically speaking, of the Green Dragon, has been shaved off in Government engineering works as a \"borrow area\" for bay fill several years, and tun fu ceremonies have been held in Fung Yuen in the past. In 1981, \"borrowing\" was to begin on the western hill, the home of the White Tiger, so new ceremonies were necessary. \n\nThe details of the 1958 and 1960 rituals described by Hayes (JHKBRAS 5:122-124 and JHKBRAS 11:204-209) are roughly similar to those I observed in Fung Yuen in 1981. However, the specialist hired, according to the village head, was not a fung seui sin saang, but a tun fu sin saang (could this perhaps indicate the growth of a new occupational specialization?). He was aided by one elderly assistant. Offerings included both meat and vegetarian dishes; the specialist commented that since many spirits are invited to such a ceremony and one does not know their preferences, a variety of things should be made available to please them all. The basic ceremony consisted of the presentation of offerings and prayers, the burning of candles, paper money, and incense, and the renewing of ritual objects that had been positioned in a similar ceremony a few years earlier, and were now reconsecrated and left in place once more. Large incense pots were filled with fresh sand, into which new bamboo sticks affixed with charms were stuck. Fresh, tall stalks of bamboo, very leafy at the top, with a paper charm attached to each, were erected beside the pots at various locations in the valley. As the village head explained it to me, the ceremony serves to invite a benevolent deity, a po sat, who is a sin sih, or a kind of an official in the heavenly bureaucracy, to protect the village from malevolent spirits who may be disturbed by the earth removal. He is, I believe, represented by the paper charm attached to each tall leafy bamboo stalk. \n\nIt is not only the fine details of ritual acts, nor the numbers and types of ritual objects used, that had significance on this occasion. The spatial patterning of the sites chosen for the series of one major and seven minor ceremonies conducted over the course of \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209602, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "237\n\nAnd then a good old China Hand you'll Be.\n\nSuch references brought drama down to the daily life of the theatre goer in Hong Kong.\n\nHOME GROWN PLAYWRIGHTS\n\nThe Hong Kong Daily Press in 1894 published a play by Henry E. Pollick entitled \"Soso: A Drama of the Day\". It does not seem to have been staged in Hong Kong.\n\n\"The Cook: an Idyll of the Peak\" was produced at the Theatre Royal in 1912. It was written by R.M. Crosse, of the Royal Artillery. The plot revolved around a search for a cook when a mess of the 445th Regiment, comfortably stationed at the Peak, had to replace their competent cook who had disappeared a few days before the expected arrival of the Brigadier General.\n\nTwo years later Mr. Crosse wrote another more ambitious piece which he characterized as \"a musical stunt in two acts\" entitled \"The Idol's Eye\". The first act was set in England at a garden party. The second act's setting was the How Kwik monastery in the Province of Kwangtung. One of the principal characters Lai On is the \"boy\" of an official in the Chinese Maritime Customs. He penetrated into the monastery to secure the Idol's jade eye by the pretext of becoming a novice. In case any should have been put off from attending by the problem of the language a Chinese character might use, they were informed that “Lai On speaks both grammatical and ‘Pidgen' English during the piece. Grammatical English is used where Lai On would naturally talk and think in Chinese. 'Pidgen' is reserved for his conversation with foreigners\". The How Kwik monastery scene enabled Mr. Crosse to introduce Chinese religious ceremonies and temple music into the play.\n\nAt the time, the public was being captivated by musicals with an Oriental setting, and Mr. Crosse, who was soon to return to England, hoped to have his work produced there. I do not know if he was successful.\n\n† Pollick may not have been a resident of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210402, "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-1985", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "Wai bund. Constructed in 1916, this encloses the large area of fish ponds that will become the site of Tin Shui Wai new town by the late 1980s. On this visit we also went to a lookout point above Deep Bay and entered the Mong Tseng Village with its interesting temple.\n\nOn 23 November 1985, over 80 members of the Society attended, by invitation, the 10 yearly Ta-chiu (FTA) rituals at the Kam Tin group of villages in the New Territories. This was a splendid opportunity to attend and understand a long-established important local event which is now in its 31st cycle, the latest in a series begun in 1685.\n\nOn 7 December 1985, Dr. Michael Lau, Curator of the Fung Ping Shan Museum and one of our Councillors, arranged a tour of the museum including an exhibition of paintings by Lui Shau Kwan. The tour was conducted by Miss Flora Chan, a former pupil of the artist.\n\nOn 11 December 1985, Professor Cameron Hurst III, the Japan Foundation visiting Professor in History at the University of Hong Kong, gave a talk entitled \"Martial arts and the martial way - the Samurai martial culture in Japan\".\n\nOn 7 January 1986, follow-up talks entitled \"Kam Tin Revisited\" were held at the Museum of History by Drs. Patrick Hase and David Faure and Mr. Chan Wing Hoi who had all led the group to Kam Tin in November.\n\nOn 22 February 1986, Major Willie Shiel and Mr. Philip Bruce conducted a successful visit attended by 50 members to Lei Yue Mun Fort, a late 19th century imperial coastal defence project of considerable interest.\n\nOn 22 January 1986, Mr. Jeff Lanham of the Hong Kong Polytechnic gave an interesting talk on the Fanling-Sha Tau Kok branch line of the old Kowloon Canton Railway 1910-1928.\n\nOn 21 February 1986, Mr. John Lundin, US Consul at Canton, gave an illustrated talk on the history of the Shameen\n\nviii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210764, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "98\n\nCHAN WING HỘI\n\nto see it face to face. Some of the others replied that there was nothing to fear, as it had been the practice for several hundreds of years for women to take part. Later when the procession was returning to Shek O I noticed a little boy with his ball and a young couple with their children in a pram. The comment was heard: “gou-hing, tai-ye” (Have a nice time and look at interesting things). The women were chatting all the way, and there were many young girls too.\n\nWhen the procession had gone down Tai Long Wan Road, I heard three or four women talk among themselves about Seung Wai, where their homes had been. A young one recalled that they used to have banana trees there, which produced good bananas and some rice-like stuff, which, her grandmother had told her, was good as chicken feed. The place being more spacious, they had been able to raise chicken too. Her grandmother had pointed out to her where the daai-wong-ye's place was — near where the paddy fields were.\n\nAt one point the bus from Shek O approached, and the young man with the loudspeaker called out to the driver by name “Come on, it is all right if you want to switch on the headlights.\" I noticed many cars were hindered from proceeding before the bus, but this did not seem to have bothered the young man at all. The procession made way for the bus to pass, neglecting the other vehicles.\n\nWhen the procession reached the edge of Tai Long Wan village, the daai-si-wong was put down on the ground facing the village. Many individuals, mainly middle-aged and young women, came to make offerings of incense. A table had been set up for the purpose. Some older women and men looked on. Children were led to walk around the legs of the paper image for good luck. Someone said, “Walk around the legs and you will win the Mark Six lottery\".\n\nThe procession was back at the main ritual area at about 8:30. The daai-si-wong was left facing an altar used by the priests, where an extra table had been set up for the concluding rite. Many came to make offerings at all the altars, but they paid more attention now to the daai-si-wong. Many more, not only small children, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210865, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "199\n\nmight have been a member. Hence her appearance at Tong A-chick's place.\n\nThe husband came in search of his wife. He was told that Tong A-chick had been seen handing some clothes to her in the basement of his house. The pursuing husband got a writ of habeas corpus from the court demanding that Tong A-chick restore his spouse to him. He charged that she was being kept against her will.\n\nA-chick in his testimony said that to his knowledge he never saw, knew, or spoke with the woman in question, and did not know where she was stopping at present. He might have handed the coat spoken of to some person in the basement, but he did not know the wife of A-lai was there at the time. The judge believed A-chick was telling the truth and discharged him.\n\nThe incident had two consequences. Too A-sung brought divorce proceedings against her husband and Tong A-chick sued the proprietors of the Town Talk for libel.\n\nHe claimed $5,000 damages from the publishers, P.P. Hull and company, charging that they had published libellous statements about him in commenting on his appearance in court in the case of the fleeing wife. He contended the newspaper article was intended “to bring him into public scandal, disrepute, infamy and disgrace, and for the further purpose to harass, oppress, impoverish and entirely ruin the plaintiff.”\n\nIn denial, he said he was \"a good, true, honest, just and faithful resident of the State of California and had always been respected, esteemed, and known among his neighbours to be a person of good name, fame and credit, and never been suspected to have been guilty of perjury, nor of abduction and extortion, nor of the sin of trafficking in human flesh, or of any other such crime.”\n\nThe account of the case did not report the judge's decision, but it is probable that A-chick emerged vindicated, as he had in his other appearances at court.\n\nNews of some of his troubles got back to Hongkong. The editor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210877, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "211\n\nsome 500 interested people and twice as many had been turned away for lack of room.\n\nIt was time to act. After an impromptu huddle of the dignitaries on the platform during a momentary lull in the proceedings, Mr. Poore announced that a second meeting would be held in a larger building at which the two Chinese would be designated for their work. Mr. Poore later observed that he had been careful not to alarm the Episcopalians with any suggestion of an act implying ordination to a particular ecclesiastical office. He used the term Scripture reader or lay agent to refer to the two young men.\n\nThere were some sour notes struck in the general community. One newspaper sneered at attempts to convert Chinese. Another tried to discredit the qualifications of the young men. In reporting these matters, Mr. Poore noted that the criticisms backfired. They attracted the attention of the community to the meeting and provoked curiosity and interest.\n\nThe Attorney General volunteered to be the main speaker. In his address he reassured his hearers that he had examined and cross-examined the candidates. For Mr. Poore there could have been no better confirmation of his efforts: \"It was a triumphant vindication, and, coming from such a quarter, admitted of no cavil.\"\n\nTo top it all, the committee had been able to secure the services of a missionary from China to accompany and supervise the newly appointed Scripture readers. Mr. Young, the missionary, had been stationed at Amoy. He was able to talk with the Hokien-speaking Chinese and the two young men with the Cantonese.\n\nThe team was sent off to the goldfields at Castlemaine. Here the Christian community had just built the first church in the town. After the arrival of the Rev. Mr. Young and the two Scripture readers, a meeting was held. Mr. Poore, who was present, reported: \"Meeting admirable, speeches good, great pressure of people, many could not get in... The whole Christian community seems to be pervaded with a tender concern for their salvation.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "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": 211223, "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": 284, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "259\n\nBasically, it is hard labour. It is a matter of going around every village recorded on the map, and every temple, and asking if they had inscriptions. If they did, we would copy them down.\n\nI must say something about working with students, as this comes up again and again and would apply also to our later research. As anyone who has organised field research will realize, you don't just round up a few people and send them into the field. You've got to make them understand the known problems, and you have got to be available to examine any problems that are unexpected, brief them and be briefed by them in return. We had our meetings once a week in summer and every month in term. Obviously, we do much more work in the summer holidays. You must also search around to see if other people have done similar work, and find out where errors have crept in, and you must make contacts. Very often, you go into the field yourself. Before we started doing anything, I remember going around with Bernard Luk along Ting Kok Road, walking into every village there and asking about inscriptions, so that we would know the situation before we sent our students out. After that, very often people would come back and say \"I know from James and other folk that there should be some inscriptions here, but we couldn't find them\". You have got to go down to the village, talk to the people and get guidance.\n\nWell, we copied quite a bit. We copied all these tablets and inscriptions from iron objects such as you see in temples, the gongs, the bells and incense burners. Also the wooden presentation boards, and now and then mirrors. We hand-copied them. I did take some photographs, but not many and usually only for illustrative purposes.\n\nAs the project progressed, a suggestion was made that we should have taken a lot more photographs, and perhaps even rubbings. It was thought, especially, that at some future date people would be interested in these things for other than historical reasons. The calligraphy may be very nice and worth looking at, and so on, which is very true. We also set ourselves a lower time limit not going beyond 1945. We were only interested in inscriptions that were written before that time, and it was said that even-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211227, "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "263\n\nThis old lady said \"Well, if you want my history, I can sit down here and talk for days and days—but I am not giving it to you\". Of course, you know very well, the moment she said it, that she means she wants a listener. She doesn't want us to get information too easily. So you hang on and stay there, and learn to be fairly thick-skinned. Presently, she began a fascinating story of what happened to her during the Second World War. What happened also illustrates what happened in the family.\n\nI won't go into details; but just to give you a clue, she married the youngest and least important son of a very unimportant family in the village. To make things worse, she was a refugee from China at the beginning of the war, and her family was so poor (I can always remember the line she gave me) that she had to go up to her future husband's family to ask for the other five dollars that they owed her as part of the “bride price”. You can imagine the loss of 'face' that was associated with a woman coming up to the door of her future husband to ask for the last five dollars! Worse still, her husband was taken away by the Japanese and she was there on her own ever after. It is one of these very very sorrowful stories you hear when tears actually flowed; and I think not only from her but also from some of the people who were with me.\n\nWe called our project the ‘Oral History Project', as we began thinking that we would rely primarily on interviews. Of course we couldn't use a detailed questionnaire with people of this kind, so I drew up a list of topics we would need to get information on, such as the outline history of the area. We supplemented those with other things which we could ask people as we got to know them better. Very soon, it was clear that village festivals were important events from which much could be learned about village organisation and history, and I began to make a point of going to them. It was not always possible to adhere to a plan of working only within a designated district. At times, you get to be told of a contact elsewhere who is willing to be interviewed; and if he is 85, you don't want to wait another five years before you go to him! You take whatever opportunity that comes up, and that often takes you out of your way. And so before very long, we were doing three lines of research work at the same time.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211229, "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": 290, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "265\n\nOfficer of Shatin, and was closely involved in a large number of negotiations with village groups affected by development of the New Town. I soon obtained a very clear understanding of the village society that was consistently being expressed and explained to me by the contacts of our own making. I became interested, without any background in Sinology or Chinese studies of any sort whatsoever. I had never read any books on Chinese social studies until after I had already worked out in my own mind what sort of society was being expressed to me by the village contacts. When I went to the books, I found that I was unable to recognise anything that I was seeing in my work.\n\nIt was then suggested to me by James that Shatin might be a good place for David's people to start work. I was very enthusiastic about this, on the grounds that it was quite clear that there was a major difference between the society that was there and the society that the classic works on China were expressing. I also very strongly support what James and David have been saying about the lack of support these new studies have received from all major institutions in Hong Kong, and in particular the two Universities in Hong Kong, most of whose senior staff seem to regard village studies as \"irrelevant, minor and sub-standard dirty work\".\n\nBe that as it may, when I was shown some of the Chinese books that had been found and it was suggested that there might be some in Shatin, I used my position as District Officer to coax and encourage the villagers into letting us know what they had, and this drew me very quickly into an interviewing programme of my own. A District Officer attends many functions and almost all my interviews took place over lunch and dinner tables at official banquets, when there is nothing whatsoever to talk about, and you might just as well talk about this as about anything else. Over many months of seeing local village leaders at official banquets, we talked about the people around the tables' childhood and their memories of it.\n\nThis got me very deeply into listening to people talking about daily life in the Chinese village. Day after day, I was hearing things that I was later unable to trace any reference to in any book available to me, and almost every time I would come back with facets", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211400, "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-1988", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "44\n\n+\n\nheard it they shouted for joy, and started off to their homes at once, full of hope. But when they found their houses half fallen down, some villages entirely hidden by the long grasses, and the paddy fields covered with weeds, they were much dishearted, realizing that they were not any better off when they were inside the boundary. San On district had in the meanwhile been re-established and Lei Hoh Shing (5) the district magistrate gives a pitiful picture of the condition of the land and people. ... I arrived as district magistrate and found many old and young lying in ditches, having died from hunger. The strong young men are gone to other places to earn their livings. When I look down from a height all is dense undergrowth and fallen walls and I cannot hear the voice of a single wild goose in the distance . . . . so I get oxen trained to plough..... and every so often I collect one or two lucky-to-be-alive people and try to encourage them to develop the barren land. We stand about and talk, but when the talking is not half finished each of us cannot help sobbing with grief. . . .\n\n++\n\nThus gradually the land was worked back to its old state, and to perpetuate the memory of the two men who had done so much to help the people, a hall was built in Shek Woo Market (M) by the Sheung Shui (E) villagers and their neighbours. The name of the hall was **Tuk Foo I Kung Ts'z** (A) \"The Viceroy and the Governor, these two Sirs Hall\". Over the front door three characters were written Po Tak Ts'z \"Return thanks for the Bounty Hall\". The hall was used for the village council for many years and every year on the birthdays of Governor Wong and Viceroy Chau a feast is held in the hall by the village elders. Another such hall is in Kam Tin (see H.K.N. VIII, page 207 and plate 20(2))* and has been used as a school for many years. It is situated on Taai Sha Chau (7) amidst beautiful scenery and near it is the Kam Shui (*) “ornamental stream\", with a big lawn like a tennis court in front of it. A large lichee orchard is on the left-hand side of the hill.\n\nSince the 10th year of Kin Lung (#), 1745, each Yuet Chau (ZE) year, which occurs every ten years [sic], the Kam Tin people have a matshed erected for Kin Tsiu ( ), the festival of the Dead. Two water colour paintings of the Governor and Viceroy are displayed\n\n* Vol. 14, of the Journal, plate 41.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211424, "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-1988", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "116\n\nhad to postpone its Christmas celebrations by a week, and that several Kauluwela boys were unsuccessful in their attempt to enter high school. After a quarantine of a week, the disease was considered stamped out. Ping Lim and Ting On, both of whom were attending Oahu College, were on a three-week vacation then.\n\nIn a letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim wrote:\n\n\"My dear brother Ping Yip Chan:- On account of the great distance between town and our residing place in Moanalua and the inconvenience of getting your letter at once which came to me on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th of Feb., when the steamer was about to leave, I did not answer you immediately. You are, no doubt, wondering why I am in Moanalua. The cause was that S. M. Damon was afraid that his brother F. W. Damon's residence and the school might burn down in case one of our members should have attached the plague, and also the school's neighbourhood is in a very bad condition. So we moved to a small island owned by S. M. Damon, which is near to the 3 mi. water pumping tank, and borrowed six tents from the Kamehameha School to make our chambers. Four of them used for us, sixty in number, and one for the three teachers, and one for a food storeroom. You may think it is crowded but there the ocean wind is pretty strong. At first we expected to live there one week or two, but after having been there a week the news reached us, stating that several Chinamen working in the Pantheon stables, which are adjacent to our school, have died of plague and so these buildings were soon turned to ashes. Afterwards the whole block in which we live was said to be infected and a rough fence has been built around the block. The people of this spot have been put under quarantine. Had we not made the move we are surely in quarantine.\n\nNow I must turn to another important subject. Well, you have told me that the burning of Chinatown is the most cruel act that was done to our Chinese by the whites. No, the properties destroying itself was not so half bad as to see our ignorant helpless bind-footed Chinese women and babies crying and running forcibly for their lives on the streets, when the unexpected fire came. More than this, some few women who were about to let their babies out to earth were pushed to the drays which took them to quarantine. While during these hours it has been said that some births have occurred. Of course the Chinamen were driven like cattle by the inspectors who carried stakes or some other beating instruments in their hands. After that the men and women, numbering several thousand, were taken to the Kawaiahau Church and grounds. The women lived inside the church while the men outside on the grounds with tents. I am sorry to say that father, brother and in-law's whole family were among these people. During their residing in the church, I went to see father every day, asking if there was anything wanting. Many articles and foods have been taken there by our store partners. But after having been in there for a week they were driven to Kalihi just a little below the Kamehameha School where a great number of new rough rooms have been set up. In Kalihi's I can't see any of our known people to talk with there. All I can do is to send letters to them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211439, "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-1988", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "131\n\nMost of the itinerant workers were from where my father originated and spoke the Nam Long subdialect. Uncle housed them in a bedroom attached to the large barn facing the concrete area used for threshing and drying the grain. After dinner these men would lie on wooden, mat-covered beds, conversing with each other while heating beads of opium over a small lamp before puffing through a long pipe the bubbling brown drug. To this day I can recognize the sweet odour of opium.\n\nWhenever Uncle went to Honolulu, he would always stop by to bring us vegetables from the farm and have his lunch, usually large buns filled with black bean paste and large, flat cakes, made largely of flour and sugar. He usually left around two o'clock in order to reach home by sundown. The journey was difficult, especially in bad weather, because the horses would sometimes balk and refuse to proceed when they approached the Pali. Uncle believed that the horses were sensitive to the presence of ghosts, so that whenever they became stubborn and refused to proceed, he would let them turn back towards Honolulu until they reached the drinking trough of spring water near the entrance to Dr. Morgan's estate. Uncle would wait until the horses were willing to start for Kaneohe again.\n\nBefore the Pali Road, started in 1898, was completed, travel was by horseback from Luluku to the half-way house at the foot of the mountain pass and up the steep slopes to the Pali. A two-seater buggy, which supplanted the horse, was most intriguing in that the passenger seat swung out before one could get in. Once we got to ride in it when Mother allowed Ruth and me to visit our cousins without her. The visit was exciting and enjoyable, as we crowded together on the matted beds, enclosed by thick mosquito netting. Soon we thought that it was more fun to be outside on the porch. As we ran back and forth carrying each other piggy-back, Uncle suddenly appeared and ordered us back to bed. I was told later that I had become so homesick that Uncle had to take us home much sooner than planned.\n\nMother looked forward to a yearly visit to Uncle's and we would go there by coach, owned by Look Buck of Kaneohe. We often grew anxious as the automobile raced down the steep, narrow and winding road. Once Mother jumped out of the coach with Helen in her arms when it began to slide backwards while manoeuvring a hairpin curve. For several years", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211558, "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-1988", "page_number": 275, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "251\n\nneed for structural continuity in the maintenance of a stable society. Those who recognize the concepts of descent and social structure as being \"objective\" thus merely fail to see or accept the \"subjective\" nature of their underlying propositions.\n\nThe above discussion has in my opinion a great deal of relevance to the very definition and usage of descent relations (and descent groups) in China. No scholar in the China field has to my knowledge questioned the validity of descent or social structure as a mechanism for explaining what the Chinese perceives to be \"ancestor worship\". There was no word in Chinese for \"descent\" until sociologists created one out of pedagogical necessity, and even with that the term has been constantly revised. Yet, anthropologists and historians of China still prefer to talk about descent and descent groups without realizing that they are simply projecting a set of constructs they have been trained to see instead of taking native facts as a concrete point of departure. Even when it does not take an electronic calculator to figure out that there are no descent relationships in China which are not at the same time relationships of ancestral worship, scholars still prefer to discount the latter as \"illusions\". Somewhat reflective of this general sentiment, Faure (p. 4) remarks, for example:\n\nThe belief in common descent, and the need to maintain worship (or the excuse to do so), can be the basis for the foundation of lineage property trusts, held in common by all lines of descent from the ancestor in whose name the trust is created. (emphasis mine)\n\nWhy no anthropologist bothered to look at ancestor worship seriously as a thing in itself perhaps had to do with the fact there were models for almost everything else. Fortes had a descent theory of social structure, Freedman had an economic theory of the corporate lineage, Fried had a political theory about the functions of genealogies in Chinese society, etc. Nonetheless in Chinese society, what observers take to be a descent relation is for the most part a relation of worship between a living male and his deceased ancestors before him. The act of worship is simply a way of remembering the dead, and it is usually the deceased prior to his death who sets down the conditions for this act of \"remembrance\". He may set aside a portion or all of his estate as ancestral property to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211561, "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-1988", "page_number": 278, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "254\n\nHowever, changing fortunes or circumstances later led two of the other surname groups to move away altogether. The other remaining surname group continued to reside in the village until 40 years ago when they too moved away, leaving behind an ancestral hall and several plots of land which still remain untouched. More importantly, outside of how insiders and outsiders were defined and accepted, which is the petty substance of membership criteria (and rights of settlement), lies the more relevant issue of how any village or village cluster is understood as a particular kind of moral community. Why does Faure not talk about rights of settlements in the context of a market town or an urban flat? As it is only in the context of the rural Chinese village that the newcomer (as \"non-agnate\") becomes a problem (in terms of rights of settlement). Are we not suggesting in other words that there is something special about the nature of the village as a moral community which transcends the hard and fast rules of settled residence? That something special, I would argue, ultimately lies at the core of that principle of locality which constitutes the village.\n\nTo a villager, his village is not a chuen (C) (= ts'un (M)), which is the literal dictionary translation, but instead his heung-ha (C) (– hsiang-hsia (M)) or his \"country\". That villager might not necessarily be an actual resident of the village; he could be a person living and working in Hong Kong, or even an overseas Chinese born and raised overseas, several generations removed. Everyone has his heung-ha, unless of course he has moved his roots to a new heung-ha (as in the idea of hoi-kei (C), \"to open up one's base\"). I would argue, moreover, that one's definition of one's heung-ha is a highly intangible one variable to change and not necessarily reducible to the hard and fast rights to territory that are indicative of Faure's rights of settlement. To cite a personal example, I was recently instructed by my father to inspect the sites of our ancestral graves to assess the feasibility of re-burying them at a central site. As my father had lived overseas most of his life, the task of providing sacrifices every year on Ching Ming had always been in the hands of a close relative living there. Our 13th generation ancestor moved away from Cha Sai village to settle in the village of Tso Po several kilometers away, which had been inhabited by another Chun segment (fong) from Cha Sai descended from a 4th generation ancestor as well as members of the surname Ou. After having lived in Tso Po for four generations, our 17th generation ancestor moved to the market town of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211873, "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "263\n\nI shall not venture to say much about the cooking, etc. for I am obliged to keep my eyes shut on all occasions where I am near it, for fear I might see something not quite to my fancy in that department. I enjoy the biscuits very much, only I shall soon have to shut my eyes when eating them. Our fresh provisions are beginning to go, so we must soon fall back upon the preserved provisions. We have plenty of good milk to last the voyage, plenty of sardines, salmon, etc. and plenty of bottled fruit, so that we have a fruit pie or pudding every day. In fact we have everything that could be procured on land, and for what I can see, quite as good.\n\nThe captain and I agree very well on all points but religion. Yesterday we had a regular set-to about it, and I was obliged to talk to him rather plainly, only it will not do to say too much to such a man when he is warm. Captain Moult is about such another, or else he would not be a bad companion. He has been well educated, and has a good share of common sense. We are thrown a great deal into each other's society, and so it is to our interest to keep on pretty good terms. Since he has resided at Hong Kong for some time he knows all about the place, and I get a good deal of information out of him, on different subjects.\n\nWe have spent several hours in walking the deck together. It is the only exercise to be got on board ship. I have however invented two or three species of exercise in my cabin, which I find very beneficial. I believe I should be soon laid up if I did not take a fair amount of exercise. Often I have envied the sailors at their work, and should have liked to have a pull at the ropes with them.\n\nSaturday, April 6th\n\nToday has been a cheerful pleasant day. Soon after daylight the chief mate came down with the intelligence that land was in sight on the \"lee bow\". After so many days rambling over the water it was joyful news to me, so I got up, and had the usual wash all over, and went upon deck to take my constitutional, i.e. early walk. It was a lovely morning. The sun already \"well up\" was rather warm, and all round was lovely and delightful. Sure enough there was the land, but it was above thirty miles off, yet on account of its great elevation (in some parts 6000 ft) I judged it to be about four. The clear atmosphere quite deceived me. It proved to be Madeira, and we were on the eastern side. All day I have been on deck enjoying the beautiful soft balmy breezes, which are now quite", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211875, "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": 290, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "265\n\nshade in the saloon. It will not at any part of the voyage be very much hotter. I hope to be able to endure the heat without much inconvenience.\n\nI have got into a kind of system of living of which I will give you today as an instance. Rose at half past six, had a wash all over in salt water, and then at half past seven went up on deck for half-an-hour's parade. Breakfast at half past eight. Study Chinese from nine till twelve. Lunch, and then read Milton till dinner time, committing some portions to memory. At four o'clock I went at Milton again till six, when I stopped to view the sunset and walk up and down for half an hour. Then tea, and am now here writing.\n\nToday several whales played round the ship. One was estimated at 50ft long. One I saw was I believe 30ft, and leaped clean out of the water. As yet we have not caught a fish of any kind, but hope to when we reach the line, which we expect to do in eight or ten days with a fair wind.\n\nIt is now about one fourth of the voyage over, which is a great comfort to think of. The other day we killed a sheep, and now have only one left. We have still fowls enough to last for some time to come, although we generally have two every day.\n\nI am often thinking of what lies before me in China, and expect I shall find it rather strange at first, but I mean to make the best of it come what may. The sun has regularly browned my face, and made me look quite a different person, quite unlike the palefaced fellow I used to, and I am getting quite stout, so much so as to burst my waistcoat. We now have an awning spread over the deck, so that the deck is very cool and comfortable.\n\nFriday, April 19th\n\nI have nothing of any importance to add to my journal, yet I may as well put down what there is. This morning's observation showed that we have very nearly reached the line. Tomorrow if all is well we shall be crossing it. The captain and others have been joking me a great deal about what I have to undergo, according to the usual custom, on this occasion. They talk about having a long boat half filled with water for my ducking, and preparing a fine lather and iron hoop for the purpose of shaving me. But I only laugh at their nonsense, although they may perhaps want to try it on as a bit of fun. So if they do I must even make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211898, "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": 313, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "288\n\nI had a good long yarn with Madame Baines on the verandah. When I told her what I was, she became very religious all at once; but I could see it was only hypocrisy, although she had an oily tongue. The Bishop of Victoria was there in 1856. The people were highly pleased with his visit, and all who I heard speak of him seemed to do so with respect. She was acquainted with a Mr King of the Scottish Free Church, who had returned from Scotland only three months ago; and promised to introduce me to him and drive me there in her carriage.\n\nAt eleven o'clock I went to bed. My room was very fine and airy. All the beds in Java have to be curtained all round to keep out the mosquitoes, which would prevent sleep, and sting finely into the bargain.\n\nThe captain and wife came from the ship to the hotel the next day. They made themselves such fools by wanting to appear grand that everybody laughed at them behind their backs. No sooner had the captain left the table, and the rest began to talk, when Mr Phillips began: “Well of all the disagreeable obstinate men I ever saw, I never saw anybody to beat him. I can see it in his looks although I have never spoken to him nor know who he is\". When I told him it was our captain he wanted to know if he had not guessed right. I told him I must be excused from answering that question. Madam was finely laughed at, and reckoned up in just the terms she deserved. Since our return to the ship these parties have been equally run down by the captain and wife,\n\nA\n\nTwo days I took a walk into the town in the middle of the day. I was afterwards told that no European would ever be able to do it, for it was enough to kill the strongest man on account of the sun's intense power. However it had not the least effect upon me. In fact I felt all the better for it.\n\nOn the first day I started to go into town but took a wrong turning, and went out through one of the Chinese quarters into the country, where I had a few miles' walk. The scenery was very fine indeed. The palm and betel nut trees, and trees of which I have no idea formed a delightful shade. Even the country is intersected by canals. But whether in town or country, you always find the shore of the canal crowded with washermen. The clothes are never washed, but merely beaten. They get a smooth stone, and after soaking the clothes in the water, they keep dashing them on the stone, swinging them for that purpose round their head.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212185, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "104\n\nPetroleum Co., and a timber ship of the Import and Export Lumber Co. Together with the large \"Ewo\" hulk we were all anchored a few miles above Nanking in a stretch of the river, designated as a \"Safe Harbour\" of which the Japanese authorities had been duly notified. The American gunboat \"Panay\" was anchored two miles lower down off the creek at the top end of Nanking, whence communication with the few foreigners in the city could still be maintained through a 'phone situated in a godown on the bank.\n\n\"The Flag Captain, Commanding Officer, and Ward Room officers of H.M.S. \"Scarab\" request the pleasure of the company of the British community, now afloat in the \"safe\" anchorage, on board H.M.S. \"Scarab\" at 11.30 tomorrow, Saturday, 11th December, on the occasion of the anniversary of His Majesty's accession.\"\n\nIt was a lively party. As you may imagine there was plenty to talk about, and the bountiful hospitality dispensed by the Navy - I naturally do not refer merely to its liquid aspect - set all in a pleasant frame of mind for a latish lunch when the gathering broke up and the participants returned to their respective ships. I have no doubt that the ensuing sense of somnolence was fairly general when, with a crash, a shell burst on the river bank not 100 yards from the nearest ship. The noise disturbed the lethargy of that Saturday afternoon. Ears pricked to discover whether there was more to come. The doubt whether that first shell was a stray or not was soon settled as two more straddled the nearest ship. Captains leapt to their bridges and called for steam. Clouds of smoke belched from the assembled funnels, marking well the whereabouts of the target. Shells began to fall regularly in the anchorage, but it was not more than fifteen minutes before the merchant flotilla, festooned with attendant small craft, was underway heading upriver. The two gunboats remained to stand-by the hulk, which was full of foreign and Chinese refugees and, having slipped its anchors, endeavoured to tow it in the wake of the other vessels. By good luck there were no direct hits on any of the ships, though some vessels were holed by splinters, and two unfortunate Chinese boatmen were killed and some others wounded.\n\nThe shelling resumed when the ships were under way a mile or two above the \"safe harbour\", the guns then appearing to be of heavier calibre. The shells came over in pairs and were very well", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212233, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "152\n\nnot do for a house to be very isolated, or it would be continually attacked by robbers. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is a fine building, and also the Governor's house. Just behind the College are some fine buildings.\n\nAnd now, after a glance at the island, I will go on to describe the inhabitants. Of course they are mostly Chinese; next come English, Parsees, Portuguese, Americans, Germans, French, and Arabs. Spaniards might also be mentioned. The Chinese are the working part of the population. Generally they are industrious and active. The lower classes however are dirty and degraded. The middle class are generally well informed and intellectual. Some hold very important situations. One striking feature in Chinese character is their don't care sort of feeling. If they can get out of doing anything they will, unless they see a chance of being well paid for it. Anything they do not want to understand, they pretend great ignorance of. In fact unless money is in the way, one would take them for a race of idiots. Never can you tell if they are pleased or angry. They are the most cold-hearted race that can be imagined. The men agree well together; never do I hear any quarrelling among them. They do not take wine or beer, and a drunken Chinese is as uncommon a thing here as a really honest one. One needs be very sharp to deal with them.\n\nI went to buy some earthenware, and it was as much as I could do to keep the fellows civil. A crowd always collects in a shop when they see an Englishman. I should have lost my watch, purse and umbrella twenty times over if I had not kept my eyes open. As pickpockets they beat London all to nothing. I had to keep my eye on the whole lot of them. They will even cut off the tail of one's coat and quietly walk off with it; and a few coat tails makes them a suit of clothes.\" One has to be all bluster, and to keep a walking stick or umbrella continually in motion, to keep pace with them. I being a stranger, perhaps they wanted to try my patience over what I was buying. It seems a favour for them to let you buy of them. In fact they never speak of the English but as fan-kwai, i.e. foreign devils. They are very hypocritical. There is no knowing their thoughts or intentions. In fact a Chinaman in Hongkong is quite a riddle.\n\nThey generally dress in white. All wear a sort of coat, and very full knee breeches and gaiters. Their shoes always look very neat, although the soles are above an inch thick. They are slippers in appearance rather than shoes. They never wear a hat except when they wish to keep off the sun, when they use one as big as an umbrella. A Chinaman ordinarily dressed, with his long pig-tail hanging down behind, does not look so bad after one is used to it. Some of the wealthy ones stalk about in the evening with all the dignity imaginable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212247, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "166\n\ncomes up to Anna's. In the Cathedral when she sings she can be heard at times quite distinctly from the powerful organ, and an efficient choir. She wants me to join the choir, but I am in no hurry to do so, till I can find out the character of the members. The organist is quite a young man, but a very fair performer.\n\nMy description must now soon be brought to a close. I must however just say a few words as regards my pupils. They seem generally very shy, what I have seen of them. Two in college now will shortly leave. Hah-choong, the elder is a tall genteel looking youth of 18. His father was an Englishman and his mother Chinese. He was left an orphan, but a German missionary has care of him and his brother and when they come of age there is property for them. I take a great interest in the elder he does all he can to oblige me. He will soon get an appointment in an English counting house, but I hope to be able to keep my eye upon him.\n\nWhen I first came I could not get near enough to speak to them, they would all run away. Even now I cannot get them to talk. They stand motionless when I call them up to me. I find them as the Bishop said, a very cold hearted set. They take everything with the coolest indifference. Whether pleased or displeased one never knows. It is rather discouraging, but I shall adopt an even course of conduct with them, which will break down the barrier between us eventually, I hope. Indeed I may say it is fast improving already.\n\nThe parents of some of the children are quite respectable people. The other day a Chinese B.A., or graduate of the First Class, called to get his son admitted. He came with a very low bow, and presented his visiting cards, which I enclose as a curiosity. One gives his family name, the other his surname, and his rank. I will also send you one of my bills which the industrious A-tse brings me every morning. I can now keep accounts in Chinese.\n\nMany of the pupils are still heathens in heart. I trust however that with God's blessing on my labours I may be enabled to do some good among them. It is only by his Spirit's influence that the heathen notions, and strong prejudices can be wholly extirpated from their minds.\n\n我又有美非此牢者。\n\n21", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212601, "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-1991", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Maymyo 1941 \n\nGUERILLA TRAINING* \n\nP. H. MUNRO-FAURE \n\n135 \n\nThe shortage of British shipping along the China coast became more marked during 1940 and 1941. The vessels built for this traffic, generally between three and four thousand tons in measurement, with comparatively shallow draft, were particularly suitable for use in the Persian Gulf and along the shores of North Africa. Many had been taken to serve as transports in those seas. Moreover, the Admiralty, sensitive to the dangers threatening the peace of the Far East, had directed such larger ocean-going vessels as still were available not to proceed west of Singapore. Consequently there was pressure on the remaining cabin space, and I was fortunate to obtain a berth in a small coaster, which took seven days to reach Hongkong from Shanghai, as against the usual four.\n\nHongkong was very quiet, a state of affairs not to be attributed to an entire absence of females. It was remarkable how many had succeeded in avoiding the order to leave the Colony. I had to wait a whole week for a passage to Singapore, where formerly berths on a dozen different ships would have been offered in the time. This gave me an opportunity to look around. Friends took me out to Deep Water Bay, where we sunbathed on the beach, and drank our tea on the club verandah, looking out over the little golf course. High up on the hill towards Wong Nei Chong Gap I could see the green tiled roof of the house where my wife and I, only three years previously, had been caught in the rain. I wondered whether the lady of the mansion was one of those who had contrived to remain behind. In the evening we drove round to the next bay and bathed from the Lido, a steel and concrete building of pleasing design housing a restaurant, and bathing booths. The hot weather had set in, but here a cool breeze blew down a gully on the hillside into the windows. I had always liked the place because of its informality. You could eat your dinner, and dance and talk, in shorts, and so keep cool, as compared with the stricter etiquette of the Gloucester and Hongkong Hotels, or the Repulse Bay Hotel, or even the Peninsular Hotel across the harbour, where several nights a week you were required to don “black ties”.\n\n*This is the third part of the Memoirs of Col. P H. Munro-Faure. See Editor's Note, p 61, vol. 29, and Plate I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212829, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "123\n\nHeadquarters of the C.E.F. was stationed. The British Assistant Military Attache from Kun-ming went with me to introduce me to the Chief of Staff, from whom we were to receive our passes. The Chief of Staff was not particularly affable. There was some talk of wireless and he stated we would have to supply photographs in duplicate for every member of our party: no easy matter in a small upcountry town in a land which had been closed to foreign imports for many years. However, we were lucky and found a small photographer in the place who still had some film and undertook to produce the required photographs. Next day when these were presented at the Headquarters we were informed that after all they would not be necessary; all that would be required was my own photograph in duplicate, a contingency for which I had been well prepared having armed myself with a dozen before I left India. Even then there was delay in preparing the pass and it was not till late on the afternoon of the second day that I was able to leave. The reason for the various delays became apparent later. The parachute party had reported that the Myosa was held a close prisoner by the Chinese at Tetang. My route lay through Tetang, but when we arrived there we found the Myosa had already been removed further into China. They were evidently anxious I should not meet him and wished to allow sufficient time to get him out of the way. They were holding him for trial on a charge of treasonable relations with the Japanese.\n\nOn arrival at Paoshan we found our parachute party living in the American officers' mess; the Colonel in charge was our old friend from Kun-ming. He went out of his way to make us all feel at home; he found us quarters, he fed us, and he sent our signals for us. After talking the position over with the parachute officers, I decided to send one of them back to report: that left us a party of twelve. Stan, the chief parachutist, was an expert in many lines: Bren gun, Tommy gun, machine guns, he had even taken an armourer's course, an additional accomplishment which turned out most useful. Jack had spent most of his life in Burma; he not only spoke Burmese fluently, but he also spoke Kachin, an important point, as we were to enter country bordering on Kachin land and we were anxious to enlist the co-operation of those doughty tribesmen in our work. They had already acquired a great reputation for their fighting qualities further north. We were three British officers and three Chinese interpreters, one Burmese-Chinese interpreter, two Hong Kong wireless operators, a medical orderly, and Rogue and Lao Teng. The interpreters were all men who had escaped from Hongkong and had registered with the British Relief Organisation maintained at Kweilin to...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213086, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "135\n\nBoard but both the Governor and the Colonial Secretary intervened. Consequently the Glass-works hospital was operated as a branch of the Tung Wah. It should be noted that the tradition at the Tung Wah Hospital was broken later during the Epidemic. Western medicine was introduced and a graduate of the Hong Kong College of Medicine was appointed as its superintendent.\n\nMeanwhile the situation took a different turn. At first it was thought that Europeans would escape from the infection because of their better living conditions and cleaner habits. The belief was shattered soon, Lowson recorded on May 29th: 'the first Shropshire case.' The Shropshire Regiment was stationed in Hong Kong at the time. Three hundred troops under eight officers were brought in to help in the cleaning up operation, including house to house search. Some soldiers caught the disease. One of the victims was an officer, Captain Vesey. 'Vesey got it,' wrote Lowson on May 31st. On June 2nd he went to see Vesey, on the 3rd Vesey was said to be better but he died at 9:45 p.m. on the 4th. In an annotation, Lowson wrote:\n\nMay 31st\n\nCaptain Vesey's attack was a serious business as up to this time we had everyone thinking Europeans would not get it and there was much consternation. The flight from the Colony to Japan and home was now almost a panic.\n\nOn June 7th he wrote that he offered to take sole charge of the sick at a meeting of the Sanitary Board but the offer was turned down. On June 10th there was some talk about the doctors refusing to work. In annotation on the entry on the 11th, he explained why.\n\nJune 11th\n\nThe trouble on last page regarding refusal to work arose from not one of the Permanent Committee knowing the state of affairs in town - May knew something but others did not but complained and made idiotic suggestions. The doctors were led up to having all the dangerous work to do and never one minute off duty, hence rebellion.\n\nMay was F.H. May, the Captain Superintendent of Police, who was a member of the Sanitary Board. In the diary, three names appeared a few times: Dr Penny, a naval surgeon, Dr. James, a major in the Army Medical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213096, "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "145\n\na file-brand, his actions were dictated by his intense interest in his native town and its welfare.' A final judgment: “No matter how bitterly he might differ with any of his colleagues, and in his early years in the Council particularly he figured in many a heated scene, he left all rancour behind at the Council table. Next day he would greet his opponents as cheerfully as though nothing had happened to ruffle them and be good friends.\" We know that in Hong Kong, Lockhart and Francis had not responded to him,\n\nIn the end, how should we appraise Lowson and his diary? You will agree with me that he would appear to have been a rather difficult man; otherwise, he would not have clashed with authorities wherever he worked, in Hong Kong, India, and Forfar. You will recall that at the early stage of the Epidemic, he, a relatively junior doctor, offered to take sole charge but was turned down. This shows that he was probably the type who would prefer to give rather than take orders. But he was undoubtedly a forthright and strict character, uncompromising in disputes when he thought he was right and entirely honest in his intentions. I am sure all of us have come across such traits among our friends and colleagues. But neither Lowson nor history should accuse any of the people he criticised of mishandling the situation in any way. There was nothing else they could have done without the means that we now have at our disposal and the knowledge of the disease we now possess. Lowson's diary, though covering only the first phase, is undoubtedly a valuable addition to the literature on the Hong Kong Plague Epidemic now that it has become available.\n\nIn recent years, there has been much talk about Hong Kong's resilience, its capacity to recover quickly from one financial crisis after another, becoming even more prosperous each time. We seem to have forgotten Hong Kong's resilience in having survived the devastations of diseases, such as malarial fever in its infancy, bubonic plague in its adolescence, and occasional outbreaks of cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, and others all through the years. There was a time when living in Hong Kong was a hazard, for one never knew when life or health would be threatened. The Plague Epidemic of 1894 was a real calamity for Hong Kong, as Sir William Robinson had said. But it can be regarded as a watershed for, after it, Hong Kong became a healthier and cleaner place. To mark its centenary, let us pay tribute to all those who contributed in the long fight against the Epidemic in their various capacities, as administrators, legislators, and medical and health officers, among them our unsung hero, Dr. J. A. Lowson.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213326, "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-1994", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "130\n\n4\n\nIn postwar Hong Kong, in the winter of 1959-60, a small group of dedicated persons set themselves the task of reestablishing a Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society here. Their initiative met with public support, and the new Branch got off to a good start. Though not a founder member, my own association with it goes back thirty-five years, when I joined in the first year of its existence. I have been an office-bearer for all but the first six years; and during the long period of my government service in Hong Kong and continuing into my retirement, my work with and for the Society has been among the most meaningful and satisfying of all my various activities.\n\nThe task which our founders set themselves was to further the good work done by our predecessors. The keynote address was provided by Professor F.S. Drake in a talk entitled \"The Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task\". We had, he reminded us, received something precious from them and must, in our turn, add to the stock of hard-earned knowledge, handing it down to the next generation. I believe we have done our best to carry out his injunctions. An annual Journal has been published from the outset, with over thirty issues to date, together with a dozen or so \"Occasional Publications\". Though far from being devoted exclusively to Hong Kong, they represent a major contribution to its history, and contain more information on the territory's past than any of their contemporary periodicals, here or overseas. Through another regular activity - our Visits Programme - the Branch has helped members and their friends to broaden their local knowledge and understanding of the place and its people. In these several ways, we have contributed to the stability of Hong Kong over the years and have helped to nurture the growing sense of identity that has characterized its recent development.\n\nHowever, we have to admit that, unlike our Shanghai counterparts, we shall not leave a magnificent premises for our successors. The Hong Kong Branch's modest membership and limited resources have not permitted this. Land and housing have always been very expensive for societies to acquire without government assistance or substantial private or corporate donations, and these have not been forthcoming.\n\nThe RAS Library Collection\n\n7\n\nFrom the outset, following the example set by our two predecessors, it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213554, "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-1995", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "119\n\nadapted This pamphlet, costing a penny or two, was continually in the hands of servants, coolies and shopkeepers. The author was a Chinaman whose ingenuity should immortalize him. I have often wondered who the man was who first reduced the \"outlandish tongue\" to a current language. Red candles should be burnt on altars erected to his memory, and oblations of tea poured out before his image, placed among the wooden gods which in temples surround the shrine of a deified man of letters.\n\nF\n\nAccepting this widely-reported account of the \"Devil's Talk\" pamphlet to be correct, it is easy to understand how the vocabulary became established; after all, to the classically-trained Chinese mind, what appears in print becomes canon law. For fussy English-speakers to correct something which had been laid down in a Chinese textbook would have been no easy undertaking.\n\nBe quite clear on one point. Throughout the period of the Hong merchants and up to Treaty days, Pidgin English was not merely a means of communication between Europeans and their menials. It was a vital tool in a rapidly growing China trade in the southern Chinese ports. Hunter describes his discussions in Pidgin with the famous Hong merchants—How Qua, Ming Qua, and Pan Kei Qua—among the commercial elite of Canton. Hunter also describes one of the commanders of the Tai-Ping Rebels, Ho A-Luh, as speaking very good Pidgin English.\n\nBy the middle of the nineteenth century, China Coast Pidgin had become a well-established medium of communication. From the 1850s on, the restrictions to foreign trade and traders progressively broke down, so that the conditions which had made Pidgin's development a necessity disappeared. But the opportunities for contacts between European and Chinese people increased, and the conventions of the language were well enough engrained that it survived. The young makee-larns gradually progressed in their mastery of English, while the people with transient contacts—tradesmen and servants—picked up where they had left off. In his book “Rambles in Eastern Asia”, B. L. Ball records:\n\n“I saw a Chinaman who spoke good English, and appeared so polite that I stopped a while, and entered into conversation with him.\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213560, "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-1995", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "125\n\nFinally, for English sounds with no corresponding Chinese sound, diacritics are placed alongside the Chinese characters, based on the methods employed by Qian Long in his Manchu dictionaries of the Chinese minority languages.\n\nThe resulting transcription is as accurate and consistent as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Added to this, the translations of Chinese words and phrases are precise and accurate. The American source of Tong's English clearly shows through.\n\nMuch of the material is in the form of extended dialogues covering domestic and trade matters: thus the reader is in the position of being a \"fly on the wall\" during trade negotiations for teas and fabrics in the mid nineteenth century. This in itself is a valuable historical and linguistic resource. But in addition, obviously added as an afterthought, texts in small Chinese characters are included in whatever space is free on each page of dialogues. These texts are the Pidgin English equivalents.\n\nNow you can see what a goldmine this source is: we have extensive recordings of Pidgin dialogues set down by a rigorous and talented linguist, together with their colloquial English and Cantonese equivalents.\n\nThe Chinese Characters used to record the pidgin are not those used to transcribe the standard English. They are taken from a very limited stock of colloquial Cantonese characters: about one hundred are used altogether, as compared with well over five hundred characters and variants used in the main text. This reduced character stock may be the ones used in the original \"Devils' Talk\" pamphlets, which had attained the status of convention (which, as we shall illustrate they still do).\n\nThis is the source which we shall use for our general description of China Coast Pidgin.\n\nWe think it was the demise of employment of Chinese servants among European families which has made pidgin die out in Hong Kong. The Pacific war and the influx of Filipino immigrant labour have done for Pidgin what the mammals did for the dinosaurs. Reading the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213721, "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-1996", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "45\n\nfigures are not strong enough to make any such a drop in population certain, they do make it unlikely that the population was rising fast.\n\nThe reason for the low fertility is probably the practice of late weaning. Oral evidence suggests that boys were not weaned until they could walk and talk, and, in some cases, not until they were 4 or 5 years old, since it was recognised that mother's milk was strengthening. Girls were weaned younger, but still not until after they reached 1 year, in many cases. This must have acted to slow down conception.\n\nSocial Statistics\n\nEducation\n\nThe 1911 Census lists 26,460 males in Northern District of 10 years of age and upwards. It gives the educational attainments of 25,679 males in that district, probably intending this to equate to all males of 10 years old and above, which was specifically the case with the corresponding statistics for the City and floating population in that census. 14,162 males were entered as \"Able to Read and Write\" (55.2%), and 11,517 as \"Unable to read and Write\" (44.8%). Even taking into account the 778 males aged over 10 whose educational attainments are not given, it is clear that significantly over half of the male population reported itself literate. In 1921, the census found even higher levels of male literacy. 17,611 literate males, representing 67.2% of males over 10. The difference is unlikely to be due to increasing literacy, but is probably the result of a more relaxed standard of literacy in 1921.\n\nIn Southern District (including New Kowloon) in 1911 the levels of male literacy among the land population were even higher than in Northern District, presumably reflecting the more urban character of life there. 7,006 males out of 11,652 with educational attainments recorded (60.1%) were \"Able to Read and Write\" (the full total of males there over 10 was 11,859). In 1921, 7,439 males of the Southern District land population (again including New Kowloon) were recorded as \"Able to Read and Write,\" representing 65.7% of males aged over 10.\n\nHowever, if literacy among village males was common, it was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213810, "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-1996", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "134\n\njourney, and paid him 10 cash each for them, and then we came to the boat.\n\nIt was no easy thing to get on board, and as it was my first attempt at a Chinese craft, I was quite disgusted with the affair. After being on deck for a while, I found the two cabins which 5 men were to occupy. Each cabin was about the size of a chest of drawers, and cockroaches and smaller vermin revelled among the dirt. However, there was no help for it. Lechler, who has lived as a Chinaman and previously worn a tail for 10 years, took it all as a matter of course, and seemed quite at his ease. These boats are about 50 feet long, with the stern very high out of the water, and the bow very low. There is one principal mast and sail, which does all the work. In a minute the sail can be hoisted, and in 10 seconds can be lowered. Clumsy as it all is, it is surprising what good sailors Chinamen are. There is no danger if they are left to themselves. They can tack in less than no time. The \"shut kung\" calls out \"chun shun\" and the great sail sweeps round across the deck in a trice. All who are on deck must instantly stoop very low, or they will find themselves lying sprawling on the lee side.\n\nThe arrangements being made we started off in company with 8 other boats belonging to the same firm. Our ship was the chief one, and was named the \"Shoon-lay\" or \"good profit\"; all of them had names meaning gain and profit (all the Chinamen ever think about). We got out of the harbour by the use of the two immense oars or sweeps at the stern, which move the ship along tolerably fast. Then when we were clear of the harbour, we made for \"pirates bay\". The weather was delightful; the sea was very clear; and we went on charmingly with a brisk breeze. Hong Kong at a distance is certainly a fine place. The immense Peak behind the town is a grand spectacle, and the fast increasing colony, with its fine houses on the hillside are beautiful to look at, especially on a clear day, in the sunshine. We had no end of fun among ourselves, and kept a continual fire of jokes at Stringer's dog, which was condemned to be eaten on the voyage. I gave it to a Chinaman and told him to kill it and eat it; much to Stringer's dislike and our amusement.\n\nWe were each armed with a revolver, and each had a stick or something else in case of need; we had, moreover, two double-barrelled guns, with which we now and then let fly at the wild ducks. At three", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214192, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "13\n\nvariety of humour and just talking mo lei tau (nonsense, f). It all adds up to people coming out of a show and feeling good about themselves.\n\nChinese humour\n\nWhereas Westerners have been described as being seriously humorous, Chinese have been said to be 'humorously serious' (Kao, 1946; XVIII). Chinese humour is, by and large, down to earth, with a surfeit of action, with the hero's mother breaking a leg or the bully being beaten up. Much of it may, nevertheless, be, so called, mo lei tau, and include a certain amount of Western style slapstick.\n\nIt was not until the beginning of the 20th century (unlike the West where they became popular two or three centuries earlier) that cartoons became popular in China (Xu, 1989; preface). The reason was largely because China was a semi-feudal society and people did not have freedom to create works of humour and sarcasm. Today, under socialism, works considered 'in poor taste' are often still not accepted for publication. Often cartoons tend to be used as resistance to oppression and, like a dagger or javelin, aimed to do 'battle.' Having said all that, however, many Westerners (as well as many Hong Kong Chinese) believe humour in China is not subtle enough and it does not demand rapid thought. In the main it is straightforward, then there is a pause followed by the punchline.\n\n'Laugh talk' (slapstick), as it is sometimes dubbed, generally goes down well with Chinese, and, between the two World Wars, it is understood that on the first night of a show put on by the family of Sir Run Run Shaw, in Shanghai, an actor, purely by accident, fell through the floorboards. Because this was considered hilarious by the audience, the Shaw showbiz family made it a permanent part of the act.\n\nThe author recalls when he visited Hainan Island, in China in 1987, in an off-the-beaten-track village, a Chinese infant was placed on his shoulder. The child wore standard Chinese shorts, with a longish vertical split in the seat. This conveniently opened automatically when it squatted to do its business. As it sat on the author's shoulder its bare bottom rubbed against his face. What a joke! All the Chinese, espe-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214196, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "17\n\nSome Westerners and Hong Kong Chinese will tell you that Chinese humour on the circumscribed Mainland is not subtle. It is too ... and a great deal of it falls flat on the average European. Although 200 Cartoons from China (Xu, 1989) goes down quite well, in the series of four books Selected Jokes from Past Chinese Dynasties only about four per cent of the jokes appeal to the author's sense of humour. An exception is:\n\nA father and son were both fond of the bottle and one night they were both staggering back home. On entering the gate the father said: 'Strange! Why do you have three faces? You look neither like a ghost nor a man. I'll never leave my house to you.' The son replied, 'I don't want such a rickety, revolving house anyway' (1997; vol. 4, joke 86)! To give another example of the more simple humour on the Mainland. The sound 'wok', in Chinese, can mean either a Chinese round-bottom frying pan or 'trouble' or 'problem.' Thus a large trading company with a television 'dish' (wok) on the roof is known in Guangzhou as the ‘Trouble Company.' This more direct form of humour, common in Guangdong, contrasts with the complicated humour which requires a person to use his 'grey matter' more.\n\nFor instance Nury Vittachi, Hong Kong journalist, author and part-time comedian, writes that he believes what he calls 'personality humour' works best with Westerners. In such cases the comic goes into his role and recreates a conversation with his mother-in-law, the taxi driver, or whoever. This does not always work, says Nury, with Asians who prefer more direct, straightforward, 'Man goes into a bar' approach.\n\nBut Hong Kong, as opposed to China, is a relatively small place with western influences. As Harry Wong, the talk-show host and co-median of Metro Broadcasting said: 'In this city-state (Hong Kong) people are short of time. There is a ‘combat' situation and people have a better command of English. Western-style Rotary, Round Table clubs and the like, with their style of humour, are common. Put all this juxtaposition to Chinese humour, including films made in Hong Kong often consisting of vulgar, triad language, and obvious jokes with excessive action, and you have a peculiar mix' (Bolton, 1997; 300). Such exaggeration, found for instance in Chinese films, contrasts with much of the British humour which often relies on understatements. Some", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214202, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "23\n\nYet mime performer, Philip Fok Tat-chiu, who worked for the Hong Kong Government before emigrating to Australia as recently as 1992, although a relative newcomer, seems to have made a success of his life 'Down Under.' The greats in the field of mime include Sid Caesar, the contemporary French master Marcel Marceau and, of course, Charlie Chaplin himself (Lee, 1999).\n\nAnother form of entertainment, Chinese 'cross-talking' (‘double voice' as it is known in Cantonese,) is much like American vaudeville. It needs one serious performer with a deadpan face and one comic to deliver the punchline. Acting out 'sketches,' like those performed by Ho Bo-man and Chou Chi-hung in Guangzhou, using every-day hilarious situations with rapid-fire exchange, amount very much to the art of language and repartee (Cheung, 1996:5). Slang is important. Jokes can be about portable telephones, which no self-respecting person-about-town can manage without, or about climbing up the beam of a torch (flashlight) in the dark. Isn't it slippery and dangerous? What happens when I switch the torch off?! Maybe the banter is stupid, but gags like these can serve a useful purpose. They can help motivate people,' says comedian Harry Wong of Metro Radio. 'Something useful can come out of such jokes.'\n\nAfter the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) ended the 'Gang of Four' was a popular target for 'quick-fire twosome' acts in China, although many tried (and still try) to steer clear of politics. But unless one possesses an extremely good knowledge of Cantonese there is limited chance of a European understanding a great deal of this rapid-fire talk. In fact at a Chinese banquet, with one European and the remainder Chinese, when the conversation is in rapid-fire Cantonese interlaced with slang, if the gwailo appreciates six out of 10 jokes he or she is not doing at all badly.\n\nOf course there are jokes which people of most nationalities, if they can grasp the language, can laugh at. Like the chap in northern China who always ate at a government canteen.\n\n'All the time cabbage!' he nagged, 'cabbage, cabbage, cabbage! 'Can't you give us a choice?'\n\n'Of course you can have a choice,' came the chef's reply.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214212, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "33\n\nThen there is another tale which goes as follows (Giles, 1925: Joke64): A Chinese chess player was proud of his ability, although on one occasion he lost three games in a row. The next day a friend asked him how he got on. 'I didn't win the first game,' he replied, and my opponent didn't lose the second.' 'As to the last game, I asked him to agree to a draw but he wouldn't.' Many Westerners talk as if face, which really amounts to 'worth' in the eyes of others, is only important to Asians. U Thant, the Burmese diplomat who was made Permanent Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1962, was fond of saying: 'Face is very important to Europeans.' While the author does not disagree, it would appear Asians place even more emphasis on it than do Westerners.\n\nMuch has been made recently by the media about senior civil servants not being tolerant of Radio Television Hong Kong's political satire when the foolishness of the establishment has been highlighted in an amusing way (Yeung, 1998a). It amounts to what is accepted (especially in the West) as good clean fun being taken seriously by some Hong Kong government servants (Yeung, 1998b). It largely boils down to the fact that, when the joke is on them and they lose face, civil servants are unable to accept it in good heart.\n\nAlthough a bit of a struggle at first, many Japanese politicians have now, apparently, learned more recently to accept criticism, passing it off by describing it as a form of 'art' and saying the attention he receives shows that he must be popular.10 'After all, we do not criticise those who we do not think much of, but we do criticise those who we love and esteem.'\n\nWhen China's President, Jiang Zemin, visited Hong Kong in 1998, a photograph in the Hong Kong Standard, on July 1, showed him travelling in the back of a car with his seat-belt unbuckled. Most Europeans (and some more westernised Chinese too) took this as good, mischievous fun. A letter in the same newspaper, on July 5 from a Chinese living in the United States, however, asked whether, if during colonial days a member of the British Royal Family who was visiting Hong Kong, or a British governor were caught not wearing a seat-belt, whether it would have been publicised (and by implication made fun of) in a similar way. This Overseas Chinese felt it was wrong to publish the photograph of Jiang Zemin in the Standard. In fairness, of course, until", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214305, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "127\n\nMongolia during the next few years, the last being in 1915 and then wrote his book Fur and Feather in North China. In the autumn of 1915 he went over to meet his brother and sister, both missionaries in Sian, and took the opportunity to seek more specimens in the Ch'ingling range to the south of the city.\n\nDuring this period President Yuan Shih-kai's soldiers mutinied in Peking, and there was talk of Chinese troops in the Chinese city of Tientsin being in an ugly mood. Sowerby, having learned of the potential for trouble, went to discuss the matter with the Military Intelligence Officer of the British Garrison in Tientsin who then ensured that the Garrison was alert and properly guarded. Although expatriates were safe in the European quarters of the city the Chinese city of Tientsin suffered that night from mutineers on the rampage. The rioting was brought under control by the police together with the soldiers who did not mutiny and Sowerby, who had gone with a friend to see what was going on, watched something, he later wrote, that he could never forget.\n\nRR Sowerby [possibly a relative] explained in his short biography of Arthur Sowerby that Arthur travelled back to England during the first World War with the intention of joining the forces. He had already been told while still in China that his chronic arthritis, caused by exposure during expeditions to Manchuria, gave him no chance of success but despite this he went and \"to his disgust he was immediately posted to the Chinese Labour Corps [CLC] as there was urgent need of officers who could speak the language.\" As this Corps was not formed until 1917 and did not reach France until late that year it would seem that Arthur did not make his way to England until 1917 or even 1918. It would also appear from correspondence that he had already been involved with the Corps before, in Shantung, again from R R Sowerby: \"He had been anxious to avoid the CLC, having already had all he wanted of it, recruiting coolies in Shantung...\" He was posted to the Staff of the CLC base at Noyelles near Abbeville where he was involved in court-martial, criminal investigations and other similar duties but was soon struck down by another attack of arthritis and sent to hospital where he met up with his brother, now a major with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Some time later Sowerby heard that his brother had been gassed at Passchendaele and unlikely to live. In the event he recovered but his lungs were permanently damaged. Arthur was demobilised in 1919 and for one whole year settled down in England.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214411, "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": 269, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "235\n\nrecently went to Siam, where he successfully concluded a trade treaty, and was now preparing for publication an account of the Siamese kingdom. His son has assembled a fine collection of insects of the local area and continues to add to it. Dr. Harland has undertaken to compile a complete fauna of Hong Kong, while Dr. Lorraine has a large collection of shells, gathered by him during his travels in America and India. Mr. Wade, the Chinese Secretary, has an impressive Chinese library and is involved in the study of the history of the reigning Chinese dynasty and informed me of a plan he had to compile a Chinese dictionary; only this plan is so immense, that one man would hardly be able to realize it. Well, that is all I know about the learned pursuits of certain individuals, living in Hong Kong. Much, undoubtedly, is undertaken in the privacy of a study and will only become known on completion. I have not said anything of the labours of missionaries: but they, on the whole, don't like to talk about their affairs. I only know, that of those living in Hong Kong many intensively study the Chinese language, not only themselves but their wives too, and I think that one can expect finer seedlings from the preaching of the latter by reason of the greater receptivity of the female nature.\n\nAs for literary works, apart from several translations of holy books, every year treatises appear in Chinese and not only theological treatises, but others, which reveal to the Chinese much useful European knowledge and the latest inventions. Perhaps some of these treatises came from the pen of one of the Hong Kong missionaries. One of them, Mr. LOBSCHEID, is constantly within the Chinese border, about fifteen miles from Hong Kong, where he is engaged in practising medicine, and to those that come to him for cures from their bodily ills, he doesn't fail to point out their spiritual infirmities as well, and the only way to rid themselves of them. I had already met him in Japan, when he was on the American ship Pageton, and now saw him again in Hong Kong, where he had come for a short time. I received from him as a gift the Japanese translation of several books of the New Testament, done by whom I don't know, but as far as I do know, not quite comprehensible to the Japanese. And so, hardly had the Japanese opened a number of their ports to foreigners before the missionaries had prepared the most essential material for their conversion. One cannot demand perfection at the first attempt: it is sufficient to make some sort of inroad; in time it will become more and more even, and improved.\n\nTo the charitable organizations of the town belong the hospital", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214759, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "138 \n\nThe Diary \n\nSunday 7/12/41. Much talk about war with Japan but no one seems to think anything will happen. We, the RAF in Hong Kong, are a very small crowd; seven officers and sixty men with five aircraft, two Walrus and three Vildebeeste. Group Captain Horry sails for Singapore on the Ullyses leaving Wing Commander Sullivan as our CO. I have the doubtful honour of being IC of our one and only flight and have three other pilots FO Gray, or Dolly, who is also signals officer, FO Baugh, or Whimpey, equipment officer, PO Crossley, or Junior, a New Zealander just arrived from Singapore and with very little flying experience. PO Thomson the Colonel, our adjutant, is a VR who came to Kai Tak with me from Singapore last June. Finally we have an Australian, PO Hennessy, just arrived from Singapore to start a fighter operations room. The joke is that everything is being prepared for the arrival of fighters but they are not expected for a month. With only five obsolete aircraft and one aerodrome our prospects are not rosy and it looks as if we might finish up in the army if war comes to Hong Kong. During the day the news gets worse and all precautions are taken, everyone being confined to camp. I take a Vildebeeste with full bomb load on a test climb during which I try to imagine where would be the best place to drop them and what would be my chances if attacked by fighters. But everything is peaceful and Hong Kong looks quite beautiful far beneath. We park the Walrus on the water and disperse the Beests but what wonderful targets they make. The 2nd Battalion Royal Scots and two battalions of Rajputs and Punjabis are in their positions in the New Territories, the island being defended by two battalions of Canadians raw recruits, and, only just arrived, the Middlesex Battalion man the coast defences. Finally the volunteers, four thousand Europeans, Chinese, Portuguese etc. Our Navy has one destroyer, ten MTB's and a few gunboats. Not a very formidable force especially as we shall be completely cut off from outside help and our food and ammunition supply is only sufficient for a hundred days. Still everyone seems cheerful. I am duty officer and wonder if I shall get any sleep. \n\nMonday 8th. I am disturbed early as the Colonial Secretary rings up to say that war with Japan is imminent. Hell there goes my sleep and I wake the other officers. Over breakfast we are told that we are at war with Japan. We dash down to flights just in time to hear an ominous roar of planes and nine bombers escorted by over thirty fighters", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214771, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "150\n\nthrough. Get some soya beans which help the rice down. Junior falls down and nearly breaks his leg.\n\nSixteenth. Start Japanese lessons. Florrie arrives again and this time I'm lucky. Whimpey gets a blue mood and refuses to talk to anyone.\n\nSeventeenth. Florrie's amah arrives with more food.\n\nEighteenth. Sentries wire up streets facing camp and shoot a man and a woman for trying to sell food. Florrie turns up again but can't get her parcel through, what a girl. Two Chinese bodies washed up near fence. Everyone feeling weaker due to lack of proper food. Rumours and counter rumours so contradictory that I don't believe anything. Some real news would make such a difference.\n\nNineteenth. Now get three meals of rice a day but quantity the same. Rice by itself is awful muck, but we save our small stock of milk and sugar for our evening tea. Over hundred men arrive from Queen Mary's hospital.\n\nTwentieth. More men arrive in lorries, some unable to walk, and dressed only in pyjamas and socks. Troops give a concert including dance band. Cigarettes very scarce.\n\nTwenty first. Fight between Middlesex and Indians. Rice ration very short.\n\nTwenty second. All Indians moved out of camp. Canadians being moved tomorrow, destination unknown.\n\nTwenty third. Disturbed early by troops detailed for work at Kai Tak, a three-mile walk, wonder how they will make out on the diet.\n\nTwenty fourth. Navy are moved from the camp and we are going into Jubilee Buildings. Usual mad scramble for accommodation. Wing gets peeved with Brigadier McCleod and tells him a few things. News is that we have withdrawn in Malaya and that there's a rumpus at home about HK and Malaya, and quite rightly too as both places were very weak in defences, especially aircraft, and men have had to fight against overwhelming odds. We all hope these blunders will soon be rectified.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214934, "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-2000", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "The above activities need arranging and it is good to report that the well-known discerning committee members, whose addresses, telephone numbers and e-mails are attached, play a vital part in bringing us all together. There have been two changes in the committee since last year. Mrs. Julie Barry has decided that she can no longer continue as treasurer and membership secretary. Julie was very instrumental in helping to set up the Friends three years ago and for this we are very grateful. Mr. Roger Chandler has bravely taken on this mantle. The Friends have not in the past had an official secretary and it is a pleasure that Mr. Paul Boulding has been persuaded to do this. No report, however, can be complete without recording the Friends' sincere thanks to Mrs. Rosemary Lee and Mrs. Anita Wilson for the way they help to arrange activities and prepare the newsletter.\n\nThe future of the Friends looks promising. Financially we are in the black and we number at present around 70 members. We would number more if all paid their annual subscription! In the more immediate future, there is still the possibility of visiting Chinese war graves in Northern France. We also look forward to our own annual general meeting on 26 May at SOAS when we will have the opportunity of having a talk by Mr. Anthony Lawrence, who needs little introduction to all members and friends. In the summer we will be fortunate to have Dr. Patrick Hase to lead us on an expedition to the South Coast area based around Salisbury where there are reported to be considerable number of Chinese agricultural implements in the (Salisbury) museum. If any Hong Kong members are in the U.K. for any of these events do please get in touch with any member of the committee and join us.\n\nI cannot close this report without a note of sincere regret on the standing down of our President Dr. Dan Waters. The society has flourished to greater heights and influence, and from the U.K. we can only admire what he has been able to achieve through his own expertise. We wish him all the best in his \"retirement.\" At the same time we welcome his successor, Dr. Patrick Hase, and are confident that the society will continue to be in good hands.\n\nDAVID GILKES, Chairman\n\n28 February 2001\n\nxxix\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215025, "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-2000", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "77\n\nAppendix A to CLC In France\n\nI was fortunate to receive a letter from Mrs. C M. Gibb, who now lives in Glasgow, with recollections of her short stay at Noyelles when her father was serving with the CLC.\n\nHer father, John M. Morrison, was called up in 1916 and trained with the Scottish Rifles. He was commissioned and stationed in Glasgow where he was fortunate enough to live at home. For the final battles of the war he was found to be unfit for active service and was posted to the CLC. [see photograph] With Mrs Gibb's kind permission, I can do no better than quote her letter dated 28 February, 2001, in full.\n\nMy father, John M. Morrison, was a lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry and from the spring of 1918 until the late summer of 1919 was with No 8 CLC. My father's tartan trews and glengarry fascinated the Chinese. They pronounced his name as 'Modarn.' In the summer of 1919 the British officers were allowed to bring their families out to France and as a small girl of seven I spent nearly four weeks (from August 17th to September 10th) with my father, mainly so far as I remember at Noyelles. I remember being introduced to the Chinese who seemed to me to be enormous men with very large grins, and I also remember my mother and I watching them from the hotel marching away carrying the goods they had bought (one man was marching with a very large gilt bird cage). A senior British officer with red tabs was also watching with tears rolling down his cheeks, he had spent much of his life in China and called the Chinese his 'children.'\n\nWhen my father used to talk in later life about his time with the Chinese he expressed nothing but admiration for them, and gave the impression that he and the other British officers regarded the Chinese as being superior both physically and mentally to any of the other labour units either European or non-European. The interpreter with No. 8 CLC was a Mr. Wong who came from Shanghai and spoke a number of languages. Much to the amusement of my father's Commanding Officer, Captain Greenhill, Mr. Wong was not only essential for communicating with the Chinese but also for communicating with the French. The Cook was a very experienced and gifted man who was stolen by a visiting...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215256, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "We were particularly fortunate in our next event, which took place in August 2001 in Salisbury, to visit the Cathedral and the Salisbury museum where we also heard a lecture by Patrick Hase on 'Traditional South China Agriculture.' To find this latter combination, i.e. Patrick in Salisbury in August and South China agricultural instruments in the Salisbury museum, may appear somewhat far-fetched; however, by the end of the fascinating and extremely well researched lecture and a visit to the museum to actually see the agricultural instruments, which formed part of the Pitts River ethnographic collection, there was no doubt that all members had experienced a day well worth it. Our sincere thanks go to Patrick for giving us his time and for educating us on a subject about which most of us knew absolutely nothing.\n\nThe Friends have for some time been trying to arrange a tour to Northern France to view the World War I battlefields, and in particular the Chinese Connection, when around 100,000 Chinese labourers were brought over from the Far East to support the war effort behind the lines. A number of them died in the process and are buried in the cemeteries. For various reasons the trip has not taken place except by the inveterate few, but we were fortunate in having the next best thing, i.e. a talk by Brian Fawcett, which took place on Saturday, 1st December 2001. Brian has been researching the Chinese Labour Corps for some time and the Friends were particularly fortunate to hear the results of his research and to see a short video/film of First World War relevant events. The fruits of his labour have recently been published in the 40th volume of the Journal of the Society, and Radio 4 in the U.K. will shortly be giving a half-hour programme on the subject.\n\nAnd our programme did not end there. Recently, on 16th February 2002, forty-five members and guests sat down to celebrate the incoming Year of the Horse at the Joy King Lau Chinese restaurant. Not only did we welcome Dr. Patrick Hase and his wife Aileen, who were fortunately in the U.K. again, but we also had Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Bailey (Bill), who was the first Chairman of the Hong Kong Arts Centre in the 1970's and 1980's, and was very supportive of the Society when it was a Constituent Member of the Arts Centre.\n\nNow, however, we are preparing ourselves for our next far-flung visit at the end of April to take place in Cornwall, when about twenty-five members will visit the Gardens (Caerhays, Trewithen, Pine Lodge,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215484, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "210\n\nSomewhat of a surprise\n\nA group of 15-year-old girls took a very giggly interest in us and were keen to talk to us using their excellent English. They must have been accustomed to the usual banal questions from tourists: Were you born here? Where do you go to school? Do you study English at school? But there was one answer that we were not prepared for. Question: 'Do you find English easy?' Answer: 'Oh, somewhat.' Somewhat?? Forsooth!\n\nSome of the paths between the houses were cobbled, the trees had been recently pollarded, and the stream was rushing along, reminding us that we had to do likewise. A couple of hours had us back at the hotel, wondering if there would be electricity or would they have to turn on the generator again, with its engine sounding like that of a Spitfire. I don't know about the others, but I managed to get my wood-burning stove going. I had found the secret! I asked a member of the hotel staff to come and do it for me. This she did in a trice with the aid of some candle wood. This is the natural wood of the candlewood pine, or blue pine, and once lit it flares into life with happy ferocity.\n\nOne of the highlights of Day 7, a Saturday and the day we started heading back to Paro, was to be a visit to the remote and beautiful Phubjikha Valley, one of the few sites in Bhutan where the rare black-necked cranes winter over from their summer home on the high Tibetan plateau. We had not been en route for more than five minutes before there was a loud cry from the back of the 'bus. 'Cranes!!!' The engineers amongst us became excited for a moment, but the cranes turned out to be the black-necked variety and they were pecking at the ground not far from the road, stocking up for the long flight home. It is remarkable that these creatures make a long flight every year and always come back to the same spot in Bhutan. But Brian and Felicity do that as well, so it can't be that remarkable.\n\nOur route took us back over the 11,835 feet Yutong-la pass and down to Trongsa, where the Trongsa Dzong was awaiting our inspection, from the inside this time. Originally built in 1543, but repaired and added to many times since, this fortress occupies an extremely commanding position, perhaps as well if one's job is to collect taxes and generally subdue the neighbouring population. And it still exercises", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215907, "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": 206, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "140\n\nSeated in the front row are the other guest speakers for the day: Dr. Patrick Hase, a member of the conference organising committee and RAS Council member, who will talk about Shatin and its development from a village to a city; Reverend Carl Smith, the honorary vice-president, who will talk about his 40 years of research in Hong Kong, and Mr. Tim Ko, an organising committee member and Council member, who has prepared a slide presentation about living in Hong Kong from 1960 to 1980. Also listening attentively is Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, vice-president of the RAS, convenor of the conference and mistress of ceremonies for the day.\n\nI sit near the front to get better video of the proceedings, but it's dark in the hall and other than Dr. Waters, I realise I won't be able to capture any of the audience's faces. I direct my camera in their direction anyway, just in case, or maybe just to let them know they'd be wise not to doze off.\n\nThis was in December 2000, when the one-day conference was presented jointly with the Hong Kong Museum of History. Waters has since stepped down from the presidency he held for four and a half years, during which Hong Kong was handed back to the motherland.\n\nAn old hand's reflection...\n\nI met Waters for the first time a month before the conference at his home on Conduit Road. He greeted me at the door and he was just as I had imagined from our telephone conversations. He is a tall man with a strong presence. He has perfect posture and his movements are quick. Waters holds the 800m and 1500m local running records in the over 70 category. He has a full head of hair although the colour has changed from when he was a young man; the only other hint of his advanced years is that he's a bit hard of hearing.\n\nHe takes me to the study and has had his maid prepare a glass of orange drink for me. I haven't had orange drink from powder something like Tang since early childhood,\n\n-\n\nWhat do I want to know? he asks. What do I want to know? I ask myself. I really want to find out if the Royal Asiatic Society is as snobby as it sounds, maybe. But no, I don't ask that...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215910, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "143\n\nUntil recently the journals have been housed in the RAS collection in the City Hall Library. They are part of the 4,000 volumes of publications — including very rare books — on Asian studies, bought by or donated to the Society. Members can borrow the books and the public is invited to use them for reference. The collection now sits in the new Central Library in Causeway Bay, which opened in May 2001.\n\nWaters has published extensively in the journal and contributed to other publications by the RAS, including a book on Yau Ma Tei.\n\n\"I had been interested in local history all my life. When I was a child in England, when my father or some others talked about local history, my ears used to prick up straight away and I used to listen. And as a rule, I can remember it all.\"\n\n**\n\nWaters has done best financially with a series of textbooks for learning technical English but one publication that may be most impressive, is a paper for his Ph.D., which he got at the age of 65 from Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.\n\n\"I wanted a challenge and it was a challenge, and I overcame the challenge. I can remember a young Chinese friend of mine saying... when you get to the age of 30 you can't study, you can't concentrate... Well, I mean I could show him that's rubbish. I can concentrate, I can still concentrate.\"\n\nBeyond the Metropolis...\n\nThe first speaker at the 40th anniversary conference is Dr. Patrick Hase. He would become Society president in three months.\n\nHase is a stocky man, with wavy brown hair. A bit of grey around the temples hints at his age. His talk is on Sha Tin in the New Territories and the early development of the new town.\n\nHistorical slides flash on screen from way before the new town was established, and more slides chronicling the development of the area follow, one by one. There's a lot of interesting history being shared but the dimmed lights and such an early hour has put a number of the audience into a dream state...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216099, "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": 398, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "332\n\nSir Robert had a wonderful funeral procession with 16 bands. In those days popular tunes at Chinese funerals were; Abide with me, Polly Wolly Doodle all the Day, and Yes, we have no Bananas! They were good, rousing tunes and most Chinese did not understand the words anyway. Bamboo ramps were a common sight in the 1950s to bring coffins and corpses down to street level. Ramps disappeared with traffic congestion and with the introduction of high-rise buildings, about 1960. Major Chinese festivals occur in the calendar when there are marked changes of seasons. People are then likely to feel \"under the weather.\" When the body is at a low ebb a sick person is more likely to die. In 1956, it was said that Sir Robert had “passed over\" Ching Ming and should be able to carry on at least to Dragon Boat Festival. However, it was not to be.\n\nIn March 1955 I had managed to obtain a government quarter at 56 Conduit Road. At the time it resembled a quiet country lane, gay with flowers, where you could occasionally hear barking deer calling from Victoria Peak. A few people were still carried up to Mid-Levels by sedan chairs which, until the end of the fifties, were parked at the bottom of Wyndham Street.\n\nI engaged a Chinese amah to whom I paid $130 a month. She spoke Pidgin English and talked of \"going topside” when she meant going upstairs. Indeed some of us old Hong Kong hands still use pidgin expressions. I, for example, still talk of a makee-learn, for someone learning a job, and I say small chow when I mean canapés which are provided at receptions. A Chinese colleague complained that, at $130, I was overpaying my amah. He gave his $70 a month. He also said that his amah had no time off. If she had anything important to do she would request a few hours off work. Several people had gold teeth in those days and the saying was that one should have enough gold in one's mouth to pay for one's funeral. The present-day, gold-coloured building, at Admiralty, is nicknamed the \"Amah's Tooth.\"\n\nWhen I first lived in Conduit Road there were a number of quite palatial mansions standing in their own grounds, often with tennis courts, in the Mid-levels. One example was the house on the site, at No.41, on which I live today. The old building was demolished in the mid-1960s. From 1951 to '61 it was occupied by the Foreign Correspondents' Club (FCC). The film, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, based on Han", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216107, "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": 406, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "340\n\nand the 1967 Riots. The former were sparked by a five-cent increase on the lower deck of the Star Ferry. Nevertheless, the root cause was largely the community's displeasure with social conditions, shortage of schools, housing, and the like. It was reported that in 1966 in the district of Tsz Wan Shan, in Kowloon, with a population then of 70,000, there was not a single telephone. The Kai Fong Association requested that at least a few public phones be installed. Soldiers marched down Nathan Road with fixed bayonets during the 1966 Riots. The protracted 1967 riots were a spill-over from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. Firecrackers were banned from then on. The military kept in the background during the 1967 Riots because of fear that China might react. The riots badly affected community stability and, in 1968, office space in Chung King Mansions, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was advertised at 60 cents a square foot.\n\nThe 1966 and 1967 riots were really a watershed. From then on, the government started to listen to the populace more. Social conditions improved, and Hong Kong started a process of de-colonisation. In 1972, government servants were instructed to use the word 'territory' rather than 'colony', other than in a historical context. The Colonial Cemetery became the Hong Kong Cemetery, and so on. A Hong Kong identity and a larger middle class began to form.\n\nIt is interesting to recall that the sparks which ignited the 1956, the 1966, and the 1967 riots all occurred in Kowloon. Hong Kong Island has generally been a more peaceful place. That was why, when I came to the colony in the mid-1950s and there was talk of building a cross-harbour tunnel or a bridge, some Hong Kong Island residents expressed fear, if this happened, of being 'swamped' by 'hordes' from Kowloon.\n\nCorruption\n\nCorruption had long been a serious concern in Hong Kong, and, as the Territory became richer, the problem became more serious. When a colleague of mine said there was a price for everything, our old boss soon shut him up. That was part of the trouble. Most Europeans did not appreciate the magnitude of the problem. I recall a Chinese girl telling me, in 1955, that her grandfather had been caught by a policeman smoking opium. The old man gave the copper $20, and the whole matter was conveniently forgotten about. Squeeze affected the Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216287, "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-2003", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "2003 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE FRIENDS OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH OF\n\nTHE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (UK)\n\nAlthough the number of Friends' activities during the past year cannot compete with those in Hong Kong, it is nevertheless pleasing to report that the quarterly meetings which have taken place have been of a very high standard. They started in May 2003 with a bold and forthright talk by Dr. Francis Wood, entitled 'Marco Polo and Me.' Dr. Wood is curator of Chinese Collections at the British Library and author of 'Did Marco Polo Go To China?' and 'No Dogs, Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port Life in China 1843-1943.' Her talk was very convincing and one was left in no doubt that there are still many unanswered questions about Marco Polo's trips to China.\n\nThe second event took 35 Friends to Bath and Bristol for two days in early October, 2003. Bath has an excellent Museum of East Asian Art, originally set up by Mr. Brian McElney, who lived in Hong Kong for many years in the 1960s and 70s. He became a well-known collector of Chinese artefacts. The museum now houses a wide range of Far Eastern art, including items from South Korea and Japan. Our visit coincided with the very well presented exhibition 'Death and Burial: The Chinese and the Afterlife.' The Friends were particularly impressed by the emphasis on education and the museum's outreach to local schools. The day ended with a very authentic Chinese meal at the Cathay Rendezvous in Bristol.\n\nThe following morning the Friends met at the Empire and Commonwealth Museum, which was opened in Bristol three years ago, with a great deal of local and overseas backing, including the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It was particularly pleasing to see Dr. Dan Waters' name inscribed in the entrance hall. The exhibition portrayed in very enlightened and balanced ways a history of the Commonwealth countries, as seen by many of the local people who lived there. The items on display showed that the build-up of Empire and Commonwealth was a remarkable achievement, but there were clearly some aspects which did not come up to the high ideals many expected - this precipitated a lively topic for discussion during the lunch that followed after the visit and the subsequent river cruise through the old town of Bristol.\n\nxlvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216485, "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-2003", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "194\n\nThe move to China\n\nWhether his meeting with Archibald Little in the Oriental Club in London in 1899 was accidental as contended by some, or whether it was arranged by one or other of them is a matter of conjecture. The meeting itself was important to both of them. Archibald Little, an Imperial entrepreneur with an ambition to be the first to establish a regular passenger and steam service in the Upper Yangtse, was back in the UK to supervise the building of a paddle steamer designed for the task. He also needed an experienced and professional river pilot to command it. Cornell Plant needed just such employment. He must have been enthralled by Little's description of the great river, its problems and its dangers. The undoubted difficulties that Plant had overcome on the Karun River were trivial in comparison with the many natural hazards that existed in the Upper Yangtse that some claimed to make it the most dangerous river in the world. The annual snow melt in the high mountains and the seasonal rainfall over the whole area combined to produce variations in the height of water of as much as 150 feet - a scarcely believable phenomenon to a deep sea sailor. Plant was used to rocks, rapids and river water turbulence, but not the standing whirlpools, the moving whirlpools, the sudden holes that appeared in deep water and the rapidly changing nature of the river bed with every new rush of water down the feeder rivers of the great Yangtse Kiang. The talk must have whetted his professional appetite to such an extent that he even joined Little on his trip to Denny's of Glasgow where the new paddle steamer, the Pioneer, was being built. The result of their meeting was that Cornell Plant joined Archibald Little in China and took command of the Pioneer on her voyage up through the gorges, the first truly successful trip by a commercial vessel driven by steam.\n\nPostscript\n\nThis is the story of how Captain Samuel Cornell Plant came to be in China. His career as a trader, river pilot and finally Senior River Inspector of the Upper Yangtse is well covered in the article by AC Bromfield and Rosemary Lee. They also tell of the tragedy that occurred when Captain and Mrs Plant were on their way home on leave in 1921 accompanied by two young Chinese girls they were thought to have adopted.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]