RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h AGM for an approach for financial assistance to those leading “Hongs" which support the parent body in London with its publishing expenses, a letter has now been sent to them to this end. We waited for publication of the new book and the latest Journal before taking action, so that they could see the results of our labours and (hopefully) feel more encouraged to help thereby. There is no doubt that the time has come to seek their assistance, given the difficulty in making ends meet and yet pursuing an energetic and rounded programme of activities in line with our remit. The Programme The past twelve months saw 9 lectures, 10 visits and one Chinese dinner, besides the usual dinner following the AGM. The visits were the largest number on record. This was due to a greater sharing of the load by members of the Activities Committee, which now includes Members of the Society as well as Councillors. Details are as follows: Dr. Maria Jaschok “Concubines and Bond Servants" 18 April Dr. Tom Stanley **Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War' 12 May Professor Tong Kin-woon “Oracle Bones, the Key to Shang China" 9 June Stephen and Anne Selby "Pukka Pidgin" 14 July Dr. Dea Birkett "Women Travellers in Asia' 28 July Chinese Dinner in the City Hall Restaurant 25 September Dr. Lauren Pfister "Clues to the Life and Academic Achievement of James Legge, 1815-1897” 20 October Professor John Hodgkiss **The Biology of Mangroves and the Role They Play in Hong Kong" | December Professor Graham Johnson "The Hong Kong Chinese in Canada: an Updating" 5 January Rev. Carl Smith (with Elizabeth Sinn, Susanna Hoe, Maria Jaschok, Patrick Hase and James Hayes) "The Ladies of Lyndhurst Terrace" 23 February Dr. Mimi Chan "Images of Chinese Women in Anglo-American Literature" ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 year as your President. Have we coped, you may ask? Well, I believe we have, and for this I need to thank my fellow councillors for the very loyal and hard work they have put into ensuring that the Society's affairs run in a smooth and on the whole organised way. In particular mention must be made of Elizabeth Sinn for arranging a varied programme of activities and lectures, Carl Smith, for his loyal and perceptive encouragement, Patrick Hase, for arranging interesting visits and editing the Journal (perhaps the most arduous duty), Robert Nield for keeping us on the right financial track, for our team of ladies, Evelyn Caldwell our Secretary, a post which really holds the Society together, Anita Wilson for doing the newsletter, and our Assistant Secretary, Sharon Bruce, also our Librarian Y.C. Wan, and all those other Council members and helpers who help to make this Society tick and move forward. So what have we done and where do we stand? I will start with the Programme. During the year there were the following talks and visits: Talks: Chang Tsong Zung Peter Leeds Michael Luk Peter Steyn James Hayes Wang Gungwu Miss May Wong Anne and Stephen Selby Sister Beatrice Leung Susanna Hoe Richard Stott Visits Hong Kong Art in the 80s History of Transport in Hong Kong The Origins of Chinese Bolshevism Memories of India The Libraries of the Royal Asiatic Societies in China Western Scholarship, Asian Continuities Changing Lifestyle of Young Japanese Women Pidgin English on the China Coast Sino-Vatican Relations and the Recent Developments of the Chinese Catholic Church Gin and Bridge All Day: Myths about Western Women in Hong Kong 1841-1941 Hong Kong Birds Visits were to Waglan Island, organized by Geoff Roper and Roger Perry, Wo Hang Mid-Autumn Festival visit organized by Dr. Patrick viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 55 There were two attempts to escape from the Hung Hom Bay Camp. The first try was made by five prisoners. They were assigned to build a platform for concerts. The platform was near the barbed wire fence. It provided a shelter for them to tunnel to freedom and a storage place for the earth removed during their digging. Under cover of darkness, five crept through the tunnel; however, the last of the group was spotted by a sentry, who shouted the usual "Halt or I shoot". The escapee kept on going, and the sentry shot. The bullet hit the bag the prisoner was carrying, containing some of his gear, so he escaped injury, but he was overtaken and captured. Shortly after, another of the escaped internees was found in the hills of the New Territories. Several days later, the remaining three were rounded up near Sai Kung. Some time after this incident, another man arranged to accompany two other prisoners on a visit to a dentist in the Hong Kong Hotel. The dentist was only expecting two patients. He took these two into his surgery; one was to serve as an interpreter for the other. The third man, who had somehow arranged to come along, was left in the waiting room with a guard. He informed the guard he must go to the toilet. The guard accompanied him there; however, he did not go into the toilet as he wished to keep his eye on both the door of the dentist and the door of the toilet to ensure that none of his three prisoners escaped. The man in the toilet was able to escape through a window, but he was caught the same night and returned to the camp. The patriotism aroused by war stirred up in a British colony much doubt, distrust of old friends, ill will, and harsh words. The clubs passed resolutions excluding enemy aliens; the ties of former friendship were severely strained and, in many cases, broken. Many in the Colony who frequently passed the former premises of the Deutsche Asiatische Bank on Queens Road, not far from the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, were irritated by the continuing presence of the Prussian double-eagled ensign, an architectural feature of the building. Many indignant letters appeared in the correspondence column of the newspapers before the emblem was finally removed. Since my delivery of the talk upon which this paper is based, Anne Selby has published a well-researched article in the South China Morning Post on 25 June, 1988, entitled "When Germans were unwelcome in HK". She used many of the same sources as I have used in the Public Records Office. I would refer interested readers to her article for information I have not included in my account. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g CONTRIBUTORS Edwin Haydon is a retired Registrar of the Hong Kong Supreme Court. D.H. Liu is a member of the Society with a deep interest in Chinese opera. Alfred Y.K. Lau is a member of the Society with an interest in early colonial Hong Kong. David Faure is a member of the Society, a noted sinologist and a former Editor of the Journal. He is now with the University of Oxford. Anne and Stephen Selby are members of the Society and noted sinologists. Stephen is currently Director of Intellectual Property of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. Richard Webb is a member of the Society and a former Administrative Officer of the Hong Kong Government now in business in the Republic Of Ireland. John Hodgkiss, Ph.D is a member of the Society and the Head of the Department of Ecology and Biodiversity at the University of Hong Kong. He is a noted authority on mangroves and kindred flora. R.G. Horsnell is a member of the Society and a Chief Property Services Manager with the Architectural Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. Keith Stevens, B.A. served with the British Army and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office before his retirement in 1991. He has an abiding interest in Chinese temples and deities and has written numerous articles for the Journal. Dan Waters, M.Phil, Ph.D is a retired Assistant Director of Education of the Hong Kong Government. He is a long-time Member of Council of the Society, and became President in 1997. He has written prolifically on the history and culture of Hong Kong. Peter Vine, LL.D (Hons) is a solicitor in private practice and a prominent resident of Hong Kong since 1947. He is currently, inter alia, President of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Society of Notaries. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT ...... HON AUDITOR'S REPORT vii xxiv ARTICLES: Edwin Haydon - Chinese Customary Law in Hong Kong's New Territories: some Legal Premises.... 1 D.H. Liu - The Peking Opera 43 Alfred Y.K. Lau - An Outline of the Urban Development of Sai Ying Pun in the Nineteenth Century 59 David Faure - The Emperor in the Village: Representing the State in South China 75 Anne and Stephen Selby - China Coast Pidgin English......... 113 Richard Webb - the Use of Hill Land for Village Forestry and Fuel Gathering in the New Territories of Hong Kong 143 NOTES AND QUERIES: John Hodgkiss - Life on the Fringes: The Biology of Mangroves and the Role They Play in Hong Kong 155 R.G. Horsnell - The MacIntosh Cathedrals 171 Keith Stevens - Singapore's Disappearing Temples and The Decline and Apparent Demise of a Popular Religion Cult 181 Keith Stevens - Two Groups of Chinese Deities Rarely Seen on Chinese Altars ........... 187 Dan Waters - The Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War: Labourers Buried in France 199 Peter Vine - Experiences as a War Crimes Prosecutor in Hong Kong. BOOK REVIEW vi 205 217 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 113 CHINA COAST PIDGIN ENGLISH ANNE AND STEPHEN SELBY Hundreds of millions of years ago, the dinosaurs ruled the earth. They were an efficient, diversified group admirably suited to their environment. Over a long period, they flourished and in their turn, they subtly affected the environment they lived in. During the period the dinosaurs roamed the earth, flowering plants as we know them today evolved. Again over a long period, they died out. Their fossils give us clues about their appearance, their environment and their lifestyle. Some of their relatives have evolved into species which survive today. Looking at China Coast Pidgin English is like studying dinosaurs. Only the barest traces of Pidgin survive. Because the language is one of history's losers, it has, like the dinosaurs, been characterized as clumsy, outmoded and comical. We should like to devote this article to looking at the bones, without preconceptions or prejudice and helping to reconstruct the animal for you, together with its environment, its origins and its demise. "Pigeon English", says Hobson Jobson, the Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases published in 1886 by Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, is "the vile jargon which forms the means of communication at the Chinese ports between Englishmen who do not speak Chinese, and those Chinese with whom they are in the habit of communicating Miss Isabella Bird, whose book, "The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither" published in 1883 is cited in Hobson Jobson, wrote "The Pidgin English is revolting, and the most dignified persons demean themselves by speaking it... How the whole English-speaking community, without the distinction of rank, has come to communicate with the Chinese in this baby-talk is extraordinary. 1 Many sources on Pidgin refer to it as "baby talk.” Objective accounts ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT....................................xix FRIENDS OF THE HKBRAS (UK) REPORT.................................xxxiii FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.........................................xxxix HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT.......................................xlix ARTICLES Andrew Abraham - The transfer of the Straits Settlements: A revisionist approach to the study of colonial law and administration..........1 Chohong Choi - Between the nine dragons and a divine wind: How Hong Kong's weather might have affected an allied invasion to retake the territory.........................................33 James Hayes - Hong Kong's Chinese associations: Their ceremonial occasions and their helpers..........................................67 Lawrence Lai, Daniel Ho and Leung Hing Fung - Survey of the Devil's Peak redoubt and Gough Battery...............................101 Eve Lam - The Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch): The faces, the stories and the memories..................................139 Anne Ozorio - The myth of unpreparedness: The origins of anti-Japanese resistance in prewar Hong Kong...........................161 Lauren Pfister - The proto-martyr of Chinese protestants: Reconstructing the story of Ch'ea Kam-kwong............................187 Stephen Selby - Chinese archery: An unbroken tradition?...........245 Keith Stevens - The Yangzi port of Zhenjiang down the centuries...255 Dan Waters - Hong Kong in the 1950s and '60s: Reminiscences.......323 xiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 James Hayes, is a Past-President of HKBRAS and a former long standing member of Council (mouse1@bigpond.com). Robert Horsnell, is a former civil servant and a Volunteer (of research into and cataloguing of old Hong Kong buildings and monuments) of HKBRAS (argyho@netvigator.com) Lawrence Lai, Daniel Ho and Leung Hing Fung, are, respectively, Reader, Associate Professor and Department Head of the Department of Real Estate and Construction, University of Hong Kong (wclai@hkusua.hku.hk). Eve Lam, has been working in journalism in various capacities for the last nine years. Her current position is news sub-editor/anchor for TVB Pearl in Hong Kong. She holds a master's degree in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong and a bachelor's in Physical and Health Education from the University of Toronto. David Mahoney, is an active member of the Friends of HKBRAS in Great Britain. Martin Merz B.A.(Hons.), studied Chinese at Melbourne University. He continued studies in Taiwan, including a stint at the National Taiwan University Graduate School of History. He worked as a translator and interpreter in Taiwan for several years, acquiring a taste for Oolong tea along the way. He moved to Hong Kong in 1987 to set up a trading company. Robert Nield, is the Hon Treasurer and a Vice-President of HKBRAS (hiflyer@netvigator.com). Anne Ozorio, is an active member of the friends of HKBRAS in Great Britain. Lauren Pfister, is an Associate Professor in the Religion and Philosophy Department as well as jointly appointed to teaching in the Humanities course at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has lived in Hong Kong with his family since 1987. Serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of Chinese Philosophy since 1997, he has continued to pursue research in 19th and 20th century Ruist philosophy, the history of sinology, as well as comparative philosophical and comparative religious studies. He serves also as an Associate Research Fellow of the Centre for Sino-Christian Research at Hong Kong Baptist University (feileren@net1.hkbu.edu.hk). Stephen Selby, is the Director of Intellectual Property, Hong Kong Government (srselby@ipd.gov.hk). xvii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 53 * Giles, Glossary, op.cit., p.57. 44 Downing, C. Toogood (1838). The Stranger in China, or The Fanqui's Visit to The Celestial Empire in 1836-7. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 2 vols., Vol. I, pp.9-10. A diary kept on a French ship in 1779 tells of an "outside" pilot boat from Macau, whose five occupants spoke a kind of corrupt Portuguese. Charles de Constant (1939). Recit de Trois Voyages A la Chine 1779-1793. Passages chosen and annotated by Philippe de Vargas. Published by L'Ami, Revue Mensuelle, Yenching, Peking.. 45 46 Davis, The Chinese, op.cit., (1836 edition, London, Charles Knight), Vol.II, p. 447.. Downing, The Stranger in China, op.cit., Vol.I, p.10. * Ibid., Vol. I, p.27. 48 Morse, International Relations, Period of Conflict, op.cit., p.74 Davis, The Chinese, op. cit., (1836 edition, London, Charles Knight), Vol.II, p. 449. 50 Ibid., Vol. II, pp.448-9. 51 Morse, International Relations, Period of Conflict, op.cit., p.74. 32 China and the English (1835). New York, p.73. Written for Abbott's Fireside Series. 53 Ball, Rambles in Eastern Asia, op. cit., p.99. 54 Abbott's Fireside Series, op.cit., p.73, 55 A striking instance is given in Wei Peh T'I (1981). Juan Yuan's Management of Sino-British Relations in Canton 1817-1826, The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, (hereafter JHKBRAS), Vol. 21, pp.153-5. Pidgin English has been described succinctly as being 'a singular admixture of corrupted Portuguese, English, Hindustani, and other foreign words spoken largely in a Chinese syntax': Chang, Commissioner Lin, op.cit., pp.235-6, n47. For a recent detailed statement on Pidgin, see Selby, Anne and Stephen (1995) ================================================================================