[
    {
        "id": 205329,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "84 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nChina coasters came from all parts of the Commonwealth, but with a preponderance of English, Irish, Scots, and Welshmen. There was never any lack of Welshmen, and no coaster was complete without its Jones or Evans, invariably prefixed by 'Dai' or 'Taffy'. Australians and New Zealanders were not uncommon, and there were also a few Anglo-Indians. In my time, however, I can recall only one Canadian and one South African. One pleasant feature of coast life was the friendship and harmony between deck and engine departments, something still too rare on home ships. The small number of Europeans on the average coaster may have contributed to this, seldom more than three mates and four engineers, with the radio officer often a Hong Kong Chinese.\n\nThe riverboats were a special species of 'China coaster', and many of their officers spent their entire careers on the Yangtse. The Lower Riverboats, which ran between Shanghai and Hankow, operated a fortnightly schedule, of which three days were spent in Shanghai and two in Hankow. During the summer months of high water, however, some Lower Riverboats continued to Ichang, which extended their schedule to three weeks. Jardines, the China Navigation Company, and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company each had a daily sailing from Shanghai to Hankow, calling at the intermediate ports, of which the most important were Chinkiang, Nanking, Wuhu, Anking, Kiukiang, and Yochow and Shasi on the Middle River between Hankow and Ichang. The China Navigation Company's Lower Riverboats left the French Bund at three o'clock in the morning, so that they could navigate the tricky Lungshan Crossing at the estuary in daylight, and it was not unknown for junior officers to miss their ship. By catching an early morning train from Shanghai, however, they could rejoin at Nanking in the afternoon, an extreme form of pierhead jump.\n\nIf riverboat men were a special species of 'China coaster', the men who sailed on the Upper Yangtse were a distinct sub-species. The Upper Riverboats ran between Ichang and Chungking, the section of the Yangtse which included the famous and spectacular Yangtse Gorges. The men on these ships had some justification for considering themselves the aristocrats of the China coast. The slightest error in navigation, or the slightest engine mishap, would almost certainly have meant a serious casualty. The Gorge boats",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214195,
        "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": 53,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "In the past the Pole, one frequently found, was the butt of many jokes in the United States. In England it was often the Irish, in Hawaii the Portuguese, and for the French the Belgian. Likewise, in Guangdong Province there is, some people will tell you, a pecking order of sorts for a few of the counties. Again, in Singapore, inter-racial and inter-sub-ethnic group humour is by no means uncommon, although much is given and accepted in good heart.\n\nLee Kuan Yew, senior statesman of Singapore, is purported to have said: \"I understand the Englishman. He knows deep in his heart that he is superior to the Welshman and the Scotsman. Deep here, I am a Chinaman. Yes, an uprooted Chinaman, transformed into a Singaporean\" (spoken in the Singaporean Parliament, 23 February 1977) (Minchin, 1986:254). One can detect, not surprisingly, a strain of western, self-mockery and sardonic wit in Lee's remark (Minchin, 1986:257). It comes out again in a speech by Lee in the Singaporean Parliament on 23 February 1977:\n\n\"I do not believe in telling university researchers where they go wrong. They write all kinds of spurious silly articles or books. They get MAs and PhDs for them... I laugh away. But I never tell them why they are wrong. Because I am an Asian. I am not a Westerner. This is an Asian situation and do not be clever. Be modest. Just keep quiet. If they want to be wrong-headed, wish them luck\" (Minchin, 1986:XV).\n\nThe overseas Chinese living in Malaysia for several generations have absorbed Malay culture making their customs different from Hong Kong Chinese. As a Malay-Chinese friend of the author explained, the Singaporeans have obviously not absorbed Malay customs to the same extent. But Singapore is very much a melting pot and cosmopolitan, and it has jettisoned only a certain amount of its inherited Chinese 'baggage' so that it remains trim, but it has become sufficiently westernised to become, some would say, more 'rational' - judging by western standards.\n\nThe Cantonese living in a more simple habitat, over in Guangdong Province in China, prefer more direct, less complex humour than their Hong Kong cousins who are still, in most cases, at heart, very Cantonese.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]