RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 315 Despite their conflict in the Crimea in 1855 the British and the Russians never turned the Great Game into all-out war: There the risks and horrors were in the local tribal scene — agents unmasked and beheaded or just disappearing, and mobs lynching unwelcome interlopers. A dreadful interlude was the British penetration of Tibet in order to check the rival influence, causing the slaughter with modern weapons of hundreds of ill-armed monks. How did the Great Game end? Officially, when both sides were tired of it, by an Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Britain was by then seeing Germany as a more immediate potential enemy, and Great Power attentions were focused more sharply on Europe and less on any Russian ambitions in the East. Today there are no Great Games but rather a series of smaller games in Bosnia, the Gulf, Cambodia by smaller men unaware of any code or rules. Strange to recall far-off days when Russian and British officers, meeting inadvertently somewhere in the wild Pamirs, would ask each other to dinner and apologise for their governments' cussedness. — The Great Game is a long, intricate and absorbing tale and Hopkirk tells it with unflagging enthusiasm, reflected in his lively writing-style. His is not a book garnished with footnotes for the historian (though it has a good index) but for the general reader it provides an excellent introduction to the amazing and still largely unknown and unreported world of Central Asia. ANTHONY LAWRENCE Aleko E. Lilius. I Sailed with Chinese Pirates (Hong Kong Oxford University Press reprint 1991) 245 pp illus. As this is a re-print of a book first published in 1930 its relevance to present-day events is necessarily limited. The author, a United States citizen of Finnish origin, reveals himself as a journalist of extraordinary drive, pertinacity and courage but he is very much a creature of a pre-World War II colonial era when Western attitudes towards Chinese (even dangerous-looking pirates) were condescending and patronising in a way which reads quaintly today. Which is a pity, because with a different approach and greater knowledge of Cantonese and the coastal people of Southern China it might have been possible to produce a valuable study of the motives, pressures ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 2 July 7 July 16 Sept 5 October 7 October 21 October 11 November 9 December 10 December 16 December Rescue Archaeology in Hong Kong Mr S.T Chin (This was combined with a visit to the Antiquities & Monuments Office) Anthony Lawrence Retrospective (This was combined with a dinner at the China Club) The Coming Man 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese. Professor Philip Choy and Professor Marion Hom The Lowson Diary A Record of the Early Phase of the Bubonic Epidemic in Hong Kong in 1894 Professor G H Choa Two lectures on Vietnam. Dr Norman Owen and Dr Patrick Hase Hong Kong's Wild Places - Changes through the Centuries Mr Edward Stokes Disappearing Trades and Artisans of Old Hong Kong Shanghailanders. Colonial Attitudes and Informal Empire 1843-1943. Dr. R.A. Bickers Business in China An Historical Perspective (Held jointly with the South China Research Circle at the University of Science and Technology) Competition and Organisation A Re-examination of Chinese Business Practices Professor Gary Hamilton 1995 20 January 13 February 8 March A Case Study of a Chinese Funeral Dr. Dan Waters Ajanta Cave Paintings Mr Benoy K Behl Ancient Monuments of Angkor Then Preservation and Future Dr Richard Engelhardt Some of the lecturers are here this evening as guests of the Society and I hope you will re-introduce yourselves to us, and members will welcome them in our midst. And on the subject of lectures and visits the Council is always very receptive to ideas - not only ideas but offers to lead a visit. Lectures and activities are not however the only areas for which the Society is well known. We again make our views known to the public, we publish an annual journal, and the next one is likely to appear shortly: we celebrate anniversaries, and we will be bringing out a 35th anniversary publication, edited by Dr. Elizabeth Sinn entitled "Villages" with many original contributions by local members. We hopefully provide an impetus ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 205 Kendall, Elizabeth Kimball, A Wayfarer in China, Boston New York Houghton Mifflin, 1913 Kerby, Philip, Beyond the Bund, New York Payson Clarke, 1927 Knox, Thomas Wallace (1835-1896), Overland Through Asia. Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life, Chicago FS gilman, etc, 1871 The Boy Travellers in the Far East Part just. Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and China etc, New York and London Harper, 1898 Kranzler, David H, Japanese, Nazis and Jews. The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai 1938-1945, New York Yeshiva University Press, 1976 Lamberton, Mary, St John's University Shanghai, 1879-1951, New York United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955 Lamont, Florence, Far Eastern Diary 1920, New York Horizon Press, 1951 Latourette, Kenneth S, A History of Christian Missions in China, New York Macmillan, 1929 - Beyond the Ranges, an Autobiography, Grand Rapids. William Erdman Publishers, 1967 + Le Coy, Albert von, Buried Treasures of Chinese Turkestan, London Allen and Unwin, 1926 (Hong Kong Reprint. Oxford University Press) Levy, Howard Seymour, Chinese Foot Binding, London Neville Spearman, 1970 Lewisohn, William, China's Wild West A Road Trip of 5,000 Miles in a Motor Car, Shanghai North China Daily News and Herald, 1937 Leys, Simon, Chinese Shadows, London Penguin, 1974 Li, Anthony C, The History of Privately Controlled Higher Education in the Republic of China, Washington DC Catholic University of America Press, 1954, Westport, Conn Greenwood Press reprint, 1977 Liddell, T Hodgson (B1860), China Its Marvel and Mystery, London Allen, 1909 Lin-ch'ung (1791-1846), A Wild Swan's Frank the Havels of a Mandarin, translated by TC Lai, Hong Kong, 1978 Lau, Alicia Helen Neva (Bewicke) (d. 1926), My Diary in a Chinese Farm, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh, 1892 74pp - The Land of Blue Gown, London Unwin, 1902 + AMAMT 11 41 DL/ ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 118 (Liddell Hart 1999); "I suggested, and he appeared to agree, that it would be better to risk its loss by holding it too lightly than to strengthen it so much as to make it, morally, a "Verdun" or "Port Arthur" with great danger to our prestige if lost." 9 Some veterans complained about the lack of sympathy of London with colonial subjects, as evidenced in Colonel Anthony Hewitt's comments in his foreword to the work of Ko and Wordie (Ko and Wordie, 1996). Hewitt's passing comment is mild compared with the criticism of military historians of the allied countries. Vincent (1981) and Ferguson (1980), Cameron (1991) and most Chinese authors such as Yip (1982); Yuen (1988) and Tse (1995) criticised the British Government for being totally unprepared for the invasion of the Colony. The critical views expressed in English works in this period were pertinent to post-war claims for compensation by ex-servicemen in Commonwealth countries. The prevailing Chinese position is that Hong Kong should and could have been defended. An odd view is Tse (1995) who argued that Japan made a strategic mistake by taking the Colony, as it would serve no useful military purpose. Bell's archive research (Bell, 1996) established that Hong Kong was not treated as an outpost but "an integral component of an offensive strategy” based on faith in the superiority of the Royal Navy and the certainty of Hong Kong's relief. However, Bell's offensive strategy view is hardly consistent with the absence of fighters or bombers in the Colony before the outbreak of the Battle. "Britain did not have enough men, or enough guns, tanks, ships and aeroplanes for the war against Germany. So it was impossible to send sufficient men and supplies for the defence of Hong Kong. These included the men of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. These men - English, Chinese, Eurasians, Portuguese and others - whose homes were in Hong Kong, prepared to defend the Colony from attack.” (Stokes, 1965, p.89) Though it is highly questionable whether the Scottish, Canadian and Indian soldiers in the "others category" mentioned by Stokes would regard Hong Kong as their permanent homes, Stokes' description is ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 416 There is one further chapter to the Assam tea story. In 1907 the Japanese introduced Assam tea to their colony of Taiwan in an effort to protect the Japanese green tea industry. This concern was justified; since the first shipment of oolong from Taiwan to the USA in 1869 Formosa's tea industry grew rapidly. (Zeng interview) Assam tea is still grown in northern Taiwan and consumed in the Chinese manner and has become a connoisseur's item for the modern Taiwanese Epicurean item with Fine Aged Assam Tea from Danshui [Tamshui] fetching high prices. (Ho interview) REFERENCES Kit Chow and Ione Kramer, All the Tea in China, San Francisco, China Books and Periodicals, 1990. (Excellent reference with bilingual compendiums available at the Flagstaff Tea Museum) Jason Goodwin, The Gunpowder Gardens; Travels through India and China in Search of Tea, Penguin, 2003 (Originally published in 1990 this entertaining and well researched travel book lacks end notes and an index) Ho Chien, Ye Tang Tea Culture Research Institute, interview 8 Sept 03 Charles Gutzlaff, China Opened; or, a display of the topography, history, customs, manners, arts, manufactures, commerce, literature, religion, jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire, London, Smith, Elder, 1838. (The Reverend Karl Frederick August Gutzlaff, for whom a street is named in Hong Kong, acted as a translator for Jardine's opium transactions up and down the China coast in exchange for being permitted to proselytize after hours.) Susan Leiper, Precious Cargo. Scots and the China trade, National Museums of Scotland Publishing, Edinburgh, 1997. (A beautifully illustrated panegyric) Anthony Wild, The East India Company, trade and conquest from 1600, London, HarperCollins illustrated, 1999 Zeng Zhixian, author and China Times tea correspondent, interview 8 Sept 03 ================================================================================