[ { "id": 204460, "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-1962", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES \n\n81\n\nweddings and funerals, repairs to the ancestral temple, and so on. In \n\nAnother and less formal method of securing these aims is the setting aside of joss and oil fields, sometimes known by the obscure title of ching sheung 1, whose proceeds, again, are used for the proper observance of ancestral rites and other family needs.1 One need hardly emphasise the integrating effect of these land measures,\n\nTo understand the people and their outlook and background it is necessary to see to what sort of government they were accustomed.1 The government of the San On district was essentially Confucian, like that of every other administrative division; by which I mean that Confucian principles were ostensibly followed. This was sealed by the state worship of the sage. In every district city there was a temple to Confucius styled a man miu in which the District Magistrate, his senior staff and the local gentry paid the customary respects to the sage and his seventy-two disciples on his birthday (twenty-seventh day of the eighth moon) and at the spring worship or chun chai 1 in the second moon. The same thing happened at the prefectural and provincial capitals. At the head of the San On district was the District Magistrate whose superior was the prefect of the Kwang Chau prefecture which embraced at least five large districts. He was subordinate to the provincial governor and he in turn to the Viceroy of the two Kwang Provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The nature and duties of the provincial officers had been established since the T'ang dynasty and for well over a millennium the pattern of government had been cast in an identical mould. The District Magistrate was usually a scholar who had taken one of the metropolitan examinations at Peking and he was always a native of another province than his native one, this being a long standing rule. He spent three or six years in one post and was then moved elsewhere, and was promoted in due course to be prefect or to higher office through merit, connections or good fortune. Some persons began and ended their official careers as District Magistrates.\n\n1\n\nThe District Magistrate's duties were many and his competence was most extensive. He was, in truth, the father-mother official1 of the people so called by them and also so styled in official documents because of his authority over all their affairs, criminal or civil. He certainly regarded himself as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207143, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "208 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nwas bought by the Church and a large number of houses were built for the poor. In 1849, the Roman Catholics acquired land next to the Colonial Cemetery at Happy Valley and ceased burying in the old cemetery, though headstones remained scattered about for a long time. \n\nAnother Roman Catholic institution was located south of Queen's Road on the waterfront between what is the present Anton Street and Li Chit Street. Here the French Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, who arrived in Hong Kong in 1848, built an orphanage called the Asile des Sainte Enfance. \n\nIn 1845, two Americans, Charles Emery and George Frazer, moved their ship-building yard from Kowloon Point to a lot east of the French Orphanage. The yard passed through a succession of owners. In 1880 George Fenwick came into possession. He gave his name to the present Fenwick Street. In 1871 the Hong Kong Pier and Godown Company was launched to develop extensive wharfing and storage facilities. It occupied the land between the Orphanage and the shipyard. The present Gresson Street intersects the original property. The venture was not a success and the Company went into liquidation in 1873. In 1876 several Europeans financed by Chinese capital built the Oriental Sugar Refinery on property now defined by Swatow and Amoy Streets. It also soon failed and passed into receivership. Eventually, it was taken over by Jardine, Matheson and Company and was merged with their China Sugar Refining plant at East Point. \n\nThe first Protestant Chapel in the area was built in 1863 on Wan Chai Road by the London Missionary Society. A school was also opened, supported by Chinese subscriptions. The present Ying-Wa Girls School had its origins in the Wanchai Girls' Boarding School of the London Missionary Society opened in 1888. The Wanchai Chinese Methodist Church on the triangle of Hennessy Road, Fenwick Street, and Queen's Road East was occupied in 1936. \n\nThe Urban Services Office, where we are having tea, and the Wanchai Post Office next to it, are located on a lot which was sold to the first American resident of Hong Kong, Charles V. Gillespie. Here, in the spring of 1842, he built a substantial brick house of six rooms surrounded by a verandah at a cost of about $2,800. It was called “Jorrock's Hall” (sic) and was located on Inland Lot 14. The adjoining Lot No. 15 was also owned by Gillespie. He sold it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207339, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n99\n\nadjacent to the European business centre, the so-called Central District (Chung Wan), or, eastwards along Queen's Road, in the district of Wan Chai.\" Once Kowloon was acquired, pong-paân were attracted to this new area of settlement because of low rents and the propinquity of the docks, wharves and godowns soon established there, which in time gave employment to numerous European overseers. At the end of the century, Kowloon had become the principal habitat of lower class Europeans. There were terraces of houses occupied solely by them. A witness wrote:\n\nThese are generally employees in the dockyards, or clerks, or the families of engineers and mates of the small steamers that have their headquarters in Hong Kong... Hong Kong looks down on Kowloon with all the well-bred contempt of Belgravia for Brixton. And even in the despised suburb on the mainland these social differences are not wanting. The wives of the superior dock employees are the leaders of Kowloon society; and the better half of a ship captain or marine engineer is only admitted on sufferance to their exclusive circle.18\n\nBut the part of Victoria most frequented, especially at night, by the European lower orders—soldiers, sailors, merchant seamen, beach-combers and others—was Tai Ping Shan, a densely populated Chinese residential area west of the Central District. In 1875 a visitor to Hong Kong wrote:\n\nPassing westward along Queen's Road, we come upon a quarter of the town much frequented by seamen of all nations. Here spirits are sold in nearly every second shop, and bands of common sailors may be seen spending their time and money on questionable drink in more questionable company, roaring out some rough sea-song in drunken chorus, or dancing to the time of a drum and flute, accordion or cornopean. The piles of Chinese houses which rise above this locality embrace Tai-Ping-Shan, or the hill of great peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place. Tai-Ping-Shan is inhabited, for the most part, by Chinamen; but men are found there belonging to all the nations of the East. As for women, these are principally Chinese; they are numerous enough, but of the lowest type. There are strange hotels in this quarter,\n\n* There are a number of 19th century street maps available for early Hong Kong, held in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208154, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n177 \n\n26. Water was, of course, Tai Mo Shan's greatest natural resource. Before the construction of the Shing Mun catchwaters pre-war, and those for the Tai Lam Chung reservoir post-war, a tremendous flow of water ran down the mountain. It assisted in the gradual formation of land for houses and cultivation at its two main stream mouths in Tsuen Wan,* and was also used for industrial purposes. Water power drove the 24 incense mills located on the various streams of Tsuen Wan between 1900-1910 and before. (JHKBRAS 16 (1976):282-283). Stream water was also essential to the manufacture of bean curd and bean stick, another very old Tsuen Wan local industry, in which the quality of the product was directly related to the availability of a continually available pure water supply (see pp. 216-218 of this Journal). \n\nPublic Works \n\n27. In any hill area in which streams abound and become fast-flowing torrents in wet weather, there is a need for bridges across which travellers and villagers carrying heavy loads can proceed in safety. Tai Mo Shan has its share of such streams, and there are surviving bridges here and there in the hills and on its lower slopes. Among those known to me the largest is the Po Chai Bridge at Chung Hang, a few minutes' walk from my office in Tsuen Wan. Beside it is a battered slate-like tablet commemorating its repair in the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor, a curious titling which owes its inspiration to the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in the same year as its reconstruction (see Dingle: 89 for a similar dating that gave me the clue to this one and illustrates the wave of Chinese feeling that linked places as far apart in these two cases as Hankow and Tsuen Wan). The subscribers were the leading villagers and shopkeepers of Tsuen Wan and places linked to it by social and business ties. \n\n28. Another bridge, further up the same valley at a place called Ngo Tei (#) or Goose Land—probably its geomantic name—has no tablet. However it is also an old bridge, and an elderly villager of Pak Shek Kiu, an abandoned hill village higher up, credits its repair fifty years ago by a city merchant from Hong Kong as the 'price' paid to the villages to allow burial of one of his relatives there. \n\n* The old name for Tsuen Wan was Chin Wan (**) or Shallow Bay which directly reflects the effect of the mountain on the bay. It was in use until the late 19th century, being replaced first by Tsuen Wan and then...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210753, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "87\n\nI did not record very much about the role of the Hoklo, Wai Chau, Chiu Chau newcomers. They were actually visible mainly through the flags in their honour and the Chiu Chau performers whom they hired to perform on the main day of the celebration. Their participation was more in contributing money to provide performances in their own dialect than in participation in the processions or in preparation of the offerings.\n\nThe number of persons present in the main-day procession and the procession with the Daai Si Wong was impressive. However, they were more sharing the fun and enjoying the novelty than making a collective, disciplined presence as in the case of the same processions in the New Territories jiu festivals, in which the participants wore special clothing and hats, excluded women and were in general more organized at least in appearance.\n\nI did not see many signs of nearby villagers (who did not live in the three participating villages) coming to the jiu to visit or to offer good wishes, as was the former custom. There was a flower basket on display outside the festival office at Shek O. It was presented by the chairman of the rural committee of Cheung Chau. The only fa-paai was from Ma Hang, Laan Lai Wan, Stanley and Tai Tam Tuk, which are nearby. Near noon time on the main day some guests did come. One of them was a police officer, probably the head of the Chai Wan Police Station. Another was the District Officer for South District, who came with some assistants.\n\nMarried-out daughters were expected to come back for the festival too. On the bus back to town on the main day of the celebration, I overheard a middle-aged woman telling someone that if a married-out daughter did not come back for the jiu, she could not come back until ten years later, presumably during the next celebration.\n\nOther than the villagers, participants at the jiu included the professionals, among whom the most important were the priests. The yn-sau, or his companion, explained to me that they had hired a team headed by the priest Chan Wa as they did for the last celebration. I had thought, when he explained this was because Chan was 'familiar', he had in mind familiarity with the local", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211524, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "217\n\nthat one of the later owners found it worthwhile to set the coin in a bracelet shows that it was a significant symbol of some sort.\n\nO. William Borrell FMS\n\nTHE TAI SHEUNG LO KWAN TEMPLE, CHAI WAN\n\nJames Hayes led members of the Society on a visit to the Tai Sheung Lo Kwan Temple on 28th July, 1988 during a tour of Chai Wan, and supplied the following information from notes compiled by the Eastern District Office.\n\n\"The Hong Kong Chiu Chau Overseas Public Welfare Advancement Association (ABE) was first incorporated in 1970 under the Companies Ordinance as a limited company. The main objectives of the Association are to promote welfare and foster friendly relationship and affection among the clansmen of the 'Chiu Chau'. In 1972, the Association erected the Tai Sheung Lo Kwan Temple (大上羅關) at the hill knoll opposite Block 4 of Chai Wan Estate under Crown Land Licence. Henceforth, the temple acts as their premises for recreational activities and other religious ceremonies.\n\nAll Chiu Chau Clansmen and their blood relatives who are residing in Chai Wan and have attained the age of 21 are eligible to become members of the Association. At present membership of the association is below 1,000.\n\n\"Most of the worshippers of Tai Sheung Lo Kwan are Chiu Chau living in the Chai Wan Area. Nowadays, there are two main religious celebrations each year, namely, the Yu Lan Festival (盂蘭勝會) Celebration in August and the Tai Sheung Lo Kwan Festival Celebration (大上羅關寶誕) in December. Both of the celebrations are organized by the above-mentioned association with the aid of Chiu Chow \"Kaifong\" living in the area. Rice packets and other daily necessities are usually distributed to the aged and needy during the Yu Lan Festival Celebration.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211613, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "and a treadmill was in operation for punishment up until the early 1900s. Prisoners were escorted to Court, so it is believed, by a tunnel. Although the author went to Victoria Prison in the 1970s, on Justice of the Peace visits, he is unable to substantiate this.\n\nA few colonial-style buildings, such as the Helena May Institute (completed 1916) on Garden Road, and the old Supreme Court building (foundations laid 1903, completed 1912) in Central District, are still in use. The latter is now the Legislative Council Chambers, and has been described as \"Lutyens classical revival style adapted for the tropics\".\n\nIn spite of forceful protests by the Heritage Society which was wound up, despondently, in 1983 — and the Conservancy Association, the Repulse Bay Hotel, the previous Hong Kong Club building, and the old Kowloon Railway terminus (except for the tower2) have all succumbed to the wrecker's hammer. The average Hong Kong citizen, it seems, has limited interest in conservation. He or she believes that a building has an economic life span, and, after that, it should go. To be fair, the Government, advised by the Antiquities and Monuments Office and the Antiquities Advisory Board, has declared a number of structures, for instance the Stanley Police Station (1859)13 as Monuments under the Antiquities Ordinance. Other Monuments include the steps and gas lamps in Duddell Street, Central District; rock carvings and inscriptions; old villages, for example Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan; and the District Office, North, building at Tai Po in the New Territories.\n\nThe Territory also possesses a variety of other old structures, such as the fort and battery at Tung Chung and the fort at Tung Lung. There are also ancestral halls and study halls, like Shut Hing Shue Shan, at Ping Shan, and Chou Wong Yi Kung Shue Yuen, in Kam Tin.\n\nAmong other declared historical Monuments are Wan Chai Post Office (1915)1* in Queen's Road East, Western Market in Sheung Wan, and the Pathological Institute,1 in Caine Lane. As of 1990, such Monuments totalled 43. One of the most famous of Hong Kong's old buildings was Murray House (circa 1843).1 It was demolished carefully in 1982, and the parts were labelled, numbered and stored. The intention is to re-erect it on another site.\n\nIn 1935, the then new 66-metre high Hong Kong Bank (the third bank on that site) was fully air-conditioned (the first large building in Hong Kong).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213333, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "137\n\nKowloon Walled City, February 1989 and After\n\nThe Kowloon City tour was again very different. Some background is required. Excluded from the New Territories' lease in 1898, but in de facto British occupation since 1900, the \"Walled City\" had always presented problems for the Hong Kong Government, arising largely from its contentious legal status. No longer \"walled\" - its rectangular wall had been demolished by the Japanese during their wartime military occupation of the Colony - the enclave had soon after become a tightly-packed warren of unauthorized buildings without water supply, roads, or sewerage. In the 1970s - again without proper authorization - most of its four and five-storey structures had been replaced with high-rise buildings of twelve and fifteen storeys, greatly worsening its already unsatisfactory condition. The \"Walled City\" was notorious for drug-trafficking and other illegal or criminal activities. Most European residents of the Colony, and probably many middle-class Hong Kong Chinese too, kept well clear, and few of them had any real idea what it was like.\n\n22\n\nAfter signature of the Sino-British Joint Agreement in 1984, and with the agreement of the Mainland Chinese authorities, the Hong Kong Government had undertaken to remove, compensate, and re-house its population, and to demolish the buildings and replace them with a public park within the same boundaries. Here was a chance to show our members this rather infamous place that few had seen, and at the same time - as on the Chai Wan visit a few years before - let them know what was being done by the Government. By good fortune, one of my friends and former colleagues from the District Office, Tsuen Wan, was the officer in charge of the complicated negotiations with the City's business people and domestic residents, and he was very willing to make arrangements for a Royal Asiatic Society visit.\n\nIn the end, the tour's extreme popularity with our members entailed three separate visits, each attended by well over 100 persons. On each visit, after a general briefing, the government officers who acted as our guides - they included two young police women inspectors - talked to us about their work as they led small groups through the twisting, narrow, and confusing thoroughfares to meet our own RAS tour speakers at a few places en route where points of interest were explained. In my case, I had stationed myself in the courtyard of the former military yamen (government office) whose pre-1898 buildings had survived many fires as well as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214043, "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-1997", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "78\n\n47\n\n#\n\nGovernment Press\n\nThe total land area of Fanling and Sheung Shui was 13,184 acres (20.6 square miles). See Heung Yee Kuk, Xin Jie Xiang Yi Ju Cheng Li Lu Shi Zhou Nian Jin Dian Te Kan (The Special Issue for the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk's 60th Anniversary [published in 1986]), p. 182\n\nA name list of successful applicants was posted on the village notice-board in 1991. A total of 69 ding houses were allowed to be built. But unsuccessful applicants tore down the list and then submitted objections to the District Office. They complained that some successful applicants were found to be living abroad, some came from the same family, and that most village council members of Fanling Wai (cun wei hui cheng yuan) were successful applicants. The result was considered unfair because many of these successful applicants were said to have bribed the Village Representatives for their applications. So the District Officer and Village Representatives had to set up new criteria for reconsidering the applications.\n\n\"The detail of the criterion is as follows (Data collected from the Fanling Wai village notice-board in 1994): (1) Villagers having large families and those whose present living conditions were comparatively less desirable. (1) Villagers who could afford the construction costs of the houses and were unlikely to dispose of the completed houses to outsiders. (11) Villagers who were enthusiastic towards serving fellow villagers and were benevolent towards the affairs of the village. (iv) Villagers who had submitted applications before June 1989. (v) Applicants who were or had been members of either the village committee, or Da Jiao Committee or Village Guard would be considered to have served their fellow villagers and to be benevolent towards the affairs of Fanling Wai. (Da Jiao is a lineage-based religious festival, see footnote 10). (vi) Where two or more applicants having a father and son relationship were successful in this selection exercise, only one application would be selected for allocation of a Small House site.\n\n\"Some villagers anticipated that their building rights would not be realized in their lifetime due to the keen competition or to their lack of money, so they decided to sell their \"right to build\" (ding quan) to land developers to profit. That is, land developers have offered villagers money to make use of their building rights to apply to build houses elsewhere. During my fieldwork, I found a total of seven Pangs who had successfully applied to build ding houses outside Fanling Wai. Six were built in San Wai of Lung Yeuk Tau (the Tang lineage settlement in Fanling), and one in Long Chai, Fanling. In fact, the phenomena of selling ding quan by villagers to make a profit has been a common one. For example, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, ten villagers living abroad who had no intention of returning to Hong Kong made a total profit of $500,000 by selling their ding quan to land developers (1982: 55, quoted in Allen Chun, op. cit., p. 222).\n\n* In 1976, in order to discourage villagers from making profits by selling their ding wu, the government amended the policy to pay the government full market value premium if houses are sold within five years of the end of construction work.\n\n27. The emigrant Mans also built new village houses in San Tin as the ultimate proof of their stake in the community of their birth. See James Watson, op. cit., p. 165", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215158, "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": 254, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "214\n\nA Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nSchool (VTS), that a new curriculum was phased in. It changed from being a trade school and became a secondary technical school.\n\nMeanwhile the Far East Flying Training School -- the original name -- commenced training pilots and engineers for the civil aviation industry in 1934. The Far East Flying and Technical School Limited, as it was later renamed, sited at Kai Tak, was a private institution. It shut its doors in 1983 because of the rapid expansion of government-sponsored technical education.\n\nMeanwhile, retracing our steps, further progress in the field of technical education was made pre-World War Two when, in 1935, the Salesian Society founded the Aberdeen Trade School. This provided a sound general education, together with training considered to be comparable to an apprenticeship.\n\nLike the JTS, this School too was converted into a secondary technical school in the late 1950s. I recall visiting the Aberdeen Trade School on its open day, in January 1955, when I was struck by the high standard of craftsmanship of the students' work on display.\n\nThe first Government post-secondary technical institution was the old Trade School which opened in Wood Road, Wan Chai (using the old spelling), in 1937. It stood on the corner where the Vocational Training Council's multi-storey office block stands today. At the time of opening, under Principal George White, it ran courses in building, mechanical engineering (with a bias towards automobile engineering) and marine wireless operating. The Trade School also took over the evening classes previously run by Taikoo Dockyard at Quarry Bay.\n\nThe new, then two-storey (an additional floor was added in 1953) Trade School was well constructed on the lines of other colonial-style buildings erected between the two World Wars. It had high ceilings with paddle-fans because there was virtually no air-conditioning in Hong Kong at that time (an exception was the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank). The Trade School was one of the few examples of good face brickwork. In the 1950s navigation, commerce and textile", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215165, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "221\n\nMetratoA LEGGE DAN K\n\n# A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nAs the first member of staff of a technical institute, I was officially appointed as founding Principal of MHTI in July 1968, more than one year before it opened in borrowed premises. This was the planning period. The initial cost of building the Morrison Hill Technical Institute was around $4.0 million plus $3.0 million for equipment, all donated by the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, although there were other, much smaller, donations.\n\nLooking at these and other figures one can see how costs have shot up over the past 30 to 40 years, although technical education has also, agreed, become far more sophisticated. For various reasons the completion of the MHTI building was delayed and, as mentioned at the start of this paper, the Institute did not start classes in its new building until 1970. Earlier on, consideration was given to calling it the 'Wan Chai Technical Institute' but some officials in the Government Education Department Headquarters felt, in those days, this would have given it a 'Suzie Wong' image. Consequently, it was named the Morrison Hill Technical Institute. As you know it was officially opened 30 years ago today, on 12 October 1970, by the then Governor the late Sir David Trench.\n\nI was pleased it was a hot day. After the ceremony Sir John Cowperthwaite, who has gone down in history as a capable Financial Secretary and a law unto himself, came up to me mopping his brow. 'Principal', he said, 'I'll see you get this hall air-conditioned!'. In spite of his promise it was many years and countless memoranda later before it actually was. I am talking of an institute where, in 1970, one of the few air-conditioned rooms was the Principal's office and this was because an overseas advisor had been persuaded to write it into his report. Administrative Officers talked dismally at the time of creating ‘a dangerous precedent with other institutions jumping on the bandwagon'.\n\nLooking around in the vicinity of MHTI: quarry men started blasting away in 1926 at the solid granite hill on which the Morrison Hill Mission Society building originally stood. The Hill was not totally levelled until around 1970", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215515, "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": 292, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "242\n\nSeveral months later on 2nd April 1842, another piece of land adjacent to the burial ground was allotted for internment of Roman Catholics.7 It was recorded that during the leveling work, because of heavy rain, a landslide obstructed Queen's Road. A letter from the Inspector of the Land Office, dated 20 June 1842, required the building of a retaining wall and the immediate clearing of the road. Burials started as soon as the site formation was over. On the same compound, two brick houses were also built, one at the bottom used as a seminary and the second at the top of the hill as the residence of Father Luke Poon8 who had just arrived from Macao to assist the work in the seminary.9\n\n10\n\nEpidemics of fever, which visited Hong Kong each summer in its early years of development, retarded its development and gave it an evil reputation for insalubrity. 1841 and 1842 had been bad summers, but 1843 was even worse. In 1843 the annual death rate among European troops in Hong Kong was 22 percent and among Indian troops even higher. One regiment alone, at West Point, lost a hundred men between June and the middle of August.11 The Royal Army Medical Corps history records 'Hong Kong proved a costly acquisition, as in spite of good barracks and hospital as the men continued to fall sick and die.”12 Almost all contemporary public, private and regimental records had similar entries in regard to the terrible cost in lives, particularly among the troops, in the early development of Hong Kong.13 The popular Illustrated London News had the following account in 1845:\n\nIts diseases are endemic fever, diarrhoea and dysentery...The British Commander, General D'Aguilar, has declared, that to retain Hong Kong will require the loss of a whole regiment every three years... The grave yard was soon filled and another was required form14 the Surveyor-General, who found it difficult to point out a proper spot.\n\nThe burial ground in Wan Chai had only been in use for a short period's15 as space was running out. It became necessary for a new burial site and the Wong Nai Chung Valley,16 soon to be named as Happy Valley, quickly provided the answer,\n\n17\n\nYet the last graves and monuments in Wan Chai were not removed until 1889. By then it had become surrounded by a dense population of Chinese of the poorer classes, it is difficult to keep it in a condition of decency and cleanliness.18 The ground was sold for development.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]