[ { "id": 204536, "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-1963", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "12\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nas the season was over all foreigners had to leave Canton and return to their barbarian homes. It mattered not to the Chinese officials that it was a physical impossibility for the foreigners to go to their homes on the other side of the world and be back again in time for the next trading season. When the ships sailed from Whampoa, the Factories at Canton closed, and the merchant staff called Writers, Factors and Supercargoes, all left too. They went as far as Macao, and while the cargo laden ships sailed on to Europe, the merchants waited there for the coming of the next season's ships.\n\nOne other restriction that we must mention is that no European women were allowed to go up river at all, so the annual expulsion of the men from Canton was really not so very hard to bear for most people. It meant reunion with one's wife and family for those married men whose families were in Macao, and the pleasure of European female company for the bachelors. Macao was thus the foreigners' home away from home. They worked strenuously in isolation in Canton while the season lasted, and then between seasons they repaired to the more natural abode of the families in the only equivalent of a health and holiday resort that the Far East then knew. Social life in Macao was strenuous, especially for women folk who were few in number; many of the men were either bachelors or grass widowers and for approximately six months in each year, they had very little official work to do at all; at any rate this was certainly true for the juniors.\n\nAnother significant fact which had important implications was that the Chinese, at the time of which I speak, recognized only one foreign official body other than the Portuguese- namely the British East India Company, and they made all the official contacts with the other nationalities through the controlling body of this Company in Canton -the Select Committee. As may well be imagined, this situation led to difficulties between the British and the various other foreign communities whose trade with China had increased tremendously towards the end of the eighteenth century. This was particularly true of the new maritime power, the United States of America. After their independence, the Americans were naturally no longer willing to depend on the British shipping for their foreign trade; Britain made it particularly difficult for them to retain any of their trade with their former sister colonies in the West Indies, and they were thus forced to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206780, "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-1973", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\n51\n\nthe Chinese more than all the rest of the British warships put together,\n\nChinese opposition to steamships was overborne after the First China War, and in the years between then and the Second China War 1857-1858, steam navigation in China was established on a secure foundation. During the first two decades of steam, American ships were as prominent as British on the Canton River and on the coast, and sometimes more technically efficient. This was largely because the Americans made good use of their experience on the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers, and also because their early steamships were designed specially for coastal and river conditions. Many of the early British steamships were merely sailing ships equipped with engines.\n\nThe earliest American steamers were associated with Russell and Company, and Robert Benet Forbes was the man mainly responsible for bringing most of these early steamships to China. The first was the Midas, built at East Boston in 1844, which was the first American steamship to round the Cape of Good Hope, as well as being the first to be seen in China. The Midas arrived at Hong Kong on 21st May 1845, and was put on a twice weekly service between Hong Kong and Canton, the first regular steamship service in China. She also engaged in towing and salvage work, which was usually more profitable than carrying passengers or cargo; so that the advertised regular sailings were often more honoured in the breach than in the observance.\n\nThe Midas was followed by the wooden screw bark Edith, also built at East Boston, which arrived at Macao on 2nd September 1845 and Hong Kong a few days later. The Edith was originally intended to run in the opium trade between India and China, but plans were changed and she was loaded with general cargo for Shanghai. Bad weather and engine trouble foiled two attempts to make this passage, and the Edith was eventually sent back to Boston via Rio de Janeiro, reconditioned at Boston and then chartered to the United States War Department.\n\nIn 1846 Forbes sent the small 20 ton screw steamer Firefly on another ship to Hong Kong, and put her in service between Hong Kong and Whampoa until 1849, usually making two trips daily. She was withdrawn in 1849 and sent to California by sailing ship.\n\nIn 1846 Jardines were successful in inaugurating the first British steamship service on the river, with the Corsair between Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213550, "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": 146, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "115\n\nIn the early seventeenth century, according to Dr Batalha, Portuguese had attained the status of a lingua-franca around the coasts of Africa and southern Asia, including Malacca. The resident population of Macau in 1563, according to Montalto de Jesus, comprised some 900 Portuguese, excluding children, with some thousands of Malays, Indians and Africans mostly domestic slaves. A creole dialect was already established among these groups, based on pre-renaissance Portuguese. This dialect was spoken by the Portuguese residents of Macau in addition to native \"metropolitan\" Portuguese.\n\nIn the period from 1550 to 1650, xenophobia among Chinese officialdom was very gradually overcome by a desire to import foreign goods and to exploit the market for Chinese silk, spices, porcelain and decorative articles. In the early days of Macau, Chinese who wished to work or carry on business there had to enter in the morning and leave the enclave through the border gate before sun-down. (Whether this requirement was laid down by the Chinese or the Portuguese is not clear.)\n\nDuring this period of Portuguese-Chinese trade, we speculate that the existence of an Indo-Portuguese creole spoken among a population, many of whom would have had long contact with Chinese settlers in south-east Asia, would have allowed ample opportunities for translation between Chinese and Portuguese traders. Demands on the Chinese traders to learn Portuguese would have been minimal.\n\nThe Honourable East India Company was founded in 1600, and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. In the 1650s, the first vessels of the United East India Company were coming to Canton to do trade. These fundamentally English-speaking traders were faced with a different order of problems.\n\nTheir exposure to the Far East at that time had not been long enough to permit the establishment of a lingua-franca. The low volume of trade between China and the North European traders up until the early eighteenth century was no doubt supported by translation services by Malays who had had exposure to the Chinese language.\n\nHowever, in the early seventeen hundreds, the demand for China trade rose dramatically, and this laid the ground for the development", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 } ]