[ { "id": 204280, "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-1961", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n44\n\nof the religious system. They have always had to walk carefully in their relations with the vested interests of the orthodox church, represented principally by the abbots of the three great monasteries, Drebung, Sera and Ganden, which housed among them 25,000 monks and were known as the Three Great Pillars of the State.\n\nThen there were rivalries between one sect and another; there were rivalries between great monasteries of the same sect; there were even rivalries between colleges within the same monastery; and there was a subtle distinction between monks and abbots in the monasteries and the monastic administrative officials of the Tibetan Government, who were a sort of monk civil service. There was a parallel lay civil service, so that if there was, say, a Chief Secretary who was a monk, he was balanced by another who was a layman. Such civil monastic officials were rather a special breed and looked on with some suspicion by the people in the monasteries. There was also an undercurrent of jealousy of the monasteries' power on the part of the displaced lay nobles, who recalled quite clearly the tradition of their past greatness. They had still a leading part in the administration and in general they were more progressively minded than the monks; in fact, I should say that the monks usually lagged a generation behind the progressive laymen.\n\nYet in spite of all these factions and divergencies of feeling, there was remarkable agreement, really remarkable agreement, of the whole people in their complete devotion to their faith and in an affectionate veneration of their ruler. Religion quite simply was all in all to every Tibetan: there were no dissenters and no critics. Every Tibetan without complaining took his place in the social set-up. This was partly due to his acceptance of the teachings of Buddhism with its doctrine of karma and partly to his conviction that by doing so he was serving his Dalai Lama. All the actions and policies of people and government were viewed in the light of the effect that they would have on religion. Church and state really were interchangeable terms.\n\nThe monasteries and the monks played an important part in the social life of the country; they were bankers, landlords, and, to some extent, school-masters. It is of course quite easy for the Westerner to adopt an attitude of intellectual superiority and say that religion was the opiate of the people. It is possible to point to idle, worldly, and comparatively worthless individuals among the monks: so indeed it was possible during the Middle Ages in Europe. On the other hand, also as in the case of the Middle Ages, one can point in Tibet to churchmen who were sincere, devout, saintly, and profoundly learned. I am convinced that there was no conscious exploitation of religion by the Tibetan church.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204281, "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-1961", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n45\n\nThe geographical isolation of the country resulted in a peculiarly isolated culture. Government, religion, social customs all developed in their own secluded world. In that world many qualities which we are apt to describe and look on as primitive were present and survived until very recent times; I mean characteristics like simplicity, honesty, confirmed religious devotion, obedience, leisure, contentment, and kindness.\n\nNowadays it is a fairly common contention in certain circles that a feudal upper stratum oppressed the Tibetan populace. But that ignores, for one thing, the fact that there was a very considerable body of yeoman farmers who held land directly under the Tibetan Government and worked it themselves with their own families and with the help of their friends, in the good old English system of exchanging services. There were of course bad landlords as there are everywhere; bad landlords included monks and laymen. But the difference between rich and poor in Tibet really was a very small one; it was not a money economy at all, and the difference, either social or economic, between a rich man and a poor man was in no way comparable to what you may see in many of the world's great cities. Income from exports was more than enough to buy all essentials from the outside world. There was a three-year reserve of grain, sometimes more. The people ate a good deal of meat and their standard of living was certainly higher than what I have seen in any Indian village.\n\nOne of the most obvious products of oppression is discontent, and no traveller in Tibet before 1950 that I can think of has described the Tibetans as anything but cheerful and contented. Heinrich Harrer, whose name and book, Seven Years in Tibet, you doubtless know, is probably the only Westerner who has actually worked as a landless Tibetan labourer. He did it not as a social experiment, but from the sheer necessity of keeping alive. He has told me, and I think he may have written it in his book, that his life as a labourer was easy and he was treated extremely well. He has also given evidence of the touching kindness of the Tibetans, particularly of the poor, but of the rich as well. Now it is quite true that the Tibetans have from time to time been described as inhospitable in their dealings with large explorers' parties; but that was due to fear of such parties as a spearhead of Western penetration. To anyone in want they have the most wonderful warm-hearted generosity. In so many ways, certainly in their character, they really provide an example for the Western world.\n\nThese were some of the valuable assets that were swept away in Tibet as it was. There is a great deal more that could be said about the very pleasant peculiarities of living in that country, about the exhilaration and the occasional difficulties of travel in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204501, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "118\n\nCOLINA LUPTON\n\nChina and the U.S. The Korean war of course accounts for much which has gone awry since; the Chinese cannot forget that the Americans (as they always regarded the U.N. army) showed no hesitation in overstepping the 38th parallel and advancing towards the Chinese frontier; they also remember Truman's action taken at the outbreak of war assigning the U.S. seventh fleet to the \"neutralisation\" of Formosa, thus cheating them, so they felt, of their rightful prey: as Mr. Luard says, in the summer of 1950 the Communists were almost certainly poised to invade and exterminate the Chiang Kai-shek regime once and for all. As bad was the fact that American interference brought the question of Formosa from the purely internal to the international level. The fear and resentment engendered in Chinese hearts exists to this day to colour their suspicions of all American actions, and is fostered by the evident American determination to keep them out of the U.N. The great merit of Mr. Luard's account of these events, which is relatively sympathetic to the Chinese point of view, is that it makes clear that Chinese fulminations against, for instance, the landing of U.S. marines in Thailand are inspired by a genuine fear of American imperialism. If the U.S. would comprehend how her actions are misconstrued in Peking she might be more willing to have China increase her contacts with the West in the hope of dispelling Chinese ignorance.\n\nBritain's position in the dispute over the China seat is a paradoxical one. There is not much doubt that, left to its own devices, the British government would choose to have Peking rather than Taipei in the U.N., partly because Peking is the government which is more representative of the Chinese people as a whole, and partly because it believes that China's isolation from the rest of the world can only be dangerous. Mr. Luard draws an interesting parallel between the present situation and that which prevailed before any westerners came to China at all: then and now, the country was and is culturally self-sufficient, inward-looking, arrogant, ignorant of foreigners and their ways and full of misapprehensions about the outside world. Since today such misapprehensions can have world-wide and dangerous consequences, Britain would like to see China mixing with other nations at least to the extent of rubbing shoulders with their representatives in the corridors of the U.N. building.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204720, "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": 23, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "14\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nLinguists were licensed Chinese interpreters. (See note 39). Compradore was a Chinese national in charge of workers in a factory.\n\nColoured buttons attached to caps determined the rank of Chinese officials.\n\nThe term Hoppo was coined by Westerners to designate the official appointed by the Emperor to look after trade at Canton and to remit the resulting revenue to the Board of Revenue (the hu-pu) at Peking. His full title was Yüeh Hai-kuan-pu which means \"Superintendent of Customs for the province of Canton”.\n\nChop was an official pronouncement by Chinese authorities.\n\nChop boats carried cargo from Whampoa to Canton; in design they resembled a melon with circular decks and sides and could provide for 500 chests of opium.\n\nJOURNAL OF OCCURRENCES AT CANTON 1839\n\nMarch 24, Sunday\n\nThe Chinese are building bridges across the street in the rear, to the roofs of our Hongs in order the better to keep a lookout.\n\nOur servants, coolies, cooks, and compradore as well as those from all other Factories, quit the Hongs this evening. It looked as if they were running from a plague, each person carried off his bed, trunk, or box, and for a short time the Square was all in confusion. The linguists permitted ours to remain till the last moment, and from the time the order for them to quit was received, which was about 8 p.m., till after 8 when not a Chinese was left in any Hong, the coolies made out to secure for us outside and bring in about 60 fowls, 15 tubs of water, a tub of sugar, some oil, a bag of biscuits, and a few other things.\n\nThe Square now is one blaze of light, innumerable lanterns from the different Hongs are disposed all over it, and the noise of some three or four hundred coolies stationed to guard any foreigner from leaving Canton makes it resemble a large wild encampment.\n\nCaptain Elliot landed at the Factory steps about 5 p.m., hoisted the British colors and called a meeting of all the foreigners in Canton. He then went to Mr. Dent's Factory and took him to the hall. Thousands of Chinese in the Square greatly excited", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204746, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "38\n\n10 Linguist purser.\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nSee note 39, (J.L.C-B)\n\n11 Elliot's last day. On 25 March Elliot formally requested the Viceroy that passports should be issued within three days for all the English ships and people at Canton and that if passports were not issued he would consider the men and ships of his country as forcibly detained and act accordingly. Blue Book, Correspondence relating to China, 1840, p. 367. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n12 Edward Elmslie. Secretary and Treasurer to the British Superintendents of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot and the Deputy Superintendent, A. R. Johnston, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n13 Houqua. Known to Westerners at Canton as Howqua 7. His family name was Wu Ch'ung-yüeh (1810-1863). He was the fifth son of the famous Hong merchant Wu Ping-chien whom he succeeded as head of the firm in 1843. For his biography see Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 867-8. (F.L.C-B.)\n\n14 Nam Hoe. Also written Nam Hoi. This means Nan Hai Hsien #i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the western part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included the area in which the foreign Factories lay. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n15 Kwang Hup. The author may be referring to the Kwangchou hsieh \"the Canton brigade\", and so to its commander. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n16 The Governor. The Governor of Kwangtung province at this time was I-liang (1791-1867). For his biography see Hummel, op. cit., I, 389. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n17 K'an-ch'o (J.L.C-B.)\n\n18 An-tsou (J.L.C-B)\n\n19 Columbia & John Adams. According to the Chinese Repository Vol. 8, p. 56 the Columbia was a U.S. frigate and the John Adams was classed as a sloop-of-war. The Columbia was commanded by Commodore George C. Read. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n20 Johnston, Alexander Robert Johnston, H.M. Deputy Superintendent of Trade. When the Government of Hong Kong was set up he was deputy first to Elliot and later to Sir Henry Pottinger and in this capacity he administered the Government of the Colony on various occasions from 1841 until 1843. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n21 Pwan Kei Kua. Probably the merchant whose name was also spelt by Westerners at Canton at that time Ponkhequa and Puan Khequa. This was P'an Chengwei (1791-1850). See Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 605, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n22 Saoqua. His family name was Ma Tso-liang and the name of his Hong was Shun Tai Hong A. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n23 Sturgis. Russell Sturgis (1805-1887) of Boston was first named Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, Jr., but he was always known as Russell Sturgis after his name was changed by decree of the Middlesex County Court. He graduated from Harvard in 1823, married in 1828 but was widowed four months later. After an extended tour of Europe he returned to Boston and for a while practised law. He remarried and in 1833 took his family to the orient where he became a partner of Russell & Sturgis of Manila and Russell, Sturgis & Co. of Canton. Later in 1842 when the latter firm became incorporated with Russell & Co., China, he became a partner in 1842. In May 1844 he retired to Boston, his second wife having died in Manila in 1837. Being far too young to give up work altogether he decided to return to China in 1849 but while passing through London he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205066, "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-1966", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n17\n\nyear. So serious was the rice shortage that the Chinese officials were put in the humiliating position of having to ask the westerners if they would import rice from the south.21 To make matters worse, even the temperature played unkind tricks on the suffering people, for the local histories record a number of cold spells and heavy snow falls during these years.22 Both Chinese and western sources describe the swarms of beggars in and around Canton. In 1834 The Canton Register estimated the number of beggars in Canton at 5,000 and “it may be even twice that number.”23\n\nIs there any wonder that banditry and brigandage were abroad in the land?\n\nFinally, there was the opium traffic, and here the \"foreign impact\" may have had some relevance for the area. It is generally thought that since the traffic was illegal, it caused a significant outflow of silver. This, in turn, is believed to have brought about a decline in the value of copper “cash” in terms of silver and thus a general inflationary trend. Furthermore, since land taxes were fixed in terms of silver, the amount of \"cash\" required for taxes would, of course, have been increased. The effect of this upon the lower income groups is obvious. In addition, the traffic itself in this kind of smuggling operation must have had a powerful attraction for every pirate and brigand along the river and coast, and may have been a major cause of the increase of this kind of activity during the 1830's.\n\nIn short, there existed in this part of Kwangtung province all the ingredients that usually go into the making of open revolt and rebellion: a weak and discredited government, a series of unforeseen natural calamities, a disintegrating economy, and an alarming spread of banditry (which, of course, fed upon the first three).\n\nThis, then, was what was \"going on\" along the Canton River during these years. The foreigner and his trade were only a small part of the picture. In fact, I would hazard a guess that the Ch'ing Government's determination to stamp out the opium trade in 1839 was not so much an effort to eliminate opium as such but was, rather, a drastic attempt to do something to help restore order and authority in the land. Opium was only a part of a much", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205108, "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-1966", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n59\n\nand that the foreign country of Fu-lang itself did not arouse any curiosity among the writers. Europe, in any case during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, remained unknown to the Chinese. It was not until the arrival of the Portuguese, and, a little later, of the Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century that the two worlds were brought into closer contact. This relative disinterest in foreign countries is paralleled 100 years earlier by the poems of Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai. He had been in Khwarezmia (today Russian Turkestan) with Chingis Khan's armies and wrote a number of poems on Western subjects. If one would put it in a flippant way, one would have to say that Yeh-lü in his poems seems to have been impressed not by the proud mosques and the ancient culture of that region but mostly by the grape wine and the water melons that were grown in Khwarezmia.\n\nIf we take the word Western in a broader sense than just European and include the Near East, then we find for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries much more detailed information on \"Westerners\" and their influence on activities in China. Islamic civilization had some impact on China under the Mongols, and we have seen that certainly geography in China was flourishing, incorporating data on the non-Chinese world taken from Arab sources. The geographical interest of the Mongol court is also reflected in Kublai Khan's attempts to discover the sources of the Yellow River. Expeditions were sent and the reports that can be found in the dynastic history and also in another, private source the Cho-keng lu, printed in 1366 are a valuable source for the historical geography of the Ch'ing-hai region and Eastern Tibet. Islam had, of course, reached China much earlier, that is, under the T'ang in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., but it was under the Mongol rulers that Muslims began to take part in Chinese life to a greater extent. The Muslim contribution to Chinese civilization under the Yüan seems to have been chiefly in the fields of science. Astronomy was highly developed in the Islamic countries. After the Mongols had conquered Iraq and Persia, not a few Muslim scholars went to China. A center for astronomy was the observatory in Maraghah (Azerbaijan) founded in or about 1258. Under the Ilkhan Hulagu or his successor a Marāghah astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, was dispatched to China with what may be called blue-prints for astronomical instruments. We find their Persian-Arabic names and a short description of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205109, "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-1966", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "60\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\ntheir functions in the Yuan-shih. On the Chinese side, the leading astronomer was Kuo Shou-ching (1231-1316). To him fell the difficult task of reconciling the Arab astronomical system with traditional Chinese astronomy which had entirely different mathematical and geometrical foundations. As I am not a specialist in the history of science, I have to refer to Needham's detailed study of this problem.7\n\nAnother field where Western Asians reached some prominence in China was medicine. It seems as if the skill of Westerners in surgery greatly impressed the Chinese, because physicians from the Near East who performed all sorts of difficult operations are frequently mentioned. Some of them were not Muslim but Nestorian Christians, like Ai-hsieh (1227-1308) whose Chinese name is a rendering of Syriac Isa, Yehoshua, or Jesus. He was not only a famous physician but also for some time served as a Court Astronomer under Kublai Khan prior to the arrival of Jamal ad-Din. Ai-hsieh reached high offices at Kublai's court and was even honored posthumously by having his biography included in the Yüan dynastic history. His activities in China, however, and the presence of many other doctors from the Western Regions, failed to leave a permanent impact on Chinese medicine. The theoretical framework of traditional Chinese medicine continued to be the basis for medical literature and there is not much trace of Western contacts to be noticed in such medical and pharmacological Chinese works as the Pen-ts'ao kang-mu by Li Shih-chen (sixteenth century). On the other hand Chinese medicine was made known rather widely in Islamic countries, as we shall see later. It seems, in any case, that individual skills and techniques were appreciated in Yüan China rather than new theoretical issues and ideas that were entirely foreign to the Chinese. This is certainly the case in both astronomy and medicine; both remained faithful to the inherited theories in spite of occasional borrowings from the West.\n\nTechnology was another field where Westerners were active in China. We have mentioned artillery already. The catapults used by the Mongol and Northern Chinese armies against the fortified town of Hsiang-yang on the Han River were built by Mohammedan engineers. Hsiang-yang has, during a long period in Chinese history, been a town of great strategic importance. Whoever commanded Hsiang-yang could block the access to the fertile Middle", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205110, "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-1966", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n61\n\nYangtse basin. The national Chinese state of Sung therefore tried hard to defend Hsiang-yang against the invading Mongol forces, and the town was besieged for five consecutive years (1268-1273). The engineers who built catapults for the Mongols came from Baghdad and had such unmistakably Muslim names as Ala-ud-din and Ismail. This disproves the story told by Marco Polo, that it was the Polos who distinguished themselves by constructing the artillery used against the fortifications of Hsiang-yang10. Another technological field in which Muslim engineers excelled was hydraulic engineering. In Yunnan, a Chinese province that was incorporated into the Chinese-Mongol empire as late as 1253, the governor was a Muslim from, it seems, Turkistan, by the name of Sayyid Ajall Shams-al-Din. He did much for the irrigation of the K'un-ming basin, works that still survive today.11 The eternal hydraulic problem of China, the Yellow River, came, at some time under the Yüan, equally under the supervision of a foreigner; a Persian or rather Arab called Shams (1278-1351). He is the author of a treatise on river conservancy, the Ho-fang 'ung-i \"Comprehensive Explanation of River Conservancy\", published in 1321. The grandfather of Shams had come to China in the wake of the Mongol conquest of Arabia and settled there. Apart from hydraulic engineering, Shams is described in his biography as having been an expert in astronomy, geography, mathematics, and musical or rather acoustic theory. He had not yet lost the cultural ties with the homelands of his forefathers, as so many other Westerners did once they had come to China, but was still interested in what the Chinese biography called \"books of foreign nations\". In this case, Arab or Persian literature is certainly meant. But, ironically, the biography of Shams has been incorporated in the section reserved for Confucian Learning in the Yüan dynastic history! It is a matter for regret that of all the works he wrote in his lifetime, only the treatise on Yellow River conservancy has survived. The list of the books he wrote is tantalizing to read because their titles reflect a lasting interest in Western (Islamic) scientific thought, and their contents would perhaps have enabled us to see more clearly the interplay of Chinese and Near Eastern science.12\n\nThe largest group of foreigners in Yüan China were, however, not the Arab and Persian or Syrian scientists but merchants from the Near East. Transcontinental trade flourished under the Mon-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205111, "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-1966", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "62\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\ngols and in China merchants were more powerful and influential than under previous dynasties. The Mongol rulers in China followed in their attitude towards trade and private enterprise a policy of compromise between non-interference and the traditional Chinese bureaucratic hostility to free trade. It was normal for the Chinese scholar-literati class to view the rise of merchants with misgivings and whenever they could they tried to curb the activities of the merchant class. Some of these traditional features can be found in Yuan Dynasty legislation. Yet rich merchants, mostly foreigners, found access to offices in great numbers. Tax-farming became a common practice, and some Westerners rose to positions of power and prestige by their activities in tax-collecting and in the state monopolies. The best known among these careerists is the famous or rather infamous Ahmed who became a minister of state under Kublai Khan and whose assassination is described with many colorful details both in Marco Polo's book and in the Chinese sources.13 As late as the 1350's we find foreigners mentioned as office holders in the state monopolies administration. A text published in 1360 tells us that the officers of the Hangchow Sugar Bureau were all \"wealthy merchants of Jewish and Mohammedan extraction\".14 It is not surprising that the Chinese historical sources for the Mongol period have not many friendly things to say on these foreigners and their techniques of money-making. At best tax-collectors are not popular in any country, and if they happen to be foreigners some additional venom is apt to appear. Historiography under the Mongols remained firmly in the hands of the Chinese, and therefore the picture that they give is inevitably distorted and biased.\n\nIt cannot be denied that international and transcontinental trade and relations on a non-official level contributed greatly to cultural contacts. Yet these contacts remained marginal and did not affect the basic features of Chinese civilization. The spread of Western music in China under the Mongols is a repetition of what had happened in the Six Dynasties and T'ang periods (third to ninth centuries) when dances, musical instruments, melodies and whole music bands were introduced from Central Asia and had a lasting effect on Eastern Asiatic music. Exotic music has, it seems, always found acceptance in high civilizations and been more easily integrated than other cultural elements. Europe is no exception — some of the names of our most common instruments", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205121, "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-1966", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "72\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nNOTES\n\n1 On Europe and Europeans as mentioned in Chinese sources, see H. Franke in Saeculum, Vol. II (1951), pp. 65-75.\n\n2 W. Fuchs, The Mongol Atlas of China by Chu Ssu-pen, Peiping, 1946, Monumenta Serica Monographs, No. 8; J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol III, pp. 555-556.\n\n3 H. Franke in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 112 (1962), pp. 228-232 (review of Leonardo Olschki, Marco Polo's Asia).\n\n4 Francis A. Rouleau, \"The Yangchow Latin Tombstone as a Landmark of Medieval Christianity in China\", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 17 (1954) pp. 346-365.\n\n5 John Foster, \"Crosses from the Walls of Zaitun\", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1954, pp. 1-25. (pl. XII).\n\n6 Saeculum, Vol. II (1951), p. 74-75.\n\n7 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 167-382.\n\n8 See for example, H. Franke, Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Chinas unter der Mongolenherrschaft, Wiesbaden 1956, p. 34 (Nestorian surgeon).\n\n9 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 381, note (c).\n\n10 A. C. Moule, \"The Siege of Saianfu and the Murder of Achmach Bailo\", Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 58 (1927), pp. 1-28; Vol. 59 (1928), pp. 256-257.\n\n11 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 141.\n\n12 Yüan-shih ed. K'ai-ming, ch. 190, p. 6565, II/III. For the Ho-fang t'ung-i see Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng, Vol. 1486.\n\n13 A. C. Moule, op. cit.\n\n14 R. Loewenthal, \"The Nomenclature of Jews in China\", Monumenta Serica, Vol. XII (1947), p. 113.\n\n15 H. G. Farmer, \"Reciprocal Influences in Music 'twixt the Far and Middle East\", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1934, pp. 327-342.\n\n16 Ch'ing-lou chi, ed. Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng, Vol. 2734, p. 9.\n\n17 H. Franke, \"Der kluge Richter\", in Asiatische Studien, 1950, pp. 55-59.\n\n18 Renate Noethen, Das Sha-kou ch'üan-fu, München, 1961 (Diss.).\n\n19 L. C. Goodrich, \"Westerners and Central Asians in Yuan China\", Oriente Poliano, Rome, 1957, pp. 1-21; \"Western Regions Writers of Chinese Lyrics during the Yuan\", International Conference of Orientalists in Japan, No. VII (1962) pp. 17-21.\n\n20 L. C. Goodrich, Oriente Poliano, p. 15.\n\n21 O. Sirén, Chinese Painting, Vol. IV, New York/London, 1958, pp. 54-59, plates Vol. VI, Nos. 57-60.\n\n22 W. Fuchs, \"Analecta zur mongolischen Übersetzungsliteratur der Yüan-Zeit\", Monumenta Serica, Vol. XI (1946), pp. 34-39; W. Fuchs und A. Mostaert, \"Ein Ming-Druck einer chinesisch-mongolischen Ausgabe des Hsiao-ching\", ibid., Vol. IV (1939/40), pp. 325-329.\n\n23 E. Haenisch, Mongolica der Berliner Turfan-Sammlung, II, Berlin 1959.\n\n24 A. Mostaert and F. W. Cleaves, Les lettres de 1289 et 1305 des ilkhan Argun et Öljeitü à Philippe le Bel, Cambridge, Mass. 1962.\n\n25 M. S. Ipsiroğlu, Saray-Alben, Wiesbaden, 1964, pl. XLIV, No. 64.\n\n26 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 217-219.\n\n27 H. Franke, \"Some Sinological Remarks on Rashid ad-Din's History of China\", Oriens, Vol. 4, (1951), pp. 21-26.\n\n28 W. Franke, \"Zur Frage der Mongolen in China nach dem Sturz der Yüan-Dynastie\", Oriens Extremus, Vol. 9 (1962), pp. 57-68.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205146, "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-1966", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n97\n\n38 I have heard this from many informants. See also Reichelt, The Transformed Abbot, London, 1954, p. 156, and J. B. Pratt The Pilgrimage of Buddhism, New York, 1928, p. 311. A Buddhist monk once explained to me that although it was true that Jesus had risen after three days, no one should think he had done this \"just by becoming a Christian\". He had performed religious exercises (hsiu-hsing) and that was how he had achieved resurrection. There was no attempt on the part of this monk to deny the miracle of resurrection, only to fit it into the Buddhist scheme.\n\n39 Rev. Joseph Edkins, The Religious Condition of China, London, 1859, p. 75. In 1875 Timothy Richard, when he was baptising converts in Shantung, found that there was no building convenient to the river where they could change their clothes before and after. He explained his problem to the monk in charge of the Buddhist temple there who \"readily consented\" to lend some of its rooms for this purpose. See Richard, Forty-five Years in China, New York, 1916, p. 95. In 1879 the largest lama temple in Peking allowed a colporteur of the National Bible Society of Scotland to run a bookstore within the temple, where on several days a week Christian books were sold. See C. F. Gordon Cumming, Wanderings in China, London, 1888, pp. 4-9.\n\n40 Harry A. Franck, Roving Through Southern China, New York, 1925, pp. 575-576.\n\n41 In the early 1890's De Groot reported: \"It has often happened to the author of these lines that when he was taking his meal in one of the monasteries where he was staying, he was visited by monks who were curious to see how he ate and what he ate: but it was enough for them to smell the odour of his roast of pork or his leg of mutton and they would be forced to make a hasty exit from the room: they felt overcome by nausea. Such strict vegetarianism, it goes without saying that when non-vegetarian lay people came to stay sometimes in a monastery they are not allowed to have their food prepared in the monks' kitchen. There are small separate kitchens for them, where their own servants can stew things up for them.\" (Le Code du Mahayana en Chine, Amsterdam, 1893, p. 103). In 1908, when Boerschmann stayed on P'u-to Shan, he grew tired of the vegetarian fare and sent his cook to smuggle in some chickens (Pu-t'o Shan, Berlin, 1911, p. 166). In these and other instances the monks are portrayed as tacitly or even gleefully cooperating in getting meat onto the foreigner's bill of fare. It seems more likely that their cooperation, when it was forthcoming (and often it was refused), was reluctant and indignant. There was a compelling practical reason for this. If Chinese pilgrims saw meat being eaten on the premises of a monastery, many of them would take their patronage elsewhere. This was understood by early Western travellers like A. J. Little (Mount Omi and Beyond, London, 1901, pp. 75, 81, and 83). Little also provides an example of the Westerner's tendency to haggle (pp. 68, 83). The meanest bit of haggling was probably perpetrated by Mrs. C. F. Gordon Cumming. In 1879 she visited the Tien-t'ung Ssu, one of the model monasteries of China. After she and her party had enjoyed an \"excellent dinner,\" they were asked to give the equivalent of English tenpence, Mrs. Cumming offered eight pence. When the offer was accepted, she tipped the waiter tuppence halfpenny, and noted that he \"grinned with delight. Can I give you a better proof that we have reached a spot where foreigners are almost unknown?\" (Wanderings in China, London, 1888, p. 291). Mrs. Cumming was quite mistaken, of course, about foreigners being unknown: probably more had stayed at T'ien-t'ung than at any other monastery.\n\nEven today Westerners with plenty of dollars in their pocket take pride in doing the poor Chinese shopkeeper out of a few cents, partly to show their savoir faire and partly out of fear of being cheated themselves. But the monastery was not a shop, and this sort of behaviour was regarded as most inappropriate there.\n\n42 W. E. Soothill, Timothy Richard of China (London, 1924), pp. 162-163.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205212, "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-1966", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "162 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nwith a Mexican name, was also brought to the Old World by the Spaniards. All of these plants crossed the Atlantic in Spanish bottoms and were then carried round the coasts of Africa and Asia to South China by the Portuguese. In the same way the sugar-cane, the banana and the yam were established in Brazil by the Portuguese and the cassava was introduced into West Africa where it has become the source of one of the staple foods of several countries.\n\nThe sweet potato, of course, presents special problems since there is reason to believe that it may have reached Polynesia in early times as an importation from the Americas. Nevertheless, it is not a native of the vast expanse of islands dotting the Pacific and it is much less likely that it came to China by that route than from the West,\n\nThe \"kind of melon\" of which the author speaks is known today in the Macanese dialect of the Hong Kong Portuguese as bobra Guiné (Guinea pumpkin). This word appears in Chinese characters (romanised as mó-pá-lá kin-ní by Mr. Luis Gomes in his Portuguese translation) in the Ao Men Chi Lüeh,? published towards the middle of the eighteenth century. The Chinese gloss has faan-kwa. It is likely then that this plant was introduced into China from West Africa or Guinea, to use the old name, and that the prefix faan cannot link this plant in any way with the Pacific area.\n\nThe rambutan (nephelium lappaceum), related to the lychee, is a Malayan tree and has a Malay name derived from rambut (hair), because of the hairy coat with which it is covered. This coat is of a reddish hue which no doubt explains the first element of its Malayan Cantonese name hung-mo-tán. The other elements are obviously phonetic renderings of the Malay word. This tree and its fruit were probably introduced to China by the Portuguese.\n\nAs a last comment on the element faan, are the faan-kwai not more often Westerners than people from the Pacific?\n\nOn the peanut, which, as Mr. Barnett says, bears no indication of foreign origin in its name, it appears to me that this plant may have been introduced to South-East Asia by the Portuguese. The botanists seem to agree that it is a native of Brazil and the Spanish chroniclers of the Indies describe it as a food-crop in Hispaniola", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205632, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n169\n\nOne of the areas in which we have particularly interesting and new information is that of Buddhist \"kinship\": one of the principles for organization used by monks and which copies that of the Chinese kinship system to an astonishing degree. Knowledge of this type of organization throws light in turn on the nature of Buddhist sects. Sects are merely a reflection of the number of disciples; if disciples proliferate then the \"lineage\" tends to divide into new sects; if they dwindle, the sect may disappear. As the author remarks, Westerners accustomed to connexions between sects and doctrines, and Buddhist specialists of Japan where sects have remained exclusive and doctrinal differences preserved, will no doubt find this difficult to accept.\n\nThe question of lay commitment is also pursued and the relation of recruited laymen to the monastic \"kinship\" system. Mr. Welch reveals, in fact, the whole complexity of inter-relationships among monks and laymen in this system and shows that a vast network of connexions existed among Buddhists despite the fact that Buddhism itself had no central leadership. Questions of syncretism are also discussed and the study of Confucian Classics by the monks. The author helps to correct the impression that all monks are illiterate also, by quoting figures from some local surveys conducted by the Communists during the first three years after they came to power.\n\nAs the author says himself: \"we have... a broad gamut of institutions and men, with the good and the bad \"the dragons and the snakes\" side by side. The system had room for both piety and commercialism, scholars and illiterates, vice and discipline - all making up a mixture whose components we know, although we cannot assay the proportions in which they occurred”.\n\nMr. Welch has done much in this work to adjust our perspective on Chinese Buddhist organization. He has already planned a second volume to cover the history of Buddhism. If it is anything like the present work we are in for some refreshing new statements and plenty of surprises.\n\nHong Kong, 1968.\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206423, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "214\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\ninto a modern system of law. No less important is the way in which this book tells us much of western attitudes towards Chinese law and of the ways in which the westerners attempted to come to terms with a system which was so unlike their own. Though we might today criticise Jamieson's comparative law approach and his defective anthropology, his book was a creature of its own time and of his own intellectual experience, and as such it must take a place on the sinologists' bookshelves.\n\nNotes\n\n1. A. M. Kotenev, Shanghai: its Mixed Court and Council, (Shanghai: North China Daily News and Herald Ltd, 1925; now reprinted by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei, 1968).\n\n2. But see now Hao, The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, Cambridge (Harvard U.P.), 1970.\n\n3. pp. 124-126.\n\nHong Kong, 1971.\n\nDAFYDD EVANS\n\nCHINNERY AND CHINA COAST PAINTINGS, Henry and Sidney Berry-Hill, 64 pages text, 144 photographs, F. W. Lewis. Publishers, Ltd., England 1970, U.S.$30.00.\n\nThe writers operate a picture gallery in New York City. In 1963 they published George Chinnery 1774-1852, Artist of the China Coast, which was reviewed in this Journal, Vol. 4, 1964, pp. 128-132.\n\nIn spite of severe criticism of their previous efforts, the authors, in another volume under the present title, persist in claiming that Chinese Port Scenes painted in Cantonese style were influenced by Chinnery and therefore are \"Chinnery School\". Even though there are numerous pictured examples in both books that Chinese Port Scenes before, during, and after Chinnery do not change and bear no resemblance to English painting, the authors plod on with their futile theory. For some 26 illustrations in the List of Plates marked \"Chinnery School\", substitute “Chinese artist\".\n\nObviously this book is written for the inexperienced collector. It lacks bibliography, an index, and a comprehensive table of contents. The text is largely a lyrical history of China from Macartney through the Arrow War. It positively oozes opium and frequently lacks accuracy.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206512, "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-1972", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "54\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nCouncillors at Jehol at this time: Mu-yin; K'uang-yüan; Tu Han; Chiao Yu-ying. Information on all these officials can be found in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, especially in the biography of Su-shun. Their power relationships are discussed in Banno, China and the West, passim, but especially 55-56. The term \"minister of the imperial presence\" (yü-ch'ien ta-ch'en) is rendered by Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization, p. 28, no. 101, as adjutant-general.\n\nII Tengchow is on the northern side of the Shantung promontory. In fact it was not opened to foreign trade which was carried on at Yen-tai near Chefoo. S. Wells Williams, The Chinese Commercial Guide, 211-212. Ch'aochow was the old name for Swatow; Ch'iungchow is in Hainan. Taiwan City and Tamsui were ports on the island of Taiwan which came under the administration of Fukien province.\n\n12 Ch'ung-hou was appointed to this post by an edict of 20 January with the designation superintendent of trade for the Three Ports, with his headquarters at Tientsin. Hsueh Huan, governor of Kiangsu and acting imperial commissioner at Shanghai, was made responsible for the newly opened ports along the Yangtze and the coast to the south of it, by the same edict. As far back as 1844 the imperial commissioner at Canton was currently designated imperial commissioner for the Five Ports. With the addition of new ports it was made a concurrent post of the governor of Kiangsu in 1861, until 1868 when it was made a concurrent post of the governor-general of Liang Kiang residing at Nanking. In 1870 the post of superintendent of trade for the Three Ports was raised to an imperial commissionership and held concurrently by the governor-general of Chihli. It is not clear when the commonly used designations for these two posts viz: superintendent of trade for the southern ports and superintendent of trade for the northern ports were first used. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 40-41; Banno, China and the West, 233-5.\n\n13 Article 3 of the Convention of Peking between Britain and China refers. See W. F. Mayers, Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers, 8. The phrase to avoid complications arising is a euphemism for 'to avoid peculation'.\n\n14 Tentatively we have translated the Chinese phrase hui-tan as counter-foil. Note 19 also refers.\n\n15 The term is fuyin. See Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 793.\n\n16 See Frank H. H. King, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911.\n\n17 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang. Chinese text in Ch'ow-pan wu shih-mo, Hsien-feng, 72: 2-3. A second edict was issued on the same day, and on the same subject, to the Grand Secretariat. This edict was translated by T. F. Wade along with the six-point memorandum. Note 2 above refers.\n\n18 Not to be confused with the Russian Hostel nor with the language school for the Russians in Peking, both of which were often referred to in Chinese documents as O-lo ssu-kuan, thus making confusion likely with the Russian language school referred to here. See Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 111, note 48.\n\n19 Lit. 'draw up a joint document'. Glossed by T. F. Wade as a paper signed by both parties showing that the amount deducted is in due proportion to the collection'. Translation of Peking Gazette in F.O. 17/352 p. 42.\n\n20 Presumably referring to Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the westerners serving under him. On the general subject of foreigners taking part in the administration of China after the middle of the nineteenth century see Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, 273-5; also Fairbank \"Synarchy under the Treaties\" in Fairbank (ed.) Chinese Thought and Institutions, 204-231.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206774, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\nA. D. BLUE*\n\nIn East Asia: The Modern Transformation, Professor J. K. Fairbank writes, \"This carrying trade on China's waterways was to prove the Westerners' main point of entry into the Chinese economy, for here the introduction of the steamship could alter the inherited technology\" As late as 1880 there was still not a single mile of railway in China, nor a single machine-driven loom or spindle. At that date, however, the three leading steamship companies owned forty-two steamships operating on the various routes on the Canton River, the Lower Yangtse, and between the various treaty ports on the coast. As K. C. Liu points out in his Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China, 1862-74, the steamship was not only a technological innovation. It was also a business innovation, because it brought with it new methods of capital organisation and management on a scale hitherto unknown in China. Many Chinese of the scholar-official class also recognised the importance of steamships, and of guns, and—by inference—the political system which made these things possible. From the mid 19th century onwards, memorial after memorial to the Throne emphasised this. Sir Charles Snow was not exaggerating so very much when he wrote that the steam engine helped to shape the modern world as much as Adam Smith or Napoleon. Unfortunately for China, officials closer to the Throne discouraged its occupants from pursuing modernisation.\n\nSteam navigation in China began in the south, on the Canton River, and—like so many other aspects of the Western invasion—came by way of India. The first steamship in Asia seems to have been the Nawab of Oude's steam yacht, about which little information has survived. According to Prinsep, this was built at Lucknow in 1819, and equipped with an eight horse-power engine sent out from England, so she must have been very small. She is said to have been capable of seven to eight knots, but when the Nawab tired of her was allowed to go to ruin. Apart from this, the first\n\n* Mr. Blue is well-known to readers of the Journal. An engineer officer of the British Merchant Marine since 1928, he has now contributed five articles on Eastern marine subjects.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206859, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "130\n\nSUNG HOK-P'ANG\n\nSUNG HOK-PANG (宋學鵬) (1880-1962)\n\nA MEMOIR\n\nFifty to sixty years ago, there were in Hong Kong some Chinese scholars who could impart to Westerners knowledge of the Chinese language and culture. Among those who were able to write in both English and Chinese methodical and systematic text-books on the Chinese language, especially on the Cantonese dialect, the name of Sung Hok-pang was prominent. Likewise, fifty to sixty years ago, quite a number of Chinese literary men in Hong Kong depicted the scenery and historic sites there in poetry or prose for pleasure or for commemoration. Among the few who took pains to go and investigate the customs of the people and the historic remains of the New Territories, again Sung Hok-pang was scarcely rivalled in eminence.\n\nFor us who live in Hong Kong and wish to discuss the study and transmission of the Chinese language or the geography and history of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, it is essential that we understand Mr. Sung's contributions in these areas.\n\nMr. Sung's original name was Sung Yick-lam (宋錫林). His other name was Sung Pao-lam (宋寶林) but he was generally known as Sung Hok-pang. He was born in 1880 in Fa Yuen of Kwangtung, but from childhood he was reared in Hong Kong. Since he became well versed in both Chinese and English literature and was very enthusiastic about education, he was highly esteemed. In 1905 he was appointed Headmaster of the Belilios Girls' School. Later, in 1911, he also conducted Cantonese classes in the Government Technical Institute for cadet officers and for foreigners comprising merchants, scholars and officers. In 1913, besides being Headmaster, Mr. Sung was also appointed Inspector of Schools in the New Territories. As a result of his inspection and investigation, the Hong Kong Government followed his suggestions, and subsequently many of the schools in the New Territories received subsidy. Also, a new post of Chinese Inspector was established and Mr. Sung was appointed to this. In 1914 he helped organise the Government Evening School of Education and was head of this institution. In 1916 he was appointed Senior Vernacular Master attached to Queen's College, as well as adviser in matters pertaining to the teaching of Chinese in all government schools. In 1925 Sir Cecil", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206970, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n35\n\nCollège Stanislas at Cannes. In 1877 he entered the military academy of Saint-Cyr;22 after passing out from Saint-Cyr, he joined the famous Saumur cavalry school. He was to remain a magnificent horseman all his life.\n\nThe turning point in Morès' life came in 1881 when he met Medora von Hoffmann, the daughter of Louis von Hoffmann,23 a New York banker of German extraction, who had a villa, like Morès' father, at Cannes. Morès resigned from the army and in February 1882 married the petite, blonde Medora, who was to bear him three children. In August 1883 they travelled to the New World and Morès soon after started work in his father-in-law's bank.\n\nMorès was an astute banker but when his cousin, Count Fitz-James, returned from a hunting expedition to the Dakotas and regaled him with tales of his adventures, he decided to throw up his banking career and head west to the area of the Dakotas called the Bad Lands. In April 1883 Morès, together with William Van Driesche, set out by Northern Pacific Railway from Chicago for the Little Missouri River. After an inspection of the country he decided it was ideal for cattle ranching. He bought a large tract of land, built his own town--Medora--and a twenty-eight room château24 on a spur overlooking the river and the new town.\n\nThe Marquis, who had begun to fence off his land, soon made enemies among the badmen of the area. Three in particular – Luffsey, O'Donnell and Wannegan--on several occasions attacked the château at night and their gunfire was returned by the intrepid Marquis and Van Driesche. The series of incidents culminated in the ambushing of the trio by the Marquis and two of his cowboys. Luffsey was killed, the other two wounded and taken prisoner. The incident did not end there, for the Marquis was charged with murder, held in custody and nearly lynched by an excited mob.\n\nMorès established his own abattoir, meat-packing and processing plant at Medora and hoped, thereby, to undercut the prices for dressed meat set by the monopolistic 'beef barons' of Chicago--the Armours and Swifts--but he was opposed not only by them but by their business allies, the railroad magnates. By 1885 it was clear that Morès' cattle empire was tottering, that he could not compete with the stockyards of Chicago, and that his scheme to provide cheap meat to Westerners and Easterners alike had totally failed. He returned to New York with his family, but at once attempted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207041, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "106\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nrepresenting the age of the person who placed the offering in the temple, and also long metal forks offered to priests indicating their age. In the grounds of Vat Vixun is the melon-shaped stupa in memory of a Lao queen, the That Mang Mo and another vihara, unrestored, lies nearby. Vat That Luang is raised on a mound overlooking a sports field and is very sober. The vihara has a two-tiered roof and rises from an ornamental stucco band with medallions on the walls. There is an excellent and large carving of a scene from the Ramayana at the back of the altar, and the temple possesses a number of fine palm-leaf manuscripts which are copied by novices. At each end of the vihara is a chedi; the square one to the south is topped by bronze metal plates and is impressive.\n\nThis is by no means an exhaustive list of the temples of the city; temple building still continues, and Vat Monnorom, which used to consist of nothing except a large torso of an antique Buddha statue, is now being rebuilt around the statue. The energetic may climb to the top of the Phu Si less to visit the shrine, which is without interest, but to admire the magnificent view over the Mekong valley and that of its tributary, the Nam Kam. The Vietnamese temple is in hideous taste but again has fine views over the river. The small modern royal palace may not be visited and the residence of the crown prince is a modest French-style colonial building. A number of side streets are worth strolling down, if only for their tranquility; they are unpaved, the houses are of bamboo matting and atap, the gardens bright with bougainvillias and children look with amazement at westerners.\n\nSome thirty kilometres up the Mekong river are the Pak Ou caves. The scenery becomes ever wilder, the mountains more dramatic and the rapids stronger. Pak Ou consists of a limestone block straddling a bend in the river at the point where the Nam Hu joins it. There are two caves; the first, Tham Tong, contains numerous statues of the Buddha left there by the faithful (and some of which have recently been removed by the unfaithful, which is why it is necessary to report to the police on arrival and to be watched throughout the visit); through the frangipanni trees a path leads upwards to a second cave which goes further into the rock. The entrance to this is of carved wood and it is guarded by a jovial Buddha of Chinese inspiration; remnants of carved and decorated posts are to be found inside, leading one to suppose that there might have been a kind of baldachino.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207291, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.I. CO.\n\n51\n\nI might have been able to have furnished you and my country with some lasting memorial of services rendered in that naval field where so much fame has so honourably been acquired; but you are aware that my career in that service was cut short by the entire stop to promotion which took place at the close of the American war in the year 1782; and the sea service of the East India Company, which I then adopted, gave but little scope for anything worth relating; however, on one occasion, in China, I was placed in a situation the account of which you may perhaps think worthy of a place in your collection.\n\nIn 1811 I was commodore of a large and valuable fleet belonging to the East India Company, then lying in the port of Canton.\n\nIn Canton all mercantile business is carried on by Chinese appointed by the Government and styled Hong or security merchants; they are selected from the richest and most respectable persons in Canton, and through them only can the supercargoes, our residents in China, have intercourse with the Hoppo, or Viceroy.1\n\nThese merchants have therefore the power of withholding all representations to the Government which may be against their private interest, or otherwise disagreeable to them by exposing the extortions and impositions they frequently attempt on the English.\n\nOn the occasion I am now going to relate the Hong merchants had some pecuniary demands which the supercargoes thought it their duty to resist.— the consequence of which was that misrepresentations were made by them to the Viceroy, and, when the fleet was ready to sail, the port-clearance was refused.\n\nAfter various ineffectual efforts to obtain our despatch, Mr. Brown, the chief supercargo, sent for me and expressed his anxiety at the unlooked-for detention of the very valuable fleet which was ready for sea. He informed me he had sent several petitions by the security merchants to the Hoppo, but he had reason to believe that\n\n1 Hoppo, or Viceroy. This mistake shows how dangerous it is to read the account of an eye witness of that time without making sure that his/her facts are correct. The Viceroy was the Westerners' name for the Governor-general of two provinces. Working in association with him was the Governor (Fu-yuan) of Kwangtung with his headquarters at Canton. Independent of these two great mandarins stood the Superintendent of Maritime Customs for Kwangtung who was the Emperor's direct financial representative at Canton, and was known to the English merchants as the Hoppo, this being a corruption of the Chinese name of the department of government at the capital under which he served, the hu-pu (Board of Revenue).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207345, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n105\n\nhad married, or lived with, Chinese, Eurasian or Portuguese women and for that reason stayed on.\n\nThe decision to remain in employment in Hong Kong was also related to the level of wages in Britain and to depressions and unemployment in the mother country. Most felt that they were better off, if only marginally, in Hong Kong. Lastly, many inspectors had served in the army, navy or merchant marine; the jobs they took in Hong Kong usually satisfied their instinct for hierarchy, order, and discipline. As Dr. Topley writes:\n\nIn Hong Kong, unlike in some British colonies and ex-colonies, two social classes of westerners are recognized. Chinese divide westerners into the taai-puân (bosses) and pong-paân (help-manage). The latter category includes most people who are in uniformed supervisory jobs. The former term has been romanised by westerners in Hong Kong as \"Taipan\" and is used commonly in conversation and in the English press to refer to wealthy westerners.28\n\nThose in uniformed supervisory jobs—members of what one may call the 'inspectorate'—were in nearly every case former servicemen. There was thus no radical break in their lives when they stayed to work in Hong Kong in the dockyards, Marine Department, Sanitary Department, P.W.D., police, or prisons.\n\nTAIPANS AND THE EUROPEAN LOWER CLASS\n\nVisitors to Hong Kong were always startled by the extent of conspicuous consumption found there. Typical are these comments by a seasoned traveller in the 1860s:\n\nEuropeans in Hongkong live in a very expensive style; much more expensively, one would think, than they need do, when we consider that many of the necessaries of life are to be had at prices very little in advance of our market rates at home. Nothing surprised me more in Hong Kong than the expensive way in which English assistants were housed, and the luxuries with which they were indulged. Indeed few more luxurious quarters were anywhere to be found than the 'junior messes' of the wealthy British firms. There the unfledged youth, coming out from the simplicity of some rural home, was apt to develop into a man of epicurean tastes, a connoisseur in wines, and to become lavish in expenditure...29", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207363, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n123\n\nperformed a valuable military function. Not only did they help cast cannon for use against the invading Manchus prior to the Ch'ing takeover, but at least one, Adam Schall von Bell, received orders to join the Ming campaigns against the rebel, Li Tzu-ch'eng, as a military adviser.52 During the 1620's the Ming government even employed a number of Macao-born Chinese and Europeans to fight against the Manchus, although the motley contingent of musketeers and gunners never got further north than Nan-ch'ang (Kiangsi).53 In all, foreigners in the Ming military service played a useful role, but their employment was never viewed with unqualified approbation. Whatever difficulty did occur with barbarian employees, the Chinese bureaucracy and historians tended to label it \"rebellion.\"*54\n\nAfter the fall of the Ming capital in 1644, the Manchus used Western military assistance to consolidate their position in China, while Ming loyalists continued to avail themselves of it in fighting the Ch'ing. During this transitional period, the Portuguese especially showed a marked ability to \"run with the hare and hunt with the hound,\" serving both sides as gunners and craftsmen.55 At Peking, meanwhile, the Jesuits succeeded in transferring their allegiance to the Ch'ing and continued to serve as court scientists and technicians. Remarkably, the Manchus do not appear to have harbored a grudge against either the Portuguese or the Jesuits for their support of the failing Ming cause. Perhaps this was because European military and technical aid remained useful to the dynasty throughout the seventeenth century: In the 1660's, the Dutch, as \"tributary subjects,\" rendered naval assistance to the Ch'ing against the Cheng rebels on Taiwan; in the 1670's and 80's the Jesuits cast cannon for use in suppressing the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (1673-1681); and at various times a few Dutch deserters and some escaped slaves from Macao held low-rank positions in the Ch'ing military service.56\n\nBut with the decline of Jesuit influence in the eighteenth century after the bitter attacks of Yang Kuang-hsien and the famous “Rites Controversy,” the use of Westerners in military affairs likewise declined. Anti-Western sentiment grew more pronounced at the capital, while at the same time, multi-ethnic Ch'ing military forces—composed of Manchus, Mongols, Chinese, and some Russians (with whom the dynasty had a special relationship), sufficed to protect, and even expand, China's boundaries without the aid of new Western technology and significant numbers of European troops.57", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207364, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "124\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nTo be sure, the Ch'ing dynasty was not blindly anti-foreign, having accepted both Russians and other Europeans (the Dutch) as allies, and having allowed a number of Russians to be \"naturalized\" (kuei-hua) and incorporated into the elite Banner forces.58 But the ever-tightening strait-jacket of neo-Confucian orthodoxy under the Manchus, and the rise of anti-foreign (particularly anti-Christian) propaganda, did not portend a friendly reception for Westerners when they attempted to \"open\" China by force in the nineteenth century.\n\nThe Nineteenth Century Context\n\nBy the mid-nineteenth century, the West had earned China's well-deserved distrust for its aggressiveness and intractability. Pronounced anti-foreignism (championed, ironically, by a scholar of Mongol extraction in the 1860's) blossomed after the Opium War of 1839-1842 and grew apace with further Western economic, military and religious activity in China. During the Opium War, the throne had countenanced, and even encouraged, limited and unobtrusive military assistance from Americans in the time-honored tradition of \"using barbarians against barbarians.\" In the area of Canton, for example, a few individuals \"dressed in Chinese costume\" assisted the Chinese in building fortresses and casting cannon.59 But by the Hsien-feng emperor's reign, China had adopted a belligerent anti-Western stance, and despite the panic precipitated by the Taiping outbreak in 1850-1851, the throne seemed totally indisposed to accept any kind of foreign assistance against the rebels. The situation did not change appreciably until 1860, when the British and French occupied Peking in an attempt to enforce the provisions of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858).60\n\nAfter the signing of the Peking Conventions in late 1860, which ushered in a new period of \"cooperation\" between China and the foreign powers, Western barbarians began playing a prominent role in Chinese military affairs. A number of diverse individuals became involved: Foreign military men and diplomatic officials, customs personnel, swashbuckling adventurers, and even missionaries.61 On the whole, the participation of these individuals fell within the bounds of China's long tradition of \"borrowing talent from foreign lands\" (chieh-ts'ai i-ti).62 But unlike alien employees in earlier periods of Chinese history, Westerners in the nineteenth century were a new breed of barbarian, confident of their own cultural and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207365, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n125\n\nmaterial superiority, and intent not on conforming to Chinese ways, but on changing them. Enjoying the privilege of extraterritoriality and other unequal treaty “rights,” they were closely linked to the policies and practices of their respective home governments, who, after 1860, maintained a diplomatic (and at times military) presence on Chinese soil. These foreign employees were at best unwitting agents of cultural change, and at worst, potential tools of the aggressive Western powers. Their use by the Chinese, therefore, introduced special new problems of responsibility and restraint.\n\nThis was particularly true in light of China’s all-too-obvious military weakness and the new role Western technology was beginning to play in Chinese military affairs. The Manchus, obsessed with internal security, were fearful enough of modern Western weapons in the hands of Chinese (as opposed to Manchu) soldiers. To allow foreigners to train and command Western-armed Chinese troops introduced an additional element of risk. Yet under the exigencies of the massive Taiping Rebellion, the dynasty sanctioned the rise of foreign-trained and foreign-officered Chinese contingents in a desperate effort to stem the threatening rebel tide.63 And despite the changed circumstances of China’s internal and external situation after 1860, Ch’ing policymakers instinctively looked to the past for policy guidelines.\n\nPage 04\n\nAs the first Westerner to hold high military rank in the new situation, the career of Frederick Townsend Ward is worthy of special attention. Like many other barbarian employees in China’s past, this outlaw-adventurer from Salem, Massachusetts owed his position in the Chinese military service to singular circumstances. At a crucial juncture in the Taiping Rebellion, Ward raised a unique, foreign-officered Chinese military force, the Ever-Victorious Army, which proved useful not only as a weapon against the Taipings, but also as a means to limit Western intervention in the Chinese civil war.65 In the course of his brief career, Ward attained the rank of colonel (fu-chiang), and upon his death in 1862 he received high posthumous honors and abundant praise for his loyal service to the dynasty. But during his lifetime, Ward’s behavior was under close and constant scrutiny. So innovative was his position that Chinese officials were reluctant to suggest historical parallels, and it was not until well after his death that the “Yankee adventurer” began to be compared with such noteworthy barbarian employees in the past as Yu Yu and Chin Mi-ti.66", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207369, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n129\n\nloyal service to the dynasty, he had shown himself to be ungrateful, greedy, power-hungry and difficult to control. Given the privileged position such Westerners enjoyed in China, transgressions by them could not easily be punished--even if they were to become Chinese subjects.77\n\nWhat could not be expected of Ward could hardly be expected of other foreigners in the Chinese military service. Emphasizing that Westerners did not delight in Chinese clothes and customs, Hsüeh and Li argued that China “need not force them to do what they find difficult.\" In their view, nothing was to be gained by foreign military employees going through the motions of either changing to Chinese clothing or registering as Chinese subjects. The throne voiced substantial agreement.78 Allowing foreigners to follow their own customs was, after all, consistent with the traditional policy of \"keeping [barbarians] under loose rein [chi-mi],” which did not exclude the idea of cultural submission, but neither did it demand it. Meanwhile, local officials were expected to devise effective means for establishing control over barbarian employees until such time as their services could be dispensed with.\n\nWhen Charles G. Gordon received command of the Ever-Victorious Army after Burgevine's dismissal, the throne did not require that he register as a Chinese subject or change to Chinese ways.79 It did, however, demand that he be effectively controlled. Unmoved by the prospect of material gain, and comparatively aloof, Gordon was a difficult barbarian to ensnare. Yet through a combination of flattery, honors, shrewd diplomacy, and administrative pressures (including the presence of Li Hung-chang's growing Anhwei Army) the Chinese succeeded in winning and maintaining Gordon's devotion.80 Throughout his career in China Gordon carried the stigma of being an \"unsubmissive\" foreign commander,81 but he received unprecedented honors from the throne. Eventually, with Li Hung-chang as his sponsor, Gordon achieved the exalted rank of provincial commander-in-chief (ti-tu) and the coveted yellow riding-jacket (huang ma-kua). By the end of his tumultuous career as head of the Ever-Victorious Army in 1864, he and Li Hung-chang had become fast friends, and they remained so for many years to come.\n\n82\n\nDuring the T'ung-chih period, a considerable number of other foreigners entered the Chinese military service. Some, such as A. E. LeBrethon de Caligny, Prosper Giquel, and Paul d'Aiguebelle, led foreign-officered contingents patterned after the Ever-Victorious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207370, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "130 \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH \n\nArmy,83 Others, such as Captain Coney, Baron de Meritens, and William Winstanley, headed foreign-training programs established in treaty port areas. Still others, including John Pennell, Halliday Macartney, and William Mesny, served in Chinese armies as individual instructors or officers.85 Forced by circumstance to employ these foreigners, the Chinese became quite adept at handling them—despite China's disadvantageous position vis-à-vis the West. \n\nAs in the past, Ch'ing officials paid their foreign employees well, at the same time subjecting them to close surveillance, and fostering personal relationships with them as a means of control. In addition, however, they also took special pains to define regular channels of communication and command, and specified roles and responsibilities through the use of detailed regulations and written agreements.86 Furthermore, in rewarding loyal foreign service, the Chinese authorities went beyond simply arranging for edicts of praise and encouragement, the dispensing of ranks and titles, and the bestowal of traditional marks of imperial favor such as peacock feathers, silk, animal skins, and silver. They also began notifying foreign governments of the accomplishments of their respective nationals, and distributing foreign-style (as opposed to Chinese-style) medals—a rather significant departure from traditional practice. The throne even went so far as to acknowledge in 1864 that since Westerners especially esteemed foreign-style medals, these awards were the most generally appropriate expression of imperial gratitude.87 \n\nTo be sure, Peking continued to reward evidence of cultural submission, casting it in traditional terms of imperial condescension. The cases of Pennell and Mesny provide striking examples of this tendency.88 Moreover, throughout the nineteenth century, even as the Chinese world order crumbled about them, Ch'ing policymakers continued to use expressions such as \"turning toward Chinese civilization,\" \"cherishing and soothing men from afar,” and “using [the doctrines of] China to transform the barbarian.\" Policymakers also persisted in referring to both ancient and more modern precedent in order to justify (or argue against) the employment of barbarians in Chinese military affairs. Allusions to the use of foreign \"allies\" as the Hsiung-nu and Uighurs, as well as references to such diverse individuals as Yu Yü, Chin Mi-ti, Ch'i-pi Ho-li, and Gordon, continue to crop up in Ch'ing documents of the 1890's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207645, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "18\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nWestern attire in Japan, although never complete, undoubtedly received some of its impetus from the military. Likewise, the wearing of Western-style military caps necessitated the cutting of top-knots, which quickly became a mark of \"enlightenment\" in Japanese society generally. As early as the 1870's, the emperor began wearing a military uniform in the fashion of European royalty.39 One can hardly imagine a Chinese emperor doing the same.\n\nAnother socio-cultural effect of military modernization was the boost given to music, drama, art, literature, and even the use of the Japanese vernacular by the Sino-Japanese War. Donald Keene has brilliantly summarized the impact of the war on these areas of Japanese life, emphasizing also the change in Japanese attitudes toward China, the growth of Japanese national pride, and the altered perceptions of Westerners toward Japan as a result of the war and Japan's resounding victory.40\n\nIn economic terms, the modernizing effect of the military is more difficult to judge. Ogawa's study of conscription, for example, sees the military as a mixed blessing in nearly every sphere of economic life, including labor, productivity, and consumption.41 Yet on balance, military development seems to have benefited the economy. Even the most outspoken critics of the military and its costs, such as Ono Giichi and H. T. Oshima, concede that there were at least some economic advantages to the Meiji program of military modernization—especially in the creation of military and military-related industries, which served as model plants, and in the increased demand for products through inter-industry linkages.42 Military needs, in other words, generated a demand for modern products produced by modern means, and contributed to the growth of economies of scale. The Sino-Japanese War brought Japan numerous economic benefits and a huge indemnity (231 million taels; nearly 368 million yen), which was put to effective modernizing use, although war expenditures and the indemnity did contribute to economic problems such as business fluctuations and inflation.43\n\nFor China, much of the foregoing discussion can be stated in reverse. Although the lack of a centralized military did not appreciably impair the Ch'ing government's authority as long as \"regional\" leaders remained loyal to the throne, it did prevent China from contending effectively with foreign aggression, and eventually undermined support of the dynasty. Furthermore, the fragmentation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207649, "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": 37, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "22 \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH \n\n11 Comparative studies on selected aspects of modernizing change in these two time periods would be illuminating. One might compare, for example, the aims and accomplishments of the Peking Tung-wen kuan (established in 1862) and the Bansho Shirabesho (established in 1858). On the former, see Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-chih Restoration, 1862-1874 (New York, 1967), 241-248; on the latter, consult Marius Jansen, \"New Materials for the Intellectual History of Nineteenth-Century Japan,\" Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 20 (1957), 569-582. On the use of Westerners in military affairs in Japan from 1853-1868, see Presseisen, 1-23; H. J. Jones, \"Bakumatsu Foreign Employees,\" Monumenta Serica, 29.3 (Autumn, 1974).\n\n12 Presseisen, chapter 1; Smith, , chapter 4.\n\n13 Albert Craig, Chôshu in the Meiji Restoration (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), 131-136, 201-203, etc.; Richard J. Smith, \"Foreign-Training and China's Self-Strengthening: The Case of Fenghuang-shan, 1864-1873,” Modern Asian Studies, 10.2 (1976).\n\n14 Presseisen, 22-23.\n\n15 See notes 7 and 8; also Hyman Kublin, \"The 'Modern' Army of Early Meiji Japan,\" Far Eastern Quarterly, 9.1 (November, 1949), 24-26; Meron Medzini, French Policy in Japan during the Closing Years of the Tokugawa Regime (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 125-133.\n\n16 For a discussion of Li's modernizing efforts, his extensive use of foreign assistance, and the obstacles he encountered, see S. Y. Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West (New York, 1966), 111-112; K. C. Liu, “The Confucian as Patriot and Pragmatist: Li Hung-chang's Formative Years, 1823-1866,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30 (1970); Kenneth Folsom, Friends, Guests and Colleagues (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), 152-157; and K. C. Liu, “Li Hung-chang in Chihli,” in Albert Feuerwerker, et al., eds. Approaches to Modern Chinese History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967).\n\n17 See, for example, Lord Charles Beresford, The Break-up of China (New York and London, 1899), 267-289, esp. 270-280; Major A. E. J. Cavendish, \"The Armed Strength (?) of China,\" Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 42 (June, 1898), 709-710, 713-714, 717; Richard J. Smith, \"Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850-1860,\" Journal of Asian History, 8.2 (1974), 127.\n\n18 See Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 212; Cavendish, 709-710, 713-714.\n\n19 See, for example, Cavendish, esp. 720-723; Captain W. R. E. Gill, \"The Chinese Army,\" Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 24 (1881), 371-377; Chester Holcombe, China's Past and Future (London, 1904), 81-88; \"The Chinese and Japanese Armies,\" reprinted from the Army and Navy Gazette in the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, 15 (1894), 1258; James Scott, \"The Chinese Brave,\" Asiatic Quarterly Review, 1 (1886), esp. 240; etc.\n\n20 See Smith, , Chapters 8 and 9.\n\n21 See Yang-wu yün-tung cited in Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 218. On Chinese resistance to foreign instructors and officers, see ibid.; also Cavendish, 720-721.\n\n22 See, for example, L. C. Arlington, Through the Dragon's Eyes (London, 1931), 18; Stanley Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs (Belfast, 1950), 478-481; John Rawlinson, China's Struggle for Naval Development, 1839-1895 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 65-78, 93-94, 163; Holcombe, 80-85, esp. 83.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207653, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "26\n\nDOUGLAS W. SPARKS\n\nThis article begins with a brief, general overview of the social history of the Teochiu in Hong Kong, and then outlines the Teochiu formal and informal organizational structure, with the intention of examining the nature of Teochiu solidarity. Attention then focuses upon a micro-analysis of the Teochiu population of one government housing estate in order to examine some of the processes that will have been mentioned. Tentative conclusions are then made concerning the nature of ethnicity in urban areas, as opposed to \"rural\" areas, of the Colony.\n\nCurrent anthropological approaches to the study of ethnicity view it primarily as a reflection of political economic dynamics and are oriented toward conflict and competition models while de-emphasizing the importance of cultural content as an explanatory variable of inter-ethnic interaction and conflict. The identification of cultural differences is generally, of course, a salient feature in ethnic ideology and myths and is an important aspect of ethnic stereotypes in Hong Kong. Differences between ethnic groups in Hong Kong in ritual, beliefs, and family structure, etc. are minimal however, particularly in the urban areas. \"Cultural\" explanations of ethnic solidarity in Hong Kong, as well as reductionist explanations postulating the traditional psychological tendency for Chinese from the same village or district to cohere, are insufficient. An individual has a choice as to when, if ever, and in which social contexts a particular role or \"identity\" is asserted. One can quite obviously be a \"member\" of an ethnic group and choose to ignore that membership or identify with a larger, perhaps more inclusive category or a politically dominant category. Ethnic identity is not fixed from birth; anthropologists have been particularly interested in studies of individuals who cross ethnic boundaries and become \"members\" of another ethnic group (see Barth, 1969). An individual's decision is influenced by pre-existing conditions or constraints within the social system. One purpose of this paper is to indicate several constraints influencing some Teochiu to positively assert their identity as Teochiu.\n\nEthnic Studies in Hong Kong\n\nPast studies of Chinese social organization in Hong Kong and South East Asia generally have not dealt with ethnicity as an important variable in that organization nor with different ethnic groups,\n\n1 The concern here is with studies of Chinese ethnic groups and not with studies of Westerners in Hong Kong vis-a-vis Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207780, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "A ROAD TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN WEST CHINA 1942-46 153\n\n4. Addition of centrifugal fan blowers to give some supercharge to the engine. These were belt driven from the engine front drive pulley. They were obtained as part of an American-designed and manufactured producer gas kit and were about the only components which stood up to the service required. The amount of petrol used for starting was small and a charcoal truck would normally use about 2 gallons for a 500 km. 3-4 day run. It was thus possible to haul 1000 km. tons with a minimum use of imported fuel and maximum use of the local resources.\n\nConclusion\n\nThe physical and quantitative part of the Units' transport work has been outlined in this paper. It is hoped that this record can be made more accurate and detailed by further research. If the transport work had not been done, many would have died who were cured. However, perhaps equally valuable was the training given and example set by the Western members in terms of systematic maintenance and driving care. The image, held by many Chinese at that time, of the Westerner as missionary, doctor, educator, or businessman; one who in general gave directions for others to carry out, was somewhat changed by the sight of young men working with their Chinese colleagues and employees, greasing steering, repairing engines and coaxing recalcitrant trucks over the roads of West China. It was an educative experience for all those involved and showed the value of practice over precept in the establishment of efficient working methods.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 These included a 26 hour, 606 mile drive from Lashio to Rangoon to clear medical supplies from the docks, 7 trucks loaded with medical supplies as part of the last convoy out of Rangoon on March 6, 1942; and a group of members, attached to Dr. Seagrave's Medical Unit, made the trek out of Burma to Assam in the party commanded by General Joseph W. Stillwell. Medical work with Chinese and Indian troops and civilians coming out of Burma into Assam continued there until the end of 1942.\n\n2 It is appropriate to mention briefly the direct medical work of the Unit. This consisted mainly of Mobile Surgical Teams (MST) attached to Chinese Army hospitals and treating military and civilian patients. These teams usually consisted of about eight people: two surgeon/physicians, one anaesthetist and two nurses, a dispenser, a handyman/mechanic and a business manager/quartermaster. The first of these MST was stationed at Walchow in Kwangtung in mid-1942 when forces were concentrated for a projected attack on Hong Kong. Most of the MST worked in Yunnan and the Salween front.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208307, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "THE REFORM OF MILITARY EDUCATION IN LATE CH'ING CHINA, 1842-1895\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH*\n\nThroughout much of the nineteenth century, Chinese and Westerners alike perceived the need for meaningful reform in Chinese military education. The problem could hardly be ignored, especially after the disastrous Opium War of 1839-1842. But change in this key area of late Ch'ing administration came slowly. Not only did it involve sensitive political issues, such as internal security, civil-military relations, and central versus local government responsibility; it also raised basic questions of educational policy, including the relationship between elite and popular instruction, between Confucian moral cultivation and technical specialization, and ultimately between Chinese and Western forms of civil and military knowledge. Complicating matters were the usual practical problems facing Chinese modernizers in the nineteenth century: widespread and entrenched vested interests, bureaucratic inertia, scarcity of revenue, and foreign pressure.\n\nThe Ch'ing dynasty's basic approach to military education can be seen clearly in the Ch'ing-ch'ao t'ung-chih, officially compiled during the Ch'ien-lung period: \"Our Emperor, succeeding and exalting the sages, treats the selection of talents as most important. In the literary arts, elegance and refinement is the aim. In military examination, familiarity with riding and shooting is [most] important.\" During the Tao-kuang reign, this emphasis on technical military skills received special stress. In 1833, for example, the emperor issued an edict stating that the education of Bannermen should be in horsemanship and archery, so that they would be kept \"simple and straight and not exposed to weakening [literary] influences.\" Similar statements abound in the dynastic record,\n\n* Professor Smith writes: S. A. M. Adshead has recently remarked that while \"China's failure to industrialize is well known, her failure to professionalize is less often commented upon.\" (See his review of John Fairbank et al \"The I.G. in Peking\" in the Journal of Asian Studies, 36.4 (August, 1977). This paper may be viewed as a brief comment on China's early effort to professionalize in military affairs.\n\nThe author is Associate Professor of History at Rice University, Houston, Texas.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208317, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895\n\n25\n\nbasis for progress reports to the throne.58 In 1890, a specialized program of instruction in railroad engineering was introduced, although no information exists on the total number of students involved.59\n\nPeriodically, students from the Tientsin Military Academy were sent to Port Arthur and Shan-hai-kuan for practical training in infantry, cavalry, and artillery units.60 In addition, cadets at the school occasionally gained actual battle experience, notably in 1891 against rebel forces at Jehol and elsewhere. According to Li Hung-chang, the experiment was quite successful.61 Only one group of Tientsin academy cadets went abroad: In 1889, Li sent Tuan Ch'i-jui, Wu Ting-yüan, Shang Te-ch'üan, Kung Ch'ing-t'ang, and T'eng Yü-tsao to Germany for advanced study. After a year of military academy instruction in Berlin combined with advanced training at the Krupp gunworks in Essen, the students returned to China.62\n\nLike the Tientsin Naval Academy, established by Li in 1880, the Tientsin Military Academy was financed by the shrinking Pei-yang maritime defense account.63 In all, the money was reasonably well-spent, but, as Wang Chia-chien has indicated, the academy suffered from a variety of administrative, financial, and other problems (including difficulties with foreign employees), many of which also plagued the few other military and naval training facilities of the period.64\n\nNonetheless, on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, China appeared to have built a respectable military and naval organization. In fact, when conflict between China and Japan seemed likely, most Westerners gave the strategic edge to China.65 But the illusion of China's superiority on land and sea was quickly shattered by Japan's rapid drive into Korea, Manchuria, and China Proper. Judiciously combining land and sea operations, the Japanese completely overwhelmed the diverse Chinese military forces sent to resist them.66 Throughout the war, reports from British, French, and other foreign observers repeatedly praised the Japanese for their able strategy and tactics, effective training, tight discipline, valor, esprit de corps, and the excellence of their support facilities. No such praise was forthcoming for China.67\n\nThe Sino-Japanese War illustrated with striking clarity the bankruptcy of China's \"self-strengthening\" movement. In almost every respect, Japan's strengths during the conflict were China's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208405, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA [1933]\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nC. MARTIN WILBUR*\n\nThe importance of the study of village government in China can hardly be too enthusiastically pressed. It deals, in the first place, with a phase of Chinese life which has in the past been largely overlooked by Sinologues. Western students have been too inclined to lay stress upon and to confine themselves to the political history of the Chinese, or to the monuments of Chinese culture, its art, philosophy and literature. As to how the people themselves lived there has apparently been little interest. To be sure, the central government of China has been carefully studied, and many admirable works on government institutions have appeared. But almost no study has been made by Westerners upon the government of the village, despite the fact that this is to a large degree the only real government for the vast majority of the people. Because the institution vitally affects the lives of the Chinese people, and because it is peculiarly their creation, it should be of great importance to the Sinologue.\n\nTo the general student of social institutions the subject should likewise be of great interest. It seems strange, indeed, that Sociology and its allied sciences have not demanded of Sinology more information upon the conditions of rural life in China, or have not themselves gone out to get it. If only to serve as a cultural measuring rod, as a basis for objective comparison with Western institutions, Chinese social phenomena should be of high value. Yet the Sociologist, no less than the Sinologue, has largely overlooked the rich and important phase of Chinese life which is here to be considered.\n\n*The author, C. Martin Wilbur, Professor Emeritus of Chinese History, Columbia University, was awarded his M.A. in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University for this thesis in 1933. The work is still of value, and with the author's kind permission it is printed here, with the exception of the chapter on the historical development of village government (pp. 74-109 of the original typescript). No changes or additions have been made, nor any updating attempted. Hon. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208419, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n127\n\nThe most simple of these groupings is the sex family proper. Larger than this, although tied almost as closely together and of much the same order, is the “larger family”, in which relatives by blood or marriage, but extending over several generations through the male line, live together in a common household. Often it is only fragments of other simple families, widows or orphans, who, dwelling together with a sex-family, form out of it a \"larger family\". On the whole the sex family proper and the \"larger family\" present the same general features, and need not here be distinguished.\n\nKulp uses the term “economic family\" to describe all those who make up a common economic unit. The individual kinsmen may live in sex-families, in larger groups in separate parts of the village, or abroad, but so long as they pool their resources, own their property in common, and are administered by a single Chia-chang they may be called an economic family. This grouping, according to Kulp, is the working unit for maintenance in the village community.\n\nThe term \"religious family\" may be used to describe a unit of all those who trace their descent from and worship a common ancestor. The whole clan usually sacrifices to a common ancestor, of course, but various more recent ancestors may be the object of worship by smaller groups, down to the single family which honors the spirits of its deceased parents or grandparents. If the group in the religious family is large enough it may have its own ancestral temple aside from the one which will be the center of worship for the whole clan. Because it is the chief preserver of village practices and values, and because its leader is one of the individuals through whom clan authority is integrated, the religious family has great significance in village life. It is the practical unit of social control in the village.\n\nA definite system of integrating authority among the various groups within the sib is characteristic of clan life. Over the sex groups which make up an economic family, or over a number of economic groups which make up a religious family there is a recognized head, who in his province has both an authority over and a responsibility for the members in his group. Above the economic or ancestral groups stand the clan leaders. In many cases the head of a lesser group will by no means have the final authority in matters which Westerners might consider his responsibility alone. Thus\n\nIbid., p. 148.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208445, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n153\n\ncrimes or disturbances in the village. Williams believes that this system of mutual and integrated responsibility does tend to check serious offenses, but he adds that if a general sentiment opposes a government regulation the probability is that neighbors would shield rather than expose one another.1\n\nIV\n\nThere are two sides to the relations between the village and the government. The relations of the government toward the village have been discussed; what of the attitude of the village toward the government? The characteristic attitude is one of avoidance. It is hard to say what has been responsible for this vigorous shunning of any actual contact with the central government. The phenomenon may have arisen only during the corrupt last century of the Manchu dynasty, and notice of this by Westerners may be the only basis of the opinion. For the general impression one receives of the Chinese government throughout its history is certainly not of tyranny and ruthless oppression, even if the economic history of the people shows their condition frequently to have been wretched. It is true that rebellions were common and often started among the people themselves, but this cannot be considered as the normal relationship between the two.\n\nThe immediate causes for the avoidance of government by the people during the Ch'ing dynasty (which is the only period we can safely discuss) may have been the generally corrupt nature of the Hsien government. Whether the magistrate were good or evil did not necessarily affect the government which the people felt. Their relations were almost entirely with a group of professional underlings, \"rats under the altar\", as they are called, who were fixed to the Yamen irrespective of the triannual change of magistrate. These individuals seem to have been grasping and corrupt to the extreme,\n\n1 Williams, Edward T.; China Yesterday and Today, p. 122.\n\n2 A statement with regard to the corruption of the Ch'ing government, while it seems perfectly safe, needs to be made with caution considering that most of our information comes from two highly prejudiced sources. Most foreigners writing at the time were eager to have extraterritoriality enforced by their government, and naturally sought to paint a black picture of conditions. Secondly, most of the Chinese who have written in Western languages of conditions at that time are spokesmen of the Republic, and take every opportunity to stress the evils of the Ch'ing dynasty.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208801, "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": 258, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n231\n\nstrength (“gunboat diplomacy” and “showing the flag”) that westerners were indeed the equal of Chinese, and that the trade which was mutually beneficial ought to be allowed to flourish in peace and tranquillity.\n\nProfessor Graham shows quite clearly that, of course, the dominant theme of this whole period was the issues raised by the meeting of traditional sino-centrism and the dynamic of western expansion, a familiar theme from the work of countless China scholars including Fairbank and Waley. The author details much of the theme in episodes in Canton (“a war of nerves between British ‘barbarians’ and Canton ‘imbeciles’”), at Chusan, at Shanghai (in 1841 a “squalid” place “rising from the middle of ‘a low unhealthy marsh’”, but by 1858, a queen of a city “with handsome houses and gardens and busy quays”, pp. 217-218), and finally, close to the imperial seat, at Taku at the mouth of the Peiho.\n\nThe book pays the usual attention to some of the familiar and hoary myths: on the one hand, the Chinese official belief in “self sufficiency” and on the other the Western traders' belief in the limitless potential of China for international trade (The present interest in China of the international business community sounds all too familiar to the historian!); the “inscrutability” of the Chinese (the author seems to subscribe to this myth even toward present day Chinese!); their “traditional courtesy to the stranger” (For accuracy substitute “curiosity toward” for “courtesy to”!); and the curious belief that Chinese did not (do not?) react to heat and cold and pain and hunger like the rest of mankind (despite which, history shows quite clearly that the Chinese do indeed react to such stimuli as armed force and deprivation, like their fellows.)\n\nGraham on occasion overstates and exaggerates his analysis of the character and temperament of oriental races, seemingly succumbing to the now fashionable habit of admiration for anything “oriental” that lately, and again, permeates western attitudes and approaches to the Orient.\n\nOne also notes a contradiction or so: on page 356 we read,\n\n“Whether out of ignorance, natural courage, or despair, they (Chinese) were never cowed by the trappings of military might. The British Commissioner underestimated their determination and tenacity.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208879, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n13\n\ntwo temples are alike. The interior decoration and content of temples tend to reflect their keeper's foibles, whims and beliefs, and whilst some temple keepers offer special rituals, others are thoroughly disinterested and their temples often bare and ill-kept and bereft of any spark of life. Rural temples are considerably barer than their urban equivalents. In some, poverty is stark and all that can be seen is a well-nigh empty hall, with an ash container for incense sticks and perhaps a paper plaque or two, with possibly an image and, if it is at all possible, electric illumination even in fairly remote areas. At the other end of the scale some of the urban temples are cluttered with objects of every kind, with the cool courtyard being used as a social gathering place. Incongruities abound such as, not uncommonly, sweaty vests drying on hangers suspended from the front edge of the altar, and the blaring gramophone record of church bells which greeted several surprised Westerners when they entered a small temple in Kowloon. Many temples have private courtyards for use by the keeper and his family.\n\nVisitors touring the Far East frequently compare the spacious, light and clean Thai Buddhist temples with Chinese folk religion's dark and grimy temples. Many Chinese Buddhist monasteries and temples, not usually on the itinerary of tourists, are also bright and clean whereas the religious edifices in which folk religion deities dwell and which are visited by tourists in Hong Kong central and Kowloon, appear quite forbidding. Traditional folk religion temples consist of a single-storey building with windowless outside walls and one large dark, cavernous entrance, through which one can see oil lamps flickering in the gloom. Inside the temple the altars at the far end of the dimly lit halls may contain a single deity, a small group of deities or hosts upon hosts of them. Clouds of incense with its soft fragrance adds to the eerie dimness and in time blackens the gods. It also makes one's eyes water! One aspect obtrudes during certain seasons - open drains in the older traditional temples.\n\nThe basic urban, village and coastal traditional temple is a one-roomed “box”. It can be a traditional building (Illustration 4) or a simple old cottage. It might even be an old two or three bedroomed two-storey house or, if the founder has been fortunate with his sponsors, it will be a purpose-built construction.\n\nThe main doorway of the basic traditional temples at the front is normally the only entrance. It has large inward-opening doors", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209001, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n131\n\nThe Chinese are both adept at make-believe and at the same time very practical—in a way that confuses some Westerners. This flexibility also creates problems for the government of Teng Hsiao-p'ing. I have heard these problems talked about inside China and outside China. The most serious problem is that mid-level cadres report to Peking only what they think will please the orthocrats there. Therefore mid-level cadres conceal from their superiors the fact that a target has not been met. They do not want to be criticized for not meeting targets—and perhaps lose some of their perks.\n\nIn Peking the perquisites of cadres struck me more than anywhere else. I did not myself see the special schools that their children attend; nor their superior places of residence. What I did see once was a procession of about fifty cars, each with its curtains drawn as if to shield the occupants from curious gazes. I was told that the wife of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was visiting Peking. The first of several of the cars in the cavalcade were flying national flags as they went past me on Ch'ang-an Boulevard. Ambassadors rode in them.\n\nAfterwards I was walking back to the Peking Hotel, where I lived not in the western part (built with Russian help), but in the eastern part built in 1975. I happened to look in a gateway on the south side of Ch'ang-an Boulevard. I could hardly believe my eyes. What I think I saw was a white marble statue of Stalin, about ten feet tall. I could not enter the courtyard and inspect the statue more closely because the sign at the gate informed me that this was the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Security.\n\nThe Chinese government is now revealing that many of the statistics released in 1958-1976 were erroneous. It is issuing corrections when it can. But it faces limits. For example, how can it state with certainty the approximate population of the world's most populous country? Cadres in distant areas may be reluctant to report that they have failed to carry out the program to stop married couples from having more than three children. Many peasant families still believe that the best old-age insurance is a larger number of children. Where they feel this way and have four or more children, the village cadre may be reluctant to report the fact to the county cadre; and the ascending accumulation of errors may be concealed from Peking. If Peking does not know the population of an area, it cannot plan to take adequate measures in case of drought—like the one in Kansu, for example, in 1979.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209127, "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-1981", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "STEPHEN MORRIS \n\nliving space of the man he has attacked; and it is the task of the elders, the guardians of the adat, to exact material compensation for the attack and expiation in the form of symbolic gifts, usually of gold and iron, graded according to the rank of the injured party. So also spirits, with the help of human intermediaries who have special knowledge can be made to see the offence they have committed in attacking a human and made to understand that they must co-operate in putting matters right, thus restoring proper order.\n\nHere I have to confess a difficulty that faces me; my knowledge of illnesses and the western medical classification of them is exceedingly poor. The Melanau themselves used a limited number of terms to describe the symptoms of being ill. My notes are full of words which I translated as wounds, sores, pains in the belly sharp or small, pains in the head, in the chest, in the eyes, and so on. People were feverish, hot, cold, confused, ‘felt bad', had a ‘dark face', a leg or an abdomen was swollen, and so on. Children cried incessantly and dribbled, people sweated beyond reason. To bring some order into the subject I once set a student, who was a state registered nurse, to try and classify the long list of symptoms I had collected in a way that perhaps made sense to her and that might correlate with illnesses as we understand them. She ended in very confused condition and I put her on to another project.\n\nIn 1950 one of the Medical Officers in Sarawak came to the village I was then working in, and with my help took a hundred blood samples for analysis. At my request he made a quick medical diagnosis of twenty-five of the people he saw. For what it is worth his results showed 6 people to have had syphilis or gonorrhea, 6 more, mostly women, were suffering from anemia; 6 were suffering severely from tuberculosis; 3 showed active signs of malaria; 2 had glaucoma; 1 had epilepsy; 1 had rheumatoid arthritis; and 1 showed signs of beri-beri. In other words, the doctor's classification and that of the Melanau were rather different; and though both the doctor and the villagers were agreed that in most of the cases all was far from well, their ways of arriving at that conclusion and their views on what to do about it were rather different. Both looked at a syndrome of symptoms and diagnosed a cause for the imbalance in the bodily economy; and on the basis of a theory about that economy both prescribed a course of action to set things right. For certain kinds of illness the doctor was, on the whole, more successful than the Melanau.\n\nBoth the Melanau and westerners have techniques for avoiding\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209255, "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-1981", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "# JUAN YÜAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON\n\n## 1817-1826\n\n## WEI PEH T'I\n\nIn November 1817, Juan Yuan (1764-1849) was appointed Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. He had formerly served as Governor of Chekiang and of Kiangsi. The Governor-General at Canton was the highest Chinese authority dealing with foreign trade and relations in China on a day-to-day basis and on specific issues. During his tenure at Canton, for almost a decade, with the Governor of Kwangtung and the Superintendent of Canton Customs, he handled foreigners in accordance with rules set out under the Canton system.\n\nAt the end of 1817, there were several potentially explosive problems involving Sino-British relations and trade. The failure of the Amherst mission the year before had left certain controversies unresolved. The fact that the five ships carrying the mission to Taku had managed to evade Chinese surveillance after being provisioned, and had surveyed the China coast from Taku to Canton, had left the Chia-ch'ing Emperor and the court more sensitive than ever to the issue of British naval presence in Chinese waters. Jurisdiction over foreign nationals in port was also a source of serious disagreement between the Chinese authorities and foreigners in Canton. The importation of opium and exportation of sycee silver, both prohibited by imperial decree, were to become a major area of controversy in time. Diplomacy as an art of managing foreign relations was outside the Chinese experience. As Westerners at Canton were neither tribute bearers nor alien conquerors, Juan Yüan chose to manage his dealings with foreigners as a matter of security and control.\n\nThe Canton system governed all foreign (except Russian and tributary) trade in China, which had been confined to this port since 1760. Essentially, under this system, foreigners carried on their buying and selling through franchised hong merchants. As time went on, these hong merchants performed an increasing number of functions. By the time Juan Yuan came to Canton, they \"not only settled prices, sold goods, guaranteed duties, restrained the foreigners, negotiated with them, controlled smuggling, and leased the factories to them, they also had to manage all the aspects of a banking business, act as interpreting agencies, ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209272, "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-1981", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 161\n\nMeanwhile, the Tao-kuang Emperor felt keenly British challenges to traditional Chinese foreign policy. Juan Yüan was summoned to Peking. One topic of their discussions was Sino-British relations at Canton. But these discussions must be interpreted in the light of another pressing development.\n\nPage 162\n\nIn 1821, the Tao-kuang Emperor, newly on the throne, adopted a policy that was closer to Juan Yüan's point of view. A more stringent anti-opium policy was enforced at Canton, leading to closer monitoring of activities and movements of foreigners in port. The following year, a new situation developed in the northwest, giving further evidence that the British were challenging the Canton system by trying to open new trading frontiers in China. The combination of these factors led to toughened measures to control Westerners in Canton. That year, Wu-lung-a, assistant military governor for administration (ts'an-chan ta-ch'en) in Kashgar, reported to the Emperor the presence of two British traders near Yarkand in western Sinkiang. These traders had entered the Chinese Empire from Kashmir and Tibet, and had travelled by camel across the Sinkiang desert, but had sent the camels back when they were no longer suitable for the terrain. These traders and the remainder of their caravan had been prevented by the local chieftain of Yarkand, Akim Beg Mohamet, from buying horses, blankets and other provisions. Wu-lung-a, whose responsibilities included Yarkand, had ascertained that these traders were indeed British, and had indeed come from Kashmir. He enclosed with the memorial a letter from a British official in India which gave in considerable detail the route taken by the two traders from Kashmir to Sinkiang, as well as their intention to travel through the Chinese Northwest to Bukhara, north of Afghanistan, hence their need for horses. This letter to the Akim Beg identified the writer and the traders, then continued:\n\nThese traders and their retinue would like to go to Bukhara, taking any road that was safe for them, ... It is their understanding that the road through Yarkand is good and safe. They also heard that his Imperial Majesty is kind and fair to strangers, therefore, they have come to discuss with me the possibility of taking this road. They have asked me to certify their need to purchase horses, blankets and stockings. As it is the British practice for the chief in each city to write a letter to the chief of the next city on the traveller's route on behalf of the traveller, I am writing this letter to the Akim Beg of Yarkand. Wu-lung-a, maintaining the traditional Ch'ing policy that the only\n\nPage 163", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209506, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "141\n\nH.F. MacNair, The Chinese Abroad (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1925) 57.\n\n* P.C. Campbell, Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries Within the British Empire (London: P.S. King, 1923).\n\n* See A.W. Hummel (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1943).\n\n40 Charlie Chan, the Hollywood Chinese detective, who frequently quoted Confucian aphorisms, was accepted as a lifelike Chinese by film-goers in the 1930s and 1940s. The slinky, enigmatic, deadpan Anna May Wong represented, for Westerners, the Oriental belle or siren.\n\nGO Ng Kwee Choo, The Chinese in London (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) 2. Ng takes these figures from a study by L. Wong, Overseas Chinese in Britain (unidentified by the writer). Ng believes Wong's figure is an overestimate and prefers a lower one: 30,000. In the 1901 Census of England and Wales, 61 percent of the Chinese recorded were seamen; in 1911, 36 percent; in 1921, 26 percent. This trend has continued to the present day. Laundrymen overtook seamen in the 1920s and 1930s; now restaurant workers represent a significant proportion of Chinese in Britain.\n\n* Only a small proportion of murder suspects are actually convicted of murder; in the past, only a relatively small number were eventually hanged; many are discovered to be mentally disturbed, or commit suicide. See Elwyn Jones, The Last Two to Hang (London: Macmillan, 1966).\n\n6 Public interest awakens with a spectacular and brutal case, such as that of the Black Panther or the Yorkshire Ripper cases.\n\nNeedless to say, definitions of normal and abnormal behaviour are not necessarily the same in two different cultures. See, for example, Arthur Kleinman and Tsung-Yi Lin (eds.), Normal and Abnormal Behaviour in Chinese Culture (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1981). Such differences are usually an expression of cultural differences, which may be comprehended, and of different social definitions, which may be grasped.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209835, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "72\n\nChinese culture is intrinsically poor or has less to give than the English language or Western culture. Far from it, it is just that except for the missionaries who came to China, there was little incentive on the part of westerners to learn the language. And the contact of Chinese immigrants with Americans resulted only in a few phonetic loans associated with certain aspects of material civilization e.g. chopsuey, and terms like tong. And in the Hong Kong context more of the local population has adopted western ways than the expatriates have adopted Chinese ones. The expatriates in Hong Kong, unlike immigrants into a new society, rarely attempt to genuinely assimilate the local culture. As a consequence they accept far fewer cultural loans. But given the number of words of Indian origin entering English and attaining varying degrees of integration during British rule in India, I cannot say with certainty that this attitudinal factor is a strong cause for the paucity of Chinese loan words in English. And there are expatriates who are exceptions to the general rule. In some cases, out of a disinterested desire to integrate or to know more about the place in which they live, or out of a desire for professional advancement, or because of a mixture of motives, expatriates do learn the language and culture. Moreover, with the changing situation of Hong Kong, attitudes of native speakers of English to the Chinese language are undergoing perceptible changes.\n\n(4) Absence of a Single Dominant Form of the Lending Language.\n\nUp until the last War, expatriate exposure to Chinese was to a mixture of mutually unintelligible Chinese 'dialects'. Of expatriates resident in China between 1870 and 1940 approximately one-third lived in areas where they were exposed particularly to Cantonese (in Hong Kong, Canton, Macao), another third in areas exposed particularly to Shanghainese, and the rest partly in areas exposed to Mandarin (in Peking, Tientsin, Wuhan, etc.) and partly in areas exposed to Min dialects", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209848, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "85\n\nLoan Word\n\nChinese Characters\n\n*Choy sum 蔡心\n\nConfucius 孔夫子\n\nCongou 工夫\n\nCumshaw 感謝\n\n*Chung Young 重陽\n\n*Dimsum 點心\n\n*Ding how 真好\n\n*Fanqui, 番鬼\n\nfankwei 番鬼\n\nFan-tan 番攤\n\nFen 分\n\nFeng shui, fung shui 風水\n\nFo 佛\n\n*Foki 伙計\n\nFoo yong, fu yung 芙蓉\n\nGalingale 高良薑\n\nGinseng 人蔘\n\nMeaning\n\nA species of leafy Chinese vegetable, with yellow flowers.\n\nK'ung Fu-tse n. the Chinese name of Confucius.\n\nA kind of black tea imported from China.\n\nIn the Chinese ports: A gratuity.\n\nA Chinese festival falling on the ninth day of the ninth moon on which according to traditional belief people have to go up to high places to avoid calamity. Also a day for sweeping ancestral graves.\n\nTidbits eaten at a Cantonese repast taken either in the early morning or at lunch time known as yum cha or 'drinking tea'. Literally meaning 'the most excellent best'.\n\nLiterally 'barbarian ghost', used to refer to westerners in the early days of contact between China and the west.\n\nA Chinese gambling game in which a random number of counters are placed under a bowl and wagers laid on how many will remain after they have been divided by four.\n\nA monetary unit of the People's Republic of China worth one hundredth of a yuan.\n\nIn Chinese mythology, a system of spirit influences, good and evil, which inhabit the natural features of landscapes; hence, a kind of geomancy for dealing with these influences in determining sites for houses and graves.\n\nChinese Buddha.\n\nA term used to refer to waiters in restaurants, but sometimes also used in the wider sense of people who work in the same organization, i.e., 'colleagues'.\n\nFu yung, lit. hibiscus: a Chinese omelet made with bean sprouts, green pepper, and onion and fried in deep fat.\n\nLit. 'mild ginger from Ko'.\n\nEither of two arallaceous plants, Panax Ginseng (Schinseng), of China, Korea, etc., or P. quinquefolium, of North America, having an aromatic root used in medicine by the Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209849, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "86\n\nLoan Word\n\nChinese Characters\n\nMeaning\n\nGung ho\n\nI A\n\n*Gweilo\n\n鬼\n\nLiterally 'ghost' or 'devil man', used to refer to Westerners. Widely current in Hong Kong.\n\nHan\n\n漢\n\nOf, relating to, or having the characteristic of, the period of the Han dynasty; of, relating to, or being a nationality group of Chinese descended from the original Chinese constituting an overwhelming majority of the population and the dominant cultural group: belonging to the Chinese proper as distinguished from other nationality groups.\n\nHakka\n\n客家\n\nOne of a tribe or race of Chinese dwelling in parts of southern China, particularly in the province of Canton, descendants of immigrants from northern China in the middle ages; also their dialect,\n\nHoey (wui)\n\n會\n\nA society of Chinese; especially a secret society. In Hong Kong a savings club.\n\nHong\n\n行\n\nA foreign trading establishment in China or Japan.\n\nHyson\n\n熙春\n\nA species of green tea from China.\n\nI-ching\n\n易經\n\nAn ancient Chinese book of divination and a source of Confucian and Taoist philosophy.\n\n*Kaito\n\n街渡\n\nLiterally 'street ferry', used to refer to boats plying between various points in Hong Kong.\n\n*Kaifong\n\n街力(坊)\n\nLiterally 'street square', used to refer to a neighbourhood, especially to community organizations.\n\nKaolin\n\n高嶺\n\nA fine white clay produced by the decomposition of feldspar, used in the manufacture of porcelain; first employed by the Chinese, but subsequently found in many places.\n\nKetchup\n\n茄汁\n\nA sauce made from the juice of mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes, etc.\n\nKowtow\n\n叩頭\n\nThe Chinese custom of touching the ground with the forehead, as an expression of respect, submission, or worship.\n\n*Kuk\n\n局\n\nLiterally 'association', 'society', 'committee'.\n\n*Kung hei fat choy\n\n恭喜發財\n\nLiterally 'wish you grow prosperous'. A Chinese New Year greeting.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210333, "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-1984", "page_number": 304, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "283\n\n11\n\nMurrow, Stephenson & Co. (AAR1-MIMO). He seized every chance to gain advantage and became rich. He was respected by the Chinese as well as by the foreigners. Later, he established the Heng Ch'ang (97) fuel company (R) by himself. At his suggestion, three steamers, the Russell (M), the Shamrock (A), and the Merry (4), began running between Hong Kong and Macao. Then he opened a Yü-sheng (4) Store (19) and a Yu-cheng (M = Esing) Bakery. The businesses expanded daily. Yu-cheng was a Bakery using western methods to produce the finest quality goods. Its products supplied all the water and land (residents) of Hong Kong.\n\nBecause he had too many workers, he had no time to check minute details. One day, through carelessness, a worker dropped some odd things (*) into the flour. When the westerners bought and ate the bread, they all felt sick and fainted. At that time, because the French and British had attacked Canton in 1856, the Chinese Government was preparing to declare war on the French and the British. Thus, the British suspected that he was commanded by the Chinese Government to poison the British, and prepared to prosecute him. However, because of his truth and honesty, he was soon released.\n\nBecause of this unhappy incident, he went back to Macao and opened a Hang-tai (48) store to sell western goods. He lived as if nothing had happened. Four years after, in 1860, when the French captured the six prefectures of Vietnam, a French lieutenant came to Macao and met him. The lieutenant made a contract with him for building several dozen junks (##). In 1862, when the construction was completed, he went personally to deliver the junks to the French in Vietnam.\n\nBecause of his loyalty and honesty, the French Governor (iti) requested him to do business in Vietnam. Thus, he stayed in Vietnam and travelled around the country. He saw that the country was rather poor, and that the houses were all made of mat and grass. He then bought machines and established four brick-kilns, (Yuan-heng (V), Li-cheng (i), Chien-mei (#), and Kun-mei (1)), and employed workers to make bricks and tiles for building houses.\n\nThe country soon became prosperous and populated, and merchants started to congregate in the country. There were 200 Hainan Chinese who sailed directly to Vietnam at that time. Because they did not know the French law, they were arrested and accused as pirates. Before they were all sent to be shot, he personally exerted himself in their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210745, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "79\n\nII. The settlements\n\nThe puppet theatre and most of the Taoist rites took place at a site in Shek O village during the festival. The participating villages included Shek O as well as Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. Hok Tsui is more than three miles from Shek O and used to hold its own celebration. A formerly separate settlement, Seung Wai, was midway between Shek O and Tai Long Wan about 2 miles away. Its residents had moved to Shek O in the 1920s or 1930s. Taking Seung Wai into account and assuming that it had joined the festival before the removal, the festival had been celebrated by three neighbouring villages.\n\nHaving one of the most scenic beaches in Hong Kong, Shek O is a popular holiday spot for the urban residents of Hong Kong. Double-deck buses run between Shaukiwan and Shek O at half-hour or shorter intervals from early in the morning to 11:30 p.m. Near where the road divides for Shek O and Tai Long Wan a golf club which caters mainly for Westerners occupies a large area of land. Near the bus stop at Shek O are several shops, food stalls, restaurants and bicycle rental shops catering for the needs of the holiday visitors. Some of the shops have tables where one can sit for a drink. When there are few visitors in the winter season there are local people playing mahjongg or chatting over glasses of beer in some of those shops.\n\nThe casual tourist will notice a dense settlement of cottages and huts, and in the areas with better views, Western-styled \"villas\". Few of the houses are in the style of indigenous village houses found in the New Territories. Near the bus stop is an area of vegetable gardens run by Hoklo residents whose presence in the settlement was conspicuously represented during the jiu celebration by several flags set up near the bus stop. Superficially, everything suggests that Shek O is a rather recent settlement.\n\nBut Shek O has existed as a village for more than 150 years, if, as the villagers claim, the last decennial jiu was the sixteenth.' Originally, the villages were inhabited by Punti and Hakka people. A 73-year-old woman who married in from Hok Tsui told me that her husband's family had been there for four generations. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210750, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "84\n\nCHAN WING HOI\n\nnot give any figures for the ratio between indigenous residents and newcomers among the members, but he stressed that no distinction was made between the two groups (mou-san pei-chi).\n\nIt seems, nonetheless, that the Hoklo, Wai Chau and Chiu Chau residents see themselves as distinctive groups in the settlement. There is probably a separate association for them, for many of the flags put on display in the entrance area were styled \"to the Fuk-Wai-Chiu [a short term for Fuk Kin, Wai Chau and Chiu Chau] fellow townsmen\" or their Association.'\n\nI found out less about Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. In these two settlements, too, the indigenous villagers had been Hakka and Punti people who practised paddy cultivation and fishing. Many of the men of more recent generations worked as seamen and their descendants were able to obtain jobs in the city. As in the case of Shek O, outside interest in their scenic surroundings has been a major factor in the changes in the last few decades.\n\nI talked with Mr. Yau Ho Sam, who moved to Tai Long Wan about 40 years ago. His native place was Zheng Cheng, but before he moved to Tai Long Wan, he had lived at Wong Chuk Hang. There were only some ten families at Tai Long Wan when he arrived. Now there are more than 100. The original inhabitants were mainly Hakka although some were Punti. According to Mr. Wong, Tai Long Wan is still a mainly Hakka village, although there are also some Punti, Chiu Chau and Hoklo people. Tourist facilities can be seen in the village, and there are some Westerners' residences.\n\nFor Hok Tsui most of my information comes from the man who drove the Taoist priests to his village in his van for the daily haang-chiu procession in the festival. In the past the village had 40 indigenous households. Now there are fewer. The villagers were mainly Hakka. His family has been here for ten generations, counting to his grandsons. In the past many worked as seamen. They probably became wealthy in that occupation. There is a watch tower (diu-lau) in the main village (jing-chyn) for protection against bandits, said to be the only watch tower left on Hong Kong Island. I observed that many of the present houses were not in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210757, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "91\n\nlanterns affixed on the posts shone on Shek O and Tai Long Wan people.\n\nThe priests and ritual representatives visited the faan-gon posts and made offerings three times a day in a procession called haang-chiu (audience procession). When I followed one of those processions in Shek O, however, I discovered that not all four of the faan-gon posts were erected at the corners of the settlement. The first faan-gon post in Shek O visited by the haang-chiu procession was between the school playground and the quarters of the cleansing unit of the Urban Services Department. One of the local members of the procession volunteered the information that the post was set up there because three years ago a fatal accident took place at the spot. Two young boys who lived in the quarters of the cleansing unit were playing there when a stone pillar fell down suddenly and killed both of them.\n\nV. The local gods\n\nThe Tin Hau was represented by her wooden image at the centre of the altar. Behind the image was a piece of red paper on which the titles of ten local deities were written. With the exception of the Sea Goddess (shui sin) of the small temple at one edge of Shek O Beach, they were Baak-gung and Daai-wong earth gods of Tai Long Wan, Shek O, and Seung Wai. One of them, styled jang-paang daai-wong (earth god of the stakenets), was a reminder of the former fishing activities of the local residents. Many others had probably existed for the protection of villagers in fishing and farming. The change in land use is evident in the reply given by Mr. Wong, the local leader, when asked where the god's place was. He said, \"Below the number 10 alley of the Westerners' residences of Tai Long Wan,\" linking the god with the change that had taken place in the locality. He gave the same description for the location of another god, the Earth god of the Banyan Tree Place. For the Seung Wai daai-wong, he explained that it was below no. 1 alley, which had become a residential area for Westerners. It used to be the villagers' settlement which was removed to Shek O for the construction of the golf club. There were also three gods whose names were not known to Mr. Wong. He believed that those were from Hok Tsui, the village which joined in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210789, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "123\n\ntwo.\n\nForeigners in the land\n\nAlthough the opening of Hainan to foreign trade led to an influx of westerners to open business houses and man the British, German and French consulates that were installed in Haikou soon after the treaty port proclamation, they were not the first foreigners to penetrate Hainan. This honour belongs to gallant Roman Catholic priests who took up residence on Hainan almost 300 years before, although undoubtedly even these priests were preceded by unknown sailors from foreign vessels marooned by typhoons on the \"Shore of Pearls\".\n\nThe first Jesuit padre known definitely to enter Hainan was Father Gago who was shipwrecked in 1560 on the southern coast (Madrolle, 1898), and spent five months at San Ya before he could secure passage to Macau (Dehergne, 1940). However, it was not until the arrival of the Portuguese Jesuits, Pierre Marquez in 1632 and Benoit de Matos in 1635, that a church was established in K'iungchow (Pfister, 1932). By 1637, there were four churches with a total membership exceeding one thousand which included some high officials such as Wang Hung-hui, a former emissary to Peking, and his son, Paul (Pfister, 1932; Dunne, 1962).\n\n2\n\nThrough persecution and plagues, a succession of priests from Portugal, France, Italy and Germany, superintended the growing mission for more than a half century until 1665 when Jesuits were banished from China (Dehergne, 1940). After the priests were expelled, church property was seized and converted into Taoist temples, two of which were still standing in the late nineteenth century (Swinhoe, 1872a). Little remains today of this influence, although as late as 1919, the Roman Catholic cemetery in K'iungchow was still intact, albeit neglected, and the epitaphs of at least three priests buried in the 1680's could still be deciphered (Moninger, 1919). The number of tombs of respectable people is evidence of the large following the Jesuits had established in Hainan (Henry, 1886).\n\nBetween 1673 and 1725, priests returned to Hainan to continue", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210978, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "15\n\nhistory. His famous essay, 'The Century of Louis the Fourteenth', concludes — and this was a logical step — not with an assessment of the state of French affairs, but with a chapter which had apparently nothing to do with France, a chapter entirely devoted to the Manchu Emperor Kangxi, whose reign almost exactly corresponds in China to the equally long years of Louis XIV in France. Long before UNESCO, Voltaire compiled under the misleading title Essai sur les Moeurs — an essay on human manners and ways\n\na long and detailed comparative history of the world as it was known to him, making a point of keeping a proper balance between the chapters dealing with Europe, the Arab civilisations, India and of course China.\n\nChina had enabled the French Philosophe to approach the problems of mankind at the highest possible level, and in most general terms. China had indeed been the occasion of a major intellectual advance, but probably at the expense of China itself. One should wonder whether the Westerner ever gave up this attitude, namely dealing with China as an abstraction, almost as Utopia. The French eighteenth-century intellectuals may well have a responsibility for this major incapacity of ours, even today, to face China as a more complex and more concrete reality, not an abstract construction.\n\n8\n\nFor French intellectuals, China was indeed a philosophical abstraction. But it was also a cultural fashion, almost a cultural gadget. Chinoiseries were very popular, through tapestries, lacquers and silks, porcelains and ceramics. Pagodas were built in many aristocratic gardens and parks. China was a popular theme for aquatint engravings. The success of the rococo style in architecture and decoration had a distinct Chinese flavour, the shady and gracefully vanishing colours and shapes of Watteau's landscapes displayed a remote but definite Chinese influence. China was everywhere, even on the stage with a play by Voltaire, L'Orphelin de la Chine. The monarchy itself had engaged in the Chinese fashions. The ageing Louis XIV celebrated the first New Year of the eighteenth century with refined, if fake, Chinese-style festivities. Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's mistress and a declared supporter of Voltaire and Diderot, was keen to give the Chinese touch to her banquets, feasts and dances à la chinoise. This Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211037, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "73\n\ntion of schools, contained in the Government Gazette, included: “An Upper Grade School means one in which at least part of the Staff is European. Lower Grade Schools are those under purely native management” (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 30th June, 1905, p. 1023). Earlier, Bishop Hoare, the Anglican Bishop of Victoria and South China announced at the annual prize distribution of a school noted for its ethnically ‘mixed' admissions policy that he \"did not believe it was a good thing to put two races side by side in the school. He did not think they mixed. There was a gulf between the Chinaman as a Chinaman and an Englishman as an Englishman, and he did not think it was a good thing for Chinese boys to be educated side by side with English boys” (Hong Kong Daily Press, 30th January, 1901, p. 3). Amongst the largely supportive correspondence in the letters to the editor pages of the local press provoked by the report of Bishop Hoare's speech, there is a letter from a local Chinese resident, Wang Chung-yu, who argued, “Now, to exclude Chinese from certain schools means to go against the law of nature and to aggravate the hatred between Chinese and foreigners.... My experience goes to show that, as a rule, European boys in school generally depreciate things Chinese, and therefore there is no need to fear that European boys may learn any bad method of thinking peculiar to the Chinese.” (Hong Kong Daily Press, 7th February, 1901, p. 3).\n\n48 Sweeting (1983), p. 274.\n\n49 Despite the lack of warmth and closeness in the personal and social relations between the two communities, there was, in a sense, a reciprocal interest by certain Westerners for \"Things Chinese\". This interest was largely intellectual (anthropological and literary) and is, perhaps, best exemplified by Dyer Ball's large publication, which in later editions became increasingly larger, actually entitled Things Chinese. See the Introduction and Prefaces of J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press reprint, with Introduction by H.J. Lethbridge, 1982 of the 5th Edition revised by E. Chalmers Werner, 1925). Interestingly enough, Dyer Ball also published a book entitled Cantonese Made Easy, which by 1904 had reached its 3rd Edition.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211129, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "165\n\nencountered was resisted and resented.\n\nIt was an accepted maxim that the prosperity of Hongkong was dependent on its status as a free port. Any interference with the trade of Hongkong was a threat.\n\nThe fact that China was within its legal rights to levy duties on goods carried in Chinese junks and to collect these duties within its own waters carried little weight with Hongkong merchants who felt that China was slowly stifling the business life of the port.\n\nThe frustrations created fed upon a deeper insecurity. The foreigner in China has been slow in cultivating a spirit of sympathy and understanding towards the Chinese.\n\nMany came to China with a feeling of superiority which imposed a wall between them and the mass of the people among whom they resided.\n\nOne expression of this insecurity was the desire to maintain a certain image of the foreigner. The image was of a person whose standard of living was above the common lot, who did not engage in manual labour, and who embodied the best features of a superior civilisation. Aspects of this image still linger in Hongkong.\n\nThe presence of fellow-foreigners who did not live up to these standards was an embarrassment.\n\nChina employed foreigners in its customs service and on its revenue cruisers. Those in high position generally conformed to the image the foreigner wished to uphold among the Chinese, but a different type of person filled more lowly positions.\n\nSome Westerners in the employ of the Chinese were from a group of ne'er-do-wells that drifted through the tropics. They were the nineteenth century prototype of the modern roaming hippie.\n\nThe Chinese had first begun employing such people at the time of the Tai Ping rebellion in the 1850s.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211493, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "\"THE ONE BRIGHT SPOT IN SHANGHAI” \n\nA HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY OF \n\nTHE NORTH CHINA BRANCH OF \n\nTHE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY \n\nHAROLD M. OTNESS* \n\n185 \n\nThe North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had its beginning on September 24, 1857, as the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society. From its inception Shanghai had a reputation as a city of commerce rather than an intellectual and cultural center. As Henri Cordier, a key figure in the development of the society's library, dryly recalled in his retirement, \"some spirited gentlemen thinking that tea, silk, and Manchester goods, however important they were from a mercantile standpoint, were not sufficient food for the mind, created a literary and scientific association\".1 Eighteen men, six of them missionaries, gathered in the Reading Room of the Shanghai Library, then a membership circulating library, to elect officers. Three weeks later the group met again to hear the inaugural address of its president, the Rev. Elijah C. Bridgman, an American highly regarded as a Chinese linguist and the publisher of the Chinese Repository. His address called for the increase of opportunities for understanding between foreigners and Chinese. He emphasized the need for more Westerners to undertake seriously the study of Chinese with the ultimate goal of enlightening the Chinese. In the rhetoric of his trade and times he stated, \"let the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society set itself in battle array, and let each and all of its Members be prepared and resolved to quit themselves like men\".2 \n\nRev. Bridgman was not mobilizing for war, but rather proposing a learned society which would conduct a regular series of lectures and the publication of a scholarly journal. He also called for the establishment of a library: \n\nof such diversified work, and for so many labourers, an extensive apparatus is needed; especially do we want a \n\n* Southern Oregon State College Library", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211503, "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": 219, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "195\n\nThe establishment and growth of the Library of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was a remarkable achievement by a number of dedicated individuals from several nations over a period of ninety years, and of varied professions and persuasions, who found time in their busy lives to labour without remuneration in the belief that a library would serve as a bridge of understanding between Chinese and Westerners. While the Chinese were only grudgingly permitted society membership, and its resulting library borrowing privileges, in later years the library was open to all. The collection was at least a signal to the Chinese that at least some of the foreigners living among them were interested in studying their history and culture.\" Looking back in the 1920's, a Shanghai historian wrote:\n\nOf course a large part of the community was not deeply interested in the Society and regarded it as a dry-as-dust institution, but it has had a long and honourable history and has carried on valuable research in the language, customs, ethics, history, etc., of China. It has a creditable museum and a very valuable library of books on the Orient.“\n\nThis was the library that The China Journal called \"probably the best in China, when it comes to reference works of all kinds on China and the Far East. It contains numerous old works that are now unobtainable, and certainly are not to be found in any other library in China. This same journal later called it a \"magnificent library of works on China and the Far East\" and \"the most important library in this city\"\n\n+42\n\n43\n\nBut, libraries are not forever. They are the creations of inspired individuals, and the victims of public indifference and political change. But while they exist, they help people to better understand the worlds they live in. For at least some of those Westerners trying to live in the two worlds of Shanghai between 1857 and 1948, this library must have been an inspiration, a refuge, a source of enlightenment, and a monument to their attempt to grasp the curious worlds in which they found themselves.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211769, "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "159\n\nstill more because of the unsettled conditions in China during the 1850s and 1860s. Internal dissent manifested itself through the Taiping rebellion, in which Shanghai was threatened. The native city was occupied by insurgents during 1853-1855 and in order to prevent Imperial troops from threatening the neutrality of the Settlement, the recently formed Shanghai Volunteer Corps (which later, in the 1860s, gave some amateur dramatic performances) fought the Battle of Muddy Flat on April 4, 1854, a skirmish about which some Shanghailanders still spoke with unreserved pride fifty years later, but for which a performance of the dramatic corps had to be postponed for more than a month.\n\n―\n\nIn the early sixties, tension heightened again; in August 1860, the Taipings threatened the Settlement; 1861 was relatively calm, but in January and August 1862, the town was once more the target of the rebels. Foreign, mainly British, troops, however, had been brought down to Shanghai from North China, where they had been fighting another war, and with the aid of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, as well as mercenaries, all attacks could be staved off. Early in 1864, the Taiping insurrection was definitely quelled,\n\nAll this was not without its consequences, of which only those pertaining to theatrical life need detain us here. It was not to be wondered that, as long as the Settlement was under the threat of attack, its foreign population had other matters to attend to than mere amusement, so in these years (1861-1862), there is an almost total eclipse of entertainment. Yet, no sooner had tensions eased somewhat than \"nightlife\" again appeared in full swing. The thousands of soldiers and marines had swelled the originally small population; as a result, this led, on the one hand, to amateur dramatics by the garrison forces; on the other, to an increased audience for travelling companies, which gave, for the first time in Shanghai's history, rather lengthy seasons.\n\nAs was mentioned above, the resident foreign population was fairly small, and this should not be forgotten during any discussion of cultural life in the Settlement. In 1846, the total number of foreigners was given as 120; five years later, the British census showed 256, of whom 38 were females; in December 1859, there were 495 male and 74 female westerners, whereas the census of March 1865, which incorporated the results of events in recent years, showed a total of about 2100 resident foreigners, increased by 1850 military (a number which had no doubt been still higher in 1863 and 1864) --- 160 women again formed a tiny", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211855, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "# BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n245\n\n1. Archives:\n\n\"London Missionary Society\": Incoming Letters, Central China.\n\n2. Newspapers and Periodicals:\n\n**Boletim do Governo de Macao**, Macao, 1855-1865.\n\n\"China Mail\", Hong Kong, 1845-1860.\n\n\"North China Herald\", Shanghai, 1850-1867.\n\n\"Puck, or the Shanghai Charivari\", Shanghai, 1871-1873.\n\n*Shanghai Commercial Record*, Shanghai, 1865.\n\n3. Books and Articles:\n\nAdams, W. Davenport: \"A Dictionary of the Drama. A Guide to the Plays, Playwrights, Players and Playhouses of the United Kingdom and America from the earliest times to the present\", Vol. I (A-G) (no more published). Philadelphia, 1904.\n\nAppleton, William W.: \"Madame Vestris and the London Stage\", New York - London, 1974.\n\nBarr, Pat: \"The Deer Cry Pavillion. A Story of Westerners in Japan 1868-1905\", London, 1968.\n\nBlack, J.R.: \"Young Japan. Yokohama and Yedo. A Narrative of the Settlement and the city from the signing of the treaties in 1858 to the close of the year 1879\", Tokyo-London, 1968 (reprint of 1880-1881 edition).\n\nBoase, Frederic: \"Modern English Biography\", London, 1965 (reprint of the 1891-1921 edition).\n\nBooth, Michael (Ed): \"English Plays of the 19th century\", Volumes I and IV, Oxford, 1969-1973.\n\nBritish Museum General Catalogue of Books.\n\nBrown, T. Allston: \"A History of the New York Stage from the first performance in 1732 to 1901, 3 vols.; New York 1964 (reprint of 1903 ed.).\n\nBuckley, C.B.: \"An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867, Singapore, 1902.\n\nCarse, A.: \"The Life of Jullien\", Cambridge, 1951.\n\nChesterfield, Lord: \"Advice to his son on Men & Manners in which the principles of politeness and the art of acquiring a knowledge of the world are laid down in an easy and familiar manner\", Chiswick, 1826.\n\nConolly, L.W. and J.P. Wearing: \"English Drama and Theatre 1800-1900. A Guide to information sources\", Detroit, 1978.\n\nCordier, Henri: \"Bibliotheca Sinica\", second edition; 5 vols.; Paris 1904ff.\n\nDavis, Jim (Ed.): \"Plays of H.J. Byron\", Cambridge, 1984.\n\n'Dictionary of National Biography\".\n\nDyce, C.M.: \"Personal Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in the Model Settlement. Shanghai 1870-1900\", London, 1906.\n\nEngle, Gary D.: \"This Grotesque Essence. Plays from the American Minstrel Stage\". Baton Rouge, 1978.\n\nFétis, F.J.: \"Biographic Universelle de Musiciens\", Paris, 1864; Supplement by Arthur Pougin, 1880.\n\nFitzgerald, Percy: \"Principles of Comedy and Dramatic Effect\", London, 1870.\n\n\"The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians\", London, 1980.\n\nHaan, J.H.: \"Origin and Development of the Political System in the Shanghai International Settlement\" in: \"Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of Royal Asiatic Society\", Vol. 22 (1982), p. 31-64.\n\nHaan, J.H.: \"The Shanghai Library: A history of the first foreign library in Shanghai\" in: \"Journal of the Hong Kong Library Association\", 1987.\n\nHartnoll, Phyllis: \"The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre\", London, 1972.\n\nHoward, Diana: \"London Theatres and Music Halls, 1850-1950\", London, 1970.\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212082, "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": 24, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "THE OLD POPULAR CULTURE OF CHINA AND ITS CONTRIBUTION\n\nTO STABILITY IN TSUEN WAN\n\nJames W. HAYES*\n\nIntroduction\n\nThis article is aimed at investigating the very marked social stability which was so clear a feature of Tsuen Wan society in the early post-War years. What were the factors which, in the virtual absence of external controls, enabled so many people to live for so long in an orderly and peaceful manner in unhygienic and sometimes unsafe conditions in hillside squatter huts and urban hovels, or in the over-crowded conditions of the early resettlement estates? What was it that the incoming squatters shared with the indigenous villagers which allowed both groups to run their affairs so peacefully and effectively, and with so little external pressure or assistance? Finally, what were the roots of the generally co-operative attitude towards removal and relocation upheavals which were essential for development of the Tsuen Wan New Town, and a prerequisite of steady progress with construction and modernisation, but nonetheless always traumatic for those affected?\n\nPART ONE: The Influence of the Past\n\nAs I see them, the answers to the questions posed above lie in the Chinese character; but more specifically in some leading features of the traditional upbringing and education.\n\nThat traditional upbringing and education was deeply rooted in a reverence for the past, and for the moral standards which the heroes of the past were believed to exemplify. This reverence was invariably noted by those Westerners with a familiarity with the Chinese countryside and a rapport with its inhabitants, as the following statements from the 1940s show:\n\n* The author was District Officer and Town Manager, Tsuen Wan from 1975 to 1982. He has recently completed a book about the growth and development of this, Hong Kong's first New Town, which is expected to be published by Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, in mid-1993, under the title Transformation: a Century of Tsuen Wan and its People. (Editor),\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212092, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "anger or irritation had worn off, we were more likely to enlist their cooperation by showing that the various provisions offered for those affected by the government's decisions were reasonable and acceptable. This actually happened in Tsuen Wan in 1959, when the village population of Ho Pui, distrustful of government and unimpressed by its need to produce more land for housing and industrial use, concluded that its own safety and legitimate interests were not being addressed, opposed a particular public work, and through its power of combination withdrew its cooperation for some six months until they were secured. Blackmail, you may ask? It might appear so: but the defence of legitimate self-interest has always been accepted in the Chinese value system and allowed for in the relationship of government and people.\n\nPART TWO: The Traditional Sources of a Positive Response to Well-conducted Government\n\n1. The Confucian Ethical System\n\nThe proper relationship between ruler and people was one of the \"Five Relationships\" prescribed in the Confucian Classics and taught in every school room in the empire. \"The underlying principle of the whole\", wrote one informed Westerner, \"was the making of a man, the development of personality and the training of moral character\". Besides stressing the social obligations of superior and inferior towards each other, the ethical system promoted by the Classics placed a particular emphasis on \"propriety\". Whatever their rank or station, this was the keystone of the social system for all, since each person in Chinese society was presumed to know how to behave and what was expected of him. The result was -- to quote the same keen observer of Chinese life -- to produce an educated man who:\n\n\"took his stand before society as an expert in moral principles. In all the relationships of life, whether precedented or unprecedented, he was the man to point out the right word, the right act, the right ritual.\n\nOver millennia, this ethical system had developed immense strength and tenacity; and to such a degree, said Dr. Smith, that Confucianist thinking had become an instinct that determined attitudes. Nor could he over-emphasize for his readers the intensity of Chinese feeling on the subject:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212121, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "40\n\nDean. Kenneth “Revival of Religious Practices in Fujian: a Case Study in Pas. Julian F. (ed.) The Turning of the Tide: Religion in China Today (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society & Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 72.\n\n4\n\nMr. Pang Cheng-chuen (Peng Zheng-chuen), interviewed by author, Fanling, Dec. 30. 1990.\n\nP\n\nDean. 54. A student of the University of Hong Kong told me on Feb. 3, 1991 that he saw, by chance, a Jiao festival in 1990. He could not recall the exact date and location. However, he was very sure, from the celebrating flower boards, that it was a Jiao festival.\n\nK\n\nIbid., 776.\n\nLiu Zhi-wan, Taibeishi Songshan qi an jian jiao jidian, Institute of Ethnology Academia Sinica Monograph, no. 14, (Taipei: The Institute, 1967). Besides Liu, the research team from the Academia Sinica included Song Lung-fei and Xu Jia-ming. Song's paper concentrated on aspects of folk architecture and decoration while Xu focused on the economic and social aspects. See Song Lung-fei \"Song-shan jian jiao jiao tan jianzhu di zhuan shi Yi shu\" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 25 (1968): 157-217; Xu Jia-ming: \"Songshan jian jiao yu shequ\" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 25 (1968): 109-153.\n\n4\n\nLi Zian-zhang. \"Daojiao jiaoyi di kaizhan yu xiandai di jiao” Sinological Researches 5 (1968): 261.\n\nIbid., p. 201.\n\nSaso, Michael R., Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal (Washington: Washington State Univ. Press, 1972), 34.\n\nLaw, Joan & B.E. Ward, Chinese Festivals (Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, 1982), 83.\n\nOkada, Yuzuru, Kiso Shakai (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1949).\n\nSee Brim, John A. “Village Alliance Temples in Hong Kong\" in Wolf. A.P. (ed.) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1974), 93–103; and Suenari, Michio \"Sonbyo to sonkyo: Taiwan Hakka shuraku no jirei kara” [Village temple and village boundary: a case study of the Hakka communities in Taiwan] Bunka Jinna Gaku [Cultural Anthropology] (1985) 2:255-260.\n\n15 Ueno, Hiroko, \"Taiwan nanbo no osho to sonraku: Tainanken hito saishiken no sonraku aida kankei\" (Wang Jiao and villages in southern Taiwan: worshipping area and village relationship] Bunka Jinriú Gaku 5 (1988): 64-82.\n\n+\n\nTaylor, W.A. \"The Spirit Festival\" Bulletin of the Cheung Chau Bun Festival 1980 (Cheung Chau: n.p., 1980), 39-41. (reprinted from Wide World Magazine, Dec. 1953). The annual Cheung Chau Jiao festival is better known to westerners as the Bun festival because of the three tall \"bun mountains\" erected at the ritual area. The festival is the most studied Jiao festival in Hong Kong probably due to the fact that (1) the island is comparatively easy to get to, (2) it is celebrated every year and (3) it is widely publicized by the Hong Kong Tourist Information Bureau. Besides Tanaka's accounts (see note 36), see also Jonathan Chamberlain and Ian Lambot's photographic account. The Bun Festival of Cheung Chau (Hong Kong Studio Publications, 1990).\n\nדן\n\nI owe my interest in the Jiao festival to Prof. Ward who first introduced me to Jiao festivals in 1980. She then suggested that I participate in the Jiao festival in Kau Lau Wan.\n\nK\n\nLaw & Ward, 83-84.\n\nHayes, James W., The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes (Hong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212284, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "203\n\nA concise image of Dr. Legge's sense of missionary duty was given in a lecture presented in Hong Kong a few months before he retired from his service. Having gained enough Chinese to write numerous tracts and church-related materials in the language, including some in colloquial Cantonese, Dr. Legge had not avoided his call to know the Chinese residents of Hong Kong. He recalls having travelled from house to house \"conversing with them on all subjects, and trying to get them to converse with me on one subject.\"\n\nIn the light of these various evidences of Dr. Legge's spiritual motivations in Hong Kong and Oxford, as missionary and scholar, it seems most appropriate not to overemphasize his contributions to either the one or the other. Helen Legge's biography focuses on her father as a missionary; Lindsay Ride's autobiographical note places most attention on James Legge as the interpreter of the Chinese Classics for Westerners. In fact, Legge was both and more, and is described more adequately in W. E. Soothill's dedication: \"a great scholar and a devoted missionary.\"\n\nV. Legge's Non-Conformist Values\n\nThe values of Non-Conformist Protestantism had an immensely formative power in the Scotland of the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming a more and more influential cultural force in British society, especially in the second half of the 19th century. In the middle of the 19th century, the Non-Conformists were to a large extent united with the Free Church movement, a conjoining of religious values which carried many political overtones in the 1840s. Primarily they arose from the lower middle classes, forming in the 19th century an informed fellowship of dissenters who rejected governmental control of church worship (whether Anglican or Presbyterian), focusing on active and informed belief rather than credal precision, instituted the Sunday School movement for poor children who might not otherwise be schooled, and were one of the major stimuli for the expansive Protestant missionary movement of the nineteenth century. James Legge was a second-generation Non-Conformist, representing the acme of their cultural influence as an evangelical intellectual and globally conscious religious leader.\n\nNon-Conformists were reformists and, at their best, worked against the racialism and capitalistic militarism so often encountered in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212285, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "204\n\ncolonial setting. Legge exemplified this role as a social prophet in both Chinese and English contexts in a number of ways.\n\nIn regard to the policies of the Missionary Society itself, Legge stood alone at times in his advocacy of treating Chinese colleagues as equals both in standing and in monetary compensation. Some missionaries felt this might cause too much pride among the first generation of Christians; Legge argued that a person who achieved the rank and fulfilled the duties deserved the pay, whether Chinese or Westerner,\n\nWhen given the opportunity to address the Hong Kong community at the end of his missionary career, Dr. Legge did not hesitate to speak publicly against the opium trade and gambling. This ability to distance himself on selective issues from governmental positions was in fact another aspect of his academic success. Unlike other European scholars who were bound to the directives of their religious and political superiors, Legge's Non-Conformist intellectual and spiritual disciplines were prompted by personal vision. When tensions arose between the government and the missionaries, they voiced their petitions as loyal citizens even if they opposed the government's attitudes and decisions.\n\nEven Legge's entrance into the community of Oxford University was coloured by his Non-Conformist commitments. The British Parliament having only five years earlier overturned a long-standing tradition that entering professors and students must publicly swear to belief in the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Creed, Oxford academics were still somewhat wary about introducing a Non-Conformist into their community. Legge's character had to be upheld by supporters external to the university before he was admitted. Soon afterward Legge was acting as the Vice President of the Non-Conformist Union, remaining a major leader until the Union was handed over to A. M. Fairbairn of Mansfield College. Even though Legge was busy in the first years of his Oxford professorship in building up the number of students in his classes and completing the translations of the Sacred Books of China for F. Max Müller, he unabashedly communicated his personal concern and Christian witness to Oxford colleagues who were not Christians.\n\nVI. Legge's Commonsense Philosophy\n\nBasically a form of Neo-Aristotelean philosophy, the so-called", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212301, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "220\n\nand business in Hong Kong has been neglected. Nonetheless, over the past decade some hongs have commissioned researchers and authors to compile company histories. A number of these are listed in the bibliography.\n\nEarlier Days\n\nHistorically, overseas businessmen have been permitted only limited contact with locals in China. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Westerners were only authorised to reside in Canton during the trading season, from October to May. Emperors confined all foreign trade there, as far from Peking as possible, keeping 'unpleasant things at a distance.' Foreigners were forced to maintain their base in the Portuguese city of Macau (established 1557).\n\nThese restrictions caused great inconvenience to merchants. Captain Charles Elliot wrote, on April 6th 1839:\n\n\"There can be neither safety nor honour for either government until Her Majesty's flag flies on these coasts in a secure position.\"\n\nIt was considered necessary to have a colony with a fine harbour, where Europeans could live, work and trade in peace and security. The Union Jack was raised at Possession Point, on Hong Kong Island, on January 26, 1841.\n\nHong Kong was established specifically to facilitate trade. Not surprisingly, therefore, the authorities depended a great deal upon the support of business houses in the early days of the colony. Some of these early trading houses are still trading here today.\n\nBy the end of 1843 there were 12 large British firms in Hong Kong, ten British merchants trading on a smaller scale, and about six Indian companies. The following year there were said to be about 100 foreign firms doing business, half of which were British and about one-quarter Indian or Parsee. Russells, an American firm, had six partners and eight griffins (assistants). Dent and Company (British) five partners and eight assistants, and D. and M. Rustomjee (Parsee) fifteen partners. Jardine Matheson employed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212315, "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": 257, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "234\n\nWhen it opened, in 1868, it gave the Colony a new orientation. The first vessel the Docks built was the 46-foot launch, Duncan, for their own use, which affectionately became known as Old No.1.\n\nCertainly a considerable outlay of capital and expertise was involved, and the Docks were well supported by the P&O line, which ran a service from Hong Kong to Shanghai from 1849, and by Jardine's.\n\n**From Rangoon to Shanghai there is nothing equal to that great concern (the Docks); nor along the entire Pacific Coast of North and South America is there any undertaking equipped with better facilities...** (MacMillan, 1925).\n\nThe Cosmopolitan Docks (later purchased by Hong Kong and Whampoa Docks) began at Tai Kok Tsui in 1880, and by the 1890s the main docks at Hung Hom had built up rapidly. The local community (even by 1881 the population of old British Kowloon numbered only 9,021) was among the largest industrial settlements. It worked day and night for years with queues of ships waiting to be repaired. The Hong Kong Guide 1893 records:\n\n**The Docks**\n\nare the most extensive of any in Asia. Vessels of 550 feet in length and 30 feet draft of water can be docked at Kowloon.\n\nExtra dividends were awarded to shareholders twice a year, and sons of skilled craftsmen from Hung Hom followed their fathers into the Docks. The village was never asleep as journeymen worked on shifts around the clock. It was one of the most prosperous places in the Colony.\n\nWith a population of only 260,000, at the turn of the century Hong Kong was the second largest port in the world. By then her own ships sailed the Pacific Ocean and the seas of Asia. Easterners (the Chinese) and Westerners (the expatriates were mostly Scottish) had joined forces in the Dockyard, and the Board was representative of many nations of maritime importance. A strong sense of pride and community spirit existed. During World War I, ships of more than 5,000 tons were built.\n\nButterfield and Swire started to construct their dockyard at Quarry Bay, on Hong Kong Island, in August 1902, and work was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212401, "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": 343, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "320\n\nwho acted upon them. By piecing together this information, Bartlett has begun the reconstruction of the inner, secret workings of the Qing government. We can build from this base to explore other crucial issues.\n\nMICHAEL IPSON\n\nArthur Power Dudden. The American Pacific: From the Old China Trade to the Present. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. xx + 314 pp. Index.\n\nWhen Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, he was attempting to find an alternative sea route to the exotic trading wealth of Cathay, as Westerners then called China. It is perhaps symbolic that 1992, the quincentenary of his momentous voyage, should finally bring the publication of a work which summarizes between one pair of covers the history of American involvement in the Pacific. Despite a plethora of monographs, many of them excellent, on almost every aspect of this topic, and several fine works on American relations with particular Pacific countries, there has long been a need for such a volume. Both Arthur Power Dudden, the Fairbank Professor of History at Bryn Mawr College, situated in a city with more than two centuries of activity in the China trade, and Oxford University Press, are to be thanked for producing this survey. General readers and college students in search of an introductory survey will unite in welcoming The American Pacific.\n\nFor more than two centuries, the United States has been active in Pacific affairs. From the late eighteenth century onwards, the Pacific was the major focus for American missionary endeavours and an important venue of United States commercial activities. The Philippines, by far the most substantial American \"colony\", were acquired in 1898. In the twentieth century, the Pearl Harbour attack would impel the United States into war against both Japan and Germany. Under the pressure of the Cold War, within the next three decades Americans would engage in costly interventions in civil wars in both Korea and Vietnam, in the second case destroying much of their own self-confidence in their imperial mission. Today many Americans see the economic power of Japan as the most serious international threat to their own country, while Asian immigration has dramatically changed the racial mix of the United States.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212402, "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": 344, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "321\n\nDudden's work is essentially narrative history based upon Western-language secondary sources. Beginning with a summary of early American involvement in the China trade, he proceeds to describe the United States' acquisition of and subsequent relations with Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines. After surveying the contrasting course of American dealings with Japan and China up to World War I, he covers the Pacific War, the beginning of the Cold War, and American intervention in Korea and Vietnam. A final chapter deals with the somewhat ambiguous developments of the past two decades.\n\nThe early portion of the book tells the fascinating story of how the American Republic gained its two last states and its largest colony. An irredeemably commercial nation, the United States purchased two large tracts of its own territory, Louisiana from the Emperor Napoleon I of France in 1803 and Alaska from the Russian Tsar Alexander II in 1867. Until 1910 the near exclusive domain of fur trading companies and gold miners, Alaska's sparse population and remoteness meant that, despite its mineral wealth, only in 1958 did it win statehood. Not until 1778, when Captain James Cook's final expedition landed there, did Westerners discover the Hawaiian islands, \"the most isolated archipelago in the world\". Once found, they became a magnet attracting American whalers, merchants, and missionaries. In the 1820s the last group assisted Queen Kaahumanu, one of the widows of King Kamehameha the Great, 'a six-foot, three-hundred-pound, strong-willed beauty', to overthrow the dominant religious kapu system which among other things banned women from exercising political power. From then onwards successive rulers were under the tutelage of Americans, who eliminated the native religion, advised the monarchs, and introduced private property rights in land. Soon afterwards, American sugar and pineapple interests acquired large holdings, which would dominate Hawaiian economic and political life until after World War II. In the 1890s the efforts of the anti-American Queen Liliuokalani to restore the powers of the monarchy led to a coup, backed by American sugar interests, and suggestions that the United States annex the islands, also long coveted by French, German, and British imperialists. Congress initially rejected the suggestion, but in 1898, in the war-generated expansionism of the Spanish-American War, reversed itself. Hawaii would become a major American naval base, a centre of tourism, and a focus of Japanese immigration: the attack on Pearl Harbour", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212574, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "108\n\nAlthough one of the above six destinations is the normal fate of a person's heavenly soul, earthly souls reside in graves or ancestral tablets to be worshipped by descendants. Terrestrial souls can even be divided between tablets on altars in family members' homes and in ancestral halls. Views vary on this 'multiple-soul' principle. As do those from theologians, regarding life after death for a Christian.\n\nFor the Chinese, ancestral spirits, gods, devils and ghosts play important roles. Supernatural intervention and magical powers have to be reckoned with. Malevolent, wandering spirits that have no male descendants to worship them must be appeased or they can bring bad luck, sickness and death. Makeshift altars are sometimes set up in streets, joss sticks are burned and offerings made, especially on the 15th day of the Seventh Moon at the Hungry Ghosts Festival (Yu Lan). With the fundamental dualism of Chinese cosmology, devils and their cohorts are yin, ‘inauspicious and gloomy'. Conversely gods, idols and the like are yang and 'lucky and bright'.\n\nIn this study, father died in 1959. When windows rattled, doors opened mysteriously, or troubles befell the family, his spirit, rightly or wrongly, was at one time suspected. This had to be propitiated by visits to the temple. When death strikes, a family tends to become even more superstitious. Scissors and knives are hidden to avoid children cutting themselves and thereby inadvertently hurting the corpse. This is termed lei hei (##) meaning an edged tool or weapon which can injure.\n\nIn this study, a Buddhist prayer in plastic holders was placed in strategic positions around family members' homes, including on the eldest daughter's bedside table. Although a person is a Christian, there is nothing like hedging protection. One granddaughter who had yam ngaan (dark eyes), namely psychic powers, heard a woman ghost wailing at night. When she placed the prayer on her bedside table, it kept quiet. This prayer could be rendered ineffective if taken into a church. Chinese always seem much closer to the spirit world than the average Westerner. For example, some of the older drivers on late-night buses travelling along the Pok Fu Lam Road stop and open the door whether anyone is waiting there or not. This is said to be to allow wandering spirits to get on and go back to the cemetery for the night.\n\nChinese dislike people dying at home as it is considered 'unclean'. If they do, the body is removed as soon as possible, often in a woven,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212596, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Topley asks whether the poor trace hardships, basically, to lack of money. Cash can solicit and secure worldly and spiritual favours, advantages as well as goods.” At a funeral there is abundant, cheap, 'mock' money which mourners 'remit' to the deceased. The dead can be 'looked after' in a style not often possible on earth.\n\nOther ritual ingredients are belief in supernatural powers making up driving forces of the universe, whether these be magic, the complementary powers of yin and yang, ‘dragon vapours' (lung hei) of feng shui, fuk hei (divine blessings) or other superstitions. They must be handled correctly so no one is alienated.\n\nThere are, nevertheless, inconsistencies. If even the average Chinese does appear to believe that everything depends upon impersonal whims and pulsation of feng shui through the universe he does not resign himself entirely to fate. The contradiction is that most Chinese display a strong motivation to achieve wealth, power and prestige. Ability and education are valued. To complicate the issue further there is the Buddhist karmic belief that one's afterlife depends upon morality and performing good deeds on earth. So with a broad streak of pragmatism, if, with ancestor worship, forefathers do not provide adequately for present generation - even though forebears' bones have turned white instead of black - the living will still try to achieve objectives in other ways, such as by following the Confucian work ethic. But the need to perform the will of the gods, if one wishes to be saved, is also stressed, although ascetic practices and abstaining from worldly comforts appeal to a limited number of Chinese. But effort on its own is not enough. Something else, something special, is required.\n\nWith Chinese civilisation going back to the Shang Dynasty (circa 1600 to 1100 B.C.) beliefs do not usually change overnight. Yet, as explained in this paper, a number of Hong Kong funeral customs have altered significantly since World War II, such as acceptance of cremation and streamlining of funerary formalities. In many ways, Hong Kong Chinese think differently to westerners and even to their mainland cousins. Yet, if a European reflects after attending a Chinese funeral, many aspects are very meaningful. These can help a westerner strengthen Christian beliefs.\n\nEven those Hong Kong Chinese who do not profess a faith still usually engage Taoist or Buddhist monks to perform last rites. The author recalls\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212597, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "131\n\none simple funeral service which consisted only of basics, like the three bows and the last glance, with no monks chanting mantra or prayers. It is true Foscolo describes 'religious frills' in his poem as inutil pompa (useless pomp). But most people are left with horribly empty feelings after atheistic services. After a beautiful funeral of a friend who achieved something in life most are left with a self-righteous glow.\n\nThe author recalls comrades buried during a lull in battle during World War II - a single prayer said over the body of a dead soldier, in his blanket shroud, before he was slid over the side of the troopship into the ocean. These simple ceremonies had considerable meaning.\n\n51\n\nFrancis Bacon, the Irish artist, who died in 1992, was not a theatrical man. He insisted he wanted no memorial service, the barest formalities, no crowd weeping around his grave. 'I came into the world with nothing, I want to leave with nothing,' he insisted. These views differ from those of the average Chinese with their Taoist philosophy. But both they and westerners should find solace in the following, the author of which is unknown:\n\nDo not stand at my grave and weep,\n\nI am not there,\n\nI do not sleep:\n\nI am a thousand winds that blow,\n\nI am the diamond glints on snow,\n\nI am the sunlight on ripened grain,\n\nI am the gentle, autumn rain,\n\nWhen you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift, uplifting rush\n\nOf quiet birds in circled flight,\n\nI am the soft stars that shine at night... Do not stand at my grave and cry,\n\nI am not there,\n\nI did not die.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThis paper was presented at the 34th International Congress on Asian and North African Studies, organised by the University of Hong Kong, from 22 to 28 August, 1993, and further presented to the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, on 20 January, 1995.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212707, "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": 16, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "A JERSEY ADVENTURER IN CHINA GUN RUNNER, CUSTOMS OFFICER, AND BUSINESS ENTREPRENEUR \n\nAND GENERAL IN THE CHINESE IMPERIAL ARMY \n\n1842-1919* \n\nKEITH STEVENS \n\nPART ONE \n\nThis is the story of General William Mesny, Knight Ying of the Order of the Pa-t'u-lu, a man who lived an exciting life from the day he left home on the island of Jersey at the time of the Crimean War to sail the oceans until finally he settled in a turbulent China having served with two of the provincial armies of the Chinese Imperial forces as a mercenary or, in modern parlance, a foreign adviser. He became a general in the Imperial army before he was 30, suggesting that his services were greatly valued by the Chinese though at the price of being viewed by the western community in central China, and Shanghai in particular, as too pro-Chinese and probably very eccentric having ‘gone native'. The remaining 47 years of his life were spent, first travelling around China, after which he tried to make a fortune in Shanghai but, sadly, having failed, eked out his latter years in virtual obscurity. He put a brave face on his troubles during the last 25 or so years with the occasional glimpse of disappointment and despair showing through in his writings. Considering his lack of formal education his publications deserve respect even if he displayed the undoubted large chip on his shoulder due to 'them', both Chinese and westerners, not affording him the respect and esteem he felt his due, in view of what he considered to be his radical ideas for modernising China. We only know details of Mesny's life, especially his time with the Chinese army, from his own writing, and his serialised autobiographical essays in the journals he published in Shanghai, Mesny's Chinese Miscellany. \n\nThese journals contained not only short autobiographical essays but also a wealth of interesting but unconnected snippets about Chinese customs, Chinese military organisations, mineralogy, Chinese food, commercial notes, etc, though concealed within these essays are a number \n\n* This article is somewhat long for the Journal, but in view of the level of scholarship it has been left at more or less its original length & [Editor]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212708, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "2\n\nof bonnes bouches relating to him and his family. The information, its presentation and language tell us more about William Mesny than about Chinese life. A considerable part of his writings consisted of piecemeal notes or essays written to emphasize, probably unconsciously, both his prominent standing with important Chinese and his foresight as a man of ideas. He played up so many of the episodes in which he was involved that it is difficult not to minimise and even to discount what in practice must have been his quite significant achievements. Three major subjects regularly featured in Mesny's Miscellanies, his economic and political foresight which was inevitably spurned by westerners and Chinese alike; his activities as part of the Chinese imperial military forces in Kueichou quelling a rebellious minority ethnic group; and his wives and women in general.\n\nIn one of his forthright, self-congratulatory moments he wrote, \"The Editor of Mesny's Chinese Miscellany feels that he has a sort of an inspired mission in China to set forth, preach and proclaim the inspiring and magic-working words of Reform and Progress to the inquiring multitudes amongst China's 400 million black-haired people.'\n\nWilliam Mesny (pronounced “May-knee' in Jersey), was brought up in the bilingual Channel Island community speaking English and French. He left home when he was nearly twelve to travel far afield but without ever losing pride in being a Jerseyman and British.\n\nMesny was born at La Croiserie Vingtaine in the parish of Trinity in Jersey on 9 October 1842, the eldest son of William Mesny of Alderney and Marie Rachel née Nicolle, second daughter of Philip Nicolle of du Nord, Jersey. Mesny's father was described in one place as a cobbler, a local preacher preaching several times a year in French and English Wesleyan chapels, and a member of the Royal militia (probably the Jersey Militia). Mesny writing elsewhere in his Miscellany described his parents as poor; his mother was 'bed-ridden' and his father, though a Wesleyan local preacher, was forced to work for a living in attendance on divers engaged in the harbour works, and often repaired his own shoes to save the expense of having them repaired at a shoemaker's. Mesny's father and his grandfather, Guillaume Mesny, were both said to be of St Martin, Jersey, whilst Mesny himself claimed that his roots lay in the ancient family of Megny d'Auregny [i.e. Auregny Alderney]. It has also been recorded that Mesny's father and grandfather had both been born and brought up in Alderney with the father moving to Jersey at some stage. Guillaume's brothers included the great grandfather of Miss Lucie", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212712, "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "6\n\nduring his first journey into the interior from Hankow to begin his career with one of the new local armies of the Chinese Imperial forces. Potted biographies of Mesny have been little more than loosely connected accounts of the major incidents in his life and have presented a one-dimensional figure. Had he not been made a general in the Chinese Imperial Army with which he served for a mere six years, the other forty-five years of his life would probably have merited 300 words towards the foot of the obituaries page in a local paper. Also, without the four volumes of his Miscellany, which tend to be our sole source-material, virtually all record of his service with the Chinese army would have been lost.\n\nFor at least part of his life Mesny lived at one end of an extreme, as a westerner who dressed as a Chinese, lived in a Chinese home and absorbed Chinese ways semi-consciously. The other end of the extreme were the westerners who lived out their working lives in treaty ports moving from office to club to home, and making sure that they never had any contacts with the natives nor learnt a single word of their language. He seems to have been an engaging character, though pretentious and extravagant, whose fascinating life, although insignificant in the run of Chinese history, was no more exciting or unique than many other westerners who led equally exciting lives on the China coast during the same era, the difference being that remarkably few wrote about them and those who did were usually fairly staid travellers describing their journeys across the Chinese empire. Mesny went several stages further, writing notes and autobiographical essays. Many were self-serving memoirs, which he published in Shanghai in his own periodical, the four volumes of Mesny's Chinese Miscellanies [described in detail in Appendix A] consisting not only of events within China, especially ones he considered important insofar as they affected his personal life and activities but also, more importantly, colourful observations during the second half of the 19th century in China reflecting the atmosphere, the social and military structures of the lower echelons of Chinese officialdom, foreign fortune seekers during the earlier days of the Treaty Ports and also, to a certain extent, the social life of the middle strata of foreigners on the China coast. Although he did not fully appreciate it, his notes on the Chinese military forces at that time and in particular the day-to-day details of military operations within a Chinese provincial army are unique. Although certain colour emerges from the foreign news telegrams of the day reproduced in his later volumes, it is singularly disappointing that he wrote so little on the momentous changes occurring in China at the turn of the century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212713, "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": 22, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Until the middle of the 19th century China assumed and acted on the principle that the world owed allegiance to the supreme ruler, the Emperor of China, a view considered by the British in particular as ludicrous, and despite costly emissaries to try to persuade them otherwise, the Chinese were only forced to accept change by military force—leading to what it was hoped by foreigners would be an era of equality such as existed between other nations. Mesny experienced but probably failed to appreciate the depth of change within China in which he was involved; Chinese military commanders in the field without the presence of their foreign overlords, the Manchus, being one. But much more important were the changes in style of xenophobia, a newly acquired awareness of the power of western nations by the Chinese and most of all the deep resentment of the imposition of foreign equality. It is this more than anything else which makes Mesny's story so fascinating and refreshing.\n\nHe also lived in China during the era when the attitudes of Christian missionaries were changing, from those who felt such a strong cultural superiority and behaved arrogantly, with an attitude of self-righteousness and a complete lack of sensitivity towards Chinese feelings, which caused the vast majority of Chinese to become even more xenophobic than they had been before westerners forced through 'unequal' treaties; to those with more sympathetic views. By the end of the century many missionaries were comparatively understanding and tolerant of Chinese customs and culture, and though their mercantile compatriots were still of the old views, a number of missionaries were working with Chinese and helping to bring about the modern transformation of China. Although Mesny was one of the few foreigners whose sympathies lay with the Chinese, with his feet in both camps he found good and bad on both sides. One of Mesny's more revealing snippets is the irritated and grieving rather than angry digression; an item in the Miscellany on an uncommon Chinese saying \"Tsai ssu szu wei\" meaning \"Try, try and try again\". He wrote 'It (the phrase) is probably worth using by foreigners as a very expressive and convenient tenor when trying to persuade natives [Chinese] that it is impossible to comply with the requests and importunities to \"do something for them\". I have reflected on the matter,' he continued, 'and though I have repeatedly tried still I have not succeeded.' Many foreigners, even to this day, will sigh in agreement.\n\nMesny would, in later life, doubtless have seen himself as a ‘China Expert' and would also have wished others to regard him so. He cultivated this impression in print from the first issue of his Miscellany with his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212716, "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": 25, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Chinese Military Services which have not before been recorded in English. One aspect of Mesny's writings which will bring wry smiles to a number of western faces was his occasional essay into the ever-popular art of China-watching. In 1896 his conjecture that Earl Li Hung-chang was a likely candidate to be the first ruler of a China ruled by Chinese is now, with the benefit of hindsight, amusing to say the least. Even more so was Mesny's next thought. Li perhaps might even marry the Empress Dowager and thus amalgamate his influence with that of the reigning line. He added that the Empress Dowager was however too old to bear children and would therefore only be a witness to her own departing glory by seeing her husband, [and Li would then have been 74] begetting an heir to the throne through a younger woman.\n\nBetween 1850 and 1873 peasant discontent, both Chinese [Han] and non-Chinese, led to a wave of rebellions, some of exceptional size. These included the Taipins, the Nien and the Moslem revolts, but not Ya'qub Beg's Sinkaing rebellion which ended in 1877. Mesny first became involved in the Taiping rebellion [1850-1864] towards its latter days, a time when the imperialists were gaining the upper hand and had confronted the Taiping leadership in its capital, Nanking where he was held captive for some months. Later, whilst he was working with the Chinese Maritime Customs in Hankow, he became involved with the Nien-fei [the Nien rebels] bandits who ravaged north of the Yangtze between 1851 and 1868.\n\nThe Nien, a decentralised association of peasants, were basically bandits without any ideology as such, whereas the Taiping rebels were a pseudo-Christian movement led against the imperial rulers in Peking by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan who had adopted some elements of Christian beliefs into his ideology. The Taiping rebels, whose capital city was Nanking, enjoyed some sympathy from westerners but eventually the rebellion was defeated but not until many millions had died. When the final defeat came it was due mainly to the Chinese imperialists under Tseng Kuo-fan, Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-t'ang, aided to some extent by several foreign-trained Chinese forces which included the much-vaunted western-trained force, first under an American Frederick Ward and finally under a British colonel in the Royal Engineers, Charles Gordon, together with direct British and French military intervention in Shanghai and Ningpo areas. The rebels, with whom Mesny and many Christian missionaries at first sympathised, introduced many reforms such as monogamy, and the banning of opium, tobacco and alcohol, and foot-binding.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212736, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "30\n\nin 1886, a year after he had ended his service 'being retained by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung in Canton.' It would appear that he mistakenly claimed the seal bore the more senior rank.\n\nMesny - Neither Chinese nor Western: But Perhaps Both\n\nMesny lived within the two cultures to the extent that we are left in no doubt that he was able to see both the good and the bad in both. He criticised national traits of Chinese and westerners on numerous occasions, though despite the almost universal criticisms by western travellers in China of the dirt, personal filthiness, disregard for decency, boorishness and inquisitiveness, to say nothing of the incessant and noisy talk, Mesny never comments. Foreign travellers almost without exception comment on one or more of the following Chinese characteristics, their remarkable mechanical aptitude, with a delicacy of touch; a patience probably unrivalled in the world; adding however that their inability to draw the necessary inferences, and improving and inventing as they proceeded always surprises. The Chinese, they continue, are an intensely practical people who dislike doing anything for which there is no necessity; and finally, despite there being hardly a product which Chinese would not use, and with a hatred of waste that makes them utilise everything, westerners are always amazed that they should be so averse to milk and milk products. Mesny hardly touches any of these matters, possibly as they had either not crossed his mind or more likely because he saw no reason to add to the chorus.\n\nHe was not impervious to Chinese arrogance and occasionally added a barbed aside such as his reference to a non-Chinese tribe in southern China when he added, ... [the Chinese] are ever ready to apply the very opprobrious term of barbarian to every other people, but not their darling selves...' A more telling paragraph amidst the hundreds of snippets or topics, and pen pictures of things Chinese which were the primary fillers of his weekly Miscellanies, one written in February 1905, after forty-five years in China, and therefore presumably a distillation of his views, was a description of:\n\n'Chinamen [sic]. hua-jen #A, a Brilliant man, a Glorious or Elegant Person, a Chinaman.\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212740, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "34\n\nhad a head of steam and wrote several pages of detailed description on one particular theme, usually with an educational value aimed at foreigners in China. One in particular was his portrayal of a Chinese banquet, consisting not only of various menus, but seating plans, courtesies and the role of the servants.\n\nHis Promotion of Western Education\n\nSince 1868, Mesny claimed, he had had an inclination to do something towards dispelling some of the gross darkness that prevailed amongst the Chinese. In 1870 he established a small day school for boys and girls in a temple called the Yu-huang Kung [The Temple of the Jade Emperor], which served as a club house for the people of the Hu-kuang provinces who resided in Kuei-yang. He imported some school books which he considered suitable and paid a Chinese teacher to teach the children during the four years of his residence in Kuei-yang.\n\nMesny in later years had interviews with senior Chinese mandarins with a view to promoting western sciences and other subjects of study for examinations in China. He also claimed that he had persuaded a Chinese Viceroy to submit a memorial on educational reform to the throne and that this was the start of such reform. The reforms were abolished by the Empress Dowager in 1898.\n\nMesny and Women\n\nDespite the genuinely colourful life he led in China, his experiences living with the Taiping rebels, his service with the Szechuan Force în Kueichou and his treks across much of the country; when we come to his descriptions of his love life with Chinese ladies, although they may have been real and authentic, for the most part they read like episodes out of a modern pulp novelette. This may be due to a possible inability to describe them without a modicum of exaggeration or 'editing' or, though unlikely, they may have been figments of his imagination. There is little doubt that he was red-blooded and normal, and as a single man in foreign parts with few if any women of his own race or culture it was the understood thing for expatriate westerners to have a local female partner. He frequently wrote of pretty women at the roadside during his journeys across China who attracted him or, more to the point, were attracted by him. However, the exact measure of his intimacy with any but his wives is destined to remain tantalizingly obscure.\n\nCorrected minor OCR errors, reformatted text into paragraphs, and corrected \"în\" to \"in\" for consistency and correctness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212741, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Bearing in mind that much of what he claimed was written from either notes or memory between the ages of 53 to 63, the almost obsessive way he describes the semi-nudity of the girls from the minority Miao suggests that he must have been sex-starved, a red-blooded young man, and a lone Westerner amongst an army of Chinese. Mesny described various tribes and sub-groups of non-Chinese and their customs in some detail in his articles in the Miscellanies, though he did seem to be more interested in their love life and marriage customs than, for example, births and deaths.\n\nHis description of the 'fair maidens' en route during his treks in central China eyeing him and he ogling them are frequent, with no lack of comment on their bare bosoms in particular and occasionally their genitalia. These were, as one would expect in Kueichou province at that time, not Han Chinese but tribeswomen from the Chuang, Lolo, Miao, and other tribes. He also allowed himself the pleasure of preening before them and, in one instance, washed the upper part of his body, combed his beard, and brushed his hair in full view of the local ladies who, he believed, 'expressed great admiration' for him. He was 36 at the time and ostensibly unmarried, though we suspect that he had already taken a Chinese lady to wife by Chinese rites.\n\nMesny, on the subject of marriage, made much of the fact that he very nearly became the son of a Cantonese millionaire named Huang, conditional on Mesny changing his name to Huang. This apparently took place in Hong Kong shortly after he had arrived in the Far East, in 1861, when he was still under the age of twenty and a turn-key at a Hong Kong gaol. It is hard to believe that a wealthy Chinese would be so desperate to acquire a foreign son-in-law, though we know no more than Mesny has seen fit to tell us. In the event, the marriage did not take place, and though he does no more than hint at it by stating that something unforeseen had turned up, it would seem more than likely that his dismissal from the Hong Kong Prison Service had something to do with it. He was then nearly ensnared by a Chinese friend who wished him to marry his sister. Mesny, however, claimed to have declined to be a party to any scheme depriving another man of his prospective wife, as she had been betrothed to a young man in accordance with the custom of the country. Mesny added that he did not wish to break the law, even if it meant hurting the feelings of the Chinese friend who, in Mesny's words, was 'no ordinary personage, in the common sense of the word, and the [proposed] voyage up the Yangtze with him gave promise of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212746, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "40\n\nin\n\nwould have been 20 when her father left Shanghai. She presumably remained there until she married in 1917. We know that Marie, in her middle age in Jersey, never referred ever to her time in China nor to her mother. If the subject ever arose, even with close relatives in Jersey, she promptly changed the subject. The only time she ever let slip anything about life in China was when the Chinese silken slippers were produced and she told her second cousin once removed that when her father, William Mesny, returned from a distant and lengthy trek, he found that his Chinese wife had bound her (Marie's) feet in accordance with custom. He ordered them to be unbound at once and never to be bound again. Incidentally, he wrote in his Miscellany in 1896, when Marie would have been two, that “... women must cease to cramp their feet: crippled women cannot produce healthy and hardy children.”\n\nIn 1905, writing about Eurasians, when his son would be 20 and his daughter about 10, he wrote 'the only prospects of a future easy life for the Eurasians in Shanghai are to be trained for service in foreign houses; the boys as clerks and such like, the girls as mistresses at least, though of late a good many of them have been induced to demand marriage and have succeeded in obtaining it.' There was little future in China for people of mixed blood, especially in the twenties and thirties of this century, and none outside it. Mesny's daughter's extreme sensitivity about her mixed blood simply reflects the era in which she lived.\n\nMesny's Knowledge of Things Chinese\n\nThere is no doubt that Mesny's knowledge of Chinese life, customs, history, geography, etc. was extremely wide, bolstered, understandably, by works written by other foreigners, such as the Chinese Reader's Manual by W F Mayers, which is quoted from extensively. He went to some pains to explain that he saw as one of his responsibilities the importance of him educating both Chinese and foreigners in each other's cultures.\n\nMesny was not backward in expressing his views and opinions on all matters to do with China, be they economic, political, religious, social, or personal, occasionally echoing those of the few like-minded foreigners who professed that westerners, and in the case of Mesny, the British in particular, were well-intentioned in what they were doing in China but mistaken in their political and religious views, policies, and convictions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212754, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "48\n\nIn the end he must have been disappointed at his inability to make and keep a fortune and to have public recognition. He must have felt rejected by the world to which he would have liked to have belonged, an outcast having married a Chinese during an era when it was considered beneath one's dignity to do so, and then having to live with the 'stigma' for the rest of his life of having 'gone native'.\n\nAs with most westerners in China, ending up frustrated at being unable to bridge the gap between themselves and the Chinese, Mesny appears to have resigned himself in his later years to being a westerner who, though still claiming to understand and being able to communicate with them, was one of 'us' and not of 'them', despite the opinion of other Shanghai westerners to the contrary.\n\nLet it not be forgotten that he had fought his way up from poverty and a lack of education to being the writer, editor, and publisher of a magazine which appears to have held its own for several years in a community which would have been comparatively discriminating. Despite being self-educated, he appears to have entertained high hopes of achieving popular esteem through his 'academic' and other achievements. He attempted to write for the edification of others and produced his Miscellany which, though only marginally out of the ordinary, does have some value for its detail of the late Taiping era; the organisation of the Chinese Imperial Army of the day, in particular the provincial forces under Chinese rather than Manchu generals; his contacts with Chinese officialdom and his knowledge of obscure facts about China. Many of the latter, however, were culled from other western sources, and he appears not to have translated much, if anything, from Chinese material.\n\nMesny must have been a difficult man to live with. He was self-made, with a great pride in his achievements offset by his egotism, self-absorption, and his apparent need to denigrate others. He was dependent on his wits, and perhaps his charm, to improvise an alternative existence.\n\nHis obituary appeared in two separate Shanghai English language papers some ten days after his death. Both cover three columns, most of which are taken up with an autobiographical account of his life written shortly before his death. They provide additional biographical detail but fail to answer the many questions which naturally spring to mind.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212762, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "56\n\ntogether with his regular recommendations to the Chinese government, such as the one for the Chinese capital under a new regime to be moved from Peking but not to Nanking which would, he suggested, be the natural Chinese choice, but to Si-an, nearer central China and better able to be defended from invaders, were interspersed amongst other more mundane factual paragraphs.\n\nVery occasionally his stories verged on the salubrious, but were never risqué. He described Patriarch Lu Tsu, one of the Eight Immortals, as the author of an extraordinary work on the art of massage. By a certain process of massage, if systematically continued for some time, it was possible, so wrote Mesny, to deprive young men and women of their desire for sexual intercourse. They were practically rendered impotent and maintained so, without injury to their health or intellect. This was practised in Szechuan and Hupei provinces, especially in the large monasteries and nunneries of the Taoist and Buddhist priesthood, wherein celibacy was strictly enforced and easily maintained.\n\nMesny was not above writing very puerile articles. One such in 1896 was a parody on the subject of the Shanghai Mixed Court in the British Concession, referred to by him as the 'tribunal of injustice', which is now practically impossible to understand without knowledge of the personalities of the day, whom Mesny disguised behind pseudonyms. It filled some five columns on four pages and may have amused some readers and rid Mesny of some of his spleen, but a century later it reads so poorly that it is embarrassing. Something at the Mixed Court had so upset Mesny that he must have rushed into print, writing in the vein of many similar letters to the press in England at that time signed by 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' etc.\n\nThe contents of the Miscellany included serialised weekly parts running for a couple of months or so on substantial subjects such as:\n\n[1] The Taiping Rebellion or the Life and Adventures of a British Pioneer in China. This provided many pages of detailed and often petty experiences, such as his voyage up the Yangtze in 1868, where he repeats minor incidents often ad nauseam. Better descriptions of, for example, voyages up the Yangtze have been written by other westerners, such as Little, with excellent photographs, something Mesny appears not to have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212782, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "76\n\nThe Chinese Government, Mayers does not refer to the Lien-chûn Ying. Mesny's ambiguous descriptions are confusing though it would seem that there were four separate bodies, the Banner Forces, the ill-trained Green Standard armies under provincial control, the Disciplined Battalions formed from the Green Standards forces, and the local defence train bands.\n\nThe standing army was divided into two great classes, the Banner Forces, [Ch'i-ping], and the Militia Forces (Chih-ping]. The real Chinese National Army also called Ying-ping generally styled by foreigners as the Green Banner Force [Lu-ch'i Ying'] derived its title from the colour of their triangular standard, green satin with a red satin scalloped border and a golden dragon embroidered in the centre. Each province had a separate army corps under a C-in-C styled Ti-tu Chün-men [one such force was the Kueichou Provincial Force operating alongside the Szechuan Force in which Mesny served]. The forces consisted entirely of Chinese and were, in fact, a part of the local militia. Three centuries ago, wrote Mesny, it was the finest military force in the world: as it was in 1895, he added. The force was beneath criticism.\n\nThe Disciplined Army battalions, the Lien-Chün Ying [troops trained by and after foreign advisers], was a new organisation instituted by Ts'en Yü-ying, formerly Governor of Yunnan, Kueichou, Fukien and subsequently Governor-General of the Yun-kuei provinces. It consisted of detachments from the various Territorial Green Regiments formed into battalions and bearing the same territorial name as the regiment from which they had been detached and of which these detachments actually formed or constituted a fighting or field battalion. The Disciplined Battalions were armed with obsolete rifles but far superior to anything opposed to them in Yunnan or Kueichou. These Disciplined Armies, often referred to as the Anhui and Hunan Armies, were originally privately raised and financed by Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang to combat the Taiping rebel armies and were under the personal command of Han Chinese generals. Later, they employed westerners such as Mesny to assist China's programme of 'self-strengthening', primarily in the sphere of armaments.\n\nAlthough Mesny explained that there was a lack of uniformity in organisation throughout the whole of China he went into some detail, and added that each provincial army corps was considered a regular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212803, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "97\n\nthe barrel resting on a second man's shoulder.\n\nKang sì: a baked mud or brick bed used in northern Chinese homes, warmed in winter by hot air from the kitchen flue passing through it.\n\nKo-ino Hul #₺★ : A powerful secret society; the Elder Brother Society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch’ing government and punishable by death.\n\nKowtow : 'knock the head': The ceremony of prostration common in China, chiefly performed before the emperor, in religious ceremonies, and by inferiors to superiors as an humble apology.\n\nInternational Settlement together with the French Concession [Shanghai]: Colonial enclaves where privileges but not political control were enjoyed. The Municipal Council of the International Settlement, against which Mesny occasionally railed, eventually regarded itself as independent even of the UK and US Governments. Most foreigners regarded their presence in Shanghai, despite increasing Chinese nationalism, as in the best interests of the Chinese. Foreigners were divided socially and economically into businessmen, officials of all kinds including police officers and customs officials, missionaries and others such as be-shored seamen, refugees, later mainly White Russians and German Jews, and 'stayed-on' westerners who had married Chinese women or had nowhere better to go.\n\nLartigue railway system: Mesny would appear to have been acting as the local agent for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in China [in 1886] though whether authorised on a retainer or on commission we shall probably never know. The Lartigue system was invented during the 1880s by Charles Lartigue, a French inventor who, having observed how camel loads were balanced on either side of the animal, invented a monorail which after a tentative experiment in France was chosen as the system to be used for the Bally-Bunion to Lisowel Railway in a remote corner of Ireland in 1888.\n\nThere is no indication that the line Mesny proposed between Wu-sung and Shanghai, ever got beyond Mesny's fertile imagination. Wu-sung, the town at the junction of the Yangtze and the river which leads up to Shanghai, was where ships first berthed before sailing up the Wu-sung River to Shanghai,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212955, "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": 23, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "2\n\ndictionaries of phrases, many of them carry the figurative meaning. What more, these 'phenomena' suggest that the concept of face is important.\n\nis\n\nFace Is Important\n\nLu Xun, the author of the epic A Q, had written many stories, articles, and poems. Among them, one article was solely devoted to the concept of face (Lu, 1934).* Another contemporary writer, Lao She also took pains to single out face as the central theme in one of his early plays: Mianzi Wenti (The Question of Face), a three-act play published in 1941.6\n\nIn what can be regarded as a concise statement of what Lu Xun and Lao She had tried to convey, Lin Yutang, the famous linguist, wrote that face was 'yet the most delicate standard by which Chinese social intercourse [was] regulated' (Lin, 1935: 200). He also lamented that if China was to become strong, it was necessary for her people, especially those who had face, to cast aside this concern (Lin, 1980: 210). His underlying assumption was that the concern with face barred the country from developing into a state ruled by law and thereby a strong state. This view was shared by other social critics like Bo Yang (Bo, 1987: 121). Even some Westerners who had much experience living in China feel the same (Bo, 1987: 338-339).\n\nSome Western scholars also attended to the concept. Elizabeth Croll, for example, in her study of marriage rituals, concluded that the scale of marriage was taken as a symbol of a household's or even a larger social group's status. Wedding banquets were used by those who experienced changes in their status to advertise their new positions in society. Although the word 'face' was not directly used, it is apparent that the concept worked in this context. As far as this ritual was concerned, the situation remained the same in post-1949 China. More so, the cadres themselves, rather than the villagers, were the group being indulged in extravagant feasting.\n\nEven in the political arena, the concept of face appears to be important. In an analysis of the dynamics of political factions, Lucian Pye has argued that, very often, politicians would not be totally driven out, nor would political factions be totally defeated. This is to save the losers from a complete dismantling of their status, power and other means of living. This is also important to allow the defeated to live on by saving them from a 'deep sense of loss of face' which implies loss of respect and dignity (Pye, 1980: 188-189).\n\n* A copy of the bibliography is available from the Hon. Editor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213255, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "FOREIGNERS AND FUNG SHUI\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nThe system of fung shui, therefore, based as it is on human speculation and superstition and not on careful study of nature, is marked for decay and dissolution.\n\nFeng-Shui\n\nErnest J. Eitel 1882\n\n57\n\nBy contrast to the above, the following (again the opinion of a single person) was published 89 years later.\n\nI believe that the human mind has reached a point in evolution where it is about to develop new powers — powers that once would have been considered magical. In the animal kingdom, 'magical powers' are common place. Civilised man has forgotten about them because they are no longer necessary to his survival.\n\n+\n\nSynopsis\n\nThe Occult\n\nColin Wilson 1971\n\nThis paper looks at fung shui largely as it affects Westerners, although, to do this, its role within Chinese society must also be examined. What is fung shui? How do Caucasians, western hongs (business houses) and the British Hong Kong Government view, and react to, it?\n\nThis paper, in which comparisons are made between Chinese fung shui and geomancy in other cultures, also examines two case studies. Firstly, the fung shui in an urban flat at Mid-Levels, and, secondly, the fung shui in business premises. This paper also looks at the growing role played by fung shui in the West. Conclusions are drawn on the study overall.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213259, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "61\n\nWhile stating that fung shu has its arcane aspects, Webb went on to state its basic principle was 'living in harmony and balance with one's environment.' He continued:\n\nHistorically, fung shui has practical roots. It is a 'pattern Language' for the development of well-nice farming villages in ancient China. Its sensible application produces a functional, beautiful and productive landscape which has lessons for the present day world with the increasing urgency of its ecological crisis. It behoves all of us to take responsibility for our own impact on the environment.\n\nIn some cases fung shui is linked to practices such as soothsaying, ancestor worship and animism, with, for example, spirits residing in rocks and trees. Fung shui can also be linked to run fu (EA), a spirit-placating ceremony (Hayes, 1979: 214). This consists of a series of complicated and what can be expensive rites to alleviate misfortune which can be brought about by bad fung shui. Deities are beseeched to counteract malignancy and ensure peace (Hayes, 1965:122).\n\nVarying views\n\nCertainly many Westerners resident in Hong Kong do take an interest in the pseudo-science of fung shui (Au Yeung:23).\n\nAs one English woman explained to the author:\n\n'There are seven of us in our real estate office, including five Europeans. The fung shui chap has instructed us to keep the curtains drawn. As soon as someone inadvertently opens them, one of us rushes over to draw them. We are all terribly superstitious.'\n\nIn another example, where a European was asked for her views, she replied:\n\n'I'm fascinated by fung shui. My husband is in charge of a fast food chain. He makes detailed plans and then finds he cannot implement them because of fung shui.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213260, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "62\n\nWhen the Technical College (now the Hong Kong Polytechnic University) moved to its new campus at Hung Hom in 1957, expatriates as well as Chinese staff were not pleased to find a funeral parlour sited next door. Not all the Europeans, the author recalls, blamed the deaths and illnesses that followed (among family members of the staff) on bad fung shui. The Chinese, of course, sought advice and took appropriate action. Nevertheless, generally, if staff were advised to swing their desks around so many degrees, all things being more or less equal, Europeans tended not to argue. After some months people stopped falling sick and nobody mentioned the funeral home any more. Some Britons argued it had all been psychosomatic. But it had been a reality, and, unless it was coincidence, what everyone had been advised to do by the fung shui master seemed to have worked.\n\nThe truth is, however, that although a few Chinese go out of their way to explain to Westerners that they do not believe in fung shui, in some cases because they think that is what Europeans wish to hear, all sorts of people living in Hong Kong do believe in it. This includes Chinese in all walks of life, including the western educated and the erudite, some Legislative Councillors, rich businessmen and 'old one-hundred names' (the average Chinese).\n\nA private social function held in 1994 included 20 Chinese women ranging in ages from approximately 20 to 45. On being questioned by the author 16 said they believed, two more believed 'more or less', and two did not believe in fung shui.\n\nMany Chinese are not prepared to risk 'not believing'. There are indications, however, that, with the spread of westernisation and 'modern enlightenment', the views of younger Chinese are changing (see Appendix B). But the process is slow and opinions are mixed as the following (the words of a well-educated Chinese girl) illustrates:\n\n'I would not go to the trouble and expense of inviting a fung shui man to my flat. But if I knew I was not supposed to do something I would not do it, just in case. I would listen'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213266, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "68\n\nback door. In this way prosperous winds are not allowed to blow straight out of the other side. Considerable care was taken, too, in selecting the positions and angles of the two long escalators leading up to the first floor of the Bank. They should not directly 'confront' the entrance.\n\nUnlike most enterprises in urban Hong Kong 'The Bank' still has an open space in front of it and a sea view. The harbour is the bathing place of the dragon. With water signifying money this is important. Water is the most powerful of all the Elements. It is non-resistant. It can wear away rocks. A deluge can sweep all before it.\n\nIn many cases planners go to some lengths, among other measures, to ensure that interior water features assist good joss to circulate throughout a building. The height of the ejection of water of a fountain is often considered important.\n\nThe now liquidated Hong Kong Branch of the Bank of Credit and Commerce was sadly not so wise. '... the BCC displayed a large water feature which cascaded away from the entrance... this means (in fung shui terms) wealth pours out of the bank. I am surprised anyone should put their money into this bank in the first place,' a fung shui master contended.\n\nThere are countless cases where western managements have paid consideration to fung shui in Hong Kong (Saw, 1990:8) In Exchange Square, for example, a special skylight was installed and the 'water curtains' on either side of the two escalators are spectacular. In the Hyatt Regency Hotel doors and furniture were repositioned.\n\nVirgin Atlantic Airways timed their first flight to the Far East to start on a propitious day. Marks and Spencer buried lucky gold coins in strategic positions under floors in its stores, and Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm, also pays regard to the 'caring philosophy'. Asians, of course, like to see Westerners respecting their culture. In turn, it is good for business (Sunday Times, 1995:16).\n\nThe author has no hard data, but his personal recollections are that clearly far more interest is shown in fung shui by western establishments today than 40 or so years ago. Certainly there is far more interest in it now than there was between the two World Wars. Going back still further,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213267, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "69\n\nthe views expressed right at the start of this paper by Dr Ernest J. Eitel, sometimes titled Hong Kong's first historian and for some time a Hong Kong civil servant, were by no means unusual.\n\nToday, far more empathy is shown towards Chinese culture in general by Westerners. For instance, many Caucasian firms believe aquariums enrich the fung shu of an office. It is not just Chinese who can relax, Westerners will tell you, when they lie back and watch fish swimming. It gives everyone a special feeling and lowers their blood pressure by a few degrees.\n\nOf course, certain rules have to be followed. The number of fish kept is often six or nine. Three multiplied by three equals nine (a lucky number); and a homonym of three, in Cantonese, sounds similar to the character meaning 'lively'. Because of colour symbolism, one fish may be black (a Black Molly), another reddish (a goldfish), and the rest any other colour. Because the fish are supposed to act as a shield against bad fung shui, sometimes a fish dies. But better a dead fish than a dead customer.\n\nHigher up the hill above Central District, at the Albany in Albany Road, residents were concerned about the 70-storey, new, People's Republic Bank of China Building 'giving off vibes'. They feared the sharp edges of its structure with their negative forces would menace the abode of some of Hong Kong's rich and famous. In the West, the new Bank of China building would perhaps be described as 'ominous', 'overshadowing' or 'overpowering'. Many Chinese, however, liken the sharp edges of the Bank of China to a knife pointed at, or arrows cast at, Government House and Central Government Offices, namely, the heart of the British Colonial Administration. These 'weapons', together with the flyovers close to Government House, tie the decision-making hands of the British Governor and threaten the prosperity of Hong Kong. The fung shui 'dragon vein', with the dragon's head turned to face its ancestors, serpents down from Victoria Peak, close to the Albany, concealed by a carpet of vegetation. It passes close to the Albany apartments. The dragon thrusts and turns as the topography changes. The earth surges with natural energy. Chinese dragons are more serpent-like and sinuous than those in the West. And, as the vein gathers strength, it proceeds vigorously on to the 'dragon sites'\n\nsuch as the home of the Governor and down to the Hong Kong Bank. It then dips into the harbour, the 'dragon's lair'. Although now the slope up the Peak is largely obscured by high-rise buildings, on some hills and\n\n70", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213274, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "76\n\nto the homing instinct of some birds, the salmon's sense of smell and the robin's sensitivity to stellar radiation.\n\nA trained person can walk across a field with a forked twig and he or she can say with certainty whether water is present below. The influence given off by the movement of water has been likened to an electric field (Pike, 1945:16 and 24). Similarly, horses during periods of drought will locate an exact spot where water is to be found below in an otherwise waterless district. Dead horses have been seen at such spots, with hoof-marks left on the ground, where the unfortunate animal tried to paw his way to water.\n\nAs a leftover from our animal past, the skill of divining in which the 'human radio set' picks up cosmic waves, magnetic energy or radioactivity is possessed by different people with varying degrees of sensitivity. 'Listening to the earth' has been likened to developing the powers of clairvoyance. Such fields and lines of currents radiate patterns of energy. They vitalise the countryside. Some spots produce more life, in the form of trees, flowers, animals, birds and minerals, than others. Cows, for example, prefer to stay in parts of a meadow which are places of energy (Pennick, 1979:38). Dowsing, with its 'inner eye', has sometimes been used to trace leylines in Britain (Miller, 1989:26). The author, however, knows of no cases where dowsing has been employed to try to trace the 'dragon veins' of fung shui.\n\nLinking Chinese fung shui and dowsing; it is interesting that an old Hakka village in Tsuen Wan, in Hong Kong's New Territories, has a well which was sunk in the position advocated by a fung shui consultant. And even during bad droughts, like that of 1963 when water was on tap for only four hours once every four days, villagers maintain the well always remained 95 per cent full (Leung, 1986:19).\n\nCase Study One\n\nThis paper now examines an actual case of fung shui, at Realty Gardens, 41 Conduit Road, Mid-Levels, on Hong Kong Island, where the author has lived since 1976. The flat in question is situated in the centre block of five blocks. A fung shui master visits the flat annually. It is said to be situated in a good geomantic spot. Many uninitiated Westerners would more likely phrase it as, 'the flat has good spatial orientation'. Both", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213282, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "84\n\nWith approximately one-third of a person's life spent in bed, the fung shui practitioner insists the most important room in a dwelling is the master bedroom. This is because if relations between husband and wife are cordial, harmony in the home will follow naturally. One fung shui practitioner maintains he saved a couple from divorce just by improving the ambiance of their bedroom. It is better if people sleep on a north-south axis. Some Westerners also believe, because of magnetic fields, one's body should lie in this direction. Charles Dickens the novelist, so it is said, preferred to sleep this way.\n\nBut the most common barrier to a healthy flow of chi, the cosmic breath of life and spiritual energy necessary for growth and vitality, is the proper positioning of walls and beams.\n\n'Just as Westerners don't like walking under a ladder, so we believe it's not good to sleep under a beam,' the author's fung shui consultant insisted.\n\n'Everything releases pressure of some sort, especially a heavy mass,' he continued, as he held his pointed forefinger three inches away from a friend's forehead asking him to close his eyes.\n\n'Can you feel the force?' the fung shui master asked 'Happenings' are absorbed into structures. Then afterwards, when atmospherics and other conditions are favourable, maybe years later, rays are given off which affect our subconscious depths. Such vibrations can result in headaches, mental disorders and loss of creative energy. In the case of the beam above the bed in the case study the answer was to conceal it with a 'false ceiling', which, of course, also improves the appearance of the room.\n\nThese examples always lead the author to think of two decorators who were instructed to distemper the ceiling above an open stairwell inside a six-storey building. Neither of the men had a head for heights. From the two planks on which they had to stand they could look straight down the full drop of the building. However, when a large dustsheet was draped across the handrails of the staircase, obscuring the stairwell, so the two workers could not see beyond a few feet below them, they cheerfully stood on the platform and painted the ceiling. Although they knew the dustsheet would not save them if they fell, like the beam in the bedroom, the 60-foot drop was concealed from view. It was all psychological.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213286, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "88\n\nIt is not unlike the West where it is not uncommon practice to construct beams with a slight camber and columns with an entasis. This overcomes the illusion of sagging or concavity respectively.\n\nIncidentally, the length of a briefcase manufactured in many Chinese communities is, very approximately, 43 centimetres (around 17 inches). This, it has been suggested (Walters, 1988: 83), is designed to conform to the auspicious 'fung shui foot'. The actual size of a briefcase could, of course, be coincidence. Or perhaps it depends on the size of files and sheets of paper which the bag has to hold? But whatever the reason for the dimension, a liberal helping of luck is always welcomed by businessmen of whatever nationality.\n\nReturning to the case study: the front view looking out from a building is important for enhancing wealth. If one gazes north out of the window of the master bedroom, one can view the harbour which forms the dragon's lair with all its benevolent power. Beyond are the Kowloon Foothills (including Lion Rock and Beacon Hill), Tai Mo Shan, Ma On Shan, and the Pat Shin Range. Well out of sight is the Kun Lun Shan mountain range of South China. The Hong Kong harbour can be compared to the much smaller fung shui ming tong (ponds) that one sees in front of Chinese villages.\n\nThe water in the front balances the fung shui that flows down the hill at the rear. Of course, it also serves a practical purpose. Not only does the village pond contain fish, but also the water is used for washing, irrigation, and, in emergency, for fire fighting. As previously mentioned, water, in Cantonese, symbolises money. It is good fung shui to have water in front of a building or a grave. But looking across at the ocean, you need to be able to see an island or a strip of land. If there is no 'destination', there is no 'purpose'. A sailor needs to know where he is heading. He must not be 'rudderless'. Looking out to sea or gazing at a water feature, however, gives not only Chinese, but also Westerners, a relaxed feeling.\n\nCertainly, the ambience of a home or office means something to everyone, Westerner or Chinese. And, sometimes, on entering a building, a Westerner's subconscious senses may lead him or her to exclaim, 'I like this place: I can relax here!' It is, however, not always easy to provide an explanation why one's sixth sense indicates a feeling of peace or, contrarily,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213290, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "92\n\naffect tidal and wind action, such as monsoons and typhoons), to calculate and categorise the nature and effects of the elements on our universe.\n\nThe 'Five Elements' are interactive and symbolic of positive energy. They play an important role in fung shui. For instance:\n\nFire; a building should be well lighted. A lamp should be kept switched on, for example beside the entrance door, at all hours,\n\nWater; jars of salt water should be placed in strategic positions in a building, for example, behind the gas cooker to counteract harmful fumes\n\nWood; kwun yam chuk or foo kwa chuk (dwarf bamboo) (AT)\n\n富貴竹 (dracaena sanderiana virescens), sometimes called 'fortune plants' which symbolise nature and growth, should be placed in strategic positions around the home.\n\nMetal; coins, one silver and six copper (pebbles are sometimes substituted), are placed on a small plate or in some other container.\n\nEarth; in the business premises that the author visited, in the company of the fung shui master, crystal glass containers are positioned. Seven coins are placed in them as detailed under 'metal' above\n\nA large proportion of the earth is made up of crystals. Natural crystal is more effective for fung shui purposes, although 'dead' (artificial) crystal can have some effect. 'Crystal Power' has become popular in the West in what has been called the 'age of crystal' (David, 15; 1994). It has been described as 'symbolic of', and providing 'positive, invisible energy' (Smith, 1993: 20). Some claim it has the power to adjust imbalances in the atmosphere. Some Westerners believe the moment they lay a piece of crystal in their hand energy surges through their bodies and negative forces are released. It helps them meditate. It brings life into focus, it has healing power; it induces dreams and divine revelations. Not just Westerners but some Chinese fung shui masters too, believe that crystal correctly positioned in a room absorbs negative vibrations.\n\nRepresentatives of the 'Five Elements', like those listed above, are placed in strategic positions: such as near entrance doors, on shelves, on tables and on the tops of cupboards and similar places, in the business premises visited.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213296, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "98\n\nBritain since she moved there with her parents as a child, had this to say. 'If my mother bought a house in England she would certainly consider fung shui, I would consider it too, but not in such detail.'\n\nUndoubtedly, more interest is shown by Westerners in things Chinese today, compared to, say, a generation or so ago. Treatment like acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines have slowly become accepted by some members of the western medical profession. Likewise, fung shui is gaining Caucasian proponents. It is believed the layout of Amsterdam's waterways, the beauty of Lucerne, and the textbook layout of Paris all conform to good fung shui principles. Patrick Wong, a fung shui consultant practising in Britain, maintains that London attracts favourable water spirits from the Thames (Forsyth, 1994:64). These signify good fortune. The river's direction and flow, and the fact that it meanders and has many tributaries, are all conducive to prosperity (Walters, 1988:23). Kwok Man Ho, one of Europe's foremost fung shui masters, was called upon to advise on the design of some of the more recent projects in London's Docklands.\n\nIn addition to Chinese fung shui masters practising in the West there are also proponents like Derek Walters, a Briton who dons Chinese ceremonial robes and claims to have advised a number of British celebrities. Walters flies regularly to Hong Kong, where he learned his craft, to consult with other experts. 'We have nothing similar to fung shui in the West so it fills a vacuum,' he maintains.\n\nIn this technological age many people are searching for a 'fourth dimension'. They also want something that stirs the will. A number are looking for a simple, direct way of escaping the boredom and narrowness of everydayness. While some find their escape in mediaeval history, art or music, others find it in fortune telling or fung shui.\n\nA group of Chinese, after discussions among themselves in Holland, came to the conclusion that, among the Hong Kong, Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese living in the Netherlands, 70 to 80 per cent believe in fung shui, at least to some degree. For instance, many believe the number of windows in a dwelling should exceed the number of doors. If they do not, the inhabitants will hang up some kind of talisman to counteract possible evil influences. Similarly, gods which are popular in Hong Kong, like To Tei Kung, Kwan Ti and Kwoon Yam (觀音) are common among Chinese in the Netherlands.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213298, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "The author's informant said that, according to his sources, about 50 per cent of Chinese buyers in Canada are concerned about fung shui, although they may not engage a master. They may bring along a knowledgeable friend to advise or the buyer will request pertinent information from the agent.\n\nAuthor Sarah Rossbach, who lives in the United States, was a fung shui student of Beijing-born Lin Yun. He founded the Tibetan Tantric Buddhist Temple in Berkeley, California. Rossbach is now a fung shui consultant. Yet she admits many people prefer to be billed for 'design services' rather than for 'geomancy'. The title, 'environmental consultant', too, is often used (Konclus, 1991:6).\n\nThe author's Chinese godson, who lives in the United States, says that there is more interest in fung shui in large cities like New York and Los Angeles. In such places a few Westerners employ fung shui at official openings of shops and stores.\n\nAmong Caucasians, the aim in the West is usually for fung shui to provide 'tranquility' and Westerners make adjustments to buildings and their interiors so that 'good order' prevails. Everyone, inwardly, needs to live in balance with their environment and the universe. Fung shui appeals to many because it is a form of cosmology within the grasp of common man. As one lady responded to the author: 'Yes I'm a Scot, a Celt. I believe in that sort of thing.'\n\nConclusions\n\nNow is the time to try to pull some of the themes discussed in this paper together, even if, with much fung shui doctrine, what some people call 'jungle sensitiveness' can be seen to prevail. Many principles cannot be measured with a tape measure or weighed with a balance.\n\nAlthough forms of geomancy are not uncommon in countries around the world, Chinese fung shui is more complex than most geomantic doctrines. While much may not be amenable to scientific explanation, as Bard writes, Chinese fung shui is certainly not the superstition of an unsophisticated people (Bard, 1988:104). The aim is, basically, to harmonise elemental forces and create environments, in the home, workplace or in the afterlife, free of discord. A great deal is based on the\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213299, "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": 121, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "101\n\ndivine powers of nature. Design methodology and fung shui lore for buildings, much of which has been handed down from generation to generation, although not entirely rigid, can be as stringent as any building ordinance. Much is, however, intended as a guide. Some sociologists will tell you that fung shui can provide lessons even for present day western planners.\n\nOrder, logic and intuition have helped shape picturesque Chinese villages. Moreover, fung shui has sometimes restrained villagers from taking unwise ecological decisions. It has led to nurturing reasonably sound environmental practices and the establishing of well-planned settlements years ahead of their time,\n\nWhen choosing a site of a dwelling, using fung shui principles, the whole process of selection is ritualised and certain symbols are conventionally recognised. Nevertheless, owing to cultural or other differences, a Chinese may visualise something different in a tree or a boulder, such as the head of a dragon or the form of a phoenix, compared to an Englishman.\n\nA woman once retorted to the author\n\n“All cultures have their customs and beliefs. In Germany we dislike the number 13, breaking a mirror and so on. Customs have to be respected.”\n\nIn spite of such accepted differences Westerners sometimes make decisions, unknowingly, which may resemble to a degree Chinese fung shui. These decisions (later translated into acts such as placing certain objects in specific places) may be formulated by Caucasians either in a logical or intuitive way. The difference is, however, that, among the Chinese, such needs and instincts concerning fung shui have been identified and codified to form, over centuries, a properly documented system. Much is based on self-evident propositions.\n\nThe principles which regulate the cosmos, like the lunar calendar, are well understood. Some events are subjected to exact treatment in set ways. Experts sometimes, however, combine elaborate content and imagery with ingenious thought and intense feeling. These can result in geomantic hypochondria with a client going from one master to another to find in fung shui what he or she wishes to find. Fung shui can also act", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213300, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "102\n\nas a barrier to progress, by, for example, not allowing a person to carry out a certain operation on a certain day.\n\nThe Hong Kong (British) Government has certainly not ridden roughshod over Chinese culture and it has given tacit approval to fung shui by paying sizeable sums as compensation when the 'dragon's vein' has been endangered by public works. Few other colonial governments would probably have been as considerate. Also, remedial structural measures have been taken to the residence of the British Governor to bring it into line with fung shui beliefs. Many western business houses take fung shui into consideration. Their managements maintain the investment is well worth it. Staff worries are allayed. It is good for business.\n\nAlthough some is undoubtedly superstition, nevertheless much fung shui is common-sense and practical, taking into account natural rhythms that form part of man's lifestyle. It is, it has been suggested, up to everyone to treat fung shui with an open mind and to decide what he or she is able to accept. 'Staples' include symbolism, coins, crystal, mirrors, lights and wind-chimes. Fortune plants, with their non-calcified, non-woody stems, serve a useful purpose in purifying the atmosphere. Colours are linked not only to one's year of birth but also to the Five Elements.\n\nEvery building has its own metabolism. One purpose is to channel chi to all rooms so as to improve the bond with, and the energy and performance of, the occupants. Westerners believe they are able and have the right to control nature. The Chinese view is more akin to living in balance with nature and taking a holistic approach. This outlook helps bring about harmony and peace in the home or workplace. And, as society becomes more affluent, so the Chinese have more money to lavish on things like fung shui. Also, with the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China and the resulting uncertainty, more people are likely to appeal to the supernatural, and to visit fortune-tellers and engage fung shui masters, to try to find solutions to their worries and problems.\n\nIt has been argued nonetheless, not without reason, that geomancy can be rather 'hit and miss', more resembling an art than a science tested by experiments and research. It has also been argued that fung shui can be 'self-reinforcing'. This means that whatever is forecast is likely to come true partly because it is often explained in such vague terms. The fact that a forecast may not come to pass for years is accepted. As a result, much", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213301, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "103\n\nif you wait long enough\n\nof what is prophesied is inevitable (Freedman, 1976:228). And to those who express doubts, in answer to the question 'Does fung shui work?' a master once replied: 'Do you ever ask your physician whether his treatment will be effective?'\n\nThe Chinese, including the 50 million odd diaspora, by and large, are industrious; deep down they are believers in the capitalist system. They are achievement orientated; they set great store by education and the advantages it can bring to the person with drive. After all, man is at his best when he has a strong sense of purpose. Carrying on from there, some Chinese believe 'good joss' is the just and inevitable reward of the diligent and skilful. Nevertheless, many still also believe in what can be styled the cruel apportionment of fate. This means, in effect, that when a baby 'comes down to earth and cries three times' his or her life pattern has already been decided. Yet, contrarily, most Chinese believe fate can be ameliorated by enlisting the powers of a fung shui master.\n\n'First is birth, second is luck, third is fung shui, fourth are good deeds on earth, fifth is studying.' If your fortune is good and you were born under a lucky star, that's fine. But a fung shui master can make things even better. It may take time. Investment does not always show immediate returns.\n\n15\n\nLin Yutang (Lin, 1936:301) wrote, '... although geomancy is undeniably a superstition, it has great spiritual and architectural value.' It is, of course, far more than that, and full advantage is usually taken by a competent practitioner of the interplay between luck and natural forces. A large amount seems to depend upon the cultivation of a sixth sense. Some Westerners say too much depends upon intuition and too little on logic. A Chinese might reply by asking in what other way can you handle an ancient, classical system with a name directly translated as 'wind and water'? A wind that Westerners cannot comprehend and water they cannot grasp.\n\nLike many doctrines where one is told 'to have faith', philosophical beliefs, so often, depend upon unprovable statements. Eugene Ho (Ho, 1987) asks, in his letter to the editor of the South China Morning Post, why Saint John's Cathedral, which has stood for so long, was cited by a previous Chinese letter writer as standing on a fine site which is protected by the 'dragon's vein'? Why is it not protected by the Christian God, who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213302, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "104\n\nChristians believe in, rather than by fung shur? Indeed for most religions and persuasions when faith is involved, there is usually no rational way to measure faith. Although, so often, the more rational the person's view the greater the degree of rationalisation. This does not of course imply fung shur is completely illusionary. A person must believe in the cure. So much, after all, is psychological. Many things in life are.\n\nThose who are afraid of contracting some illness become disease conscious, which helps to attract what they fear, just as those who think always in terms of health are helping to attract health. It is a case of attunement. A natural force, seemingly, turns on the switch. An aggressive attitude towards fighting disease can help prolong life. If you change your outlook you change your vibrations.\n\nOne Englishwoman told the author:\n\n\"There are electrical fields. Why can't there be other fields too, like those emanating from crystal? Again, there are things like 'thought transference'. There must also be other dimensions of which we are not really aware. Things that give out an aura.\"\n\nCertainly most Chinese and many Westerners do believe in the 'breath of the dragon'. As one Irish friend explained to the author:\n\n'Fung shui? Yes, it works so well. I'm an advocate. Believe and it will happen. Get fung shui working for you. When my Chinese wife and I last went on leave to Dublin we bought a house, largely because of fung shui, on the spur of the moment. With a street number of 80 it also has a good setting.'\n\nTo some extent fung shui is commonsense dressed up in the language of fairy tales and folklore. As people enter the next millennium (western reckoning) it is opportune to question, as mankind stands at the crossroads, whether the world should continue down a path that leads to an even greater alienation from nature and contrary to the laws of creation.\n\nAs new energies surge into the earth's fields, if man, in the home, on the job, or in the grave, as a result of the fung shui master creating a better environment, is more content, then fung shui will have achieved an important aim. If man is more content he will feel more comfortable. He will accomplish more and enjoy life more.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213303, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "105\n\nAppendix A\n\nErnest J. Eitel, Hong Kong civil servant and historian, in his book, Feng-Shui, first published in 1882, wrote the following:\n\nFeng shui may contain a bushel of wisdom, but it scarcely contains a handful of commonsense. It is simply the blind gropings of the Chinese mind after a system of natural sciences.\n\nHow does this view compare with the opinions of some Westerners today, to whom the author posed the question, 'Do you believe in fung shui?' Although some answers have been written into the text of this response, some are listed below. In some cases, answers have been condensed:\n\n'No, I don't believe.'\n\n'There must be something in it.'\n\n'I don't know much about it.'\n\n'Not really. A lot is superstition. I lived in a house with a very low rent in Tokyo purely because it was close to a crematorium. You could see the smoke coming out of the chimney.'\n\n'Yes, everyone likes to have furniture arranged properly. All know the soothing effect of running water. It makes you feel good. If someone tells me to put my chair in a certain position, I'll put it in that position.'\n\nFung shui is one of the few Chinese terms that many people living in Europe understand.'\n\n'I believe in the practical aspects, not the mumbo jumbo.'\n\n'Depends what you mean by fung shui.'\n\n'...conducive to relaxation.'\n\n'Too much trouble, I can't be bothered.'\n\n'I believe certain things are...' \n\n'In the old days it was sensible and based on practical application before it...'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213346, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "151\n\nUrban Historians\n\nWe may discern yet a fourth group, those studying the local history of urban Hong Kong. Their work started later in the 1960s, and among the pioneers were political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists as well as historians, many being teachers at the University of Hong Kong. Again, up to the mid 1970s, most of them were Westerners. The source materials they used were primarily government publications, archival materials and newspapers, and since most read only English, they either had no access to Chinese sources, or had to rely on research assistants.\n\nThere was an attempt to tap a new source, oral history, which Alan Birch of the History Department, HKU, carried out with great fervour in the early 1970s. Later in the decade, he organized two radio programmes interviewing those who had lived through the Japanese invasion and the Japanese occupation, and two books based on these interviews were published. However, since Birch only speaks and reads English, his interviewees were confined to expatriates and English-speaking Chinese, and the stories that he could reconstruct were inherently one-sided.\n\nAmong urban historians, Carl Smith was rather exceptional. A genealogist by training, he began his research on Hong Kong in 1960 with the history of the Protestant church, looking at the impact of the church's activities on Hong Kong society, before going on to examine many other aspects. His studies on localities include detailed works on Shamshuipo and Wanchai. He has, moreover, written many biographies of local people and on the different ethnic and national groups in Hong Kong. His research is based on a broad range of materials, both English and Chinese. Besides government records and newspapers, he uses church records, missionary archives, wills, company records, genealogies, inscriptions on headstones, land records, commercial directories, to name just a few of them.\n\nHis work opens up a whole new world to the reader, who discovers not just the lives of great men but ordinary men and women - school teachers, policemen, prostitutes, bank clerks, junior government servants, shopkeepers and their families and social circles. In his hands, Hong Kong's urban history is no longer just the story of one Governor following another, but of real people, living in real neighbourhoods, going to real churches and schools, and yes, based on cemetery records, dying and being buried in real graveyards.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213646, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "218\n\nThe book is a remarkably accurate and sensitive account of life as a public servant in the Colony of Hong Kong (this term with its perceived pejorative overtones was de-emphasised in the eighties in favour of Territory; Now, of course, we have become a Region) in the decades after the Second World War. Hong Kong in the fifties, when James arrived, was far from what we know it to be today: still recovering from the ravages and privations of the Japanese occupation; swamped with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war and subsequent revolution in China; tuberculosis and other diseases rampant; people living from hand to mouth; the squatter areas - the list of maladies could go on. Amongst other things which come out vividly in this book is how well Hong Kong has done. There has always been a tendency amongst Westerners to compare the worst in Hong Kong with the best elsewhere, which is unfair. Hong Kong has had more than its share of problems but now has the money to minimise them. In the fifties and sixties, the wealth was simply not there.\n\nThe author came to Hong Kong as a “Cadet”, the rather noisome name given to members of the Administrative Service. As such, in James' words, he “…belonged to a grade of the civil service that was generalist in nature, whose members were moved around, filling middle and upper level posts in key departments and in the Government Secretariat.’ The Administrative Service is a proud, elite force which produces most of Hong Kong's public sector leaders but it is often criticised for this 'Jack of all trades, master of none' mentality; its members being likened by its more vocal critics to 'lighthouses in the desert' (brilliant but useless). This is going altogether too far. Like all organs of Government, the Service has had its share of incompetents, but James was demonstrably not one of them.\n\nJames also accurately describes the ethos in post-war Hong Kong and how it has evolved. Many, if not most, expatriates existed in small, enclosed, expatriate ‘rings’, almost completely cut off from the real Hong Kong. It was rather like living in a cocoon. To the modern-day observer, this lack of contact, other than professional, between the main ethnic groups seems amazing. But when you get down to it, have things changed that much? There was also, at any rate below the surface, a fair amount of racism, parochialism and delusions of grandeur around. It has been said more than once that many allegedly competent and successful, and certainly senior, British Hong Kong civil servants", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213874, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "200\n\nThe influence of these western-educated Cantonese extended northward in the 1860s when western firms such as Jardine and Swire established their branch offices in the newly opened Treaty ports — Shanghai in 1850, Fuzhou in 1854 and Hankou in 1861. It was in these new Treaty ports that the Cantonese recognized that a new job market in politics was open to them. A \"Western Affairs Movement” was initiated by several powerful provincial officials in China by the 1870s. Under the patronage of these officials, economic and legal reforms were introduced into China in the name of westernization. These officials who rose to power after suppressing the Taiping Rebellion without Beijing's support, developed huge business enterprises in the name of the \"official supervision — merchant management” or “western-affairs movement\". The Hong Kong compradores were mainly responsible for the collection of capital. Their credibility came not from the enterprises they set up, with or without the legal backing of a company law, but from their own reputation as well as the political patronage behind them.\n\nAmidst the rhetoric of these western affairs movements, “reform-minded\" officials recruited their own advisors and set up their own personal governments, known as Mufu, literally, tent government, or what we now call think-tanks. Many Cantonese, with or without imperial degrees, were sought to fill these posts. The strength of this “Cantonese party” rested on their early access to things western — the \"Cantonese faction established predominance in China's internal affairs and foreign relations... [their strength] lies in the monopoly in the matter of emigration overseas ... Before 1840, Canton was the only port open to foreign traders”. On how these think-tank members were appointed, westerners observed that:\n\nin the exercise of patronage... the principle is that which animated Washington in the selection of his first cabinet. Latterly the Canton party, ultra-progressive, has come to the front.\n\nIn the 1870s amidst this rhetoric of westernization, and with the assistance of western-educated Cantonese, the \"reform-minded\" officials managed to bargain with Beijing and develop huge business enterprises under their patronage. In an environment where company law and stock markets were absent, these reform-minded officials started these modern enterprises under an arrangement known as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214121, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "158\n\nthat you cannot please all the members all the time there is still a role for societies like the Royal Asiatic Society to play in Hong Kong. It is interesting to recall that some of the best research on Hong Kong history has been carried out by amateurs, often by RAS members. We, as members, must continue to ask ourselves the question: How can the local Branch make Hong Kong a better place and how can we members continue to serve the community, including both Chinese and Westerners?\n\nReferences\n\nBard, Solomon. 1995. “Archaeology in Hong Kong: A Review of Achievements”, Archaeology in Southeast Asia, University of Hong Kong: 383-395.\n\nChambers Biographical Dictionary. Revised edition 1969. states: “(Bowring) ... acquired knowledge of 200 languages”.\n\nDudgeon, David and Richard Corlett. 1994. Hills and Streams: an Ecology of Hong Kong, Oxford University Press.\n\nEndacott, G. B. 1958. A History of Hong Kong, Oxford University Press.\n\nHayes, James William. 1989. “Letter to the Chairman, Consultative Committee for the Basic Law”, Journal RASHKB, 29: xvi and xvii.\n\n1997. \"The Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\", Journal RASHKB, 34: 129-145.\n\nPfister, Lauren F. 1993. \"Clues to the Life and Academic Achievements of One of the Most Famous Nineteenth Century European Sinologists-James Legge (AD 1815-1897)\", Journal HKBRAS, 30: 180-218.\n\nRide, Lindsay and May, 1996. An East India Company Cemetery, ed. Bernard Mellor, Hong Kong University Press.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society: Its History and Treasures. 1979. eds. Stuart Simmonds and Simon Digby, The Royal Asiatic Society London.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214130, "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": 198, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "169\n\nRAS VISIT TO HUIZHOU\n\nDan Waters\n\nOn Saturday 15 November, 1997, 14 stalwart members of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) set off by coach on a two-day visit to Huizhou (Waichau or Waichow) and the surrounding region in eastern Guangdong Province.\n\nHuizhou has a population of about 600,000, making it larger than Macau. In this part of Guangdong, where Westerners attract a certain amount of attention, we visited scenic spots like the West Lake (see Plate I), the Xizhou Pagoda and the Su Dongbo Well as well as his Monument (see Plate II).1 Su Dongbo was a leading poet and a member of the literati in Northern Song times. He was also concerned with the building of bridges, improving dams and constructing water supply schemes. Madam Wang (1062-96), his Concubine, was a native of Hangzhou. Su was disgraced and banished to Guangdong and subsequently to Hainan Island.\n\nOur RAS Group also visited one of the most famous Taoist temples (the Lu Dong Bin Temple) in Guangdong Province, situated at Loh Fau Shan. Lu Dong Bin is one of the Eight Immortals and a patron saint of the literati. He uses a fly whisk to sweep away the clouds and carries a magic sword associated with healing.\n\nOn the following day (Sunday 16 November) the RAS Group drove to the unspoiled Nine Dragon Mountain (named 'Kowloon' like in Hong Kong) and its comparatively well-known Tam Kung Temple which was visited by a group of RASHKB members in November 1995. Research has previously been carried out and RAS visits have been made to various Tam Kung temples both in Hong Kong and in Macau, including during the Tam Kung Festival. Also, an illustrated lecture was given on the Hakka Boy Deity, Tam Kung, in 1996, to the RASHKB by Professor Anthony Siu and Geoffrey Roper. There is little point in repeating similar information here.\n\nOne of the tasks that the RAS group set itself, in November 1997, was to find two buildings in Huizhou which were used by the British Army Aid Group (BAAG) during World War Two. Both sites were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214167, "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": 25, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "Seum have limited knowledge. Consequently, staff often do not know even which subject these books are written about. Interestingly, these books were previously viewed by RASHKB members on their visit to Beijing at Easter 1998. Group members were then informed that that was the first time those books had been viewed by Westerners since 1949. We are not only grateful to Dr Gaseltine for her week spent in Beijing but also to Council member, Dr Joseph Ting, for making the arrangements for Dr Gaseltine to visit the library.\n\nxxiv", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214183, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "4\n\njoke may have lost some of its appeal over the centuries it was supposed to have been a real roof-raiser in its day. How does it compare with the humour enjoyed by pre-Shang dynasty (1600 to 1100 BC) Chinese or primitive man in Britain, who used woad as a body dye, about the same period?\n\nCertainly throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, coarse and crude vernacular humour was common. It was included in the banter of the court jester and in the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Ribald and bawdy wisecracks and coarse primitive jokes also made up part of the conversation of the Chinese masses. Risqué jokes and four-letter words, which many consider to be very much a class marker, are still common today both in western and Chinese society and among both men and women (Bolton, 1997; 299, 306). The odd 'streaker' is occasionally seen at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens and the orgy is still by no means unknown. The author recalls a European on a minibus in Hong Kong informing the driver to stop at block number nine. But he mispronounced the Cantonese equivalent of ‘nine' with a higher tone so that it sounded like a coarse word for penis. While some passengers laughed outright others sniggered or masked a smile.\n\nSypher says (1956; 208), regarding a code of decency, that some psychologists believe any group of men and women, no matter how refined, will laugh at ‘dirty' jokes. The real question is when and which dirty jokes they laugh at.\n\nIt is interesting to compare reactions to the photograph taken of a Black Watch soldier at the cenotaph, in Hong Kong's Central District, when a gust of wind had blown his kilt up exposing bare buttocks. Most Westerners questioned by the author seemed to think, ‘hard luck old chap,' but most believed it was a cleverly taken photograph and good for a laugh. The average Hong Kong Chinese, however, felt that the poor Highlander's privacy had been trespassed upon and they were sorry for him. However, some also remarked, it provided an answer to the question which puzzles so many: 'What does a Scotsman wear under his kilt?'\n\nAlthough the word 'humour' can still be considered 'suspect' in the United States (Muir, 1990; XXXI), it really means the ability to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214185, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "6\n\nlaughter to one person and a mere smile to another. Indeed to a third person, the joke may fall completely flat. People often do not agree about what they find funny. Why? Much is physiological and beyond the scope of this paper. Some people take the view that life is not funny and you need to be a philosopher to extract fun from it. Nevertheless, few men or women will confess to a total lack of humour. As Frank Moore Colby (1865-1925) the United States editor wrote:\n\nMen will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humour? The British statesman, William Gladstone (1809-98), is one of the few who was said by his critics to have been entirely lacking in humour (Muir, 1990; XXXII).\n\nSidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) the French novelist wrote: Total absence of humour renders life impossible (one could add, this applies for both Chinese and Westerners).\n\nNevertheless humour is probably not unique to the human race and many canine lovers will tell you can sometimes spot a grin on the face of a dog.\n\nWestern senses of humour\n\nThe brand of humour common in the United States, where people are not afraid to ‘debunk' anyone or anything, is, according to one middle-aged American woman living in Hong Kong, not always the most subtle. It can vary considerably compared to the humour, often based on behaviour or appearance, found in Britain where irony is frequently used and words portray the opposite of what is actually meant. Of course an Englishman may be unable to laugh at a Chinese joke because he has insufficient command of the language.\n\nFor instance, a European and a Cantonese were arguing how America was discovered. The European said Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492, together with soldiers and missionaries. Columbus landed, kissed the ground, and declared the name of the new land 'America'. The Chinese disagreed saying that Fa-Xian (AD 337-422), a Buddhist monk, landed there in a Chinese junk. As he walked up the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214186, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "beach with his Chinese cook carrying a wok (Chinese frying pan) under his arm, he proclaimed 'Mat ye lei ga? (†1) (meaning \"What is this?'). But to a Cantonese it sounds very much like the word 'America'.\n\nAgain, regarding the appreciation of someone else's humour, a Chinese who has never lived outside China may be unable to laugh at a joke because he has limited knowledge outside his own country. For instance the ideal world has jokingly been said, by Asians, to be an English stately home, Chinese food, an American salary and a Japanese wife. But then another Asian pipes up, \"If you had a Japanese house, English food, a Chinese salary and an American wife you'd be in real trouble!\"\n\nOf course general knowledge, background and nuances often play an important part. For instance if you say in English, 'She's no chicken,' you mean a woman is not young. But in Cantonese it means she is not a prostitute.\n\nChinese and Westerners may face various obstacles before they can laugh at each other's jokes. Nevertheless, as Ezra Pound (1885-1972) the American poet and translator wrote: The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension. Although there is much fine Chinese literature there have been few Chinese Nobel Prize winners. It is unfortunate that many of the finest passages of Chinese writing lose their sparkle when translated into western languages (Ball 1903; 358).\n\nIn a similar way the English language is not always easy for foreigners to appreciate. Tsim Tak-lung, at one time in charge of the Hong Kong Chinese University Press, once said that when enquiring after someone the English reply, ‘As well as can be expected.' 'What on earth does it mean?' asked confused Tsim.\n\nAgain he tells the tale of when he asked someone in a railway carriage in England whether a certain train went to Blanktown. He expected a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Instead he received the reply: 'I should be very surprised if it doesn't!' When the train pulled up at the platform", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214191, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "Laurel and Hardy, who first teamed up in 1927 and made over 100 films together which came out 'fresh' every time, are other examples of comedians whose humour travelled well. Hong Kong's own martial arts expert and stunt man, Jackie Chan, sometimes dubbed 'Hong Kong's favourite son,' has become successful, both in the Far East and Hollywood, by combining Chinese kung fu and bits of slapstick.\n\nAnother good example is Mr Bean who, because he doesn't say anything, has no difficulty in getting his humour ‘across the Great Wall' and into countries in Asia. It is interesting that, to most British audiences, Bean is funny, foolish and unenviable in every way. He is the last person they would wish to work with or be associated with (Cairnes, 1998). The Japanese and many Asians, however, see him rather differently. They see Bean as a pathetic, lonely figure who deserves pity and would be fun to have around. Yet even he does not appear funny to everyone.\n\nVisual, universal humour, such as the puppy licking the baby's ice-cream, has a much better chance of crossing frontiers, although the television series, America's funniest home movies, does not always receive the same reaction in countries outside the United States, and indeed not even by all Americans. As a group of Chinese and Britons discussing humour agreed: 'If you've seen one showing of America's funniest home movies you're seen them all.' In fact the reaction to these movies seems to be mixed. An American woman living in Hong Kong told the author that the humour was not subtle enough for her but her two children enjoyed these films. Other Americans, however, said they found them 'funny and relaxing'.\n\nAccording to American Brent Ambacher, who was raised in Hong Kong and works as a part-time comedian, more and more Westerners today expect more sophisticated, 'highbrow' (sometimes termed 'three-dimensional') humour. This more profound variety should, as it were, embrace a ‘moral lesson.' This may depend on the cultural background and the awareness and intentions of the artiste. It may, for example, concentrate on slamming pomposity, condemning underhanded politics or corruption, or some other topical subject. Today's audiences often expect a comedian who is more 'civic minded,' who will deliver his act in a philosophical way and will give them something of substance to evoke deep afterthought. All this as opposed to the shallow", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "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": 214193, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "cially as it involved the only 'foreign devil' present, thoroughly enjoyed it even though the joke has been repeated countless times throughout the ages. Many jokes, both in the East and the West, are of course repeated over and over again over a period of years. Although possibly rather feeble by today's standards, the author remembers a riddle being repeated to him when he was a child in England. The question was: 'When is a door not a door?' The answer was, 'When it's a jar (ajar)!' This was told countless times and seemed to have been passed down from generation to generation as many jokes in many countries are.\n\nIn the case of a Chinese example of an oft repeated joke there is the saying, Ah Yee Leng Tong (-). This really means \"gone to the Second Wife's to drink lovely soup.' Up to October 1971, Chinese men in Hong Kong could legally take concubines. The principal wife, generally, knew her position and was pretty secure, but the concubine, so it was said, needed to prepare tasty soup (and other things) to please her husband to make sure her position also was secure. There is a restaurant named Ah Yee Leng Tong in Causeway Bay, on Hong Kong Island, and whenever the name is mentioned it always raises a smile.\n\nHaving said that, however, Chinese tend not to laugh out loud so much as Westerners, but, in Hong Kong, said Reuben M, an American part-time comedian who has lived in the Territory for a number of years, even Westerners are inclined to be more subdued than people living in the West. Nevertheless, it was pointed out by the same comedian that, if Chinese don't like a show and they are bored, they can be a noisy, distracting audience.\n\nLaughter can certainly help break down barriers, including pricking bubbles of solemnity at meetings, and there are few occasions when some degree of hilarity does not serve a useful purpose. Certainly humour is an important key to the happiness and well-being of us all, irrespective of race, just as anger and depression have the opposite effect. Norman Cousins was stricken with a seemingly incurable disease. He decided to keep himself occupied with a diet of humour and, as he lay on his sick-bed, he watched old silent movies of Laurel and Hardy and read anything that would make him laugh (Cousins, 1979; 39). He recounts he made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anaesthetic effect that gave him at least two hours of pain-free sleep. Gradually he began to recover. A good bout of laugh-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214194, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "15\n\ning is as good as a session of aerobics. Cousins' book has become a classic.\n\nIt has been said that people laugh more in a warmer climate than they do in the cold north, which, up to a point, is understandable. Opening your mouth too wide lets in the cold! But certainly, as we have seen, senses of humour can differ from the north to the south of Europe, and from country to country. They can also change considerably across Asia. There are differences even among the population of China, from one region or one sub-ethnic group of people to another. Many of the latter have their own dialects which, many insist, may be classified as separate languages in their own right. In China, jokes about politics often go down better in Beijing, the capital city of the country and the heart of Government; whereas Shanghai is the major commercial centre in the People's Republic on the Mainland.\n\nThe People's Daily is purported to have quoted the Chinese joke about an alien being captured in China (HK Standard, 1998). In Shanghai, so it was written, they would dissect it for medical research. Beijingers, conversely, would send it to a museum as an educational exhibit, while the Cantonese, who eat anything whose back faces the sky and has four legs, except a table, would ask, 'which part of the creature can be braised in brown sauce?' Part-time comedian Brent Ambacher, long-time resident in Hong Kong, told the author that he had been unable to think of any similar jokes about Hong Kong people.\n\nQuite rightly, making fun of people today because of their origins is usually frowned upon, as is the cracking of sexist and racist jokes. Many squirm at 'black humour' which is too close to the bone. Yet in Hong Kong the term gweilo (meaning 'ghost person' or 'foreign devil') may, or, as the term is so widely used, may not carry pejorative intentions. Certainly not everyone agrees with the latter, and Frank Ching, the well-known Hong Kong journalist, on more than one occasion has said he never uses the term and that to say it is not derogatory is to deny the obvious (Waters, 1995; 146). Nevertheless, a number of Westerners, especially British, use the term as a self-deprecating form of humour.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "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 }, { "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": 214199, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "(d) You cannot applaud with one hand.\n\n(e) One's house is best protected by a wasted garden outside and an ugly wife inside.\n\n(f) A one-foot kick (a jack-of-all-trades).\n\nFor many of these Chinese sayings (like [(a)], 'Melons and pears,' above), as Shakespeare so aptly wrote, 'Brevity is the soul of wit'.\n\nAlthough not always easy for foreigners to comprehend, Chinese humour is in some ways similar to western humour in that it includes satire, farce, punning and sudden juxtaposition. But there are of course differences. A one-liner that Nury Vittachi sometimes uses when he entertains a group of Westerners goes like this: 'If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?' But when he switches audiences, for Asians he says it sometimes works better if you say, 'If a woman says something in a forest where there is no man to hear her, is she still wrong?' Vittachi was sometimes described by Hong Kong's last British Governor, Chris Patten, as ‘the funniest man in Hong Kong.'\n\nMuch of the difference would appear to be due to social conditioning. The author agrees with Vittachi that jokes based on word-play or societal conventions only work where the language or society allows them to work even if there are also deeper differences. Vittachi also says that he uses a lot of irony when Westerners are present but little, together with sarcasm or sardonic humour, when the audience is largely Asian. Westerners also, quite naturally if the language is English, guess punchlines much faster allowing them to be abandoned entirely in some cases.\n\nA sample opening of the comedy he uses is:\n\n\"Thanks for inviting me to this Women's group. It's not the most mis-directed I've received. Last week I got some junk mail from a sports shoe chain store. The letter began \"Dear Basketball Player ... (Westerners chuckle).... I'm 5 feet 4 inches tall (Asians chuckle).....\" This may be, because they are more familiar with the concept of stand-up comedy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214200, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "21\n\nBut, while comparing Chinese and western humour, with the latter propagated by television, radio and other forms of the mass media, it has to be borne in mind that the peoples of many countries are changing their way of life. The world is fast becoming a global village.\n\nAmusement in language\n\nIn the mid-1950s, the author recalls, a fashionable colour in Hong Kong was described in Cantonese (a vibrant, vivid language) as ‘duck's excreta green'. This tickled foreigners but was (and still is) good descriptive, serious stuff to our Chinese friends. They never seem to realise, however, that any of their own surnames, such as Mr Wu, Mrs Ma (meaning horse), Mrs Lung (meaning dragon) or Miss Ng (which is difficult for some Europeans to pronounce), may strike the average Westerner as funny. Yet the author has never really understood why his family name, 'Waters' (which hardly ever strikes Europeans as comical) (probably meaning his forebears lived near a river or a lake), is often considered amusing by Chinese. A Chinese physician once wisecracked: 'Dan Waters, please pass some water;' while a Chinese architect quipped, 'Dr Waters has been inspecting waterworks structures all morning.' In other examples just the mention of the name Green, Whalebelly or Goodbody strike many Chinese, understandably perhaps, as comical. We British have become accustomed to such names. However, the countless Chinese firms with names like Lee Kee Motor Boat Service, No-Squeak Wong the cobbler and Au-Choo the medicine shop, do strike the average Westerner as good for a chuckle.\n\nThere is a Chinese saying which, when translated, goes something like this:\n\nWalking we will not change our family name. Sitting we will not change our given name.\n\nIt really implies we are digging our heels in and sticking to our principles. Nevertheless, Sir (now Lord) David Wilson did change his name when he came back to Hong Kong to become Governor in 1987. He had served in Hong Kong before and his Chinese name had previously been romanised as Ngai Tak-ngai (Spurr, 1995;246). The Chinese, however, who read far more into a name than the average European,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214201, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "22\n\nconsider the first character to be partly made up of the character for ghost.' This was thus seen by many as a ghost knocking at the door of Hong Kong. It was certainly not auspicious. The second 'Ngai' can be seen by wary Chinese as representing the Chinese character for 'danger' Consequently, on his return in 1987, to solve the problem Sir David's name was changed to Wai Yik-shun. This means, 'to defend and protect with faith and trust.' All this changing of names, although generally regarded with some amusement by many Westerners, is taken very seriously by most Chinese. Changing given names is by no means uncommon among Chinese although they do not normally change surnames (Jones, 1997;73).\n\nMore of humour\n\nIt has been said, if you want to educate a person in the culture and customs of a country you must start with his or her grandmother. Yet Raybon Kan, an ethnic Chinese who performs under the title of Comedy Fu, was born and grew up north of Wellington, New Zealand (Green, 1998). He works as a stand-up, Chinese 'Kiwi' comedian. This lawyer turned funnyman speaks fluent, colloquial Cantonese, but only with his parents who understand limited English and run a take-away. It is something to come on stage in a White community, with a Chinese face in a classic, rural white-bloke tradition, with an act where about one-quarter focuses on his native origins, racial stereotypes, and being an 'underdog' and a 'victim' (Little, 1998). Humour can of course be 'learned.' In fact in one month, in rugby-loving New Zealand, more went to see Comedy Fu perform than watched the Auckland Warriors in action.\n\nAnother act was put on by Pui-fan Lee (note surname and given names reversed in western fashion), a stand-up comic in Short, Fat, Ugly and Chinese, at the Fringe Club in Hong Kong, in 1994. As a Chinese girl born in Birmingham, her performance consisted of immigrant Chinese culture and indigenous British values intertwined, interlarded with farcical growing-up encounters in England. And when she lapsed into a broad Brum accent the Birmingham folk who were there loved it. The key is pronunciation. He or she who speaks with a foreign accent is a foreigner. The audience did not care what colour their peer was. The important point was that she spoke broad Brum. Accent conveys acceptance. She was one of them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214203, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "24\n\n'Eat or don't eat!' \n\nJohn Moloney, the British comedian, found that playing to a Chinese (partly westernised) audience in Hong Kong required less of a cultural leap than when he took his act to Beijing (Syrett, 1995:4). The itinerant comedian, in fact, soon learns to steer clear of anything remotely embarrassing or linguistically complicated and to resort to the 'language of action.' This is universal and capable of bringing about smiles and even belly laughs.\n\nWhile all people, no matter the culture, are said to cry at similar incidents, people in London, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, or wherever, may not always laugh at the same jokes. In the same way, people in the West and people in China may not always see insults in the same light. For example, Jimmy Lai, the owner of Apple Daily, in the run-up to the 1997 Handover in Hong Kong, called a senior China official a 'turtle's egg,' meaning more or less 'unnatural birth.' Although not too unpleasant, it caused a furore. Yet, as an American Old-China Hand commented to the author, 'Who would get worked up over name-calling like that?'\n\nThe last British Governor, Chris Patten, took it as a joke when he was described in catch-phrases by the Beijing Government as 'a serpent' and being 'disgraced in history for a millennium.' In fact, Patten quoted with relish his sobriquet of 'Whore of the East.' Most Britons also saw such 'insults' in much the same light as Patten, and as being faintly despicable, with the rhetoric unworthy of 5,000 years of continuous civilisation (Waters, 1995:168).\n\nIn the same way that Chinese and Westerners may see insults differently, so they often see humour differently. A Hong Kong Chinese, of Shanghainese stock, said to the author, 'I'll tell you a typical English joke which the average Chinese cannot really appreciate.\n\n'A publican and a customer were talking in a bar (E) when in came another man. He walked up the wall, walked upside down across the ceiling, and then down the wall the other side. He ordered a pint of beer, which he promptly quaffed. He then walked up the wall, across the ceiling, down the wall the other side, and out of the pub door. \"That's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214204, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "25\n\nstrange,\" said the customer who was left standing at the bar.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the publican. \"Wonder what's happened? Previously, he only drank lemonade!””\n\nWhen the author has told this joke Westerners generally think it funny partly because it is so ridiculous, but also because it is just about impossible. But most Chinese, unless very westernised, have been unable to appreciate it. To Westerners, it tends to be not just 'funny ha ha' but also 'funny peculiar.'\n\nChinese tend not to be able to visualise easily the bar scene. Indeed if one uses the word 'pub' and 'publican' many Hong Kong Chinese might not be too clear what you mean. They are not common Hong Kong words. Harking back to what was written at the start of this paper, Bloom (Wu, undated; 3) contended that language inevitably affects the thinking processes of people. Another comment made by a professor of comparative Chinese/English linguistics at Taiwan National University was: 'You know, English has a whole complex of ways of talking, and hence thinking, on an abstract, theoretical level, which Chinese doesn't have (Bloom, 1981; 35). We speak and think more directly.' Similar comments have also been not infrequently heard by others who appear qualified to judge. If thinking is indeed affected in this way then speech must also affect senses of humour.\n\nLifestyle is important and many Chinese jokes are centred around the circular, Chinese banquet table. That is part of their everyday life and they can easily picture the situation. There a man turns his glass upside down and rubs his finger around the bottom. When asked why he was doing that he replied, it was to make the glass shorter. 'But why make it smaller?' he was questioned.\n\n\"They give us so little to drink here,' came the answer, 'there is no need to have such a big glass!'\n\nSome argue that Chinese do not generally see the funny side of the joke about walking up the pub wall because Asians tend to see things in complex, contextual, all-embracing ways (Waters, 1991; 35). With Chinese landscape painting more attention is paid to the overall", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214205, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "26\n\npicture than to the tiny figures on the mountain. Chinese medicine also takes a holistic approach. Again, it has been argued that Westerners see time as stretching out in a straight path in front. Asians, however, see time as a spiral, with things repeating themselves. It has been suggested this may have something to do with belief in reincarnation and the idea that there is 'a time to live and a time to die and a time to be born again.' Again, some of us are said to be logical thinkers, sometimes called 'convergers'; and there are also 'instinctive thinkers', sometimes called 'divergers'.\n\nWith the cortex of the brain composed of two hemispheres, it can be argued (Waters, 1991; 35) that the left lobe handles thought patterns which need to be processed linearly, sequentially, in systematic stages, step by step. The right lobe, conversely, operates in a more general way with simultaneous thought processing. How does all this affect appreciating jokes?\n\nEven though China is a single country about nine-tenths the size of Europe, populated largely by Han Chinese with many different dialects, there are also 56 minority groups with different lifestyles. This means that, although there are some jokes that will raise a chuckle no matter where they are told, some senses of humour, even within China itself, are to some degree regional.\n\nOnce in rural, Eastern Guangdong, at a walled village, the author asked a group of locals where the communal toilet was. As he walked away towards it, he heard the group giggling. In parts of China where Westerners seldom frequent, the white-skinned, red-faced, perspiring foreigner is an oddity and good for a chuckle; just as in some Western countries where Chinese seldom visit, they are intrinsically strange to Westerners. In the instance of the author looking for the lavatory, even though scatology is a form of Chinese peasant humour, he certainly did not expect to find it in the unprintable condition that he did - a country with some of the dirtiest bogs in the world.\n\nEven in \n\nChairman Mao was also fond of good, earthy expressions, although the author has been unable to find confirmation that: 'Making a noise like thunder to drown out the sound of 100 farts,' was actually dreamed up by him.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214206, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "27\n\nOf course obscene jokes and a preoccupation with excrement and body functions are common in many societies and have raised smiles, like other familiar jokes, for centuries. For example, instead of saying a Chinese laughed, one can say: 'Saw teeth but did not see eyes.' Because of physiognomy, one is hardly able to use this expression about Europeans.\n\nIn most countries satire survives partly because it tweaks the authorities. In England, there is the Yes, Minister series, which has stood the test of time, just as there is an assortment of tales about party leaders in China where jokes go back decades. Over the last half century many certainly do not conform with Communist Party intentions. For example, with a play on words, the late elder statesman, Deng Xiaoping, was sometimes ‘insulted' by calling him 'Little Bottle,' which the sound of his given names suggests. Certainly it is not the done thing in China to insult the leaders and humour, like most things, is expected to serve the state.\n\nTwo other anti-establishment jokes, which went the rounds not too long after the Communist government took over in China in 1949, run as follows:\n\nA parrot said, 'I'm smart, I listen to people and mimic what they say.'\n\nA government official replied, ‘I'm smarter, I only copy what our leaders say!'\n\nThe second joke runs:\n\nTwo men had a fight and one contestant bit off the other's nose. The case went to court. The man being tried insisted his opponent bit off his own nose. 'But how could he possibly do that?,' enquired the magistrate, 'His nose is situated above his mouth.' 'Simple' came the reply. 'He stood on a chair to get at it!' This joke seems to fall rather flat on most Westerners (and indeed on many Hong Kong Chinese) for whom it is not sufficiently subtle.\n\nAlthough not considered good taste today, as mentioned before, just as there are English jokes about the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214207, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "28\n\nso different Chinese ethnic sub-groups laugh at each other. In the early 1950s, when many Shanghainese came to Hong Kong from the Mainland, the sally going the rounds among the Cantonese was: First the Shanghainese travelled in a small car. Now they ride in a big car. For the Westerner who is slow on the uptake this means, when they first came to Hong Kong they drove a car. Later, they could not afford it so they travelled by bus.\n\nIn China too, at one stage there was a tendency, as in other societies years ago, to deride cripples and the mentally retarded (Sypher, 1956; 202). In England in the Middle Ages, a hunchback was expected to caper around and amuse others. Jews, the village idiot, and the 'Chinaman' with his pigtail were usually all good, certainly in the 19th century, for a giggle (Pan, 1990; 84). More recently, there was the case of the Duke of Edinburgh meeting some British students studying in China and the Duke saying to them: 'If you stay here too long you'll get \"slitty\" eyes.' Many people seemed to think it was an insensitive remark and in bad taste. A few however felt, no doubt like the Duke himself (and indeed a few Hong Kong Chinese), that it was all intended in good, clean fun.\n\nWe must not forget that a witch was burned alive in Sunderland, England, as late as 1722, which was an occasion of some merriment. Even today many children enjoy 'cruelty' in their humour, such as the slip on the banana skin or the bucket of water tipped on the head. The author recalls how a colleague, a Chinese teacher, was given the nickname of tsoh hau ue (left [sloping] mouth fish) (false halibut) in the 1950s. Although humour can conceal or even help to heal pain, there are people of all nationalities who delight in the misfortune of others, and, even today, a few get pleasure from stoning a hedgehog to death which is stuck in a hedge.\n\nFrequently one hears about oppressive authority in Chinese life and there are sometimes attempts to 'skewer' an incident, by the oppressed, with a good joke. Everyone loves to make the leaders look stupid.\n\nThere is the one about the three Chinese in a prison cell during the Cultural Revolution. The first said: 'I'm here because I supported Deng", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214208, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "29\n\nXiaoping.' The second said, 'I'm here because I opposed Deng Xiaoping.' The two turned to the third who piped up, 'I am Deng Xiaoping.' Deng was, of course, incarcerated for a spell during the Cultural Revolution.\n\nGenerations of Chinese have endured hard lives and they frequently surprise Westerners by laughing at things which are construed in the West as horrible and cruel (Bonavia, 1980:59). 'Blood and guts' at the cinema are examples, although a nervous giggle is perhaps a better description than an outright laugh. Use of this 'safety valve' not only rejuvenates the mind and body but also diffuses anger. Humour and laughter help relieve stress and tension and the immune functions which they bring into being can sometimes help one get out of a trying, embarrassing or difficult situation.\n\nYou will sometimes see a Chinese who has been jaywalking, and has had a close shave with a car, or someone who drops his camera, grinning, or even giving a mild laugh. This reaction provides an escape mechanism. A giggle can make the serious seem ‘unserious' and bring about counterproductive results. Vittachi, the Hong Kong comic, has pointed out to the author that it is by no means confined to Chinese. Other Asians, such as Vietnamese, use 'laughter' to express embarrassment. One not infrequently sees bafflement (or even anger) on the face of a Westerner who tells the Hanoi custom officer that his ticket has been stolen, only to see the officer break into a nervous giggle.\n\nIn fact, the practice is not even purely Asian. The author recalls during World War Two when even British conscripts learned to laugh at the 'horrific' in order to adjust to the situation. If you could go into battle singing the song, 'Hurrah for the Next Man to Die!' you were better able to shrug off death and less likely to go 'shell happy.' Humour acts as a kind of release and can be borne out of pain. Sigmund Freud wrote a dull paper entitled, 'Jokes and their relation to the unconscious,' in which he stated that humorous laughter was a kind of catharsis, a release of tension that returns the body and mind to a state of homeostasis or equilibrium after stress (Freud, 1960).\n\nThe fact that humour can be born out of pain gives rise to the saying: 'I have migraine at the moment and everything seems funny in a peculiar (mirthless) sort of way.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214210, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "31\n\none foot in the grave.' Such expressions could help to bring about death. Nevertheless, in Cantonese slang, a corpse is sometimes described as 'salt fish' (hàm yú), one imagines because of the smell. In the context of not joking about death Mary Rafferty, the then new chief executive at the Matilda Hospital, on the Peak in Hong Kong, seems to have put her foot in it when she told one of the Chinese doctors: 'I'm checking up on you to see if your patients are still alive' (Cheng, 1998). It did not seem to dawn on the good lady that you do not make such remarks in Chinese society.\n\nA retired English, Hong Kong government servant was, as his son described it, showing off to a lady friend how he could swim under water. He suffered a heart attack and died. 'What a wonderful way to go,' was how his middle-aged son, with a grin, described it. When the author related this event to a number of Chinese they were unable to appreciate the 'joke' in quite the same light.\n\nThe English sometimes play with sentences and the meaning of words, as may be seen from the joke quoted earlier in this paper, about Lewinsky, Gore and Clinton junk bonds. Similarly the Cantonese, with the homophonous nature of their language, play with similar tones with which two or more characters are pronounced (Smith, 1988:149). They love puns and double entendre, which Westerners do not always appreciate, in which their rich and complex language abounds (Bolton 1997:299). Chinese have a great deal of fun playing with homonyms in their conversations around dining tables. For example two pairs of Chinese characters, both pronounced faat choi but with slightly different tones, mean either 'hair vegetable' (fà cài) (a blue-green algae) or, alternatively, 'become wealthy' (fā cái). There are countless examples. Similarly, a lecturer who taught in the ‘electrical' engineering department of a college varied the tone of the word 'deen' (meaning electrical) so that it sounded as if he taught in the 'crazy' engineering department.\n\n... \n\nThe word for 'fry', in Cantonese, is pronounced chaau. But the same sound is also slang for 'speculate.' People joke about a certain Mr Wong, in Hong Kong, who changed his profession from cook to stockbroker. The pun is that he used to chaau food but now he chaaus shares!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214211, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "A Chinese woman with a good command of English, married to an Englishman for many years, said to the author, 'The English like to insult their friends.' She was really saying they sometimes pull each other's legs unmercifully. When the author asked for an example she said, 'When they meet they say \"Hello you cheeky devil.\"' She could have added they have to be really good friends to do that without bad feeling creeping in. The Chinese lady also admitted, however, that her 'old man' and his friends sometimes told jokes that she could not grasp properly.\n\nThe above brought recollections to the author, of British soldiers during World War Two addressing friends. Rather than use the word 'devil,' they would say, 'affectionally,' 'You cheeky bastard.' Although crude, it was by no means uncommon and intended, and taken by many, believe it or not, as good, clean fun.' This is an extreme case among a small section of society, one must admit, but more than one Englishman has run into trouble because a Chinese friend, with a different cultural background, has taken what was intended merely as a mild leg-pull as an insult. Europeans have to be careful that the flippant remark is not taken seriously. A Chinese once said to a European, 'How did you know I was a teacher?' As quick as a flash came the reply: 'You can smell them!' \n\nEnglish humour includes, as related in this paper, wit, sarcasm, understatements and criticism. Self-mockery plays a part too, with Westerners calling themselves gwailo (ghost or devil person, in loose Chinese terminology) and laughing at themselves to get out of awkward situations. As a Hong Kong Cantonese, with a Master's degree in sociology from a university in Britain, said to the author, the Chinese tend not to laugh at themselves because of fear of losing face. If they learnt to laugh at themselves it would make life easier for them, he maintained. In a similar way, the friend continued, if Chinese have complaints or there is something wrong with them they do not relish telling others because it can portray weakness.\n\nThere is the tale of a Chinese who lost face by not being invited to a party. As a result, he recounted: If I had been invited I would not have gone; and even if I had gone I would not have eaten; and even if I had eaten I would not have eaten much; and even if I had eaten a bit more than intended, well never mind!", "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": 214213, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "34\n\ncomparatively recently it was unbecoming to make fun of the British Royal Family in public in Britain.\n\nVittachi, in his letter to the author, says that although stories which pour scorn on leaders are loved by Westerners, Asian audiences sometimes appear a little scared when he does this. As Lee Kuan Yew recounted, by and large an Asian leader is not expected to accept gibes to his face. In Lee's own words, regarding how his political party acted (and largely acts) when governing Singapore: We argued and thrashed out our differences in private. In public we never contradicted each other (Minchin, 1986:343). It can be added that an Asian leader is likely, nevertheless, to receive a few well-aimed jabs behind his back, although, really to enjoy a joke, many will argue there has to be a 'victim.'\n\nAlthough the pointed joke and the sardonic barb can bring a great deal of trouble (Matthews, 1983:368), Western comedians are fond of using sarcasm with contemptuous language that is intended, in the extreme, to mock, insult or convey scorn. But in Hong Kong (and even more so on the People's Republic Mainland), it is so easy to cross the line and show disrespect (so that the person loses face). The Hong Kong film star and comedian Michael Hui Kwoon-man, a Hong Kong Chinese University graduate, explained to the author that he heard a western comedian in the United States say during a performance: 'What me? I'm so fat and healthy how could I possibly have AIDS?' 'Only people like Michael Jackson, who is skinny and ugly, have AIDS.' The Michael Jackson club in America, consisting mainly of young people, really enjoyed the joke about their idol and roared with glee.\n\nLater, Michael Hui returned to Hong Kong and tried the same joke out at the Anita Mui Fan Club. It fell completely flat. Members sat there looking glum, according to Hui. To be fair however, not all Westerners, especially the more sedate and elderly, would consider this joke funny. Also, of course, the fact that Michael Hui was joking about Anita Mui, a woman, made a difference.\n\nConclusions\n\nAfter researching and preparing this paper it is still not possible to decide positively whether there really are cognitive differences between", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214215, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "36\n\nis down-to-earth. Someone breaks a leg. In the end the bully is beaten up, and so on.\n\n(6) There is, nevertheless, considerable common ground between Chinese and western humour with 'international jokes', both verbal and non-verbal, such as those acted out by an artiste like Mr Bean. His jokes cross frontiers easily. Hong Kong's martial art's expert, Jackie Chan, also includes slapstick in his acting. For much of the time Chinese and Westerners can and do laugh at the same jokes.\n\n(7) Humour can be lowbrow or highbrow, the latter delivering a message or a moral lesson regarding, say, the 'evils' of pomposity or politics.\n\n(8) Ribald, bawdy and scatologic jokes have been common throughout the ages, and still are today, both among Chinese and Westerners.\n\n(9) In Chinese society there are taboo subjects, such as jokes about mothers-in-law and death.\n\n(10) Making fun of various sub-ethnic groups, the under-privileged and the handicapped, like cripples and eunuchs, is more and more considered in poor taste.\n\n(11) Chinese is a rich language, especially the Cantonese dialect with its marked tonal differences. This lends itself to punning and the clever use of ambiguity.\n\n(12) There is a wealth of humour in Chinese literature, everyday expressions and conversation.\n\n(13) The pointed barb, directly confronting a Chinese, is less common than among Westerners, largely because it can result in a loss of face.\n\n(14) Not only is a constant diet of humour good for both Westerners and Chinese, but the laugh or giggle can help relieve stress or tension just as it can bolster soldiers in battle.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214216, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "37\n\n(15) Humour changes over time and many Chinese, for example Singaporeans, have become Westernised in various ways, including regarding their sense of humour.\n\nThe Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), and its vicious aftermath, even though it was for many Chinese largely of their own making, had a profound effect on China physically,\n\npolitically and morally. But the Chinese have considerable capacity for survival boosted largely by their philosophy of life, acceptance of realism, and capabilities to surmount the vicissitudes of life with understanding, limitless grace and (it must be stressed) with considerable humour.\n\nNevertheless, where there are differences in senses of humour, the more a Westerner learns about and appreciates Chinese culture, or when a Chinese understands Western culture, the more he or she 'extends' his or her own sense of humour in an alien culture. More rigorously chronicled jokes and more well-researched material will assist this process.\n\nBut with time, improved travel facilities and communications, including radio, television, the Internet, other forms of the mass media and information technology, the world is becoming more of a global village. In spite of Hong Kong becoming in some respects more 'Chinese' since the 1997 Handover, from Britain to China (including more use being made of the Chinese language), the merging of western and Chinese cultures will continue. This will, in the end, result in differences being narrowed and Chinese and Westerners laughing more at each others' jokes. Laughter will then cross the Great Wall more easily.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214301, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "123\n\nwhile trekking and living amongst Chinese his Chinese language skills must have been of immense value and probably were the prime reason why he was invited to join several natural history expeditions through northern China.\n\nArthur's father, the Reverend Arthur Sowerby was a missionary in China for forty years, mostly in Taiyuan though during his latter years he was a tutor to the sons of Republican President Yuan Shih-kai [who attempted to mount the imperial throne in 1916].\n\nSowerby was a man of his time. He would have seen the Chinese first, as a child and a young man, from a missionary point of view, “sad heathen souls needing saving,\" later, with the eyes of a traveller and so-called explorer as \"dullards who needed leadership and western civilisation,” and finally, as a businessman and resident in the Foreign Concession of Shanghai, where the Chinese were regarded as \"the Yellow Peril, natives to be kept at a distance, and frequently ridiculed.\" China and the Chinese were popularly denigrated by the Western community and Chinese in general were distrusted. These strongly rooted beliefs reflected nearly a century of western misunderstanding and reaction to Chinese conduct, and shaped the behaviour of Treaty Port Westerners and Britons in particular. However, Sowerby had a redeeming feature as the editor of and a writer for a journal, one of the aims of which was to educate foreigners living on Chinese soil on, amongst other things, Chinese culture,\n\nThe only connection this article has with the Millennium, however tenuous, was the fortunate escape of the Sowerby family, including the fifteen year-old Arthur, from the largest Boxer massacre of missionaries exactly a century ago in 1900. The great majority of Western missionaries in Shansi, many scores, were murdered - with the provincial Governor, Yü Hsien, taking part in the killing of fifty-one Catholic and Protestant missionaries in his yamen, and with a further fifty or so being killed elsewhere in the province. The Sowerbys were lucky enough to be back in England on long furlough at the time and the Reverend Arthur Sowerby who lost many friends and colleagues had the sad task of writing the obituaries of several of them.\n\nArthur was educated at home in Taiyuan and also at a missionary", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214308, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "130\n\nalready full. So off they went again across the Pacific by sea to Manila, Hong Kong and Shanghai before setting out for Cape Town where they remained for five months. They finally returned to Washington having stayed in Buenos Aires for a month en route. Back in Washington they found that he was still unable to obtain a residence permit. However, someone pointed out the small print that as a dependent of his wife they would be allowed to stay and there they remained for the next six years until Sowerby died on the 16th of August 1954 at the age of sixty-nine. His last years were confined to his sickroom from which he continued his researches and writing.\n\nFor some twenty-five years of his life he lived in Shanghai, through its heyday, and for fourteen years he produced and published a creditable monthly periodical, the China Journal, aimed at ‘educating' Westerners in China to appreciate many of the aspects of Chinese civilisation and life under headings - Science, Art, Literature and Travel. It was to \"encourage an active enthusiasm for the powerful and often enigmatic Chinese self-contained culture,\" though the Journal not only pursued interests concerned with culture and the Chinese social environment it also pursued the major leisure activities available in China - hunting, shooting and fishing - all subjects close to Sowerby's heart. His primary interest centred on the collection of scientific and geological specimens for museums in Britain and the United States, as well as retaining some specimens for a unique museum in Shanghai.\n\nThe bimonthly Journal was originally titled The China Journal of Science and Arts, and edited by Arthur de C. Sowerby [Science] and John C. Ferguson, PhD [Literature and Arts]. Clarice Moise BA began as the Assistant-Editor and Manager but later simply became the Manager. We know nothing of Ferguson whose name continued on the editorial staff until the late 1930s. The first issue, No. 1 of Volume 1 was issued in January 1923 with a primitive sketch on the cover designed by A de C. S showing a mounted T'ang horseman, a dragon and bats. At first, the journal was based at 103 Ben Building at 23 Avenue Eduard VII in the French Concession though later, by 1928, its offices had moved to 8 Museum Street in Shanghai. The cover was changed in 1926, again designed by ‘A de C S', to a cross-legged Buddhist deity with his palms held together in front of his chest in prayer, with a flaming nimbus behind him and sitting on a pedestal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214460, "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": 318, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "285\n\nTHE AMERICAN SOLDIER OF FORTUNE FREDERICK TOWNSEND WARD HONOURED AND REVERED BY THE CHINESE WITH A\n\nMEMORIAL TEMPLE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nFrederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1831 and though he is said to have attended a private college in the United States, which included a military element in its curriculum, he failed to graduate. He left home and as a young ship's officer sailed on several trading voyages to China.\n\nIn his twenties, having sought excitement and a career as a free-booter during which time he claimed that he had fought in the Crimea with the French and in Central America where he met Garibaldi, he sailed yet as an officer on a US registered ship to China where, at the time, the Taiping rebellion, a major rebellion against the Ch'ing [Manchu] dynasty, was at its height and he finally sought employment ashore. Basically, he was a mercenary who saw his chance and took employment first sponsored by local Chinese officials and supported by a Chinese official in the defence of the Shanghai area from the rebels, then later by Ch'ing officials in his campaign against the same rebels, either for gain or excitement, possibly both.\n\nWard raised a force of some hundred Western mercenaries, on behalf of the Chinese in Shanghai, together with scores of Filipinos, as well as soldiers and sailors discharged or deserters from the Anglo-French expedition, for the protection of the city against what seemed like an impending attack by the Taiping Rebel forces. This proved a failure and a year or so later he raised a highly competent and disciplined force of Chinese soldiers officered by Westerners to fight the rebels. Ward became a Chinese citizen with an official rank. He claimed Chinese nationality when arrested by the captain of a British warship for violating neutrality but in the event was handed over to the Chinese because of his \"non-nationality.\"\n\nAt first the force of about a thousand was known as the Foreign-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214479, "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": 337, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "306\n\npaper cutting recalling the story of his life. Many of the papers and photographs, which have been placed by the Royal Asiatic Society with the Government Public Records Office on permanent loan, could be of interest to RAS members who are undertaking research in relevant fields.\n\nAmong the maps of the Pacific region are some of Japan and Shanghai, one dated 1919. There is also an unusual map (undated) of Shanghai (3 feet x 2 feet 3 inches) which has a 'border' consisting of a large number of small pictures. On the map is printed, 'In this map we have tried to depict for you the history, customs and points of interest in this cosmopolitan city of Shanghai.'\n\nMany of Mr Graham's photographs concern the Shanghai Gas Company. They include group pictures of the staff, both Chinese and Westerners, at farewell parties, group gatherings and the like. In all these pictures no women are present. Most images were taken in the early 1930s, when Arnold Graham, as a young man, was Assistant Secretary. There is one photograph of a smaller group, again of both Westerners and Chinese, where some Chinese men are wearing cheung saams. This is interesting because it was taken in October 1950, one year after the People's Republic Government came to power. There is just one photograph of a group which includes both men and women. This was taken in London in 1957. All are Europeans. It was probably a reunion.\n\nThere is also an album containing a number of snaps of life in Shanghai and China, in the 1930s, and during the Sino-Japanese war. There are also a number of family photographs depicting the lifestyle of Europeans in the Far East between the two World Wars.\n\nWhat did Arnold Graham do in his spare time? He was a keen cricketer and a Shanghai Interporter. There are a number of photographs, of varying sizes, of cricket teams: such as Hong Kong versus Malaya, at Singapore in 1926. There is a picture of the teams, 'Hankow versus Shanghai circa 1930.' There are some pictures taken with people sitting in front of pavilions. Most of the photographs consist entirely of Europeans. In a few pictures, however, there are one or two Chinese who could have been groundsmen. The papers in the box include a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214557, "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": 415, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "384\n\nby the British. By the turn of the century folk memory in Zhoushan itself of the battles and occupation by the British had disappeared much as it has today in Weihai in Shandong province, which had been a British naval base, with a colonial governor, leased at the same time as the New Territories of Hong Kong in 1898 and held until handed back to China in 1931,\n\nThe British captured and occupied Zhoushan on two separate occasions during the First Opium War. The first occupation was short and brutal, ending with an agreement ceding Hong Kong to the British, the reopening of Guangzhou (Canton) to foreigners for trade and an indemnity in exchange for the restoration to the Chinese of Zhoushan. Both sides promptly repudiated the agreement but not before Zhoushan had been handed back. The Chinese commissioner, Qi Shan was recalled to Beijing (Peking) in chains and charged with treason having surrendered Chinese soil.\n\nThe War restarted some six months after the first retrocession by the British and the city of Dinghai was once more taken. The second occupation of nearly four years was longer but much more amicable on both the British and Chinese sides. The British appear to have failed, intentionally or otherwise, to extend their control far beyond the city of Dinghai and were at the mercy of the local Chinese tradesmen who controlled the victuals required to maintain the British occupation forces. This, however, does not appear to have led to trouble as doubtless the local Chinese were comparatively well paid for their provisions.\n\nOnce the third and final British occupation ended, that is after the Second China War in 1860, there would appear to have been neither routine British consular presence on Zhoushan nor representatives of the foreign-run Chinese Maritime Customs on Zhoushan. These were stationed in Ningbo, the city on the mainland a mere couple of hours sailing away. However, there was a lighthouse on Zhoushan run by westerners of the Chinese Maritime Customs though this would seem again to have been directed from Ningbo, and at one stage there was a small American Christian missionary presence contrary to official agreements between the Chinese and Western nations, as well as a Lazarus Mission of Roman Catholics; in practice no Christian missionary presence on the archipelago had been authorised by official agreements.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214705, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "84\n\nNevertheless tun fu may be seen as an extension of feng shui, although the latter is riteless whereas the rites of tun fu are complicated as can be seen from this paper. Feng shui is sometimes inadequately called 'Chinese geomancy', and the home, the workplace and the grave are designed so that they 'reconcile' with environmental currents and cosmic principles. And when the Author has told Chinese friends that there are aspects of feng shui that he believes in they have frequently retorted that you cannot be selective and just pick what you like as in a supermarket. You either believe in it in its entirety or not at all. But with much of the doctrine being considered by some Westerners as little more than superstition, total acceptance is not always easy for the average Caucasian. One person's superstition can indeed sometimes be another person's religion.\n\nThe Pat Heung ceremony\n\nThis paper concentrates on the large tun fu ceremony that was held in the district known as Pat Heung, which is situated at the eastern end of the Kam Tin--Pat Heung Valley.3 This lies nearly in the middle of the New Territories and is enclosed by steep hills on its northern, southern and eastern sides (Hong Kong Government; 1960, 170). To give an idea how rural it was until comparatively recently, in 1965 it was reported that a tiger had been sighted in the Pat Heung district (South China Morning Post, 1965). The police conducted a search but failed to find it. Approximately 90 per cent of the population in Pat Heung are of Hakka stock and the remainder are Punti, although today, only the elderly speak Hakka. The people have mixed surnames unlike many old, single family-name villages in the New Territories although nowadays, with greater social mobility, people with other surnames have not infrequently moved into them in varying numbers. Freedman writes that possibly tun fu rites were originally Hakka but they were adopted by the Cantonese (1979, 207). I have not seen any evidence to support this view nor does he appear to provide any sources supporting this statement.\n\nThe reason this large tun fu ceremony was held in the Pat Heung district, in 1999, was because a tunnel (at the time of writing) is being cut through the mountain for a new railway line. This necessitated moving family graves. It is understood the Government paid Pat Heung District village committees HK$600,000 to meet expenses for the holding\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214712, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "91\n\ndifferences between Catholicism, the Non-Conformists and the Orthodox Churches. Similarly, it is not really surprising that there are marked differences within Chinese folk religion (the religion practised by the common folk) and with aspects of Buddhism and Taoism that Chinese popular religion commonly embraces.\n\nIt is interesting to compare observations in this paper with those of Judith Strauch at a tun fu ceremony held at Tai Po (Strauch, 1983, 147). The ceremony at Pat Heung, described in detail in this paper, it must be stressed again, was largely within a Hakka community. With a Cantonese ceremony there are marked differences and sometimes the comb of a cock is cut, its head is pierced, or it is even nailed to a tree in order to obtain its blood. This is smeared on the talismans and allowed to drip on the pots. Such customs frequently shock westerners (Grout, 1971, 204). Rooster's blood is considered to possess magical properties and is used during the swearing of oaths, for conducting sacrifices and for bringing the statue of a god to life (Burkhardt, 1982, 267). The cockerel is, of course, one of the twelve animal signs of the Chinese Zodiac and its comb depicts a crown denoting literary success.\n\nAgain, with some village tun fu ceremonies, restrictions are placed on inhabitants who are not allowed to leave their village, in some cases for a period of three or four days after the ceremony (Hayes, 1983, 125). In addition, villagers only partake of vegetarian food - Buddhist fashion. This mixing of folk religion (such as tun fu), Taoism and Buddhism, in varying proportions, is of course in line with Hong Kong's practice of syncretising religion. Nevertheless, irrespective of the religion, obligations frequently seem to be less stringent these days. For instance, with a Chinese funeral, today the number of weekly rites, which used to number seven, is now sometimes reduced to five. Again, for a tun fu ceremony, villagers are often not now confined to their village for a period of days. Life is also easier for Catholics. For a long time they have been able to eat meat on Fridays.\n\nTun fu ceremonies again differ because, although the priests and masters who perform them may practise the same basic rules, they often have different beliefs when it comes to some details. For example, as previously mentioned, exactly where pots should be placed in a village and the number of talismans that should be put in them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214716, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "95\n\nand, whether its life is to be good or bad, by that time its future is already sealed. In practice, however, the average Chinese does not resign himself entirely to fate. He also appreciates that success depends on ability, education and hard work (Waters, 1997, 103).*\n\nNevertheless, in research undertaken in the United States, it was concluded that American Chinese (not Whites) die significantly younger if they have a disease coupled with a birth year which both Chinese astrology and Chinese medicine calculate ill-fated. In such cases the more strongly a person believes in Chinese traditions the earlier he or she seems to die. Even with Westerners, in a different experiment, Caucasians who were given a placebo were convinced, later, that the medicine they had received had been effective (Doyle, 2000). Certainly both for Westerners and Chinese, much does appear to be in the mind.\n\nBut, returning to the first experiment and Chinese who are born in a certain year associated with an ailment or a special part of the body. A person born in a 'Fire' year (e.g. 1967), for instance, is supposed to be, according to Chinese belief, susceptible to tumours. A traditional Chinese is therefore liable to feel a sense of hopelessness and helplessness if he or she contracts a growth (Phillips, 1993).\n\nThere is little doubt there are, according to the Author's observations, many serious believers in tun fu among the New Territories' community just as there are others who do not take it seriously. Some, of course, take part because they are expected to do so by their family and other villagers. Most such functions are, after all, quite enjoyable social occasions.\n\nWomen's role\n\nAlthough over 1,000 sat down for the basin-meal after the Pat Heung tun fu ceremony, as previously stated there were only just over 20 women (around two per cent). Those that did attend were generally female village committee members or government officials. No women, as can be seen from the photographs, played a major part in the actual Pat Heung tun fu ceremony itself, although many watched and burned joss sticks on their own or with members of their families. The old Chinese way has always been the 'Three Obediences.' A girl obeys her father; a wife obeys her husband; and a widow obeys her", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214954, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "of any mention of the opium habit by the Jesuit missionaries and other travellers in China prior to the 17th century. It may therefore be concluded, with some degree of certainty, that there was no general use of opium before the introduction of opium smoking. Spanish tobacco introduced into China about 1620, probably from Philippines, gave rise to the habit of smoking, and later in the century tobacco and opium were smoked as a mixture to enhance the effect of both. The Chinese, on the whole, chose to smoke opium without tobacco. Moreover, while the use of opium as a smoke has been confined to China - elsewhere it is applied in other ways - smoking per se was introduced by the westerners.\n\nThe Chinese recognized early the potential harm of opium smoking: an Imperial Edict of 1729 prohibited entirely the use of opium, except as a medicine. When the import of opium had increased dramatically, another Edict was issued in 1799 prohibiting use of the drug, its importation, and its cultivation at home. Thenceforth opium became contraband, but while the East India Company, which by that time had full control of the Indian opium, and the Hong merchants in Guangzhou (Canton) heeded the Imperial ban, almost all the foreign traders did not, and even 'the Emperor's representatives continued to sanction it.' The illegal opium trade grew enormously. After 1830, for maximum profit and safety, chests of opium were delivered in a fleet of fast, well-armed clippers. It should be noted that these “opium clippers\" also carried tea on the return journey: sometimes engaging in \"tea races” to deliver tea quickly before its flavour was impaired. Again, it may be noted that the growth of opium trade with China was linked with another growing addiction, to tea. Detailed discussion of the opium trade is outside the scope of this paper. However, one point must be emphasised: the often forgotten distinction between Britain and British traders, and indeed, other foreign merchants with regards to the opium traffic. The British government's attitude to the opium trade was, characteristically, one of laissez faire; it was neither encouraged nor discouraged, claiming it was essentially a Chinese problem.\n\nChinese-British Relations\n\nIt is perhaps not to be wondered at that the two great nations at the opposite ends of the globe, totally different in their ways and customs, failed to understand each other; indeed, never truly tried, and finally", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215014, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "66\n\nits British base at Weihai Wei and the other Allied base at Qingdao. The neighbouring province of Zhili, with its cities of Beijing and Tianjin, was a good second with a total recorded from its region of about a quarter of that from Shandong. The total from the two provinces provided nearly 98% of all the Chinese manpower recruited by the British (though not including any naval personnel recruited in Hong Kong or Weihai Wei).\n\nSome of the romanised names on graves have been transliterated by either Chinese or Westerners inaccurately and this has led to confusion when checking details on the CWGC internet for individual graves. Practically all romanisation on the graves and records was in Wade-Giles whereas here in this article I have used the comparatively new native romanisation, pinyin, thus Peking has become Beijing and Shantung, Shandong.\n\nIn a letter from the CWGC to the author concerning the reasons as to why many gravestones do not have carved names of the person nor details of the district from which they originated, in Chinese characters, or if carved in Chinese characters and not in romanisation, they replied that the details inscribed on headstones were originally supplied by the surviving comrades of the casualties of the CLC. At that time it was believed to be the best option available to the CWGC and was thought to be sufficient to meet the required criteria.\n\nDr. E. J. Stuckey and the Chinese Hospital at Noyelles-sur-Mer\n\nEdward Joseph Stuckey was born at Adelaide, Australia on 29th September 1875 and died in 1952. He was the eldest, of nine, children of Joseph Stuckey and Alice Mann, she being the daughter of Charles Mann, the first Advocate General of South Australia.\n\nHe was educated at St. Peter's Collegiate School, winning, in his final year, the 'Young Exhibition for the Best Scholar of the Year.' In 1893, at the recently opened University of Adelaide, he began his BSc, graduating in November 1895 with Honours in both Physics and Mathematics. In 1896 he signed accountancy articles for three years with the Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMPS) in Adelaide.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215141, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "PATRON DEITY OF PROSTITUTES\n\nZHU BAJIE\n\n豬八戒\n\n195\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nZhu Bajie is better known to Westerners as Piggy or Pigsy. He is one of the three assistants to the Tripitaka [the Chinese monk, Xuanzang] who, in 629 AD, together with the Monkey King [Qitian Dasheng], set out with the monk as his escort and aides on his hazardous and enthralling trek to India to collect the sacred Buddhist scriptures. These were the heroes of the romance the Journey to the West. He is also known by his name in religion - Zhu Wuneng - Seeker after Strength.\n\nIn the story Pigsy was the former Superintendent of Navigation of the Milky Way, banished to be reincarnated on Earth for assaulting one of the daughters of the Jade Emperor. Unfortunately a mistake was made and he entered the womb of a sow and was born half-man and half-pig. He was ordained a priest by Guan Yin and is portrayed on altars and in murals as a composite deity, a human with the head of a pig. He carries a five-toothed rake as a defensive weapon which he used to good effect during the long and arduous journey escorting the pilgrim monk, Xuanzang.\n\nAlthough he is usually regarded China-wide as the epitome of gluttony, in Taiwan he is also revered by prostitutes who call on his divine title Shoushou Ye, offering him incense and chants morning and evening whilst calling on him to bring them rich guests, foolish and witless, to be fleeced. An image, one of a number on loan from devotees, depicts him sitting holding a virtually nude woman in his arms alone on one of the side altars in the City God Temple in Chia I.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215320, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "45\n\nChina, Hainan would appear to have been neglected. Before 1949 Hainan was an area which few foreigners appear to have visited, though for much of the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th foreign consuls, customs officers and traders endured their existence, particularly in the northern port of Haikou (Hoihow), the American Presbyterian Mission, the first body of missionaries, only began its work 'saving' Hainan in 1881. Despite the latter, there would seem to be no missionary writings describing the temples and \"idols\" as did Father Doré in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, Shryock in Anqing and others across northern and central China. The old church in Qingzhou Fu, some three miles inland and to the west of Haikou, by 1890 had been converted into a Temple of Longevity, and another church elsewhere in Hainan, had also become a Chinese temple known as the Temple of the Cross.\n\nIn 1882 Mr Jeremiasen, an independent Danish missionary, made an unmolested circuit of Hainan on foot 'proving the friendliness of the people.' He then crossed the island north to south and east to west. Westerners who travel through \"darkest\" China today and write or talk about being the first foreigners within some remote spot, forget or overlook such Christian missionaries who roamed across all areas of China more than a century and a half ago. Even today there are foreign tourists who regard themselves as among the first to set foot in the more remote areas of Hainan. However, what Jeremiasen and others have overlooked are the individual Portuguese and German missionaries whose graves, dated in the 1680s, have been identified on Hainan. Most foreign visitors today also forget or, more likely, have probably never even heard of the eminent Chinese banished to the island during the early days of the periods of forced settlement of the 13th and 14th centuries.\n\nAn aspect of journeys to Hainan a century or so ago, now also long forgotten, was the basic problem of getting ashore from the steamer from Hong Kong. This was often the worst part of the journey. The steamer from Hong Kong touched bottom some three miles or so out to sea leaving the trip ashore to the main port of Haikou by shallow draft sampan across mud flats under less than a foot of water. This required bargaining with the laoda [captain] of one of the many sampans which offered their services to tranship passengers ashore. The native boatmen in a very round-about trip through the intricate channels, sliding over", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215594, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "321\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nA TALE OF SOUR GRAPES: MESSRS. LITTLE AND MESNY AND\n\nTHE FIRST STEAMSHIP THROUGH THE YANGZI GORGES\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn 1898 Archibald Little was the first man to take a steam-vessel up through the dangerous Yangzi Gorges amidst great acclaim. This was a red-rag to William Mesny who, in 1905 in his Shanghai periodical Mesny's Chinese Miscellany, furiously wrote that had he been listened to in 1875, a steamboat could have completed the journey up the Gorges within a year or so of that date.\n\nThe 3,200-mile long river, referred to by westerners as the Yangzi is known to the Chinese as Changjiang, Long River, or Da Jiang, the Great River. The foreigner name, Yangzi, is a misnomer from the Chinese reference to the first stretch from the Yellow Sea, approximately a day or so sail up from Shanghai to Yangzhou, hence Yang.\n\nThe River can be divided into four sections. The first stretch from the sea to Wuhan [Hankou and Wuchang], some 600 miles upstream, is navigable for blue water vessels during the summer and small draught steamers at all times of the year. It may come as a surprise to read of the emergency run in September of 1931 of the British aircraft carrier, H.M.S. Hermes to Hankou during major floods. The Chairman of the Nationalist Flood Relief Commission, T.V. Soong, requested the British C-in-C for assistance using RAF reconnaissance aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes to assist the Chinese in flood survey patrol work.\n\nThe second stretch upstream from Wuhan to Yichang is always navigable to small draught vessels and is a very boring run passing, as it does, through a flat plain with many dykes.\n\nThe third stretch from Yichang to Chongqing is fast flowing downstream through the narrow and dangerous succession of Gorges, so popular with foreign tourists. The great variations in water level", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215931, "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": 230, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "164 \n\nlaconically states that, even on what was actually his honeymoon visit, Boxer had not lost his 'powers of observation.' \n\nIn accordance with the policy of withdrawing resources to Singapore, supposedly an impregnable fortress, the FECB was downscaled and most of its men and resources moved. Boxer was promoted to Major, with a small staff, which included his close friend and best man, Alf Bennett. Ironically, this gave him greater flexibility to use his own initiative. \n\n4 \n\nUnable to make much headway with London, Boxer flew to Chongqing to see the British Ambassador, Sir Alexander Clarke-Kerr. Boxer then made contacts with key figures in the Chinese military. He was received by none other than General Dai Li, head of the formidable Juntong or Bureau of Statistics and Military Intelligence. After the Generalissimo himself, to whom his loyalty was almost feudal, General Dai was perhaps the most powerful man in China. An extremely shrewd strategic thinker, he was in many ways the power behind the throne. His organisation, fiercely secretive and ruthless, has been described as a sort of Chinese Gestapo, prepared to use any means, including murder, to achieve its aims. Dai was fanatically devoted to Chiang Kai Shek, and shaped the Juntong to be a dreaded political as well as military machine, spying on all perceived enemies of the state, Communists and fellow Guomindang as well as Japanese. The Juntong organisation was highly effective, operating through cells united by family and social bonds, whose members were expected to subsume all private needs to the pursuance of state aims, however lethal. It has been demonstrated that General Dai and his followers modelled themselves on folk heroes from Chinese history who operated through secret societies and who believed that extreme action such as assassination, was justified in the interests of the common good. Dai was known to be anti-western, for he believed that western countries with their imperialist policies were the cause of China's humiliation, and were exploiting its weakness for their own aims. Many assumed that Dai's anti-British stance was on the personal embarrassment of having been mysteriously arrested in Hong Kong, thus conveniently sidestepping questions raised by decades of opium and gunboats. Dai also believed that any western country operating in China should function under Chinese control, an idea anathema to westerners used to extraterritoriality and getting their own terms. Boxer, however, found Dai co-operative and willing to ...\n\nbased", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215944, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "177\n\n3 xii\n\nThe whole plan was discussed with RAC North, Secretary for Chinese Affairs and JA Fraser, Defence Secretary who agreed. When Harrop went to Chongqing the first person she contacted was her old friend from pre-war, Madame Soong Ching Ling.\n\nMadame Soong was the widow of Dr Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Chinese Republic and a former Hong Kong resident himself, and graduate of the Hong Kong Medical School which predated Hong Kong University. When Chiang Kai Shek and his extreme rightist faction won the power struggle for control of the National Government, Madame Soong moved to Hong Kong where she and other supporters of the left wing principles Sun had espoused were able to operate with more latitude. She headed an organisation known as the China Defence League which raised funds in support of the anti-Japanese war effort in China, and had connections with many left wing liberal groups, both within China and among the western intelligentsia in Hong Kong and China. This organisation was effectively a form of interface between the KMT Old Guard and more progressive groups. Agnes Smedley, Rewi Alley, Anna Louise Strong and other westerners with strong contacts with the Communist Party under Mao Ze Dong mixed in the same circles as Madame Soong and her supporters, which included Sun Fo, Dr Sun's son by a previous marriage. Sun Fo himself, though he lived in Hong Kong, frequently travelled to Moscow, ostensibly for 'medical treatment,' often staying for long periods. The league did humanitarian work, organising aid for the millions of refugees in Guangdong and in Hong Kong. Percy Chen, son of Dr Eugene Chen, Dr Sun's Foreign minister and close friend worked closely with this aspect of the League's activities. Chen was a socialist and would later declare for the Communist Party. Significantly, FW Kendall had worked with the league in organising programmes to cope with refugees. He himself was something of a refugee, having lost his livelihood in the same Japanese push in Guangdong. Contacts between this left faction of the Guomindang and British people in Hong Kong of a progressive frame of mind were also significant. Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, known as 'Red Hilda' not only for the colour of her hair, but for her politics, was part of this group, rather than a member of the conventional, highly stratified world of colonial society. Her husband may have been a member of the government administration but she did not subscribe to colonial or establishment values. Kendall also worked with Selwyn-Clarke, as did his Chinese wife, who was to be one of the Selwyn", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216022, "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": 321, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "THE YANGZI PORT OF ZHENJIANG DOWN THE CENTURIES\n\n鎮江\n\nPART I\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n255\n\nIntroduction\n\nZhenjiang is a former walled city on the south bank of what is known to the Chinese as the Chang Jiang, the Long River, or simply as The Great River, and to Westerners - the Yangzi [Yangtze]. The city lies some 40 miles downstream from Nanjing and 156 miles upstream from Shanghai, and in its prime during the Northern Song, in the eleventh century, it was one of the major ports on the River, and even though its influence and authority came to a sudden and dramatic end with its capture and destruction by the Taiping rebels in 1853 it remained the provincial capital of Jiangsu province down to the 1940s.\n\nZhenjiang commanded one of the two junctions of the southern or main arm of the Grand Canal with the Yangzi. The city is surrounded on one side by the Yangzi and on three other sides by hills, none at all high or steep, with the Grand Canal winding past the southern and western face of the walls to its convergence with the River at the Xiannü Temple. The city has been walled since the Yuan [13th century], and was built on the level ground between the Yangzi and the Grand Canal. Three of these numerous hills, all islands or former islands in the Yangzi, Jiao Shan, Beigu Shan and Jin Shan, are part of the city's legend. Some ten miles to the south lies a range of higher hills within which foreigners used to seek their exercise, riding and hunting.\n\nOf all the treaty ports Zhenjiang is possibly the least remembered by the great majority of westerners, with very few nowadays even having heard of the place. Not even when it is explained that in former romanisations it has been known to foreigners as Chinkiang, Chin-kiang, Chen-chiang Fu, Chin-keang-foo, Tsing-kiang-foo, Kin-kiang, Chingkiang, Tsing-kiang and Jingkou [i.e. Gateway to the Capital - Nanjing]. It was even known by the title of Chin-shan [Jin Shan], Gold", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216025, "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": 324, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "258\n\nShanghai did not possess, and were undoubtedly conducive to health by promoting exercise. In winter the climate is bracing and healthy though fever and dysentery were to be dreaded in summer'.\n\nThere are a number of highlights for foreign visitors beginning, perhaps, with the former foreign concession, though nowadays more than seventy years on, it is difficult to discern. Outside the Chinese old city with its modern main roads, cobbled side streets and a stone pagoda said to be 13th century Yuan dynasty, though its present condition suggests that it has either been well restored or completely remade within the last century, there are the fourth century Jin Shan temple and pagoda; the Grand Canal; the former British Consulate; the home of Pearl Buck, as well as the sites of the storming of the town by a British brigade on 21st July 1842 during the First China War [commonly referred to as the Opium War]. There are also the remains of the lengthy trench dug by the Taiping rebels to protect the city from recapture by Imperial forces as well as the ruins left after the destruction of the city by the Taipings during the 1850s. And for those who have read a little Chinese literature or attended Chinese opera the widely-known tale of the White Snake Lady is also part of the story of the Jin Shan temple.\n\nBefore waxing too lyrically about its glories let us remember that Zhenjiang is the vinegar capital of China, with, if the wind is in the wrong direction, an evocative sour tang forewarning approaching visitors long before they are anywhere near to the city. The majority of Chinese when confronted with the name of the city almost to a man voice the single word 'vinegar' or to the connoisseur 'brown rice vinegar'.\n\nZhenjiang was a treaty port with a foreign concession for sixty-eight years, from the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1860 until 1928, one of the minor footholds foreigners had obtained from China in one of the 'unequal treaties' and the base for numerous foreign interests. There were great hopes for the place and Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, even anticipated that eventually it would eclipse Shanghai as a commercial centre. Despite numerous westerners passing through the place down the years only a few spent full tours of duty there. Many of the temporary visitors were the lesser employees of major western companies such as BAT and Butterfield and Swire, whose regular tours to the many small", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216038, "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": 337, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "271\n\nother smaller temples, some well known, others hardly known at all. These include the conspicuous red-walled Dicang Wang Temple not far from the south-west corner of the city wall; the Doutian Miao and the Xiu Wang Miao, both referred to earlier. All were destroyed during the Taiping occupation, though many were rebuilt during subsequent years only to fall into disuse during the Japanese occupation as well as since 1949. The Jin Shan Temple and the Ganlu Temple today are the premier tourist sites in Zhenjiang, with the Dinghui monastery, though less easily accessible, being a good third.\n\nThere used to be an interesting group of memorial temples on the Ganlu headland [Consular Bluff], a favourite resort for native Chinese picnic parties. One of these shrines was dedicated to Zhu Xi, a Southern Song dynasty neo-Confucian philosopher, born in Anhui in AD 1130, and probably best remembered for his commentary on Confucian classics, with his 'Rituals for Family Life' being influential throughout China as the standard authority consulted by high and low alike. He was the Confucian scholar who, whilst prefect at Zhangzhou in Fujian in 1190, attacked Buddhist and Daoist practices and issued orders laying down punishments for those who disobeyed the rules. Despite this he wrote commentaries on the sacred books of Daoism. He retired in 1196 and after his death four years later was posthumously appointed Chief of the Imperial Tutors with the rank of Lord. He has long been deified, with a portrait installed in a temple in Jiangxi province at an early stage during the twelfth century to encourage sacrifices to him by local scholars and gentlemen.14 He was revered in Confucian temples from about 1250, and during the reign of Kang Xi he was elevated to a position just under the 'Ten Noted Men' [The Ten Disciples of Confucius].\n\n[1824-1890],\n\nAnother shrine was dedicated to Peng Yulin the Chinese admiral in charge of the Yangzi Fleet which operated with success against the Taiping rebels. Peng was remembered by foreigners for his incorruptibility as well as his inability to understand the westerners. During the short French war with China in 1884-5, when in Guangzhou as the Imperial Naval Commissioner sent to organise its defences he proposed sending emissaries to Singapore to poison any French officers who might have been enjoying British hospitality there. Beijing frowned on his plan and he was unable to see why. He was also violently opposed to the introduction of iron-clads into the Chinese navy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216046, "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": 345, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "279\n\nfrom\n\nsince. Legends claim it to be either a Buddhist pagoda dredged up the bed of the Yangzi Song dynasty from about 1000 AD or a memorial shrine to a Song dynasty prefect of about 1090.\n\nA stone Stupa or dagoba [containing Buddhist relics] is situated on a stone platform supported by four pillars over a busy street in front of the Guan Yin Cave to the north of Yuntai Hill to the west of Zhenjiang. In years gone by people heading for the small ferry across the Yangzi had to pass under it and gained confidence for their chancy ferry crossing from the protective power emanating from the relics. It is said to have been built during the Yuan dynasty during the 13th century.\n\nDaily life of foreigners in this insignificant Treaty port\n\nDuring the heady days of westerners within the Yangzi basin the steady stream of river steamers sailing the river under the protection of foreign flags and the twin fleets of protective river gun boats of the RN and USN, trade flourished and even an early form of tourism existed. Zhenjiang was famous for silk piece-goods, silk cord tassels for official hats, medicated wine called White Flower Wine, Baihua Jiu, aromatic plants, and fine sturgeon. However, for the foreign residents the greatest bane was the boredom. Although there was the Club where cards, drink and perhaps a few books and newspapers helped while away the long evenings, the ennui of the same faces, the same voices and the same topics of conversation was sufficient to bring some to the verge of suicide and some over it.\n\nLife was fairly constrained. There were only two provision stores to serve the foreign community during the first decades of the 20th century, Foo Chong and Chong Hsin. And according to L.C. Arlington Zhenjiang Concession, despite its very limited numbers, boasted its own aristocracy, with the Consul and the Commissioner of Customs as joint Sovereign Lords. The port, he added, was full of individuality, and social life; and the clubs - that for the Upper Circles [Zhenjiang Club] and that for the Lower Strata [Customs Club] - combined to produce constant gossip and occasional friction.20 There were a number of peculiar characters but none more peculiar than an American missionary who had been divorced by his wife owing, it was said, to his peculiar ways. He professed to carry out the teaching of St. Paul by consorting with the coolies in the native city, and providing them with\n\nPage 345\n\nPage 346", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216047, "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": 346, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "280\n\nfood and shelter with money he collected from foreigners. He always wore straw sandals, Chinese clothes and cap, and had a strong Chinese complex. The local Chinese adored him, but not so the missionaries; they detested him, even refusing him food and shelter, or any assistance whatsoever - consoling themselves with the reflection that he was a 'disgrace to the cloth'.\n\nDr. James Hayes has reminded me that he produced a note for Volume 23 of this JHKBRAS[1983] in which he provided extracts from A. H. Rasmussen's China Trader21 describing the westerner's community shooting bungalow in about 1905. Rasmussen was barely twenty when he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Zhenjiang, a small, lonely British concession. When first posted there he had been assured by others that Zhenjiang was a very nice and clean Concession, with a good club and excellent shooting. He found this to be a good description of the Concession but not of the native town. During his first four years, two of the original thirty-five Europeans died, two went mad, two cut their throats, and he himself was twice nearly murdered by smugglers. After several years with the Imperial Maritime Customs he was offered a job representing a foreign firm still in Zhenjiang and found himself now one of the upper set. No longer could he walk down the crowded streets of the Concession but must ride in state in his sedan chair, borne by his four chair bearers garbed in his firm's colours. Rasmussen's sanity was saved by the presence of a small shooting bungalow in the countryside near by, looked after by a caretaker. It was about eight miles away on a hill called Wu Chow where he would stay during his off-duty hours either reading or hunting wild boar. Though it was relatively expensive in ammunition and tips for the beaters he was able to lessen the latter by sharing expenses with shooting companions. Rasmussen spent many happy hours scanning the visitors' book finding out more about previous hunting successes and failures. He describes how he relieved his boredom by walking up and down the Bund, three hundred yards there and three hundred back, and for a change he walked along the only cross street to the south gate of the Concession, two hundred yards there and two hundred yards back.\n\nOne of the most lucrative trades around Shanghai and Zhenjiang used to be that of being shot. Foreign merchants often went up creeks in house-boat parties, or wander about the fields in the outskirts, looking for snipe. There were no hedges or game laws and innumerable", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216058, "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": 357, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "291\n\n+\n\nIn early December 1881 Hudson Taylor convened an informal missionary conference at Zhenjiang to discuss the crucial and imperative need to increase their numbers in order to accelerate the pace of converting China. This was an on-going problem raised and discussed by Protestant missionaries across China down the years. The staff and language students from the Missionary Language School at Anqing, another city on the Yangzi, were invited to attend the Zhenjiang conference as were missionaries of the American Episcopal Church.\n\nIn 1900 Mr Absolom Sydenstricker and his wife were both Presbyterian missionaries living in Zhenjiang, together with their daughter Pearl who was eight. During the first months of the Boxer troubles they refused to flee, then in July of that year when conditions had worsened they were compelled to escape to Shanghai, to return a year later. Life for a growing young woman was fairly circumscribed with the white population limited to the few in the consulates, other missionaries and a dozen or so men working with British and American companies. Pearl left in 1917 to marry Mr Buck, an American missionary and academic interested in China's rural economy, at Nan Suzhou in Anhui. Pearl's mother died in Zhenjiang several years later and was buried in what was then known as Zhenjiang's foreign cemetery. In 1920 Pearl's father sold their house and moved to Nanjing. Pearl Buck spent in all some forty-three years in China, and her writings brought Chinese social inter-relationships, especially those of the peasants, to western readers, possibly the first to achieve a world-wide circulation leading to many a westerner's first fascination about China. She wrote many a book and chaired many a public meeting telling people, mainly in the US, of the enduring spirit and resilience as well as the wretched lives lived by Chinese peasants and of the threat from Japanese Imperialism. Her best known works include The Good Earth, and a translation of the Shuihu Ji, 'All Men are Brothers', one of China's most popular pieces of literature. Her parents' family house in Zhenjiang, at the present day address of 6 Runzhou Shan Lu, is now one of the leading tourist attractions, for Americans in particular, despite being part of a semiconductor factory.\n\nIn May 1905 Hudson Taylor, freshly back from recuperation in Europe, stopped by Zhenjiang on his way to Changsha, where he visited the graves of Maria [his first wife who had died there in July 1870] and his children in the little cemetery among the hills. He, himself,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216059, "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": 358, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "292\n\nwas buried there beside his first wife in the Zhenjiang cemetery when he died in Changsha a mere two months later. By the late forties, the cemetery had disappeared beneath industrial buildings.\n\nThere was quite a scandal about the Methodist chapel in about 1907 when, during an evening service, the whole congregation started to wriggle and scratch themselves. Many left hurriedly, and the preacher was almost alone when the service ended. It was then discovered that the Chinese caretaker had turned the place into a paying doss-house for coolies and beggars, and every pew was crawling with bedbugs and lice.\n\nMesny's Involvement with Zhenjiang 1863/5\n\nNow to an entirely different slant on activities within Zhenjiang. William Mesny was a Jerseyman who ran away from home in 1854 at the age of 12 and arrived in China in 1860. His autobiographical writings describe scenes from his diverse and exciting career in China from his earliest days as a lowly gaoler in Hong Kong, through his sailing days as a master on a small Yangzi trader, his time as an Imperial Customs Tide-waiter in Hankou, to the peak of his career serving with the Chinese Sichuan Provincial Green Standard army, ending up as a brevet Lieutenant-General. From there on, he was a self-appointed adviser to senior Chinese officials, travelling far and wide throughout China, and ending his days as an impoverished 'poor white' first in Shanghai and towards the end in Hankou, where he died in 1919. Although he had little to do with Zhenjiang itself during his time on the Yangzi, he was involved with others who had.29\n\nMesny, writing about his time on the Yangzi, first as a youth commanding a lorcha and then as a Customs Officer with the Chinese Imperial Customs, explained that on his first trip up the River, the comparatively short journey on from Zhenjiang to Nanjing took five hours with a call at Shi'er Wei, an important salt town on the northern bank of the river. An hour and a half before reaching Nanjing, ships would pass the Third Fort guarding the narrow defile under Guanyin Shan. It was there that in April 1862, Mesny was wounded and captured by a fleet of Imperial gunboats whose role it was to stop supplies of all kinds reaching the Taiping rebels. Mesny was sailing for Hankou from Shanghai with a full legal cargo, but to the Imperial gunboats, the 'Imps' as they were referred to by westerners, all vessels were fair game. Mesny", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216063, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "296\n\nQufu, and Tai Shan, the Holy Mountain, where he saw thousands of poor pilgrims assembling. Mesny claimed that, as an adviser to the Governor of Shandong province, Ding Baozhen, he persuaded the Governor Ding to establish an arsenal near Jinan and build a railway from the Yellow River to the arsenal. Mesny also claimed to have persuaded him to dredge the Yellow River and to fortify Weihai Wei and Jiaozhou [both places later occupied and governed by Britain and Germany respectively as leased territories]. Mesny also claimed to have persuaded Ding to develop the mineral wealth of Shandong 'which he did though in a small way only'.\n\nRiots and mob violence\n\nZhenjiang suffered its share of mob violence and riots during its treaty port era. One of the major problems confronting westerners within China was the ever-present possibility of petty or even major violence against their persons and property. Often the disturbance to the peace, due to whatever cause, would be exacerbated by either western impetuosity and/or the indifference and inactivity of the local intendants [mandarins] and their staffs. There were also the perils of banditry, of pirates, of rebels or simply of thugs.\n\nOne afternoon in 1865 the astounding news was received in Hankou that three foreigners had been most barbarously hacked to pieces in Zhenjiang, and were not expected to live. One was Francis Pickernell, a friend of Mesny, and another was Charles Lewis of Boston, an American, a former ship and messmate of Mesny's, whilst the third was another friend and fellow Jerseyman, Filleule, all of whom died from their horrible wounds. The outrage caused a profound impression upon all foreigners in the river ports and John, Mesny's younger brother, who had not been at Hankou very long, felt very sad at the loss of three such friends. The outrage was said to be due to mistaken identity. A man named Stone, a master of a lorcha on the Yangzi, appears to have offended some Chinese military officials who had insulted his Chinese wife, and they had attempted to avenge themselves in this horrible manner.\n\nOne fine evening in about 1866, during the time the Nianfei [or Nianzi], the so-called Twisting Bandits, were in the neighbourhood of Hankou, Mesny relates the dreadful tale of four westerners who saw a favourable opportunity to join up with one of the roaming gangs of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216065, "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": 364, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "298\n\nhad been destroyed and burned down. Thousands of rioters had arrived there in boats and destroyed foreign property. These enigmatic statements suggest that Mesny believed that ‘charity funds for famine relief' were being misused by the Viceroy and others to buy off bandits, even if he does not actually spell it out. There is no indication in his Miscellanies to whom he reported after his fact-finding mission or what he did with his information about the famine, or whether he actually provided physical relief for some of the unfortunate victims.\n\nAs so often happened a very minor incident, in this case concerning a Sikh policeman, grew in a matter of hours into a major riot. It was riots in 1889 referred to by Mesny, when the Sikh, a member of the municipal police force of the Zhenjiang Concession, was alleged to have struck a Chinese. According to Arlington it was started by the Concession Chief of Police, an Indian, accidentally killing a coolie who 'dared' to have his head shaved on the Bund [a terrible thing to shave the head on the Bund!]. The events followed a not unusual pattern with the mob throwing stones and the Europeans managing to escape to a ship on the Great River but not before telegraphing for assistance to Shanghai. The Chinese authorities too had been called upon for help and though both Chinese police and soldiers arrived they simply stood around and did nothing. Both the British and American consulates were destroyed; meanwhile Shanghai replied requesting additional information and advising the westerners in Zhenjiang that a gun boat was being prepared. Order was restored by Chinese troops on the following day. Three days later the British gunboat arrived and was boarded by the Consul who was greeted by a gun-salute. The very first report of the guns sent every Chinese off the Bund and out of the Concession like a cloud of smoke being dispersed by a typhoon. A benefit arising from the riot was the construction of a new consulate office and house with its own garden. A slightly different picture of the cause was given by Consul Parker which he had obtained from hearsay.*4 The Zhenjiang municipal police had arrested a Chinese military officer for 'reckless riding'.\n\nAfter the riots of the 1880s strong, double riot gates of stout iron bars were constructed, each with a span of some twenty feet, so that the whole of the width of the Bund, some forty feet, would be barred when they were closed. The Concession police during the first decade of the 20th century consisted of some sixteen Shandong men from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216076, "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": 375, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "309\n\nDuring their drive north to eliminate the War Lords and unify China under the Republic, the Nationalist [KMT] forces entered Zhenjiang in March of 1927 and at the same time took over the Concession. Most westerners left for Shanghai whilst those who remained lived aboard hulks on the River or as close to the River as they could get. Even the British Consul was withdrawn to Shanghai where he continued to carry out his Zhenjiang duties. Eventually, in 1929, bowing to the inevitable the Zhenjiang Concession was finally retroceded to Chinese control and the treaty port, as such, was no more.\n\nGerald Yorke travelled to China in 1931 planning to spend a couple of years travelling around China and studying, to satisfy a childhood dream. Not long after his arrival, as Reuter's correspondent, he joined a party chosen by the Chinese Government to inspect the dyke systems of the Yangzi and Huai river valleys which had just been rebuilt as a result of the disastrous floods in 1931. During the tour with the party they departed from Shanghai and reached Zhenjiang early the next morning. They were greeted on the hulk by a band which played valiantly out of tune. After motoring through the town to a public garden they were entertained at a European luncheon. The weather was cold but presuming that any entertainment would be indoors an under-dressed Yorke froze in the open pavilion. A Shandong medicinal wine was served with the first course; appetising dishes came hot from the kitchen, all of which sat on the table waiting for the Chairman of the Provincial Reconstruction Committee to finish his welcoming speech. When the tepid lunch was over they were each given a pamphlet describing the flood protection work done and the reconstruction planned for the future, a perfect example of how provincial officials wasted their time and country's money by publishing, with their portraits next to the title-page, an account of rather more than they have done and of what they would like one to think they are going to do.\n\nThe afternoon was spent sight-seeing at the monastery on Silver Island [Jin Shan], with its hundred or so monks and its ancient fir tree in the outer courtyard. The tree had but one branch still alive, its trunk bound in iron and its base enclosed in marble - a symbol of the passing of classical Chinese culture. The monastic treasures were all displayed, the bronze vessel from the Zhou dynasty, a drum from the Han, and a jade belt belonging to a former statesman, possibly Ming. There was also a small hexagonal column inscribed with the Daode Jing, the Daoist classic which had surprised Yorke as he had not expected to see a Daoist classic in a\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216102, "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": 401, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "335\n\nOther Ranks Coloured\n\nAT'S (Auxiliary Territorial Service - women)\n\nBut of course race was not just something for westerners. It was not so dissimilar for some Chinese. I have a friend who said to her daughter, ‘All right, you can go to Britain to study. But you must promise you will never marry a westerner.' Such views are still not so uncommon. There is an obituary in the HKBRAS Journal, Vol. 27, 1987, page 5, for RAS member KMA Barnett OBE. The writer suggested that Barnett's 'occasional sourness could be traced to a resentment that his (most happy) marriage to a Chinese had blocked his promotion.' The writer also said that Barnett was inclined to believe that AIDS was a divine (or nature's) deserved punishment for societies which tolerated, even glamorised, “deviants.”\n\nIn the case of my own Anglo-Chinese wedding, although I did receive a certain amount of ostracism from a few colleagues in the early days, most accepted my marriage without too much difficulty. Certainly I received no objections from my employer, the Hong Kong Government. In my case I was married in the morning and, in the afternoon, my Chinese wife and I were invited to the Governor's garden party on the lawn at Government House. This was held annually, on the Queen's Birthday, 21 April, which was then a public holiday. We held a Chinese dinner that evening, in the old Sun Ya Restaurant on Nathan Road. The cost was $130 per Chinese table each seating 12 persons.\n\nMany people, certainly pre-World War Two, took the view that stratification was correct and necessary as lifestyles of the Chinese and westerners differed so considerably. The Chinese, at least outwardly, were not too disturbed by racial discrimination. They took it all quite stoically. After all, they knew who was really superior. Was not their country the Middle Kingdom, with a complex culture and a continuous civilisation going back 5,000 years? They did not want to live on the Peak anyway, it was far too humid up there. Yes, like the British, at heart the Chinese knew who the superior beings really were. Today, while there is still some class distinction and snobbery in the Territory, both among Europeans and Chinese, the old days of racial discrimination have fortunately largely gone. Mixed marriages make the world go round.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216327, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "35\n\nremarks each still makes about the other to this day. Northerners thought that Cantonese were quick and tricky, often rebellious, and overly concerned with money. They rarely got a good press from the officials, Manchus or Chinese from other provinces, who were posted to the South.\n\n‘Ungrateful and avaricious,' the Emperor was advised by the Imperial Commissioner in Canton in 1841, who said he wrote in these terms 'after personal observation of the character and disposition of the people of this province,23 Earlier, in 1807, a Viceroy observed that 'not only do the common people desire to obtain money, and do all they can to get it, but the gentry talk of nothing else but money.24 In 1847, the Xinan magistrate commented, 'In Kowloon, the people mingle with foreigners, and the custom of the residents is that they value money and material things and belittle poetry and studies.'25\n\nCantonese also had a reputation for being rude to Westerners. Returning with the Amherst Embassy from Beijing in 1816, the future Sir John Davis recounted that, upon approaching Canton, 'Here for the first time in the course of our travels, my ears were greeted with the sounds so frequent and familiar at Canton, Fankwei and Hoong-maou, \"Foreign devil\" and \"Rufus\" - without having the slightest personal claims to the last distinction, however indisputable my claims to the first.'26\n\nThe Boat People of Canton\n\nThe Canton waterfront was noted for the very large number of boat people whose tiny craft were anchored off and along the whole frontage. These were the Tanka, or indigenous boat people of the Pearl River Delta. They appear in many of the China Trade Pictures, whether lying off the Foreign Factories or at Whampoa, Lintin or Macau.\n\nThe river attracted the intense interest of foreigners because of the numbers and great variety of craft and activity to be seen upon its crowded, animated waters. They were impressed by the most remarkable degree of 'order' reigning, but were less enthusiastic about the 'noise of the music, gongs, and other discordant sounds' which 'defied description', compensated in part by the night scene, 'when all the boats display coloured lanterns [and] the scene is extremely pleasing.'\n\nThe boat people provided utility services to the factories and ferried", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216338, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "46\n\nown people, and as Denham's editor wrote, its officers expected to exercise the same 'absolute, unquestioned, and unlimited authority over the persons of those who traded to their shores', or came there on any other business: with implicit obedience 'not to what the laws had provided, but to what they [the Chinese officers] thought fit to order'.68 The ever watchful Gutzlaff had noted that 'the poor are generally the sufferers (in the judicial system), whilst the rich expiate their crimes by means of money'. 'The purest virtue is boasted of on paper, whilst cruelty and oppression mark every public act'.70\n\n69\n\nFundamental aspects of the China Trade\n\nA Mutual Ignorance\n\nWhilst those Westerners engaged in the old China Trade became accustomed to the very different world around them, and sent back all manner of items illustrative of certain aspects of its culture (albeit those perceived by Chinese to meet demand) the greater part of those engaged were \"on the outside looking in.\" Little real knowledge of the country could be acquired by the great majority of those coming to China, because of its government's firm determination to confine the foreign maritime trade to one outlet at Canton, and to hedge in its personnel with all manner of restrictions. In this aim, the authorities were at one with the Japanese Shogun, who confined the Dutch to the one small demi-island of Deshima at Nagasaki for over 250 years of limited trading.71\n\nThe restrictions were greatly lamented by some. Major George Henry Mason, author of one of the most valuable early works in English on China and the Chinese, who stayed in Macau and Canton in 1789-90, had complained of 'the very circumscribed limits which are marked out for foreigners at Canton.' It was, he wrote, 'to be exceedingly regretted, that either habitual caution, ungenerous suspicion, or experienced necessary circumspection, should influence the Chinese, even at a distance of fourteen hundred miles from the capital of their empire, to restrain the observing traveller within his narrow compass'. And after describing the tumultuous outcome of an unsuccessful attempt by a party of British officers to gain the city walls of Canton, he had remarked, 'This adventure is related as a convincing proof of the difficulty, if not of the danger, attending inquisitive strangers in China.'72", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216339, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "47\n\nThere was a downside to this denial of access and more reliable information. For most Britons (as for most Europeans) China had been a country steeped in fantasy and misconception. The 18th century craze for \"Chinoiserie\" had left them with a vision of Cathay, rather than knowledge of the real China. But as time went on; in some curious way, a much less attractive hodgepodge of exotic notions about the country and its people had been assembled, and by the time of the Opium War, this seems to have displaced the benign willow-pattern, and the romantic tale which accompanied it, in the public mind.\n\nAn early Protestant missionary to China told his readers that when he went there in 1839 he carried with him the following notions in regard to what 'most people in the West entertain about the Chinese,' some of [which] elements may be said to be, \"odd manners, pig-tails, cramped feet, long nails, fans, paintings, rice-paper drawings, processions, concentric balls, lanterns, chopsticks, eating rats, mice, and bird's nest soup, popular infanticide, and an utter want of benevolence'.73 These were attributes which found visual expression in the comic illustrations provided by the artist John Leech for Thomas Henry Sealy's 1841 compilation, The Porcelain Tower, Nine Stories of China, a book purporting to provide more information on the country, but more likely intended as a great \"send-up\" of the entire Chinese nation.74\n\nNor, in retrospect (albeit there was little alternative, given the linguistic variations of the Chinese language and the more or less permanent ban against teaching it to Westerners) was the enforced adoption of “pidgin\" at Canton, as the lingua franca of commercial and social exchange, calculated to convey a fuller understanding or enhance mutual respect.75\n\nChinese disdain for the West\n\nThe half truths and misconceptions common to those Britons who bothered to think at all about China and the Chinese were only matched by the even greater ignorance exhibited by Chinese about the West, even by the governing classes. However erudite (they were largely scholar-officials) their mind set was cast in an entirely different mould. For them, China was the \"Middle Kingdom,\" the centre of the universe, and all outside its borders were barbarians who were only allowed a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216340, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "48\n\nsubordinate status in all things, including the favour of tribute missions and foreign trade.76\n\nRev. W. Ellis, in Gutlaff's Three Voyages (1834) wrote, ‘A grave Chinese author, profoundly skilled in the literature of his own nation, congratulating himself that he was not born in our barbarous countries of the West observes, \"for then I must have lived in a cave under-ground, - eaten the bark and roots of trees, worn leaves and long grass for my covering, - and been really a beast though in the shape of a man.\"77\n\nWestern sojourners in China could not fail to observe the fact that, as the great missionary translator-scholar W. H. Medhurst wrote in 1838, 'The Chinese assume to be...the only civilised and powerful nation in the world ...,'78 an attitude that appears to have characterised official and peasant, merchant and coolie alike. As Parkinson commented in 1937, 'With such invincible ignorance it is difficult to cope.'+79\n\nAt the same time, trying to be objective about Chinese disdain, Lord Macartney, England's first ambassador to China, wrote in 1794 of his own countrymen: 'Is there any country on the globe that Englishmen visit where they do not display that pride of themselves and that contempt of others which conscious superiority is apt to inspire?'80\n\nThe Impending war\n\nBy 1839, the situation had not changed a whit. Each party to the impending hostilities was boxed in by its own ideas and limitations, in the case of the Westerners fanned by the many irritations accompanying their lives and mercantile dealings at Canton under the restrictions imposed by Chinese officials.\n\nThese prompted one of the historians of the military side of the War to opine that 'The opium question was to be regarded merely as a spark blown into a mine, and no more to be considered the primary cause of the war than the match which ignites the train...'81 But at least one of his brother officers had deplored going into a war in which the opium question was an unworthy element.82\n\nAnd at this point, on the verge of War, we must regretfully take leave of the China of the old China Trade,83", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216355, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "63\n\nA NEW DISCOVERY AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE: THE STATUTORY DECLARATIONS MADE BY SIR ROBERT HART CONCERNING HIS SECRET DOMESTIC LIFE IN 19TH CENTURY CHINA\n\nLAN LI AND DEIRDRE WILDY\n\n[Hon Editor: See also NOTES ON THE ROBERT HART PAPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG LIBRARY, JHKBRAS, Vol. 29, pp. 367-382]\n\nIntroduction\n\nSir Robert Hart (1835-1911) was one of the extraordinary Westerners who made a substantial contribution to both early China's modernisation and its foreign relations with the West. He was the only Westerner in the latter half of the nineteenth century to occupy an official post in the metropolitan bureaucracy—a position that allowed him daily access to China's highest officials in the Grand Council and Zongli Yamen. He built the first modern institution in China, the Chinese Imperial Maritime Custom (CIMC), and he also played a crucial role in China's imperial politics, significantly influencing its internal reform and diplomatic policy.\n\nDuring the early period of his life in China (1857-1865) Hart was involved in a sexual relationship with a Chinese girl called Ayaou. The relationship had a significant influence on Hart in that it immersed him deeper in Chinese society. Hart's success in China has been attributed to his good understanding of Chinese tradition. He acquired this capacity in a number of ways, one of which included a long-term intimate relationship with the Chinese girl Ayaou. Hence, Hart's secret domestic life is not simply the personal life of a Western man, who, according to the prevailing custom in the colonial Asia of the 1850s, kept a Chinese girl; it is more significant and, as Bruner, Fairbank, and Smith point out, \"does him credit as a human being\" and \"also shows his capacity for immersion in Chinese society and culture.\" (1986: 232)\n\nThe paper will examine and analyse the recently discovered statutory declarations made by Hart in 1905 and 1911. These documents provide us with new primary and significant material about Hart's relationship with Ayaou and his three children by her. This will address", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216363, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "71\n\nHart referred to his conduct as \"a common practice\" at that time and confessed that he just \"fell into the habit myself\" and \"did as others did\", which is, unfortunately, no excuse at all. Bruner, Fairbank and Smith suggest, \"one of the many perquisites of the Westerner's higher living standard in China was his being supplied with Chinese women. Thus, \"Robert Hart's solution to his problem of solitude was nothing unusual and followed established norm\". (1986: 153) Bickers also suggests that \"In the earlier stage of the British presence concubinage with Chinese women was common, and not considered abnormal; indeed, it appears to have been encouraged, as a sort of release\". (1999: 98) Paul King, an Englishman who joined CIMC in 1874, writes in his book In the Chinese Custom Service (1980: 25):\n\nIn those days the only \"social\" intercourse between Chinese and foreigners was conducted by women of the \"Mui-tsai\" class. In justice it must be recalled that the Chinese housekeeper often did a good deal to keep her temporary lord and master straight, especially in matters of drink, or tendency to stray off to less supervised and possibly dangerous-to-health pastures.\n\nPerhaps Hart knew that the most convincing point he could make, to avoid too much embarrassment when he confessed to his relationship with Ayaou, would be the explanation that his conduct was not simply a personal sin or weakness, but a mistake anyone, in the given circumstances at that time, would possibly, or even inevitably, have made. Following this point, Hart confessed:\n\nAyaou lived with me at Ningpo during 1857 and went with me when I was transferred to Canton in February 1858. Later in the same year I left her at Macao and from that time ceased to live with her and saw her but seldom though I continued to pay her monthly sum of thirty dollars for her support down to the time of our connection being finally terminated as after mentioned. (Declaration 2)\n\nIf it was true that Hart \"ceased to live with her and saw her but seldom\" from 1858, it is difficult to understand how Ayaou gave birth to his three children after 1858 and why Hart left the second gap in his diaries between 6 December 1858 and 6 June 1863 - a period during which he must have had an intimate relationship with Ayaou. Indeed,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216373, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "81\n\nOn 26 July 1858 \"Sent Achih to Macao today: sent $20 to Ayaou.” On 15 August \"Modest request from Ayaou for $700 or at least $200 - 'no can' - “. Then on 16 September “I went to see Ayaou who came back from Macao the night before last. Demands $200.” Again on 19 September \"Paid Ayaou $125: I understand this closes the connection. \"For Hart, therefore, the best way to terminate the relationship peacefully and permanently must have been to give Ayaou a generous sum of money and this he did.\n\nHart's declarations concerning his separation from Ayaou also detail the arrangements made for their children. In Declaration 2 he states: \"As all the children were born while Ayaou was being kept by me I decided to provide for them respectably and accordingly I made it part of the arrangement for separation that she should surrender her children to my Agent and she did so.\" This indicates that some serious discussion and negotiation must have taken place between Hart and Ayaou concerning the arrangements for their children after the separation. Hart seems to have made it a clear precondition that Ayaou gave up custody of the three children and surrendered them to his London agent. Ayaou complied. For her, life must have become much easier without the burden of bringing up three children alone, even with financial support from Hart. For Hart, on the other hand, it seems to have been the best possible arrangement at the time. It was at considerable expense that he made such arrangements for his three wards. We now know, for the first time, that Hart \"settled a sum of six thousand pounds for their benefit which sum has long since been divided and distributed between them.\" Also in Declaration 1 he claims: “As they were all born while Ayaou was kept by me I decided to provide them respectably, and did so, rather than leave them to their fate in China.\" The details certainly support the commonly accepted viewpoint that \"Hart treated his wards generously\" (Little, 1975: Introduction) and \"By the standards of the day such behaviour was generous in the extreme\", as “many Westerners simply ignored and abandoned such children.” (Smith, Fairbank, Burner 1991: 363)\n\nHowever, these details may also support the suggestion that there must have been some other reason for Hart to make such an expensive arrangement: \"In the eyes of a later day, exiling three children from their native culture, even with the consent of their mother (who later married a Chinese), raises perplexing questions. But it was done with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216418, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "127\n\n## BETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS: CHINA AND THE CHINESE DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR 1904-1905\n\n## KEITH STEVENS\n\nThe power confrontation between Russia and Japan finally developed into all-out conflict in 1904 in Manchuria, ending with a victory for the Japanese that shook the western world, who had assumed that no Asian power could possibly defeat a European one.\n\nApart from on the high seas, the Russo-Japanese War was fought in the main on Chinese territory, in the three provinces of Manchuria, homeland of the Manchus, now known as Dongbei, the North-east. China was not a participant. The first stage of the land campaign took place in Korea, where Japan landed an army, which fought its way up the peninsula to the northern border, the Yalu River, and on into Manchuria for the long slog to victory.\n\nSince the Manchu conquest of China in 1644, the Three Provinces, Fengtian (renamed Liaoning), Jilin, and Heilongjiang, originally the homeland of the Manchus, was known to westerners as Manchuria, and although referred to as part of the Chinese (Qing) Empire, it was not considered to be part of China Proper.\n\nDuring the 19th century, the population of Manchuria grew by leaps and bounds as Chinese settlers flooded in, particularly from Shandong province, encouraged to occupy its wide open spaces before the Russian advance could extend its influence into the area.\n\nIn 1931, at the time of the eventual Japanese occupation of the whole of Manchuria, the population was estimated to have been more than 90% Han Chinese, with a mere 3% Manchus. The rest was made up of 6% Mongols and a handful of Japanese, Russians, and Koreans.\n\n## The lead-up to the war\n\nThe Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 ended the Sino-Japanese War, fought under the guise of securing the independence of Korea, and included the cession to Japan of the Liaodong Peninsula. This", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216423, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "132\n\nof the war with intense fascination as Russia's ultimate victory, they believed, would lead to Russia riding roughshod all over northern China and not just over Manchuria.\n\nWhen, four days after the start of the war, China proclaimed her neutrality, England, France, Germany and Italy, all neutral powers, joined in suggesting to Russia and Japan that they avoid sending troops into Chih-li (Zhili - the Chinese metropolitan province), lest the Chinese Imperial Government should flee Peking. Both Russia and Japan agreed. The fact that at the outbreak of the war there were some five hundred Japanese instructors in the Chinese Army, having displaced many of the European instructors, might have complicated matters had not the belligerents and China appear to have disregarded the fact.\n\nWesterners, too, were unable to predict the outcome and in the event made a number of contingency plans. An Imperial Maritime Customs memorandum produced in Shanghai in 1904, produced by the Statistical Department of the Imperial Maritime Customs (IMC) concerned plans to rearrange Chinese land tax as more than half of China's revenue was mortgaged for payment of foreign loans, leaving insufficient funds in the event of the Russo-Japanese conflict spreading further into China.\n\nContraband of war\n\nForeign ships' captains made a fortune running the blockade from Chinese ports into Port Arthur and other Russian ports along the coast of Manchuria. One German merchant realised a profit of £10,000 in three months on contraband cargoes carried to Port Arthur by a steamer of only 180 tons burden.\n\nChina, not fully comprehending the implications of trading with both belligerents found herself accused by both belligerents of contravening the concept of contraband of war. After considerable discussion Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the IMC promulgated regulations to the effect that:\n\nContraband of war consists of purely military requisites, that is, arms and ammunition,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216424, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "133\n\nContraband of ordinary commodities such as flour, clothes, etc., may be transported at the risk of the owners, to the ports of belligerent countries.\n\nIn the event of the necessity arising of landing any cargo passing through a Chinese port, the same will be landed and stored at the expense of the owners.\"\n\nArguments arose over whether foodstuffs being exported from China to Japan for consumption by civilians should be considered as contraband of war as they could be used for military purposes. It was agreed that with formal consular certificates, certifying that the goods were not destined for the theatre of war, and stating clearly that the goods were shipped at the owners' risk; foodstuffs could be exported to Japan.\n\nThe day-to-day involvement of the Chinese population and their reaction to foreign soldiers\n\nTheir land and people suffered hardships, casualties, and financial losses without any thought being given to them by the Westerners or the combatants. It has been quite surprising just how few references to China and the Chinese there were in contemporary Western writings.\n\nChinese physical involvement was marginal. Apart from individuals being employed by both sides as spies, bands of Chinese mounted guerrillas were employed by both belligerents; some under Japanese leadership made Russian lines of communication dangerous and effectively tied down ever larger Russian forces. Yuan Shikai, the Viceroy of Chih-li, turned a blind eye to these and similar activities and made every effort to co-operate with the Japanese. Although the Russians were aware of this policy, there was little they could do about it. They did, however, take it out on any individual or groups of Chinese in territories under their control who appeared in any way acting for or sympathising with the Japanese.\n\nBritish illustrated periodicals tended to portray Chinese as ‘exotic and different, something sinister or inferior.' The same journals included not only sketches from their correspondents capturing the gruesome nature of the war in all its chaos, cruelty, and destruction but also photographic images.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216428, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "137\n\nMost were mounted on Manchurian ponies, and were rough, brutal and, beyond the bounds of towns, unrestrained. Occasional bandit-suppression campaigns and schemes to tame or buy off thugs were only temporary checks. There were two generic names for bandits in Manchuria, one mainly reported across the south, was Red Beards, Hong Huzi (in the romanisation of the day - Hung Hutse) while the less well-known term for those across the north was Chunchuse. Red Beards included a mixture of seasonal bandits who came over to rob and pillage from Shandong. This mutated into the Red Beards, local criminal thugs, both individual groups and those part of a larger network, thieving as a way of life due to endemic poverty.\n\nAny act of brigandry in southern Manchuria was blamed on the Hong Huzi; hence, sketches in British illustrated journals of Chinese robbing the dead and dying on the field of battle all bore the caption naming the robbers as Hong Huzi.\n\nOne of the better-known Chinese \"brigands,\" a seasonal worker from Shandong, was Wang Delin.* By 1899 he had established a considerable following among Chinese workers in Manchuria opposed to Russian encroachment, and in 1903 he openly declared his opposition to both the Russians and the non-Chinese Qing dynasty. His band operated along the eastern part of the China Eastern Railway, attacking trains and Russian shipping on the rivers. His men had a code of conduct based on three rules:\n\nThey were forbidden to harass or harm Chinese\n\nThey should not kill captured Russians without reason\n\nAnd, they should assist the poor and helpless.\n\nHis band was typical of the gangs roaming Manchuria with their various motives, some simply thugs and robbers others political, but all were generically referred to as Hong Huzi.\n\nWesterners writing about their travels in Manchuria were not slow in providing valid reasons for their nickname. Harvey Howard in his Ten Weeks with Chinese Bandits [1927] explained that 'during the 18th and 19th centuries roving bands of unshaven, red-bearded Russians", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216502, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "213\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nFull Circle: A Life with Hong Kong and China\n\nRuth Hayhoe\n\nIntroduction by Mark Bray and Ora Kwo\n\nComparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong\n\nHong Kong, 200\n\nISBN 962 8093 31,2\n\n276pp.\n\nHK$200/US$32\n\nFew westerners in history have become as knowledgeably inculturated into respect for China and Chinese ways as Ruth Hayhoe has, or achieved her high level of trilingual Chinese skills.\n\nCenturies ago, the Jesuits adopted Chinese ways in order to convert China to Roman Catholicism. Some wore Chinese clothes and traveled in state like Confucian scholar-administrators, borne in palanquins preceded by attendants carrying their books. In the end, the Roman hierarchy thought they had gone too far, and the Order was suppressed.\n\nHayhoe wears the occasional mandarin collar, has written or edited several books and numerous articles, which could well be borne in state, and for just over four years, as a senior member of the educational hierarchy, enjoyed an official car in Hong Kong. But her avowed purpose is sometimes the opposite of that which compelled the Jesuits in the past. She wishes to bring Chinese knowledge (pp. 126, 251) -- and 'Asian ways of knowing' (pp. 20, 239) -- to the rest of the world. At other times, she looks for an equal balance; for, ‘an ideal set of relations between China and western countries, characterised by mutuality and ordered around the values of autonomy, equity, solidarity and participation.' (p. 117)\n\nThis Autobiography gives a description of how Hayhoe's inculturation took place and also expresses the illumination she found when writing this account of selected strata of her life. Although she tells us that when she left Canada for her first visit to Hong Kong, in June 1967, 'China meant nearly nothing to me' (p. 64), elsewhere she explains that, as she wrote this book, she came to feel that all her", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216504, "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": 263, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "215\n\nbasis of the 'School for Language in Education' (p. 229) that she mentions as the first of the Schools formed in the Institute of Education.\n\nIt is not true that the British Hong Kong Administration considered that knowledge and use of the Chinese language were not necessary to their work in Hong Kong (p. 244). From the beginning, there was considerable consciousness of the need for Chinese Language skills, and considerable effort was made to provide for appointees who would study the language and also, whenever pragmatically possible, to appoint persons who had studied Chinese already. At the time of the return of Hong Kong to Mainland China, westerners in the Administrative Service and the Police Force were still required to have or to acquire these skills.\n\n——\n\nIt is not true that 'the policy of mother tongue instruction' (i.e. the policy of using the mother tongue as the medium of instruction) in Hong Kong was ‘introduced only in 1997' (p. 244). The policy had been in place for decades, but in the face of parents' and teachers' objections, the British Administration had judged it inappropriate to do more than highly recommend compliance.\n\nIntroducing her earlier book, the highly-commended China's Universities, 1895-1995, Hayhoe explains (new edition of 1999, p. xiv) that her objective is to tell a story, not a history, and she admits that, while she had conducted hundreds of interviews with well-informed, relevant witnesses, she had not burrowed in the archives as a historian needs to do. To some extent her Autobiography seems to have followed a similar method and to be based on the same assumptions. For this, however, she did have the inestimable treasure of all her letters home to her Mother, written twice-weekly in her early years away, and handed over to Hayhoe not quite six years after her Mother's death. -- Her own diary, unfortunately, Hayhoe lost during a move. -- But she also had her early, unpublished creative writing, written in 1970s Hong Kong and the 'torrent' of her published academic writing.\n\nWhether writing history or story, however, a mind trained by a Classical education to operate like a steel trap (Full Circle, p.196) can lead to discomfort for its owner as well as for others if the facts it bases its operation on are not scrupulously correct. An exclusive or very heavy reliance on oral history (China's Universities, op. cit., p.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]