[ { "id": 204540, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 21, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "16\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nAs we leave the church level to visit the terraces below, it is worth noticing that the corner of the balustrade behind the chapel is adorned with an old piece of Chinese porcelain in the form of a large peach. It is about a foot in diameter and carries on top, another small, almost parasitic one, about two inches in diameter; both have a delightful bluish-grey underglaze. These peaches, Chinese emblems of longevity, are most fitting and reassuring adornments to the approach of a Christian burial ground.\n\nThe three most widely known personalities, and the most frequently visited memorials, in the cemetery are undoubtedly those of Dr. Robert Morrison, D.D., Captain Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, R.N., the brother of Sir Winston's great-grandfather, and George Chinnery; but these people are so well known that they need neither introduction nor lengthy consideration. Chinnery will be mentioned again in connection with his portraits and we shall have to be content therefore with just one or two observations on the artist himself when we come to his memorial. The Memorials. The Upper Terrace contains forty memorials; thirty-eight of them are to be found on either side of a small central avenue, and the other two are at its far end; they are of Chinnery and Drinker. All these memorials mark the resting places of those most recently buried in the cemetery, from 1850 to 1859, as well as one relatively very recent one who unaccountably gained entrance in 1889, thirty years after the cemetery was closed!\n\nOn the left, as we move along the central avenue from the entrance, the memorials nearly all stand back under palms and shrubs near the retaining wall below the chapel. They include American naval and merchant personnel, an Armenian and a few British. The majority of the Upper Terrace memorials however are on the right, their backs to the Lower Terrace. They include more American seafarers both naval and merchant, missionaries both British and American, a member of Perry's historic mission to Japan, and Joseph Adams, the grandson of the second President and the nephew of the sixth President, of the United States of America.\n\nNames associated with early Hong Kong, for example Duddell of Duddell Street, will be found in this row, as will also that of a famous Danish family of sea captains; in fact Captain Ipland has two memorials", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204542, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "18\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nDr. Robert Morrison. It is easily found, for if one continues straight on through the terrace from the end of the path one comes upon it amongst a group of altar tombs in the south-east corner of the cemetery. Morrison was a member of the London Missionary Society and was the first Protestant missionary in China, arriving from England via the States in 1807. He was a great Chinese scholar, wrote a Chinese grammar, compiled an English-Cantonese dictionary, and, along with a colleague, translated the whole Bible into Chinese. He became the indispensable interpreter and translator of the Select Committee of the East India Company, was taken by Lord Amherst in that capacity on his embassy to Peking in 1816, and was appointed in 1834 by Lord Napier to his staff when he assumed office in place of the East India Company in China. In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in virtue of his outstanding scholastic achievements, and was also a member of the society under whose auspices we meet tonight — the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nMorrison was buried alongside his wife, and next to her lies their very gifted son, John Robert Morrison, who died just as he was appointed the first Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong. Nearby lies another colleague from the same missionary society, Samuel Dyer, who did much to introduce metallic movable type to replace wooden blocks in the printing of Chinese books and tracts.\n\nAlong the eastern wall are to be found a number of members of East India Company families, and in the second row parallel to this wall is the second most frequently photographed memorial in the cemetery, that of Sir Winston Churchill's great-great-grand uncle, the 4th son of the 5th Duke of Marlborough, Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, Captain, R.N. Near him lies a group of naval officers—Lieut. John Astell, Lieut. FitzGerald of the H.M.S. Modeste, and Captain Sir Humphrey le Fleming Senhouse, Senior Naval Officer in the China Seas during the attack on Canton in 1841.\n\nThe most conspicuous monument in the whole of the cemetery is a tall column near the north wall. It commemorates the life and death of Captain John Crockett who must have made a fortune when in command for some years of an opium storeship at Lintin. Nearby lies one of America's great ambassadors, Edmund Roberts, who served in the West Indies, South America, Muscat, Zanzibar,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206020, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES\n\n95\n\none witness as \"two other people, besides myself — and seven coolies\" and by a second witness as \"seven people — and three GWAEZIRLOO””.\n\nNor with the extraordinary reluctance to say the other's names right, which turns the easily pronounced BAY JING3 (or BUCK GING) into PEA KING, HAHN CO (or HAWN HOW) into HANG COW, and GWONG JOW3 into CANTON; or, the other way about, transformed Sir Winston Churchill into Mr. YAU, President John F. Kennedy into GUMMY DICK, or President Lyndon B. Johnson into JIMSON® Refusal to communicate is a separate subject, and a very disquieting one.\n\nI would help those who wish to be helped.\n\nFor the Western end of my comparisons most of my examples will be from English, because I think my audience will be most familiar with that language; although I shall emphasize to my Chinese friends the need to approach English by way of Greek and Latin, and to my English friends the need to approach modern Chinese by an equally devious route. And for the Eastern end I have confined myself to Cantonese examples, but have somewhat soft-pedalled the elements, very numerous elements, in the syntax and vocabulary of Cantonese which set it apart from other kinds of modern Chinese and make it both scientifically and for practical considerations a separate language, whatever we would like to think for other reasons.\n\nBut I have denied myself the pleasure of an exhaustive look at the \"classifiers\" which would alone give matter for a whole course of lectures. Although \"classifiers\" or congruence-classes are a feature not only of Chinese but of Thai, Japanese and many other languages, Cantonese with its hundred or more classes ever increasing, too, it would seem occupies a somewhat extreme position and I have therefore referred to this feature in more general terms, to leave room for other matters.\n\nTo come back to the two sentences which may have startled you at the opening.\n\n2 A7, a vulgar term for non-Chinese.\n\n3\n\n4 漢口\n\nthese, of course, are not SOAS romanizations.\n\n廣州6 st\n\n7+EN\n\n› AE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209213, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "102\n\nCARL T SMITH\n\nlittle girls of tender age living amongst strangers and in where to them is a strange country, no denial of succour is possible without outraging our feelings of humanity.\"\n\nInstructions from Colonial Office to Hong Kong Government\n\nIn March 1922 it was announced in the House of Commons by Mr. Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the Government of Hong Kong had been instructed by the Colonial Office to consult with both the Prevention Society and the Anti Mui Tsai Society in order to draw up a scheme for abolition.\n\nAlready the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Hong Kong had been in consultation with the Secretaries of the two societies and both groups were in the process of selecting seven of their members to consult with him.\n\nCanton had forged ahead of Hong Kong, for the same issue of the paper which carried Mr. Churchill's remarks reported an item from the Canton Times that the President of the Southern Government had issued a proclamation abolishing the mui tsai system. The Women's Union of Kwangtung were ready to establish an industrial institution to train them.\n\nNews of progress toward abolition both in Hong Kong and Canton produced an air of elation at the first annual general meeting of the Anti Mui tsai Society held on March 26, 1922, at the Chinese YMCA. Mr. J. M. (Joseph Mau-lam) Wong, an Anglican and compradore of Messrs A. S. Watson and Co., presided. On the platform were members of the Executive Committee. These included Mrs. Ma Ying-piu (1872-1957), wife of the founder of the Sincere Co., member of St. Stephen's Anglican Church and a founder of the YWCA.\n\nThe Society had invited Mr. Hui Chien, the President of the Supreme Court of Canton and a member of the Society, to address the meeting. At the last minute he was unable to attend but sent to represent him two associates from Canton. One of them read the remarks he had intended to give to the meeting. In these he observed that the Southern Government at Canton had taken steps to abolish the system, but it would find it much easier to do so if Hong Kong also moved in this direction.\n\nSince its formation the Society had vigorously promoted its cause both in Hong Kong, China and in Great Britain. It had the active assistance of Commander and Mrs. Hazelwood, who after retirement", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214224, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "45\n\nCheung, Priscilla (1996, December 6), 'Laughing their way through life,' Culture, Hong Kong Standard.\n\nCousins, Norman (1979), Anatomy of an Illness, as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration, Bantam books.\n\nDing Cong (1993), Wit and Humour in Modern China, Asiapac, Singapore.\n\nDoran, John (1858), The History of Court Fools, London.\n\nFindlay, Victoria (1998, September 4), 'Slapstick without shame, South China Morning Post.\n\nFraser, John (1981), The Chinese, Portrait of a People, William Collins.\n\nFreud, Sigmund (1960), Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, W.W. Norton.\n\nGarner, Leslie (1991), 'Talk About Laugh: Laughter is good for you and that's official,' The M & S Magazine.\n\nGiles, Herbert A. (1925), Quips from a Chinese Jest Book, Kelly and Walsh, Shanghai.\n\nGreen, Sue (1998, February 7), 'Funny side of being Chinese,' South China Morning Post.\n\nHumes, James C. (1994) The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill, Harper Perennial.\n\n'Humor' (1997) Lexikon der Agyptologie.\n\nHsu Pi-ching (1998 November), ‘Feng Meng-lung's Treasury of Laughs: Humorous Satire on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Culture and Society,' The Journal of Asian Studies 57, No. 4, pp. 1042-1067.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214392, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 250, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "216\n\nof these two documents, we might have expected a complete overhaul of the workings of the District Watch Committee and, indeed, the running of the Force itself. That these changes did not happen is due in no small part to differences in personalities at the top of the Hong Kong Government.\n\nIn late August 1922 Claud Severn, the Colonial Secretary who was also the Officer Administering the Colony, wrote to Winston Churchill regarding the remedial action taken by Government following the strike.22 The Acting Governor noted that an investigation into the running of the regular Police Force had found the calibre of some of the men working in the 'Chinese Police Force' to be decidedly wanting in the loyalty stakes. As a result of the inquiry a total of fifty Chinese sergeants, constables and detectives were either dismissed, ordered to retire, reduced in rank or otherwise censured. Severn noted that the situation regarding the District Watch Force was 'somewhat delicate' and one which he had discussed at length with the Secretary for Chinese Affairs. Both Severn and Edwin R. Hallifax, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, recommended that, contrary to Governor Stubbs' proposal, no reorganization of the District Watch Force should be attempted. Severn stressed that any 'enquiry and action would necessarily be a matter for the [District Watch] Committee, which shows the greatest reluctance to carry the subject any further.'23 There can be no doubting the considerable power and influence exerted by the District Watch Committee at this time since the Acting Governor was worried that any 'action taken \"by order\" would certainly create unnecessary and serious trouble and might put an end to the Force, a result which is to be deprecated, since the District Watch Force is ordinarily of the greatest value to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.' Without mentioning Timothy Murphy by name, Severn concluded his letter to the Secretary of State by noting that the District Watch Force was under the charge of ‘a very efficient Inspector of Police.' Thus, Stubbs' suggestion that the District Watch Force should be revamped was discarded. It would have been most informative to know how Governor Stubbs reacted to this news when he returned from leave on 18 November 1922 but unfortunately this was not recorded in accessible official documents.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214738, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "117 \n\nA Review of the Literature? \n\nStrategy \n\nIn terms of the strategic and historical aspects of the Battle, the best known works from the British points of view are those of Winston Churchill (Churchill 1950), the Minister who led Britain to final victory, and Liddell Hart (Liddell Hart 1970), the strategist renowned for his theory on the use of tanks in modern warfare and \"indirect approach” (Liddell Hart 1991) as a general war strategy. There are few recent works in English that make reference to Hong Kong at this level of analysis. The common tenor of Churchill and Liddell Hart was that Hong Kong could not be defended. The former, however, held that Hong Kong should be nominally defended to deter the Japanese. In early 1941, Churchill told General Sir Hastings, his Chief of Staff: \n\n\"There is not the slightest chance of holding Hong Kong or relieving it. It is most unwise to increase the loss we shall suffer there. Instead of augmenting the garrison it ought to be reduced to a symbolic scale.... Japan will think long before declaring war on the British Empire, and whether there are two or six battalions at Hong Kong will make no difference to her choice.” \n\nIt was true that Churchill's Chiefs of Staff favoured reinforcing the Hong Kong garrison so that it could maintain a \"more worthy” defence or even a degree of deterrence, and Major-General A.E. Grasett, the former General Officer Commanding in Hong Kong, made a contribution to the strength of the defence by arranging for two Canadian battalions to arrive in the Colony in October 1941. Yet, under the dominant influence of Churchill's strategic concept, the Hong Kong garrison was outnumbered three to one by the Japanese when the invasion occurred. \n\nChurchill's position and decision apparently attracted universal criticism after the war. Liddell Hart thought that this was a patent mistake, which was exacerbated by Grasett's contribution, which cost many lives of the garrison. In other words, Liddell Hart considered that as Hong Kong could not be defended, it should not have been defended. In his History of the Second World War, Liddell Hart recalled what he said to General Dill in March 1935 about Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214929, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 25, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "been a bit of flak. But as Winston Churchill wrote, it is exhilarating to be shot at without success. Many changes have taken place during my period of office, which spanned the Handover from Britain to China, entering the New Millennium and our RAS 40th Anniversary. Through the efforts of many the Branch, which is much more complex now than it was when I took over, is strong and of good heart. May I thank you again for your unfailing support and friendship. I know you will show the same measure of support to our new President.\n\nI conclude by quoting a translation of one of my favourite Chinese poems:\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nPresident\n\nDry vines, old trees, evening crows - Small bridge, flat bank, water flows - Old road, slim horse, west wind blows - And as the sun westward sets, Forlorn love, far away, no one knows!\n\nA GREAT YUAN DRAMATIST\n\nxxiv", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215155, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 251, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "211\n\nA Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nBut let's start at the beginning. How did it all commence? First, though it is interesting to recall that that great man, Henry Ford, once said:\n\n\"History is bunk. We don't want tradition.\n\nWe want to live in the present,\n\nAnd the only history that is worth a tinker's damn\n\nIs the history that we make today.\"\n\nThose words of Henry Ford contrast markedly with those of Winston Churchill, who is purported to have told an American boy entering a British public school:\n\n\"Young man, study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statehood.\"\n\nEarly days\n\nSo, as a great admirer of Sir Winston Churchill, I accept his words rather than those of Henry Ford. And if we delve deeply, history tells us that in Hong Kong, as early as 1863, vocational training in carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, printing, bookbinding, and gardening was being provided for 12 boys. Numbers later reached 30. These classes were held in a Chinese building under a Father Raimondi, not far from the Roman Catholic Mission House, which then stood in Wellington Street, in what used to be called the City of Victoria.\n\nYou can almost picture the carpentry classes using the same kind of Chinese tools and labour-saving stools cum-benches which we still employ today. With the latter, one can hold a piece of timber being worked with one's foot and plane downhill, which makes good \"work-study\" sense. As a footnote, I recall one of our carpentry instructors at the old Technical College always using a Chinese plane when he wanted to get an especially good finish on a piece of timber. There is a lot to be said for Chinese tools.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215196, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 292, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "256\n\nTHING\n\nT\n\nNeedless to say, I bought the book (for $8.40!) but for many years until quite recently in fact - could not bring myself to read it properly. This I have now done and have discovered that it is not a book to be trifled with. It should be read slowly and carefully, and savoured, if one is truly to understand and enjoy it. It is, as the Daily Express described it at the time, 'a true story of piercing beauty' and as Ed Murrow said of Winston Churchill, Suyin 'mobilised the English language, and sent it into battle.'\n\nThe book\n\nTrue story? I didn't know that, either, until very recently and this explains how, and why, I came to write this Note. In April 2001 Council Member Jason Wordie wrote a piece about our immediate Past-President Dan Waters in The South China Morning Post. Dan shared with us the fact that he lives in Realty Gardens, Conduit Road, which was the former site of the Foreign Correspondents Club. Dan also noted that behind his apartment block is the pavilion where Han Suyin and Ian Morrison, a correspondent for The Times, used to meet before he was killed during the Korean War.\n\nIan Morrison, circa 1943\n\nHurried e-mail to Dan. Was this the basis for A Many-Splendoured Thing? Yes. But Suyin's lover was called Mark Elliot, both in the book and the motion picture? Yes, but obviously dramatic licence was involved. But Ian Morrison was British and Mark, in the motion picture, was American? Well, maybe William Holden, consummate actor though he was, would have had trouble imitating a British accent. Can I have a look at the pavilion? Sure, come for lunch next Sunday. So I did.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216090, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 389, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "HONG KONG IN THE 1950S AND '60s: REMINISCENCES1\n\nDAN WATERS\n\n323\n\nIntroduction\n\nWhat was it like in the \"good old days\" sailing through the Red Sea in mid-summer with no air-conditioning? Pretty warm I can assure you. That was why, on liners, so-called posh passengers sailing between Britain and Hong Kong used to choose their cabins ‘port (side) out starboard home.' There was a bit more breeze that way. When I sailed through the canal in the summer of 1942, shortly before the Battle of El Alamein, I was on a terribly overcrowded troopship with appalling food, living conditions, and severely rationed drinking water. There were rumours bromide was put in the tea to dampen libido.\n\nAfter the Desert campaign finished in May 1943 we, the troops, were inspected by Winston Churchill who proudly proclaimed: \"When the War is over, all a man will need to say is, 'I fought with the Eighth Army'.\" After victory in North Africa there was the Salerno Invasion and the Anzio Beachhead, both in Italy. I was wounded three times. Half a century later in the 1990s, a puzzled x-ray technician said to me at the Tang Shiu Kin Clinic in Hong Kong: 'Do you know? You've got pieces of metal in your body!'\n\nIt was a bit of an anticlimax, in 1946, when I returned to the building business established by my great-grandfather in 1853. Then my father died and I became managing director. I enjoyed working on churches and other ancient buildings but I did not really wish to do that for the rest of my life. To supplement my work I also went back to college as my studies had been disrupted by the War. I later taught building science part-time.\n\nI\n\nColonial service\n\nEarly in 1954 I applied for a job in Trinidad and went along to the\n\nThe Author delivered a lecture, based on this article, illustrated with slides and transparencies, to the HKBRAS on 7th December 2001.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216091, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 390, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "324\n\nold Colonial Office in Great Smith Street. Sir Christopher Cox, who headed the interview panel, said: 'Waters, you would be more suitable teaching building subjects in Hong Kong than in Trinidad. Go away and think about it!'\n\nRose, Rose I Love You was the first song originating in the People's Republic of China to become popular in Britain. Yet the composers never received royalties. They could not afford to be seen drawing money from a capitalist country. And as I listened to the refrain in Merry England, it all tied in. Serving in the Colonial Service in Hong Kong seemed terribly exciting and romantic. It made me think of Camp Coffee, Zam Buk ointment and other similar branded goods with scenes of Empire on bottles and tins which I grew up with as a child.\n\n'You're not going to the Far East?!' an acquaintance exclaimed. 'The Communists have just acquired half Korea. There's fighting in Vietnam and Malaya. Hong Kong will be the next to fall!”\n\nIn spite of adverse comments I accepted the offer from the Colonial Office which was shortly to become Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service. After all a considerable amount of a map of the world was still coloured red. Hadn't Winston Churchill proclaimed: 'I have not become the King's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire'? At the time I could have been posted to any one of something like 55 different colonies or dependent territories within the British Commonwealth. For me, 'Go East young man!' was the watchword. Nevertheless, some said that the Hong Kong Royal Naval Dockyard was shortly to be closed down.\n\nSo, in spite of discouraging remarks, I \"burned my boats,” sold the family business as a going concern, and went shopping. I spotted cabin trunks made of sheet metal. 'Oh no,\" the shop assistant exclaimed, 'you only need those, Sir, if you are going to some humid place like Hong Kong!' 'I'll have two!' I replied.\n\nShipboard\n\nIn the early 1950s, if one flew to Hong Kong, one normally went by seaplane, landed on water and slept the night in a hotel. The journey took five days. But up until 1959 most of us travelled by sea. The\n\nPage 390\n\nPage 391", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216144, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "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": 443, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "377\n\nADVENTURES IN PUBLISHING:\n\nHOW THE CRIPPLED TREE BECAME KALEKIE\n\nDRZEWO\n\nPETER HALLIDAY\n\nA few weeks after I took up residence in Hong Kong in the autumn of 1967, I was taken to the cinema by what had now become a new friend. The film we saw that Saturday afternoon - I remember the circumstances with undiminished clarity - was Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones. The film made a very deep impression upon me and I have to confess that, as we filed out of the cinema, I wept unashamedly.\n\nIn 1972, or thereabouts, I was contentedly idling away an hour or so, browsing in a bookshop - to this day still a particular pleasure - when I came across a book entitled A Many-Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin. Memories of Love is a Many Splendored Thing came flooding back. Could this be the book behind the film or vice versa, I wondered?\n\nI bought the book but for many years - until quite recently in fact - could not bring myself to read it properly. This I have now done and have discovered that it is not a book to be trifled with. It should be read slowly and carefully, and savoured, if one is truly to understand and enjoy it. It is, as the Daily Express described it at the time, ‘a true story of piercing beauty.' As Ed Murrow said of Winston Churchill, Suyin 'mobilised the English language, and sent it into battle.'\n\nAlthough the Daily Express described Suyin's book as a true story, for some reason I had always assumed that it was a novel. Last year, however, through various circumstances, I discovered that this was the literal truth (I would have discovered it much earlier had I read My House Has Two Doors, also by Han Suyin, but unfortunately I did not read this until very recently). A Many Splendoured Thing tells the true story of a love affair between Suyin and Ian Morrison, a correspondent for The Times of London. They met in June 1949, in Hong Kong. Tragically, Ian was killed in Korea on 12 August 1950, when the jeep in which he was travelling was blown up by a landmine.\n\nA tribute to Ian Morrison appeared in Vol. 41 of JHKBRAS.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]