RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 50 THE MORRISON LIBRARY AN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY COLLECTION IN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG DOROTHEA SCOTT. A.L.A. THE HISTORY The history of the Morrison Library goes back to 1806 when the members of the English Factory in Canton unanimously decided to establish a Library by subscription "comprising a moderate collection of works of acknowledged value and respectability; together with an annual contribution of all the most desirable new publications, which are at present, generally either not imported at all, or multiplied by unnecessary repetitions. . . It would be a library. . . far surpassing in extent, variety, and adaptation to general use, any collection that has hitherto been in possession of, or attempted to be formed by, any European in this country". The president of the select committee of members of the Factory granted a "very commodious" room for a library and by 1832 it contained 1600 different works in about 4000 volumes and a catalogue was published. The Library flourished until the withdrawal of the charter of the East India Company in 1834 and the break-up of the English factory. Just about this time, on the 1 August, 1834, occurred the death of the Rev. Robert Morrison, D.D., the first protestant missionary to China and well-known scholar. A circular dated 26 January, 1835 was distributed among the foreign residents in Canton and Macao suggesting the formation of the Morrison Education Society to carry on the work he had started and to be a "testimonial more enduring than marble or brass". The idea received considerable support, twenty-two signatures to the circular were obtained, the sum of $4,860 was subscribed and a provisional committee consisting of Sir George R. Robinson, bart., Messrs. William Jardine, David W. C. Olyphant, Lancelot Dent, John Robert Morrison (Robert Morrison's son who had succeeded his father as Chinese Secretary and Interpreter to His Majesty's Commission in China) and the Rev. E. C. Bridgman was formed to act until a general meeting of the subscribers in China could be convened to form a board of trustees. The Chinese Repository, a monthly magazine in English, had been founded in 1832 by Morrison and Bridgman. It gave its support to the foundation of the Society and in the number for June 1835, it published the details given above, saying, "We have been led to make these remarks by a desire to suggest to the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 127 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH List of Members at 28th February, 1961. ABRAHAM, R. D. Aide-de-Camp AKERS JONES, D. Allen, H. W. ALLEYNE, Mrs. E. L. BAIRD, J. W. BARD, Dr. S. M. BARNETT, K. M. A. BARON, D. W. B. BARR, J. S. BASTO, G. de BARTON, T. The Hon. H. D. M. BAUER, Miss H. BEIDLER, P. BERTUCCIOLI, G. P. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. L. BLACKMORE, M. BLUNDEN, Prof. E. C. BONSALL, G. W. BRAGA, J. M. BRAWN, Squadron Ldr. W. N. H. BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BRIMMELL, J. H. BROOKS, D. E. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. BUSH, R. C. BYRNE, D. J. CALLAHAN, G. W. CHAN, Dr. H. C. CHAU, The Hon. Sir Tsun-Nin CHENG, Dr. Irene CHENG, T. C. CHEUNG, Oswald 41 Island Road, Deep Water Bay, H.K.Government House, H.K. N. Kowloon Magistracy, Taipo Road, Kln.U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. H.K.U.Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., H.K. H.K.U.P.O. Box 248, H.K. 361 The Peak, H.K.Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. 604 Fu House, 7 Ice House Street, H.K.Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., H.K. U.S.L.S., U.S. Consulate-General, H.K.U.S. Embassy, Saigon, Vietnam Ministero degli Esteri, RomeFar East Mansions, Apt. 5-H, Kln. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., Alexandra House, H.K.Dept. of History, H.K.U. H.K.U.P.O. Box 951, H.K. Air Headquarters, H.K.86 Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Flat 4, 12 Magazine Gap Road, H.K. Radio Hong Kong86 Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Tao Fong Shan, Shatin, N.T.China Light & Power Co., Ltd., Argyle Street, Kln. Apt. 23, Kellett Grove, The Peak, H.K.Bank of Canton Building, H.K. 8 Queen's Road West, H.K.Education Dept., Fung House, 5th fl., H.K. S.C.A. Fire Brigade Building, H.K.1002 Alexandra House, H.K. Page 127 Page 127 Page 127 Page 128 Page 128 Page 128 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 100 J. W. HAYES exerts itself with unprecedented vigour and hardihood in local affairs. No dispute arises but one or more of these social pests thrusts himself forward between the contending parties, and no fraud on the revenue or wholesale extortion is free from their similar influence". Lockhart (through Governor Blake) says that the New Territory's literati "have hitherto lived by irregular "squeezes" from the people" and he blamed the opposition to British rule to them and to "gamblers and bad characters banished from Hong Kong" and not to the people who were incited by the gentry and elders. See Papers 1899 pp. 520 and 554. 26 Papers 1899 p. 194. 27 Papers 1899 p. 554. 28 Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, about 1900) p. 121. 29 These affected the coastal and riverine regions of Kwangtung. See C. F. Neumann's Translations from the Chinese and Armenian with notes. 1. History of the pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray 1831). This includes, pp. 97-125, a very interesting account of an enforced stay of eleven weeks and three days with the pirate fleet in 1809 by Richard Glasbrooke, the mate of an East Indiaman. The pirates spent a considerable time on and near Lantau, which must have suffered from their depredations. The clan record of the HO family of San Tsuen, Pui O, on the south side of the island mentions pirate raids and a decision to fortify the village with walls which can still be seen, with several embrasures for cannon. Piracy continued until a much later date. The Cheung Chau police station was attacked and burnt in 1912, necessitating its removal and enlargement, one of the Cheung Chau ferries was pirated in 1923, and in 1925 a band of sixty robbers from the Delta entered Tai O by way of Po Chue Tam creek, killed a woman and made off with young men and a fair amount of booty without any difficulty. The Police Station is situated at the other end of the town and knew nothing of the attack until it was over. See Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories 1912, 1923 and 1925. 30 Papers 1899 p. 528. 31 Foreign Office Report 1606 on Trade of Canton 1894. 32 Salt was smuggled into China from Tai O as the government monopoly and price ring made it profitable to do so. See also Enclosure D to Sir Matthew Nathan's despatch No. 59 of 11 January 1905 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway which mentions rice smuggling from Shum Chun and Deep Bay into Hong Kong. The export of rice from China was forbidden, and checked by the Imperial Maritime Customs. **F O Trade Report No. 1778 for 1895. 34 F O Trade Report No. 1983 for 1896. 33 Papers 1899, p. 540. Brenan, with his thirty-two years' service wrote feelingly "The Chinaman is happiest who never sees an official, who does not even know the name of one". J N CBRAS XXXII (1897-98) 37. 31 Foreign Office Trade Report for Canton No. 1606 for 1894. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 102 J. W. HAYES there are sometimes several. As a general rule they are small buildings, but the major clans have constructed large high spacious buildings with several courtyards and side rooms. Among the largest in the New Territories are the ancestral temples of branches of the TANG clan at Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen near Yuen Long. These are fine and impressive buildings but are not, unfortunately, kept in good repair. Much of the opposition to the British troops in 1898 was planned in the ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Beside the Ping Shan hall there is a school/library building, now used as a private residence. 53 The reason is always said to be lack of funds though I suspect a lack of leadership is also a prime factor. The clan usually waits until something is seriously wrong, by which time it is often too late; a storm completes the ruination. There seems to be some truth in this as I have found newly built ancestral halls in several villages, e.g. the CHEUNG ancestral hall at Lo Wai, Pui O which was rebuilt in 1960 on a new site, the old one having been in ruins for twenty years. 54 Clan worship at the graves still goes on, but is much more informal than in 1898. Mr. TANG Kiu-fong of Fui Sha Wai, a retired schoolmaster, previously quoted, who was born in 1894, tells me that when he was a boy the ceremony was taken very seriously. Everyone wore the long robe, elders were carried to the graves in sedan chairs, and male members of the clan were drawn up in ranks by generations and worshipped in strict seniority, under the direction of a master of ceremonies. 55 These ancestral obligations often imposed considerable inconvenience and up to several days' travel for the whole family. Mr. CHEUNG Yau of Tai Ping village, North Lamma, (b. 1883) tells me that his grandfather settled on Lamma Island from his native village of Wai Tau in the Lam Tsuen valley in the present Tai Po district. Ever since he can remember, and until old age interfered with visits a few years ago, he has gone back to his ancestral village at least three times a year, as dictated by custom. For the first twenty-five years there was no railway and his family used to go by junk to Kowloon and walk the rest of the way, children included. Others went further afield. Mr. LAM Shue Chun, Chairman of the Peng Chau Rural Committee, told me that his family went regularly to their ancestral village of Nam Leng Wai in Po On, north of the border, and were interrupted in their journeys first by the Japanese and latterly by the Communists. He has been twice since 1942 and an uncle has been visiting fairly regularly up to last year. The family travelled to Kowloon by junk, then used the railway and had a long walk from Sham Chon Market. Sometimes there was no need to go from home as contact had been lost with the ancestral village which was too far away. 56 They were full at any time. There is an interesting count of travel on the Colony's border roads and the Shum Chun ferries taken 11th and 12th December 1905 in Enclosure E to Despatch No. 59 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway already quoted. The first was a market day, when the count of persons, with and without goods, roughly doubled the figures for the second, or ordinary day. On the two main ferries, for instance, the count on December 11 was with goods 1126, without goods 1379 and on the Shum Chun-Sha Tau Kok road 521 and 1302. On the day following the figures were 468 and 1124, and 158 and 550 respectively. At New Year and the two grave festivals the number must have been very much increased. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 128 CHAN, Dr. H. C. - CHAN, Hok-lam, William CHAU, Hon. Sir Tsun-nin CHENG, T. C... CHEONG-LEEN, Hilton · CHEUNG, Oswald - CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph CHIU, Ling-yeong CHOA, Dr. Gerald H.- CLARK, Mrs. N. E. COHN, Dr. A. J.- COLE, Martin + CRANMER-BYNG, J. L. CUMINE, E. · - + T Bank of Canton Building, 5th floor, H.K. c/o Dept. of History, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, Shatin, New Territories, 8, Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong. c/o S.C.A., Fire Brigade Building H.K. G.P.O. Box 584, 310 Yu To Sang Bldg., Hong Kong. 1002, Alexandra House, Hong Kong. 9, Village Road, 1st floor, Hong Kong. c/o U.S. Consulate-General, 26 Garden Road, H.K. 167, Yee Kuk Street, 3rd floor, Shumshuipo, Kowloon. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. c/o H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. 116, Leighton Road, Leisham Court, 6/F., "F", Hong Kong. 16, Conduit Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 14, Embassy Court, Hong Kong. CUMMING, Mount Stephen e/o Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Union DAIKO, Paul - T DAVIES, Miss Ann Carol DAVIS, Dr. S. G.- DEANS PEGGS, Dr. A. - DENNYS, Miss Sylvia M. DJOU, G. G. - DONOHUE, Hon. Peter DRAKE, Mrs. F. S. DRAKE, Prof. F. S. L House. L P. O. Box 201, Hong Kong. ■ J L + DRAKEFORD, Louis Samuel DUNCANSON, J. D. - + DUNT, Percy EDWARDS, O. P. ENDACOTT, G. B. ENGEL, Dr. D. - 2, Friston, 15, Old Peak Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography and Geology, Hong Kong University, c/o Education Department, Battery Path, Hong Kong. c/o Economic Survey Section, 804 Man Yee Bldg., H.K. c/o American International Assnce. Co., Ltd. 12/14 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong. Education Department, Battery Path, H.K. 92 Bonham Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Chinese, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. 25, Chatham Road, 11th floor, Front, Kin. c/o Barclays Bank (D.C.O.), 1 Cockspur Street, London, S.W.1. England. P. O. Box 94, Hong Kong. c/o Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. Dept. of History, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. 542 Alexandra House, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAO 11 Company doing in Portuguese territory? Why did the Protestants need a separate cemetery? What is the significance of the date 1814? These are but a sample of the problems that these few words pose. The first Europeans to set up permanent maritime contacts with the Chinese were the Portuguese, and by 1557 they had been granted permission to settle on a small peninsula of the delta island of Heung Shan. This peninsula, covering an area of only about five square miles, thus became the first permanent European trading base in China. Later came the Dutch, the Spanish and the British traders and navigators; the first and the second of these national groups eventually made their oriental headquarters elsewhere, but the British, through their highly organized East India Company, were more persistent and more successful as far as trade with the mainland of China was concerned. But the China of those days was, in the eyes of her own people, the centre of the universe, and all those who lived outside the confines of her ancient and well-tested civilization were considered barbarians. They could only be admitted inside the fold as tribute bearers to the Imperial Court to receive the ethical instruction of the Son of Heaven, and were then sent back home. When such admissions were allowed, portals of entry were carefully chosen and rigidly controlled, and in the case of sea-faring people, the port appointed was Canton, situated ninety miles up the river from Macao, and thus the barbarians were kept as far as possible from the sacred heart of the Middle Kingdom. But even at Canton there were further restrictions, geographical as well as political. The ships could only get up as far as Whampoa, which was the deep-sea port for Canton, and about eleven miles down river from it. The foreign merchants were allowed to go on to Canton itself but they had to reside in a place set apart outside the city—the Factories; nor could they remain there permanently; the length of residence permitted was determined by the time it took to dispose of the cargo brought in their ships and to load the return cargo of silk or tea. The time of the year at which these operations took place was determined by the monsoon; foreign trade was therefore completely seasonal—from September to March approximately, and as soon ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 12 LINDSAY RIDE as the season was over all foreigners had to leave Canton and return to their barbarian homes. It mattered not to the Chinese officials that it was a physical impossibility for the foreigners to go to their homes on the other side of the world and be back again in time for the next trading season. When the ships sailed from Whampoa, the Factories at Canton closed, and the merchant staff called Writers, Factors and Supercargoes, all left too. They went as far as Macao, and while the cargo laden ships sailed on to Europe, the merchants waited there for the coming of the next season's ships. One other restriction that we must mention is that no European women were allowed to go up river at all, so the annual expulsion of the men from Canton was really not so very hard to bear for most people. It meant reunion with one's wife and family for those married men whose families were in Macao, and the pleasure of European female company for the bachelors. Macao was thus the foreigners' home away from home. They worked strenuously in isolation in Canton while the season lasted, and then between seasons they repaired to the more natural abode of the families in the only equivalent of a health and holiday resort that the Far East then knew. Social life in Macao was strenuous, especially for women folk who were few in number; many of the men were either bachelors or grass widowers and for approximately six months in each year, they had very little official work to do at all; at any rate this was certainly true for the juniors. Another significant fact which had important implications was that the Chinese, at the time of which I speak, recognized only one foreign official body other than the Portuguese- namely the British East India Company, and they made all the official contacts with the other nationalities through the controlling body of this Company in Canton -the Select Committee. As may well be imagined, this situation led to difficulties between the British and the various other foreign communities whose trade with China had increased tremendously towards the end of the eighteenth century. This was particularly true of the new maritime power, the United States of America. After their independence, the Americans were naturally no longer willing to depend on the British shipping for their foreign trade; Britain made it particularly difficult for them to retain any of their trade with their former sister colonies in the West Indies, and they were thus forced to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v BOOK REVIEWS 137 It is therefore a delight to read such a work as Mr. Cranmer-Byng's An Embassy to China. Produced by an historian, and one moreover who combines integrity with an uncommon knowledge of the East, this book is indispensable to an understanding today of the problems that East and West have inherited in their dealings with one another. The main body of the book consists of the Journal kept by Lord Macartney on his embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung in 1793. He describes his journey to Peking, beyond the Great Wall to Jehol, and back by the Grand Canal and by river to Canton. There follow a series of "observations", compiled by Macartney from his own shrewd judgment and from data supplied by members of his entourage, on subjects such as the Manners, Religion, Government, Population, Arts and Sciences, Language etc. of China under the Ch'ing Dynasty. The first 58 pages of the book contain an Introduction by the editor, in which he comments on early Anglo-Chinese relations, paints a brief biographical picture of Lord Macartney, and discusses the embassy, the manner of its reception, and its results. The final pages of the Introduction lead up to the Journal itself, its style, content and the method used by the diarist in compiling such a detailed account of his mission - an account written by a professional diplomat, skilled at seeing behind the facade, patient in negotiation, lucid in recollection and description. Looking back today from our vantage point in time nearly two hundred years later, it is easy to see that Macartney was given an impossible task. Remote in her geographical isolation and sublimely ignorant of world affairs, China had sealed herself for centuries in a false cocoon of imagined cultural superiority. The eighteenth century was both too late and too early for any European power to overcome the supreme complacency of the Imperial Court and Government. From the mid-sixteen hundreds onwards, Western nations, notably the Dutch, the Russians and the Portuguese had sent embassies to China, but all had failed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 150 BOYD, J. D. I. BRAGA, J. M. - BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BRUUN, F. - A-1 9th Floor, 2 Oaklands Path, H.K. - P. O. Box 951, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Fisheries Research Station. The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen. Radio Hong Kong, Rodney Block, G/F., Wellington Barracks, H.K. 908, Takshing House, H.K. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. - 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. BYRNE, D. J. - CALCINA, P. G. * CHAN, Dr. H. C. - CHAN, Hok-lam CHAN, Leonard + CHAU, Hon. Sir T. N. *- CHAU, Wah-ching CHENG, T. C.. CHEONG-LEEN, Hilton + c/o China Light & Power Co., Ltd. Argyle St., Kowloon. Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th Floor, H.K. Bank of Canton Building, H.K. c/o Department of History, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. c/o Pâzer Corporation, G.P.O. 323, H.K. 8, Queen's Road, West, H.K. English Department, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. United College of H.K., Bonham Road, H.K. G.P.O. Box 584, 310 Yu To Sang Building, H.K. CHESTERMAN, Prof. W. D. 4 Felix Villas, Pokfulum, H.K. CHEUNG, O. CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph - CHIU, Miss B. T. CHIU, Ling-yeong CHOA, Dr. G. H. CHOW, Edward T. CLARK, Mrs. N. E. COHN, Dr. A. J. - COLE, M. 1002, Alexandra House, H.K. 9, Village Road, 1st Floor, H.K. c/o U.S. Consulate-General, 26 Garden Road, H.K. Department of Botany, The University, H.K. 167, Yee Kuk Street, 3rd Floor, Shumshuipo, Kowloon. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. 3 Village Terrace, Happy Valley, H.K. 71, Peak Road, H.K. 116, Leighton Road, Lei Shun Court, 6th Floor, "F", H.K. 16, Conduit Road, H.K. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v LAI, T. C. LAMBIE, Dr. J. LANYON-ORGILL, Dr. P. A. - LAU, Wai-mai - LAW, Chung-kam LAWRY, R. E. LEE, H. W. - LEE, J. S. LEE, Hon. R. C. LEFEVOUR, Dr. E. LEHMANN, Miss I. H. LEMARE, J. R. LI, Dr. T. Y.* LINDSAY, Mrs. B. E. - LINDSAY, T. J. LIU, D. H. LIU, Dr. T. Y. LLEWELLYN, J. LO, Chin-tang LO, T. S.* LOSEBY, Miss P. - LOTHROP, F. B.* LUCAS, Col. E. S. S. LUM, Miss A. + • - - Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, H.K.U. 155 c/o Director of Medical & Health Services, Tower Court, Hysan Avenue, H.K. Brentwood College, Cobble Hill P.O., Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada. Institute of Oriental Studies, The University, H.K. Victoria Heights, 43-A, Stubbs Road, Flat 1-A, H.K. The British Council, First Floor, Gloucester Building, H.K. 604 Edinburgh House, H.K. 604 Edinburgh House, H.K. Lee Hysan Estate Co., Ltd., 604 Edinburgh House, H.K. Dept. of History, The University, H.K. 15-A, Magazine Gap Road, H.K. c/o Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. 1c-3c Broom Road, H.K. 26, Severn Road, The Peak, H.K. c/o Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. c/o The American Consul, 26 Garden Road, H.K. c/o Faculty of Oriental Studies, Australian National University, Box 197, Post Office, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia, Dept. of Geography & Geology, The University, H.K. Department of Chinese, The University, HK. c/o Lo and Lo, Jardine House, 7th Floor, H.K. c/o Russ & Co., Bank of Canton Building, 6 Des Voeux Road, Central, H.K. c/o Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass., U.S.A. 94, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. 142, Boundary Street, Kowloon. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ! I - ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 9 JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON During the cessation of trade at Canton 1839 The manuscript of this Journal was discovered in the library of the Boston Athenaeum by Professor E. W. Ellsworth, who transcribed it and sent it as a contribution to the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Although it is not possible to claim categorically that it is by W. C. Hunter it is felt that it is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of this period and therefore worthy of publication in its own right. The Introduction by Professor E. W. Ellsworth is followed by the transcription of the actual Journal with added notes contributed by Sir Lindsay T. Ride and J. L. Cranmer-Byng. INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL E. W. ELLSWORTH William C. Hunter of New York traveled to China in 1824. For the next two years as a necessary prelude to a business career he studied Chinese at the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Thereafter he was employed by Thomas H. Smith and Son until the company ceased operation in China in 1827. Hunter then returned to the United States but he had been fascinated with the Far East and went back within a few months. In 1829 he joined Russell and Company and remained with the firm in China for fourteen years. Hunter's associates in this largest and most famous American trading association in China were A. A. Low of Salem, Massachusetts and later Brooklyn, New York, who diligently amassed a magnificent fortune and also Robert Bennett Forbes and Joseph Coolidge members of illustrious New England families. The comfortable existence and, indeed, complacency of Hunter and the foreign commercial community at Canton was rudely shaken by developments in early 1839 which were the opening salvos of the Opium War. The longstanding problem of opium traffic in China arose with a new intensity that was sparked by dedicated reformers. Drug addiction was a fairly widespread vice compounded by economic overtones; foreigners ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 19 keep us prisoners in Canton. From the different boats are displayed the various triangular and square flags of different colors of the officers in command. At night the soldiers keep up an incessant blowing of conch shells and beating of gongs while all on guard cry out continually the watch words “K'an-Ch'o” and “Tseaou-Ch'o” which mean "look sharp"."7 The coolies have another word which they cry out at intervals, "An-Tsou" which means "morning".18 Thus is our guard disposed in front. Behind the Factories from one extremity of them to the other, on both sides [of] the street (which runs along the rear) are stationed infantry with matchlocks and cartouch boxes. The Consoo House is turned into quarters for the officers whose horses are picketed in the area inside the building. Our entire guard of all sorts consists of between one thousand and twelve hundred men. If it was not for the mysterious and peculiar circumstances under which we are situated we might laugh at the resources the foreigners are driven to, to obtain fresh food, while some are seen carrying bundles of clothes to the end of China Street where they are taken by the linguist who marks them and sends them to be washed and returns them clean in the same manner. Gilman and Spooner contrived yesterday to get into one of the back streets and bought a side of mutton which they brought home on a bamboo. Last night all the boats remaining in the boat houses were hauled on shore in the middle of the Square. Many received great injury by the rough way in which they were handled. The Chinese have also unshipped the rudders and unbent the sails from four schooners lying in front of the Factories, the Alpha, Sylph, Breeze, Rover. At 12 today Houqua's servant came in with two coolies bringing a roasted leg of mutton and some boiled potatoes wrapped up in paper. We hear today that a Chinese who was taken yesterday at Ta-Sha-Tow on his way to Macao with a foreign letter found on his person was tortured to death. We can not learn whose letter it was. A Chinese girl who was also on the boat is in prison. This being Sunday nothing has been done between the foreign consuls and the Chinese authorities, but while we were at dinner ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 23 between 40 and 50 vessels now lying in Macao Roads all detained there for want of communication with Canton. He saw Talbot there who told him that the two American men-of-war were daily expected. Just before he arrived in Canton, Old Tom showed me a letter he had a few moments before received from Alantsae, dated Heang-shan25 (22 of the Chinese moon), day before yesterday. He states that he and the mandarins and soldiers with Johnston and Thom under their charge arrived there last evening and intended to start again for Macao yesterday morning. They probably reached there last night in which case the delivery of the opium to the mandarins may commence tomorrow, and we are in hopes to have our servants, compradore and coolies back by Thursday next. It is just two weeks tonight since the mandarins drove them from the factories. Achun states that at Macao everything is very quiet as yet but no Chinese, under a severe penalty, is allowed to approach them. We are guarded as strictly as ever, no person is permitted to leave the Square in front of the Factories. The Commissioner sent a communication today to Captain Elliot in which he proposes a sort of bond to be given by all foreigners for their signature in which they must bind themselves to abstain ever after from the opium trade here, and to agree to suffer death if after six months from this time any one is discovered selling it, and requires also that the crews of vessels bringing it here shall be strangled and the vessel and cargo be confiscated to government. It also expressly demands that all opium which may arrive here within six months be delivered up to the Chinese government. It is needless to say that nothing can compel us to sign such a bond as this. Inspite of our uncertain situation it is ridiculous at times to notice in what position we are placed without a servant, cook or coolie; everyone of course has to look out for himself. This morning after nine I went to Elmslie's house. He is secretary to Elliot, and I found him and his brother and Morrison26, Elliot's interpreter, in the kitchen in their sleeping trousers and shirts, cleaning shoes and procuring water to wash and shave. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 31 posted off to Captain Elliot and told him he considered his life in danger and begged protection. Captain E immediately gave a warrant to Mr. Youle, an officer belonging to the Reliance (at Whampoa), and despatched him with four sailors belonging to the Larne, to bring the two who attacked Mr. Goldsborough before him. On reaching the Factory they were refused admittance and threatened to be fired into if they tried to attempt an entrance. Mr. Youle and his men, who were unarmed, went back with this to Captain E who told them not to arm but to go once more and try persuasion. When Mr. Y reached Knock's Factory it appears he supposed Youle and his men were armed and consequently surrendered. On going into the room they found two pair of loaded pistols, a couple of cutlasses, and a loaded musket lying on the table quite ready to be used. They were seized at once and are now lodged prisoners inside Captain E.'s Factory. We have farce and tragedy alternately. This morning Captain E received a Chop from the Commissioner which stated that smuggling was going on outside the Bogue and contained much abusive language. The Kwang Chow Foo, Nam Hoy, and Pwan Yu also came out to the Consoo House with another Chop from the Commissioner insisting upon the bonds which we hoped had been forgotten43. The orders for them were addressed to Elliot, Snow, and Van Basil. They all refused to grant them. Elliot was so enraged at this that before Houqua's face he tore the Commissioner's Chop into a thousand pieces and threw it into the fireplace. Tho' matters begin to look gloomy again we had a bit of fun in the Square. The officers who came out to the Consoo House were attended by several on horseback. These alighted at the Consoo House and their horses were led into the Square. The groom of one, having no idea that it would be accepted, offered it jokingly to an Englishman named Glenn for a ride. Glenn immediately jumped on his back and off he went all full gallop around the Square. The Chinese were frightened half to death and utterly incapable of action. The scene was ludicrous in the extreme, the high saddle, immense basket stirrups and Glenn in a white jacket, cap and stick flying from one end of the Square to the other made us quite a good bit of fun. Today the compradore, cooks and coolies, Mr. Green's, Mr. King's and my own servant came and remained all day. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 37 NOTES ON HUNTER'S JOURNAL J. L. CRANMER-BYNG and Sir LINDSAY T. RIDE 1 Snow. Peter Wanten Snow, Consul for the United States in Canton. He surrendered the opium in American possession as demanded by Commissioner Lin, and was ready to promise that Americans would cease importing opium, but refused to have anything to do with the bond as the penalties were too severe. (See also note 43, bond.) (L.T.R.) 2 Mr. Forbes. Joined the American firm of Russell & Co. in Canton in October 1838, became a partner 1 January 1839 and eventually was made chief of the house. Robert Bennett Forbes (1804-1889), first arrived in China in 1817. After some years back in the States he returned to China in October 1838 and was admitted a partner of Russell & Co., China on 1 January 1839. He retired in 1844 but had an interest in the firm till 1857. (L.T.R.) 3 Mr. Green. John C. Green of Trenton, New Jersey, first went to China as an agent of N.L. & G. Griswold. In 1834 he was admitted a partner of Russell & Co., China, and retired to New York on 31st December 1839. At the time of the disturbances he was Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Canton. He died in 1875. (L.T.R.) 4 Mr. Delano. Warren Delano, Jr. of Fairhaven, Mass., came to China 1834 to join the house of Russell, Sturgis & Co., of Canton and Manila. He was a partner of Russell & Co., China for two terms, 1 January 1840 to 31 December 1846, and January 1861 to 31 December 1866. He was a great-uncle of ex-President F. D. Roosevelt. (L.T.R.) 5 Mr. King. This is most likely to be Edward King of Newport, R.I., who was taken into the firm of Russell & Co., as a clerk on his arrival at Canton in 1834 in the Silas Richards. On 1 July 1834 he became a partner and retired in 1842 to Newport where he died in 1876. There was a Charles W. King of Olyphant & Co. in Canton at the time, but as this firm had nothing to do whatsoever with opium, he may not have been confined to the Factory. (L.T.R.) 6 Mr. Low. Abiel Abbott Low (1811-1893) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and became a leading figure in both the New York and China shipping world. He first worked as a clerk in shipping firms in Salem and in New York and then went to China in 1833 as a clerk in Russell & Co. of which house his uncle, Wm. Henry Low, had been head for some years. He was made a partner in 1837, retired to New York where he founded the firm of A.A. Low & Brothers, famous for its clipper fleet. In 1863 he was President of the New York Chamber of Commerce. (L.T.R.) 7 Spooner. Daniel Nicholson Spooner of Plymouth, Mass. was at this time a clerk in Russell & Co., Canton. He became a partner in January 1843 and retired to Boston on 31 December 1845. He returned to China again as a partner in January 1852, finally retiring in 1857. (L.T.R.) 8 Gilman. Joseph Taylor Gilman of Exeter, New Hampshire, joined Russell & Co., Canton as a Clerk about the same time as Spooner. His dates of partnership and retirement were the same, too, as Spooner's. (L.T.R.) 9 Mouqua. Also spelt Mowqua in pidgin English. His official name as Hong merchant was Lu Ch'i-kuang Lu Wen-wei✰✰ The suffix "qua" signifies "an official". (J.L.C.-B.) and his family name was (kuan in mandarin) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 39 was persuaded to join the firm of Baring Brothers & Co. In 1873 he became senior partner of the house, finally retiring in 1882. (L.T.R.) 24 Lin Tse-hsü's fate. Hunter long survived Commissioner Lin. Lin Tse-hsü was dismissed from office in 1840 and later sentenced to exile in Ili in Chinese Turkistan, where he remained for three years. He was allowed to return to Peking in 1845. He later served as Governor-General of Yunnan and Kweichow, and retired from office in 1849. He died in 1850 at the age of sixty-seven. (J.L.C.B.) 25 Heang-shan (Heungshan). Former name of the District in which Macao lies. Re-named Chung-shan in honour of Sun Yat-sen. (J.L.C-B.) 26 Morrison. John Robert Morrison (1814-1843) was born in Macao, the second son of Dr. Robert Morrison and his first wife Mary (née Morton). He had some schooling in England but at the age of twelve he came back to Canton with his father in 1826. He became a fluent Cantonese speaker as well as a Chinese scholar, and on the death of his father in 1834 was appointed Chinese Secretary to H.M.'s Commission in China. In 1838 he became, in addition, Interpreter, and in 1841 succeeded Elmslie as Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendent of British Trade in China. In 1843 he was appointed Chinese Secretary and member of the Executive Council of the newly founded Colony of Hong Kong and was recommended for appointment, by the Governor, as Colonial Secretary. Before the appointment was approved, however, he died in Macao in August 1843, and was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery there. (L.T.R.) 27 Kwang Chow Foo. Kuang-chou fu The Prefect of the Prefecture of which Canton was the chief city. (J.L.C-B.) 28 Kam Hay Hue. No such title. But I suspect Hunter intended to indicate the Namhoi Hien which title was sometimes written Nam Hoy Hien. See note 14. (J.L.C-B.) 29 Pwan Yu Hue. Also written Punyu Hien. The magistrate having jurisdiction over the eastern part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included Whampoa and the foreign shipping there. (J.L.C-B.) 30 Fearon, Samuel Turner Fearon was the second son of Christopher Fearon and Elizabeth Noad who were married on 14 May 1818 at the Streatham Parish Church. His father served as a midshipman at the Battle of Trafalgar and after being discharged from the Royal Navy he joined the Honourable East India Company's marine service. In this service he made a number of voyages to Canton and when he decided to take a shore posting there he brought his wife and family out with him. Samuel became a fluent Cantonese speaker and in 1838 was appointed Interpreter to the Canton General Chamber of Commerce. After the cession of Hong Kong he was appointed interpreter and clerk of the Chief Magistrate's Court and a couple of months later were added the duties of Notary Public and Coroner. Three years later he was appointed Assistant Magistrate of Police and on 1st January 1845 he became Registrar General and Collector of Revenue. In July 1845 he was granted a year's sick leave and while in England he was appointed Professor of Chinese at King's College, London, an appointment which he held from December 1846 until December 1852. (L.T.R.) 31 Van Basel. Magdalenus Jacobus Senn van Basel, born in Groningen, Holland on 27 September 1808, was appointed clerk in the Dutch Consulate at Canton in 1826, and Vice-Consul in November 1831. He was later in partnership with G. M. Toe Laer and P. Tiedenan in the firm of Senn van Basel & Toe Laer & Co. In 1848 he became Collector General of Taxes ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 43 as a humble amateur I appeal humbly to the professionals for assistance; and, much less humbly, to other amateurs to take over the gathering of data on Hong Kong before the Chinese.* By Hong Kong, I mean that southern part of the district now known as Po On,1 previously known as San On,122 and still earlier included within Tung Kwun,31 or partly within Tung Kwun and partly within Kwai Shin,60 which today comprises the Colony and leased territory of Hong Kong. By Chinese, I mean such of the inhabitants (and ancestors of the inhabitants) of that territory as would not have been described in a contemporary official document by one of the terms used for non-Chinese, i.e. I Ti Jung Man.67 If this definition appears negative it cannot be helped, since Chinese literature itself does not, until modern times, contain any word which corresponds to our word "Chinese", but has always had several terms for what might be called "Non-Chinese". Although one Chinese-type grave, said to date from the Han151 Dynasty, has been found in New Kowloon, and although one small Buddhist temple has behind it the foundation of a previous structure said to date from the Tsin158 Dynasty, there is no evidence of Chinese settlement before the end of the Tang.139 Up to and including the Tang Dynasty all the inhabitants, and up to the Yuan Dynasty most of the inhabitants of what is now the Colony and leased territory of Hong Kong are described, if described at all, as Man.88 The two Chinese clans with the longest records of continuous local residence (the Tang44 of Kam Tin,56 Lung Yeuk Tau7 and Ping Shan; and the Man of San Tin125 and Cha Hang11) go back indisputably to early Sung;132 and their traditions, to which I shall be referring again, speak of two other clans (Mo5 and Chan17) having been before them. The oldest building, except the temple previously mentioned, of which there is evidence, is the fort of Tuen Mun141 built in the Nan Han99 (Canton) Dynasty in A.D. 958. Another document refers to the appointment of a military commander of Tuen Mun in A.D. 954. I cannot be assailed if I say "Anything before A.D. 900 is, for this territory, before the Chinese." The Frame. The natural question to be asked is "Before the Chinese, who?" Before I attempt to answer this question, there *All local place names are given in the Cantonese pronunciation. Notes giving Chinese characters and romanization in the Barnett-Chao system are given at the end of the article.—Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r NOTES AND QUERIES 151 evacuation (1662-1669). But it is certain that Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan had a share in the incense trade which terminated with the evacuation. Wild incense trees can still be found but the art of making incense sticks has vanished. The ancestors of the people living in the valley may have migrated into the area from the north in 1669 but the area has been, until recently, notorious for occurrences of malaria which claimed heavy tolls. The entire population may have been completely wiped out several times, as the oldest of the families has a family history of no more than seven generations. Tung Chung came into the limelight again when Cheung Pao Tsai and his pirate band who had been using the bay as one of their bases to prey upon the coastal trade of the South China Sea, successfully repelled a Ching naval contingent after a ten-day battle in the Ping Chung Bay in the twelfth year of Chia Ching's reign (1807). The trouble was finally quelled in 1809 when Cheung Pao Tsai surrendered and his pirates were disbanded. 2 With the suppression of the pirates, trade flourished. The Viceroy at Canton petitioned the Ch'ing Government in 1817 saying that "Ta Yu Shan of San On District, an isolated island, is on the (trade) route of the ships of the "barbarians". Tung Chung and Tai O are the only places where these "barbarian" ships can anchor. A fort at Chi Yi Kok2 with a Captain(?) and soldiers from the Tai Pang Camp has been maintained but there is no garrison at Tung Chung. As the two places are very far apart, eight garrison houses should be built at the mouth of the Tung Chung Rivers and two batteries (the fort), seven garrison houses and one arsenal should be constructed on the foot of Shek Shee ShanJ. "6 The petition was accepted and the work was completed in the same year. Whether the work was carried out as requested by the Viceroy has still to be proved. However, the fort has been relatively well preserved and seven old 2 Fan Lau (), 24 miles from Tai O. 3 Nan Tau (南頭), Po On District, 15 miles to the north of Lantau. 4 The distance is 6 miles across the main watershed and about 9 miles along the coast. 5 The idea was to prevent the "barbarians" from drawing fresh water for their ships. 6 Kwangtung Annals (廣東通志), p. 2,530. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r NOTES AND QUERIES 153 the cultivation of all plants whose names are qualified by the prefix faan," used for immigrants such as the tomato, the guava, the rambutan, one kind of melon, and the sweet potato. The peanut is not so qualified and it would appear that the prefix faan is used only for importations from the Pacific. The peanut bears no indication of foreign origin in its name. I do not know what it is called in the various dialects of Fukien, but Chinese books of reference refer to it as lok fa shang. The Cantonese name is fa shang, which is clearly an abbreviation of the former, while the Hakka name is ti tiu, which means earth bean. Again it might be of some assistance if there could be recorded the names by which this plant has been known both in Arabia and in other countries of the Middle and Far East to which the Arabs introduced it. Another introduction, perhaps better described as a reintroduction, was the lemon. It would appear that the first Arab traders on their admission to Canton at the end of the sixth century took back with them the seeds of a plant then described in Chinese as yi mo (itself clearly a non-Han name) and from that plant developed and cultivated the now well-known lemon-shaped lemon which they called by the name Al-Laimûn which is the old Chinese name arabized by the common ending -n and the initial slurred with the definite article. The Cantonese then re-borrowed the Arabic name in the form of ning mung12 which we still use. Another Arabic word which was introduced into the language of Canton was the word amah, now familiar in the meaning of a Chinese female servant employed by a foreign family, which has nothing to do with the Cantonese word for grandmother2 but is a word for a female servant common to all the Semitic languages, including Hebrew it will be found in the Books of Exodus, xxiii. 12, Judges xix. 9 and many other places in the Bible. I suspect that many of the other words commonly used in Cantonese to express special relationships between Chinese and foreigners could also be found to have an origin in Arabic, Malay or other languages used by foreign traders in Canton before any Europeans were heard of: for example, sz tsai,16 sz tau,15 (which I think is the Arabic sayyid,1 fa wongł which is clearly the same word as the Urdu malik, originally meaning king and then gardener; kwun-tim," sz-naai14 and taipan3 If this surmise is correct, then these words are likely to have been ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 156 BENHAM, Miss M. E. M. - Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., BERTOVICH, Miss R. C. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. BLACK, Mrs. W. A. BLACKMORE, M. BLATCHFORD, C. H. BLUNDEN, Prof. E. C. BOAK, C. D. BOARD, D. B. M.* BOLLMEYER, Mrs. H. BONSALL, G. W. BORGEEST, G. BOXER, B. BOYD, J. D. I. BRAGA, J. M. BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BROWNE, H. J. C. BRUNN, F. BUCKNELL, P. BYRNE, D. J. H.K. R.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa. U.S.A. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon. Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland. 10-A, Stanley Beach Road, Stanley, H.K. Dept. of History, H.K. University, H.K. New Asia College, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. H.K. University, Pokfulum, H.K. Dept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K. 408/9 Yu To Sang Building, 37 Queen's Road, C., H.K. H.K. University Library, Pokfulum, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. 2, Percival Street, 3rd floor, H.K. c/o Political Adviser, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. P. O. Box 951, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K. c/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. 908 Takshing House, H.K. Legal Dept. Central Govt. Offices, H.K. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. CALCINA, P. G.* CAMERON, N. CASHMORE, Miss M. CHAN, Fook-Lam CHAN, Dr. Hee Chi P. O. Box 15118, H.K Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K. 75, Deepwater Bay Road, H.K. 9A, Cameron House, 40 Magazine Gap Road, H.K. 77 Chun Yeung Street, 10th floor, H.K. Bank of Canton Building, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 THE DIALECTS OF HONG KONG BOAT PEOPLE 61 Given these obstacles in the way of locating KS origins geographically, I will continue to speculate that the most fruitful area for further research in the problem would be in the regions bordering the northern part of the Pearl River delta. Furthermore, and on firmer ground, it seems clear that the anthropological and the linguistic data put this group of Boat People well within the mainstream of Han Chinese culture and it would take some new type of evidence to assign other origins to them. I repeat the point that similar research should be done on other Boat People groups in Hong Kong before the full picture can develop. On the basis of this one study and a series of more casual observations I would also expect to find support for the thesis, shared by others, that the Boat People are not of a single origin but come from various regions of China at various times. NOTES 1 The Kau Sai village and anchorage are located on Kau Sai Chau in the Port Shelter area off Sai Kung in the New Territories. My sincere thanks are due to those people of Kau Sai who gave so freely of their time to help with this project. I am especially grateful to Mrs. Stella Lau Fessler of Hong Kong for her generous assistance during all the collection phases of the research in Kau Sai and Sai Kung; she also served as informant for Standard Cantonese against which base the Kau Sai speech was compared. By Standard Cantonese I refer to the dialect spoken by the majority of persons residing in Canton, Hong Kong, and now possibly Macau. 2 See Egerod (1956) for some notes on the Hoklo and a detailed study of the dialect spoken by one particular group of Fukien Province immigrants in south Kwangtung. 3 These three terms are not technical but may be self-explanatory. For a more precise definition reference should be made to Hockett (1958 pp. 137-8). My term grammar might include his terms grammatical and morphophonemic; my term lexical is roughly equivalent to his term semantic. 4 The distinction between a phonetic and a phonemic description is highly significant in scientific linguistics and in oversimplified terms represents the differences between a close transcription of the gross sound features of a language and a transcription of this same language in an unambiguous script with a minimum number of symbols. Thus, a good phonetic transcription might indicate all the differences in the 'h' of he, hat, and home since the 'h' is articulated in slightly different areas from the roof of the mouth to the back of the throat as these words are pronounced. A good phonemic script, as English happens to be in this instance, would use one symbol with the guiding principle that these three 'h' sounds are nearer to each other than to other sounds in the language and that as a group they signal... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 135 KUMMER, Dr. M. KURATA, Mrs. L. C. - KVAN, Rev. E.* - - KWAN, The Hon. C. Y.* KWOK, Chan* KWOK, Walter LAI, T. C. LAM, Yung-fai LANDOLT, M. A. LANYON-ORGILL, Dr. P. A. LAU, Wai-mai LAW, Chung-kam LAWRENCE, Mrs. I. - LAWRY, Mrs. B. C. LAWRY, R. E. L LECKIE, J. B. H. - LEE, Din-yi LEE, Harold W. LEE, J. S. LEE, The Hon. R. C.*. LEUNG, Kai-cheong LEUNG, Pak-kui LI, Dr. Choh-ming - LI, Shi-yi LI, T. K. Г + Goethe-Institut, German Cultural Centre, 6th floor, Caxton House, H.K. 27 Grenadier Heights, Toronto 3, Ontario, Canada. St. John's College, The University, H.K. Room 736, Alexandra House, H.K. Hang Seng Bank Ltd., Des Voeux Road, Central, H.K. 39-B, Estoril Court, H.K. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hang Seng Bank Building, 12th Floor, 677 Nathan Road, Kowloon. c/o Ye Olde Printerie Ltd., 6 Duddel St., H.K. 20 Coombe Road, Flat B-4, H.K. Brentwood College, Cobble Hill P.O., Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada. Institute of Oriental Studies, The University, H.K. Victoria Heights, 43-A Stubbs Rd., Flat 1-A, H.K. 4-B, Cliff View Mansions, 19 Conduit Road, H.K. A9, Bowen Hill, 10 Peak Road, H.K. British Council, 1st floor, Gloucester Building, H.K. c/o Union Insurance Society of Canton, Ltd., Union House, H.K. United College, 9-A Bonham Road, H.K. Lee Hysan Estate Co. Ltd., Prince's Bldg., 25th Floor, H.K. 74, Kennedy Road, H.K. Lee Hysan Estate Co. Ltd., Prince's Bldg., 25th Floor, H.K. c/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K. 44 High Street, 2nd Floor, Sai Ying Poon, H.K. + The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Vice-Chancellor's Office, 677 Nathan Road, 12th Floor, Kowloon. 72, La Salle Road, 2nd floor, Kowloon. 49, Village Road, Ground floor, H.K. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 14 JOHN J. NOLDE Pai Ling sent an emissary to Chang and his lady friend, offering him a post in government and the Dragon Lady a handsome pension if they would retire. Chang, in the meantime, had fallen out with some of his own lieutenants, and after a certain amount of negotiation he agreed to the government's terms. He agreed to disband his fleet and turn over most of his ships and equipment to the Imperial authorities. His men were to return to peaceful occupations. He was rewarded with an official position and actually took part in, perhaps led, several expeditions against those former comrades-in-arms who refused to surrender. The Lady received her pension and was reported living in Canton as late as 1830-1831. Now, aside from the more romantic aspects of this story, the point is that these raids were a major fact of life along the South China coast during these years. Local histories are full of accounts of the activities of Chang and his fleet, the Hsiang-shan hsien chih, especially, devoting many pages to his exploits. Furthermore, it seems fairly certain that many of Chang's men did not turn to peaceful pursuits after 1810. Many organized fleets of their own and continued their marauding, though on a reduced scale. While Chang's "surrender" may have broken the back of the pirate activity for a time, it would seem that by the 1820's piratical activity was again a major problem. Local histories record many instances of pirates extorting money from villagers along the Canton River. The Canton Register of July, 1829 reported that "the rivers of the province are infested with pirates who force trading boats to purchase passes of them". In the early 1830's pirate fleets attacked native craft near Macao Roads. The Chinese Repository of December, 1832 reported on a new class of pirate boat which, manned by crews of sixty to seventy men, kidnapped and carried off wealthy individuals for ransom. In the same issue the journal reported that a pirate fleet of thirty to forty sail "was prowling off Macao. Its chief was said to be the son of a famous pirate." In the interior things seemed to be in even more chaotic state, partly due to the activity of the ex-pirates now turned bandit and partly due to an increase in brigandage per se. English-language journals published at Macao in the 1820's and 30's commented repeatedly on "parties of armed bandits", "vagabonds and ban- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 14 PATRICIA MARSHALL horses and hounds could not penetrate the shrub and the hunt club eventually gave up and was dissolved. Today local foxes face a greater peril; persistent hunting by illegal shooting and trapping. Each winter a number of young foxes, probably imported, are sold alive in the markets for food, despite Government's attempts to stop this trade. Another mammal imported during the winter for food is the raccoon dog. It resembles the North American raccoon but in fact its nearest living relative is the domestic dog. It has never been recorded from Hong Kong but was common on the plains around Canton until at least 1914. In Russia it is encouraged and has been released in some areas to breed wild for fur. It is also useful as a destroyer of rats. In Hong Kong this animal is often treated with extreme cruelty being confined in small cages, too small for it to stand or turn round, and may be kept for several days on food stalls before being killed and eaten. Until 1966 they were commonly seen in the markets of Hong Kong and Kowloon, particularly in Shanghai and Market streets. They now appear to be kept in backrooms and sold under the counter. A fairly abundant wild mammal in the Colony is the ferret-badger. It is a true badger, feeding on insects, earthworms, small rats and mice. Plate 4 shows the broken white markings on the head and back. Like the leopard cat, it is a retiring, nervous mammal prone to die of nervous shock in captivity, although it can be tamed if caught young. Otters were once common here but are now rare due to illegal hunting. Fishermen have always persecuted them, although the more informed are now realizing that otters in an area improve rather than harm the fishing. Research on the life history and feeding habits has shown that although otters eat fish, they eat only diseased fish. By controlling the numbers of the sick they prevent the spread of fish diseases and so are beneficial to the fish population. Protection by law of the otter (since 1938) has not been effective. If some otters were kept in a zoo or in the Botanical Gardens so that people may see how very charming and captivating they can be, a few of the poachers may be dissuaded from killing them. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung 35 its followers to a nearby islet, Ku-ta (†) or Ancient Pagoda, Tung-lung Island.19 In the autumn they proceeded to Ch'ien-wan (*) which is now definitely identified as Tsun-wan (now written) along the western coast of Kowloon. Two months later, the Mongol army, which had been pursuing them along the shore, began to attack. The boy Emperor sailed to Hsiu-shan (ƒ), now known as Hu-men or the Bogue. Continuously under pressure from the Mongols, Tuan Tsung passed by Hsiang-shan District (at present Chung-shan) and reached Tseng-o (#4), south of Macao, where his ship was badly damaged by a typhoon. He himself fell into the sea but was rescued. The terrible shock led him to contract a fatal disease. He was sick on board ship until the spring of 1278, when the whole fleet sailed northward back to the harbour at the mouth of the Pearl River. By that time Canton had been recaptured by some royalists and so they felt safe enough to anchor and encamp at Kang-chou which is identified as Ta-yu-shan or Lantau Island20. Two months later he died there. His younger brother Ping succeeded him on the throne and became the last emperor of Sung. He named the new reign Hsiang Hsing (#) and the 1st year began in the next month, still 1278. In the 6th month the new emperor had to sail away with the whole fleet southwestward until they arrived at Ya-Shan of the Hsin-hui District. Finally, in the 2nd month of the next year (spring 1279), they fought the last battle against the Mongol forces commanded by the arch-traitor Chang Hung-fan (K). As a result of the defeat the whole army perished. The boy Emperor with his royal seal was tied to the body of his prime minister, Lu Hsiu-fu, who plunged into the sea, to be followed by thousands of court officials in a mass suicide. When the Queen Mother Young heard of the tragic and heroic death of the Emperor she also drowned herself, thus ending the long reign of 315 years of the Northern and Southern Sung Dynasty. Before concluding this talk let me point out that besides the above story there is a deep and important meaning to be derived from our study of the Travelling Palace of Southern Sung in Kowloon. Throughout the Sung Dynasty, China was frequently invaded by neighbouring foreign tribes. Almost every year there was war, not only against the Hsi Hsia (the Tangut), but also, in turn, the Liao (Khitan), the Chin (Nuchen) and the Mongols. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 50 L. G. ALMER a match-factory in Yau Ma Tei in 1880, and dockyards at Sham Shui Po in the same year. A glass manufactory was also situated here. An early account informs us that Yau Ma Tei, "the principal village" and the main centre of development, has increased in population and bids fair to some day become an important town. There is a considerable Chinese junk trade at this place, and amongst other industries is a preserved ginger factory. The Military and Police Rifle Ranges are at the back and near the village. Gas works were erected here in 1892.7 The New Territories came under British control in 1898 on a 99-year lease, and subsequently new communications were developed. In 1900 a start was made with the main road from Kowloon to Tai Po, and in 1906 work was commenced on the construction of the Kowloon-Canton Railway by a private company. In the middle of the 19th century the organization of the State of California and the gold rush to the Sacramento Valley created new lines of commerce to connect Hong Kong with the American Continent. This was also the beginning of a steadily increasing emigration traffic between Hong Kong and San Francisco. Much of the coolie traffic to Southeast Asia, South Pacific, the West Indies and other countries was carried out through the port of Hong Kong. Whalers began to be a frequent sight in the harbour and, in a free port, the Hong Kong shipping trade was booming in the latter half of the century. By the close of the 19th century the valley people had come to experience a critical situation demanding economic activities beyond the framework of the traditional system. Stimuli in this process were supplied by the change in the general economic milieu, and the impact of Western industrialism was not only experienced as something negative and destructive, but also as something that directly or indirectly offered a wide range of new choices. Many men grasped at the new opportunities, and soon found advantages in their changed situation. Men from Big Stream Village took up jobs in the road and railway construction across Tide Cove. Others could be found seeking all kinds of employment in the new urban area in Kowloon. The men in Grass Field Village early specialized in masonry and worked on construction sites all over the New Territories, and in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY member of the third minor lineage. 65 He returned from the United States in 1941. After the Japanese Occupation, he took a job as a foreman in the nearby Ma On Shan Mining Company, from which he is now obtaining a pension. He still spends most of his time on the Company grounds playing mahjong and gossiping with his friends there. On his arrival from America, he constructed a large and spacious house on two floors and with a balcony.35 Rumour had it that he had lost some 10,000 dollars in the Canton Trust Bank crash in February 1965, but when I left the valley, there was no visible sign that his economic position had been altered or that his social prestige was affected thereby. He has one son on the island of Aruba, who is doing well. His brother, 75 years old, is the man who returned from Canada. His house is also good but is somewhat smaller than that of his younger brother. He is expressly of a conservative disposition; he clings to old ways and believes firmly in Fêng-shui. His economy is apparently very good. The son of this man is working in England. The other New York man is 70 years old and belongs to the second minor lineage in the village. He possesses the biggest house in the valley and the surrounding areas. It was built forty years ago. He returned from America in 1959, but preferred then to reside in town. Later on, he moved back to his native village, the main reason being that all his friends in town went back to America. He is a sceptic, distrusts geomancy, and is passively in favour of modernization. He is supposed to have a considerable fortune by village standards. One of his two sons, also a former American resident, is now staying with his family in Tai Po Market. The younger son is working in England, and his family stays in the father's house.36 Three other old men do not take part in the informal village council. One is the very old uncle of the Village Representative, whose affairs seem to be handled by the nephew. He is suspicious and successfully avoids anthropologists. Another is a man about 70 who is strikingly poor. He is an old emigrant too, but his country of destination was Singapore, and like many other sojourners in Singapore, he returned home as poor as when he went off. He is now trying to make a living by operating a traditional rowing ferry, taking villagers across Tide Cove in competition with the family who run the two mechanised boats. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g THE CHINA COASTERS 89 on the outside passage, low-powered ships would have done little more than hold their own against the monsoon. On the present day ships trading from Hong Kong around Far Eastern and South Pacific waters many of the old China coast customs still survive. The 'sew-sew' women, for instance, are now peculiar to Hong Kong alone, but used to flourish in Shanghai and Singapore in the old days. In groups of two or three these women board every ship soon after its arrival in Hong Kong to darn the socks and repair the clothes of the officers, and every officer soon after his arrival on the coast has his regular 'sew-sew' woman. They are middle-aged women, severely dressed in black with shining black hair strained back tightly in buns, and invariably sporting a few gold teeth. Whichever 'sew-sew' woman an officer employs on his first visit to Hong Kong usually remains his 'sew-sew' woman for the rest of his time on the coast, and no rival will ever try to solicit his custom. The 'sew-sew' women are scrupulously honest, and are allowed the complete run of the accommodation. They go into their client's cabin unattended, and ransack his drawers and wardrobe looking for clothes to mend, and when these have been collected, retire to a sunny corner of the deck to carry out the repairs. When they return with the clothes later, payment is the subject of shrill but good-natured bargaining. A similar system still operates in Hong Kong with regard to barbers, tailors, shoemakers, compradores, and others. The compradore in this connection is a petty trader, who deals in a wide variety of goods, from toilet materials and patent medicines to dubious literature. Either he or the tailor will also carry out miscellaneous commissions for their clients, such as posting letters and parcels and so on. An older institution than any of the above, however, were the flower boat girls. Like the 'sew-sew' women they were more common in Hong Kong than in the other ports and were an inheritance from the old days at Canton and Macao. When I returned to the coast twelve years after the end of the Pacific War, and after an absence of almost twenty years, I was pleased to find the 'sew-sew' women, barbers, tailors, and shoemakers plying their trades as busily as ever. The flower boat girls, however, had disappeared from the scene. Pearl Buck, in her biography of her missionary father, Fighting Angel, London, Pan Books, 1964, pp. 84-85, has this to say of river steamers ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 93 A scattered community of peasant farmers and petty shopkeepers might seem, educationally speaking, incapable of taking a lead in public business, and too engrossed in their own affairs to wish to do so, thus creating a power vacuum which might be filled from outside. However, enquiries into local history in the period under review show that outsiders seem to have taken no part in organising local affairs. This was not because there was a lack of interested outsiders. Two very different parties had an interest in the island and might conceivably have taken the initiative. There were the shopkeepers and fish-dealers from the neighbouring market centres on the islands of Cheung Chau and Peng Chau who had an economic interest in the people of the island's southern coast and its produce. There was also a more likely candidate for local leadership in the person of the family of scholar gentry from near Canton that collected rents in silver from the island's land population every year. This family appears to have collected rents for centuries by virtue of a grant of land which went back to Sung times (960-1278); but in the 19th century their interest in the island seems to have been confined to securing their income and, on the evidence of commemorative tablets, making occasional contributions to the repair of local temples at the request of the organising committees. No one now living can recall or has heard tell of their taking a part in the arbitration of local disputes in the last quarter of the century, which is the only period for which there is reliable first-hand information. As for the shopkeepers and other commercial people in the market centres, the surviving evidence, oral and documentary, points to a degree of financial exploitation through foreclosure on debts by taking fields and property in pawn, and by usury, but little in the way of directing local affairs. Page 6 Instead, local leadership, other than the internal or village leadership exercised within the various clans who in some cases constituted an entire village, and in others shared the settlement, was provided by such village persons as rose above their local environment by reason of business acumen and personal ability and can be said to have created their own wider area of influence on the island. Three such persons have come to my notice. One of them flourished in the middle years of the nineteenth century, and the other two in its second half. It is fairly certain that there were other ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 104 A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 新安城: By the REV. Mr. Krone (Editor's Note. Beginning with Vol. 5 (1965) the Society made a start with reprinting selected articles from the Transactions of the old China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society which existed in Hong Kong between 1846-59. The only known complete extant sets of the Transactions in the Colony are the microfilmed sets recently acquired by the Library of the University of Hong Kong and by the Society. The article reprinted below is taken from pp. 71-105 of the sixth and last volume of Transactions, published in Hong Kong in 1859. It is a valuable contemporary account of the north-western part of the San On (Hsin An) district (新安縣) and will be of special interest to readers of this Journal in that it describes something of the history and conditions of life in the area just beyond the present Sino-British frontier in the New Territories. Its re-appearance in print will also provide scholars with the text in a more accessible form than the microfilmed sets which are available here and elsewhere. The author was a missionary of the Rhenish Missionary Society which, according to the account of its history given in The China Mission Hand Book (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896) pp. 272-275 came to South China in 1847. From this account, Mr. Krone appears to have come to China about 1850 and worked there for upwards of ten years. He seems to have gone on leave thereafter and died in the Red Sea on his way back to China from Germany. The article is reprinted here exactly as it appears in the original, despite a few obvious errors and inconsistencies). A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 新安城: Read before the Society, February 24th, 1858 THE District of Sanon, to which the mainland opposite to the Island of Hongkong belongs, is one of the fourteen districts of the department of Canton. During the Han dynasty, and at the time of the Three States, the present Sanon District, together with those of Túng-kun and Pok-lo, formed only one large district, bearing the name of Pok-lo *. and Túng-kun Under the following dynasties, Sanon ✯✯ constituted one district, which was denominated Túng-kun 東莞 ★, afterwards Po-on, and since the 2d year of the Emperor Chi-tok of the Tong dynasty, Túng-kun ✯ £. 東莞. Hung-mo, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1399 A.D.), found it necessary in the 27th year of his reign to appoint an officer with the title "Shou-yu-sho"-Protector of the region, in order to protect the population, which was rapidly increasing, against the bands of robbers and vagabonds which infested the district. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT J 105 This officer established himself at a place then called Shak-tse-kong, the present Nam-tou, a part of which situated on a hill was surrounded by walls. But it was found that this officer was unable to rule efficiently the whole of the district, and some men of influence, supported by the high mandarins at Canton, demanded that the part of the country which they inhabited should be made a separate district. The Emperor Wan-lik granted this petition in the first year of his reign; the new district was called "Sanon,” new peace; and the walled part of Nam-tou rose to be the district town of Sanon, and accordingly received the name of Sanon Yuen-shing 新安城. The Sanon district included the islands of Lan-tow, Hongkong, and all the small neighbouring islands. The mainland portion of the district was bounded to the North by the districts of Túng-kun 東莞 and Kwei-shin 歸善. The northern boundary is formed by the Pik-tau River, which flows into the estuary of the Canton River, and is navigable for small Chinese sea craft (such as passage-boats) for about 8 miles; and several chains of mountains further to the East. This boundary, however, is very arbitrarily drawn, as sometimes villages in the midst of Sanon belong to Túng-kun. The borders of the three districts join together in the neighbourhood of the mart of Kun-lan, a place notoriously unsafe, as being the abode of thieves and vagabonds, who can with facility escape from the jurisdiction of one mandarin to that of another. To the East, the Sanon District is bounded by the estuary of the Canton River. This estuary is divided by the Chinese into several parts with different names: the part to the south of the Bocca Tigris into which the Pik-tow River falls, is called Hop-lan Hoi; the bay named by the English Lintin is designated by the Chinese Nam-low Bay, after the city of that name; Deep Bay is called Hau-hoi or Back-water Bay*. This bay is generally very shallow, a deep channel however running down the centre; the navigation is rendered more dangerous by the many oyster-beds which exist. The bay terminates in a considerable creek, which is navigable at high-tide for three or four miles, as far as the important mart of Sham-tsuen. & PA. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g NOTES AND QUERIES 159 The clan possesses a small ancestral hall in the second row of houses, and here are housed the ancestral tablets of the most important ancestors. These tablets usually have a sliding wooden slot at the back on which is given a short biography of the person commemorated, usually his birth and death, and sometimes a geomantic description of his grave site. From these records and the recollections of the present generation, information was obtained about two of the more distinguished clansmen of recent times. CHAN Jit-meng (M) alias Tak-hang (7) of the 20th generation, was born on the 2nd day of the 10th month in the year of the Tao Kwang (†) (i.e. 1828) and died on the 3rd day of the 12th month in the year of Kwang Hsü (**) (i.e. 1891). He was a successful businessman who had a shop at Fat Shan (#) near Canton and a large cargo junk with which he traded to and from the Kowloon area. With the trading junk he brought a large amount of stone and building materials to the Tseung Kwan O area and is said to have been responsible for many public works: the village school, the pier at Hang Hau market (},□) nearby and the stone paved paths up the valley to Tseng Lan Shue and along the line of the present Clear Water Bay Road. He also owned a shop called Yi Hing (M) just outside Kowloon City. He was a member of the Kowloon City Kaifong and one of the founder members of the Lok Sing Tong (#44) in 1879. This was an association of local gentry and leading villagers from the surrounding areas. In later life, he bought the degree of Kwok Hok Shang (M *) in Canton, According to his ancestral tablet he had a wife NG (A) and a concubine WONG (£). CHAN Kwok-yan (RQ) alias Wai Tong (†) son of the above. This man's ancestral tablet does not show his dates of birth and death, but these are thought to be 1872-1933. As his father CHAN Jit-meng was a fairly rich man, he had a middle school education in Canton or Fat Shan. At some time in his career he met Sir Cecil Clementi (✯✯) the future Governor ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 78 GORAN AIJMER on Dabu Jiuxu (Tai Po Old Market), dominated by a single mighty Cantonese lineage, who tried their best to harass market visitors. This rather tedious exercise provides us with evidence enough to justify an assumption that the people of Plum Grove Village were better off than their neighbours of Big Stream Village.10 A key factor for the understanding of social change in this area is the rapid urbanization on the Kowloon Peninsula after 1875. For the villages in question this process implied a set of new choices, e.g. the use of a new, comparatively lucrative market developing at Youmadi (Yau Ma Tei). Here they came to sell firewood, and once in town they encountered new possibilities. The demand from overseas for Chinese labour had led to the establishment of labour-recruiting bureaux and agencies. The expanding shipping trade in the Hong Kong harbour offered opportunities for jobs on board transoceanic steamers. At the same time the appearance of new industrial products on the market drastically reduced traditionally complementary incomes from home industries. The men of Big Stream Village soon jumped at the new opportunities that were displayed in Kowloon. Many of them ended up in the United States, Canada, and the West Indies. Through their remittances the home community now had access to an inflow of external incomes. As time passed considerable accumulation of capital brought about changes in the economic status of the village. Before the Pacific War several large and spacious houses were constructed by a handful of very successful emigrés. Conditions had improved, although economic differentiation within the community now was more marked than in the traditional situation. The general location of the village will also have become more favourable as the Kowloon-Canton Railway and a modern road were constructed on the other side of Tide Cove in the opening years of the 20th century. The possibilities displayed in Kowloon did not have the same attraction for the people in Plum Grove Village. Land was still sufficient, the yield in normal years will have been reckoned as satisfying, and the firewood cutting, charcoal burning, and other home industries could for a long time bridge the slowly emerging gap between increasing population and static means of production. Part of the land that in 1906 belonged to outsiders seems to have been bought back by local people, but such expansion of produc- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS As things turned out, Gibb did not return to Hong Kong, and Ng Choy was therefore appointed on a three-year term. This appointment was unfortunately interpreted by some members of the British community as an attempt to create an anti-English party feeling in Hong Kong. In May 1880 when one of the magistrates went on leave, the Governor replaced him temporarily by Ng Choy who thus became the first Chinese to hold a senior appointment in the Hong Kong Government. This led to a question in the House of Commons as to why Ng Choy should combine a paid official post with an unofficial seat in the Legislative Council; but by the time these explanations were required the original holder of the post had returned to the Colony. The attitude of the British community towards him and the Governor as a result of his appointment to the Legislative Council as well as this parliamentary question must have embarrassed Ng Choy very much. During this time, China having suffered repeated defeats from the hands of foreign powers, there was a movement in China to promote western technology and to modernize China, and any Chinese who had been trained or educated abroad would be welcome back to China. Thus when an invitation came from China for him to serve China, Ng Choy accepted it gladly. He left Hong Kong in 1882 before the expiry of the 3-year term in the Legislative Council, and later sent in his resignation from Tientsin. Ng Choy became Secretary and Legal Adviser to Viceroy Li Hung-chang, one of the most important Chinese political figures of the time. Now known as Wu Ting-fang, he soon rose to become Chief Director of Railways and later Ambassador to the U.S.A. After the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1911, he held important appointments respectively as Minister of Judicial Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Financial Affairs. In 1917, when China entered the First World War, he was for a short time nominated as Premier. In 1922 he became Governor of Kwangtung and died the same year in office, soon after General Chan Kwing-ming's revolt in Canton.* * In his The Chinese (Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1909) p. 196, John Stuart Thomson praises Wu and styles him "the Chesterfield of China in all the graces of speech and manners." Ed. Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS JI13 G. B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, p. 205. 29 12 Now known as the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital. Its subsequent history is described in a brochure privately published by the Hospital in 1957, enlarged and re-issued for the eightieth anniversary in 1967. 13 區德,又名區仰德,列字澤民, 14 The Government took over the project in 1927 and turned it into the Kai Tak airfield which came into being in 1928. 15 G. B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, p. 200. 16 Ho Kai's sister was married to Wu Ting-fang, i.e. Ng Choy. 17 韋寶珊 18 G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong, pp. 120-124. 19 Chinese members of the Legislative Council were ex-officio members; the other members were elected by the Chinese Justices of the Peace, 20 Li Shu-fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, p. 39. Wei Yuk is, however, wrongly described as a member also of the Executive Council. 21 The Hong Kong Government later built the Kowloon Canton Railway which was started in 1906 and completed in 1910. It may be of interest here to mention that the Beacon Hill Tunnel was designed and constructed by Mr. F. Southey, a former student of Diocesan Boys School who won a Hong Kong Government Scholarship in 1890 to study in England. 22 Named after the first and outstanding headmaster of the Central School, Dr. Frederick Stewart who later became Colonial Secretary in the years 1887 and 1888, under the Governor Sir George William Des Voeux. 23 G. Stokes, Queen's College, 1862-1962, Hong Kong, p. 221. 24 Among his grandchildren whom I know personally are the following distinguished officers in the Hong Kong Government Service: Dr. Ho Hung-chiu, O.B.E., Senior Specialist in Radiology, Mr. Eric Ho, Staff-grade Administrative Officer, Miss Daphne Ho, M.B.E., Principal Social Welfare Officer and Miss Helen He, O.B.E., Senior Medical Social Worker, Mr. Stanley Ho, a prominent businessman in Hong Kong and Macao, is also his grandson, 25 The ages of the boys ranged from 10 to 16. It is said that because of their pig-tails, they were often mistaken to be girls and had often times to fight very hard to repel the advances made to them by the American boys! 26 On p. 294 of Endacott's A History of Hong Kong, it is stated that "a Chinese member was added to the Executive Council in 1921". This is presumably a typographic error, 27 Sir Robert Kotewall left eight daughters and one son. His son, Cyril, is now practising as a solicitor in Hong Kong and one daughter, Bobbie, is the principal of the well-known St. Paul's Co-educational College. 28 Sir Alexander Grantham, Via Ports, p. 110. 29 Li Shu-fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, London, Victor Gollancz, 1964. 30 At one time, a director of the Bank of East Asia. Educated at Queen's College, Mr. Chan was a generous benefactor of education. In 1917 he donated HK$50,000 to the University of Hong Kong for the erection and equipment of the School of Pathology. He also endowed prizes in all the faculties of the University. 31 Father of Sir Tsun-nin Chau, 32 Father of Mr. Li Fook-wo, O.B.E., Deputy Chief Manager of The Bank of East Asia, and Mr. F. K. Li, Staff-grade Administrative Officer in the Hong Kong Government. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA. MARKET AND LINEAGE 63 61 Ibid., p. 154. 62 Ibid., p. 159. 63 Liu Wan-kuk, of Sheung Shui, later described the inaugural meeting and its consequences in the following terms. "On the 1st of the 3rd moon (10th April), the Un Long Division made a great show of force, and stated in a most peremptory manner that if we refused to join in the resistance of the British, thousands of men from the Un Long Division with arms would proceed to level to the ground the villages belonging to the Liu, Tang and Pang families. The Sheung U Division was therefore compelled on the 3rd day (12th April) to request the Hau, Liu, Pang, Tang, Man clans to meet in the temple dedicated to a former Governor of Kwang Tung province. There it was decided to raise a small public subscription.... It was also decided that the various villages in our Division should have their trainbands (or militia) in readiness so that we should not be....powerless to check disorder. Our Division was the victim of circumstances.... Our trainband (or militia) was intended solely for the protection of the old and young in our Division." Translation of a statement made to the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, 26th April 1899, Papers. Despatches..., op. cit., p. 74. Here and subsequently, the spelling of place names and parenthetical remarks are those of the original translator. Remarks in brackets are my own. 64 Correspondence ..., op. cit., p. 226. Jingals are "long tapering guns, six to fourteen feet in length, borne on the shoulders of two men and fired by a third. They have a stand, or tripod, reminding one of a telescope being less liable to burst than cannon, they form the most effective gun the Chinese possess." J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, London, 1904 edition, p. 44. Page 13 Correspondence 65 Stewart Lockhart described the flag as follows: "the flag has a red border and a white centre, on which are seven Chinese characters meaning: Train band sanctioned by the Government: -Tai Kai (village), surname Man.' The village referred to.... is also known by the name of Tai Hang , op. cit., p. 180. The militia were so martial in appearance and conduct that the British at first thought they were regulars. The Viceroy commented: "the Governor of Hong Kong suspected that they were regular troops from the fact that they had guns, cannon, and uniforms. He was not aware that the villagers of Kwangtung, in their constant fights with each other, are always erecting forts, and use guns and cannon, and wear uniforms. This is a matter of common notoriety." Ibid., p. 304. 66 Ibid., pp. 188ff. These and similar letters were found in the T'ai Ping Kung Kuk at Yuen Long. A proclamation issued by the Council of the Yuen Long Division was also discovered. It supports Liu Wan-kuk's claim that coercion was a feature of the resistance movement: "The English barbarians are about to enter our territory, and ruin will come upon our villages and hamlets, All we villagers must enthusiastically come forward to offer armed resistance and act in unison. When the drum sounds to the fight, we must all respond to the call for assistance. Should anyone hesitate to take part or hinder or obstruct our military plans he will most certainly be severely punished, and no leniency will be shown. This is issued as a forewarning." Ibid. 67 Ibid., p. 171. 68 Papers 69 Ibid. Despatches , op. cit., p. 66. op. cit., p. 166. 70 Correspondence ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 198 SU, Dr. Chung-jen* SU, Ming-hsuan SU, Samon SWIRE, A. C.* SYKES, Major A. E. - TALBOT, H. D. - TAN, Khek-seng* TANG, Mrs. Jack C. - TANG, Sir Shiu-kin* TANNER, R. F. TARARIN, P. A.* - THOMAS, L. F. THOMAS, T. H. THROWER, Prof. L. B. · TILL, The Very Rev. B.* + TISDALL, B. TOMLIN, Mrs. Ian TOOGOOD, C. W. - TORRIBLE, G. R.* TOWNER, J. A. TRISTRAM, M. P. W. + TSEUNG, Dr. F. I. TURNER, Sir Michael* - TYLER, Mrs. M. R. UHALLEY, Dr. S., Jr. · 155, Blue Pool Road, Flat A, 1/F, H.K. 45 Hankow Road, 9th Fl., Flat C, Kowloon. c/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road, Central, H.K. c/o John Swire & Sons, Ltd., 66 Cannon Street, London, E.C.4, England. M.O.D. Chinese Language School, Lyemun Barracks, B.F.P.O.1, H.K. Dept. of Geography, University of Hong Kong, H.K. A1, 7th floor, Villa Monte Rosa, 41A Stubbs Road, H.K. 7C Bowen Road, Bowen Mansions, Apt., 402, H.K. Room 1701, Central Building, H.K. 27 Macdonnell Road, Room 32, H.K. 623 N. Harper Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90048, U.S.A. c/o Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. c/o The British Council, P.O. Box 753, Steuart Lodge, 154 Galle Road, Colombo 3, Ceylon. 6-B, Alberose, 134 Pokfulum Road, H.K. c/o Morley College, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London S.E.1, England. 1 Garden Terrace, G/F, H.K. 41D, Shouson Hill Road, H.K. c/o Oxford University Press, 5th floor, News Building, 633 King's Road, H.K. c/o The Hong Kong Club, H.K. 57 Buxey Lodge, 37 Conduit Road, H.K. Rating & Valuation Dept., Murray House, Garden Road, H.K. China Building, 4th floor, H.K. "Whispers", Riversdale, Bourne End, Bucks, England. 402 Tregunter Mansions, Old Peak Road, H.K. Dept. of History, Duke University, Durham, N. Carolina, U.S.A. + Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 199 VALE, Miss M. VARNEY, Dr. C. B. VETCH, H. VETCH, Mrs. H. VIO, Dr. E. G. - VISICK, Mrs. M. VOSS, Dr. A. WALDEN, J. C. C. WARD, Miss J. E. A.* WARRINGTON-STRONG, Cmdr. F.. WATERS, D. D. WATSON, Hon. K. A. WEBB-JOHNSON, S. A. · WEBSTER, J. L. H. WEI, Dr. Tat WEINREBE, H. M. WELCH, Holmes, H.* WHITELEGGE, D. S.* WILLIAMS, A. T. - WILLIAMS, B. V. WILLIAMS, P. B. WILLIAMS, R. A. WILLIAMS, W. D. F. WILLIAMS, Mrs. W. D. F. WILSON, Mrs. A. W. - WILSON, B. D. - 1-B, 126 Pokfulum Road, H.K. Dept. of Geography, United College, C.U.H.K., 9A, Bonham Road, H.K. Belmont Court 10A, 10 Kotewall Road, H.K. As above. 315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Dept. of English, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 27, Babington Path, H.K. c/o Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. c/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, N. Devon, England, c/o Registration of Persons Office, Causeway Bay Magistracy Building, 4th Floor, H.K. c/o Technical College, Hunghom, Kowloon, c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. c/o Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. c/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. 3, Fontana Gardens, 5th Floor, Causeway Hill, H.K. Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805 The Bank of Canton Building, H.K. 4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., U.S.A. 58 Mt. Nicholson Gap, H.K. Geography & Geology Dept., University of Hong Kong, HK. c/o Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. 10, The Albany, H.K. Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, H.K. King Fung Villa, 10 Miles, Castle Peak Road, N.T. As above. 2 University Drive, H.K. 3-C Homestead Road, The Peak, H.K. • Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 15 to 94 (bound in 75). New exchanges were initiated during the year with the Historical Society of Dan Kook University, Seoul, and the Hong Kong Archaeological Society. As the result of an appeal to members for issues of the Hong Kong Naturalist to complete our set, two missing issues were acquired from the Diocesan Girls' School. We are very grateful for these, but we are still looking for some 17 other issues. Shortage of accommodation for the Library of the Branch remains a problem which threatens to become increasingly serious as the stock grows. Not only does the University of Hong Kong Library house the overflow of books and periodicals which cannot be accommodated at the British Council in Gloucester Building, but also the large and growing stock of back numbers of the Branch's journal are stored at the University. This cannot continue indefinitely, and it seems probable that the Branch will have to make alternative arrangements within two or three years. Use of the Library continues to be relatively light, though some slight improvement has been observed. Also some of the books kept for the Branch at the University Library were consulted. As it is intended to produce a complete, revised catalogue of the contents of the Library during the coming year, no supplementary list of publications is included with this report. Hong Kong, 11th May, 1970. Dear Mr. Hayes, H. A. RYDINGS, Hon. Librarian. Now I have received your photostat copy of the Diary of Events and Progress on Shameen. As I suspected, the diary of events is compiled by H. Staples-Smith, who was for many years one of the leading members of the Firm of Deacon & Co., Shameen. I knew him when I first came out to Canton. He was a devoted member and churchwarden of Christ Church and I used to have breakfast in his house after the early service in days soon after I was ordained. He was always most interesting about the early days in Shameen, and I am very glad to have this record. It is of course only a very small side-light on the history of Canton as a whole, but it is well worth having because these memories soon fade and much of the material is probably unobtainable elsewhere. Again with many thanks for your help. Yours very sincerely, GILBERT BAKER, Bishop of Hong Kong and Macao. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 42 H. J. LETHBRIDGE unsatisfactory. Instead, the system was adopted in the early 1880s of sending cadets to Peking where they learned Mandarin, which was little used in Hong Kong.24 Finally, in the late 1880s cadets were sent to Canton to learn Cantonese, and this arrangement continued in force until the Second World War. Cadets at Canton were billeted in the former residence of the Tartar General, which was taken by Britain after the war of 1857-60 and became His Britannic Majesty's Yamen. When the Consulate was transferred to Shameen, the area of original European settlement, the Yamen was turned over as a place of residence for cadets of the Malayan and Hong Kong Civil Services learning Chinese. Some cadets also resided in Shameen. In the early 1920s, according to Victor Purcell,25 who was then a Malayan cadet, there were in Canton usually about 15 or so cadets, the majority from Malaya, but a few from Hong Kong, and one or two police probationers, who were taught Chinese by a small band of Cantonese teachers... with a core of about half a dozen stalwarts who had taught generations of cadets in the past'. Sir Alexander Grantham, who was also a cadet in the 1920s, tells us that in his day there were about half a dozen cadets living in the Yamen.26 It is clear from his memoirs that the Hong Kong Government exercised little supervision over its protégés in Canton. So long as the cadets passed their examinations—four examinations taken at six-monthly intervals—cadets had two years of glorious freedom in a very free and easy Chinese city. Cadets appointed to the Hong Kong Civil Service, or transferred from other colonial territories in Asia, had much in common. All were British subjects of pure European descent and all entered the Colonial Service at approximately the same age. They were educated at fee-paying schools, but most had their schooling at minor public and obscure private schools, not listed in the Public Schools Yearbook: only one Etonian, one Wykehamist, two Rugbeians and two Harrovians are to be found among the eighty-five. The majority proceeded to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge but a substantial contingent—over 30 per cent—came from universities in Scotland and Ireland; only a handful—nine in all—were from London or English provincial universities.27 A few—Cecil Clementi, R. F. Johnston, J. H. Stewart Lockhart, F. H. May and A. M. Thomson28—had outstanding academic records; yet even the rest were above average. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES 95 one witness as "two other people, besides myself — and seven coolies" and by a second witness as "seven people — and three GWAEZIRLOO””. Nor 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. I would help those who wish to be helped. For 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. But 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. To come back to the two sentences which may have startled you at the opening. 2 A7, a vulgar term for non-Chinese. 3 4 漢口 these, of course, are not SOAS romanizations. 廣州6 st 7+EN › AE ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 164 S. F. BALFOUR became too old to live in and were abandoned by the richer members of the family, who built new ones elsewhere. This alone shows how prolific the Tang family were, but it is not the only sign of their overwhelming influence in our region. In almost every fertile valley including Lantau and Hong Kong islands, there has at one time or another been a settlement of Tang peasants and the inference that I have drawn is that they undertook the deforestation of these regions. There appears to be only one other landholding family with a record that goes back to Sung times. This is the clan of Hou17 who live near to Lung Yeuk Tau in several walled villages. Their family record shows that they came from Pun Yu or Canton in the year 1026 but gives no notice of their migration to Canton from the north. They have always been a humble family in comparison to the Tangs, although intermarriage between them has been very frequent, and their family book contains no references to any connection with government. What is striking about the early history of the Tang family is the kind of feudal power which they exercised. No doubt at the same time in other parts of South China influential families were occupying land and spreading branches in all directions. It requires a study of their family books to make a complete picture of the influx of peasant population into South China. VII. THE SUNG EMPERORS The story of the journey of the last Sung Emperors through this region must be recounted not only for its sentimental value, but also because it really marks an epoch in the history of the population. It was owing to the pressure of the Mongols from the north that the Tang family migrated, but when the same pressure spread south right to the coast, the migration into sparsely inhabited places became even more frequent, and it is also very likely that the large armies of Sung when they were dispersed settled down as agriculturalists. The journey of the last two kings of Sung began when the Emperor Kung Ti was taken prisoner with his court at Hangchow. The two boys who were known as Yi Wong and Wei Wong were 17. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 169 which had belonged to the last Emperor and in it the seal of the dynasty which was brought back as a token of the complete extinction of Sung. At Ch'ek Wan on the peninsula called Nam Shan just north-cast of our region there is a tomb which purports to be that of Ti Ping. It bears the inscription "Grave of the Little Emperor Hsing Hsing24 of Sung" and it is tended by a family named Chiu which was the surname of the Sung emperors. There are graves of both Tuan Tsung and Ti Ping in other places along the coast of Kwangtung province and it is not certain that this one is genuine. Most likely it was a "garment grave" containing some relic of the Emperor and made to deceive his enemies as to his real burial place. Many Chinese families in the district claim to be descended either from royal blood or from ministers and soldiers of Sung. These claims may be unsubstantiated individually but the fact that they are made in the mass points to a tradition that much of the Sung army settled in South China after their defeat. It may be asked whether the Tang family helped the Emperors whose kins-men they were. Tang Shou Tsu who lived about this time was a minor officer in the Yuan armies and probably fought against Sung. The Tang family nevertheless lost its paramount influence in Tung Kun district after these events, and this may be the reason why members of the elder branch settled more permanently at Kam Tin and in other parts of the region. VIII. T'UN MUN AND THE PORTUGUESE Mention has been made in a previous section of the prevalence of pirates in the South China Seas in early times. The earliest record of any piratical action within the region is as early as the 10th century when a pirate named Wu Ling Kuang attacked T'un Mun but was defeated. A later event was a revolt of the population of Lantau Island in 1278 when the Yuan government attempted to enforce a monopoly of the salt production and arrested the private salt makers. It is recorded that soldiers tried to land on the island but were prevented by means of wooden stakes placed along the coast, and that the Tanka inhabitants then sailed up the estuary and attacked Canton. The civil population fled, but the sailors defending Canton, by using incendiary arrows 24 The reign title of Ti Ping. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 231 STONEY, Mrs. G. S. STOWE, C. - + As above. Unknown. STRICKLAND, Mrs. P. G. c/o Caldbeck Macgregor & Co., Ltd., SU, Dr. Chung-jen* SU, Ming-hsuan SU, Samon + SULLIVAN, Rev. J. G. SWIRE, A. C.* - SYKES, Major A. E, TALBOT, H. D. B. TAN, Khek-seng* TANG, Mrs. Jack C. - TANG, Sir Shiu-kin' TANNER, R. F. TARARIN, P. A.* THOMAS, L. F. - THROWER, Prof. L. B. TILL, Very Rev. B.* TISDALL, B. - TOMLIN, Mrs. Ian TOOGOOD, C. W. - TORRIBLE, G. R.* TOWNER, J. A. TRISTRAM, M. P. W. TSEUNG, Dr. F. I. TUCK, Miss Jean - - T Union House, H.K. 155, Blue Pool Road, Flat A, 1/F, H.K. 45 Hankow Road, 9th Floor, Flat "C", Kowloon c/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road, Central, H.K. Maryknoll Fathers, Stanley, H.K. c/o John Swire & Sons, Ltd., 66 Cannon Street, London, E.C.4, England. c/o M.O.D. Chinese Language School, Lyemun Barracks, B.F.P.O.1, H.K. c/o Dept. of Geography, University of Hong Kong, H.K. A1, 7th floor, Villa Monte Rosa, 41A Stubbs Road, H.K. 7C Bowen Road, Bowen Mansions, Apt. 402, H.K. Room 1701, Central Building, H.K. 27 Macdonnell Road, Room 32, H.K. 623 N. Harper Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90048, U.S.A. c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 6-B, Alberose, 134 Pokfulum Road, H.K. c/o Morley College, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London S.E.1., England. 1 Garden Terrace, G/F, H.K. 41D, Shouson Hill Road, H.K. c/o Oxford University Press, 5th floor, News Building, 633 King's Road, H.K. c/o The Hong Kong Club, H.K. 57 Buxey Lodge, 37 Conduit Road, H.K. Rating & Valuation Dept., Murray House, Garden Road, H.K. China Building, 4th floor, H.K. The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen, H.K. Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 232 TURNER, Sir Michael* UHALLEY, Dr. S., Jr. VALE, Miss M. VARNEY, Dr. C. B. VETCH, H. VETCH, Mrs. H. VIO, Dr. E. G. - VISICK, Mrs. M. VOSS, Dr. A. · WALDEN, J. C. C. ► WARD, Miss J. E. A.* WARRINGTON-STRONG, Cmdr. F. WATERS. D. D. WATSON, James L. WATSON, K. A. WATT, James C. Y. + WEBB-JOHNSON, S. A. - WEBSTER, J. L, H. WEI, Dr. Tat WEINREBE, H. M. WELCH, Holmes, H.* WHITE, Robert N. - WHITELEGGE, D. S.* WILLIAMS, A. T. - WILLIAMS, B. V. WILLIAMS, P. B. + ■ + + - + + "Whispers", Riversdale, Bourne End, Bucks, England. c/o Dept. of History, Duke University, Durham, N. Carolina, U.S.A. 1-B, 126 Pokfulum Road, H.K. c/o Dept. of Geography, United College, C.U.H.K., 9A, Bonham Road, H.K. Belmont Court 10A, 10 Kotewall Road, H.K. As above. 315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Dept. of English, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 27, Babington Path, H.K. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. c/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, North Devon, England. c/o Registration of Persons Office, Causeway Bay Magistracy Building, 4th Floor, H.K. c/o Technical College, Hunghom, Kowloon. P.O. Box No. 8, San Tin Village Post Office, N.T. c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. c/o City Museum & Art Gallery, City Hall, H.K. H.K. Chinese Liaison Office, Abbey House, Victoria, London, S.W.1, England. c/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. 3, Fontana Gardens, 5th Floor, Causeway Hill, H.K. c/o Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805, The Bank of Canton Building, H.K. 4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., U.S.A. 12 Pokfield Road, 1st floor, H.K. 58 Mt. Nicholson Gap, H.K. Geography & Geology Dept., University of Hong Kong, H.K. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 10, The Albany, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 81 should be seized as a traitor by the Mandarins. In the end he settled at Hong Kong, where he is said to encourage disreputable characters by the loan of money, and in various ways to reap the proceeds of profligacy and crime.5 Loo Aqui also appears in the records as Lo Aking 盧亞 or Sze Mun King [Lo] (King, the Gentleman). At the time of the Sino-British war he seems to have played both sides of the game. The Chinese government lured him back to Canton by offering him an official degree of the sixth rank. He accepted but did not stay long with the Chinese, as he was soon back in Hong Kong enjoying the rewards of his services as provisioner for the British forces. He seems to have had supporters in Hong Kong Government circles for he secured the grant of a large and valuable section of land behind the Marine Lots of the Lower Bazaar. This was the area between Queen's Road and Jervois Street extending from near its junction westward to Cleverly Street. He and his family also acquired a number of Marine Lots by grant or purchase. Of the twenty-seven signers of the petition of land owners in 1848, about one-fifth of them were members of the Loo clan. Soon after the settlement of Hong Kong Loo Aqui was operating a gambling establishment and brothels. In 1845 he built a theatre. For a time he held the opium monopoly, and when the residents of the Middle Bazaar were removed to the Tai Ping Shan area in 1844, he petitioned the Government for the privilege of operating a market for the inhabitants, agreeing to build a substantial market house at a cost of $2,500 and to pay a monthly rental to Government of $200 for a period of five years. Loo Aqui and Tam Achoy were recognized as the leaders of the Chinese community, for according to a Chinese account entitled "Information as to the period of the formations of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan—a bay to Wan—a circuit”, in 1847 they built the Man-Mo Temple on Hollywood Road and here "they judged the people in public assembly" until 1851 when the shopkeepers of the Lower Bazaar "repaired to Man-Mo Temple, elected a Committee, and therein decided all cases of any public interest". Aside from Aqui's income from various business ventures, he had a steady income from his properties. In 1850 he was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 95 two European partners of the firm, with the intention of building Chinese houses of a better type to accommodate the wives and families of the growing class of well-to-do compradores. Previously the compradores had not brought their families to Hong Kong but they remained in their home village or in Canton. The editor of The China Mail comments that "Messrs. Dent and Company have shown both wisdom and kindness in disposing of their land for such purposes. Chiu Wing Tsun (†), one of the purchasers, and his elder brother, Yuk Ting (†), had both been compradores in Dent and Company. Their nephew Chiu Yee Chee () was compradore at Shanghai and became one of the organizers of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company in 1872. Chiu Wing Tsun died at Macao in 1873, leaving property in Hong Kong estimated at $111,000.27 Yeong Lan Ko (☎), the other Chinese purchaser of the Dent property, had succeeded his relative Yeong Atai (*) alias Yeong Chun Kum, to the position of first compradore of Dents at Hong Kong upon the latter's death in 1870. Yeong Lan Ko alias Yeong Sun Yow (), and also known as Asam (), was one of Hong Kong's largest landowners. In 1876 he was the nineteenth largest rate-payer and in 1881 had risen to fifth position. He died in 1884 at Pak Shan, the family village in Heung Shan District. Before Dents sold their property, the few substantial Chinese who had family residences in Hong Kong were located at the former Middle Bazaar site. When the inhabitants of the Middle Bazaar had been relocated at Tai Ping Shan, the Government replotted the area and laid off new lots which were meant to be bought principally by Europeans for their residences or business houses.28 Two of the more substantial Chinese bought lots at the sale in 1844: Ying Wing Kee (*) alias Ng Wing Kee (**), a compradore and merchant who died in 1849, and Tong Kam Sing, a contractor who died in 1845. Other Chinese of this class soon bought lots from European owners, that they might establish family houses in a better part of town. These included Wei Akwong, compradore of Bowra and Company and later of the Chartered Mercantile Bank; Ho Sek, compradore of Lyall, Still and Company; Lee Kip Tye, a Fukien broker who began his Hong Kong career as a Government interpreter; ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 104 CARL T. SMITH imposture and contemptible impudence". He later was part of Chan Lai Tau's ambassadorial staff at Washington, and upon his return to China in 1882, he promoted the organization of the Canton and Hong Kong Telegraph Company.38 Associated with Ho Shan Chee in the Telegraph Company was a kinsman, Ho Kwan Shan (何崑珊) alias Ho Amei (何阿美),†Œ4 the Secretary of the On Tai Insurance Company in Hong Kong. Ho Kwan Shan had been educated at Dr. Legge's Anglo-Chinese College in Hong Kong, being a schoolmate of the sons of Ho Asun. Upon completing his education, Ho Kwan Shan joined his elder brother, Ho Low Yuk (何陸玉) in Australia in 1858. From Australia in 1865 he went to New Zealand to arrange for the importation of the first Chinese laborers to New Zealand. Returning to Australia, he served for a time as interpreter at Ballarat, Victoria. In 1868 he came back to Hong Kong. Here he became a clerk in the Registrar General's Office. Later he became interested in developing mines on Lan Tau Island as well as at other places in Kwang Tung Province.39 The most prominent of the Ho clan, however, was the family of Ho Tsun Shin (何遵善) or as he was better known in Christian circles, Ho Fuk Tong (何福堂).† His father had been a block cutter for the press of the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Ho Fuk Tong joined him there and became a student at the College. He showed scholastic aptitude and for a time accompanied the son of the senior missionary at the Malacca Station to India for advanced study. Upon the arrival of the Rev. James Legge at the Mission, a close bond was established between the two young men. Ho Fuk Tong was his junior by three years. When Legge removed to Hong Kong in 1843, Ho Fuk Tong accompanied him and was ordained as the Chinese pastor of the London Missionary Society congregation in 1846. He continued as a faithful minister of the congregation (now Hop Yat Church) until his death in 1871. He was conscientious and faithful in his service to the church, but he was also very successful as a financier. After his death there were numerous Court suits over the interpretation of his will and the administration of his estate. Some of the difficulties arose because Ho Fuk Tong held his property under various aliases. In one of the cases a barrister gives his opinion why Ho Fuk Tong followed this procedure: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 110 CARL T. SMITH Boarding School at Singapore of the American Board. One was Leung Tsun Tak (梁遵德) who was employed as an interpreter at the Hong Kong Magistracy. He was a son of Leung Afat (梁亞佛) an ordained evangelist of the London Missionary Society,49 The other lad was Wei Akwong (韋阿光) whom Bridgman had picked up sick and starving on the streets of Macao some years previous. Akwong, unlike the other Chinese we have been mentioning, never received baptism. At first he assisted Bridgman in his missionary work in Hong Kong, but when Bridgman moved to Canton in 1845 Akwong remained in Hong Kong. He became compradore for the ship chandlers and storekeepers Bowra and Company, but in 1855 was appointed Supreme Court Interpreter in Chinese and Malay. In 1857 when the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China opened its Hong Kong office, Wei Akwong became the bank's compradore. He retained this office until his death in 1878 and was succeeded by his son Wei Ayuk (韋亞玉) alias Wei Bo Shan (韋寶臣). Wei Akwong was a recognized leader of the Chinese community, and his name appears on numerous petitions and memorials. Like Wong Shing he sent his sons abroad to study. His eldest son Wei Yuk married a daughter of Wong Shing, and followed in the footsteps of his father-in-law by serving on the Legislative Council from 1896 to 1917.50 He was knighted in 1919 and died in 1922. The Bishop of Victoria had under his patronage upon his arrival in Hong Kong in 1850, a young Chinese whom he had met in England. Chan Tai Kwong (陳大光) was a native of Pun Yu District of Kwang Tung, but he turned up in England in 1845 as a young man aged eighteen. How he got to England and what he was doing there, I have not been able to determine, but in 1849 the newly appointed Bishop of Victoria met him and took him under his patronage, with the hope that he could be trained as an evangelist among the Chinese. Soon after coming to Hong Kong, Tai Kwong was sent to Singapore to marry Gay Eng, also known as Sarah Hughes, a pupil in the school for Chinese girls conducted by Miss Grant. Upon his return to Hong Kong he was placed on three years' probation before ordination, but the Bishop did license him to preach to the prisoners in the Victoria Gaol. Chan Tai Kwong, however, had difficulties in adjusting to his new position. His experience in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 128 H. J. LETHBRIDGE monthly meetings, but it is clear that consensus was usually arrived at and the Registrar General/Secretary for Chinese Affairs given sound advice on important local matters for it was politically unwise for the Committee to be deadlocked or sharply split for long. If that had occurred too frequently, the utility of the Committee as the chief consultative body would have declined46, It would be wrong, however, to think of the Committee as being, in modern parlance, a purely 'Establishment' body. Certainly its members had very close links with European businessmen in the Colony. At the beginning of this century over half its members were compradores to European firms and banks. On the other hand it is clear the Committee did succeed in expressing what we can only call a Chinese point of view”. There are a number of reasons for this. Most committeemen had contacts of one sort or another with the commercial world of Canton and some were involved in the politics of Kwangtung Province and one in particular, Ho Kai, with Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary movement47. Many owned property and land in Kwangtung and were interested in the economic development of that area48. And nearly all sent their male children back to China for education49. Thus the members of the District Watch Committee were involved in two sets of interests: those of Hong Kong and those of Kwangtung. Yet when they spoke up about an issue they represented principally the interests of the compradore bourgeoisie, suggesting a narrower but perhaps more complex set of interests than would be conveyed by the use of the word 'Chinese'. Even the highly westernised Ho Kai, a Chinese who had studied Western medicine at Edinburgh University, dispensed with the queue and wore London suits, who married an Englishwoman and wrote better English than Chinese50 was still able to represent the generalised opinions of the Chinese community and, more importantly, the point of view of a segment of Hong Kong's Chinese community, that of the Chinese businessman and speculator. The advice given by the Committee to government must be seen then as a distillation of all these complex sets of interests. There were, as I have already emphasised, several reasons why the Committee became so important as a key advisory body. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE 139 36 In 1917 there were 31 guilds for employers only (in trades such as silk, sandalwood, wicker furniture and copper), 35 skilled craftsmen guilds (sandalwood workers, masons, tinsmiths, etc.) and 5 guilds with mixed membership (employers and workers). There were also 17 district societies, such as the Heung Shan (Hsiang-shan) resident merchants association and the General Commercial Association of the Tung Kun (Tung-kuan) merchants resident in Hong Kong. See the list of exempted and registered societies in the Gazette, 27 April 1917. 37 Wei Yuk was appointed in 1891 and served until his death in 1929. He resigned several times in order to allow a newcomer to join the Committee but was soon re-appointed. Lau Chu-pak was appointed in 1902 and served until his death in 1922. Sir Shouson Chow was appointed in 1917 and was still a member in 1949, the year of the demise of the Committee. 38 During the years 1929 to 1931 and in 1936 the Committee met four times a year at Government House. Lennox Mills states that members had the right to a guard of the District Watch Force on the occasion of weddings and other festivities'. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs tells us in his report for 1936 that through the kindness of His Excellency the Committee was able to meet the members of the Mui Tsai Commission on the occasion of their first visit to the Colony, 'All members attended and there was a valuable discussion with frank interchange of views'. When the Governor, Sir Henry Blake, left the Colony in 1903 on the day of his departure he inspected the District Watchmen. Clearly, everything was done by the government to give prestige and éclat to the Committee and the force. 19 T. C. Cheng, op. cit., p. 18. 40 Of the Chinese land population in the 1901 census 227,615 returned themselves as natives of Kwangtung Province, 179,296 of this number belonging to the Kwong Chau Prefecture, 28,844 came from Tung-kuan hsien, 28,587 from P'an-yü hsien, and 27,221 from Nan-hai hsien. The situation was substantially the same in the censuses of 1911, 1921 and 1931. In 1911, for example, 311,992 out of 350,418 Chinese in Hong Kong, exclusive of the New Territories, spoke Cantonese, 41 Op. cit., pp. 399-400. 42 Heung Shan, present-day Chung Shan, is the arid county on the west side of the Pearl River, stretching down to Macau. It was the Heung Ha, the Cantonese term for the province, district or village from which each person derives his ancestry, of many prominent Chinese, including Ng Choy (Wu Ting-fang), Yung Wing (Yung Hung), Wong Shing (Huang Shêng), and Sun Yat-sen. Many Chinese merchants in Hong Kong came from this county; for example, Wei Yuk, Ma Ying-piu (founder of the Sincere Company), M. Y. San (before 1941 the largest biscuit manufacturer in China), Tsang Foo, Look Poong-shan (founder of the Bank of Canton). Su Chao-cheng, organiser and leader of the Seamen' Strike in 1922, came from this county; in 1928 Su was elected to the Central Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. The anarchist, Liu Ssu-fu, was also born there. In 1938 the Chung Shan Commercial Association had a membership of over 4,000 in Hong Kong. 43 In 1905, for example, at least seven members of the Committee were compradores to important western firms; one was manager of a native bank; another of a prosperous pawnshop; a third ran a large export firm. Ho Kai was primarily a financier rather than an entrepreneur. See on this point the Chinese speculator Marie-Claire Bergère, "The Role of the Bourgeoisie' in M. C. Wright, ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase 1900-1913, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968, p. 236. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 185 I hurry on to the month of October, 1856, when there occurred the affair of the lorcha Arrow at Canton, which grew out of the practice of granting sailing letters to native craft, adopted, I think in the previous year, by Sir John Bowring, and which was rendered necessary to save the holders of them from capture by the insurgent fleets in the neighbourhood of Whampoa. A more unfortunate occasion of hostilities could not have presented itself; it was almost as bad as the opium complications which brought on our former war. It was felt to be so by Sir Michael Seymour, into whose hands the management of the thing soon passed from those of the Governor, and he tried to shift the quarrel to the old question of throwing open the gates of the city. The sense of many at home was sufficiently declared by the decision of Parliament against going to war about the matter, and under any other prime minister than Lord Palmerston the adverse vote would have been final. He appealed from it, however, to the country, which supported his policy, and Lord Elgin was called to proceed to China, and square up all the accounts between it and Great Britain. Before that, however, on the morning of the 15th January, 1857, occurred the diabolical attempt to poison a large number of the inhabitants of the Colony by means of bread supplied from the bakery of A-lum. I was one of those who partook of the poison. I did so twice; early in the morning, and again at breakfast time; soon getting rid, however, of all the noxious matter through violent paroxysms of sickness. Never was such a day of excitement in the Colony; and had A-lum been caught at once, he would have been lynched beyond a doubt; but he had gone off with all his family by the early steamer to Macao. Being pursued thither, and brought back, he was subsequently brought to trial and acquitted, the guilt of the deed being thrown by him on his foreman and another man, who had made their escape. He was subsequently kept in gaol at large for some time, and there I made his acquaintance. He was a tall, imposing-looking man for a Chinese, and had been well educated. The respect and deference shown to him by all the prisoners were wonderful. On the Sundays, when I went to conduct a religious service with them, he quite took me under his patronage, had the books ready, and maintained perfect order among all who attended. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 186 REV. JAMES LEGGE On the 2nd July of that year, I was walking out on Caine's Road in the afternoon with a friend, when we saw a steamer coming through Sulphur Channel. At first we thought it must be the mail, but it proved to be the Shannon, with Lord Elgin on board. As she steamed into the harbour, and she and the Admiral saluted each other, and the thunder of their guns reverberated along the sides of the mountain, which were then all fringed with mist, I said to my companion, "There is the knell of the past of China. It can do nothing against these leviathans." And so it was. I need not try to tell you how Lord Elgin's measures were delayed in a manner that contributed much, through his prompt and magnanimous decision, to the preservation of our Indian empire. All this and his subsequent proceedings in China may be seen in brief in the memoir of his Life published during the present year. It is only when he is gone that the public at large have the means of knowing what a good and great man Lord Elgin was,—bold, prudent, far-seeing, conscientious. I hope all my hearers, if they have not already read, will soon take the opportunity to read, that memoir, and especially the chapters relating to his two missions to China. The Government at home was equal to the exigencies of the occasion as well as Lord Elgin. Fresh troops were sent out. He went to Calcutta, but was back from it in September. The war at Canton was brought to an end by the capture of the city on the 29th of that month, and Yeh was taken prisoner a few days after. The surprise and disgust of the Chinese in general were great, because he did not seal his loyalty to the dragon throne by at once committing suicide. In January, 1858, I made a visit to Canton, and had the satisfaction of walking all over it, and on a Sunday opened the first house, that was set apart in it to that purpose, for the preaching of the gospel. My sermon was followed by one from a relative of the T'ae-ping king, who came subsequently to be well known himself at Nanking as the Shield King. Poor man! He had been connected with the London Mission here for several years, and was the most genial and versatile Chinese I have ever known, and of whom I can never think but with esteem and regret. Had he taken my advice, he would have remained quietly in Hongkong as a preacher, and might have been living with his head on him to the present day. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g # THE COLONY OF HONG KONG # 187 As I walked out, after the service, round the wall of the city, I had a singular and pleasing rencontre with a countryman and fellow-townsman of my own. Passing the quarters of the English troops, near the Five-storied Pagoda, a fine-looking fellow of the Engineers came panting up the hill, and addressing me, said, “Are you Mr. Legge of Hongkong?” "Yes, but I do not know that ever I saw you before." "But you have," said he, bursting into the sweet Aberdeenshire Doric; "I cam oot for the wark here, and we hadna time to land at Hongkong, or I would hae come to see ye. Dinna ye ken the sma toon o' Huntly in Aberdeenshire?" "I know Huntly well, and so, I suppose, do you. Are you from Huntly?" "Eh! aye. D'ye mind the Piries at the brig-fitt?" All I could do, I could not bring the Piries to my recollection; but this was one of them, John Pirie; and seeing that he had the Victoria Cross on his breast, I touched it, and said, "Weel, I see you hae na been disgracing oor sma toon; what did ye get this for?" "It was a sma matter, and nae worth speaking about." "But tell me what ye got it for." "Weel, ye see, I was in the Crimea in the attack on the Redan. You ken it was a failure, an' we had to retreat, and many o' oor men were i' the open exposed to the fire o' the Russians. I was wounded mysel', but nae sae sair that I couldna keep the field, and I thought I would try and bring aff some o' these men. An' I did sae, an' they thought it was a brave thing, and gied me this cross for it. But it was a sma matter; I couldna but dee't.” On returning from Canton, I started for a short visit to England by way of Calcutta. I reached that city on the day that news came down to it of the taking of Lucknow; and a few weeks after I sailed for home in the same steamer with Sir John Inglis, and many officers of the garrison of Lucknow, and many widows also whose husbands had died there. You may be sure the passage was not tedious with such companions, but I have not time to dwell on my intercourse with them, and many of the thrilling narratives about the siege which I received from their lips. In September, 1859, I was back here again, and found that Sir Hercules Robinson had arrived a little before me as our new Governor. The news also greeted me of the violation of the T'ëentsin treaty by the Chinese, and of the defeat of our fleet at ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 192 REV. JAMES LEGGE I had intended to say something on the coolie traffic, though Great Britain happily is not chargeable with its enormities, as another thing which is disgraceful to the Christianity of the West, and happily has not extended to Japan;-forming another great element of difference in our relations with it and with China, and going far to account for the different way in which foreigners are regarded by the people of the two countries. I have trespassed, however, so long on your time, that I content myself with this brief reference to it. And there is only one other subject which I shall mention. A little ago I quoted from Sir Rutherford Alcock the words of Prince Kung, asking that we should take away from China our opium and our Christian Missions. Are these two things then to be placed in the same category? It is enough to say that Missions are expressly commanded by God, and that it is not in the province of human governments to interfere with them. If there be abuses indeed in the conduct of any religious missions in China, let them be proved, punished, and forbidden. The one thing that in the circle of my experience has been a great blessing to China has been the missionary enterprise. Our Protestant missions may not have come anywhere in it with much observation, but in the little more than five and twenty years that they have been at work, they have made constant progress, and have on the whole been greatly successful. There is much misconception on this subject,—misconception in some to be pitied, in some to be blamed. I would gladly say more upon it, and I think I could prove more than what I have affirmed to the satisfaction of you all. But I must have done; I could not, having been for the best part of my life a missionary, have satisfied my conscience if I had not said thus much on this occasion. Well; what is to be the future of Hongkong? "Things are on the turn," one and another have said to me, "and we shall soon be having as good times as in the best days of Sir Hercules Robinson." Not so soon, say I, unless we have war again, which may God forbid! The first thing must be to get back and foster the junk trade. Then when I try to pierce into the future, I see a railway from Kowloong to Canton. I see a trunk line from Han-k'ow to Canton, and branch lines connecting with it from the great provinces of the west, and from Cheh-këang and Fuh- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g bination with rattan NOTES AND QUERIES 199 () for net frames only. The ropes were usually up to 20-28 in length and could be even 30+ ★, in which case the rope was turned round and carried part of the way back the rope road. Mr. Yue recalled that the first type of rope had been used by trawlers up to and through the Japanese Occupation but had stopped shortly after the Liberation. The second type had been made and used in local fishing craft up to his brother's death some 7-8 years ago. The ropes were twisted from three strands, so that there were three stands with handles at one end of the rope road and a single one at the other. Up to ten persons were employed in the work. Unlike dyeing, this business had been in the Yue family for several generations as both Yue's father and grandfather are reported to have engaged in this work. There were several pools at Ta Lam Lo filled with sea water and lime in which the ... was soaked for 10 days to soften it and preserve it. If fresh water was used salt had to be added. There is still some rope-making on Ap Lei Chau at a place beyond the Kwun Yum temple but the material used is nylon and wire. This place had also been used to manufacture the other kinds of rope in the earlier period and was known locally as Lam Lo Mei (44), being subsidiary to the main area. A short description of the calendering process is given at p. 190 of the 1970 Journal. This dates from the 1860s, and probably relates to Central China, Hong Kong, April 1971. JAMES HAYES CHARCOAL BURNING IN HONG KONG In his compendious work on China published in 1878 Archdeacon Gray of Canton wrote: "As coal is not used for domestic purposes, charcoal is in great demand, and charcoal-burners are to be seen daily on the hills. The hillsides of Pun-yu, Fa-yune, and Tsung-fa -districts of Kwun Tung- are studded with their fires; and on the slopes of the Lew-Shan range of mount- Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 241 STAFFORD, Peter STANLEY, Major H. F. - STANTON, W. T.* STEVENS, Major K. G.* STOKES, J. + STONEY, G. S. STONEY, Mrs. G. S. STOWE, C. - STRAUSS, Prof. W. P. c/o The Mandarin Hotel, Connaught Road, C., H.K. c/o H.K. Tourist Association, Realty Building, H.K. Dina House, Duddell Street, H.K. 9 Cherry Glebe, Mersham, Ashford, Kent, England. 427, Boubury Road, Oxford, England. Flat 1, "Ravencourt", 24 Mount Austin Rd., H.K. As above. Unknown. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum, H.K. STRICKLAND, Mrs. P. G. c/o Caldbeck Macgregor & Co., Ltd., SU, Dr. Chung-jen* SU, Ming-hsuan SU, Samon SWIRE, A. C.* SYKES, Major A. E. TALBOT, H. D. B. TAN, Khek-seng* TANG, Mrs. Jack C. - TANG, Sir Shiu-kin TARARIN, P. A.* - THOMAS, L. F. THROWER, Prof. L. B. TILL, Very Rev. B.* TISDALL, B. + + TOMLIN, Mrs. Ian. · - Union House, H.K. 155, Blue Pool Road, Flat A, 1/F, H.K. 45 Hankow Road, 9th Floor, Flat "C", Kowloon, c/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road, Central, H.K. c/o John Swire & Sons, Ltd., 66 Cannon Street, London, E.C.4, England. c/o M.O.D. Chinese Language School, Lycmun Barracks, B.F.P.O.1, H.K. c/o Dept. of Geography, University of Hong Kong, H.K. A1, 7th floor, Villa Monte Rosa, 41A Stubbs Road, H.K. 7C Bowen Road, Bowen Mansions, Apt. 402, H.K. Room 1701, Central Building, H.K. 623 N. Harper Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90048, U.S.A. c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 6-B, Alberose, 134 Pokfulum Road, H.K. c/o Morley College, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London S.E.1., England. 1 Garden Terrace, G/F, H.K. 19, Tai Tam Road, Lower Flat, Stanley, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 242 TOOGOOD, C. W. - TORRENS, Dr. Paul R.. TORRENS, Mrs. Paul R. TORRIBLE, G. R.* TOWNER, J. A. TRISTRAM, M. P. W. TSEUNG, Dr. F. I. TUCK, Miss Jean TURNER, Sir Michael* UHALLEY, Dr. S., Jr. VALE, Miss M. VARNEY, Dr. C. B. VETCH, H. VETCH, Mrs. H. VIÒ, Dr. E. G. VISICK, Mrs. M. VOSS, Dr. A. c/o Oxford University Press, 5th floor, News Building, 633 King's Road, H.K. 59A Nga Tsin Wai Road, A2, Kowloon, As above. c/o The Hong Kong Club, H.K. Unknown. Rating & Valuation Dept., Murray House, Garden Road, H.K. China Building, 4th floor, H.K. Unknown. 'Whispers', Riversdale, Bourne End, Bucks, England. c/o Dept. of History, Duke University, Durham, N. Carolina, U.S.A, 49 Talbot Road, London, W.2. England. c/o Dept. of Geography, United College, C.U.H.K., 9A, Bonham Road, H.K. Belmont Court 10A, 10 Kotewall Road, H.K. As above. 315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Dept. of English, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 27, Babington Path, H.K. WAINWRIGHT, Mrs. J. A. 5, Goldsmith Road, Jardines Lookout, H.K. WALDEN, J. C. C. WARD, Miss J. E. A.* WATERS, D. D. WATSON, James L. WATSON, K. A. WATT, James C. Y. WEBSTER, J. L. H. WEI, Dr. Tat WEINREBE, H. M. WELCH, Holmes, H.* c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. c/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, North Devon, England. Morrison Hill Technical Institute, 6 Oi Kwan Road, Morrison Hill, Wan Chai, H.K. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77004, U.S.A. c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. c/o The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. c/o The British Council, P.K. 15, Sisli, Istanbul, Turkey, 3, Fontana Gardens, 5th Floor, Causeway Hill, H.K. c/o Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805 The Bank of Canton Building, H.K. 4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., U.S.A. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 22 P. H. COLLIN of the time. The painting of the praya at Macao (No. XVII) is a scene which is found in many nineteenth-century illustrated books;* the picture of the East walls of Canton (No. XXXV) is virtually the same as that of the frontispiece of Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, that of Howqua's garden (No. XLV) closely resembles the frontispiece of Albert Smith's pamphlet To China and Back. The dealer from whom the paintings were acquired was unable to identify their origin, nor the artist whose initials G.A.S. appear on numbers XXXIII and XLV. Nor was it possible to find any clues as to the whereabouts of the missing paintings, which, to go by the Roman numbers on the reverse, must be at least twenty-five in number. To discover the identity of the artist, there are certain clues in the paintings themselves. In view of their dates, it seems certain that he must have come to the Far East in connection with the "Arrow" war and the capture of Canton in December 1857. Reinforcements for this campaign were requested by Admiral Seymour in the summer of 1857 and arrived in China waters during the autumn of that year. The first to arrive were the steam-transports Imperador and Imperatrix, which reached Hong Kong on 28th October and 6th November respectively. Some time after them came the Adelaide, also a steamer, which, although leaving England at the same time as others (the Imperador left Plymouth on August 10th, the Imperatrix on 12th August, the Adelaide on 17th August), only arrived in Hong Kong on December 1st. Wingrove Cooke, in his despatches to "The Times", reveals the impatience of the Hong Kong garrison with what he calls "this lagging log, the Adelaide." In a later report, he states that "the long-expected Adelaide made her appearance on the 1st, having on board twenty officers and 507 rank and file". Judging from the date on the first painting, the artist we are concerned with must have been aboard the Adelaide: perhaps he devoted himself to painting to relieve the tedium of the excessively long voyage. There were, of course, people in Hong Kong at the time who might have painted the pictures. Albert Smith mentions meeting on 24th August 1858 the son-in-law of the P. and O. agent, a “Mr. * As, for example, in James Orange, The Chater Collection, Pictures relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao 1655-1830 (1924). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 24 P. H. COLLIN "Soon after moving on, we came to a rivulet, the course of which assured us our problem was solved; there must be a pass through the mountains. We followed the stream, and emerged on the great plain. Our spirits rose, and we walked on, admiring the peacefulness and tranquillity of everything, and the hospitality of the poor industrious countrymen. We concluded that we might with ease and comfort walk to Pekin. Some quail fell to some of our sportsmen's guns, and some distant trees gave promise of the nobler woodcock. On nearing this wood, we found that it formed the background to a large village, but we saw a path leading round outside, which we resolved to follow. We were considerably astonished by several villagers coming forward gesticulating, and, as we afterwards supposed, entreating us not to go on. We could not at the time quite make out what they meant, but supposed that they did not wish us to pass through the village. So on we went by the outer path, and entered a grove of tall pine-trees. We were instantly saluted by such a din of gongs, and clamour of voices as I never heard as if we had upset a hive of people. Individual Chinese soldiers displayed themselves, beating two swords together, and capering about, as if to challenge us to single combat. We caught one man, and tried, through our interpreter, to explain that we were only out for a walk. "It was manifest enough that the scrape we had been endeavouring to avoid, we had at last fallen into, and in a more unpleasant form than we anticipated; in fact, that we had stumbled on the enemy's camp. The hum of voices sounded as if upwards of a thousand people were in movement. Our first step was to load, and our next to get back into the open plain, where we could not be surrounded without seeing our assailants. Whilst we were loading, bang came a great jingall shot right among us, fortunately hitting no one. Another shot or two were fired which were not very well aimed, and we got on to the plain. "Of course our danger was that we should be cut off from Canton, whence we were distant, as the crow flies, about six miles. But, unfortunately, it was not visible from where we were, and of course we only had an idea of about where it ought to be. We saw from the plain that there was a succession of villages in the direction of the city, and we feared the alarm would spread, and that we should be headed by these villagers turning out in front of us, Page 30 Page 31 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON 27 a loss to them as well as to ourselves, from shells fired by the Navy". On the other hand, Mr. Loch, Lord Elgin's attaché with the attacking forces, reported back to Lord Elgin on 5th January 1858 that "by the bombardment being continued till 9 o'clock instead of ceasing at 6 o'clock a.m., as was originally intended, we came under the fire of our own shells from the ships".12 Once Canton was taken, the Artillery company formed part of the garrison. The authors of the official history of the Royal Marine Artillery make no reference to the "Jingal pic-nic" incident, but do mention a sortie against the Chinese on June 2nd 1858, in which Major Schomberg took part. Col. Fisher also relates this incident, in which the British forces lost several men and suffered from the extreme heat, but again does not give the names of the officers concerned. For the rest of the summer after the voyage to the Peiho (not mentioned in The Royal Marine Artillery), Major Schomberg seems to have spent his time amusing himself as best he could in Canton. In September the garrison was enlivened by the visit of "poor Albert Smith" as Col. Fisher calls him. Their visitor, who seems to have been permanently suffering from stomach trouble and the heat, was taken on a round of the sights, including the Honan Temple (picture number XXXIII), and on 12th September 1858, notes that he had dinner with "Captain" Schomberg. Fisher comments that apart from horse-racing "cricket was one of the first sports we introduced; and the Tartar parade-ground at the foot of the heights formed really a very good ground". Major Schomberg was not much of a cricketer, and the "Hong Kong Register" for the 9th March 1858, reports that in a match played in Canton between two military teams he scored a duck in both innings. The Royal Marine Artillery gives the date of Schomberg's return to England as January 1859, which fits in well with the date on the last of the paintings: curiously, there is no mention of his name on any of the lists of passengers in Hong Kong newspapers for that month, but this may be because he returned on a troop-ship. In later life Schomberg went on to be Deputy Adjutant General of the Royal Marines. He was made a general in 1877 and was knighted in 1896. He died at the age of eighty-six in 1907. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 28 P. H. COLLIN NOTES 1 Wingrove Cooke, China, London, 1858. p. 254. 2 Ibid., p. 279. 3 This was J. Scarth, who in 1860 published Twelve Years in China, illustrated from his own sketches. In this work Scarth has little to say of the events in Canton during the Arrow War, pointing out that the subject had been fully treated by Wingrove Cooke. 4 Albert Smith, To China and Back, London, 1859, p. 27. 5 J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, 1900 edition, p. 38, gives the following description. "Gingals, or Jingals, are long tapering guns, six to fourteen feet in length, borne on the shoulders of two men and fired by a third. They have a stand, or tripod, resembling one of a telescope”. 6 Lt. Col. Fisher, Three Years' Service in China, London, 1863 p. 25. 7 Ibid., p. 72. 8 E. Fraser & L. G. Carr-Laughton, The Royal Marine Artillery. 1804-1923, London, 1930, p. 459. I am indebted to Miss J. S. Crockett of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for drawing my attention to this work. 9 Ibid., p. 462. 10 Cooke, op. cit., p. 329. 11 Fisher, op. cit., p. 4. 12 Parliamentary papers on Lord Elgin's mission to China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 54 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG Councillors 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. II 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. 12 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. 13 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'. 14 Tentatively we have translated the Chinese phrase hui-tan as counter-foil. Note 19 also refers. 15 The term is fuyin. See Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 793. 16 See Frank H. H. King, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911. 17 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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 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. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 90 E. G. PRYOR Besides their wider trading interests, the British in Canton had established a thriving trade in opium brought from India. The Chinese government regarded this trade with considerable concern, on the grounds that it was harmful to human welfare and also a serious drain on the country's finances. Early attempts by the Chinese government to stop the opium trade failed but in 1839 a Special Imperial Commissioner was appointed who forced the British traders in Canton to relinquish their supplies of the narcotic. The British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Elliot, consequently withdrew the English merchants to Macau and later transferred them onto ships anchored in Hong Kong harbour; subsequent events led to open hostilities between Chinese and British forces. It was decided by Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, that a satisfactory settlement of the dispute would require either a commercial treaty with adequate guarantees to protect the interests of British merchants or the cession of one or more off-shore islands from which the traders could operate without restriction. A British expedition was despatched to China in 1840 to back up these demands and in January 1841 negotiations were held in Canton between Captain Elliot and Keshen, a Manchu Commissioner, whereby it was agreed by the Convention of Chuenpi that Hong Kong Island was to be ceded to the British (Figure 1).* A British naval force took possession of the island on 26th January 1841, The Chuenpi terms were accepted by neither side. Elliot was replaced by Sir Henry Pottinger and hostilities were renewed. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Nanking on 29th August 1842 by which the island of Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to the Crown and four additional ports besides Canton were opened to British traders. The island was formally declared a British Colony on 26th June 1843 and Sir Henry Pottinger was appointed the first Governor. Hong Kong was declared a free port and by the Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue the Chinese were given free access to the island for trading purposes. The Housing Problem Takes Root: 1841-1881 Almost from the day Captain Elliot raised the British flag on the northern shores of Hong Kong Island, a steady stream of artisans and labourers made their way to the Colony from the southern provinces. *Figures 1-8 will be found at the rear of the text. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG 95 On level sites, houses were commonly built back to back (Figure 3) whilst on sloping sites buildings had a narrow lane along the face of the embankment seldom more than 5 ft. wide. The usual building material was blue Canton brick, which was soft and porous, although plaster was normally applied on the outside walls to provide a seal against the weather. Tile roofs were the general rule. Most buildings had very narrow frontages of between 13 ft. and 16 ft., which was dictated by the common length of China fir poles used for floor beams. By comparison, the depth of buildings was considerable, ranging from 30 ft. to 60 ft. In terraced houses, only the front rooms had windows, so that the inner compartments were dark and airless. At the rear of each floor was a cookhouse, normally about 7 ft. deep, which also frequently served as a latrine, storage room, and even sleeping quarters. Chimneys were the exception, and smoke escaped by means of holes, usually about 4 feet square, cut in the upper floors and roof. Such smokeholes were not very effective, with the consequence that fumes permeated the living space. Tenement houses were constructed so that each floor was one undivided room. On the ground floor, a space was boarded off in front of the kitchen for a bedroom or store, and above this, a platform was often erected as a workplace or for sleeping. The upper floors were divided by wooden partitions into cabins about 9 ft. long and 10 ft. wide; each cubicle formed the living space of an individual or family. The cubicles were only 7 ft. high, and above them cocklofts were constructed. Each floor was usually leased to a separate tenant and then sublet to other families; severe overcrowding became a way of life. Whilst the regulations required the provision of latrines, these were rarely found. Women and children normally used a pot kept either under a bed or in one corner of the cookhouse. The menfolk had to resort to the use of public latrines, which, although supervised by the Government, were run as a business speculation, with the products being shipped to Canton and sold at considerable profit to farmers. In particular, night soil was valued as a manure for mulberry trees in the silk-producing districts of Kwangtung Province. The contents of house pots were removed either daily, every second day, or twice a week according to the financial means or inclination of the inhabitants. This task was performed by coolies, and for a twice-a-week service, the charge was HK$0.10-0.15 per pot. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 178 KEITH STEVENS C. as a fierce, two or six-armed, three-eyed general or two-eyed Taoist priest. d. as an array of sixty rather characterless seated images, each with a two-character cyclic date on a scroll or tablet (...), or a number between one and sixty painted on the stand or pedestal, or painted over its head. The sixty statues have been seen only in Cantonese and Shanghainese areas though reported on one occasion by Hodous in Foochow. Sometimes all images are identical, sometimes they are a mixture of fierce and gentle, and in one particular Cantonese temple they were beautifully finished. Werner, however, says that the 60 cycle-gods are represented by most grotesque images. (See plate 16). In Ningpo in the 1890s the gods of time, gods of the year, months, days and the hours were all represented with long black moustaches. The central one was seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella, richly embroidered in gold and colours representing the highest emblem of authority. They are also represented in the temple of the Thunder God in the same town. Rev. Henry in Canton saw sixty small images each one to the presiding genius of each year on a minor shrine in the temple of the City God. Some were raised on tiles and some bedecked with gaudy red coats, the gifts of those who had received special favours in their particular years. C. B. Day says that in Buddhist temples in Chekiang province these are 12 protectors of the Chinese cycle of years. In Suifu, Graham9 saw two images of the 12 rulers of the cyclic year (元甲). The Cantonese version of the youth in a. above, is more often than not dressed only in an apron and shoes. The apron is gilt or green, covering the chest and below the waist only, and is secured by a string around the back of the neck and by a girdle around the waist. In several Cantonese temples he is the main deity. The bell he carries has magical properties. Very occasionally he is to be seen with either a sceptre or a silver shoe in his hands; and on still rarer occasions he can be bearded. 7 Henry, Rev. B. C., The Cross and the Dragon (London, Partridge 1883). 8 Day, C. B., Chinese Peasant Cults (Shanghai 1940). 9 Graham, W., "The temples of Suifu" in The Chinese Recorder, (vol. LXI, 1930). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 198 Chinese Woodcuts NOTES AND QUERIES by Max Loehr (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), p. 1. Columbia University, 1971. L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH UNUSUAL TREES IN HONG KONG: THE CANTON WATER PINE If you leave Kowloon and proceed along the Tai Po Road, shortly after passing the Hong Lok Yuen orchard, you will come to an open area with villages and flower farms by the roadside and with hills in the background bounding the valley. Near milestone 184 on your left is a large Cantonese village, Tai Hang, and in this village at the back of Fei Sha Wai, there are two fascinating but often overlooked trees standing at no great distance from the road. These are Chinese Deciduous Cypress, or Canton Water Pine as it is sometimes known. The scientific name is Glyptostrobus pensilis. Belonging to the family Taxodiaceae, Glyptostrobus is a genus which contains only the single species pensilis. Its distribution is confined to the Provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung in South China, and mature specimens are very uncommon in Hong Kong. The tree may be recognised by its light-brown, fibrous bark, and its foliage which demonstrates two types of leaves: overlapping scales on fruiting twigs and thin needles on the sterile twigs, both of which are a delicate green in spring, turning brown and falling in autumn. The long-stalked cones are pear-shaped and about one and a half inches long. These two old specimens are said to have been planted by one of the ancestors of the village. On asking about the possible age of these two trees, the Village Representative Mr. Man Tse-leung said that they had been planted by one of his ancestors in the Ming Dynasty with seedlings from Law Fu Shan, Canton from where the Man family came some 400 years ago. The Village Representative's account of the origin and age of these two ancients is not without precedent. It is a world-wide practice for an emigrant to take something representative of his old country with him to his new home, in order to give later generations something from his country of origin. Mr. Man's ancestor apparently did just such a thing. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NOTES AND QUERIES 199 Dating ancient trees is difficult because recorded dates of planting of trees before this century are very rare. The precise age of the biggest conifers may be ascertained, within reasonable limits by counting the annual rings. However, there are limitations on the application of this method when applied to ancient trees. In their later years, ancient trees maintain their viability with only a few leaves and they scarcely grow at all. During this period, increases in girth are extremely small, and are of no value in assessing age for these two trees: Mr. Man's account is the best guide to their growth. Observations show that both trees have lost their crowns and survive only on a few green branches, giving the appearance of aged trees, and it is certainly possible that they may be as old as the Village Representative claims. One tree is now 50 feet tall and 6 feet 9 inches in girth. From 30 feet up it has few limbs which still leaf out to the tip. The other is now 61 feet tall and 5 feet 5 inches in girth. From 30 feet up, it has a few limbs but two of these have died back. These data represent trees of considerable size. Thus it appears that the Chinese Deciduous Cypress can grow to a considerable stature, despite the fact that Dallimore and Jackson in their Handbook of Coniferae (1954) described the species as "a small tree". It could be that the information given by Dallimore and Jackson quoted a description from Canton where, I have been told by my colleagues, no trees as big as these two remain living and only small ones exist. The form of these two trees is good, with a single bole, round and straight. They are also in reasonably healthy condition; one bole has no hole in it, and the second has a shallow cavity which is healing well and shows strong callus formation around the edge of the wound. There is no sign of fungal decay or pest attack anywhere. Because of their rarity, they are in fact registered seed trees of the Conservation and Forests Division, Agriculture and Fisheries Department.* The wood of this species is said to be very durable, light and fragrant, and to be used for making boats and life rafts. Boat people in the Pearl River Delta traditionally tie a piece of this wood on their children's backs for safety. The Village Representative recollected an interesting point concerning these two trees. Some 20 years ago, the then Forestry Department distributed seedlings raised from the seed of these trees to * See Plate 30. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 14 H. A. RYDINGS but moved with it to Morrison Hill where it reopened on 1st June, 1843. As already mentioned, he went home in June, 1845. This was because of the illness of his wife, who died on the journey (5). More details of Dr. Hobson's career may be found in a biographical sketch by Dr. K. C. Wong (6). It is interesting to note that prior to his return to China in 1847, Hobson married Mary, daughter of Dr. Robert Morrison, at Bath. Hobson's successor as Secretary, George K. Barton, was a partner with Thomas Hunter in the Victoria Dispensary. This also had premises in Macao, where Hunter was located. James H. Young was the junior partner in the Hongkong Dispensary in Queen's Road, the others being Peter Young (afterwards Colonial Surgeon in succession to Francis Dill on the latter's death in 1846), Samuel Marjoribanks (who was at Canton) and K. M. Kennedy. Dr. Young resigned as Treasurer and from membership in November 1845. Lastly Henry Holgate, according to Eitel, was appointed Colonial Surgeon in August 1841 by Sir Henry Pottinger, but his appointment was subsequently disallowed by the home Government, and his name does not appear in the official list of holders of that office. He presumably remained in Hong Kong in private practice (8). These, then, were the men who guided the China Medico-Chirurgical Society during its brief existence. Of the six, Drs. Tucker and Dill died before the end of 1846, and Dr. Hobson had gone back to England, whilst Dr. J. H. Young had resigned. The China Medico-Chirurgical Society came into existence at a meeting held at the residence of Dr. Dill on 13th May 1845, attended by eleven "Medical Gentlemen of Hongkong." The objects of the Society were set out as "1st—The bringing into more intimate intercourse [of the] Medical brethren in China, for the sake of giving and receiving information on Medical and Surgical subjects; "2nd—The formation of a Library, where all the best periodicals and the most valuable standard medical works of the day can be had; “3rd—The discussion of topics relating more particularly to the diseases prevalent in China, and to the Native Materia Medica." The annual subscription was $12. The Committee consisting of the three officers and three other members was to be elected half ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 42 PETER WESLEY SMITH Lockhart, A contemporary newspaper, however, revealed the true nature of the explanation: 75 marines and two Maxim guns.7 The Special Commissioner was appalled by the discourtesy of the villagers. They were reported to the Viceroy at Canton, who was to "deal with the matter in a proper manner", and a deputation from Kam Tin was obliged to apologize in Hong Kong. Such punishment failed to impress the inhabitants with the error of being disrespectful to British officials, for when occupation of the New Territories commenced in April 1899 the Tangs of Kam Tin were foremost in organization of the resistance movement. Again, therefore, stern reprimands were required, this time by the use of gunpowder. On April 18 a party of sappers from the Hong Kong Regiment blew down the walls flanking the gates of both Kat Hing Wai and Tai Hong Wai, and a few days later the villagers themselves, as an act of submission, carried the two pairs of gates to Flag Staff Hill (Tai Po).10 There they were admired by Governor Sir Henry Blake who, wrote Stewart Lockhart, “instructed me to forward to him a pair of gates from Kam Tin". This was duly done in May, though the villagers had to be reminded to send in a socket.12 The two sets of handsome gates were both defective, one wing of each having suffered from the back-scratching of generations of itchy Kam Tin pigs.13 The remaining gates in good condition were combined to make a pair and were appropriated by Blake for "Myrtle Grove", his home in the Irish county of Youghal. In 1924 the residents of Kam Tin petitioned for the return of the gates. They were supported by the District Officer (North), who referred to the gates as objects "of pride to the inhabitants on account of their workmanship and antiquity”, and the Assistant Superintendent of Police (New Territories) recalled their whereabouts. His wife had formerly been maid and companion to Blake's daughters, and she remembered seeing the gates at Myrtle Grove in 1902. Stewart Lockhart, then retired after serving for many years at Wei Hai Wei, was asked to approach Lady Blake for their recovery.1 His mission was successful, but when the gates arrived back in Hong Kong the Tai Hong Wai villagers recognised their half and claimed possession. Long negotiations ensued between elders of the two villages, and eventually, reports O'Dwyer, "the amount of face that would be gained for the whole clan by their erection as a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA 51 the Chinese more than all the rest of the British warships put together, Chinese opposition to steamships was overborne after the First China War, and in the years between then and the Second China War 1857-1858, steam navigation in China was established on a secure foundation. During the first two decades of steam, American ships were as prominent as British on the Canton River and on the coast, and sometimes more technically efficient. This was largely because the Americans made good use of their experience on the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers, and also because their early steamships were designed specially for coastal and river conditions. Many of the early British steamships were merely sailing ships equipped with engines. The earliest American steamers were associated with Russell and Company, and Robert Benet Forbes was the man mainly responsible for bringing most of these early steamships to China. The first was the Midas, built at East Boston in 1844, which was the first American steamship to round the Cape of Good Hope, as well as being the first to be seen in China. The Midas arrived at Hong Kong on 21st May 1845, and was put on a twice weekly service between Hong Kong and Canton, the first regular steamship service in China. She also engaged in towing and salvage work, which was usually more profitable than carrying passengers or cargo; so that the advertised regular sailings were often more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The Midas was followed by the wooden screw bark Edith, also built at East Boston, which arrived at Macao on 2nd September 1845 and Hong Kong a few days later. The Edith was originally intended to run in the opium trade between India and China, but plans were changed and she was loaded with general cargo for Shanghai. Bad weather and engine trouble foiled two attempts to make this passage, and the Edith was eventually sent back to Boston via Rio de Janeiro, reconditioned at Boston and then chartered to the United States War Department. In 1846 Forbes sent the small 20 ton screw steamer Firefly on another ship to Hong Kong, and put her in service between Hong Kong and Whampoa until 1849, usually making two trips daily. She was withdrawn in 1849 and sent to California by sailing ship. In 1846 Jardines were successful in inaugurating the first British steamship service on the river, with the Corsair between Hong Kong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 154 NOTES AND QUERIES MCMULLEN COLLECTION OF BILLS OF LADING As stated in the Hon. Librarian's report, printed on page 11 of this issue, the most important accession during the year was the collection of nineteenth century bills of lading formed by Rear-Admiral M.A. McMullen, C.B., O.B.E., R.N. (Rtd.),* The bills are for various consignments to and from China ports, and there is a brief description of the collection on p. 37 of the printed catalogue of the Library of the Branch. A calendar with index has been prepared by the Hon. Librarian. *This was obtained as a gift for the Branch through the offices of Dr. J. R. Jones, Past President of the Branch. The following text of his letter to Mr. Rydings, our Hon. Librarian, explains how this came about: H. A. Rydings Esq., The Librarian, The University of Hong Kong. HONG KONG. Dear Rydings, Old Bills of Lading 3 Abermor Court, 15 May Road, HONG KONG. 25th April, 1972. Two years ago I had some discussions with Mr. J. G. Young of Messrs. Andrew Weir and Company Limited of Baltic Exchange Buildings, 21 Bury Street, of London E.C.3. concerning a number of bills of lading dating from the time of the Canton Regime. They include Bills of Lading from Jardine Matheson and Company Limited and their predecessors, Magniac and Company and Augustine Heard and Company and others trading in Canton and later in Hong Kong. They were owned by Admiral McMullen who wished to find a suitable home for them and I considered that they were of great interest historically and otherwise, and of special interest to Hong Kong, and I have accepted them in the name of the Royal Asiatic Society. I enclose a package concerning these documents and hope that the Society will accept them. Yours sincerely, J. R. JONES. P.S. The owner of the collection of the old bills of lading was Rear Admiral M. A. McMullen who entrusted them to Mr. J. G. Young of Messrs. Andrew Weir and Co. Ltd. with whom I was put in touch by Mr. H. B. Neve, formally of the Bank Line (China) Limited of Hong Kong. Amongst the collection Jardine Matheson and Company appears twice, once as receivers of 10 chests of Opium, whilst Gilmans are also mentioned as shippers of 100 half chests of tea from Shanghai to Hong Kong. There is also reference to Macondray & Co. who are presumably related to the Arm of that name now operating in the Philippines. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 40 H. J. LETHBRIDGE Mayréna's reputation was totally destroyed: "The "King of the Sedangs", in truth, seems to have followed the example of a brother "King" of French origin, who after establishing a Kingdom in a district on the borders of French Guiana, ended an illustrious career in the inside of a French prison. Of course we do not say that the denouement will be the same in this case.' But it was clear to the readers of the Mail that the editor thought that Mayréna was jail material. By the beginning of the year 1889 it became clear to Mayréna that nothing more was to be gained by staying in Hong Kong. His overtures to the German Consul in Hong Kong and to his colleague at Canton had borne no fruit. Although he offered to put his kingdom under the protection of the German Emperor, his offer was rejected. He decided—there was no other option—to return to Europe and seek support from financial circles there. On 20 January 1889 the King of the Sedangs left Hong Kong for Genoa by the German steamer Bayern, travelling as a second-class passenger and under the pseudonym of ‘le comte de Drey'.36 Mayréna's exit from Hong Kong was in sharp contrast to his triumphal embarkation at Haiphong in November 1888. Then the royal standard of the King of the Sedangs fluttered above the Frejr and the deferential Captain Lund had greeted him as 'Votre Majesté' and all had been bowing and scraping by a perspiring crew. Nevertheless, Mayréna left Hong Kong in 1889 with some panache. Many friends and well-wishers were at the waterfront to see the popular King go, although no band played, no royal standard adorned the Bayern, and no representative of Sir William Des Voeux was present. Mayréna looked very much a king in exile; among the throng many, like Fraser-Smith and J.J. Francis, were truly sorry to see their old drinking companion go. Mayréna's departure from Hong Kong was greeted by a jubilant article in the Mail, which began: 'Another King has gone into exile. M. de Mayréna, a Frenchman who arrived here about two months ago with a flourish of trumpets, telling a story of adventures worthy of ranking with 1001 in the Arabian Nights, quietly left Hong Kong, we believe, by the Bayern, for Genoa, on Sunday morning'. The writer continued: 'We need scarcely say that in publishing the revelations which put an end to his schemes in Hong Kong we were actuated solely by a desire for the public interest As, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 216 NOTES AND QUERIES the case of the firms at West Point it was not a good situation in spite of the advantages of its water front. Neither of the firms used their property for a long period. Henry Pybus purchased Marine Lot 58 and the firm of Jamieson How and Company bought the adjoining Marine Lot 57. Both were Calcutta-based firms and both purchased their Hong Kong property at the first land sale in June, 1842. They immediately began to build godowns and residences and were in occupation by the fall of 1842. Both Pybus and Jamieson, How and Co. had connections with Yorick Jones Murrow, an old China hand. In 1839 he was the agent at Canton for Jamieson's. Upon the death of Henry Pybus, Murrow succeeded to his business in 1844, and in 1852 he bought the adjoining godown property of Jamieson, Edgar and Co., as the Hong Kong branch of the firm was called. Murrow formed a partnership with James Stephenson to engage in California trade at the time of the gold rush. They developed an extensive trade with San Francisco and arranged for a line of steam packets between it and Hong Kong. The partnership was dissolved in 1854 and Murrow moved to Canton. In 1859, his property at West Point was sold at Sheriff's sale. Two years previous, he had moved back to Hong Kong and became editor and subsequently owner of the Hongkong Daily Press. Murrow as the "Laird" of West Point had a running feud with the Princely Hong at East Point. He used his newspaper as a weapon to attack. He was, of course, the lightweight contestant and several times he was sentenced for libel and for a period operated his newspaper from prison. He left Hong Kong in 1867*. The suitability of the area for ship berthing has been mentioned. This feature attracted enterprises connected with the shipping industry. In the 1860's and '70's the shipping industry became an increasingly important feature of Hong Kong's economy, particularly as steam replaced sails. In 1851, Thomas Roberts opened the West Point Cooperage and Boat Yard on the lot on the west side of what is now Queen Street. He sold his property to Lee Hing alias Li Sing in 1861. It * Frank H. H. King and Prescott Clarke: A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 139-141. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS 249 LIFE MEMBERS: SU, Dr. Chung Jen TAN, Khek-seng TANG, Mrs. Madeleine TANG, Sir Shiu-kin, C.B.E. THOMAS, L. F. 155, Blue Pool Road, Flat A, 1st floor, H.K. A-1, Villa Monte Rose, 7th floor, 41A, Stubbs Road, H.K. 8C, Grenville House, 1, Magazine Gap Rd., H.K. The Kowloon Motor Bus Co. (1933) Ltd., Room 1701, Central Building, H.K. c/o Lowe, Bingham & Matthews, Prince's Building, 22nd floor, H.K. TON, Mrs. Chen Chu-ching St. Paul's Convent School, Causeway Bay, H.K. TORRIBLE, G. R. WATSON, K. A. WEINREBE, Harry W. WERLE, Helga WESLEY-SMITH, Peter WHITELEGGE, D. S. WILLIAMS, Roger A. WILLIAMS, Mr. & Mrs. W. D. F. WINKLER, Mrs. E WONG, Peng-Cheong WOLF, John YOUNG, Miss Pauline c/o The Hong Kong Club, H.K. c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805, Bank of Canton Building, Des Voeux Road, H.K. 3, Wood Road, 6th floor, H.K. Dept. of Law, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 58, Mt. Nicholson Gap, H.K. Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 1, Riante Rive Apartments, 14 Milestone, Castle Peak Road, N.T. Flat 402, 12 May Road, H.K. Wong, Tan & Co., 732/735 Alexandra House, H.K. P.O. Box 147, H.K. The Peak School, Plunkett's Road, The Peak, H.K. Page 255 Page 256 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS 251 LIFE OVERSEAS MEMBERS: JORDAN, Dr. David K. - Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, U.S.A. KNOWLES, Mrs. W. C. G. Wakes Colne Place, Nr. Colchester, Essex, England. LINDSAY, T. J., M.B.E. 3, Bareena Avenue, Wahroonga, N.S.W., Australia. LOTHROP, Francis B. 176, Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. MANSFIELD, Miss M. B. The Royal Naval School, Haslemere, Surrey, England. McBAIN, George c/o Imperial Chemical Industries (Japan) Ltd., C.P.O. Box 411, Tokyo, Japan. McDOUALL, J. C. - The Old School, Souldern, Bicester, Oxfordshire, England. MEFFAN, Mrs. I. E. - c/o Swire, MacKinnon, C.P.O. Box 703, Tokyo 100-91, Japan. MICHAELIONES, Miss E. O. The British Council, Halls Croft, Old Town, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. MIDDLEBROOK, R. W. 165, East 66th Street, New York 21, N.Y., U.S.A. MILL, Capt. C. S., Jr. - Indian Hill, Pittsboro, N.C. 27312, U.S.A. MILLER, Carl Ferris O. c/o Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, G.P.O. Box 255, Seoul, Korea. PLAG, Rev. A. 7000 Stuttgart 1, Roemerstr. 41, Germany (F.R.) ROBINSON, Prof. K. E. The Old Rectory, Church Westcoat, Kingham, Oxford, OX7 6SF, England. ROTHE, Ulrich 'Wohnstift Augustinum' Apt. 778, 5483 Bad Neuenahr, Germany. SINFIELD, G. H. C. Hong Kong Tourist Assoc., 159 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. SPERRY, H. M. 64, Hillbrook Drive, Portola Valley, California 94025, U.S.A. STEVENS, Major K. G. - 9 Cherry Glebe, Mersham, Ashford, Kent, England. SWIRE, A. C. c/o John Swire & Sons Ltd., 66, Cannon Street, London, E.C.4, England. TARARIN, P. A. 623, Harper Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90048, U.S.A. TILL, The Very Rev. Barry c/o Morley College, 61, Westminster Bridge Road, London, S.E.1, England. TURNER, Sir Michael c/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., 9, Gracechurch Street, London, E.C.3, England. WARD, Miss Janet A. c/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, North Devon, England. WELCH, Holmes H. 4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., USA ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 252 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: AIDE-DE-CAMP, The AKERS-JONES, D. ALLCOCK, R. C. ANDERSON, J. S. ARCHER, Hon. Mrs. S. ARSAN, Ahmet ARSAN, Mrs. Karin AU, K. N. BAKER, Dr. Hugh BARD, Dr. S. M. BARR, J. W. BARRETT, Father Cyril, SJ. BARROW, Mr. & Mrs. John F. BATE, H. M. Government House, Garden Road, H.K. Island House, Taipo, N.T. Department of Law, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Diocesan Boys' School, 131, Argyle Street, Kowloon. 41, Stubbs Road, Apt. 21, H.K. First Chicago Hong Kong Ltd., Rooms 4004-9, Connaught Centre, H.K. 43, Stubbs Road, Flat C-1, H.K. c/o Grantham College of Education, Gascoigne Road, Kowloon. c/o Govt. Training Division, Lee Gardens, 2nd floor, H.K. University Health Service, University of Hong Kong, H.K. E9, Repulse Bay Towers, 119A, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. Wah Yan College, Queen's Road, East, H.K. Room 362, Central Govt. Offices, Lower Albert Road, H.K. c/o Caritas House, 2, Caine Road, H.K. BENNETT, Mrs. Patricia M. BENNISON, Larry L. BIRCH, Dr. Alan BLAIKLEY, P. E. BLAKE, Mrs. Doreen BORGEEST, Gus BRAUN, F. BRIDGES, G. A. BRIGGS, The Hon. Sir Geoffrey, Q.C. BROADBENT, Miss Margaret BROUWER, Mrs. R. P. BRUMMERSTED, D. A. BUCHANAN, Dr. A. J. C. BULLEN, J. B. 3, Coombe Road, H.K. Caltex Oil, G.P.O. Box 147, H.K. Department of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 19D, Vienna Court, Realty Gardens, 41, Conduit Road, H.K. c/o Paul Y. Construction Co., Bank of Canton Building, 18th floor, H.K. P.O. Box 1058, H.K. 8, Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K. B-3, United College Staff Residence, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. Courts of Justice, H.K. The Helena May, Garden Road, H.K. A3, Repulse Bay Mansions, H.K. 87, Pearl Gardens, 7A, Conduit Road, H.K. Dept. of Paediatrics, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Myer Eastern Buying Ltd., Cheong Hing Building, 12, Nathan Road, Kowloon. BURGGRAAF, Miss Huberta c/o Royal Interocean Line, P.O. Box 725, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 32 9 WELLINGTON K. K. CHAN Shanghai during the 1900's is shown by the fact that out of the fourteen largest merchant organisations, seven of them were Landsmann guilds. Canton was unlike Shanghai in that commerce there was dominated by the local Cantonese. But even Canton had at least one fairly large Landsmann guild—the Chü-ho t'ang. It was founded in 1860 as an offshoot of the Ch'ao-chou (i.e. Swatow) Landsmannschaft (Pa-i hui-kuan) through the help of the naval garrison commander in Canton, who came from Ch'ao-chou.10 The functions of these Landsmann guilds resembled their parent Landsmannschaften. Chü-ho t'ang in Canton, Ssu-ming kung-so and Kuang-ch'ao kung-so in Shanghai all owned land for relief work and cemeteries for those who were waiting for permanent burial at their ancestral homes. Social values of this sort loomed large in the thinking of the Landsmann guilds, just as they did for the Landsmannschaften. The well-publicised struggle between the Ssu-ming kung-so and the French Consulate in Shanghai for half a century (1849-1898) was not over some commercial interest, but over the Ningpo merchants' insistence to maintain their cemetery grounds and the French desires to level that area. Ultimately, the French had to back down.11 The Ssu-ming kung-so's preoccupation with the cemetery shows at once its strength and weakness as an institution which contributed to social and economic integration. The traditional trade guilds were primarily concerned with avoiding competition from among its own members. Their regulations were cast in the "thou-shalt-not" vein. Their vigorous growth during the late nineteenth century helped to curb intra-trade competition.12 In contrast, the concern of the Landsmann guilds went beyond class lines and the economic self-interest of their members. They thus had broader orientations. Their aim was not to restrict or to negate, but to assert positively the rights of their entire group. Their weakness was, however, also obvious. They seldom considered the interest of the whole community. The Landsmann guilds were at best a stepping stone toward organisations that could claim community-wide representations. Charitable Halls (Shan-t'ang) Another new institutional development took place sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. As war and economic decline ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d MERCHANT ORGANISATIONS IN IMPERIAL CHINA 33 buffeted the Chinese state, the need for social services grew rapidly. In the urban areas, merchants organised themselves in new groups with the specific purpose of offering relief and good works. The new organisation was known as a shan-tang charitable hall or hospital. These charitable halls became popular first in the area around Shanghai, where a large number of them were founded during the 1850's and 1860's. From about 1870, they were imitated in Canton and Hong Kong. According to the nineteenth century scholar-official, Feng Kuei-fen, the concept of charitable halls as permanent establishments of private social welfare dated back to the Shang and Chou dynasties.13 Until the mid-nineteenth century, only Shanghai had a few in existence. One traced its origin to 1374 while another, a centre catering to orphaned children, dated back to 1710.14 In Canton there was no charitable hall until 1870, when the Ai-yü shan-t'ang was established by a group of merchants. Its prospectus specifically stated that it was modelled after P'u-yü of Shanghai.15 At about the same time, merchants in Hong Kong, with the local government support, initiated a hospital, the Tung Wah Hospital, to offer Chinese style medical treatment to the poor. Its services were later expanded into famine relief and it became the major centre receiving contributions from overseas Chinese. By 1900, eight more charitable halls were built in Canton to form the "Nine Great Charitable Halls" of Canton (Chiu-ta shan-t'ang).16 In Hong Kong, one other major merchant charitable hall was opened in 1882. This was called the Po Leung Kuk (Pao-liang chu) or the "Society for the Protection of Women and Girls."18 Other communities followed the pattern. The format of the two Hong Kong organisations was particularly favoured by the overseas Chinese who retained or changed slightly the names Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk throughout Southeast Asia.20 Merchants as Community Leaders The rise of charitable halls in urban settings meant that merchants had assumed a leadership role which in other times had been held only by the scholar-gentry members. Down to 1949, the latter maintained their commanding position in the villages and small towns. But in the large commercial centres like Canton and Soochow, even though there were no lack of upper gentry members, the merchants took over the lead in providing social services. The ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 46 CHIAO-MIN HSIEH 1,400 miles long, runs between Lanchow and Urumchi via Hami in Sinkiang. The Communist government obviously feels that the political importance of these railroads is greater than their economic value. Since the great bulk of China's population, markets, and production lies east of Lanchow and south of the Great Wall, many railroads are urgently needed in that part of China. One must wonder whether the two railroads built in the desert for the main purpose of connecting China with the Soviet Union were so necessary and their construction so urgent. Moreover, there is at the moment a sand-dune problem confronting the operation of the railroad in these desert areas. This seems to be insoluble by use of present techniques and makes the value of the whole project even more questionable. 3. In southwest China a railroad was built between Nanning and Pinghsiang in 1955, which is connected with Haiphong and Hanoi. The significance of this new rail link between the Red River delta and the South China province of Kwangsi is that it opens a new major sea outlet for south China. Since China is an amphibious nation, facing the interior continent in the northwest and the Pacific Ocean in the southeast, one of the most significant geopolitical factors in China's history is her changing relations with the continent and the sea. In ancient times China faced the northwest, where the "Silk Road" passed through: the Pacific coast was the back door. The Kansu corridor in the northwest was the main entrance, playing an important role in communications between China and central Asia. In the nineteenth century, Western sea powers acted to open China's coastal ports, China began to turn her face toward the Pacific, which then became the front door, through which came new ideas and knowledge, but also new problems and troubles. Shanghai, Canton, and Tientsin replaced the cities in the northwest as the key cities. This reversal in geographic accessibility has transformed China's isolated condition to one of contact with the world. The eastern coastal areas soon became the main part of China, where were located most of the large cities, heavy industries, railroads, and inland water routes, and about 70 per cent of the population. Because of its location, the area is vulnerable to attack by foreign sea powers. During World War II the area was easily ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 64 E. G. PRYOR The Chinese community in Hong Kong became panic-stricken and there was a mass exodus of workers back to China. In the China Sugar Factory, for example, some 300 workers downed tools and walked their way back to Swatow about 180 miles away. The economic life of the colony suffered considerably as a consequence. So much so that Sir William Robinson recorded that "without exaggeration, I may assert that, so far as trade and commerce are concerned the plague has assumed the importance of an unexampled calamity."* Conditions in the hospitals became exceedingly crowded. The Kennedy Town Glass Works Hospital was intended to accommodate 100 patients but at one point contained 200 afflicted persons. Admissions to hospital at the peak of the outbreak averaged 80 a day whilst dead bodies piled up in the streets at the rate of over 100 a day. A new pig depot had to be hastily converted into a hospital to take 140 patients and the running of all hospitals was assumed by European doctors as it was soon found that Chinese traditional medicine was of no avail. During the frantic efforts to rid the colony of the plague about 7000 persons were dispossessed of their homes, 350 houses were condemned and sealed off and several boatloads of patients were sent to Canton. With the advent of cooler weather the plague abated and there was hope that the visitation of 1894 would not be repeated. Indeed, there was no outbreak in the following year but in 1896 the oriental version of the black death stalked the streets of Hong Kong and carried off 1078 unfortunates, the majority being Chinese in the congested district of Tai Ping Shan. The plague thence became an almost annual occurrence usually making its appearance in February or March reaching a peak by July and then virtually disappearing during the autumn and winter. Over the period 1894-1901 some 8600 persons succumbed to the disease and this represented a mortality rate of about 95 per cent. Relentless efforts were made to root out the assumed cause of the problem which was generally thought to be insanitary living conditions. Regulations were passed requiring notification to the nearest police station of any cases of plague and in default of this obligation there was a penalty of $25, which at that time was a * Ibid, p. 5. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q TIN-YUKE CHAR and by boat to Honolulu, arriving on October 29, 1881, after a tour of nine months and eight days. The harbor of Honolulu was crowded with people welcoming the safe return of the King. The Royal Hawaiian Band played "Home, Sweet Home." Arches entwined with flowers spanned the streets. The Chinese merchants of Honolulu erected a triumphal arch at the intersection of King and Fort Streets. As King Kalakaua mentioned in his July 3rd letter from Rome, "The trip appears as if a mixed panorama and a dream. We have seen Emperors, Kings, temples, and pagodas until one gets apparently confused which end to commence and where and how it will be finished. So many varieties of the people, the different nationalities, the customs and scenery of the places we have visited that have made our travels so pleasant." As one historian commented, "The trip had been a great experience. Kalakaua had stood where Alexander the Great had stood and Julius Caesar, and Napoleon; and the foremost rulers of his own day had welcomed him with cannon salutes and guards of honor. Pomp and circumstance agreed with Kalakaua. He came home, more convinced than ever that a king should rule as well as reign."10 Another result of the King's tour was the legislative approval of his proposal to provide education in foreign countries for selected Hawaiian youths. This progressive policy was inspired by what he observed on his journey. One of the students sent abroad was Kapaa who went to China in 1883. The Reverend Andrew Happer in Canton was asked to be Kapaa's instructor and guardian as evidenced in the March 7, 1883 letter from Walter Gibson, then Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to F. Bulkeley-Johnson, Hawaiian Consul General in Hong Kong: "that Mr. Kapaa's visit to China is made in pursuance of a resolution of the Legislature, providing for the education of Hawaiian youths. His Majesty the King desired that one of these should proceed to China and there study the Chinese language and customs. I, therefore, invoke your good offices on behalf of young Kapaa, who has been selected for this career, and shall be obliged by your placing him where he can learn the dialects (Cantonese and Hakka) chiefly spoken by the Chinese who are here, and the written language, acquiring at the same time familiarity with Chinese manners and ideas. I am, of course, anxious that while pursuing this course of study, Mr. Kapaa should not lose such European culture as he has acquired." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 119 point to Feng as the more active leader in the movement's initial phases. An account given of him by a deserter from the Taiping army and a former member of Gützlaff's Chinese Christian Union, published in The Hong Kong Register, 27 September, 1853, states that when he met Feng in Kwangsi, they recognized each other as fellow members of the Union. According to the account, Feng had studied under Gützlaff. I have carefully gone over the rather detailed reports Gützlaff sent back to Germany reporting the activities of the Chinese Christian Union, hoping that he might have mentioned Feng, but I was unable to find him named. Gützlaff, however, does report trips made by his workers into Kwangsi, where they preached and distributed tracts. These reports were published in the Calwer Missionsblatt and Gaihan's Berichte. When Hung Hsiu-ch'uan left Roberts and Canton in the late spring of 1847, he travelled to Kwangsi in search of Feng, arriving there in August. In the Journal of Roberts published in the Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, vol. 2, no. 10 (March 1848), under date of 25 June, 1847, Roberts states that two of his followers were appointed to visit the inquirer Hung in a different province. Several efforts were initiated to bring the families and followers of the Taiping leaders to Kwangsi from Kwangtung, but the plans were frustrated by the authorities. Some were caught and imprisoned, others scattered and fled. The friends and relatives of the leaders of the Taipings were rooted out of their native districts and at the same time cut off from the troops of the Rebellion as it advanced from Kwangsi to Nanking. Some appear to have had branches of their clan settled in Hsin-an District, adjacent to Hong Kong. Many of the people moved in and out of Hong Kong. These movements left traces in the reports and records of the Missions, but they are not complete enough to provide a comprehensive account. The various adventures and travels of Hung Jen-kan before he reached Nanking in 1856 are documented in the writings of Jen Yu-wen. For an English language account see his The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven, 1973). A few additional details are provided by missionary archival sources. In 1852, Hung Jen-kan was brought to Hong Kong by a young tailor from Lilong (Li-lang) in Hsin-an District. He was the grandson of a clansman of Hung, who had befriended Jen-kan in his wanderings. The grandson Fung (Hung?) Sen1 had been under ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 123 In a word, everything is very uncertain. We must lay the future of the whole mission, even as our own, into the hands of God.2 Hamberg's earthly future was quite short for he died nine days after writing the above. The fortunes of Hung Jen-kan and Li Tsin-kau in their efforts to reach Nanking by way of Shanghai were also unfortunate. Hamberg had given them a letter of recommendation to the London Missionary Society agent at Shanghai, the Rev. W. H. Medhurst. Medhurst housed them on their arrival in the Mission Hospital. In Shanghai they met a friend from Canton whom they invited to share these quarters. This friend smoked opium, and when Medhurst happened to come into the room and saw his opium pipe on the bed, they were all told to leave. A dispute arose between Jen-kan and Tsin-kau, with Jen-kan charging Tsin-kau with carelessness and sensuality. Tsin-kau remarks: At that time, I was truly in distress, for I had no friend in the world and no money with which to return to Hong Kong. I felt I must certainly come to misfortune. But this was the point when a change occurred in my heart. I was altogether fallen into the depth, then God took me in judgment of my sins, and the Spirit of God did its powerful work in me. The Shepherd of my life took over and from now on I gave my life to him. The Lord changed Medhurst's heart and he gave me money to return to Hong Kong.3 Jen-kan also returned to Hong Kong, no way being open to pass through the Imperial lines to reach Nanking. When Li Tsin-kau arrived back in Hong Kong, he immediately sought out the Rev. Lechler, who gave him two dollars to return to his home up-country. After visiting his family, he came down to the Basel Mission station at Pu-kit and was taken on as a helper. When hostilities broke out in 1856 over the Arrow-lorcha incident, Lechler had to leave Pu-kit and retire to Hong Kong. He brought with him Li Tsin-kau whom he placed in the newly opened hospital of the Berlin Missionary Society operated by Dr. Heinrich Göcking. Li served as an overseer and doctor's assistant until the hospital was forced to close in 1859 for lack of funds. Meanwhile his former travelling companion, Hung Jen-kan had made a second and successful effort to reach Nanking. Being estab- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA (With especial reference to the Upper Yangtze) A. D. BLUE* West China, and in particular the provinces of Szechwan and Yunnan, interested British merchants in India before the end of the eighteenth century, and this interest increased after Britain got a foothold in Lower Burma in the early nineteenth century. Not until Britain was established at Shanghai and on the Lower Yangtze, however, did the British China traders take any great interest in West China. Until the 1860s, therefore, the initiative in opening West China to British trade came from the West, and concentrated on reviving the old caravan routes from Upper Burma into Yunnan. The Treaty of Yandabo between Britain and Burma in 1826, which established Britain in Arakan, Assam, Manipur, and Tenasserim, rekindled interest in these old routes. Sino-Burmese contacts went back many centuries, but were usually recorded from a diplomatic or military aspect, although it was well known that there had been considerable trade along these routes. At this time Canton was the only British foothold on the China coast, and the much shorter land route across Burma seemed to offer many benefits to British and Indian merchants in both India and Burma. Then, and for many years afterwards, India was the source of most of China's foreign imports, cotton and opium in particular, and much of British policy in the Far East was concerned with maintaining and extending this trade. An interesting side product of this China-India relationship was the proposal to import workers from west China for the infant Assam tea industry. The East India Company had become interested in the possibility of tea production in Assam as early as 1823, when indigenous tea plants were found in the Upper Brahmaputra * The author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtze in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Five of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. "European Navigation on the Yangtze" in Vol. 3, 1963, "Piracy on the China Coast" in Vol. 5, 1965, "The China Coasters" in Vol. 7, 1967, "Chinese Emigration and the Deck Passenger Trade" in Vol. 10, 1970 and "Early Steamships in China" in Vol. 13, 1973. Plates 20-25 and the sketch-maps at the end of the volume illustrate this article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA 165 boats as far as Bhamo, and then partly by land and partly by water into China. Other exports were amber, ivory, precious stones, betel nuts, and edible birds' nests; while in return Burma got raw and wrought silk, velvet, gold leaf, preserves, and chinaware. Similar reports came from other sources. By 1850, the possibility of extending trade from Yunnan into Szechwan was envisaged, and the glowing prospect of an extensive market for British goods in West China became an obsession among many British officials and merchants in Burma and India. Captain McLeod's mission of 1836 is the first official British attempt to find an overland route to China. McLeod went from Moulmein, the port in the newly acquired province of Tenasserim, via Kungtang to Kenghang, a Shan state on the border of China. Here he failed to get permission to enter Yunnan, being told that if the British wanted to trade with China they should go to Canton, and that if he still persisted in wanting to enter Yunnan he would require official permission from Peking. McLeod had to admit defeat, and turned back. After this came a succession of other ventures from Assam and Burma, all—for one reason or another—failures. These culminated in the famous and ill-fated Dual Mission of 1874-75, which led to the Margary Affair.* This was a joint attempt to explore West China from the Burmese and Chinese sides. Previous to this the only important attempts to find a route between Burma and China from the eastern side had been Captain Blakiston's in 1861 and T. T. Cooper's in 1868. The Royal Navy's expedition of 1861 which went up the Yangtze to establish the first treaty ports on the great river—Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow—continued 153 miles beyond Hankow to Yochow. Here they transferred Blakiston's party to junks in which they continued for another 1050 miles to Pingshan, nearly 1800 miles from the sea and 400 miles above Chungking. It had been intended to follow the Yangtze to its source in Tibet, and then cross the Himalayas into India. Because of unsettled political conditions at Pingshan and beyond, however, they were forced to turn back; but they had obtained valuable information about the Middle and Upper Yangtze. See pp. 169-170 below. Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 207 promote among themselves morality, education, social solidarity, and mutual aid. The plan seems to have enjoyed some vogue in the Ming dynasty, but the early Ch'ing rulers took over the term to give it a new meaning: 'hsiang-yüeh' became a public lecture system by means of which the masses were to be indoctrinated with the political ethics of Confucianism. Yet by the nineteenth century 'hsiang-yüeh' had once again undergone a transformation, a lecture system developing into a framework of state control to the point where 'hsiang-yüeh' was sometimes taken to be synonymous with 'pao-chia' and 'li-chia', the state organisations for security and taxation. On the other hand, a contrary process of evolution was also at work moving ‘hsiang-yüeh' back towards the kind of self-government which had been originally conceived under its name. It is on record that in places in Kwangtung the heads of 'hsiang-yüeh' assumed roles of local leadership in such a way as to take command of local affairs. In addition, 'hsiang-yüeh' were used as a setting for organising ‘regiment and drill corps' ('t'uan-lien') for local defence, and it is an interesting speculation that just as the 'ke yüeh hsiang-yung', the village braves of the several yeuk, rallied to the defence of Canton against the British in 1842, so we might find on closer inspection that some of the armed resistance to the first British in the New Territories was bound up with the Ts'at Yeuk and other yeuk-complexes. (There are of course many sources, both Western and Chinese, for the history of 'hsiang-yüeh'. The best and most convenient is Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, pp. 184, 205). 28. My tentative view of the matter is that, while early Ch'ing policy may have popularised the term heung yeuk in the course of spreading the public lecture system, at the time we are concerned with, at least in our part of Kwangtung, yeuk were looked upon by the people who engaged in them as instruments of local control independent of state supervision. They might be used for treating with the state, as seems to have been the case especially with the three yeuk-complexes oriented to Kowloon City, and might have allied themselves with officialdom in the face of banditry or attack by outsiders, but they were far removed from being mere instruments of state control. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, whose home was in an area of Kwangtung which may be regarded as being in many ways comparable to San On, laid stress on the heung yeuk as a basis for a high degree of local independence and self-government in his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 208 MAURICE FREEDMAN own region. (See his History of Chinese Civilisation, in Chinese, Taiwan Chinese Book Company, 1956, pp. 57-60. Hsiao, op. cit., pp. 345ff., translates a large part of this section of Liang's book but fails to indicate that Liang makes modern rural independence rest historically on heung yeuk). 29. Early British reports on the New Territories speak not only of yeuk but also of tung, ‘cave', a term which in some contexts may be translated as a valley. When the social history of the New Territories comes to be written the significance of the groupings going under the names of heung, yeuk, and tung will need to be carefully gone into. (See Hayes, op. cit., pp. 9-12, 14, 25 for statements based on Lockhart's material. I am myself sceptical about some of Lockhart's data on local organisation and local tribunals, but I have not yet marshalled enough historical material to be able to enter into a debate on these topics). For the moment, confining ourselves to the data, such as they are, on yeuk, let us consider the kinds of leadership which were implied in the old system of inter-village relationship. Rich and powerful clans, of which the Tang were a supreme example, were—the paradox is superficial—so tightly connected with officialdom that they could act independently of it and use their power to dominate their neighbours. (In one account I received of the founding of the Tai Po new market the ability of the Man to establish a rival to the Tang market was attributed to the 'pull' they were able to exercise, through a high Man official, at Canton. There was a limit to the influence which any one clan or clan grouping could exert on the state, for officialdom played off one local power centre against another). But dominance could be expressed in some contexts as leadership, for up to a point weaker communities were content to be guided and instructed by stronger, making use of their favours vis-à-vis officialdom, looking to them for protection against other strong communities, and submitting their disputes to them for mediation. (The Man of Tai Hang got themselves into this position of leadership; they had something to offer to the other six yeuk). Past a certain point, however, dominance became oppression, and then the weaker communities might band themselves together. The leaders of such unions (except when, as in the case of the Ts'at Yeuk, a relatively powerful clan took a hand) were not gentlemen but country people (farmers and small business men) whose claims to prominence rested on their economic substance and ability as organisers and spokesmen. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES AND QUERIES 283 From Eastern No. 88, Correspondence relating to the Kowloon-Canton Railway (London, Colonial Office, 1907), Enclosure D in No. 59, Governor Sir M. Nathan to Mr. Lyttelton, 11 January, 1905. "Tsun Wan-Two passage boats ply daily between Hong Kong and Tsun Wan; the number of passengers carried each way averages about 60. The principal goods carried are rice, pineapples when in season, grass and wood in connection with the 24 sandal-wood mills, worked by water power, and situated in the various valleys of the Tsun Wan district." From G.S.P. Heywood, Rambles in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh, Ltd., 2nd Edition 1951, p. 19. "Tsun Wan has several local industries; silk-weaving is carried on in an up-to-date mill next door to the primitive and unhygienic sheds where noodles are made from powdered beans. In the valley running up into the hills to the south-west of Tai Mo Shan there is a village consisting entirely of watermills, where wood is ground up for the manufacture of joss sticks. This picturesque place is easily reached from the road; the path starts at the bridge about half a mile beyond Tsun Wan, near the 9th milestone, and follows the stream upwards, first on one bank and then on the other. The first watermill is reached in 5 minutes' walk from the road, and beyond are a dozen more little houses perched on the sides of the valley, each with its waterwheel busily turning. For a small tip the owner of one of these mills will show you inside; the atmosphere is thick with fragrant dust, and through it you can dimly see great stone-headed hammers pounding away at the aromatic wood."* Hong Kong, 1974. JAMES HAYES CHINESE IN THE VOLUNTEER FORCES OF HONG KONG In my article "A Short History of Military Volunteers in Hong Kong" (Volume 11 of this Journal, 1971: 151-171) I mentioned the uncertainty which surrounded the membership of the successive volunteer units by local Chinese (pages 164-5 refer). I suggested that it was possible that the late Sir Man-kam Lo was the first or among the first to join, in the 1920s. * Plate 26 illustrates this Note. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n BRUNEI A HISTORICAL RELIC 21 very small, and rises but some fifteen to twenty miles inland. Where the town is, the river is very broad, forming a large lake. The town is commanded by hills once under cultivation; on an island at the mouth of the entrance are the shattered remains of an old Portuguese fort, which was still standing, though ruinous, when Hunt visited the place in 1809. The town itself has been designated the "Venice of Borneo" by old writers, a description to which the Italian Beccari rightly objected,* and is mainly built on piles driven into the mud on a shallow in the middle of the lake, the houses occupying wooden platforms elevated some ten feet above the reach of the tide. Communication between them is effected by canoes, in which the women daily go through the town selling provisions. It is, in a word, similar to the palafitte villages found in prehistoric times in the lakes of Switzerland and Lombardy. A part of the town, including the houses of the Sultan and the wazirs, is situated on the left bank of the river. It is the Brunei of Pigafetta's time, though sadly reduced in size and importance. Then the Sultan's palace was enclosed by a strong brick wall,† with barbicans mounting fifty-six cannon, now it is but a roughly built barn-like shed. Gone are the richly caparisoned elephants, and gone too is all the old pride, pomp, and panoply, including the spoons of gold, which particularly struck the old voyager.§ Brunei has no defences now, but, at the period of which we are writing, there were batteries planted on each side of the inlet commanding the approach, also two forts on the heights, and one battery on a * "I admit that Bruni has its points, but what irony to compare for a moment the city of marble palaces with the mass of miserable huts which a single match could easily reduce to ashes." The Rajah called the place a "Venice of hovels." Mercator in his Atlas describes it as "being situated on a salt-water lagoon like Venice," hence probably it became known as the Venice of Borneo. † Kota batu, stone fort. The name still remains. It was built towards the close of the fifteen century by Sherip Ali, the first Arab Sultan, with the aid of the Chinese subjects his wife's mother had brought to Bruni. The city was then nearer the mouth of the river. It was moved to its present position by Sultan Muadin about 200 years ago. § The Portuguese Jorge de Menezes, who visited Bruni five years after Pigafetta, notices that the city was surrounded with a wall of brick, and possessed some noble edifices. Other early voyagers describe the sultans and rulers of Malayan States as maintaining great style, and their equipments, such as swords of state, saddles, chairs, eating and drinking utensils as being of pure gold. Allowing for some exaggeration, this would still point to a former condition of prosperity which enabled rulers and nobles to keep up a pageantry which has long since vanished. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 175 Visitors 20. Mountains have always been favoured retreats, especially in the South. Herbert Giles wrote in 1911: Monasteries are built high up on the hills, often on almost inaccessible crags; and there the well-to-do Chinaman is wont to escape from the fierce heat of the southern summer. On one particular mountain near Canton, there are said to be no fewer than one hundred of such monasteries, all of which reserve apartments for guests, and are glad to be able to add to their funds by so doing. (Giles 1911: 9) It seems that rich merchants from Hong Kong were among their number and have long been accustomed to take their ease, and perhaps salve their conscience, there. For 19th century examples reported by European travellers see Henry 1886:320, and Bourne (1895) who reported the death at one of these places of 'Lo Hok-pang, late Compradore of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank' (p. 35). 21. The monasteries of Tai Mo Shan long benefitted from a similar connection. It is clear from the large buildings that have been erected before and after the Pacific War 1941-1945—in one case they include a splendid air-conditioned lecture hall—that they draw at least part of their financial support from a number of wealthy patrons; although the post-war urbanization of Tsuen Wan has probably reduced their attraction as places of refuge from the heat and bustle of the world. 22. Over many years, such persons from Hong Kong, having no local connection other than an existing or sought-after grave for members of their family or even for themselves, have traversed the mountain's sides with geomancers and finally settled for good locations. Here a splendid grave has been constructed, and sometimes a pavilion also where the family can rest and eat during the arduous visits in successive grave worshipping seasons. In some cases only an empty grave and a ruined pavilion remain, showing that the descendants, concerned over business failures and reversals of family fortunes, have taken up the remains and placed them elsewhere, despite the heavy initial and subsequent cost necessitated by feeing the geomancer(s) and hiring mountain chairs for the party, and paying local labour to carry the construction materials. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 226 NOTES AND QUERIES deaths that day and at least 70 badly injured. With the exception of one nurse who found the situation too trying and ran away, the hospital staff worked gallantly and well together, and from the doctor down to the coolies we were kept busy till late in the night. We were grateful for the timely help of Archdeacon Mo who found time to come and organise the rather panic-stricken crowd who arrived with their injured friends and relatives. It has been a great comfort to find that in this time of real danger the courage and unity of our Mission Community is increased rather than destroyed. The cause of so many casualties may be due to the fact that people had returned from the country that same morning, and instead of staying in their houses during the attack crammed and blocked the streets in their panic-stricken attempt to escape again. We had a lady from our maternity who insisted on getting up and running into the country. She tied her small new-born baby onto her back and left us; later on during the day we heard she got as far as the Magistracy and was killed by a bomb, the baby could not be found anywhere. Some officials from Limchow came down to inquire into the welfare of the wounded etc. They said they thought that the disaster had occurred 1) because of the approaching thunderstorm which disguised the noise of the approaching planes, 2) that the communication wire between Pakhoi and the lookout station 6 miles away had been cut that morning and that there had been no time to repair the damage. We are now preparing for a possible "worst", which may never happen but for which we must make some preparation, and in the event of the destruction of the hospital we are making dugouts and shelters under the pine trees which grow so generously and kindly in various parts of our compound. August 26th 1939 - At 6 o'clock on August 25th sounded the first alarm. Shortly afterwards there appeared a large seaplane which circled round the vicinity of Pakhoi. At the same time we heard cannon shots, which we presumed were from gunboats quite near by and sounded at regular intervals of a few minutes. The explosions shook our houses. At about 8 a large gunboat and 2 small motor launches steamed right up the harbour, carefully taking soundings as they came and finally drew alongside the steps at Lung Wong Miu, which is in the centre of the town; this they are ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 244 LIFE MEMBERS: THOMPSON, P. J. THROWER, Prof. L. B. THROWER, Dr. S. L. TON, Mrs. Chen Chu-ching TORRIBLE, G. H. WATSON, K. A. WAUNG, Dr. W. S. WEINREBE, H. M. WERLE, Ms. Helga WESLEY-SMITH, Dr. P. WHITELEGGE, D. S. WILLIAMS, R. A. WILLIAMS, Mr. & Mrs. W. D. F. WINKLER, Mrs. E. WONG, Peng-cheong WONG, Kwok Fong WOLF, J. YEUNG, Walter W. T. YOUNG, Miss Pauline LIST OF MEMBERS Johnson, Stokes & Master, 10th & 11th Floors, Alexandra House, Chater Road, Hong Kong. Flat 6B, University Residence No. 6, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. Flat 6B, University Residence No. 6, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. St. Paul's Convent School, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Club, Hong Kong. Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, Hong Kong. 1903 Hang Chong Building, 5 Queen's Road, C, Hong Kong. Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805 Bank of Canton Building, Des Voeux Road, Hong Kong. 3, Wood Road, 6th Fl., Hong Kong. Dept. of Law, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 58, Mount Nicholson Gap, Hong Kong. Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 1, Riante Rive Apartments, 144 Milestone, Castle Peak Road, N.T. Flat 402, 12 May Road, Hong Kong. Wong, Tan & Co., Chartered Accountants, South China Building 3/F, 1 Wyndham Street, Hong Kong. 92A, Pokfulam Road 1st Fl., Hong Kong. P.O. Box 147, Hong Kong. 60B Conduit Road G/F, Hong Kong. The Peak Road, Plunketts Road, The Peak, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 248 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: + AIKEN, Mrs. L. · AKERS-JONES, Hon D., C.M.G., J.P. ALLCOCK, R. C. ALLEN, O. J. R. ANDERSON, J. S. ANGOVE, W. B. ARCHER, Hon. Mrs. S. + - ARSAN, Mrs. K. AU, K. N. · Room 2411, Plaza Hotel, Hong Kong, Island House, Tai Po, N.T. Dept. of Law, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Flat B2, 29 Severn Road, The Peak, Hong Kong, Diocesan Boys' School, 131 Argyle Street, Kowloon. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Operations Building 4/F, Kai Tak, Kowloon. 41, Stubbs Road, Apt. 21, Hong Kong. 43 Stubbs Road, Flat C-1, 5th Floor, Hong Kong. Grantham College of Education, Gascoigne Road, Kowloon. BARD, Dr. S. M., O.B.E., J.P. Hong Kong Museum of History, Star House, 4/F, Kowloon, BARR, J. W. E9 Repulse Bay Towers, 119A Repulse Bay Road, Hong Kong. BARRETT, Fr. Cyril S. J. Wah Yan College, Queen's Road East, Hong Kong. BARRETTO, R. O. 1903 Hang Chong Building, Queen's Road C., Hong Kong. BENNETT, Dr. J. R.. Dept. of English, New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. BERKHOUT, P. The Shell Co. of Hong Kong Ltd., P.O. Box 22, Hong Kong. BERTRAM, J. 601 Swire House, Hong Kong. BIRCH, Dr. A. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. BLAIKLEY, P. E. - 4 Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. BLAKE, Mrs. D. Paul Y Construction Co., Bank of Canton Building 18/F, Hong Kong. BLOOMFIELD, Miss Frena - 38A, 1/F, Kennedy Road, Hong Kong. BOND, M. W. - BOYLAN, Mrs. C.. BRAGA, P. BRANDON, Miss J. BRIGGS, Hon. Sir Geoffrey, Q.C. BROADBENT, Miss M. 404 La Hacienda, 31 Mount Kellett Road, Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific Airways, P.O. Box 1, Hong Kong. 61A Bisney Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. St. Stephen's Girls' School, 2 Lyttelton Road, Hong Kong. Courts of Justice, Hong Kong: Helena May Court, Garden Road, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 258 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: THOMA, Dr. R. - THOMAS, R. W. THOMAS, Mrs. S. E. THOMPSON, Mr. & Mrs. K. V. TISDALL, B. TOH, Miss E. TOMLIN, Mrs. S. TSANG, K. F. TSO, Mrs. P. TURNER, H. D. TWITCHETT, Miss Y. TYLER, Mr. & Mrs. M. R. - VEEVERS, Miss K. J. VETCH, Mr. & Mrs. H. - VINE, P. A. L. VISICK, Mrs. M. WALDEN, J. C. C., J.P. WALKER, D. C. WATERS, D. D. WATSON, Dr. J. L. WATT, James WATT, Mo-Kei WEN, Dr. Ch'ing-hsi WHOLEY, J. W. WILKINSON, Miss A. WILLIAMS, B. V. - 44 Mount Kellett Road, Mountain Lodge 3A, Hong Kong. 31 Conduit Road, 9/FL., Hong Kong. Rose Villa, Lot 369, 124 Miles Tai Po Road, Tai Po, N.T. M3B Baskerville House, 13 Duddell Street, Hong Kong. 7 Stanley Mound Road, Stanley, Hong Kong. 1903 Hang Chong Building, 5 Queen's Road C., Hong Kong. 12A Broadwood Road, 1/FL., Hong Kong. Architectural Office, P.W.D., Murray Building, Hong Kong. Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Island School, Borrett Road Hong Kong. P.O. Box 9423, Hong Kong, Medical & Health Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, Hong Kong, 10A Belmont Court, 10 Kotewall Road, Hong Kong. 304 Chartered Bank Building, Hong Kong. Dept. of English, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 1 Homestead, The Peak, Hong Kong. Price Waterhouse & Co. Prince's Building 22/F, Hong Kong. Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Ave., Hong Kong. University Services Centre, 155 Argyle Street, Kowloon. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. Cheong K. Co., Cheong K. Building, 84 Des Voeux Road C., 2/Fl., Hong Kong. Rhenish Church College, 30 Hereford Road, Kowloon. Agriculture & Fisheries Dept., 393 Canton Road, Kowloon. Princess Margaret Hospital, Lai Chi Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong Housing Authority, Housing Authority Headquarters, 101 Princess Margaret Road, Kowloon. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 174 C. MARTIN WILBUR Lu Shao-chi (£##); General Discussion on Rural Education ($#** #4). Shanghai, Ta Tung Book Store (£#££$5). $1.00. Wang Tsun-sheng (144); Reconstruction of China's Rural and Village Life-the Central Emphasis in Education ( **+s+£*£#£ i). Shanghai, The Commercial Press (1###/##). $1.20. Yü Mo-lich (†); Rural Education (**). Shanghai, The Commercial Press (##). $0.65. VIII. PERIODICALS (H) Agriculture Weekly (★★★). Nanking, Huang-ni-kang, Chinese Agricultural Society(南京黃泥冈。中國農學社 ). Agriculture Weekly (★★4). Nanking, Agriculture Weekly Publication Bureau(南京大王府巷,農業週報社). Ch'i-hsia Semi-monthly (★★+A#). Ch'i-hsia Rural Normal School (#E鄉村師苑) Coöperation Monthly (4† A 7). Shanghai, Chinese Cooperative Society (L*+*+***). V. 1-4, 1929. $0.60 per year. Farmers' Voice (#). Canton, Nung-sheng Publication Bureau, National Chung-shan University (AHB>+»£$£$*£**HA). Honan Village Government Magazine (Thrice-Monthly) ($#*«7). Honan Provincial Affairs Bureau (HRÆRHLA). Hopei Village Government Monthly (TA). Hopei Provincial Affairs Bureau (XRkXƒ¥¤Â ). Kiangsu Agriculturalist (★L). Chenkiang, Kiangsu Agricultural Bank (辑江、江蘇農民銀行。 Ministry of Interior Record (*). Nanking, Ministry of Interior (南京内政部), (****). $4.00 per year. New Agriculture and Forestry Magazine (****). Nanking, Kinling University (**££*********). $0.60 per year. Shansi Village Government Magazine (Thrice monthly) (†æk á] 7] ). Shansi, Rural Government Office (4*). $3.60 per year. Village Government Monthly (H&AN). Peiping, Rural Government Monthly Publication Bureau (+#AMμ). (V. 1-3). $1.40 per year. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 28 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS PART I: JANUARY — NOVEMBER 1941 1: JANUARY Reports coming in from our South China missions indicate almost a "rush" on the part of the people to enroll in Doctrine courses leading to Baptism—we learn that Father Regan in Kweilin has baptized over a hundred in the past six months. Father Sandy Cairns, sojourning at Stanley during January, introduced deck tennis and badminton, to keep us in shape during the winter months—and overcame his hereditary inhibitions to the extent of paying for the equipment. Father Sandy is awaiting favourable winds, and a slackening of pirate activity, to take him back to his mission in Sancian Island after his relief work in Canton. Dr. Baker of the American Red Cross, spent an evening with us. He told of the arrival of several hundred tons of cracked wheat for the East River area. Since all the people of that area speak Hakka, he is hoping Bishop Ford will lend him two priests to act as inspectors to see that the wheat is properly distributed. FEBRUARY Father O'Melia has been invited to sit on the Government Board of Examiners, to pass on the Chinese qualifications of all Government servants who require a knowledge of Cantonese in their work. This is fine recognition of Father O'Melia's stature as a Chinese scholar. On the 13th, Dr. Wong-Man, Commissioner of Public Health for Kwangtung Province and Dean of Lingnam University Medical School in Canton, had dinner with us, gave us a talk on the Provincial Health Program, learned of the Maryknoll Fathers dispensary work in the Province, and promised to work out a plan of cooperation between the Government and Maryknoll. Bishop Paschang received a pass from the occupation forces to visit Hong Kong but his purpose for coming here was only to leapfrog to the unoccupied areas of his Diocese to visit the priests and Sisters. While he was here, Father Joe Sweeney arrived, describing the exciting trip he had just made: the motor launch carrying himself and other passengers was attacked by a Japanese patrol boat as evening was coming on, but escaped capture when darkness ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 143 rice at a very low price in order to help the people and giving away bread and canned goods in order to insure that they would have enough to eat. On communications he noted that there were no buses in the city at all. The Japanese had sent them all to Japan early in the war. He got from Stanley to the city and back again by hitch-hiking in army jeeps and trucks. At the same time he applied to the military for a telephone and electricity connections. He noted that business was at a complete standstill. The two American banks had no business at all since they were not allowed to receive U.S. currency from the States. The exchange rate was 8 to 1 when he arrived but by the end of November it was down to HK$4.50. In December the railway between Canton and Hong Kong was reopened and people began flocking to Hong Kong; however, due to the poor condition of the track the trip was taking eight hours instead of the normal three. In normal times most people would have made the trip by boat, but in the course of the war more than half of the Canton boats had been sunk by mines, usually with the loss of all aboard. Nevertheless, as order was gradually restored in the Colony, more and more Chinese who had fled during the Japanese occupation returned and the Colony witnessed a spectacular recovery. People were returning at the rate of one hundred thousand a month, and the population, which had been reduced to about 600,000 in August 1945, rose by the end of 1947 to an estimated 1,800,000. When Father Meyer first returned to the Stanley House he was overjoyed to find that his priceless manuscript and 200 copies of the famous "Meyer-Wempe Cantonese-English Dictionary" had not been destroyed. In his correspondence to the Superior General about this he learned that the dictionary had been used by the U.S. Navy during the war years, and the Navy had given Maryknoll 50 copies of the printing they had made for the use of their personnel. In the same correspondence the Superior General announced that former South China missioners Fathers Keelan, Sprinkle, Youker, Weber, Cunneen, O'Neill, and Brother Michael Hogan were on the high seas returning to their mission posts. Just before Christmas Father Tennien hitched a plane ride from Hong Kong to Kunming in Yunnan Province, the city where every Maryknoller stayed before his thrilling flight "over the hump" into India during the war years. At one time there were so many ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 240 TAN, Mr. Khek-Seng, A, 11th Floor, Elegant Garden, 11 Conduit Road, HONG KONG LOCAL LIFE MEMBERS TANG, Sir Shiu-Kin, CBE, The Kowloon Motor Bus Co. Ltd., Room 1701 Central Building, HONG KONG. TANG, Mrs. Madeleine, 8C Grenville House, 1 Magazine Gap Road, HONG KONG. THOMAS, Mr. Louis F., c/o Lowe, Bingham, & Mathews, Prince's Building, 22/Fl., HONG KONG. THOMPSON, Mr. P. J., c/o Johnson, Stokes & Master, 10th and 11th Floors Alexandra House, 16-20 Chater Road, HONG KONG THROWER, Prof. L. B., Flat 6B, University Residence No. 6, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NEW TERRITORIES. THROWER, Dr. Stella, Flat 6B, Residence No. 6, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NEW TERRITORIES. TON CHEN, Mrs. Chu-Ching, 3-D Chesterfield Mansion, Kingston Street, HONG KONG, TORRIBLE, Mr. Graham Robert, c/o Hong Kong Club, HONG KONG WATSON, Mr. K. A., c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, HONG KONG. WAUNG, Mr. William Sikying, 1903 Hang Chong Building, 5 Queen's Road C., HONG KONG. WEINREBE, Mr. Harry M., Fairfield Enterprises Ltd., 1404 Bank of Canton Building, 6 Des Voeux Road C., HONG KONG. WERLE, Ms. Helga, 3 Wood Road, 6/Fl., HONG KONG. WESLEY-SMITH, Mr. Peter, School of Law, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG, WILLIAMS, Mr. Roger, Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. WILLIAMS, Mr. B. V., Hong Kong Housing Authority, Housing Authority Headquarters, 101 Princess Margaret Road, KOWLOON. WILLIAMS, Mr. & Mrs. W.D F., 1 Riante Rive Apartments, 141 Milestone, Castle Peak Road, NEW TERRITORIES. WINKLER, Mrs. E., Flat 402, 12 May Road, HONG KONG WONG, Mr. Kwok Fong, 92A Pokfulam Road 1/Fl., HONG KONG. WONG, Mr. Peng-Cheong, Wong, Tan & Co., Chartered Accountants, South China Building, 3rd Floor, 1 Wyndham Street, HONG KONG, YEUNG, Mr. Walter W. T., 60-B Conduit Road, G/F, HONG KONG. YOUNG Miss Pauline, The Peak School, Plunketts Road, The Peak, HONG KONG. I ¦ | ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 204 DAVID FAURE hsü 12 (1886). In the Kau Sai Hung Shing Temple, the lintel is dated Kuang-hsü 15 (1889), and the altar Kuang-hsü 20 (1894); and in the Hang Hau T'in Hau Temple (besides the 1840 bell), the lintel is dated Kuang-hsü 1 (1875), a tablet Kuang-hsü 2 (1876), an altar is of the same year, a wooden board of Kuang-hsü 4 (1878), a shrine of Kuang-hsü 10 (1884), a pair of stone lions of Kuang-hsü 13 (1887), and a pair of incense burners of Kuang-hsü 20 (1894). The bell and the incense burner at the Tin Ha Wan T'in Hau Temple are both undated, but Mr. Ip Ch'un, who lived nearby, told us that the temple was already in disrepair over fifty years ago. Historical inscriptions found in Sai Kung and elsewhere in Hong Kong and the New Territories have been transcribed as a special project and may be found in David Faure, Alice Ng, and Bernard Luk, "A collection of historical inscriptions in Hong Kong". The report is available in the Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and will, it is hoped, be published shortly. 7 Mr. Hoh Taai of Ko Tong, aged over 60, knew of the whereabouts of a charcoal burner, but never saw it in operation (Int. 10.6.81). Lime kilns were reported in Wong Yi Chau, Wong Keng Tei, Tai Mong Tsai Tso Wo Hang, Tai Wan, Kiu Tsui, Sha Ha, Pak Sha Wan, Che Keng Tuk, Ta Ho Tun, Tai Tan, and Yau Yu Wan (Ints. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, 22.5.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Tang Kei Faat 25.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 28.6.81, Mr. Wong Ping Lin 29.6.81, Madam Liu 20.5.81, Mr. Lau Lui Faat 23.6.81, Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81, Madam Lo Koon Mooi 21.6.81, Mrs. Hoh née Lei 28.6.81, Mr. Chung 23.7.81, and Madam Lam Yau Ch'un 19.8.81.) The Liu family at Kiu Tsui built the ancestral hall that can be seen today on the main road into Sai Kung Market. For an impression of the long history of lime making in Sai Kung, it should be noted that Madam Lo Koon Mooi was 85 and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 87 in 1981, and it was their fathers who were engaged in the lime business. Mr. Yau continued working the kilns until his early 40's. Brick kilns were reported in Chek Keng and Pak Tam Chung (Ints. Mr. Chiu Sz 7.5.81 and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, 22.5.81). The lime industry, of course, also provided income for fishermen who collected coral for the kilns. See "Return of the approximate number of fishermen employed in taking coral and shell from the sea adjoining the New Territory", in Hong Kong Legislative Council, Sessional Papers, 1901, p. 685. "The best indication of the growing importance of the trade in pigs is a set of account books that belonged to Mr. Yung Sz Ch'iu of Pak Sha O, a photocopy of which is held by the Oral History Project. See also ints. Mr. Chan Tsz K'eung 28.5.81 and Mr. Hoh King 5.6.81. • There are many instances of seamen recruited by recruitment firms (haang shuen koon); see, eg. Mr. Chiu Sz (Int. 7.5.81). Remittance from abroad was sent back to the village through import-export houses (kam shan tsong), see Mr. Yau T'aai Hong (Int. 11.8.81). 10 Mr. Cheung T'o's grandfather was a cook on Hong Kong Island, and his father was employed on the Kowloon-Canton Railway. Mr. Cheung, of Ho Chung, was c. 70 in 1981 (Int. 15.6.81). Mr. Tsang Yau of Tai Mong Tsai (age unknown, but who married before World War II) worked in a shop started by his father in Shaukiwan on Hong Kong Island (Int. 23.6.81). 11 Ints. Mr. Cheng Chung Ting 21.5.81, Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81, Mr. Chan T'aai 22.7.81; Bernard Williams, "Visit to Ho Chung and Sheung Yeung villages in the Sai Kung area”, in Marjorie Topley, ed. Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, Hong Kong, 1965, pp. 46-47, and "The Chan family of Tseung Kwan O", JHKBRAS 7 (1967), pp. 158-160. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 58 LEWIS M. CHERE and recognized in later periods? As in so many cases of this sort, closer examination of the events leads to the conclusion that it may have been both. What little evidence is available at this distance points to a popular nationalistic outbreak against the French, encouraged by the activities of the Imperial authorities at Canton. There is also reason to believe that the old anti-foreignism so frequently pointed to among the coastal Chinese also had some role in the affair. Some local Chinese leadership groups, like the Tung Wah, may also have tried to make use of the incident to enhance their own position vis-à-vis the colonial administration. The troubles of September and October 1884 were set off by two events in other parts of the China Coast. China and France had been very close to an open break over the suzerainty of Annam and the occupation of Tongking since early in 1883. When the Chinese appeared to have violated a May 1884 agreement between Li Hung-chang and Captain Ernest Fournier of the French Navy, France presented China with a series of ultimatums in June and July demanding compensation for French deaths incurred in the incident. Since the Chinese believed that it was the French who had violated the agreement they naturally were not inclined to sub-mit to the French demands.9 France, determined to enforce what she considered her just demands, issued one last ultimatum in August. When Peking refused to give in, the French Asiatic Squadron under Admiral Courbet, which was anchored at Foochow opposite a Chinese fleet and the shipyard, opened fire on August 22. The Chinese Foochow Fleet was utterly destroyed with much loss of life. The Shipyard was severely damaged, and the forts along the Min River were taken and destroyed as the French went back downstream. In the competition among the governors and viceroys of the coastal provinces to demonstrate their patriotism in the furor that followed the Foochow incident, Chang Chih-tung, newly appointed Viceroy of the Two Kwangs; Peng Yü-lin, Imperial Commissioner for the Coastal Defenses of Kwangtung; and Ni Wan-yuh, Governor of Kwangtung, issued a proclamation calling on Chinese in Singapore, Penang and Vietnam (interestingly enough they did not mention Hong Kong) to sink French ships, or sell them tainted provisions. Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 SILK & SILVER: MACAU, MANILA TRADE 71 would go to Macau, where this cargo would be traded for Chinese silk, porcelain, gold, musk, rouge, and rhubarb. The ship would stay in Macau for almost a year if it missed the southwest monsoon or the silk fairs in Canton, held in June and January, where the finer silks from central China were sold. On the next monsoon, between June and August, the Captain-major would set out for Japan. In Japan, successively at Bungo, Hizen, and Omura, and after 1571 at Nagasaki, the Chinese goods would be sold for Japanese silver, gold, copper (which was chiefly used for casting cannon in the famous foundry of Manuel Tavares Bocarro in Macau), lacquer, painted screens, swords, and other weapons, and slaves, including Korean prisoners of war. In November, the ship would catch the northeast monsoon back to Macau, where the silver acquired in Japan would be exchanged for gold, copper, ivory, pearls, and more Chinese silk. From Macau, the captain-major would return to Goa. The bulk of the cargo from Macau to Japan was at first raw silk, but woven silks and damasks were increasingly exported during the 17th century. There was generally sufficient silk left over after trading in Japan to supply India, Europe (via Goa), and Spanish America (via Manila).12 The Chinese demand for silver was, as we have seen, insatiable. A factor of the English East India Company wrote in 1636 that the Chinese, “will as soon part with their blood” as silver once they had possession of it.13 Japan possessed rich silver mines in Honshu, and the ratio of the value of silver to gold in Japan was about 12:1, approximately the same as in Europe. China, however, possessed very little silver and was willing to acquire it in exchange for gold at about 5.4:1.14 Thus, the Portuguese could trade spices for Chinese silks and porcelains, sell these to the Japanese, who prized them above their own products, together with some European goods such as firearms, in exchange for silver and, finally, exchange the silver in China for gold at a very favourable rate. The total ban imposed by China in 1557 on all direct trade with Japan, and the continuing raids by Japanese pirates on the China coast, enabled the Portuguese to gain a virtual monopoly of this Sino-Japanese trade, and the annual silver exports from Japan in the Great Ship from Amacon reached a value of about 1 million cruzados by the end of the 16th century. The restoration of strong central government in Japan under Oda Nobunaga, who occupied Kyoto in 1568, brought about a decrease in piracy and a consequent increase in the volume of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 136 NOTES AND QUERIES 3 Map of the East Coast of the Kwangtung Province, in the Ch'ing Cho Hoi Keung To Shuet 清初海疆圖說之粵東海圖說篇 The book was prepared in the Reign of Yung Cheng (1723-1735). * Chapter 43 and Chapter 255 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1864 edition 阮元廣東通志卷四十三及卷二百五十五 5 Table 37 of Ch'ing Shi Ko * In the 12th year of the K'ang Hsi Reign (1673), Ng Shaam-kwai led an uprising against the Ch'ing Government. The uprising was suppressed in the 20th year of K'ang Hsi (1681). Some of his followers turned to piracy on the south coast of China. 7 Chapter 255 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1864 edition * As recorded in the Map of the East Coast of the Kwangtung Province, in the Ch'ing Cho Hoi Keung To Shuet, within 16 coastal counties of the Kwangtung Province, a total of 41 forts, 312 cannon places and 618 guard-houses were erected when Yeung Lin was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Province. Of these, 4 forts, 32 cannon places, and 74 guard-houses were erected in the San On county. * He was appointed as Viceroy of Kwangtung Province in the 1st year of the Yung Cheng Reign (1723). The Province of Kwangsi was then under Kung Yuk-sun, as Governor. 10 See my article The Fat Tong Mun Fort (or the Tung Lung Fort) in Volume 18 of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society. DISTRIBUTION OF TEMPLES ON LANTAU ISLAND AS RECORDED IN 1979 Lantau Island lies to the west of the Island of Hong Kong. Before the Sung Dynasty, the people living there were mainly of the Yiu tribes. Then came the refugees of the Southern Sung. The population increased during the Ming Dynasty; and many of the temples on the island were first built at this time. During the first year of the K'ang Hsi reign of the Ch'ing Dynasty, the people living in the coastal areas had to move back to the interior, because of the policy called the "Evacuation of the Coast". Seven years later, in the eighth year of the K'ang Hsi reign, they were allowed to come back. However, like many houses, some of the temples decayed during their absence. From then on the population increased rapidly, with people flocking to the area. The local temples were rebuilt and repaired. The temples listed below are in existence in 1979. Though some ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 154 NOTES AND QUERIES numerous minor grades excel those of other places in their colour, fragrance and taste. Chu Yi-chuen of Sau Shui remarks, "There is no fixed standard as to which place in Fukien and Kwangtung produces the best quality of lychee, but in my opinion “Kwa Luk” from Kwangtung tops all." The three most outstanding selections of "Kwa Luk” are "Siu Fa Shan”, “Luk Law Yi” and "Kau Kei Wan”. A species named "Sheung Shu Wai", literally "being carried (wai) by the Minister (Sheung Shu)", originated from a minister Cham Man-kang who brought back a pip of lychee from Windy Pavilion. Most lychees fall into this category. The most valuable lychee tree whose fruit is priced scores of times more than others is the one growing in the West Garden located outside West Gate of the County Seat. In fact, there were other lychee trees which were as good as, or even better than, that tree. Another species called “Crystal Ball" of Cha Kong is of the same grade as "Kwa Luk”, and also on the list of the delicious lychees are "Sai Kok" (rhino's horn), "Kwai Mei” (taste of osmanthus), "Nor Mai Chee" (like glutinous rice), "Sung Ka Heung" (fragrance of Sung Family), "Chun Fung Yuk” (jade offered to emperor) and Ho Pau (wallet). (translation by District Office, Tsuen Wan) 3. By chance, I heard recently of the existence of at least one tree of the special type of “Kwa Luk” mentioned in the opening paragraph from the father of a friend. This gentleman, a Hakka from Ng Wah District, served pre-war in the provincial administration of Kwangtung at Canton. He had a friend Mr. Wong Ping-kwan (*A), who was the district magistrate (*) of Tsang Shing at that time (about 1937-38). This official used to send a parcel of this special lychee to his superiors in Canton. The fruit came from trees in the courtyard and gardens of his office in Tsang Shing. It was not for sale, and although my friend said he had heard of some being available on the market in recent times, he was sure they were not the genuine article. Hong Kong. December, 1979. JAMES HAYES ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT 01 SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 155 head was a cut of 1 ts'un and 4 fen in length, and 3 fen deep. The cut had gone all the way to the bone. The captain and the owner of the American ship both inspected the wound of the dead woman, and pronounced that "the woman in reality died from head injury and from drowning". The Americans agreed to submit Terranova to an investigation by Chinese officials, provided that the hearings were conducted on the American ship with Americans present. As a compromise, the "ceremony" of charging the prisoner was to be conducted on a Chinese war vessel that was to carry the Chinese official to the American ship. On 6 October, Captain Cowpland cleared all firearms from the deck of the Emily, stationed all hands at the forecastle, had Terranova without handcuffs on deck, and waited for the arrival of Chinese authorities. The Chinese officials were led by the magistrate of P'an-yù who was concurrently serving as prefect of Canton. Eight hong merchants were in attendance. The service of Dr. Morrison, who was then attached to the British factory, as a translator, was refused because Juan Yuan did not want to involve a third nation. After a lengthy debate during which Captain Cowpland argued successfully that no American prisoner was ever in irons during a trial, Terranova was "surrendered" to the Chinese with Puiqua pledging his safe return for trial on the Emily. Captain Cowpland accompanied Terranova and the hong merchants to the Chinese war vessel and back to the Emily. Testimonies of witnesses at the trial were somewhat different from the facts Juan Yüan had ascertained earlier. The Americans objected to the magistrate's allowing the presence of two children who were prompting the witness Ch'en-Li shih, and demanded that she speak in English, as her command of the language was superior to that of the translator or even Puiqua himself. When the woman's testimony deviated from what she had said before, an instrument of torture was brought aboard. The instrument was not used, although the woman insisted upon the later version of her testimony. Altogether, there were one thousand Chinese at the trial on board the Emily, and forty Americans. At the end of the session, the Chinese wanted to take Terranova with them. Captain Cowpland said: "Come and take him," but the Chinese wanted the Americans to "surrender" the prisoner officially. While the Americans prepared for armed resistance, the magistrate proceeded to put Exchin, the ship's security merchant, and the Chinese linguist, Cowqua, in chains. Together with the overwhelming number of Chinese on board and other considerations such as opium in the hold, Captain Cowpland changed his mind ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 160 WEI PER-TI few days later from his wounds. Upon being told of the news, Juan Yuan "suspended the Company's trade and required the surrender of the man whom he termed the 'Foreign Murderers'"* + 63 To Juan Yuan, the Select Committee's reaction to his demand was in contravention to Chinese regulations. He was told by the Committee to communicate directly with Captain Richardson of the Topaze instead of going through the hong merchants and the Select Committee. Had Juan Yuan done as he was asked, he would have implicitly consented to change the Canton system. This he refused to do. He continued to hold to the principle that the supercargo of the British factory be responsible for the conduct of all British nationals in China. While the hong merchants, British traders at Canton, and Captain Richardson debated various possible courses to take, Juan Yuan suspended all British trade and held steadfast to his principles. On February 3, 1822, a Chinese official was permitted to board the Topaze and was understood to have said that he would make a report to the Governor-General. On 8 February, using as the excuse that as he had not heard from Chinese officials everything must be satisfactory, Captain Richardson took the Topaze to sea. It was at this point the crisis really became serious. The British factory left Canton within three days. The language used by both sides in their communications was inflexible and threatening. The Committee insisted upon disclaiming responsibilities for the British navy. Another two weeks passed without any sign of solution. The Committee then explained to Juan that Captain Richardson had returned to Britain to "report to his sovereign" and that "copies of all the papers would be sent to the Court of Directors [of the Company]". Juan Yuan, noting that since the Topaze had already left Chinese waters, so that it was impossible for the supercargo to surrender the criminals even if he had been willing, and as the entire account was being sent back to both the sovereign and the Company, permitted the resumption of British trade at Canton. This compromise in order to resolve a difficult case reflected Juan Yuan's willingness to make the best of a bad situation. Juan Yuan did not negotiate with the British except through the intermediary of the hong merchants, and, it was the Company that was to be held responsible for finding the criminals to be remitted to Chinese justice, although no such promise had actually been made.55 And, most important of all, the British navy was removed from the China seas. On the surface at least, the principles of the Canton system were preserved. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 161 Meanwhile, 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. Page 162 In 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: These 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 Page 163 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m THE HONG KONG ORIGINS OF DR. SUN YAT-SEN'S ADDRESS TO LI HUNG-CHANG 169 building up a wealthy nation and a powerful army, and to their laws for social reforms. I also discerned the essentials of current events and changes, and the means of maintaining peaceful relationship with other countries. In addition to the medical training and earlier schooling he received in Hong Kong, by "education abroad", Sun was referring to his schooling in Hawaii. The first Western school which Sun attended was Iolani, and it was an elementary school run by the Church of England in Honolulu, whose staff, except for one Hawaiian, was entirely British. After his graduation from school in 1882, he spent less than a year in a high school, Oahu College, run by American Congregationists and Presbyterian missionaries in the Hawaiian Islands. He was sent back to his native village, Ts'ui-heng, by his brother in the summer of 1883 and enrolled shortly afterwards at the Diocesan Home, a school set up by the Church of England in Hong Kong. The next year he entered the Central School, the first government secondary school in Hong Kong, now known as Queen's College. No record is available as to the class he entered. According to an article in Vol. 37 of Yellow Dragon, the school magazine, Sun entered the school under the name Sun Tai Tseng (Ti Hsiang), at the age of eighteen. He left in 1886 to join the Canton Poh Tsai Hospital as a medical student and then transferred in early 1887 to the Hong Kong Medical College for Chinese. The college was affiliated with the newly established Alice Memorial Hospital, which was set up by Ho Kai, a civic leader in Hong Kong, in memory of his wife. For the next five years, Sun studied under the general supervision of Ho Kai and two Scottish physicians, Dr. Patrick Manson and Dr. James Cantlie. He graduated in 1892 at the age of twenty-six, two years before he wrote the petition. Thus from 1883 to 1892, except for the interval of about half a year in 1886 when he joined the Poh Tsai Hospital, Sun received a major part of his secondary education and then his medical training in Hong Kong. The schools which he attended, the Diocesan Home and the Central School were Anglo-Chinese schools. Since the 1880s, the Hong Kong Government's educational policy had been directed towards the encouragement of the learning of the English language and Western knowledge, and these schools offered subjects such as those referred to by Sun in the opening of his letter. Yet the impact of school upon the mind of a youth like Sun might go much deeper than knowledge obtained from learning in class. The environment or "culture" of the school itself played perhaps a more significant ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 82 ELIZABETH SINN was found.67 Besides firing, the police also charged at the crowd. The paper treats us to the vivid description of a particular “valiant” Sikh policeman. He had been knocked off his pony, but he got back on the saddle, and, “drawing his sword, he charged. He does not seem to have used the weapon on the mob,” the paper reported, but, “round and round he went in an increasing circle, knocking the mob over like nine pins. He must have bowled over a very great number of them, and with the pony trampling over the prostrate men, many must have been a good deal hurt.” Man and beast came in for praise. “The pony behaved splendidly and seemed imbued with the same spirit as its rider, tearing might and main in among the thick of the crowd, over numerous obstacles.”68 But when we remember that the “obstacles” were human beings, the ferocity of the police reaction to the morning’s stone-throwing strikes home. It is perhaps as justifiable to say that police action had eventually quelled the disturbance as it is to say that police action had provoked the crowd and exacerbated the situation in the first place. In other words, the over-reaction of the police was likely to have magnified some ugly stone-throwing into a large-scale disturbance. If our interpretation of these events is that the riot had broken out spontaneously, what can we make of the “bad characters” and triad members who were reported to be present in Hong Kong in large numbers? Marsh, for one, believed that bad characters had instigated the riots, and he suspected that they were somehow connected with the Canton authorities. There is indeed evidence that there were large numbers of triad members in Hong Kong, but they had begun to gather there since 1883, and no disturbance had been instigated by them then. Then, their main purpose had been to stage a major uprising in Waichow, and it seems that in 1884, as again later in 1885, their main concern remained Waichow.70 What records we have of them do not indicate any connection with the Canton authorities. I think it is reasonable to contend that the particular circumstances emerging from the strike created the conditions for riot, not the presence of bad elements. None of the arrested ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 86 ELIZABETH SINN anti-Imperial struggle, and published fragments of the Shu pao he found to throw light on these events. A year later, Li Ming-jen claimed that it was the first large-scale strike in China with political overtones and so saw it in terms of the history of labour movements in China.80 These events have also been described by a Western historian to illustrate anti-foreignism in 19th Century China.81 More recently, we have a work dealing with the 1884 events in relation to the development of Chinese nationalism. At the same time, its author, Chere, calls attention to the lack of scholarly interest in these events, and challenges the historian in Hong Kong to re-examine them by using more extensive source materials.82 In fact, we should bring the strike and riot of 1884 back into a Hong Kong perspective since they do highlight important features of Hong Kong society and history. They highlight the problems of a society composed of a native population governed by a foreign power; a society whose loyalty was, at the best of times, divided. The political and emotional orientation of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong was toward Mainland China. Even while more and more Chinese households were being established in Hong Kong, nonetheless, in times of emergency the entire household could be transferred to Macao or Canton. It seems almost incidental that some families did settle in Hong Kong permanently at all. Family, business, property and political ties with China continued to be strong, with the result that events in China had very strong bearings upon those in Hong Kong. This means that on the one hand, Chinese officials could bully residents in Hong Kong into carrying out orders or seduce them with rewards; sometimes this could be done simply by appealing to their patriotism. The result was a general feeling of suspicion between the Government and people of Hong Kong which explains why any local disturbance caused the Government to panic. Understandably, things became very complicated whenever China was at war with Britain. In 1857, during the Arrow War for instance, the deterioration of relations between ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 194 The newspaper does not identify the author, or give a Chinese version, stating only that he was "a poet and scholar who formed part of the suite of the High Imperial Commissioner (Keying) during his late visit to Hong Kong, and was composed on board the steamer on the way back to Canton." ** In 1981 the journals of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon, RN, were published by Webb and Bower, of Exeter in England. In 1845 Cree was surgeon on the Vixen, a steam paddle sloop. In his entry for Tuesday, November 25, Cree records that the Vixen was taking Keying and his suite back to Canton: "A salute was fired from the battery as we started through the Cap-Sing-mun passage. On our way we were also saluted by the Chinese forts and war junks. I almost got into the bad books of Low, the Lord Mayor of Canton,' by a practical joke that Willcox, the 1st Lieutenant, played on me: he came up to me on deck and said: 'Doctor, do you know that the gunroom is full of those confounded flunkeys, and one of them is snoring in your cabin,' I rushed down and saw, on my bed, a great body and a pair of legs encased in black satin boots on the pillow, the head at the other end snoring most lustily. I unceremoniously laid hold of him, and rolled him on to the floor. At the same time one of the servants rushed in and jabbered something, holding up a mandarin's cap with the peacock's feather: I immediately saw it was the great Lord Mayor I had treated so roughly. I apologised as well as I could. His Lordship, who was now wide awake, sat at the table and said something to his valet, who brought him writing materials, with which he set to work filling a large sheet of paper with neatly written Chinese characters. I thought, now I am in for a report to the Lord High Commissioner, and told Gutzlaff, the interpreter. Chaou, who was in the Purser's cabin next door, laughed immoderately. Soon the paper was handed in, and I got Gutzlaff to interpret it. I was pleased to see it was no report, but an ode Low had been composing on his departure from Hong Kong." I It seems reasonable to speculate that this was the ode which the Friend of China published a translation of a few weeks later. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 246 plough back as possible. The first rice crop was harvested as close to the soil as possible as the ploughed back straw was of less value; it was the straw of this harvest that was kept as cattle feed and for other similar purposes. Fallowing of fields and crop rotation to permit natural regeneration of fertility was not regularly used, and seems to have been extremely rare in valley padi or even moderately good hillslope padi. Dry ground and poor hillslope padi was, however, fallowed intermittently, but with little regularity or customary detail. The practices noted here represent the major, but by no means the only fertilisers in regular use in New Territories villages before modernisation. Other organic wastes were used as and when opportunity arose. They represent the practice of the New Territories area, but not necessarily that even of other parts of Kwangtung. In Swatow and parts of Waichow, for instance, feces and urine were, it would seem, stored up together and used as liquid fertiliser when they had broken down and matured into a black oily liquid; in these areas ashes are collected separately and form the only dry manure used. J. Dyer Ball, in his article quoted, speaks of slow burning of vegetable wastes in clamp fires under turf to form a charcoal-like rich ash used particularly to prepare seedbeds; this seems to be a practice of the Canton area and would seem to be unknown in the New Territories area. These practices, which alone accounted for the continuing high fertility of rice fields even in the face of relentless year-in-year-out cropping, while unsavoury, are obviously important and warrant further study: this Note aims only at indicating the types of information to be found. NOTES 1 J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1982, (reprint of 5th Edition, 1925, Kelly and Walsh, Shanghai), pages 22-23, "Agriculture", partly quoted from other writers. Villagers from Sha Tin, North Sai Kung, and Sai Kung were questioned, with about 6 villagers assisting. The Note does not attempt to identify particular points with particular contacts: the points made represent the general consensus view. Most points were confirmed by several contacts. 8 Personal observation of the author in 1982. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 43 B-2 B-2 Pai-shou ling-ch'ien, Ku-shih chu-chieh ti by Cheng Chin-ling $436. Tsoying, Kaohsiung, 1976. M. Published Kuan-sheng Ti-chun ying-yan t'ao-yian ming-sheng ching E KNMVTÆ. Published by the Fu-ch'uan Fo-t'ang in Kang-shan, Kaohsiung. QUI÷HES, 1971. (The oracles are in the Appendix). B-6 Kuan Yin ling-ch'ien chu-chieh, erh-shih-szu shou Pi. Taichung: Jui-ch'eng Bookstore, 1975. B-34 Ch'ien-shu chu-chieh, Tien-shang Sheng-mu, lished by the Nan-yao Temple in Changhua M, R, LTE. Pub Mä, 1977. B-54 Huang Ta-hsien (Wong Tai Sin) ling-ch'ien, ku-pen chu-chieh A¶ LASER. Published by the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon, HK, n.d. (purchased in 1980). B-55 Po-chi hsien-fang 1981;. Taiwan (no exact place indicated but stamped by the Tz'u-yu Temple in Taipei, BMK), 1951. B-55 Lu Ti ling-ch'ien hsien-fang, PPARI), Hsinchu: Chu-lin Book-store 新竹市竹林書局,1977. B-55 Fu-yu Ti-chün chüeh-shih ching, Lü-tsu ling-ch'ien chi hsien-fang Fili MEIM.NG MAUZERO/2A07), Hong Kong, N.T., SEDILE. 8-0 1976. + Wu-nien ch'ien-sui ling-ch'ien chu-chieh 1F, Published the Chen-an Temple (2000) of Ma-ming-Shan in the county of Yiin lin, Taiwan, 1963. (ii) Taiwan Oracles: Temple Samples Werner Banck, Das Chinesische Tempelorakel PPE (part 1: Sources), Taipei: Ku-t'ing Bookstore, fillaliliPVM, 1976. (iii) Canton Temple Oracles, collected by the Library of the Center of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong (not included in Banck's source edition) 1. Kuan-shih-yin ling-ch'ien, #, published by Wu-kui t'ang 4, in Canton, n.d. (circa 1940?) block print reproduction; contains 100 oracles). 2. Hung-sheng-wang ch'ien 1, published by I-wen tang in Canton, n.d. (blockprint reproduction; contains 64 oracles). 3. K'ang-kung ling-ch'ien 12, published by T'ien-pao Printing Co.: Ch'an-shan, Canton, dated 1855 (nice wood block print edition) + 4. Fu-shen T-u-ti ch'ien (@J:22, published by Wen-tang Bookstore, **W in Yue-tung ch'an shan 40, dated 1859. (woodblock print; 30 oracles). 5. Shang-ti ling-ch'ien (zar, published by Wen-t'ang Bookstore, Z, n.d. (wood block print; 50 oracles). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 R.J. MINERS wider powers to investigate and break into any house suspected of being a brothel without a warrant and to arrest any inmate or any suspected prostitute on the streets. The legal system of control in operation from 1857 to 1889 placed the licensing of brothels under the control of the Registrar General. Brothels were confined to certain designated localities with separate districts for those catering for European and those catering for Chinese clients, and penalties were imposed for keeping a brothel outside these areas or an unlicensed brothel within them. Brothel-keepers had to supply the Registrar General with up-to-date lists of their prostitutes and these lists also had to be on display in every brothel. Brothels were subject to inspection by the police and medical authorities at any time. All new prostitutes were brought by their brothel-keepers before the Registrar General who questioned them to ensure that they were entering the profession of their own free will and had not been kidnapped or otherwise forced into servitude. All prostitutes were required to attend for a weekly inspection at the Lock Hospital and were then issued with a certificate of good health which could be shown to their clients, and those found to be diseased were detained at the hospital until cured. This was the system as imposed by law; the practice was rather different. Chinese prostitutes catering for Chinese clients had always objected vigorously to being examined internally by a European doctor and would prefer to suffer any punishment rather than submit to such an indignity.' So compulsory medical inspections were imposed only on the inmates of brothels catering for the European population, principally servicemen and seamen. The Registrar General had the legal power to compel other prostitutes to be medically examined, but if they became diseased they normally made their own arrangements with Chinese doctors or herbalists or were sent back to Canton by the brothel-keepers. Regulations made by the Governor segregated the licensed brothels catering for Europeans to the east end of the city and those for Chinese to the west end, and brothel-keepers were required to ensure that their houses were not visited by clients from the other community. This regulation, together with the police campaigns to close down unlicensed houses (the so-called 'sly brothels') made it less likely that servicemen would come into contact with prostitutes who had not been medically examined and certified to be Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 283 11 Murrow, 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. Because 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. Because 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. Because 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. The 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 293 is the gayest of the gay cities. Yet I am told that the officers of the army and navy do not care much about being quartered at Hong Kong. Even gaiety becomes monotonous on an island scarcely nine miles long, so rocky that you cannot ride, and where pirates and squalls keep people from boating or fishing. The island formerly constituted a part of the district Sun-on. It is scarcely a mile from Kiu Lung or Kow Loon on the main land, which is also British property. It is mainly granitic, but with a varied geology, so as to make it a most interesting place of study. There are some volcanic dykes in places, and traces of minerals, especially lead and molybdenum, of which fine specimens may be easily obtained. The highest peak is 1,825 feet high, and there are other peaks ranging between that height and 1,000 feet. Hong Kong as far back as the Ming dynasty belonged to the Tang family, whom I suppose everybody knows. It is an island at the mouth of the Canton river, and was a noted resort for pirates, who used to lie in wait for sailing craft in the Ly-ee-mun pass, a very narrow strait between the mainland and the island. In January, 1841, it was ceded to Great Britain. The capital is called Victoria. Wood's description continues with surveys of the vegetation, fauna, and geology. It was part of a long article “Geographical Notes in Malaysia and Asia”, which was published in the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales, in 1888, shortly before his death. Woods: An Appreciation As in Sir George Bowen's day, so in our own, there is a tendency to try to set religion and science in opposition. But more than a century ago, we find in Woods a lived conviction that there is no such opposition. His scientific work is certainly a product of his own time, but his Australian research is still cited in official geological publications. In the antipodes, interest in Woods is growing. He has been the subject of three biographies, two of which have a full list of his scientific publications. There are many minor works about him. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 15 11 At the time of my research in 1985, Tam was still alive in Canton. He has not altered his Protestant faith. 12 From my interview with Alfred Lo. 13 Lo translated it as the "Tao of Apocalypse." He probably was not aware that the word 'apocalypse' had connotations which were not in keeping with his teaching. 14 By now it is obvious that the first generation of disciples all changed their middle names to Han (). This is significant in that a name-change signifies a new identity, that is, the disciples were conscious that they belonged to a new sect. 15 **. This worshipping hall must have been built before the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese, for Alfred Lo recalled the pillage of the hall by neighbouring villages during the period of lawlessness. Page 1 16 XANT · KM. There are certain esoteric elements in Lo's teaching, especially those which pertain to specific methods of sitting in meditation and the method of curing and of chasing of demons. These specific instructions cannot be divulged to the uninitiated. However, the abstract formulation of his teaching is open to the public. 17 至大至達顧聖紀念館講詞, 18 See his essay "Does God exist? { »h_27[® )". 19 神也否無形而有徵者也 20 有,形,名,性,欲,尬,恩怨,注,數情, 21 This text appears as the centre-piece on one of the altars of this sect. 22 This is as much as Lo is prepared to say about the creative function as the Supreme Deity. 23 See photo on the inside of back cover of the AM (Plate I). 24「歿後可以復歸干种」至大至尊顯聖紀念館講詞。「復貼於神,復節於無極」神之有無講詞。 25 AZGI, ch. 8. 26 Ibid., ch. 3. 27 神之有無。 28 Thus, human destiny in Tan Tse Tao is envisioned quite differently from monistic Indian religious thought. 29「養身之道先修達德伤去监性」太太真jch. 17. 30 Aliki chỉ 28. 31 Ibid., ch. 8. 32 Ibid., ch. 7. 33 神之有無 34 £ì, ch. 31. Also in f¡¡ ch. 18. Page 1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 113 3 This is the Cantonese pronunciation of the characters which in literal translation mean "egg families". 4 Ref: my articles in A.S.A. Volume and in Man. ["Varieties of the conscious model, the fishermen of South China," in M. Banton, ed. The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology (London, Tavistock, 1965), pp. 113-37, and "Sociological self-awareness; some uses of the conscious models,” Man (1966) vol. 1, pp. 200-15.] * Professor Chan Tze-king states that the Boat People speak whatever dialect is dominant in the area in which they live, and that some of them (notably around Kwangtung) therefore speak non-Cantonese dialects [Ch'en Hsü-ching, op. cit., pp.30-1.]. To the best of my knowledge all so-called Tanka in Hong Kong speak Cantonese. "[The 1961 census reported a 'marine population' of 136,802 persons.] 7 This is a translation of the local term (suen cheung), the official title was Village Representative. & Substituted by nylon in late 'fifties. 9 The Chinese expression used was either a fisherman's name or a pronoun, followed by the possessive particle. 10 Chinese is suen. 11 Note about equipment from New Zealand C.A.R.E. etc. 12 Note on land tenure situation: these were officially "temporary structures" and therefore limited in size. 13 Eating sweet potatoes, except by children as a kind of sweetmeat, is regarded as a sure sign of poverty and much derided. 14 Except at weekends. His wife refused to live at Kau Sai and he quite often failed to return until Tuesday or even later in the week. The present day teachers also go back to the Mainland at the weekends and during school holidays, but are punctilious about keeping school hours. 15 Officially called Kau Sai New Village. 16 Or rather his wife; but that was not stated, nor were his wages taken into account. 17 The roles of these different organs of administration are discussed fully below. [Discussion not found in manuscript.] 18 [Not included in manuscript.] 19 It does not follow that because for practical purposes movements on land and water were equally simple no intellectual distinctions were made. The point is discussed at length in the final chapter below. [This final chapter is not found in the manuscript.] 20 Note on dynamite. 21 The effect of mechanisation in breaking down specialisation seems to have been quite general among inshore fishermen. It is discussed further in Chapter V [section 5 below]. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 190 ANTHONY FARRINGTON light on Chinese junk traffic. It fell into two groups. Firstly, voyages between Tongking and Nagasaki by resident Chinese, mainly represented by a ‘Captain Nitthoo'; secondly, voyages by mainland Chinese, originating at Canton and calling at Nagasaki and Batavia. For example, on 6 September 1672 Captain Nitthoo departed for Japan with a cargo of 500 peculs of raw silk, “a great quantity of refuge silk” and 43,400 pieces of silk textiles. During his absence the English rented his house at Hien. Back again in March 1673, he left for Japan in July, mainly carrying raw silk, and returned in February 1674. Similarly, in April 1675 the English learnt that a newly arrived Cantonese junk had first taken in a cargo at Batavia, disposed of it at Nagasaki and had now brought into Tongking 16 chests of Japanese silver, 3 million Japanese copper cash and 93 chests of Japanese copper bars. It would be tedious to rehearse the pattern all the way through to the 1690s. However, I am sure that a collation of these incidental references would prove a significant addition to our knowledge of Chinese inter-Asiatic wholesaling operations before the period of European dominance. A full transcript of the factory diary, with its endless repetitions of present giving and attendance upon mandarins, would make heavy reading. My intention is, rather, to issue a summary calendar with selected verbatim extracts, which should provide the necessary raw material for economic historians. NOTES 'Une factorerie Anglaise au Tonkin au XVIIe siècle (1672-1697)', Charles B. Maybon, Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extrême-Orient 10 (Hanoi, 1910) 159-204 gives a summary list of sources for the history of the factory. “Les Anglais au Tonkin (1672-1697)', P. Villars, Revue de Paris Nov/Dec 1903 262-86 gives a brief narrative of life in the factory. 2 The 1630s and 1640s saw attempts to achieve quick profits through a variety of separate ventures (eg, to Persia) organised alongside the longer-term joint stocks. At the same time rival 'interloping' groups (eg, the Courteen Association, formed 1635) became more successful in obtaining royal or Council of State approval for their own trading ventures, culminating in the opening of the eastern trade to private merchants between 1654 and 1657. In the background, of course, were the political upheavals of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 PRESIDENT'S REPORT 1986-87 Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me say at the outset that this has been a good year. Our programme of activities has been maintained at a satisfactory level and, in general, has attracted larger audiences and attendances than in recent years. We have also made steady progress in regard to back-up organization. The publication of the two Journals for 1984 and 1985 is expected soon, with other projects in hand. The remaining unsatisfactory area is that of financing where the current level of expenses, particularly on publications, is such that an increase in the annual membership charge is not only advisable but also necessary. I shall now review the year's changes and activities. Programme Last year's programme included the usual variety of lectures, visits and tours. The ten lectures were varied, covering a wide range of historical and cultural subjects, as follows: Phillip Bruce "The Forgotten Fortress" 4 April, 1986: 30 April, 1986: Prof. Ed Wright "Korean Furniture Elegance and Tradition" 22 May, 1986: Dr. Raj Ghose 12 June, 1986: 3 September, 1986: "The Hindu Temple as a religious, social and political institution." Dr Richard Irving "The Rise and Fall of Shrimp Farming in Deep Bay and its Impact on the Deep Bay Landscape." Dr. Janice Stockard "An Unorthodox Marriage Practice in the Canton Delta Region." vii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 12 HELEN E. SIU December 1980," 80 percent of the menial jobs in restaurants were given to the "green stamp aliens." They were also taking short-term work in construction sites which were dangerous and shunned by local workers. Out of 165 work-related deaths from January 1979 to August 1980, 70 percent were immigrants who had come to Hong Kong for fewer than three years. Many work-related injuries occurred within the first six months of immigration. Not only were recent immigrants getting the most undesirable jobs, but also they were systematically paid less than local workers. 18 Public opinion was blunt: these people should be grateful that they were here; if they did not like their treatment, they should go back to China where they belonged; Hong Kong had its hands full already. In a word, the recent immigrants had become the scapegoat for social ills connected with political uncertainty and economic panic faced by a population defensive of what it had gained. The media played up the image of “Ah Chan,” the ignorant and vulnerable “mainland boy." Social gossip generated a prejudiced view that most of the young aliens were lazy because they were fed with "socialist" education. The same survey (1982) shows that 51 percent of the respondents considered recent immigrants to have problems in learning their jobs and that they were not able to match the efficiency of Hong Kong workers. At a more personal level, over 50 percent of them were unwilling to share living space with these immigrants and 45 percent expressed their reluctance to choose them as spouses. Furthermore, prejudice built around the impression that the immigrants were political activists fleeing political prosecution and were therefore potential trouble-makers. The public soaked in the daily newspaper accounts of the activities of "the Canton Boys," gangs formed by recent illegal immigrants. They were described as overly bold and brutal in conducting their business. In October 1984, a court case concerning a series of jewellery robberies confirmed the fears of the general public. Two of the leaders of a new immigrant gang had actually recruited 'mercenaries' from China to conduct the robberies. The Hong Kong police had a difficult time tracing these criminals because they stayed in Hong Kong only for a short time, and were shielded by underground networks that extended well beyond Hong Kong's social and political boundaries. A movie 19 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 152 CARL SMITH Dutch parentage from Malacca, who soon became dissatisfied and left for a more adventurous life at sea; J.H. Moore, born in Macau, who left after a few years, married a beautiful 15-year-old girl from Malacca and then took up newspaper editing and some unprofitable business ventures at Malacca and Singapore; and a student from overseas, William Hunter, an American. Hunter's reminiscences of his days at Malacca indicate he enjoyed them. He studied hard, for it is no easy task for a foreigner to acquire competency in written and spoken Chinese. He enjoyed the companionship of J.H. Moore. When not studying they took long walks, explored the countryside, observed the ways of the people, joined in the excitement of local festivals and shared in the homely life of the missionary staff of the college. He studied at the college for 18 months. He had arrived a boy of 12, he left a confident young man of 14. He returned to Canton where he continued studying under the direction of the Rev. Robert Morrison, but he also began learning the business of the counting house and godown. The firm to which he was apprenticed went into liquidation and Hunter returned to New York. But the "China bug" had bitten him, and when an opportunity came to return to China in 1830 under the patronage of Russell and Company, he eagerly accepted it. This firm had a long history in China trade. Its roots go back to 1789; it took on the name Russell and Co in 1824. It was the largest of the American firms operating in China. It finally failed in 1891, though some members of the firm reorganised in Hongkong as Shewan, Tomes and Co. The latter is still operating in Hongkong. One gathers from his reminiscences and references to him by others that he was a pleasant, agreeable, but not an aggressively ambitious person. When Hunter was visiting one of his former business associates in England, a young son of the family met him. Later he described Mr. Hunter as "a handsome, courteous man with a brown face and white moustache, like a fine type of Anglo-Indian, and speaking Chinese for our amusement with so soft a voice that I have often ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 171 When a few days past A-sow had been hunting for some paper in the drawer, he came across the bills and decided to make further inquiry. Hence his appearance with two of them at the police station. The others he had sent to the Oriental Bank to find out what they were worth. The magistrate asked A-sow some pertinent questions. Why had he put the bills away in the drawer if he thought they were of no value? Why now did he think they might be of value? Inasmuch as A-sow could read English readily, he must have noted that they were the property of a firm in Canton. Why, therefore, had he not spoken to Dr. Legge about them so they could have been sent to Canton? A-sow denied he knew the man who said he found the £300 in 1849, and who now stood charged with robbery. However, a police officer said that previous to the hearing A-sow had acknowledged knowing the prisoner. Upon being faced with this contradictory statement, A-sow said he had heard some of the boys in the school speak of him and his desire to find out the value of what he had found. A-sow, however, was unable to remember who the boys were, but under further questioning he mentioned the name of A-hone. A-hone was sent for and testified that about a year ago the prisoner had come to him asking about the paper he had found. A-hone had told him it was worth £300. The coolie who, as it was claimed, had originally given the bills to A-sow had absconded, so his account could not be heard. The changes in A-sow's evidence put an unfavourable light on his role in the affair. The editor of the Friend of China used the incident to inveigh against giving an English language education to Chinese youth. He had a sharp pen and was not in sympathy with the missionary enterprise. In his attack he used language which reflected a warped view of Chinese people. I · --- I ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 205 "There were, of course, the usual crowd common to native processions present. Following those on foot came 100 riders in official robes, two abreast, followed by a detachment of native troops from the camp near the Arsenal, provided by the colonel, who was a friend of the deceased gentleman. Then came Chinese musicians and the town band, and then what is not often seen except in funerals of the highest officials, bands of Buddhist nuns and bonzes as well as Taoist priests. "After them came the chief mourners in sackcloth, while surrounded by a white panoply, screened from the gaze of the crowd, walked the sole surviving son of the deceased. Then came the coffin on a red bier with a dragon's head in gold and red, and after it some 200 chairs containing the female friends and relatives of the family and over 80 carriages.” Our story of Tong Mow-chee, alias A-chick, has taken us far from the lad of 11 taken by his father to meet his future schoolmaster, the Rev. S.R. Brown in 1839, but his position of wealth, influence and honour had its foundations in the schoolrooms of Macau and Hongkong. FROM A HONGKONG CLASSROOM TO ALTAR OF HEAVEN Closely associated with the Rev. Dr. Legge throughout his life in Hongkong was Ho A-sun, or, as he was also known, Ho Ye-tong. Actually they had first met when Mr. Legge first arrived in Malacca. By trade Ho A-sun was a book block-cutter. He was one of some half dozen people Dr. Robert Morrison had sent from Canton to work at the Ultra-Ganges Press the London Missionary Society established in Malacca. It was at a time when the Chinese authorities were strictly enforcing the prohibition against Chinese being employed by foreigners at Canton. Only those who had been granted special permission were allowed to work for the foreign traders. For this reason the printing of Morrison's translation of the Bible in Chinese at Canton could only be done secretly and at some risk to the Chinese printers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 209 The fifth brother, Ho Wooi-shang, became an assistant in the business of A-tick, Hongkong's most successful tailor at that time. In addition he had a business at Honam in Canton. While visiting there he was wounded by a Chinese tax officer. He lingered long enough to make his will but died not long after leaving a family of small children. In the collection of the Legge family, which was deposited in the Archives of the London Missionary Society, there is a photograph of Ho Shun-chee, alias A-lloy. On the back is written: “To Miss Legge with kind regards from her sincere friend,” and an added note by Dr. Legge's daughter, Edith: "He told me he had attended the emperor when he went to pray at the Altar of Heaven." It is indeed a long step from a Hongkong classroom to the Altar of Heaven at Peking. TO THE GOLDFIELDS DOWN UNDER IN SEARCH OF CONVERTS Among the students of Dr. Legge's school in Hongkong were a number of boys from the Ho clan. Two orphaned brothers, Ho Low-yuk and Ho Mei-yuk, were near relatives of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong. Both went to Australia after finishing school. They were part of an exodus of Hongkong-educated boys seeking their fortunes in overseas communities. As English speakers in a place where their countrymen were cut off from the general community, they served to bridge the gap. At the same time, government officials and Christians interested in the conversion of the Chinese needed someone through whom they could communicate with the immigrants. A-low and another young man from the school were urged by Dr. Legge to emigrate to Australia. Because of the unsettled conditions in China created by the Taiping rebellion, Dr. Legge felt it was not a good field for these two young men he had trained as religious workers. So provided with letters of introduction to a Congregational minister in Melbourne off they sailed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 98 NOTES Research for this paper was carried out in Hong Kong in the Spring of 1984. We would like to thank John Dolfin, Director of the Universities Service Centre, for the use of that invaluable facility during our research, and John Ashton of Memorial University for some helpful suggestions. Parts of the paper were included in a presentation at a colloquium of the Sociology Department, Hong Kong University, May, 1984. 1 "Wong Tai Sin" is the most common transliteration in Hong Kong of the god's name. The pinyin transliteration is Huang Daxian. Here, the common Hong Kong transliterations are used, except for place-names in China such as Guangzhou (Canton), Guangdong (Kwangtung), and Chejiang. 2 The cases to be described are here termed motifs in the sense used by Allen and Montell (1981:38-9), who note that "the characteristic feature of these migratory narrative elements is their transferability among stories about different events or persons." 3 This is the only Wong Tai Sin temple known to most believers in Hong Kong, and the prominence of the god in Hong Kong has occurred entirely as a result of the success, for various historical reasons, of this one temple. There is also a private Wong Tai Sin temple in Kowloon, as well as a small private shrine in Macau, but they have had no influence on the popularity of the god. but Some temples in Guangzhou were indeed destroyed early in this century by Nationalists rather than by the elements (see for instance Rhoads, 1975:255). Perhaps our informant's account of the destruction of the temple was a tradition dating back to these events. 5 The fact that the icon of the god brought to Hong Kong from Guangdong is a picture rather than a statue suggests, as we argue in another paper (Lang and Ragvald, 1988), that the god was worshipped in Guangdong as the patron god of a family herbal medicine business (see Day, 1969, on these "paper gods" and their role in family worship). The organization which manages the temple, the Sik Sik Yuen, has published the official history of the temple in commemorative brochures, especially: Sik Sik Yuen, 1971; 1981; 1982, 7 Ogura (1980) argues that the drifted deity tradition evolved from an earlier tradition of belief in periodic visits by gods from their abodes beyond the sea. There is no such tradition in the Hong Kong area. 1 The temple's version of the Taoist hermit's life on earth before he became a god is in the form of a short autobiography, supposedly dictated by the god to a Taoist. It appears on a plaque in the temple, and also in brochures published by the Sik Sik Yuen. It has been discovered by Dr. Shiu-hon Wong of Hong Kong University that this account follows closely a capsule biography of the hermit written in the 4th century A.D. as part of the collection "Biographies of Immortals", by Ge Hong. This literary version holds that the Taoist hermit Wong, while herding sheep in Chejiang province, discovered a method of achieving immortality. He also manifested his power by turning a hillside of boulders into sheep. These two achievements figure prominently in the temple's "autobiography" of the god. The story of a saint whose body remains uncorrupted and even sweet-smelling long after burial is a common motif in Christian legends. Loomis (1948:54) cites about two hundred instances. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 122 order the suspension of the ordinance. When the crisis passed the measures it provided to control the Chinese population would no longer be needed, however, they would remain on the statute books to be reintroduced by the Governor in Council if a future situation warranted it. Once enacted, however, they were never officially suspended. Instead they came to be regarded as a way of reducing crime at night, though for long periods there was great laxity over its enforcement. The introduction of the rule that the Chinese must carry lights and passes at night was the result of the outbreak of the Sino-British conflict, sometimes referred to as the Second Opium War. The spark which set fire to the smouldering tensions created by the frustration of the foreigner in his desire to force open China to unrestricted trade was the seizure at Canton in October 1856 of the crew of a Hongkong-registered vessel, the Arrow. The Chinese authorities claimed the crew members were pirates. Their detention and the alleged hauling down of the British flag provoked an escalating series of demands, threats and incidents between the British and Chinese. These eventually climaxed in the looting and burning of the Imperial Summer Palace at Peking in 1860. The Chinese would not meet the demands for an apology for "the insult to the British flag" nor the return of the crew in a manner satisfactory to the English. To force the issue, the British breached the walls of Canton, penetrated to the Viceroy's stronghold and then withdrew. They met no resistance. Then boats were seized, forts were shelled, troops marched back and forth. For the British it all seemed like a military lark, with their superior power meeting no resistance from the Chinese, but only threatening proclamations issued by the Viceroy urging the destruction of the barbarians, with a price set upon the heads of certain prominent foreigners. Affairs took a more serious turn when the area along the river at Canton, where the foreigners lived and did their business, was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 161 BLOCKADE FINDS A CHAMPION The Chinese petition to the Queen concerning the evils of what was called the Chinese “blockade” of Hongkong was followed by a public meeting held at the City Hall in September 1874, to draw up resolutions to present to the Government in Britain. The meeting began with the calamitous forecast by the chief manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Mr. James Greig, that Hongkong's junk trade was threatened with complete extinction and the acts of China in patrolling the waters near Hongkong were an outrage. He proposed the first resolution: "That this meeting regards with feelings of amazement and alarm the organised invasion by the Hoppo of Canton of the freedom and sanctuary of the port and harbour of Hongkong." There was one person at the meeting who had not been carried away by the ground-swell of indignation which pervaded the mercantile section of the community. The unofficial member of the Legislative Council and senior partner in Hongkong of Jardine, Matheson and Company, Mr. James Whittall, stated his opinion that the commerce of Hongkong was not suffering from the blockade. Indeed, he claimed that trade had improved after some recent sluggishness and was as large as it ever had been. Furthermore, China had a perfect right to levy and collect duties on cargoes. Several speakers questioned the accuracy of Mr. Whittall's estimate of the progress of Hongkong trade. One drew attention to the Harbour Master's report for the previous year which showed a decline in junks entering and leaving the harbour. But Mr. Whittall stood firm. He reminded the meeting that his company did a very large business and he ought to be fully acquainted with the situation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 171 In his memorandum to the Foreign Office, the British Minister at Peking, Sir Thomas Francis Wade, reviewed the whole problem of customs collections as it related to Hongkong from the time of the treaty revision in 1868. He remarked: "The sum of my propositions from first to last was that we should either retrocede Hongkong to the Chinese Government or that we should allow the Chinese Government to establish a branch of the Customs Inspectorate in Hongkong; either concession, of course, to be purchased of us by a counter-concession to the general advantage of British trade with China, the particular advantage to Colonial Trade being the reduction to a minimum of the interference of the Chinese Revenue Service with native craft.” Hongkong residents naturally would have considered the British Minister's suggestion of giving Hongkong back to China as a betrayal and sell-out. In their view it would totally discredit British prestige. One wonders if Wade was really serious in his suggestion. He interpreted the conclusions of the Hongkong Commission as a denial of the right of the Chinese Government to search vessels of its own people on the high seas, or in its own waters if such vessels were within 10 miles of Hongkong. As a diplomat, Wade believed some concessions were needed. Britain should do what it could to ensure that China received whatever duties it might levy on goods leaving or arriving on its shores, even though they passed through Hongkong. Robertson at Canton also advocated conciliation. He charged Hongkong with viewing the problem too narrowly: "There are other interests of more importance than the interests of local trade which seem to be forgotten in the battle for local interests, and I fear if the report of the committee be published the Chinese authorities, knowing it was appointed by the Colonial Government, may consider that the strong expressions of opinion it contains are sanctioned by the Executive, and this may tend to interrupt the entente cordiale which is so important to maintain." He was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q worlds’ at sea. Each was as specifically demarcated by its own rhythms, customs, and dialects as its counterpart on the shore and so different were the language, social customs, and sailing patterns of the pirates in Chekiang and Fukien from those of Kwangtung that, in the end, it seemed logical to divide the topic and focus my endeavors solely upon piracy within “the Cantonese Water World”. To what was its spectacular growth of piracy owing? Can it be attributed to ecological or environmental factors? The growth of piracy in the Cantonese water world Certainly, the geography of the Sino-Vietnamese border was ideal for piracy. The region’s plethora of wide, navigable rivers ensured that most of its commerce would be conducted by boat while its long broken coast with its myriad of coves and bays, held out plenty of shelter to any would-be pirate. In terms of political geography the region was also well-suited to piracy, for the Sino-Vietnamese border was a region to which the arm of the law scarcely reached. The Chinese government’s writ of authority gradually expired in proportion to the distance one moved west along the coast from Canton to Vietnam while that of the Vietnamese expired as one moved east along the coast from Hue and Hanoi, and the authority of both faded quickly as one moved seaward from the shore. Adding to the administrative complexity was the fact that this region, unified in so many ways by patterns of livelihood and local affinity, was split politically by the international boundary that transected it. Early on, wily outlaws had learned how to survive by crossing back and forth between its differing jurisdictions which served mainly to hinder pursuit. To an already superb geography, the economies of the water world added another prerequisite for piracy: waterways abounding with traffic on which to prey. Over the sea lanes moved a continuous progression of merchandise and passengers moving hither and thither from port to port. The wealth of the region was legendary. Commerce was its lifeblood, and fortunes could be made by fitting out ships, purchasing cargoes, or servicing those engaged in such pursuits. Yet, for all the legitimate commerce that took place across its waters ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 29 65 Much of 1860 was spent working with the Chinese authorities searching for ways to shut down the continuing private trade in the outskirts of the city. That was not as easy as regularizing the trade within the city. The occupation administration was convinced that the illegal coolie trade with its accompanying brutality would make their continuing administration difficult if not impossible. Thus the commissioners and allied commanders remained committed to outlawing the illegal trade. Conclusion If the illegal trade remained a difficult problem, nevertheless, the Cantonese resistance to the occupation seems to have considerably lessened by 1860, and the next year and a half, that is until the allied withdrawal, was relatively uneventful. According to one observer: Today, French, English, Americans, Russians and Portuguese, every foreign nationality can come without experiencing the least obstacle. When we walk in the streets of Canton the Chinese regard us with a curious air, even as we ourselves look at them, but without any demonstration of anger or vengefulness. Everyone knows that we came among them neither to dominate nor to enslave them. They are beginning to understand that our diplomatic and commercial relations should one day make them rich and free. I think they are not far from actually liking us. In effect, the Chinese cannot detest these strangers who have brought them the benefits of civilization. Whatever the likelihood that the average Cantonese would have described the situation as our commentator did, it is nevertheless true that by 1860 the occupation had finally settled down to the routine so many have assumed it to have shown from the beginning. And a year later, by 1861, it was finally time to turn control of the city back to the Chinese. The official ceremony of departure, in the wake of the settlement of the Arrow War, took place on October 19, 1861, just short of the fourth anniversary of the city's occupation and after most of the allied troops ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 89 touched anything belonging to the people, however. They then ventured up the Canton river, burning ships and attacking Canton itself. At last Chau was captured by the Ts'ing general, Cheung (), and Lei put out to sea again and kept his junks near Taai P'aang (A) now Kowloon city. In the 3rd year of Hong Hei, 1664, a battle was fought off Kowloon city between Cheung and Lei. The latter was beaten, and was forced to take refuge at Tung Ch'ung (Hafi) on Taai Ue Shaan (AMBULI), Lantau Island. There now followed a time of great distress for the unhappy country people. More villages were forced to move, and the people treated with great harshness. Many of them who refused to go or even hesitated were killed by the soldiers. At the beginning of the Ts'in Fuk the people imagined that it was only a temporary measure and they managed to keep together with their wives and children. But after three years had passed they found themselves without means of livelihood. So the husbands left their wives, the fathers left their children, and the elder brothers younger brothers, each pushing north in the hope of finding work, leaving behind them the sound of crying and sorrow. In the 8th month of the 3rd year of Hong Hei a man named Yuen Sze To (AP48), a Foo Muk (11) (an official title meaning "Head of relief and soothing of the people") disobeyed the order to move over the boundary, and collecting a crowd of discontented country people, he made a stronghold in Lik Yuen (HM) a village near Sha Tin. He had other quarters in Kwun Foo (1fif), now Kowloon city and his followers acted as bandits robbing and killing as they pleased. They gave much trouble to the Ts'ing government, as when the soldiers were sent out to search the solitary parts for people hiding in order to avoid being moved, they were often set on by Yuen's band and either robbed or killed by them. Eventually they were exterminated after a long time by an officer named Tseung Wang Yun (1479) who was sent with a large company of soldiers to Sha Tin for that purpose. The following year a system of beacons was started along the coast to be used as signals in case of attack. In the same year the retiring Viceroy Lei Sut T'aai (4) in his Wai Soh (6) a valedictory address to Emperor Hong Hei, asked him not to press too firmly the question of removing the people over the boundary. "When I was in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 98 My Paternal Grandparents* Great Grandfather Chan Tak Yong was born around 1816. He was married twice, and bore one son by his first wife and four sons by his second. He traded in pottery and earthenware, a business which took him to the cities of Macau and Canton where he had the opportunity to deal in silver and gold exchange. As he prospered, he built a home for each of his sons and provided for their common use a library, a store-house for grain and one for wood. He operated a grocery business and a pawn shop, where villagers could borrow money or bank their savings. Apparently such a life of ease provided no incentive for his sons to become independent, and several of them became addicted to opium and died in their early 20s, leaving young widows without male issue and without financial means. The Chinese saying that wealth cannot last more than three generations came true. The oldest of Great Grandfather's sons was Jok Jun F, several of whose grandsons emigrated to the United States: George Goon Sun who settled in Los Angeles; Harry Wah Kwok who settled in Santa Anna; and Henry Wah Heen, also known as Bak Wing Ĥ who settled in San Francisco. My grandfather was the second son of Tak Yong, but the first son of his second wife. Grandfather was born on 29 June 1845. His 'milk name' was Ngee Lok; his marriage name was Jok Chiu f'FBB; and his name in the business world was Chock Gee #2, the name by which he was generally known. Because Great Grandfather's younger brother, Tak Loo, died at the age of 22 without male issue, Grandfather was 'adopted out' to him. Jok Sau F, the third son, bore three sons by his first wife and three more by his second. I met one of them, Dai Mee, a not very bright-looking fellow, who was given a job at the Bank of East Asia in Canton by First Uncle. The fourth son, Jok Sui F, died young without male issue. Therefore Jok Sau 'gave' one of his sons, Ngit Chiu FJE, to this brother. * See Table 1. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 100 Unfortunately Ngit Chiu, who went to Honolulu and worked as a carpenter, became addicted to opium. A burial permit dated 15 November 1924 states clearly that he had died of an overdose. Whenever he visited us, and that was not often, he would borrow from Father, who would give him only a few dollars since he disapproved of Ngit Chiu's drug habit. In 1919 when I visited his foster mother in the village, she inquired about him because she had not heard from him for many years, but I was forewarned not to tell her about his circumstances. Jok King, the fifth son, also died in his 20s and left a daughter, Iu Dai, but no male issue. Likewise, Jok Sau ‘gave' another of his sons, Dai Geng, to this brother. Dai Geng did not live long and left a widow with several sons in Canton where he had been working in a bank. Jok King's widow and daughter remained in the village. They were both quite agitated the day Aunt Auyoung and I visited them, as they related how someone had tried to get into their home by ladder via a rear window. Aunt Auyoung did not seem to feel the incident really happened, tried to be very reassuring and told them no one would dare to harm them because First Uncle would not allow it. Iu Dai is said to be the first and only old maid in our village. Because her mother was so selective of a husband for her, when she reached 18, she was considered too old to be sought after. Even though she was a victim of an old culture, the village youths would tease her about it. During World War II when no one could send support to her, I heard that she had to go out to beg for food. After Great Grandfather's death, his business continued under Jok Jun, after whose death Grandfather took over. The business failed under his management, reportedly due to a bad loan to Grandmother's family for the operation of an oyster farm. This is the reason given why no photographs of grandmothers in our family were preserved – certainly misplaced hostility. Grandfather therefore decided to emigrate to Hawaii to seek a livelihood and hopefully to be able to return the depositors their money. According to Second Uncle's wife, when she was left in the village, she often had to hide from the creditors. Many years later, First Uncle paid these debts on a percentage basis. My grandmother, surnamed Au, was born on 23 January 1846. She was a native of Joo Poo Tau Village, and was related to... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 103 later. He had always been concerned about the future of his sons, sending the two older boys to California to seek their fortune, nurturing the two younger ones with schooling in Mills School and Punahou Preparatory School, and giving them constant counsel, as evidenced by the many letters he sent to Father in Hilo. Grandfather finally decided to go back to his native land, still depressed over the loss of his youngest child. His sight was already failing because of cataracts. In 1907 or 1908, he departed for his home village, accompanied by Aunt Yim and her family, but he stopped over in Shanghai to visit with Second Paternal Uncle and his family. After about four years, he proceeded to Hong Kong, on his way back to the village. He was met in Hong Kong by his nephew, Gut Kau, and taken to a hotel. One morning as he was reaching for a towel, he collapsed and passed away, no doubt from a heart attack, without seeing his native home again. The date of his death is recorded as 14 May 1911. Grandfather had always maintained that a nephew was like a son, and coincidentally, it was a nephew who was with him at the end and who took care of his interment. I was told that he was 63 years of age when he left Honolulu and 67 when he died. Although I have no recollection of Grandfather, I do have a mental image of a fine-looking, elderly gentleman in a Chinese cap and gown from a large photograph which graced our parlour wall for many years, and I feel a sense of pride and love for him from whom I am descended. First Paternal Uncle First Paternal Uncle was born on 3 January 1868. His 'milk name' was Ping Wing, his name upon marriage, Hee Kau, and his business name, Shing Min. He was a distinguished-looking man, tall and handsome, with nicely-formed features. He held himself erect and kept a trim figure even in his later years when I came to know him well. My father told me that his two older brothers were considered the two handsomest young men in their village. After studying English in Hong Kong and getting married, he emigrated to the United States in 1886 as a carpenter's apprentice. He eventually became connected with the Bank of Canton in San Francisco and was rumoured to be the idol of women entertainers in that city. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 105 Because of conflict between the Heong Shan and the Toy Shan cl stockholders of the bank, and depressed over the loss of Me Yuk, uncle returned to China in 1910. I remember them when they stopped over in Honolulu and the trip we took with him by taxi to the Pali. He presented Mother with a pair of etched California gold bracelets, one of which I now own. On my first visit to China in 1919, Uncle was working for the Sun Company Ltd., a large department store in Hong Kong, but he later returned to banking as the Branch Manager of the Bank of East Asia in Canton until his death during World War II. one at 96 Kennedy Road, Hong Kong, M, Canton, on the bank of a small He established two homes and the other in Lai Chee Wan river. The former was a sturdy concrete building of British design and character, while the latter was Chinese, with an enclosed courtyard and garden. Since he had accumulated a comfortable fortune, he acquired an estate in Deep Water Bay near Aberdeen, Hong Kong, where he would retreat from time to time to enjoy the beautiful flowers which his gardeners cultivated. His Kennedy Road home was like a hotel, open to relatives from the village and to other visitors as well. He found jobs for male relatives from the village who wanted to work in the city; he contributed to the support of needy kinsmen; and he paid a percentage of the debt owed to creditors of the family pawn shop which had failed during Grandfather's tenure. He was a true head of the house, assuming responsibilities for the care and support of many. 1 Sometime before 1919 when Uncle got settled again, he brought into the household his "Third Concubine", a native of Sun Yup. Born on 12 December 1897, she was considerably younger than Uncle. Uncle seemed quite fond of her. This was probably threatening to both First Aunt and Small Aunt, for the former then adopted a son, Po Nin, who was born on 17 February 1908, but he died from tuberculosis when he was in his teens. Small Aunt tried very hard to conceive by frequently going to the temple to pray for a son and miraculously became pregnant and bore a son, Po Ling, on 10 May 1915. A great deal of rivalry existed between the two concubines that resulted in intrigues and accusations until eventually Uncle reluctantly had to send Third Concubine out of his household, reportedly because there was proof of her infidelity. However, he gave her a sum of money in order that she could learn to be a midwife and become self-supporting. It is reported ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 106 that she did not follow through. During World War II the Japanese took over Uncle's Hong Kong home and the family had to retreat to the cellar, which fortunately was huge, roomy and above ground. Since communication between Hawaii and Hong Kong was impossible, we did not learn of the details of the deaths of both Uncle and Aunt. Uncle did have a history of bladder stones and Aunt, diabetes. Later, the Communists appropriated his home in Canton, and Po Ling subsequently sold the country estate and the Kennedy Road home. Po Ling, trained in law at the Soochow University and at University of Illinois, went into banking and finance like his father. He lived for many years in Malaysia, but, after suffering a stroke, he went back to Hong Kong where he started a finance company of his own. Because I felt deprived of a father early in life, Uncle seemed to fill that void in 1932 and 1935 when I was living in China. He opened his home to Mother, Dora and me, allowing us to live in the Hong Kong residence while his family lived in Canton. After Mother and Dora left for Honolulu, I could always have the key to the house and take the train from Canton to Hong Kong with several colleagues to spend a few days there. Small Aunt was an efficient manager of the household, a task given to her when First Aunt proved inadequate. She not only saw to it that Uncle and her son had every comfort but she was always thoughtful of me too. For example, she would often send a maid to True Light Middle School where I was teaching with specially prepared soup, or have some ready for me on my visits. She and Mother became quite close to each other and took a trip to Shanghai and Soochow, accompanied by Dora. They did not have an opportunity to see each other again after Mother returned to Hawaii in 1933, but they kept in touch by mail. My husband John and I saw Small Aunt for the last time on our visit to Hong Kong in 1972. In January 1976 she had a chance to fulfill her wish to see the United States once again, particularly San Francisco. Accompanied by her granddaughter, Rosita, she visited with Dora in Honolulu and with other relatives and friends in California. When Po Ling sold the Kennedy Road home, Small Aunt went to Australia to live with her grandson, Anthony, but after about a year she returned to Hong Kong to be with Po Ling, over whose health she was greatly concerned. In 1980, at the age of 92, she died in her sleep. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 109 following summer, on 25 July 1896, he wrote that he was working in Chicago because he now had to support not only himself but also a wife. On 23 April 1897, he announced that he had graduated the day before, and he felt it was a great honour. He liked medicine and hoped to pursue post-graduate studies in New York. Instead we find him practising in San Francisco by 24 December 1897, but because he was not doing well, he thought he might leave for Hawaii or Shanghai after the Chinese New Year. Uncle decided to go to Shanghai and on the way there he stopped in Honolulu to visit with the family. He wrote on 15 June 1898 from China that he had been thinking of Father and Ping Lim ever since he left them. He enjoyed Shanghai, which he described as a beautiful and luxurious city where inhabitants were either very rich or very poor. He was paying 25 dollars a month for a pleasant office on the corner of Ningpo and Szechuan Roads, with living quarters in the back for himself, Aunt and their two servants. Although his income of 60 dollars a month was quite adequate, he wished that he had taken up dentistry as it would have brought an income of 1,000 dollars a month, or mining which was then gaining importance in official circles. He advised his two brothers to consider these professions even though job opportunities might be limited, or they would have to serve under someone. In response, Father indicated he would like to take up one of the careers suggested and asked for financial help, but Uncle wrote back on 29 August 1898 that although his practice was improving, he could not save anything; nor could he assist Father at that time, but perhaps he could the following year. After a few slow months, Uncle decided to teach an evening class to meet expenses, and by March 1899, he had six students paying him each two dollars a month. Two months later, he had 18 students in three classes. In July 1899, Uncle noted that Father was not going to school but was working as a newspaper reporter and commended him on choosing a good subject to deliver at his graduation exercises. Uncle found the winters in Shanghai very cold and the summers very hot. There were many deaths from the extreme heat and the plague, which was raging in Hong Kong, Canton and Heong Shan. Uncle still wanted to go back to America as he felt there was no place like 'Blessed America'. In December he wrote that he was grieved over the news of the death of their mother (Grandfather's second wife), and that he would wear ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 110 mourning for one year. He expressed his hope that Grandfather would marry again. When Uncle learned from Father's letter of 11 February 1900 that Grandfather, Aunt Yim and her husband had been taken to a camp, along with others, for quarantine during the Honolulu Chinatown fire on 20 January, he wrote that he was sorry to receive such news of ill-treatment and discrimination against the Chinese. At the same time, he announced the birth of a son named Ting Kin (Toby), who was growing rapidly and smarter by the day. Uncle sent Aunt and the infant to the village to escape the violence of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. To avoid being accused as a Nge Mow Tsz or being killed, he bought a queue to wear whenever he alighted from his sedan. The next letter preserved was dated 22 February 1902, when Uncle wrote from Canton that he had resigned as house surgeon from the Bok Chai Hospital where he had been assisting an American whose name in Chinese was Dr. Kwan. Uncle was not able to save from his salary of 60 dollars a month and he was kept busy night and day taking care of emergency cases, and consequently felt too confined. He thought he would teach physiology and chemistry for two hours a day at the Shi Man School and would start private practice. He also announced the birth of a second child, a daughter named Moo Ching, on 5 February 1902. While still in Canton, he wrote on 21 October 1902 that Grandfather was indeed wise to have chosen a ‘large-footed' girl to be Father's wife, because women in China were beginning to unbind their feet, and that Second Aunt was thinking of doing it also. He stated that Ting Kin was anxiously waiting for the parcel Father was sending him and had asked many times what the gifts would be. Uncle's office was located on 12th Street in Canton. On 9 March 1903, while on board the Rajaburi on the way back to Hong Kong from Singapore via Swatow, Uncle informed Father that he was considering Manila or Honolulu as the next place for him to practise. Butterfield and Swire had retained Uncle and several other physicians to be ship surgeons, but the health authorities of Singapore only allowed ships with Chinese Physicians from the Alice Medical College in Hong Kong to enter the harbour. Uncle was not considered qualified because he only had three years of medical school. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 123 joined him. They now reside in San Francisco in the home of their youngest daughter, Lorraine Me Gum L, married to Henry Wong. Suk Nam joined his father in Reno in 1921, and after his graduation from the University of Nevada, he returned to China, and married Adeline Jong #t. He worked for a bank in Canton until 1955, when he brought his wife, three daughters and one son with him to Chicago. After about 10 years he moved to San Francisco where he and his wife died in 1979 within months of each other. Suk Chiu had never been to the United States. He had remained in China, married Leong Shee 1, now deceased, and fathered two sons and two daughters. One of his daughters, married, is presently living in California. All the Auyoung grand-children are doing well and most of them are now in the United States. In 1919 when I accompanied Aunt Yim from Shekki to her home, she asked her servant to take me to Ma Tse Village to visit Aunt Auyoung. I remember walking past several villages on the way, and noticing, with great interest, a huge rock on the wayside with several huge footprints on it. I was told that they were those of the Thunder God. Aunt Auyoung and her youngest son were living with Uncle Auyoung's mother, who was busy spinning flax into thread. It was so fascinating to me that she gave me some of the thread to take home. Aunt Auyoung also accompanied me to Father's birthplace, where we visited my three widowed great aunts and the families of Cousin Gut Kau 175k and Cousin Fai Kauk, whose homes adjoined Grandfather's. Aunt Auyoung was a slight-built lady, who seemed easy-going and calm, feet unbound. I regret that this was our only meeting. My Mother's Family the Jongs* Grandfather Jong came to Hawaii in 1878 under the name of Jong Sun Lup, but he was generally known as Jong Hoon. He had a * See Table 2. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 165 Chinese girls there. Very feminine and attractive, she had no end of male admirers, much to Mother's anxiety. 1 On February 6, 1932, young and inexperienced, Helen was married to Edmund Tin Wai Tong W, who was some years her senior and much more sophisticated. He had been educated at Lingnan University in Canton and at the University of Pennsylvania, and was working for the Chinese-American Bank, of which his father, Tong Phong, was president. This union was pleasing to both my Mother and to the Tong Phong's. A son, Edmund Yee Sing, was born on 28 September 1933. Following the failure of the bank when it encountered financial difficulties, Helen and Tin Wai were divorced on 18 January 1937. This was a disappointment to the parents on both sides, but the in-laws remained good friends. With the passage of time, Helen and Tin Wai are now on friendly terms. Helen began her working career as a kindergarten teacher for a year and a substitute teacher at a junior high school for about half a year. For a year in 1937 to 1938, she went to San Francisco to attend a fashion designing school as well as a business school. She returned to Honolulu to work along these lines, first for others, then for herself in a dressmaking business, until the Second World War when she worked for the Office of Civilian Defense in a secretarial capacity. When the war ended, she accepted a civil service position as a statistician with the Territorial Bureau of Sight Conservation and later as a clerk-stenographer with the Territorial Board of Health. Due to the fact that she failed to receive child support, as ordered by the Court, from Edmund's father, Helen was forced to change jobs whenever a better paying one opened to her. Alone she eventually saw Edmund go through college with a degree in dentistry from the University of Illinois. In 1946 on a vacation trip to Chicago to visit Dora, Helen met and married Tso-yu Futon on 14 March, 1947. He came from Wen Chou, Yung Chia Hsian, Chekiang Province MT and owned a Chinese art business, which ended when no merchandise could be imported from China. At the time of his death on 14 March, 1971, as a result of an automobile accident, he was a managing editor of a Chinese newspaper. After two more children, Lynnette Wen-chu X, born on 29 July, 1948, and Russell Wen-chau M born on 10 September, 1951, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 177 of the most tragic periods of my life. The students were bright and eager to learn. They were tolerant of my inadequate command of Chinese and were helpful in teaching me a more refined use of the language. Among them was Sally Sun, the adopted daughter of Sun Yat-sen. She followed me to Honolulu and lived with us while she attended the University of Hawaii until she left after her freshman year for Pomona College. To this day I am in touch with many of my former students. I was glad for the opportunity to meet many relatives, some for the second time, and to know them better. I felt welcomed in the homes of First Paternal Uncle and Cousin Toby. The former lived in a traditional compound on the bank of a small river in the Lai Chee Wan district in Canton, an area where the elite of the old regime resided. He also maintained a home on Kennedy Road, in Wanchai, Hong Kong, a sturdy building of British design. About once a month, on pay day, I would invite Bertha Young, Sarah Mao, and Miriam Simpson, teachers at True Light, to spend a weekend at Uncle's Kennedy Road home. This gave us a chance to savour foreign food, perhaps to see an American film, or to attend a tea-dance at the Hong Kong Hotel. Cousin Toby and his wife Louise lived in the Tung Shan I section of Canton where many westernized Chinese congregated. Staying with them on occasions was a pleasant change. Sometimes I would go with them to the Euro-American Club for a night of dancing. Because my salary was only 120 Mex. dollars a month (about 20 U.S. dollars), I could not see as much of China as I would have liked. I was able to visit Father's birthplace and our Chan relatives a second time, and to pay respects to the graves of my grandparents and great grandparents during the Ching Ming Festival. I also paid a short visit to the home of my maternal grandmother in Shekki where we had lived in 1919, and to the new home of Aunt Pong nearby. In the summer of 1934, with Bertha Pang, Tiu Kei and Suk Kei Chan, and Ethel Au, I set out to see Peking by rail from Shanghai. I found Peking a charming old city and was thrilled to visit the Great Wall and the Imperial City and other attractions, so rich in history. People here seemed more refined, more cultivated; even the salesmen were very polite. On the way back, we stopped at several well-known places. We met and were joined at times by Daniel Yee, William Leong, Deborah Kau and Elizabeth Ching. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 182 a year at Tulane University, came for a visit with his family, as did my mother from home. From New England came Effie Huchmore and Beverly King. A word about Effie. I had met her while we were both staying at the Franklin Square House near the Boston City Hospital when I was studying at Simmons College and she, at Boston University. We became fast friends. She had me as her guest in her home in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, where she lived with her parents and maternal grandmother, and showed me the beautiful scenic spots of the White Mountains. This visit gave me an insight into the activities and character of a typical New England town and the enjoyment of the simple unpretentious hospitality of an old Yankee family. A rare experience indeed! Before I left New York the summer of 1948, I was a bridesmaid to Betty Lee upon her marriage to Paul Gee on June 7, 1948. She was formerly a teacher of religion at True Light and its principal during the Second World War. I had also promised to return to marry John Shue Fong Lew, a widower with two younger daughters in Canton. I had met him casually in Boston in 1947 through a mutual friend, Grace Chin, and had become better acquainted with him when he came to see me in New York, often accompanied by his good friend, Lew Orne. We were both mature and ready to settle down by this time, and fortunately felt drawn to each other. On the way back to Honolulu, I stopped over in Chicago where Mother had taken Edmund to join his mother and where she was waiting for me to accompany her home. As soon as I had fulfilled my commitment, I left Honolulu in October 1950 for Chicago, where John and I were married from Helen's home on 4 November 1950, in a simple ceremony at a local church rectory. After living in an apartment near Harvard Square for a few months, we bought a duplex on 12 Littell Road, Brookline, in order to be near John's business, "The Ming Restaurant”, at 1022 Beacon Street. By 1952, the business had deteriorated so much that it was not feasible to continue it and we turned it over to S. Y. Lew, one of the partners who wanted it. In the meantime we sent for our daughters, Gar Shuey and Gar Ling, and they arrived in Boston in August 1951 by way of Europe. Both attended Lawrence School and Brookline High School, working as waitresses during the summer in our seasonal restaurant in Bar Harbor, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 10 16 not the temper to speak. He had the Chinese at his feet, and might have had what he wished; and what has he got? A few paltry dollars and a barren island... The Chinese are already chuckling, and say they have got the best of it. It makes me quite sick to think of it, and there are not half a dozen people on shore or afloat who are not quite furious'. The alleged sentiments of the Chinese in this letter are in direct contrast to those reported by James Matheson in a letter to William Jardine of 11 February: 'The cession of Hong Kong to the British is what most mortifies the Canton folks with Ki Shen's proceedings. They cannot bear to speak of it with composure'." It seems that a portion of the British community in the Pearl Delta area (the author of the letter wishes to appear to have as large a constituency as possible, not only within the merchant community) may have presupposed that their feelings of failure with regard to the acquisition of Hong Kong meant a corresponding sense of triumph for the Chinese. The second letter to The Times was equally scathing as it claimed that the British negotiators had been tricked because 'Hong Kong was virtually ours, for it is the place which the opium ships have used as a rendezvous for years'. It was only to be expected therefore that the Chinese would choose to cede that island rather than any other. 19 18 Of the acts of soldiers in the expeditionary force, it might have been expected that the formal taking of possession of Hong Kong would have been worthy of mention even if the author had not been present in person, but it seems that this is not the case. Neither Duncan McPherson nor W. W. Mundy refers to it. Nor did soldiers such as A. Cunynghame20 or Alexander Murray21 who became involved just after the cession of Hong Kong refer back to the ceremony. There is only one reference to the taking of Hong Kong in the official mouthpiece for the forces, The United Service Journal of 1841, and that was in a general article entitled 'The British colonies considered as military posts' written by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkie. He complained in July 1841 that the rationale for his inclusion of Hong Kong in the article was threatened because arrangements between the British and the Chinese had collapsed, ‘and consequently it is more than doubtful whether I shall have any more authority for treating of this island as a British colony, beyond the simple fact that it has been formally taken possession of as such',22 Contemporary press notices of the event, again in direct contrast to news of the opium war and the expedition to the Bogue, are terse and rudimentary. The Chinese Repository of February 1841, edited by the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 198 T: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs F: Music Th: D R: This was the last theatrical entertainment organised by Horatio BUSKIN and he could look back on a successful "career" as manager. Only the music had flagged of late (tonight "a buzz in a box near the proscenium represented the music — we were ten feet away from it and it was therefore lost upon us" the days of "Sir George Smart and Messrs Thalberg" and "Koenig" were over). — To make up for these shortcomings "Mr. CLAY as Honeybun (in the Infanticidal Farce) was, as he always is, first rate". In Slasher and Crasher the public witnessed the debut of "Miss Polly DEXTER as Rosa, affording hope of a new evening star of the first magnitude" (NCH 23.2.1856). 14.8.1856 (Thur) N.N.: The Nigger Doctor and his Patient Patient or the First Lesson in Surgery T: Negro farce C: Travelling American Company (Messrs Baker, Woodward and Montgomery) Th: Old Theatre (C) N: The whole evening was announced as a "Grand Ethiopian Musical Soirée" R: An advertisement only was published in the NCH of August 9. In it the above mentioned gentlemen (formerly of the New York Serenaders) praised their performances as having been "the theme of universal admiration during the past four years throughout the East Indies as well as the Australian Colonies". In addition to the farce, the programme consisted of "Negro songs, interspersed with willy saying and doings peculiar to the African race in America". 19.9.1856 (Fri) Concert by Ali Ben Sou Alle and some local amateurs. Instruments: Turkophone, "Turkophonini", clarinet, piano. Programme: G. ROSSINI: Two overtures. V. BELLINI: Selections from "La Sonnambula". F. MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY: "The Fairest Flower" (song). Some German songs, The "Shanghai Redowa Walse", Medley of English, Scottish and Irish airs. Th: N.N. (C) R: Tonight was the occasion of the first real concert in the Settlement's history. It was given by Mr. ALI BEN SOU ALLE, a Turk who, after a study at the Conservatoire de Paris, had been appointed Directeur de Musique de Marine in Senegal (which had been French since 1871) in 1844. In 1847 he returned to Paris to enter the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, but the following year he went to London where he found employment in the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theatre at the Haymarket. He learned to play some instruments that had been invented by Adolphe Sax, the Belgian musician (1814-1894) and thereafter he made an extensive tour to Australia, Java, Singapore, Manila and China (CM 16, 10, 1856). In Hong Kong and even Canton he had appeared in August and October 1856 (CM 7.8. 14.8. 21.8. 16.10.1856). In between he gave two recitals in the Yangtze port. In the Survey it has already been stated that the soloist entertained the public with performances on several instruments that had been rechristened Turkophone and Turkophonini: in reality they were the Saxophone and (probably) the soprano saxophone. Well may we ask how these instruments, which were only of recent origin (1840s), were received by an audience completely unused to their sound. The artist interpreted a selection from Bellini's "La Sonnambula" on the "Turkophone" and the critic wrote that "the compass of the instrument is very great but we confess to some disappointment as regards its quality of tone, and correctness of tone also, in some few notes, and altogether we think it an imperfect instrument ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 46 monastery in China was founded in 638, in the capital Ch’ang-an (modern Sian), though some Nestorian missionaries may have reached China earlier. In 845, a major attack on the Buddhist church in China was launched by the emperor Wu-tsung, and in an imperial decree of that year providing for the dissolution of the Buddhist monasteries and the return of the Buddhist clergy to lay life, there is a minor clause ordering the expulsion from China of over 3,000 foreign monks, some of whom were probably — though the text of the decree is ambiguous — Nestorian Christians. This decree was rescinded soon afterwards, and may not have been enforced in the more remote cities of China. Certainly, although we hear no more of Nestorians in Ch'ang-an, an Arab writer refers to Christians among the foreigners slaughtered in Canton in 877 by Huang Ch'ao's rebels, and Nestorian Christianity may have persisted in parts of China for some time after Wu-tsung's decree of 845. But it is clear that Christianity had for all intents and purposes died out in China by the end of the tenth century. The Arabian author Abu'l Faraj mentions meeting a Nestorian monk in Baghdad in 987 who had just come back from China: "In the year of the Hegira 377, in the Christian quarter behind the church, I met a monk from Najran who seven years before had been sent by the catholicus to China with five other clergy to set in order the affairs of the Christian church. I saw a man still young and of a pleasant appearance, but he spoke little and did not open his mouth except to answer the questions which were put to him. I asked him for some information about his journey, and he told me that Christianity was just extinct in China; the native Christians had perished in one way or another; the church which they had used had been destroyed; and there was only one Christian left in the land. The monk, having found no one remaining to whom his ministry could be of any use, returned more quickly than he went." The dates for Nestorian Christians in China during the Yüan period are equally vague. Although individual Nestorians are found in various parts of China from about 1200 onwards, including some siege engineers in the Mongol armies, they appear only to have come in force after the final defeat of the Sung regime in southern China by the Mongols in 1279. Most references to Christians in Yüan China are found later than 1280 and earlier than 1340. A special government department, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 85 father who had owned the land on which the temple stood had consulted the deities and found that his daughter had been deified. He had an image of her carved and placed on the altar. This was transferred some time during the mid 1960s to another small shrine within the same temple and again her image stood alone but this time she had under her shrine a cardboard box which contained, according to the temple keeper, an embalmed parrot. The elderly nun claimed that it was Miss Liu's pet. The image and parrot remained until 1983 when the temple was refurbished and the image disappeared for a while. In 1986 it reappeared on the family altar in the rear of the large Buddhist temple next door, dedicated to the Liu family. Her image was now draped in red silken robes and somewhat strangely was labelled Miss Lin. She still held the miniature handbags but the parrot was nowhere to be seen, and the temple staff denied ever having seen or heard of a stuffed parrot. They confirmed that her name was Lin and not Liu but were unable to say why she was now on the Liu family altar in the Buddhist temple. And there she remains, last noted in 1989 still on the Liu family altar. A cult, that of 'the Prince descended from the Dragon', Lung-shih T'ai-tzu, was established in the mid-1960s in the northern suburbs of Kowloon before being transferred to Lo Wai above Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. It is a piggy-back cult dependent upon the local Cantonese major cult of the Dragon Mother, Lung Mu. The story begins with a boy, Huang Hsin-tsai, born in Shamshuipo, Kowloon, in 1949, the son of refugees from Canton. His parents died soon after they arrived in the Colony leaving him in the hands of the lady who now runs the new cult temple. In 1960 the youth, now 11 and still living with the lady in Shamshuipo, fell ill with swollen legs and abdomen. She nursed him carefully back to health but in 1962 he was thought to have eaten something which did not agree with him and, despite a visit to the Wong Tai Sin Temple, he died. Accused by her neighbours of neglecting the youth she was exonerated by him when he appeared to her in a dream to explain that he was now the stepson of the major deity, Lung Mu, and had the power to cure on her behalf. Once a year thereafter he provided the lady with a large basin of very tiny pills for her to distribute to cure people's ills; he also appeared to her in dreams to help solve difficult problems put to her by devotees. The lady, now the temple keeper, has a number of elderly ladies to help run the corrugated iron and brick temple which she has had built near his grave. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 118 1 left by steamer for Canton, the great southern Chinese town, which sprawls along the shore of the Pearl River; and spent a few days on the Shameen mud-bank, just off the city, where the small British and French Concessions are. The Concessions were untouched; but, across the narrow creek that separates them from the shore, the city had suffered heavily from bombing, and from the fires which raged furiously in the congested native districts after each raid. One morning I crossed to the South bank and took the branch line to Samshui on the West river, where I caught the steamer for Wuchow in Kwangsi province. Although owned by a Chinese company, the small river steamer flew the British flag. That was a phenomenon common enough on the inland waters of China. The foreign flag protected the ship from being commandeered by the local war lord. Sometimes for months on end steam traffic, on this water-way or that, would be completely disorganised. The Chinese ships would be impressed to carry the troops of the various armies contending for power. It was only under a foreign flag that they could find the security which would justify their remaining in operation at all. The British government did not welcome this use of the British flag, and introduced regulations to control abuse of the privilege. In order to qualify for British registry a ship must at least carry a British captain and a British chief engineer, and must comply with the Board of Trade regulations in regard to safety measures. But even so, the Chinese owners would make every effort to obtain British registry for their ships, thus in one direction taking advantage of the treaties between Britain and China while, in the other, probably contributing to the Kuo Min Tang party funds, which were used to denounce the iniquities of those very same treaties. In order to comply with the letter of the regulations, the particular ship I now found myself on carried three British officers, whose aggregate age exceeded 200 years. They were, of course, mere figure-heads, the actual work being done by the Chinese officers and crew. These river-boats kept communications open and provided a measure of security for travellers - owing to the presence of British gunboats these small ships moving on inland waters were seldom attacked by bandits which otherwise would have been lacking. ― In Kwangsi the road system had been extended to connect Wuchow with the other large towns of the province and I left by car for Kweilin, the capital. An American aviator, who had been down to Hongkong on a shopping expedition, travelled with me as far as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 121 day to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha. There was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train. It was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 128 is an immense shortage of persons qualified to fill the professions; doctors, engineers, chemists, and even lawyers. In the interests of the future all students are automatically exempt from conscription; so are all those of whatever station in life who have escaped from Japanese occupied territory. There would be no inducement to escape otherwise. Under the circumstances we can appreciate the necessity for these exemptions. When recruits are required for the army, a quota is allocated to each district: the magistrate in turn calls for a levy from each village to fill his quota. Those with money or influence can buy off their sons; it is the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden who are taken. They are roped together, with a loop round the left forearm, so that they can still use the bamboo pole to carry a load, and marched off to the training centre. There many die, and others desert. Indeed, there is now a class of professional deserter. If recruiting is going on in a district, these men will turn up and offer to serve in the place of anyone who has the price. They collect their money, march off with the conscripts, and desert at the first opportunity, to repeat the performance elsewhere. There are means in China of tracing missing men back to their families, but amidst the confusion caused by years of war it is easy for the vagabond to give a false name and address. There are so many millions of displaced, homeless, nameless people in China now; we should not be too critical of these methods. The wonder is that the Chinese government has been able to carry on at all under such immense difficulties. Instead of an insistence on saving face, and thus misleading world opinion, had there been a reasonable relaxation of the iron censorship in order that the world could learn of the prodigious efforts the Chinese have made, there would, I think, be a better understanding of, and greater sympathy for, China's problems. The afternoon of the third day we rolled over the iron bridge that spans the North river, a tributary of the West river, into bomb-shattered Kukong. Here I waited for the train and was fortunate to find a carriage, which had been reserved for a party of British sailors from the crews of the gunboats at Hankow; they were being evacuated to Hongkong, and kindly made room for me in their compartment. The track near Canton had been broken during a recent raid. We had to alight there and make our way to the city as best we could; riding through in a rickshaw I had leisure to observe the extent of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 ― 129 damage. The war caught many Chinese towns in a state of transition. The new urge for progress had overcome the financial reluctance of shopowners, in their dark narrow alleys, to allow the authorities of the town to tear down their shop fronts without compensations. For where was the money for compensation to be found and put back the frontage twenty or thirty feet. It was a double loss. Not only were the shop owners faced with the cost of rebuilding the shop front, but the ground surrendered was irretrievably lost. Often, the depth would be cut down by half, leaving only a fraction, inadequate to the continuation of the business on that site. When that happened, it was just too bad. There was nothing that could be done about it. The process of road widening was in full swing when the war started: it was even continued during the war, and often a bombing raid saved the cost of pulling down a street length of shop fronts. The new Chinese towns will be rebuilt with wider streets, and the houses will be of improved design. The Chinese are learning the advantages of sunlight and fresh air. Kiu Kiang was captured in July: in October the Japanese landed in Bias Bay and marched through, apparently with little opposition, to Canton: there was yet another surge of refugees into Hongkong. Shortly after, Hankow fell, and the capital removed to Chungking. The Japanese continued their advance up the Yangtze until they reached Ichang at the foot of the Gorges; but, some local incursions apart, those were the limits of their advance for the next four years. The railway connection was cut. No longer was I pressed by the insistent Chinese officials to load cargo onto lighters to be ferried across the harbour to the Kowloon railway jetty. In the past only too often were the promised railcars not available at the appointed time, and the cargo would have to come all the way back into the godowns on the Hongkong side, at considerable cost in lighterage and coolie hire, unrecovered. The shipment of supplies was now diverted to Indo-China. From Haiphong they were sent by rail to the Kwangsi border for transfer by lorry to Kweilin, which became the distributing centre for Western China. Substantial supplies for Eastern China could still pass in, under a foreign flag, through the unoccupied eastern ports, such as Ningpo, Wenchow and Foochow. Japan was not at war with China, and so was unable to declare a blockade; but such trade was mainly confined ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 130 to commercial goods, as it moved under the Japanese shadow. Under her conception of “incident” Japan had methods of applying pressure to foreign shipping companies, a pressure which in the existing atmosphere of appeasement it was difficult to resist. Following on the occupation of Canton, the Japanese mopped back towards Hongkong, but they left only a small garrison to watch the border. A heavy smuggled trade sprang up, not only over the border, but also by junk through the countless small inlets and bays of the neighbourhood. The Japanese exerted themselves to coerce the Colonial Government to suppress the trade. Their efforts met with failure: until Hongkong was itself submerged in a wider conflict, the Chinese war effort continued to benefit. Hongkong is one of the world's great ports, the offspring of British administrative practice and Chinese commercial fecundity. Every year twenty-two million tons of shipping were entered and cleared. In the harbour the flags of many nations could be seen, from those of the great Western Powers to that of the little republic of Panama. The flags of the Scandinavian nations, of Norway and Denmark, were particularly in evidence, so far from home, witness to the freedom of the seas for which Britain stood sponsor. The volume of trade which passed through Hongkong was naturally restricted by the Japanese occupation of Canton. Cargo vessels called less frequently, but the great liners on fixed passenger schedules continued to go alongside the Kowloon wharves, often two or three at a time, ships of the American President line, the Canadian Pacific line, the Peninsular and Oriental, the Nord Deutscher Lloyd, the Nippon Yoshen Kaisha, the Dutch J.C.L., the Lloyd Trestino, the Blue Funnel, the City, the Messageries Maritimes and many other lines. I was due for home leave and sailed in the new P.& O. liner, the R.M.S. "Canton", on her maiden trip, in December 1938. The passengers lined the rails as we steamed towards the Lyeemoon passage. Did they realise what a remarkable monument to Sino-British co-operation was that lovely green hill side at which they gazed? Hongkong bears happy testimony, in a difficult future, to the benefits that flow from cordial relations between China and the British Empire. Shanghai and Eastern China 1939 Shanghai was the splendid stronghold of foreign interests in the Far ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 230 Van Horne threatened, "I will crush you. Don't you attempt to start a steamship line of your own. If you do, we will run you off the Pacific." Dodwell retired from the East in 1899, the year his firm became a limited company. It has continued to prosper. But much of its success in earlier days was due to the personal contribution of Dodwell himself. Profits increased from his shipping department. He also played a prominent part in the shipping world as a whole. G.B. Dodwell, a man of high principles, died in 1925. Gilman's Richard James Gilman, a tea-taster, who worked for the old established company of Dent's in Canton, set up a partnership, known as Gilman and Bowman, in a Canton factory in 1840. By 1863 the firm was also represented at Kiukiang, Hankow and Tientsin, employing 21 staff. In many ways the firm was similar to Dodwell's, but on a smaller scale, and it was substantially involved in shipments of tea from Shanghai and Foochow in the 1870s. Gilman's was also active in the import-export trade and shipping, and in 1862 it was appointed agents for Lloyd's at Canton, Hankow, Foochow, Hong Kong and Macau. In these ports its reputation in shipping circles was high, especially after the famous tea race of 1866. 'Taeping (sic) Yeung Hong' (KF) (Great Peace Foreign Firm) chartered the 'Taiping' (named after Gilmans) which beat 'Ariel', the rival ship, by 20 minutes over a 99-day voyage from Foochow to London. Gilman's also played an important part in promoting the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, when it was established in 1864, and it was represented on its Board in its earlier days. Gilman's failed, however, to heed the warning that there was a growing preference for Indian and Ceylon teas in Britain, and, heavily indebted to its London agent Ashton & Company, it came close to bankruptcy. Gilmans had to abandon its Shanghai and Hankow branches in the 1880s. But, with the huge demand for joss sticks in Southern China, the agency for the Australian Sandalwood Company helped ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 231 it to recover. Gilmans was taken over by Duncar, Paterson of Perth, Western Australia, in 1917, and converted into a private limited company incorporated in Hong Kong. It suffered, however, during the depression in the 1930s, although the backing of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank helped it to expand and prosper especially up to the Japanese invasion in 1941. Gibb Livingston Gibb Livingston, which like Gilmans may be seen as a smaller yet similar version of Dodwells, is the second oldest (after Jardines) trading firm in Hong Kong. It was founded by two Scotsmen, Thomas Augustus Gibb and William Potter Livingston, in Canton, in 1836. There it occupied one building which served as an office, a warehouse, and a residence. The firm imported English cottons and woollens and exported tea and silk. Silver bullion was used as payment. The two founders soon started to diversify into such fields as shirtings, velveteen, leather, and tin plate, and acted as agents for a large number of sailing ships. At an early date, four Gibbs worked in the firm. Branches were opened in Hong Kong (1841), Amoy, and Shanghai. In addition to the import-export trade, Gibb Livingston acted as agents for Ben Line steamships, although, unlike Dodwells, it also acquired its own tea clippers. Then, in 1899, it purchased a fleet of steamers which sailed as the Gibb Line. Gibb Livingston is said to have diversified earlier and more successfully than Gilmans. By 1908, it was one of the most important business houses in Hong Kong. Here, as in Shanghai, it specialised in shipping, and, later, in insurance. At the turn of the century, it had interests in Hong Kong Electric Company, Shanghai Land Investment Company, and a number of other firms. It also branched out into engineering and manufacturing. In 1921, Gibb Livingston was acquired by Gray, David and Company. Jardine's and Swire's are by no means the only old British firms in the Far East. Dodwell's, Gilmans, and Gibb Livingston have also been trading here for many years, although now all three are within the Inchcape Group which was formed as recently as 1958. Caldbeck, Macgregor and Company A fourth firm in the Inchcape fold, Caldbeck, Macgregor and Company ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 233 Hong Kong for several years, Bill Wyllie, was seconded to Hutchison in 1975 by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, as 'company doctor' to put the business house's finances in order. After he had achieved this he left Hutchison's in 1981. Then in the early 1980s Li Ka-shing, believed to be the richest man in Hong Kong, became the largest shareholder in Hutchison's. His company, Cheung Kong (meaning long river and signifying 'everlasting'), held a 37 per cent stake. With a Chinese Taipan the company was no longer the bastion of British management that it had been in earlier days. However, under Chairman Li Ka-shing there is an English Group Managing Director, Simon Murray. Today Hutchison-Whampoa is thriving, and its activities range from general trading, including importing and exporting, to property, engineering and building materials. The group also has major interests in such subsidiaries as Hong Kong United Dockyards (in the past Hong Kong and Whampoa Docks), Hong Kong Electric Holdings, and A.S. Watson and Company of which more later. These firms, which in the past were basically British, are thus now largely Chinese controlled. Dockyards The first Hong Kong built vessel, the 80-ton Celestial, was launched from a slip at East Point on 7th February 1843, and a Royal Naval Dockyard started in 1854 (this was phased out in the late 1950s). Docks were also built by Douglas Lapraik and J. Lamont at Aberdeen in 1857. Nevertheless, it has been claimed the first 'great firm' to be established in the Colony was really the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company, although the industry had its origins, regionally, in Canton. That is why the word Whampoa (a place in Canton) is included in the above name. The firm is No.1 on the Register of Companies. Austin Coates maintains in his book, Whampoa, Ships on the Shore, that the formation of Union Docks (which was absorbed into the Hong Kong and Whampoa Docks in 1870), in 1863, was the most significant commercial and industrial moment in Hong Kong's history. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 244 Parsees. At one time, with a German Chairman and an American Deputy Chairman, the Board had no British members. The financial failure of Dent, in 1867, had the effect of freeing the Bank from dependence on any one enterprise and brought about more independent management control. Within months of setting up its headquarters in Hong Kong a branch was opened in London, and further branches were established in San Francisco (1875), New York (1880), Lyons (1881) and Hamburg (1889). By the 1880s The Hong Kong Bank had become banker to the Hong Kong Government, and to this day it is, in effect, the Central Bank of the Territory. World War I proved a difficult period, and its German directors resigned shortly after hostilities commenced. The Bank resumed its leading position in China and the Far East in the 1920s and 30s. Like the Chartered Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank's branch in Shanghai operated without interruption all through the Cultural Revolution. Today 'Wardley' is the name of an investment company associated with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. In 1864, Wardley House (demolished in 1882 when its new bank building was completed) was the first premises of the Bank. William Henry Wardley was a staff member of Gibb Livingston. He started his own firm about 1850. Although the company was taken over by F.B. Johnson and James Bowman the name was retained. It stopped trading about 1861, before the Bank was established. But the name, Wardley, has been perpetuated. The Mercantile Bank The old Mercantile Bank can be traced back to October 1853, with the founding of the Mercantile Bank of Bombay. Within two months it had become the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, a co-partnership of four Indian proprietors and four British. An office was opened in London almost immediately, and other offices, in 1854, in Madras, Colombo and Kandy. In 1855 branches started at Calcutta, Singapore, Canton, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Comparing these dates with the Chartered Bank, Mercantile got off to a quicker start, although both banks were established in the same year. Mercantile had a branch in Hong Kong, for example, four years before Chartered. Skipping a century, in 1958 the name was shortened to ‘Mercantile ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 245 Bank Limited', partly to remove the impression, prevalent at the time, that it was an Indian, and not a British, bank. In the same year, a share exchange took place with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation for the entire share capital of Mercantile. In 1967 in Hong Kong, the 'Disturbances' (spill overs of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic) resulted in a flight of capital which reduced deposits in banks fortunately only temporarily. The following year, as a number of members served on both the London Committee of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile's counterpart, it was decided to disband the London Committee of 'Mercantile'. Finally, the full amalgamation of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile took place in 1982-3. Insurance In the early days of trading in Canton insurance posed something of a problem for the small European community. Members formed a local underwriting syndicate (on the Calcutta pattern) to provide facilities for marine insurance. The Canton Insurance Office was established in 1804 (other records say 1805), and for the first 30 years of its existence it was managed alternately by Jardine's and Dent and Company, changing every three years. A great deal of trust appears to have existed between the Chinese hong merchants and the European traders, and a document shows that Chinqua, a Chinese businessman, promised to make good any loss suffered by a merchant in France, to whom he was shipping tea, without having to prove loss by the return of goods. The Union Insurance Society of Canton was established in Canton in 1835, by a number of far-sighted British Merchants under the guidance of Dent and Company. After Dent's went into liquidation, in 1864, Union Insurance became a separate entity. It had already moved its headquarters to Hong Kong in 1842, which is still its home even though it has offices and representatives in many cities in the Far East and agencies throughout the world. In 1861, Hong Kong had 73 merchant houses and 18 of these acted as agents for insurance companies. Jardine's has retained its early interest in insurance, and, in 1868, when the Hong Kong Insurance Company was formed, it became the agent. This, a century ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 252 'Mountain Lodge', the Governor's summer residence. Smith was convinced the Peak Tram had a future. The original promoters included F.B. Johnson of Britain, F.D. Sassoon of Hong Kong, C.V. Smith of Shanghai, and W.K. Hughes of Hong Kong. Capital for the new company amounted to $125,000 in $100 shares. Construction began in September 1885, when 30 to 40 families customarily spent their summers on the Peak. The Peak Hotel was opened in 1873. The Peak Tram consulting committee included Phineas Ryrie, Findlay Smith, A. McIver, J.B. Coughtrie, and McEwen and Company. The project was completed and opened on 30th May 1888. The original tram had 30 seats, the front two of which were reserved for the Governor until two minutes before departure. The steepest gradient is one in two, at May Road, and the original steam engines were not replaced by an electrically powered system until 1926. The ten-minute journey on the cable car provided the only mechanical form of transportation to the 1305-foot high Victoria Gap until Stubbs Road was completed in 1924. In 1905, the original firm was sold to the newly-incorporated Peak Tramways Company which included entrepreneurs such as Sir Paul Chater, H.N. Mody (Mody Road is named after this Parsee merchant), Abraham Jacob Raymond, Charles Wedderburn Dixon, and Creasy Ewens. The Kadoorie family has been connected with the Tramway since 1905. Trams and trains In spite of the original 1883 Ordinance, mentioned above, the tramway scheme along the North shore of Hong Kong Island was delayed. It finally opened in 1904. In those early years, trams were a prestige form of travel. Similarly, although Jardine's and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank formed a company in 1898, which was granted rights to build a railway from Kowloon to Canton, construction did not begin until 1906 and was undertaken, in the event, by Government. The British section was completed in 1910. By October 1911, the railway opened for through traffic to Canton. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 254 sons, John, Lancelot and Wilkinson, were running the firm from Canton and Macau, in the 1820s, it was very successful, and, later, it was Jardine's main rival. The company continued to do well for a number of years but it failed in 1867 at the time of an economic recession. Some believe that Swire's, with their ruthless trading tactics, helped to destroy Dent's although it is not known how much truth there is in this. Another firm that failed about the same time was the Agra and Masterman Bank. There are many other once successful organisations that fell by the wayside. Names like Burd; Holliday and Wise; Humphreys; Lyall and Still; Murrow; and Turner; are no longer with us. Bard, in his 1988 report, lists 37 enterprises with English sounding names (some could have been American) of which, although listed in directories between 1845 and 1900, little is known. BOOKS AND JOURNALS SOURCES Unless stated otherwise the following books, journals, brochures, leaflets, magazines, reports, newspapers, supplements, periodicals and letters were published or drafted in Hong Kong, Adventures and Perils, The First Hundred and Fifty Years of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd Bard, Solomon, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988) Boulnois, L., The Silk Road (London, 1966) Braga, J.M., Hong Kong Business Symposium (1957) Briggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City (1977) Briggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City, Vol. II (1978) Burgoyne, J., Far Eastern Commercial and Industrial Activities (1924) Cameron, Nigel, Power (1982) Cameron, Nigel, The Milky Way: The History of Dairy Farm (1986) Chambers, Gillian, Super Traders, The Story of Trade Development in Hong Kong (1989) Coates, Austin, A Mountain of Light (1977) Coates, Austin, Quick Tidings of Hong Kong (1990) Coates, Austin, Whampoa: Ships on the Shore (1980) Collis, Maurice, Wayfoong (London, 1965) Crisswell, Colin N., The Taipans, Hong Kong's Merchant Princes (1981). Endacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong (1958) Gillingham, Paul. At the Peak, Hong Kong between the Wars (1983) Graham, John, The Lowe Bingham Story (1920-1977) Historical and Statistical Abstracts of Hong Kong 1841-1940 Hong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria (Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) (1980) Hong Kong (Government year books, various) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 255 The Hong Kong Guide 1893 (republished 1982) Hughes, Richard, Borrowed Place Borrowed Time, Hong Kong and its Many Faces (London 1968, reprinted 1976) Hunter, W.C., The "Fan Kwac" at Canton Before Treaty Days 1825-1844 (republished 1965) Hutcheon, Robin, The Blue Flame, 125 Years of Town Gas in Hong Kong (1987) Hutcheon, Robin, Wharf. The First Hundred Years, 1886-1986 (1986) Ingrams, Harold, Hong Kong (London, 1952) Jardine, Matheson & Company... an historical sketch (undated) Jarrell, Old Hong Kong Jones, Stephanie, Two Centuries of Overseas Trading. The Origins and Growth of the Inchcape Group) (England, 1986) King, Frank H.H., The History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, vols. I to IV Lawrence, Anthony, and Frederick Amentrout, The Taipan Traders Liu Kwang-ching, Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China 1862-1874 (Harvard 1962) Luff, John, Hong Kong Cavalcade (1968) Luff, John, The Hidden Years, Hong Kong 1947-1945 (1967) Luff, John, The Hong Kong Story (circa late 1960s) MacMillan, Alistair, Seaports of the Far East (1925) Morris, Jan, Hong Kong, Xianggang (England, 1988) Murray, Simon, Legionnaire (England, 1980) Peak Tramway. 1888–1988 Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent and Progressive Chinese at Home and Abroad, Managing Director W.H. Morton-Cameron, Editor-in Chief W. Feldwick (1917) Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, journals, various The Thistle and the Jade. A Celebration of 150 Years of Jardine. Matheson & Co. Editor Maggie Keswick (London, 1982) Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong. Shanghai, and Other Treaty Ports of China, Editor in Chief Arnold Wright (1908) Wong Siu-lun, Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists In Hong Kong (1988) UNPUBLISHED BOOKS Book 1, The Canton Dispensary 1828-1838 Book II, The Hong Kong Dispensary 1841-1862 Book III, A.S. Watson and Company 1862-1886 COMPANY BROCHURES, LEAFLETS AND MAGAZINES A.S. Watson & Co., Limited Brief History: The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation China Light and Power Co. Ltd. (annual reports) Deacon's The Elements of Power, China Light & Power History of Hong Kong & China Gas Co. Ltd Hong Kong Bank Group Magazines Hong Kong Land 1889/1989 Hong Kong's Noonday Gun (Jardine) Hutchison Whampoa Limited (annual reports) Inchcape: The International Services and Marketing Group A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Electric Standard Chartered News ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 256 The Swire Group Swire News (various) Union Corner, (booklet of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd.) Watson's Calendar 1897 REPORTS, PAPERS AND FACT SHEETS Bard, S.M., Foreign Trade and Traders in Early British Hong Kong (1988) Hong Kong: The Facts (various Government fact sheets) Leeds, P.F., The Development of Public Transport in Hong Kong Review (November 1974) NEWSPAPERS, SUPPLEMENTS AND PERIODICALS An Historical Art catalogue, excerpts mentioning the Watson family (undated, details unknown) The Asia Magazine Asian Finance Building Journal Hong Kong, Ire (no. 2 Feb. 1990) Hong Kong Standard (various) *A New Era for Swire Travel, Hong Kong Standard Special Publication (31 October 1974) 'New Lane Crawford House', Souvenir Magazine to Commemorate the Opening of New Lane Crawford House, Hong Kong Standard/Sing Tao Jih Pao (June 1977) Newspaper clippings, Hong Kong Public Records (various) South China Morning Post (various) South China Morning Post 75 Years (1978) '139 Years of Temptation', South China Morning Post Supplement (15 March 1989) LETTERS TO THE AUTHOR From: Mr Rupert S.C. Li (Swindon Book Company) The Royal Society, London Standard Chartered Bank ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 269 was more proper. In the document translated below, the first view tends to be assumed; it is worth bearing in mind that there was a different way to view the question of rights to toll. “A VILLAGE WAR IN SHAM CHUN When we travel in either direction between Hong Kong and Lilong, our route usually passes the market of Sham Chun, or, to be more precise, the two markets and cluster of villages which bear this name. This area lies about three hours walk to the south-west of Lilong. It also lies several hours walk from the mouth of a stream which flows into the Pearl River. This stream is not really fully navigable. At the ebb-tide the passenger boats at Sham Chun lie on the mud for a certain time: with the flood-tide, however, they can make their way down to the vast body of water of the main river. In the same way they return back up the stream to Sham Chun. Because of this, Sham Chun is one of the most significant ports in the district of San On. Every three days many boats leave here for Hong Kong. Similarly, there are regular ferry connections with Canton, Fu Mun, and Nam Tau. This lively traffic brings considerable prosperity to the inhabitants of Sham Chun. A major factor in this prosperity is the "Transit Toll". This is a sort of toll taken on goods leaving the port. It is levied on all goods as they are brought to the ships. Particularly important in this respect are the pineapples and pears which, in the harvest season, are carried in hundreds of loads each week from the warehouse area near Sham Chun, where there are rows of godowns, to be shipped out to Hong Kong, Canton, and elsewhere. The right to levy this "Transit Toll” on goods originally belonged, not to the main village of Sham Chun, but to the village of Lo Wu, about half-an-hour's walk away, and to the Yuen clan of that village. The land on which the landing place stands is owned by that clan, who also own ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 270 the rights over it. However, the Yuen clan is weak, and was not able to maintain its right to the road at the landing place. The Tsoi clan of a neighbouring village snatched this right for themselves for many years. In an attempt to recover their rights, the Yuen clan allied themselves for approximately twenty years with the dominant clan of Sham Chun, the Cheung clan. The road at the landing place was eventually taken back from the Tsoi clan, but it was not returned to the Yuen clan the Cheung clan kept it for themselves. ― ― Fifteen further years passed. The Yuen clan at this point allied themselves with their erstwhile enemies, the people of the Tsoi clan, in order to advance their claims against the Cheung clan jointly with them. The next development was, that the two allied clans jointly built a new market, immediately next to the landing place. This was about twenty minutes walk from the old market. The old market was the property of the Cheung clan, and it was hoped that the new market would damage the old one. This was, four years later, the occasion of serious conflict. The allied clans had to prepare themselves against an attack from the Cheung clan during the building of the new market. They built their market within the protection of a small fortification, surrounding it, on the side facing the old market, with an earth wall. At the same time, the old market defended itself with a long wall. Anyone passing the two markets could see that a village war was on the way here. Both sides at this stage collected their strength for the conflict, until, in the Spring of this year, the Yuen and Tsoi clans started the fight against the Cheung clan in deadly earnest. They had, in particular, procured a cannon which was big enough for them to use to fire into the houses of the Cheungs. The Cheungs also had a cannon, but it was smaller than that of their enemies, and caused little damage. The hostilities began in March of this year. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 282 every week two or three ships travel via Macao to Canton and back again. The small eastern inlet is called Mirs Bay. The western coast of this bay is very broken and rugged. About half way along, a stretch of water shaped like an arm leads off to the west, with fingers which seem to stretch out in different directions (Tolo Harbour). The mainland to the north of Mirs Bay acts like a dam, so that the water cannot penetrate further in that direction; it is forced to turn west where it peters out into sandbanks. This inlet to the west [Sha Tau Kok Hoi] is only used, in practice, by Chinese passenger ferries, cargo ships, and fishing boats. Between these two inlets, the Canton River and Mirs Bay, lies the Sinon District, which stretches for a distance equal to about 12-13 hours' walk towards the north from the sea. The width of this District differs from place to place because of the irregular coasts of Mirs Bay to the east and the Canton River to the west. At its widest, the District is 14-15 hours' walk wide, whereas at its narrowest it is only 2-3 hours' walk wide. The inhabitants of the region are mostly Hakkas, but you can also find Puntis, who form a majority especially in the north-western part of the District. Two of the towns are seats of Mandarins, that is, Kaulung [Kowloon] and Namtao [Namtau]. Kaulung is a fortress, situated on the mainland, just opposite Hong Kong. It is occupied by a Mandarin of a lower rank. The Mandarin who is in charge of the whole of Sinon District resides in Namtao, a place on the east coast of the Canton River. Tungfo station is situated in the north-eastern part of Sinon District, on the northern coast of the previously mentioned arm of Mirs Bay, where the waters are turned west and come to an end. The geographical position is, according to mathematical calculations, about 131°54' east longitude, and 22°33′ north latitude. It is 9-10 hours' walk from Hong Kong, and lies in a northerly direction from there. The station can be reached from Hong Kong by two routes only. One route is by water, the second mostly by land. If you choose to travel to Tungfo by the water route, you have to travel first by the China Sea, and then, for ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j ports. He received a lot of honours from many countries including a baronetcy and other decorations from Britain and China. He was said to have been a “leading expert in insurance, shipping and the import and export business,” and also "director of eighteen of the leading companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, chairman and largest shareholder of a number of them." We know little of the details of his investments in the modern business in Hong Kong, Canton, or Shanghai, but we understand that he had an investment in some guandu-shangban enterprises and had close relations with Chinese officials. He was probably a multimillionaire by the turn of the century. It was known that when he worked in Jardines, he had been the manager of Jardine's affiliates, the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. and the Canton Insurance Co., Ltd. He had invested in refined and raw sugar in Shanghai and most of the Yangzi and northern ports of China. He owned a lot of landed properties in Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Tsingtao (Qingdao), and London. He was a director of Humphreys Estate and Finance Co. Ltd., Hong Kong Reclamation Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Hotel Co., Ltd. at the end of the nineteenth century. Law Pak Sheung was the first comprador to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank when it opened in 1865, and remained the chief comprador until his death in 1877. Law came from the port of Whampoa in Canton. His life in Hong Kong proved very successful. He was an organising director of the Tung Wah Hospital from 1869 to 1871. It became the leading Chinese charitable institution in Hong Kong. Page 10 Law died in 1877. He had interests in at least five businesses as mentioned in his will. He might also have had other business interests which were in the name of his sons or other relatives. The five firms mentioned in the will were a ship chartering office, a store, a gold dealer's shop, a native bank, and a general trading company. These he left to his third son Lo Hok Pang (Luo Hepeng), who succeeded him as comprador. In 1879, two years after the death of Law Pak Sheung, his son was said to have had connections with Chinese banks and had invested in a number of firms. He was regarded as one of the leading businessmen in the Chinese community; this was in addition to his position as a comprador. Law might also have had business interests in Canton or elsewhere which were not mentioned in his Hong Kong will. The testator's shares in insurance companies and a Chinese newspaper are signs of one who has moved away from strictly Chinese business enterprises, though the insurance shares were not large, but these were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j in a period when Chinese were only allowed to invest in European insurance companies. But at the same time, he still had large interests in traditional business. Cantonese compradors in Hong Kong, of course, should not be considered as only a few persons; they could probably be identified from archives of the firms they worked for. However, we are limited by sources, which make it quite difficult, but not impossible, to assess compradors' wealth which they had accumulated when they were in office. Furthermore, most of the wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong, including compradors at that time, had investments or property in China. From their business activities, a Canton-Macau-Hong Kong linkage is shown in their wills deposited in the Hong Kong Public Records Office. Names of the Cantonese compradors in Hong Kong were probably Cheang Hoong of Philips Moore & Co., Wong Kong and Kwong A Hang of Smith, Archer & Co.; Ng A Cheong of Douglas Lapraik & Co., Law Pak Sheung of Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Wai A Kwong of Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China, Law Sai Nam of McBain & Co., Lau Cheong of Gilman & Co. (Fuzhou), Au Yeung Shing of Russell & Co., Sung Chin Tseung of Messrs. Turner & Co., Tong Mow Chee (Tang Maozhi) of Jardine, Matheson & Co. (Tianjin), and Choa Chee Bee of China Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. They all left wills in which some indicated business connections with Canton, Macau, and Hong Kong. For example, the will of Wai A Kwong written in 1866 reads: I am a native of Tsin Shan in the District of Heung Shan, Empire of China, at present residing in Victoria, Hong Kong, and holding the office of compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China. At the age of eleven years, I left my native place and proceeded to Macau, where I obtained employment as a domestic servant to a Portuguese; at the age of thirteen, I was sent down to Singapore by the Reverend E. C. Bridgman, missionary to the Chinese, and became the first pupil of the Morrison Education Society. I returned to Hong Kong in the year 1843, and I have ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government. I married in Hong Kong and have several children, all born in this colony. By industry and thriftiness, I have acquired and am possessed of sundry houses, lands, shares in business, and other property and effects. Knowing Page 30 Page 31 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 21 26 was imported from Vietnam. A retail rice shop was also opened in Canton with a capital of 500 taels. Moreover, Li was also interested in other investments such as $15,000 in a native bank, $5,000 in three pawnshops in Hong Kong. He also held a lot of shares in Macau and in other Hong Kong businesses. As the overwhelming majority of Chinese emigrants to America and Australia were Cantonese, Chinese participation in the trade between Hong Kong, Australia, and America was nearly monopolized by the Cantonese merchants. Other examples were: Lee Chak, who had an importing and exporting firm in Hong Kong, two in England, three in San Francisco, two in New York and one in Honolulu, spanning business from Hong Kong to America and England; Chan Kin Tong, owned a firm Guang Yangxing and Rongan respectively, and Chan Mui specialized in drapery business in Hong Kong and had seven associate firms outside Hong Kong. One was located in Chen village, Canton; two in Vietnam; three in Haiphong and one in Siam. Business Patterns of Cantonese Compradors and Merchants 28 The special position of compradors in mediating between the Chinese and foreign businesses provided them with the opportunity to trade on their own and even in private partnership with their employers. Compradors were enabled to acquire capital, which they could use to promote commercial, financial, and industrial enterprises modeled on Western patterns. As scholars have said, compradors were actually not only serving as compradors but also did business on their own behalf at the same time. Their business investments in modern Chinese enterprises could be described as "activities of Chinese merchants in buying capital shares from foreign aggressive companies" (huashang fugu huodong),29 implying that their role in the entrepreneurial activities as Chinese merchants was also significant. Initiatives in Modern Enterprises According to Yen-p'ing Hao's study on Chinese compradors, it was because compradors had acquired considerable wealth, during the years they were engaged in business with foreign merchants that they had realized the importance and profitability of modern enterprises. The compradors were willing to invest in such enterprises long before any other class had a similar intention. Although they also invested in traditional forms of business such as native banking and pawnbroking, however it only constituted a small portion of their total investments. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 27 Shanghai, named the Guang Zhao Gongsuo, Needless to say, Tang was famous amongst Cantonese merchants. In 1876, when Tang was organizing the telegraph office in Fuzhou, he was invited by Ding Richang to set up a Chinese bank with branches in Tokyo and London. The venture was supported by a group of Cantonese merchants to set up a modern bank with a paid-up capital of three hundred thousand taels to meet the increasing need of a financial institution to accelerate Chinese trade in foreign countries. Tang was also active in business circles in Hong Kong. He joined in partnership with his brother Tang Maozhi in the first sugar refinery in Hong Kong. Tang contributed three thousand taels while William McGregor Smith contributed the largest share of sixteen thousand taels. They planned to export sugar to Jiujiang, but probably due to Tang's transfer to Shanghai, export of refined sugar was changed to connect with Shanghai where they operated successfully until 1864. Afterwards Tang sold his share to his brother Tang Maozhi. The refinery was set up at East Point, Hong Kong, under the name of Smith, Wahee & Co. However, it eventually went bankrupt and was taken over by Jardine, Matheson & Co. Tang left his work at China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co. in 1884 to manage the Kaiping Mines in Tianjin in which he had a personal investment of three hundred thousand taels. It has to be mentioned that with the appointment of Tang as the Kaiping's general manager, a large number of Cantonese workers were recruited for Tianjin. By 1891, the number of Cantonese workers had grown to five hundred of which some had returned from California and Australia. Though these Cantonese miners were more skilled and experienced than local workers, they did not get along with the local people and refused to teach their skills to the northerners, as they were called. In 1883 a group of a hundred men from Swatow had to be discharged because of conflicts between them and their headmen. Zhang Guanying (1842-1922) Zheng was born in Zhongshan. It is unclear when he moved from Zhongshan to Macau but it was certain that he had received his traditional education in Canton. After Zheng had failed in the public examination, he decided to become a merchant. In 1858, he was sent to his uncle Zheng Tingjiang in Shanghai, who had been a comprador to Overweg & Co. Zheng soon entered into the Anglo-Chinese School organized by a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 30 enterprises," but also challenged their foreign counterparts by planning, organising, and managing most of the modern Chinese enterprises. As Thomas Rawski has pointed out, Western firms in Chinese treaty-ports such as Shanghai were ineffectual on their own; they had to rely on Chinese compradors to conduct business with their Chinese associates. Cantonese compradors were in such a position that they could dominate the main business in Shanghai during the nineteenth century where they had fully shown their special entrepreneur genius." Notes Assessment of recent studies of Chinese ethnic groups is mainly quoted from Emily Honig (1992) pp. 6-7 2 As Yen-p'ing Hao mentioned most of the Cantonese compradors came from the coastal prefectures of Guangdong province as Zhongshan, Nanhai and Panyu See Hao (1970a). p. 13 1 For sample of letter of recommendation for comprador used in the 1870s, see Appendix + HKRS#144-245 Wong Kong (August 1867) 4 Hao has explained why Western firms in Japan employed Chinese instead of Japanese compradors. See Hao (1970a), pp. 51-9 6 The first three British firms opened were Dent & Co. (first established Canton, 1832), and Gibb, Livingston & Co. (1836 in Canton) 7 Wei came from the Zhongshan prefecture, his father was a comprador to two American merchants Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gorden. He followed a missionary and moved from Canton to Hong Kong. In 1852 he entered Bowra & Co. as a comprador and five years later when the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China established a branch in Hong Kong he joined the Bank as its first comprador. See Smith (1985), pp. 62-9 and Wei A Kwong's will, HKRS#144-368: Wei A Kwong (October 1866), Wei Yuk's brother Wei Long Shan went to Shanghai to learn business in 1871. He returned to Hong Kong after twelve years and then became comprador to the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Co. from 1882 to 1902. He was also assistant comprador at the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank from 1885 to 1895. In the absence of sufficient sources, it is difficult to assess Wei's wealth accumulated during his comprador's years. The Ho family, beginning with Ho Tung, was called a comprador family. Ho introduced his two brothers Ho Fuk and Ho Kom Tong as assistant compradors to Jardine who later succeeded him; his adopted son Ho Sai Wing was the Hong Kong Bank's comprador through thirty-four years from 1912 to 1964. Ho Sai Wing's brothers: Ho Sai Iu was comprador of the Mercantile Bank of India, Ho Sai Kwong of David Sassoon & Co.; Ho Sai Leung of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ho Sai Ki of Arnhold & Co. Ho Sai Wa, son of Ho Kom Tong was an assistant comprador in Mercantile Bank. See Group Archives of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files. Ho Sai Wing. Ho Fuk (Ho Fook)'s son was said to have assisted him in Jardine's work. 10 This company was said to have close business relations with Shanghai's Ting Tai firm. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 31 Lo was suspected to have cheated an amount of 20,000 taels as bad debt from the Bank See Group Archives of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files Law Pak Sheung || Ibid. Lo Hok Pang was said to be involved in certain bankruptcy cases See Comprador Files Lo Hok Pang 12 For an important article that explores the studies on early Chinese in Hong Kong, see Carl T Smith (1993), Hong Kong Chinese Wills 1850-1890 13 See HKRS#144-98. Cheang Hoong (December 1856), 245 Wong Kong (August 1867), 254 Kwong A Hang (January 1872), 268 Ng A Cheong (October 1870), 349 Law Pak Sheung (February 1877), 368 Wei A Kwong (October 1866), 457 Law Sai Nam (December 1881), 470 Lau Cheong (June 1880), 661 Au Yeung Shing (December 1886); 733, Wong Shi Lai (June 1888), 734 Sung Chin Tseung (January 1888), 1161 Tong Mow Chee (December 1894), and 1465 Choa Chec Bec (June 1890) HKRS#134-144; Soong Ke (December 1864) 15 See Zheng Guanying. Da Guangzhou shangwu zonghu yi bingting zhuamban zhangcheng ershisi tiao (To draft the twenty-four opening ordinances of the General Chamber of Commerce of Canton), in Xia Dongyuan (1988a), pp 593-6 16 HKRS#144-273 O Kee Cheong (October 1872) HKRS#144-1504: Leung Kiu (April 1887) 18 HKRS#144-394 La Hing (January 1879) 19 See Carl T Smith (1993), p 11, 15-6 20 For Western merchants who came with their Cantonese compradors to Shanghai, see Hao (1970), pp 51-3 21 According to Leung Yuen-sang's study, Wu Jianzhang came to power because of the rise of mercantile power in post-1843 local politics when there was an absence of official-gentry leadership during the British invasion and capture of Shanghai in 1842 The vacuum was filled by Cantonese merchants and compradors They were sought because of their foreign language skill and foreign knowledge During Wu's office, nearly all the jobs in the government were filled by Cantonese See Leung (1990), pp. 53-6, 147-50, Toyama Gunji (1994), Shanghai dotai Go kensho (The Shanghai Taotai Wu Jianzhang), pp 45-54. and Zhang Wenqin (1989), Cong fenguan guanshang dao maiban guantiao, Wu Jianzhang shilun (From Feudal Official Merchant to Compradorial Bureaucrat), pp 31-54 21 Leung Yuen-sang (1982), Regional Rivalry in Mid-Nineteenth Century Shanghai: Cantonese vs Ningpo Men, pp 34-6. 21 Though Li Hongzhang was a central bureaucrat, through the guandu shangban enterprises in Shanghai and Tianjin, he had successfully extended his influence in this region discussed through the "Shanghai-Tianjin Connection" See Leung Yuen-sang (1986), The Shanghai-Tientsin Connection: Li Hung-chang's Political Control over Shanghai during the Late Ch'ing Period, pp 315-30 24 Ibid, pp. 45-6 24 Wang Gungwu (1990). China and the Chinese Overseas, pp 175-6 HKRS#144-1152 Li Chu (December 1896) 27 HKRS#144-1087. Lee Chak (May 1894) 8 HKRS#144-1093 Chan Kin Tong (April 1896) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 37 history) Hong Kong, Xinya Yanjiusuo Rawski, Thomas G. 1970. Chinese Dominance of Treaty Port Commerce and its Implications, 1860-1875. In Explorations in Economic History 7/4, 451-73. Redding, Gordon S. 1991. Weak Organizations and Strong Linkages: Managerial Ideology and Chinese Family Business Networks. In Gary Hamilton (edited), 30-47. Rhoads, Edward J. 1975. China's Republican Revolution: the Case of Kwangtung. Cambridge and Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. 1977. Merchants Associations in Canton, 1895-1911. In William Skinner (edited), 97-117. Rowe, William T. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Sekkó Zaibatsu (The Zhejiang financial clique). Edited by Mantetsu Shanhai Jimusho. Shanhai, Mantetsu Jimusho, 1929. Shanghai duiwai maoyi (Shanghai foreign trade, 1840-1949). Compiled by Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo and Shanghai-shi Guoji Maoyi Xuehui Xueshu Waiyuanhui. Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1989. Shanghai Sojourners. Edited by Frederic Wakeman and Wen-hsin Yeh. Berkeley, Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992. Sinn, Elizabeth. 1989. Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Oxford University Press. Skinner, William G. 1974 (edited). The Chinese City: City Between Two Worlds. Stanford, Stanford University Press. 1976. Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China: A Regional-System Analysis. In Regional Analysis, Volume One: Economic Systems, 327-64. Edited by Carol A. Smith. New York, Academic Press. 1977 (edited). The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Smith, Carl T. 1983. Compradores of the Hongkong Bank. In Frank H. H. King (edited), 93-111. 1985. Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. 1993. Hong Kong Chinese Wills, 1850-1890. Unpublished paper presented at the International Conference on Folk Documents and Regional Society in South China, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Su, Waigong. 1933. Xianggang, Shanghai, Guangzhou shangye mingrenlu (Prominent business characters of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Canton). Shanghai, Shangye Bianshu Gongsi. Topley, Marjorie. 1964. Capital, Savings and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong's New Territories. In Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies: Studies from Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Middle America, 157-86. Edited by Raymond Firth and B. S. Yamey. London, George Allen & Unwin. 1968. The Role of Savings and Wealth among Hong Kong Chinese. In Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, 167-227. Edited by Ian C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi. New York, Frederick A. Prager. Toyama, Gunji. 1944. Shanhai Dota: Go Kensho (The Shanghai taotai Wu Jianzhang). In Gakkai 1/7, 45-54. 1945. Shanhai no shinsho: Yo Bo (A gentry-merchant in Shanghai: Yang Fang). In Toyoshi Kenkyu 1/4, 17-34. Tsai, Jung-fang. 1975. Comprador Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Chi, 1859-1914) and Hu Li-Yuan (1847-1916). PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 44 acknowledging the initial concept having been his, or so he claimed. + He has been described as 'an adventurer and an explorer, a plant collector and a Chinese general. He was certainly an adventurer though nowadays he would be referred to as a soldier of fortune, an adviser, an opportunist, and even a mercenary. The question remains, how successful was he? Money certainly came his way at times though judging from his Will, he was not a particularly successful businessman. He certainly collected plants and sent them back to the British Consul in Canton and has one specimen, Jasminum Mesnyii, named after him. He bore the brevet rank of Lieutenant General in the Chinese Imperial army but to what extent this was a genuine rank rather than an honour and a courtesy rank, though fully earned during his military service, is hard to judge. Again, though accurately described as an explorer, he was in fact much more of a traveller in parts of China already settled by Chinese and visited earlier by other foreigners. The trek he made, as recorded by Captain Gill, from Ch’eng-tu in Szechuan province to Burma through what was then called lower Tibet has a different slant to what would have been Mesny's account. In Gill's Mesny is scarcely mentioned and he would appear to have been taken along by Gill as his interpreter. It would have been interesting to have read what Mesny would have, and indeed may have written about his journey of very nearly four months with Gill. He saw himself as what nowadays would be called a go-between, a consultant, and in those days regarded, perhaps, as a fixer. Mesny had a few major bees in his bonnet the most barefaced of which was the value he put on the advice he constantly proffered to every senior Chinese official whose ear he could reach on how to modernise China. He had, for example, prepared a list of some nineteen items, suggestions presented to the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and although Mesny assures us that Chang accepted the list there is no evidence that he did anything about it or if he did, that he even mentioned Mesny in any memorials to the throne. Mesny wrote indignantly at one point in his Miscellany about his list of suggestions to Chang having been ignored, or put into practice piecemeal and inexpertly, penny pinching and ineffectually without any reference whatsoever to Mesny. In 1906 at the very end of his fourth and final volume of his Miscellany he prided himself on his advice with the words 'All those great industrial ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 45 works recommended by Pioneer [i.e. Mesny] through Governor Chang Chih-tung of Shansi, are now, or soon will be, in full operation in various parts of China, though with no other advantage to the conceiver of those useful nineteen undertakings than that of having done just so much good, gratis, for the benefit of China and her millions of industrious people, to whom we wish long continued peace, happiness and prosperity." However, whenever China attempted anything which would lead to modernisation, Mesny leapt into print to congratulate whoever was putting the modernisation in train stressing that it was in line with his suggestions of so many years ago. In his early days he displayed extraordinary qualities - audacity, determination, adventurousness and a depth of interest in everything he came across; later, however, when in his declining years he had reverted into a petty entrepreneur, he displayed his achievements on his sleeve and at times waved them above his head just in case they might be overlooked. His rank as a brevet Lieutenant General1 in the Chinese Imperial army with the award of the Pa-r'u-lu and the peacock's feather is stressed right to the end of his life. He is an FRGS and a FR Hist S; and in the very last years of his life he even records in his curriculum vitae as one of his qualifications his membership of the Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch, into which he was elected as late as 1914 when he was 72. This despite having written for the Journal back in 1891 and his son having been elected in 1911. An outstanding question regrettably remains unanswered. Well we might ask why Mesny was promoted brevet Lieutenant General in 1886, so many years after he had completed his active military service in 1874? Balleine may have the answer. He wrote that Mesny volunteered for active service in 1883: whereupon he was sent to Yunnan, and in 1884 to Foochou. In 1885 he was in charge of two arsenals in Canton and the following year was promoted i.e. whilst still working at the arsenals. Mesny explained that officers as junior as Lieutenant Colonel, when in command of troops, were referred to by the honorific title of General. Mesny began his service in 1868 as a company commander rising to brevet Colonel in 1869 and technically in command of troops, though as he himself does not make this point, we can assume that he was never referred to as 'general'. In 1873 he was promoted to Major-General during the latter days of the second Kueichou campaign when, though he again does not say so, he would have been referred to as 'general'. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 63 1881 April June 1882 February March Spring 1882 November 1882/1883 1883 May 1833 Autumn 1883 ca 1883/1884 Early 1884 1884 July Arrived Hami Passed through Shensi and Kansu to Turkestan he tried to push on through Central Asia to India but was stopped; again, tried to push on to the Russian frontiers via Ili and Tarbagatai but was stopped, visited Hami [HQ Chinese Army]. Residence in Hami where he said he remained until the Treaty of Livadia [2-10-79] was signed and where he learned a number of Turkish words. [Mesny claimed that in 1882 returning from Kashgaria he stayed in Tso Tsung-t’ang's camp. [Tso was recalled from Hami to Peking in late 1880] Departed Hami and retraced his steps leisurely across the Gobi desert to Kansu, on to northern Tibet (visited old fashioned gold diggings) and back to Kan-chou to refit before continuing into Tibet a second time in another direction. He then, travelled through the Kokonor region ending up at Lanchou, February 1881, via Hsi-ning. Departed from Northwest China for Peking, via Si-an, Ho-nan Fu, Tai-yuan Fu and Pao-ting Fu. Whilst in Si-an Mesny visited the Nestorian Cross, later, on his first evening in Taiyuan he lost 640 pages of notes, the journal of his Journey to Hami from Canton Arrived Peking Visited Tientsin to await the first steamers of the season carrying mails Returned to Tai-yuan in Shansi and Pao-ting Fu, and again visited Si-an. Visited the famous Shao-lin monastery in the Sung-shan [Mountains] near Ho-nan Fu and invited to settle down for a couple of years with the monks. Departed Shansi for Canton; however, Visited Yunnan province at the invitation of T'ang Chung to assist in the development of natural resources of the province The French authorities in Tongkin insisted that Mesny leave the province Passed through Ch'engtu and Yunnan Fu heading for Canton via Po-se, Nanning Kuangsi [Kuei-hsien, where he spent three to four months whilst the Franco-Chinese war raged in Tongkin), Kueichou and the West River. He travelled much of the way by large house boat. He took careful notes which he offered to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce but failed to receive any encouragement Arrived Canton, then visited Hong Kong, Macau, Swatow, Amoy and Foochou [Viceroy Chang Chih-tung retained Mesny at Canton for one year and ten months (nfd) He lived in an hotel unable to get an appointment from Chang he eventually withdrew. Mesny met Kung Chao-yuan, the Commissary General at Shanghai for Formosa, at the Kiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai Visited tomb of Su Hsiao-hsiao near Hangchou. (a celebrated courtesan of the 11th century AD) Departed Canton via Hong Kong for Foochou and Shanghai [elsewhere he noted that he had been recommended for the post of Foreign Superintendent of the Arsenal at Foochou during his visit there in 1883) In Wu-chang and Han-yang ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x Jan. 9th, 1896. MESNY'S Chinese MISCELLANY. land and sea forces, and its head-quarters are on the coast of Hai-nan Island. It furnishes a marine battalion to the sea-coast naval force. The marine battalion is called Ai Chou Hsieh Shui Shih Yu Ying, or the Right Wing Marine Battalion of the Ai Chou Brigade. It is commanded by a Shou-pei, Second-Major, who is assisted by a Shui Shih Chien-tsung, Naval Captain, two Shui Shih Pa-tsung, First and Second Naval Lieutenants, besides the usual number of non-commissioned officers and men. The remainder of the brigade forms part of the land forces of the Hai-nan division Ch'ing Chou. 1437. KUANG-TUNG SHUI SHIH KE CHUN LUN CH'UAN 廣東水師各軍輪船 :-The Steam Naval Forces of Kuang-tung province, or the Canton Provincial Steam Fleet. In the year 1884 there were altogether fifty-six steam vessels of various sorts and sizes belonging to the provincial authorities of Kuang-tung. The best of the steamers, the Fei Chao Hai, Chên-jui and An Lan, are neither new, powerful nor fast, though serviceable craft for sea-going gun-boats. Some of the others are of the alphabetical class, but they have been so badly kept that they are far from reliable as to steam power. Some of the vessels are hardly fit to go to sea; though not old in point of age they are not sound, and never were very swift or powerful, even for their class. The rest are nothing better than pleasure boats or steam launches for riverine purposes. CANTON GUN-BOAT SQUADRON, Name Flug and Rig. Guns. Tons. H.P. Chee-hing cruiser 7 450 265 An-lan gun-boat 2 80 20 Chên-jui cruiser - - - Chên-to gun-boat 7 450 265 Chop-chung gun-boat 5 500 300 Chop-sai gun-boat 3 80 17 Hai-chong-ching gun-boat - 320 200 Hai-king-ching gun-boat 4 320 200 Hoi-tung-hung - 3 350 - Lien-chi gun-boat 3 200 - Peng-chao-hai cruiser 3 450 310 Quang-on gun-boat 3 155 100 San-hing gun-boat 3 150 100 Tching-on gun-boat 3 150 100 Tching-po gun-boat 3 150 100 Tchun-tung gun-boat 3 170 100 N.B. Some of these vessels have now been condemned. By order of the Viceroy of the Two Kuang Provinces (Chang Chih-tung) seventeen of the most serviceable war steamers have been formed into a fleet, called Shui Shih Chin Kor Naval Corps. Each of these ships is called a Shao or company. Four ships, Shao or companies, form a Ying, battalion, or squadron, and four Ying, or squadrons form the Chun, or Corps (may be fleet.) The odd ship is the Peng Chao Hai, and serves as flag ship for the commandant of the fleet, who is styled Tung-ling, and is also commander of his own flag-ship. His titular rank is Tu-ssü, or Major (just now), was, when appointed, Shou-pei, Second Major only. 1438. CHAO CH'ING SHUI SHIH YING -The Chao-ch'ing Naval or Marine Regiment. This regiment, although forming part of the Riverine Naval Force, is actually a part of the Governor-General's Staff Corps, and is usually styled the Tu Piao Shui Shih Ying on that account. The Governor-General of the Two Kuang Provinces was formerly stationed at Chao-ch'ing Fu, a prefectural city some hundred miles or so from Canton on the north bank of the West River, hence the reason why five of the six regiments forming his Staff Corps are stationed there to this day. The Chao-ch'ing Naval Regiment is commanded by a Tu Chiang, Colonel, whose Adjutant is a Shou-pei, Second-Major. The regiment is divided into two Shao or companies, each of which is commanded by a Chien-tsung, Captain, assisted by two Pa-tsung, Lieutenants, and the usual complement of Wai Wei, Sub-Lieutenants and non-commissioned officers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 226 Welsh manages to be both succinct and vivid in giving an impression of Hong Kong today. He observes that Hong Kong's life-expectancy statistics are better than Britain's, and its per capita gross domestic product is greater. More interestingly he compares Hong Kong to another colony, Puerto Rico, which has four million people, rather than six, and has been under American control since 1898, the same year that much of Hong Kong became a colony. Infant mortality and life expectancy figures are far better in Hong Kong, while the crime rate is lower, the rates of literacy higher, and the quality of public transport superior. Hong Kong is much safer and cleaner than New York. Little evidence of its colonial past remains in the architecture of the famous skyline, Welsh observes, and where Queen Victoria's statue once stood, 'the only memorial is now entirely appropriate for this temple of commerce - that of a bank manager.' New towns, housing over two million people, stand where once squatter settlements spread, linked by 'the sparklingly clean and efficient Metro and the modernized railway.' He points out that notwithstanding Hong Kong's modern skyline, 'at street level... the crowds are as Chinese as those of Canton and Shanghai.' But Welsh is right to point out a great truth. While the colony was for too long run on authoritarian lines, he says, 'there is no society in Asia that has enjoyed for so long as Hong Kong the freedom that democracy is commonly supposed to guarantee.' ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 132 when he was tired out or feeling angry and frustrated. However, he made some annotations at a later date, 1933, on some of the entries and these were written in very clear, tidy, and easily legible handwriting. He was then sixty-seven, two years before he died. The diary must have meant a lot to him that he should review it forty years after the events. Maybe it was then that he decided to bequeath it to posterity with the hope that it might see the light of day, one day. Lowson began his diary in January 1894 and stopped writing after July. It was in the three-month period from May to July that he recorded the day-to-day happenings in connection with the Epidemic. He put down some statistical and clinical data in the first few days but, afterwards, he wrote mainly about the development of the situation, the measures taken to handle it, and of even greater interest, his clashes with the authorities. By editing the diary's contents, it is possible to write a coherent account of the early phase of the Epidemic, and this is what I have attempted to do. Lowson had also kept several pages of the Hong Kong Weekly Press dated May, June, and July 1894, on which weekly summaries of the events related to the Epidemic were reported. Besides, I am most grateful to Dr. John Nicholls of the Department of Pathology, Hong Kong University, for giving me a copy of a Report Lowson submitted to the Governor dated May 16th. Incidentally, the handwriting in this Report was as good and clear as the annotations. From these other sources, I have been able to obtain further data and information to elaborate on some of the entries I have chosen to present. To us, the diary came to life on May 4th. Lowson wrote that he went to Canton by night boat and mentioned seven names. It would seem that they were going there to play some match, for the next day, the 5th, he wrote 'Murray and Potts licked hollow.' However, in his Report to the Governor, he stated that his main purpose was to see for himself the state of affairs as there had been reports that bubonic plague had broken out there. May 6th Went into town to see plague and saw a large number of cases May 7th Back to Hong Kong. In Club 6 pm. Rumour of plague. Saw Ram who said not so and described what had occurred Ram was E.A. Ram, who was acting sanitary superintendent, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 136 Service, and Dr. Molyneux, who came from Ningpo. There might be others helping out but these three evidently were doing more work, especially James who, Lowson recorded, was later appointed to the Sanitary Board. Though under strain and feeling frustrated, no one actually went on strike. So hard pressed were Ayres and Lowson that they had been sick but fortunately they did not contract plague as reported by the Hong Kong Weekly Press. Lowson was offered help from a probably unexpected source but it turned out to be no help at all. He wrote on May 22nd that 'the Alice Memorial students volunteered to help. But on May 31st: 'the Alice Memorial fellows scooted. Frightened to death.' However on June 8th they returned and were assigned to 'run the new pig sty.' These were students of the Hong Kong College of Medicine, which was established in 1887. The teaching hospital was known as the Alice Memorial. As the disease continued to spread more facilities had to be made. Another make-shift hospital was opened in a pig and cattle depot, referred to as the new pig sty just now. This was to replace the Glass-works hospital which had to be closed because of its appalling conditions. On the 22nd Lowson mentioned that patients were diverted to the Alice Memorial Hospital. This however was not the teaching hospital of the Hong Kong College of Medicine but a matshed situated in the Kennedy Town Hospital compound. Also, at the request of the Chinese Community, operations were mounted to send patients back to Canton by junks. After waiting for junks to be ready on June 11th and 12th, on the 13th, Lowson wrote: 'loaded 45 patients for Canton in junk. 3 died.' and on the 15th: 'loaded junk for Canton, 36.' On June 26th there was 'news of the establishment of a hospital in Laichikok.' This was not ready until July 13th when Lowson wrote: July 13th Got ready to transfer to Laichukok Not one went All refused Went down myself In an annotation, he explained: "The Chinese refused to go to Laichikok Hospital because they thought they were sure to die.' And now to the discovery of the plague bacillus in the Hong Kong Epidemic, an event which earned for Hong Kong a place in medical history. Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato, an eminent Japanese bacteriologist who was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 154 called Sha Tau Kok, (, "Sand-dune Point") from its location amidst the sand-dunes,21 The market was quickly successful. In 1849 it was said by a missionary to be 'bustling with business', and by 1853 it had 50 shops operating.22 In 1853, perhaps 20 years after the market's foundation, there were still two areas within the walls not yet developed - "pig market" and an area just inside the Lower East Gate - and there had been no development outside the walls. Nonetheless, with 50 established shops, the town was clearly already flourishing. In 1854, however, the development of the town suffered a rude shock, when irregular troops claiming to be Taipings came close enough to the town for cannon-fire to be heard. The town seems to have been temporarily almost deserted in the face of this threat.23 After 1854, however, the town seems to have entered a period of steadily increasing prosperity. Some when soon after 1854 further defences, in the form of a tall gun-tower, were added to the Upper East Gate, to cover the bridge. Guns were placed there, on the top floor. Probably at about the same time as the building of the gun-tower, the Shap Yeuk built a large and prestigious school, outside the Upper East Gate. This school consisted of two courtyards, one behind the other, and must always have required several teachers, as was certainly the case in the 1920s. The aim of the Shap Yeuk elders in founding this school was to ensure that the district as a whole had at least one high standard school, where education at a higher level than could be provided in the individual village schools could be had. That the school was a district school was shown by its name: the Tung Wo School. To ensure that boys from throughout the district could study there, it had cocklofts to allow boys to board at need. The foundation of the school also raised the prestige of the Shap Yeuk,24 At the back of the school a third courtyard contained a new Man Mo Temple, where the elders of the Shap Yeuk would worship twice a year. The side-hall of this temple to the one side was a "Hero Shrine" where the spirits of certain unclaimed dead, who had been buried by the Shap Yeuk in a communal grave, were worshipped.25 The side-hall to the other side was the Shap Yeuk Meeting Hall and office. The elders met here to adjudicate disputes, and to hold formal meetings: a meeting of 'several hundred' elders is recorded here in 1899.26 A second gun-tower was added ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 213 me. 'She sacrificed to have me well educated,' Later the young Lee returned to China, to attend the Canton Christian College, later renamed 'Lingnan'. He came back to Hong Kong every year by tram or ship, on holiday, at Christmas and for the summer. In Canton, he mixed with his American missionary teachers. He did not meet Europeans much in Hong Kong. A photograph in Mr Lee's home shows him, as a teenager, in a Chinese tunic buttoned up at the neck. There is also a group photograph of him as an American Army Cadet, taken in 1921. 'We used to drill,' he explained. He recalls that he saw Sun Yat Sen, dubbed the 'George Washington of China', once when he visited Lingnan. 'While attending the college we played basketball, soccer, volleyball and tennis,' Mr. Lee told me. He did not care much for the Chinese game of tek in (kicking the shuttlecock). On completion of his Lingnan course, in 1922, he sailed on the *President Grant* for the United States to further his studies. There he befriended several 'Boxer Scholars'. Resulting from the Boxer Uprising, China had to pay reparations for the damage done to Western buildings and for the Europeans murdered. These amounted to nearly a thousand million taels, repaid over 39 years. Later, however, to repay partly this large sum, the Americans, and later the British government, established a 'Boxer Indemnity' fund. The money was used for Chinese to study overseas. Most Boxer Scholars were sons of Nationalist Government officials. Boxer Scholars received tuition fees, board and lodgings and other benefits free of charge. They even received free spectacles,' Mr Lee exclaimed. The young Lee studied chemistry at the University of Washington. He enjoyed it there, where he was boarded out with the Jacobs family. He completed the four-year course in 1926. Once his mother went to the States, by ship, for a visit. 'She did not speak English. It was too difficult for her to come and see me,' Mr Lee told me. He came back to Hong Kong in 1927, when things had returned to normal in the Colony after the General Strike of 1925. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 24 the business in 1876 and died at Dresden in June 1886 (DP 17 June 1886, 31 Dec. 1895). Bernard Harkort established a firm of his own at Shanghai in 1857 when he took over the business of Trautmann and Co (FC 30 June 1857). He retired in 1863 and returned to his home at Leipzig where he died in 1865 (CM 5 Feb. 1863, 7 Dec. 1865). Gustav von Hitzeroth became a partner of Carlowitz and Co. in 1864. The importance of the firm in the German trade with China is indicated by the presence of successive partners of the firm on the Board of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation from 1879 to 1914. A branch of the firm was opened at Shanghai in 1877 under the management of Alfred F.O. Krause (DP 3 Apr. 1877). Mr. Krause and Bernhard Philipp Schmacker became partners in the company in 1881 (CM 3 Jan. 1881). Chemical dyes have long been a specialty of the German trade. In 1880 Carlowitz and Co. advertised themselves as the agents for the Aniline Dye Co. of Berlin (DP 30 Apr. 1881). The company represented German financiers in arranging a five million mark loan to His Excellency Li Hung-chang in 1887 (DP 28 Feb. 1887). It also represented the Krupp armament firm in 1912 for a loan of six million marks with the head of Chekiang Province (DP 15 May 1912). The enlarged business interests of the firm were accompanied by the admission of additional partners: Charles Von Bose 1883, Eduard Jean Mac Paquin 1887, Gustav Adolph Degenes, retired 1899, H. Caesar Erdmann, retired 1900 but remained a dormant partner, Friedrich Carl Paul Sachse 1893. This list is not exhaustive. When the firm was placed under liquidation in 1914 the partners were M. March, R. Lenzmann and A. Schultz, all of Hamburg, T. Rusmore in New York, B. Rosenbaum and R. Laurenz in Shanghai, A. von Bohuscewiez in Tientsin and C. Landgraf in Hong Kong. Siemssen and Company Pustau and Co. was the first German firm to open an office in Hong Kong. Siemssen and Co. followed them from Canton some nine years later (FC 31 Mar. 1855). George Theodor Siemssen had established himself at Canton in 1849. In 1855 he bought a lot on Queen's Road near the present Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building. Until the building he Page 45 Page 46 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 25 erected on the lot was completed, he moved into temporary offices. Two marine lots were bought in 1858 in Sai Ying Pun on which extensive godowns (ware-houses) were built (Hong Kong Land Office, Memorial 1477, 21 Sept. 1858). He soon after left Hong Kong to assume management of the firm's affairs in Hamburg. There he married in 1859 a Miss Wagner (North China Herald 6 Aug. 1859). He continued to reside at Hamburg until his death on 24 November 1886 aged seventy-one (DP 6 Dec. 1886). When Mr. Siemssen left Hong Kong his partners were Ludwig Wiese and Woldemar Nissen (FC 31 Mar. 1855). Mr. Wiese was a Norwegian by birth but subsequently became a naturalized British citizen. From 1849 to 1855 he had been an assistant in the office of Carlowitz, Harkort and Co. at Canton. At various times he served as Consul for Hamburg, Lubeck, Sweden and Norway and was acting Consul for Prussia and Austria. His connection with Siemssen and Co. ended in 1863 (CM 5 Jan. 1865). He located in London, where in 1871 he joined the Board of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (CM 24 July 1871). Though no longer a partner he represented the interests of Siemssen and Co. in England. He died in England on 22 March 1887 (GG, Probate Calendar 4 July 1887). His widow Joanna died in the City of Westminster on 10 May 1904 (GG, Probate Calendar 25 Apr. 1906). Agathon Friedrich Woldemar Nissen — usually known as Woldemar — was a partner from 1855 until his death in Hamburg on 28 December 1896 (DP 7 June 1897). He was a member of the Provisional Committee for the organisation of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1864. He was Deputy Chairman of the Board in 1866 and Chairman in 1867. He left Hong Kong in October 1867 (CM 31 Oct. 1867). In Hong Kong he was Consul for the Hansa Towns of Bremen, Hamburg and Lubeck as well as for Sweden and Norway. The business of the firm increased rapidly. New branches were opened and new partners admitted. Rudolph Heinsen was transferred from the Canton office to Shanghai to open a new branch there in January 1856 (FC 1 Jan. 1856). He later became a partner and his interest in the company ended in 1868 (GG 9 Jan. 1869). George Wilhelm Schwemann was the managing partner at Foochow in 1861. Friedrich Adolph Joost was a partner from 1864 to 1873 (CM 1 Jan. 1864, Daily Press 28 Jan. 1874). When Messrs. Schwemann and Heinsen retired from the firm in 1868, they were replaced by Ferdinand Nissen and Heinrich Hoppius (GG 9 Jan. 1869). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 27 the style of Oxford and Co., entered a suit in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong against H.B. Cama and Co for a debt of $12,294.21 (GG 10 June 1865). Alexander C. Levysohn and Jacob Arnhold were admitted partners in Oxford and Co. | January 1863 (CM 30 Apr 1863) Jacob Arnhold, one of the original partners of Arnhold, Karberg and Co. died in July 1903 (DP 18 Nov. 1903). He made his will on 5 September 1902. In it he gave his address as 5 East India Street, London, and named his brother Philip Arnhold and Sir Ewen Cameron, London Manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank as his executors. All his estate was left to his wife Anne (PRO Will File 201 of 1903/1642). Philip Arnhold died on 29 March 1910 at Altona, Germany aged a little over sixty years. He was then the senior partner. His obituary states he came from Europe to China as a young man in his twenties. In 1868 he joined Messrs. Oxford and Co. of Canton. A few years later he followed his brother Jacob Arnhold to Hong Kong where the firm of Arnhold, Karberg and Co. was formed. Philip joined the new firm. The careful reader will note that the chronology of the obituary differs from the notices in contemporary newspapers noted above. After a few years a branch was established at Shanghai and Philip went there, where he remained until 1902. The obituary observes that he lived a plain business man's life, devoid of ostentation. He was a director of the Soy Chee Spinning Co. at Shanghai and various other local companies. In 1902 he returned to London to join his brother Jacob in the management of the headquarters office. Upon Jacob's death in 1903, Philip became senior partner, and upon the latter's death E. Goetz assumed that position (HKT 1 Apr 1910). Mr. Arnhold made a will dated 13 May 1900. It mentions the children of his first marriage but does not name them. His second wife was Thekla Emma Elizabeth Vogler, formerly the widow of Dr. Gustav Carl Ludwig Zedelius. He left bequests to his sisters and sister-in-law Theresa Wagner, nee Arnhold, Hanna Delbanco, nee Arnhold, and Adele Hoppe, nee Vogler. The place of his death is given as Klein Flottbek, Holstein, Germany (PRO Will File No. 43 of 1911/2366). Peter Karberg, one of the founders of Arnhold, Karberg and Co., appears in the Hong Kong jury lists from 1867 to 1876. Four children were born in Hong Kong to him and his wife Helene Dorothea between September 1871 and April 1876. A Christian, Peter Karberg was an assistant in the firm at Hong Kong from 1882 to 1898. After leaving Hong Kong Peter Karberg lived in Copenhagen, Denmark. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 28 Alexander Cosman Levysohn, another founder of the firm is on the Hong Kong jury lists in 1864 and 1865. He then went to Canton to take charge of the Shameen office there. Lewis Mendel became a partner in 1875 (DP 3 Jan. 1874). He died at Hong Kong on 4 November 1895 aged fifty-one. He came to China to join the firm in 1867, retired in 1883 and returned home, but came back to Hong Kong later and established his own business as a share broker (DP 5 Nov. 1895). His will made in 1882 mentioned only his father, brothers and sisters as his heirs. His executors were Jacob Arnhold of London and Lorenz Poesnecker of Hong Kong. Mr. Mendel was a native of Altona, Germany (PRO will File No. 101 of 1896 [4/1105]). Lorenz Poesnecker was an assistant in Arnhold, Karberg and Co. in Hong Kong from 1870 to 1880. He was authorised to sign for the firm on 6 June 1874 (DP 7 June 1876) and became a partner in 1880/81. When he made his will in June 1896 he gave his address as 5 East India Avenue, City of London. He left his estate to his wife and after her death to his children. He named Caesar Erdmann of Hamburg and Richard Millitzer of Hof, Bavaria as his executors. He died in London on 9 July 1897 and the administration of his estate in Hong Kong was granted to Carl Beurmann and Max Carl Johann Grote as attorneys of the executors named in the will (PRO Will File No. 20 of 1898 [4/1162]). Julius Kramer was authorised to sign for the firm in June 1888 and was admitted a partner in 1892 (DP 13 June 1888, 18 Mar. 1892). During his first years with the company he was at its Canton office. At an auction for lots in the French Concession on Shameen in November 1889 he purchased Lots 1 and 7 for $2,610 (DP 8 Nov. 1889). After being admitted a partner he moved to Hong Kong. There his wife Bertha died on 14 February 1896 at “Luginsland” on the Peak Road (DP 15 Feb. 1896). Not long after he left Hong Kong and died on 11 November 1898 at Heidelberg. Administration of his estate in Hong Kong was granted to Ernest Goetz as the attorney of Philip Arnhold (GG Probate Calendar 7 June 1898). A former street in Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon, was named after Mr. Kramer. When the Royal Dutch Oil Co. began importing oil to China by tanker in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Arnhold, Karberg and Co. acted as its agent. Oil storage tanks were built at Tai Kok Tsui. The Royal Dutch is better known as the Shell Co. When Philip Arnhold died in 1910 Ernest Goetz became senior partner. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 30 Mrs. T.C. Meyrick of Fareham, Hants, England. He was educated at University College School, London, from where he went to Brasenose College, Oxford in 1900. He arrived in China in 1907 to join Arnhold, Karberg and Co. He was a keen supporter of racing with his brother Harry Arnhold. They ran a stable in Shanghai for many years under the nom-de-guerre of "Winsome and Hasty". He was the last Chairman of the Shanghai Race Club before the change of régime in China. At one time he was a member of the Shanghai Municipal Council and Vice Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce, Shanghai. He came to Hong Kong in 1949 and the head office was then transferred here. He had been interned at the Haiphong Road Internment Camp in Shanghai. He supported the British Orchestra and the Hong Kong Concert Orchestra. He was born in London in 1881. Since 1888 a member of the firm of Arnhold, Karberg and Co. had been on the Board of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank though, of course, after 1914 German firms were not represented. The firm also represented German financial interests in the negotiation of foreign loans to China. Its "Teutonic thoroughness" is shown by the number of offices the firm had in China in 1908 — Hong Kong, Shanghai, Canton, Hankow, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Wuhu, Kiukiang, Newchwang, Chungking, Mukden, Peking, Tsinanfu, Kirin etc. It had buying offices in London, New York and Berlin. Dr. Frank King in his history of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation designates the firm as an "Anglo-German" company. Like other large China-based German firms it found it advantageous to establish strong links with Britain. It was about the only German firm able to continue its trade after 1914, principally because the two Shanghai partners were born in England. Bourjau, Hubener and Co. Adolph Bourjau and Carl Albert Hubener were authorised to sign for L.E. Lebert and Company at Canton in 1858 but by the next year they were in business in Hong Kong under their own name (FC 18 Mar. 1858, 31 May 1859). They are mentioned as emigrant agents in 1866 (DP 1 Nov. 1866). Mr. Bourjau continued as a senior partner until his death on 14 February 1873 (DP 5 Apr. 1873). Arthur Booth was a partner in 1862/3 and Oscar Booth from 1866 to 1869. Ernest Behre was the managing partner at Shanghai in the 1860s. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 34 the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, succeeding the partners of the firm who had occupied a board seat since 1872. Some of the 1914 partners were still with the firm in 1929, Adalbeert Korff and Karl Lindemann of Bremen, Adolf Widmann and Dr. A. Korff of Shanghai and C.G. Melchers of Hong Kong. At that time the head office was in Bremen with branches in China at Shanghai, Hankow, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Canton, Swatow and Hong Kong, as well as being represented in the United States by Melchers, Inc., of New York. Schellhass and Co Edward Schellhass opened an office in Hong Kong in 1861. Within a year or so Ludwig Beyer joined him as a partner. Among their trading interests were arms and ammunition. Their permit to ship munitions was canceled in 1865 for failing to make a return to the Harbour Master (GG 7 Jan. 1865). Edward Schellhass's connection with the firm ceased sometime between 1878 and 1884. In 1863 Hermann Melchers was an assistant in the company but he left in 1866 to open the first office of Melchers and Co. in Hong Kong. A Frederick T. Schellhass established himself as a general commission agent in Hankow in 1862 and the following year he was authorised to sign for Melchers and Co. at Hong Kong (CM 23 Apr. 1863). Ludwig Beyer is listed as a principal of Bourjau, Hubener and Co. in the 1861 Macau Directory with offices at 35 Praia Grande. The next year he was an assistant in Eduard Schellhass's firm in Hong Kong. He soon became a partner. His interest in the firm ceased in 1886 (DP 1 Jan. 1887). For some years he was Consul for the Netherlands in Hong Kong. Carl Emil Bade after serving sometime as a clerk in the company became a partner in 1869/70. He was in charge of the Shanghai office but retired from the firm in 1877 (DP 1 Jan. 1878). Peter Julius Rudolph D. Buschmann - usually known as Rudolph - was a clerk in the company from 1873 to 1878. In the latter year he was admitted a partner (DP 1 Jan. 1878). He was sent to the Shanghai office but returned to Hong Kong in May to marry Johanna Elise Hinsch of Wandsbach, Germany. The marriage took place at the residence of Ludwig Beyer (DP 22 May 1878). Mr. Buschmann served as the Hong Kong Consul for the Netherlands and for Sweden and Norway. A relative, Carl Otto Bernhard Buschmann ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 35 usually known as Bernhard became a partner along with Friedrich Seip in 1888. He had charge of the Canton office (DP 14 Mar. 1888). Gustav Harling became a partner in 1883 (DP 10 Jan. 1883). The firm may have been dissolved by the year 1896, for in that year George Wilhelm Gustav Harling — probably the same as Gustav Harling — was a member of the firm of Harling, Buschmann and Menzell in Hong Kong. In 1900 the name of this firm was changed to the East Asiatic Trading Co. Carl Bodiker and Co. Carl Bodiker and Co was among the German firms placed in liquidation in 1914. In a petition of German firms to the Government at that time the date of its establishment is given as 1860. I am unable to trace the company to this date. In 1912 Carl Bodiker, who styled himself as the sole partner of the company and was then resident in Hamburg, appointed Frank Esrom to hold his power of attorney in Hong Kong. The document states that by an indenture dated 28 November 1911 George Wilhelm Gustave Harling transferred to Bodiker all the business of Schuldt and Co. A compradore's bond and agreement dated 7 August 1908 names the partners of Schuldt and Co. at that time as Adolf Heinrich Ernest Schuldt, 28 Armgaistrasse, Hamburg, George Wilhelm Gustav Harling, same address, and Schelte Swart, Hong Kong. As noted under the history of Schellhass and Co., Mr. Harling was successively with Schellhass and Co., Harling, Buschmann and Menzell Co. and the East Asiatic Trading Co. The 1860 date for the founding of Bodiker and Co. must be the date for the founding of Schellhass and Co. By the year 1923 Carl Bodiker and Co was again doing business in Hong Kong as import and export merchants and engineers. The partners in 1929 were Q. May and B. Soltau. Hesse, Ehlers and Co. J China Export and Import Bank Compagnie The China Import and Export Bank Compagnie was one of the firms placed under liquidation in 1914. It had its origins in the firm of Hesse, Ehlers and Co. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 36 Paul Ehlers opened an office in Macao in September 1858 as a general agent and commission merchant (FC 9 Sept. 1858). This was during the Second Opium War when foreign merchants who had been trading at Canton had to locate in Hong Kong or Macao. After the British forces occupied Canton, some of the merchants moved back; Paul Ehlers moved on 9 December 1858 (FC 9 Dec. 1858). In January 1859, he and Theodore Hesse entered into partnership as Hesse, Ehlers and Co. (GG 8 Jan. 1859). Mr. Ehlers returned to Europe in 1865 and withdrew from the firm. It continued under the name of Hesse and Co. (GG 18 Nov. 1865). Five years after his departure from China, Mr. Ehlers returned and began conducting business under his own name at Hong Kong (GG 14 May 1870). In 1872, Paul Ehlers and Carl Robert Meuser formed a partnership. Meuser had been doing business on his own account since October 1871 (CM 3 Jan., 20 Oct. 1872). The firm went into liquidation in 1874. The business was taken over by a former employee, Justus Peter Lembke of Hamburg (CM, 29 Sept. 1875). He continued doing business in Hong Kong as Justus Lembke and Co. until 1890, when he transferred the business and goodwill to the China Export and Import Bank Compagnie. Mr. Lembke was appointed the manager of the new Hong Kong office of the Hamburg-based firm, and Hermann Witte and Ernest Brubitz were authorised to sign for the firm (HKT 3 Mar. 1890). Since writing this article, I have received from Mr. Alfred Schmitt, of Hoechst China Ltd, a history of the firm entitled Die China Export-Import-und-Bank-Compagnie, undated but recently published. After the First World War, the company was re-established in Hong Kong with its head office in Shanghai and branches also at Canton, Tientsin, Osaka, and Tokyo. When Paul Ehlers returned to Europe in 1865, the business of Hesse, Ehlers and Co. was continued by Theodore Hesse under the name of Hesse and Co., with Herman Peter Hase in charge of the Canton office. Under his full name, Anton Hermann Peter Hase, he was admitted a partner in 1867 (GG 5 Jan. 1867). Six months later, Mr. Hesse withdrew, and it was continued under the same name by Mr. Hase. Hase died at Marseilles in December 1873. He named Hermann Stolterfoht, an assistant in his firm, as the executor of his will (PRO Will File No. 221 of 1874 [4/274]). Leonard Stael became a partner of Hesse and Co. in 1869 and retired in 1879 (GG 3 July 1869, DP 1 Jan. 1880). Hermann Stolterfoht was admitted a partner in Hesse and Co. shortly after the death of the senior partner in 1873. Charles Joseph Hirst joined ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 54 There is little doubt they spread rumours and not unnaturally do what they can to incite the Chinese and Indians against us. The proximity of Macao, Canton and Coast ports make it easy for them to get information out of the Colony and home to Germany. Money remittances can be made with very little arrangement from Shanghai and Manila. They go on taking the trade which the present war gives an opportunity of British firms to take hold of. Their presence renders it necessary to take more elaborate precautions in guarding all important places. Personally, I should not be sorry to see all fit for service made prisoners of war” (CO129/413, Kelly to May 5 Oct 1914) He had not long to wait for an order for internment was issued the last week of October. This action was taken when Germany issued a call-up of their military and naval reserves. All Germans in Hong Kong on the reserve list were sent to Stonecutters Island. Soon after they were moved to Hung Hom Bay. This move was made before the Hung Hom site was fully ready to receive the internees. The mat huts had dirt floors and were open to the elements. The presence of mosquitoes posed the threat of malaria. The internees were put to work sweeping streets and performing other manual tasks. Word seeped back to Germany that the internees were being treated badly. Through official channels the Germans contacted the Americans, the American Consul in turn contacted the British to ask if the representations made by the Germans were accurate. The Consul was taken to the Camp for an escorted inspection and found conditions satisfactory. One can appreciate the situation of the internees, mostly well-fed, well-cared-for, comfortably-situated merchants before they were caught up in the tides of global politics and swept into the crude conditions of a hastily-built camp for enemy aliens. The contrast between their large well-staffed homes and abundant meals prepared for their individual tastes and the primitive shelters and an institutional British-style mess must have been difficult to adapt to overnight. After two years the internees were moved to Australia. Those above military service age, wives and children were deported to Shanghai or Manila, the former under international control, the latter under American administration. Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 131 was intended to build up a library collection of books on Asia. It has been an abiding personal interest, for I have at all times been instrumental in adding to it. Although modest in size, it contains a good stock of works on Asian subjects in Western languages, with a major emphasis on China. Over the years, our books have been housed in various places: in the British Council; in the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wanchai after its completion in 1972; and for almost a decade from 1985, in the new Kowloon Central Library. They are now back again on Hong Kong Island, in the City Hall Main Library. Placing the collection in Kowloon turned out to be a big mistake. In the past, expatriates who lived on Hong Kong Island talked and thought of Kowloon almost as though it was on another planet.* One might have hoped that two harbour tunnels, cross-harbour buses and the Mass Transit Railway would have altered old perceptions and prejudices. However, during the ten years the Library collection was kept in Kowloon, few of our members found the way there, or made much use of the book retrieval service provided for them at the City Hall Library. As it turned out, after computerization of our membership records in the mid-1980s, most of our members did live on Hong Kong Island, and the old views of Kowloon had apparently persisted. Still being added to yearly, the Collection is now housed on the 9th floor of the re-modelled City Hall High Block and is under the care of the Urban Council Library staff there. Honorary Editor I was Honorary Editor of the RAS Journal between 1966 and 1980, responsible for producing fourteen annual issues for the years 1967-1980 inclusive, as well as a number of the Society's Symposia Brochures—the published papers of those presented at symposia devoted to special subjects. I much enjoyed editorial work, and benefited from the many friendships it brought with it. One among them was with the late Professor Luther Carrington Goodrich of Columbia University, whom I first came to know in 1967, after asking him for a note on Ming cannon found in Hong Kong and sending on details of newly discovered pieces. He forwarded other contributions to the Journal thereafter; and once, when lagging in my editorial work, he had sent a "chaser", urging me to put a bomb under our printer. Of course, I had to reply that the bomb needed to be placed under me, as the guilty party. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 70 of that street is practically shut up. The mortality here was very great. The inhabitants were principally night-soil coolies and almost all died. The occupants of houses in Third Street, adjoining this were also numerously attacked " (Lowson, 1895, P5) In 1895, plague cases were found centred in First Street and several streets not far from the Civil Hospital. In 1902, a group of cases were discovered round Pokfulam Road and Second Street. Infected rats were also found in that area. After the breaking out of the plague, thousands of panic-stricken people began to leave Hong Kong. They left in every sort of conveyance: sampans, boats, junks, and river steamers. People of Sai Ying Pun could also leave by ambulance boats, which came to the China Merchants Wharf at 4 p.m. each day, on which the people were towed to Whampoa or Canton. At 1901, the population of the district was 44,722, a decrease of 848 people when compared with the 1897 figure. Dr Lowson in 1895 and Dr Simpson in 1902 had both made a number of strong recommendations as to the measures which should be enforced to prevent further outbreaks of bubonic plague. According to them, back-to-back houses should be demolished. Basements should not be inhabited. Disinfected or rat-ridden houses should be either closed or walled in or thoroughly sprayed, fumigated, chlorinated, scrubbed, and lime-washed. Latrines and public markets should be maintained by the authorities in a clean condition. The last recommendation was particularly important to the district. A latrine in the Sai Ying Pun Market was situated only three yards distant from a large quantity of meat which was often hanging for hours at a time. On the other hand, hot water tanks and bath houses, for the purposes of promoting cleanliness among the Chinese and thus preventing the spread of plague among them, were established in Second and Third Streets in 1903. A Public Health and Building Ordinance was passed in order to better sanitary conditions in Hong Kong. Unlike Tai Ping Shan district, Sai Ying Pun was excluded from schemes of resumption. However, at that time, most of the houses in Sai Ying Pun did need destruction and resumption rather than improvement of the sanitary arrangements. Actually, a few areas in the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 116 of an English-based lingua franca In the Gazette of September 9 1685, the following notice appears- "That excellent, and by all Physitians approved, China drink, called by the Chinese Toha, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a coffee house in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange, London." The earliest recorded import of Tea by the East India Company is dated 1667. An early writer, in memoirs of 1726, relates- “I remember well how in 1681, I for the first time in my life drank Thee at the house of an Indian Chaplain, and how I could not understand how sensible men could think it a treat to drink what tasted no better than hay-water. This quotation illustrates how, at the end of the seventeenth century, tea-drinking was becoming a social fad which eventually generated huge demands on European - and later American - China traders. Tea was, of course, readily available in India and the Arab world - but this particular fad grew around the Chinese teas - Bohea (Mou yi), Congo (Gung fu), Pekoe (Baak hou), Oolong, Souchong (Siu chung) and Hyson (Yue chin). The manner of the tea trade is best understood from the books of William C. Hunter- "Bits of Old China” (1855) and “Fan Kwae at Canton Before the Treaty Days" (1882). Foreign traders were only permitted into Canton to trade during the tea season: they were required to retreat to Macau or further during the closed season. No foreign women were permitted into Canton and the lives and work of the traders were strictly regulated by imperial edict. The most comprehensive set of controls was brought in 1760, but this was little more than codification of regulations which had been in force for decades. The tea trade, on the Chinese side, was carried out by licensed trading houses - the Hong Merchants. The merchants were incorporated in 1720. Foreign traders were allowed to Canton by specific sponsorship by the Hong merchants, who were personally responsible for their conduct. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 89 5% 2.992 females aged 25-30 in 1911, 2,795 in 1921 Census Report 1911, Table XXI Census Report 1921, Tables XXIV-XXVII Based on a figure of double the female population since the male population is clearly significantly distorted by immigration * See JW Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911: Institutions in Town and Countryside. Hamden, Connecticut, 1977 ** Census Report, 1977, Tables IX and X. No detailed breakdown of Place of Birth of the Floating population is included in the 1911 Census C. I The statistics for Place of Birth in the 1921 Census give a somewhat different picture. There (Census Report, 1921, Table XI) the place of birth of 34,724 Northern District males and 36,311 Northern District females are given, of which only 88% (males) and 82% (females) were born within the New Territories. The sharply higher figures for persons born outside the New Territories seems to be due to three factors. The first is the time of the Census. The 1921 Census was taken during the cooler weather (March-April) as compared with the 1911 Census (April-June). Numbers of stonecutters, itinerant weavers, etc., are likely to have been higher in 1921 as it is known from oral evidence that many of these village-to-village traders went back to their own families in villages outside the New Territories for the summer and harvest seasons, and would thus have been enumerated in 1921 but not in 1911. This is doubtless the reason the 1921 Census shows a far higher figure for males born in Kwai Shun District (997 compared to 354), and also for males from the area north of Canton (241 as compared to 23), although the numbers from Ka Ying and other East River areas were lower (142 as compared to 177). This may also be the reason for higher recorded numbers of males from other inland areas in 1921 (Sze Yap 77 as compared to 25, and Shiu Hing area, 95 as to 19). With the exception of Kwan Shun, all the 1921 figures for these areas show far fewer females than males (Kwan Shun, 1507 females; north of Canton, 1-42; East River, 72; Sze Yap, 16; Shiu Hing, 45). The effects of the Ching Ming Festival, and the remaining 1920 refugees are responsible, almost certainly, for the much higher numbers of San On born males (1213 in 1921, only 243 in 1911), and may in part also account for the increase in Tung Kun males (385 in 1921, 163 in 1911). Most of the difference, however, must be due to a more careful enumeration of the boat people in the area. The higher numbers recorded in 1921 for males born in the Delta (750 as against 234), the Chin Chau area (143 as against 9), Hong Kong (226 as against 10), and Macao (25 as against nil), must be due to this factor. The reduction in the numbers of women recorded as born in Hong Kong (1208 as against 2383 in 1911) may be due to errors in the 1911 record. Because of these differences, it is difficult to compare the two Censuses directly with regard to these statistics. It is considered likely that the 1911 figures are closer to the actual position of long-term land population residents born outside the area. The information in the 1921 Census does not permit any direct comparison with the Place of Birth figures for Southern District in 1911, since the 1921 figures include New Kowloon as well as the Islands. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 a fluvial plain nearly all fresh ploughed up. We were too late to see the paddy, or rice growing. Here and there were a few patches of barley, and now and then a field of hemp in full blossom that scented the air for a long way round. Often our road lay through fields of sugar cane. The canes grow about 7 or 8 feet high, and look very well with their green tops. The highway road passing through these fields is a curiosity. It is raised a few feet above the field, and is about a yard wide on an average. On each side runs a ditch about a foot wide. Since these roads are only for foot passengers they answer very well. Remember there are no horses ever dreamt of, and only here and there a poor lean solitary Chinese cow, with a hump on his back on the hills. There are no hedges or fences, and thus it is all open country. The outside narrow ditches are all that separate the fields, and as most of the people are not troubled with shoes, a little mud and dirt is not minded. We now and then passed a troupe of pedestrians on their way to the town to sell their produce and buy new supplies. Many of them had brown sugar in square cakes, and many more were loaded with oil, which is obtained from a kind of ground nut, largely grown in China. We often saw immense heaps of these nuts. All these things were carried in China fashion, with a pole, and a basket or bucket balanced on each side. Every few miles we rested in a tea house, and in one, we got some preserved dates and plums. The dates were on strips of bamboo, three on each, and each string cost a cash. They and the plums were very good, especially to us who had been walking a great deal. We passed through Po-kuk - where Mr Lechler lived as a Chinaman for 5 years in one house which he showed us. He is a fine noble fellow and no mistake. Would that all our missionaries were like him. We were again on our route; and continually heard the sound of heavy firing at a distance. These towns and villages have continual animosity with each other, and are continually fighting. They can make their own clumsy cannon, and they pound away at each other finely, sometimes for weeks together. The different clans often get up a bit of a brush about something or other. Our road at length wound up a narrow pass between two hills, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 206 policy of railway nationalization that sparked off very strong provincial resistance. Numerous Railway Protection Societies were formed in different provinces, and one by one, they declared the provinces independent from Beijing. The 1911 Revolution and its Aftermath In Guangdong, the Railway Protection Society was formed in Hong Kong and chaired by Li Yutang, the chairman of the Siyi Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. In a dispatch to the Colonial Office, the Governor noted that since the revolution, the Siyi Chamber had "principally ruled Canton.” It is recorded that in a meeting in the Siyi Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong, Wu Hanmin was elected as the new Governor-General for Guangdong. Li Yutang, chairman of the Siyi Chamber, as well as that of the Railway Protection society, was appointed as the Provincial Treasurer of Guangdong. His son, his two brothers and his son-in-law also held posts in the Canton Government. They formed themselves into a bank of Canton, but registered it in Hong Kong. Aside from this, the Siyi men formed themselves into a "Thirty-Men Subscription Team”. With certificates granted by the Canton Revolutionary Government, they set up a Subscription Bureau in Hong Kong. One member of this group, a Yang Xian recalled years later that: the uprising was a success without any single help of a soldier or army... because of the assistance of the Hong Kong merchants... we subscribed, within half a day, an amount of 40,000 and had it transported to Canton immediately. Originally, the Canton government promised to return $2 for any $1 subscribed... but we [with patriotism] adjusted it to $1.50 for $1 only. To back up the unsecured currency issued through the Bank of Canton by the Canton Revolutionary Government, the Siyi Chamber established a "Canton and Hong Kong Financial Company" to redeem the unsecured currency in August 1912. Through the Registrar-General of Companies, the Governor warned the Hong Kong merchants of the "financial unsoundness of the scheme" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 207 The reply he received from the Registrar-General stated that "no sound men of business in Hong Kong were connected with the scheme." Ending his despatch, the Governor commented that the "principal promoter [of the company] was Li Yutang, whose name was enough to damn... the Chinese Firms were likely to subscribe only because they dare not refuse.” The Governor's comment might have some truth. Li Yutang in years to come would be named the "Insurance King" (保險大王) of South China. In an interview with Mr. Li's grandson, I was told how Li Yutang multiplied his wealth in these years. Mr. Li said "my grandfather converted to Christianity.” I doubt that the asset of Li Yutang in insurance business was his religion or his entrepreneurship. His greatest asset, I suspect was his political influence, or other's belief that he was politically influential. To support this speculation I cite the following event. As the attempts to establish a joint-stock company failed, the Siyi men attempted to organize all the regional chambers of commerce in the colony into a “Overseas Chinese Society for the Promotion of Patriotic Subscriptions". The Governor observed that: the circulation [of Canton currency, which had fallen to 30% of its face value] is maintained here (in Hong Kong), in spite of its general unpopularity ... not only by official pressure from Canton but also by means of intimidation practiced by so-called patriotic associations & by the influential persons who are financially interested. These "influential persons who [were] financially interested" - a reference to the Siyi men, were in actuality the directors of the Bank of Canton, Li Yutang. The Governor recorded that: In addition to the authorized issue of $16m...... Li Yuk-tang made an issue of $5m for his own benefit. He left Hong Kong a poor man but has, since his return, invested largely in the Colony and is now reported to be a rich man. Against this background, the Governor of Hong Kong also observed a significant development among the non-Siyi Hong Kong Chinese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 208 When the Chinese in Hong Kong representing other districts in China saw that the power in Canton was drifting into the hands of the Sye Yup [Siyi] Association, they organized societies of their own, preventing the Sye Yup [Siyi] Association from monopolizing political influence in Canton. One consequence was that the number of regional chambers in Hong Kong was increased from two in 1909 to sixteen in 1913, and to twenty-four in 1920. Besides, the Governor also supported the establishment of a large association in the colony as "an effort to hold all these societies [regional associations] into one society... to break the power of the Sye Yap [Siyi] Association". This association was but the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce. The Governor specified that it was a gentleman called Liu Zhubo (1), who became the first chairman of this Chamber that he found trustworthy. It is to this Mr. Liu, and the leadership group with which he was affiliated that we now turn. Liu and his associates were a new generation of western-educated Chinese leaders. To illustrate the nature of this group of social leaders, I cite Liu Zhubo and Ho Tung (He Dong)'s personal histories. Both Liu and Ho were born in the China town of Hong Kong and both had very poor family backgrounds. They were raised by their widowed mothers. Ho Tung, for example, was the eldest of four brothers, who had different fathers. The four brothers shared the same surname only because they adopted their mother's family name. Ho Tung himself was a Eurasian and was always excluded by Chinese circles in the colony. But like Liu, he managed to gain a scholarship to study at the government-supported Queen's College and turned out to be an active member of the Alumni Association. After a brief career serving as instructors of the College, Liu and Ho were employed as compradores of Lapack Co. Ltd. and the Jardine & Matheson Co. Ltd., respectively. In business terms, these new leaders were closely connected with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, as well as with the Hong Kong government. I cite one example to illustrate this point. In 1914, Liu Zhubo and Ho Tung established The Da You Bank (The Bank of Great Wealth) with their Eurasian friend, Lo Changzhao. In the same year, the three men were granted an opium monopoly within the Colony. All three partners were graduates of Queen's College and were active ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 209 members of the Alumni Association. All of them had at one time or another worked as compradores for foreign firms; the two Eurasian families, Ho Tung and Lo Changzhao (E) had almost monopolized the compradoral posts of Jardines and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank up to the 1940s. Liu Zhubo, He and Lo's sons were at one time or another appointed Legislative Councillors of the Colony. When the First World War broke out in Europe, these three partners contributed a huge sum of money to the British Government for the purchase of an aeroplane. The plane, as requested by the donors, was named "Da You Bank of Hong Kong". The wealth of this western-educated group did not derive from the joint-stock company. They owned their own native bank despite the fact that they were compradores in western firms. It seems likely that this was an attempt to avoid the disclosure of financial accounts as required by the company ordinance. As these Eurasian families monopolized the compradoral posts of many of the foreign firms, including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, it is highly likely that capital was transferred between their accounts in the compradore offices and those in their private businesses. As they had exclusive access to capital, they did not rely on a capital market in the same way as the overseas returning migrants did, though we cannot tell whether this capital market was governed by the invisible hand of the economy or the invisible hand of political intimidation, as the governor suggested. Following the example of the Siyi men, Hong Kong-born, western-educated groups participated in the political arena in China. In 1913, the Governor reported to the Colonial Office that "several leading Chinese" in Hong Kong had informed him that they would welcome the reorganization of the administration of the Canton Province under "tactful and conscientious British supervision." According to Liu Zhubo's proposal, a loan of 25,000,000 taels was to be raised in Hong Kong to redeem unsecured currency in Canton. In return, Liu requested of the Beijing Government the privilege of establishing a central bank in Guangdong "with a monopoly of the Provincial Government business". To guarantee the smooth functioning of this arrangement, Liu suggested "inviting the Government of Hong Kong". ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 211 organized everywhere. Once a local army was organized, its commander would petition general headquarters (that is the office of Sun Yat-sen) for recognition and for an official title, and once formal recognition was accorded, they would draw rations from the local government. Thus all such local armies had their respective "territories". On the relationship with the Cantonese, the memoir has very exciting records. Our relations with the local people worsened each day. The natives looked down on us. Occasionally some of our trouble-making soldiers tried to stop their games (of gambling). In doing so they were usually mobbed and beaten up by the gamblers... 4 One day at noon the entire regiment suddenly rose as one man and shouted for armed revenge against the local people. "Captain, we are going to (the town) and pay them back for those insults!" About a thousand soldiers marched toward the town, rifles in hand. Fortunately, [the town] and our stations were separated by a small river. When the ferryboat operators heard of the uprising, they moved all the boats away. Prevented from crossing, the soldiers massed themselves on the bank of the river and shouted toward the town. The noise made by a thousand soldiers was dreadful! Some of the soldiers even began to fire their rifles, which increased the tension. The people of the town were, of course, frightened. Merchants and gentry began to send agents across the river begging our pardon. In these situations, the constitutional government was in control of the Guangxi militarists. Recognizing this, Sun retired to Shanghai. Tragically, Canton was, in the following four years, left in the hands of the Guangxi militarists. And these situations provided another arena for political investments for the Hong Kong merchants. Hong Kong Merchants in Favor of a "Canton for the Cantonese" By 1920, Guangxi's dominance in Guangdong was threatened by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 213 relationship with Chen - they "did not see eye to eye... [they] thrashed out their differences round the Council table which... they thumped." To arrange the finance of the new Government, Sun decided to reorganize the province's currency. The new policy was a total abolition of the existing currency and the introduction of a brand new currency under a new government bank. Originally, the new bank was to have had a reserve of $10,000,000, but it turned out that the Canton government could only put up 30% of the original amount. As a government bank, it had the right to issue new currency, to control the treasury and the salt gabelle in Guangdong. The crucial thing it lacked, as shall be seen, was credit worthiness. The merchant's prediction proved correct. In response, the chambers of Commerce wrote a joint letter to Sun, stating that "to cancel the existing currency (issued by the Bank of China in Canton) was equivalent to an act of sentencing them to the death penalty." Ending the letter, the chambers warned the government that "if the creditability of the Government was shattered [by this incident], the new notes issued by the Provincial Bank of Guangdong may suffer too." The brand new currency issued by the new government bank, amounting to $1,500,000, depreciated sharply once it began circulation. It was in March 1921 that Chen Jiongming secretly approached "the leading Chinese merchants in Hong Kong," requesting them to form into an advisory council for the Guangdong Government, which was responsible for giving advice on the "administration of the province in relation to civil and financial matters." ** Coinciding with Chen's move, it was Liu Zhubo who submitted a confidential report to the Governor of Hong Kong on a scheme to finance a new government in Canton - "the object of the proposed organization was to finance Chen Ch'iung-ming (Chen Jiongming) and enable him to sever [his] connection with Sun Yat-sen." According to Liu Zhubo's proposal, this new Canton government was to be modelled "after the form of government of Hong Kong" under the supervision of the Cantonese merchants. In Liu's words: The Political ship of Canton - officiated, manned and navigated as it now is - is bound to strike rock... what the Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and Canton should do, and do at once, is to prepare and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 215 negotiations with Chen Jiongming as “Canton needs the salvage of a large and united body of influential men" and they all "begged me [Lu] to form the Merchants' Association at once”. "All urging me not to leave things as they were", emphasised Liu, and they were "offering to support whole-heartedly the scheme of government that I might propose" Immediately after Liu's return to Hong Kong in late March, Liu Zhubo announced an organizational charter for a "Business Maintenance Committee". This committee was to raise a loan of $3,000,000 for the new Canton Government. To put up the sum, Liu proposed two methods to recruit adequate subscribers. The committee would either include a membership of 300 merchants with subscription fee of $10,000 or a membership of 30,000 with a subscription fee of $100. This charter was actually published and distributed in Canton and Hong Kong With everything in place, Chen Jiongming broke with Sun Yat-sen in June 1922. During the incident, Sun's residence was bombarded. Sun fled to a gunboat and, from Hong Kong, he escaped to Shanghai Chen Jiongming's co-operation with the Hong Kong merchants, however, proved to be a very short one. Sun returned to Canton in January 1923 with the military support of the Yunnanese and the financial support of the Siyi men from Hong Kong Back in Canton, Sun faced the familiar problem of trying to organize a government without adequate money and with no real command over military forces. To prevent the guest armies from mutiny, Sun had to provide a daily maintenance expense of $20,000 to $30,000 to the armies. Added to this problem was Sun's inability to collect tax in the province. Almost all the existing organizations for tax collection were non-functioning in the face of the guest armies who divided Guangdong into spheres of influence. Immediately upon his return, Sun called for a meeting with the merchants in Hong Kong. Fifty overseas returned merchants in Hong Kong, led by Li Yutang, met Sun Yat-sen in the Cement Factory of Guangdong. In response to Sun's call for financial support, Li made a public speech. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 216 If Generalissmo Sun can give us, the renmin [the people], supervisory power [over the government], we the people will maintain the situation. After all, all the generalissmo needs is just several millions. Anticipating Sun's return to power in 1923, the Siyi men from Hong Kong announced that they could raise several billion dollars for the new government if the following two conditions were granted: 1. Every one dollar lent to Sun should be paid back by two dollars. The financial departments of the Canton government were to be managed by the Siyi companies. 2. The Siyi men should have a say over the appointment of the future Provincial Governor of Guangdong. Desperate for money, Sun accepted these conditions. Having resumed his power in Canton, Sun fulfilled his promises by giving the important posts of Provincial Governor, Ministry of Finance, and Commissioner of Salt Transport to the Siyi men. Under these Siyi men, a Guangzhou Guanchan Gengjiju, literally, the Guangzhou Registration Bureau for Government Properties, was established for the registration of immovable properties in Canton City. Accordingly, all properties controlled by lineage, temple, and guild hall were declared public properties until "red deeds" (land deeds issued by the Qing government) were produced. Financial rewards were given to those who reported to the Office any unknown Guanchan (government property) or Gongchan (public property) kept in private hands. Under the pretext of land classification and deed examination, thousands of sites and buildings held by private hands were confiscated and sold under the office of Guangdongsheng Guanchan Qinglichu (**Guangdong Province Government Property Clearance Office**), literally, the Guangzhou Government Property Clearance Office under the control of a Siyi director. The major duty was to sell "public property" and "government property" in Canton to private owners. By subjecting everything to inspection and registration and requiring heavy fees on every act, at least $120,000,000 was collected by the Municipal Government. From 1923 to 1925, every tax rate in Guangdong was doubled and some quadrupled, besides already having the addition of hundreds of new imposts. The China ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 217 Weekly Review recorded that: Sun has been importing, to support his ambition to become the President of China, several hundred thousand politicians and mercenaries. To support them, exorbitant taxes had been created, public lands and buildings sold, private property confiscated; and many men and women pressed into involuntary servitude. These auctions and speculations gave rise to a land boom in Canton. The record of the British War Office stated that “in the last few months there has been a considerable rise in the prices fetched by land sold by auction in the open market and an outburst of speculation in real estate. Demand exceeds the available supply…” The China Weekly Review also recorded that the "boom in lands and shares" was the most outstanding feature of the year of 1923. “Both markets helped to swell government's income, the former with premia and the latter by stamp duties. Money too plentiful, speculation rife. Work seems to have been plentiful.” It was recorded that the tax return for deed registration by the end of October 1924 amounted to $5,310,000. Between 1919 and 1927, a large quantity of land and property in Canton, amounting to $55,197,514, was also purchased by overseas Chinese merchants. These figures suggest that the real estate market in Canton drastically expanded over these few years. Amidst this boom of real estate, understandably, not every piece of "public" or "government" land was openly put up for auction. These properties could always be purchased through personal networks. In some cases, one could purchase the land with just 10% of the estimated price for auction. A large number of land investment and mortgage companies were then found in Canton, the majority of them were under the control of the Siyi men. Among other examples, the Canton Sanshui R.R. Wharf on the Bund, together with the control over the ferry services, was sold to a Wu Dongkai (吳東楷), one of Sun's Siyi financiers in Hong Kong and an old member of the "Thirty men subscription team”. The most notorious case was the purchase of the Guangdong Nonglin Shiyan Chang (廣東農林實驗場), literally the Canton Agricultural Experiment Laboratory. The Bank of Canton, under the directorship of Li Yutang, purchased the site and buildings of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 218 Laboratory in 1923. The site was about 200,000 square metres, and the buildings were the government offices in Canton, which were to be sold to the Bank of Canton for a nominal price of just $550,000. This figure was eventually adjusted to only $220,000, being the deduction of the overdue interest that Sun had to pay to the Bank of Canton for all the loans that he had previously borrowed from the Siyi men. Showing their generosity, the Bank of Canton promised to pay $5,000 for the removal of the government offices from the site of the Laboratory. The agent in this purchase was none other than Yang Xian (), the Minister of Finance, a member of the Siyi "thirty men subscription team" and a principal shareholder of the Bank of Canton. After the purchase, the Bank announced its intention to sell the Experiment Station. They asked for a price of $850,000, four times the purchase price. The sales of "public properties" evoked severe criticism by the press, and by those lineages, temples and monasteries whose properties were being confiscated. The Cantonese expressed their resentment toward Sun in a very satirical way; the Chinese press recorded that a "Sun Yat-sen hairstyle" was then very popular in the province. The Cantonese were abandoning the old method of using vegetable liquor to fix and to gel their hair. They simply let loose their hair. The idea of the "Sun Yat-sen hair-style", therefore, was intended to laugh at Sun's practice of letting loose everything in the province and leaving things in a great mess. The Coming of the Soviet Influence The Siyi men's attempts to re-organize the financial situations in Guangdong were never successful. Among other examples, a record in the Shenbao reported that soon after Yang Xian was appointed the Minister of Finance, a small band of Yunnanese soldiers came to his office to cash in a future cheque of $3,000 issued by Sun Yat-sen. When the office failed to pay immediately, Yang Xian was searched, fastened and detained by the Yunnanese soldiers. He was released only after his relatives paid the "ransom" of $3,030. Sun Yat-sen, thereafter, turned to another alternative. When Sun Yat-sen returned to Canton in 1923, he brought with him two groups of allies from Shanghai. The first group was the Soviet advisors, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 219 the second was the Zhejiang clique under Jiang Jieshi. With Soviet aid and with Jiang Jieshi, Sun decided to embark on two important programs, the establishment of a central bank, and the setting up of a military academy in Huangpu. At this point, things came full circle. The merchants, threatened by what they believed to be a “red invasion” in Guangdong, tried to organize a heavy-armed merchant corps to fight against Sun. This is a story in itself; it will have to await another article. Suffice it to state here that it was in 1924, through the Compradore of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, that a large quantity of arms for the Merchants' Corps, a sort of militia equipped and hired by merchants for self-defence, were delivered. By late 1923, these troops numbered around 20,000, and their armaments included “4,850 rifles and 1,150,000 rounds of ammunition, 433 automatic pistols fitted with stock, and 2,060,000 rounds, 660 revolvers, large and small, with 164,200 rounds, and 40 machine guns with a huge quantity of ammunition.” These armaments, however, were confiscated by Sun on their arrival. The dispute led to a military confrontation between the Huangpu cadets and the merchant's corps at the West Gate of Canton. Almost all available forces under Sun participated in a military confrontation against the merchant corps. The attack began at 5:30 p.m. on October 14th. The Merchants' Corps had barricaded itself in the densely populated commercial section. Corpsmen fired down upon the invading corps from the strong towers which pawn shops used for storing valuables. But before the fighting really started, many parts in the West Gate were simultaneously on fire. By nightfall, much of the commercial section was in flames. The corps retreated to the roof floor of such Hong Kong-registered companies as the Sincere and Tai Sun Department Stores. Twenty-four hours later, the corpsmen were forced to surrender. They were disarmed, and then leaders fled to Hong Kong. Troops looted freely until the next day, when the government threatened looters with immediate execution. Property losses due to the fires were huge, around 600 to 1,000 buildings were burned and many others looted. With the confiscated arms, the Huangpu cadets moved northward for their national unification. Following this, there were several interesting developments. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 81 A LOOK BACK : CIVIL ENGINEERING IN HONG KONG 1841-1941 Preface C. MICHAEL GUILFORD This brief wide-ranging general article written as a contribution to mark the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (from 1947-1975, The Engineering Society of Hong Kong). It was originally published in three parts in Asia Engineer, the Journal of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (July, August and September 1997). In this reprint, the opportunity has been taken to make minor corrections, mainly typographical, and to add 17 illustrations which should make the article more interesting. The author would like to express his thanks to Henderson & Associates, the publishers of Asia Engineer, for their kind agreement for the article to be reprinted in the Journal. Introduction Before the British arrived in 1841 the population on Hong Kong Island, who lived in or around 20 small villages, was less than 6,000 (about a third being afloat), whilst in Kowloon there were probably around 2,000 souls and, in the New Territories (then part of San On district) about 100,000 persons living in some 600 villages. At this time granite quarrying around the harbour was a thriving industry (for example at Quarry Bay and Hok Un), much of it being used locally with some being exported by boat to Canton (Guangzhou). The abundance of old lime kilns around the seashore indicates that there was no shortage of lime for the production of cementing material. Civil engineering works were generally simple and geared to meet the needs of the rural and fishing communities. As a result a network of rural paths, some paved with granite setts, and footbridges were constructed, an example of the latter being the existing Pin Mo Bridge at Shui Tau (near Kam Tin) which was built in 1710 (49th year of K'ang Hsi), a simple twin-span structure with the decking formed by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 91 Kong village in 1936, thus providing access to the proposed second airfield site at Pat Heung. In the following year the first roadworks on the outlying islands were undertaken at Muk Wo (Mui Wo) on Lantau, primarily to provide access to the ferry pier. Drainage In 1843, a particularly bad year for disease, some essential drainage was begun and, by 1847, 740 metres of city drains had been laid in Victoria. At Happy Valley the muddy waters discharging from the surrounding hills via Wong Nei Chong (literally yellow mud stream) created swamp and healthwise lethal conditions, in particular following heavy rain. By 1846 the rice and sweet potato farmers at Happy Valley were bought out and the flat land drained, thus making the area less unhealthy than before. In spite of drainage improvements in and around the city, the mortality rate amongst European troops remained exceptionally high, for instance in 1851 it reached 24% compared with 10% for the civilian population, this latter percentage being swollen by the deaths of seamen. In the early days, to avoid flooding in low-lying areas, main drainage nullahs (large open channels) were constructed, the earliest in the central district probably being the Murray Barracks Nullah, which ran through the naval dockyard area, and the winding Victoria Barracks Nullah. At East Point, an impressive 6m-wide and 3.6m-deep nullah, the Bowrington Canal (now decked and located under Canal Road) which carried the run-off from the Happy Valley catchment area was planned as early as 1842. In Wan Chai, Stone Nullah Lane was located above a stream which ran below Hospital Hill (to the east of Morrison Hill). The quality of design/workmanship in the original drainage system clearly left a lot to be desired as, in 1860, a very heavy rain storm is reported to have burst most of the drains and also caused the collapse of some houses in Canton Bazaar (off Queen's Road opposite to the naval dockyard). During the violent typhoon in 1874, mounds of soil were again thrown up by bursting drains. The sewers also had other uses, for instance in 1863 twenty-two prisoners were known to have escaped from the old gaol in Hollywood Road by way of the monsoon drains whilst, in the next two years, the ingenuity and engineering skill displayed by “drain gangs" was such that a godown, jewellery store and even the vaults of a bank were entered by using storm-water drains. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 112 smaller pieces did exist firing shot of a few ounces. Similar weapons were used in the West, but were generally referred to as wall-pieces or swivel guns, the latter term being used particularly with reference to those mounted on the gunwales of ships. In describing the fortifications at Tinghai Lord Jocelyn reports: "on the walls were mounted gingalls and cannon of various calibres, but none exceeding a nine-pounder; and wall-pieces with shifting breeches, each having eight or nine spare breeches attached to it, ready loaded."23 This reference to wall-pieces with shifting breeches is of interest as they represent an early form of breech-loading. The idea dates back many years and King Henry VIII had weapons of this form; however, it fell from favour and in the mid-nineteenth century must have seemed very strange to western eyes. Finally there was the Chinese rocket. This had probably been in use for centuries, but it had not improved with time. Mackenzie notes that these were "the merest child's weapon being not above six inches long, fastened on a slender bamboo shaft and armed with a barb inserted at one end."24 Clearly it was not a mass killer, but it did claim at least one life,25 and it had a use as an incendiary device. As would be expected, the Chinese did learn from their experiences in the first war and by the second they had made considerable progress. It is recorded that when the forts at the entrance to the Pei Ho river were attacked in May 1858, that: "The guns were much better cast, and not so unwieldy as those in the Canton River, and were better equipped in every respect. They had good canister shot, and the hollow 8-inch shot appeared an imitation of our own. There were several English guns in the batteries."26 Hand-Held Arms The next class of weapons are the hand-held arms. On the European side the main projectile arm was the musket, a smooth-bored arm about 55 inches long, and firing a spherical lead ball of just over an ounce (14.5 No. to the pound). The flintlock musket used black powder (gunpowder) and ignition of the charge was achieved from the sparks ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 117 leading their men to an attack. 5 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 138. 6 Lord Jocelyn. Six Months with the Chinese Expedition. London, 1841, p. 41. 7 Although the benefits of rifling to give more consistent trajectories were known, no one had yet been able to come up with a practical means of taking advantage of it in a cannon. 8 Lieutenant John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of all the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking, London 1844, p. 98 notes that at Tycocktow the Gunboat Nemesis "threw shells into the upper fort." D. Bonner-Smith & E.W.R.Lumby. The Second China War 1856-1860. London, 1965, p.53 records that Rear Admiral Seymour reports that "The Barracuta at the same time also shelled the troops in the hills at the back of the city, from a position at the head of Sulphur Creek." 19 D. Bonner-Smith, op. cit., p. 173 records that Commander Forsyth of the Hornet reports "..commenced firing grape and shrapnel, with ricochet shot,into the whole mass of junks, which must have done dreadful execution, as they were crowded with men to excess." Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 239. 12 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 23 reports "a Congreve rocket, which was fired at the Admiral's junk, went through the deck into the magazine, upon which she immediately blew up." 13 Loch, op. cit., p. 40. 14 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 149 notes "In artillery they are very backward, their guns being of enormous weight in proportion to their calibre; some of the pieces of ordinance which we captured weighing seven ton, although only 42 pdrs; yet notwithstanding the immense thickness of metal in many cases the guns burst." 15 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 157 notes "in the great arsenal at Amoy, a large two-decked junk was found nearly ready for sea with guns, as well as something bearing a resemblance to gun-carriages." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 151 on points where Chinese customs differed from British, but does so in rather a coy way. It says, for example, "The young female on the left is wearing a pair of small lady's shoes," rather than stating that the person in question has bound feet. The narrative explains what it was necessary to explain, and leaves it at that. More noticeable is the way the narrative focuses on Chinese activities, circumstances and customs which were similar to those of the British of the time. "The first [of the six illustrations] represents some women at work: the old woman in the foreground is hemming, ... and the little girls are making narrow silk braid. In the second, mandarins are playing a game somewhat similar to draughts in the garden of the Governor of Canton. The third shows the interior of a drawing-room, with a mandarin family and attendants." Other parts of the narrative, “Domestic Life in China,” show similarity in difference. “Each lady has an attendant behind her. The young lady to the right of the picture is unmarried: this is indicated by her hair being still in a queue - the hair being put up at marriage. The attendants are slave-girls, with fans to fan their mistresses. The fifth view exhibits a group of ladies of distinction and visitors. The ladies are seated with their visitors at a table partaking of tea and sweetmeats. The box on the table is divided into compartments to contain different kinds of sweetmeats, the old lady in the centre of the picture has a chopstick in her hand, to help the visitors to sweets; the lady to the right is about to take a whiff from the water-pipe which the little slave-girl is holding and lighting. Tea is brought immediately on the arrival of visitors; some time afterwards sweets are served and some fresh tea, after which pipes are carried to each lady by her own slave-girl. The last Sketch depicts a group of ladies receiving visitors. The ladies have all risen to receive a visitor, and one has stepped forward to bow to her. In bowing each lady takes hold of one of her own sleeves, and, whilst bowing, shakes it. Each of the company follow in order, and go through the same ceremony." Smoking by ladies of rank would have been highly unusual in Britain at the time, being practiced rather by gypsy women, and there were no "slave-girls" in Britain. But putting up one's "back hair" was a mark of maturity in Britain also at this time, and the polite partaking of tea and sweets was certainly familiar to British readers. So were ceremonies of politeness in the greeting of guests, although following different forms. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 384 by 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, The 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. The 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. Once 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. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x first time that an RASHKB representative, in this case your President, has been invited to sit on a government committee of this nature. The Branch has also been notified by various bodies who were searching for scholars: for instance the Urban Council which was looking for a Hong Kong Researcher(s) to compile a monograph on the history of the Urban Council. We have also received a number of queries from the media, scholars, students and members of the public. Such queries referred mainly to Hong Kong history, culture or customs. We were generally able to answer such enquiries. Subjects ranged from conditions in prisoner-of-war camps under the Japanese; to the retaking of Hong Kong in 1945 after World War Two; to a doctorate student seeking information about Wei Hai Wei. In another case the business house of Swire was trying to find out where the place, Bak Hin Hok, was. This was found to be, thanks to Dr Joseph Ting, a district in Canton as it was so named a century or so ago. In some cases, with such queries, a number of RAS members and considerable time, research and interviews have been necessary. The RASHKB Volunteers This working group of well over 20 members on roll has, for much of the year, gone off on expeditions every other week or so, to inspect and report on various buildings or sites. These have included such structures as the old Kai Tak Airport, military installations and Chinese shop-houses. There is no doubt that these inspections, which are another form of community service, are of significant value to the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office to whom reports are submitted. We are grateful to all our Volunteers many of whom put in a considerable amount of time and effort which includes research and writing up reports. A special vote of thanks must go to Bill Greaves and Bob Horsnell, both Chartered Surveyors, historians and long-time residents of Hong Kong, who lead our band of stalwart Volunteers. 'Friends' of the RASHKB This group of overseas RASHKB members has completed another successful year in Britain and a report, written by David Gilkes (RASHKB Immediate Past President), the 'Friends' Chairman, has been prepared. Your President was pleased to be able to attend their AGM in xvii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 27 small group of soldiers there, so the risk of attack was then real. This was particularly so since pirates were a notorious risk in the waters between Kowloon City and the Lei Yue Mun Passage throughout the period from the middle eighteenth century to the late 1840s, and Nga Tsin Wai was both relatively wealthy, and only a few hundred yards from the coast. After 1841, when the Sub-Magistracy, and the local garrison command were moved back to Kowloon City, the number of soldiers posted near Nga Tsin Wai should have been enough to frighten off bandits in most circumstances. However, the League of Seven faced one major attack, in 1854. In 1854 a group of Taiping rebels approached Kowloon City25. The villagers of Nga Tsin Wai believe that the garrison at Kowloon City all fled, with the officials, and the traders in the Market. The League of Seven was thus left with no defence against the bandits except what they could muster themselves. The villagers of Nga Tsin Wai say that the elders of the League of Seven besought Tin Hau to help them with advice. They cast the divining-blocks (FF) - should they stay and fight, or flee? The Goddess told them to stay, and, in a spirit of devotion, they decided to follow her advice. The villagers of the undefended League of Seven villages fled inside the walls of Nga Tsin Wai, and the gate was heavily barred. Nga Tsin Wai had, as noted above, two iron cannon above the gate, and a brass jingal at each corner tower. These guns were all readied, and stocks of gunpowder gathered. When the Taiping bandits appeared before the village, the League villagers fought them off valiantly, and the bandits eventually left, leaving the League of Seven untouched. The villagers consider this success to be a miraculous intervention by the Goddess: great drops of sweat were seen on the Goddess' brow, showing what a huge effort she was making to throw back the bandits. The leader of the villagers in this defence was Shue-tong (A), from the tenth descent line of the clan. He was later commended by the Ch'ing Government, and granted the honour of a peacock's feather for his role in this defence. The official records generally agree with the villagers' memory of this event. There can be little doubt that the merchants in the totally undefended Market at Kowloon would have fled on the approach of the rebels, but it seems likely from the official records that the garrison did as well, since the rebels, led by Loh A-tim (E), were able to capture the Walled City, seemingly without any fighting, on the 26th day of the 7th Moon, 1854. Seven days later, a relieving force of soldiers under the command No ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 155 speaking guard commander about the RAF officers and he says they will soon be back, being in Canton or HK. The WO takes me to his flat where he proceeds to question me through the interpreter about the RAF, where we kept our stores, and how their Air Force compares to the RAF. He wants me to write my answers down on paper. I refuse to answer most questions but I give my opinion of their Air Force which is far from complimentary. Am also asked if they could have. The last block of the diary was incomplete. A possible partial translation of this block is as follows: reduced HK earlier by bombing indiscriminately. I write lines of nonsense about raids on London. Manage to pinch a handful of cigarettes before I go back to camp. Cigarettes run out and we smoke dried tea leaves which are pretty foul. Another parcel including cigarettes and curry. Week ending fourteenth. Getting warmer and diet beginning to have effect. Many men with beriberi or swelling of ankles and have difficulty in walking. Feel fairly fit but lack energy. Common sight to see several dead bodies in sea. George orders all ranks to salute him. Twenty-first. Florrie turns up in her best effort looking charming. Suspect Rangoon has fallen and Japs have a big celebration. Outlook looks decidedly grim. Troops put on an excellent concert and George attends. Have started brewing wine from raisins. Japs say officers are to be paid so shall be able to send some to Florrie. Weather hot and acquire quite a tan; ours started to malign our people in the camp. Make most of a pair of wooden clogs as I only have one very old pair of shoes. Thirty-first. Japs have another search and confiscate all electrical kit including Chippys' immersion heater. No meat for over a week and everyone gets one rice pot. Celebrate the twenty-fourth birthday of Ray and T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 94 Wei, and saw active service in the Third China War, "The Boxer Rising" [10 June-31 December 1900]. In 1901 he was posted to South Africa to serve with the mounted infantry, taking part in operations in Cape Colony and the Transvaal [December] and the Orange Free State (January to May 1902]. From 1904 to 1908 he was appointed as Inspector of Chinese Labour in the Transvaal. He was the Military Secretary to the Governor of Madras in 1907, and in May 1914 he transferred to the Reserve of Officers with the rank of Major, but was recalled in August 1914 serving again with the DLI before being transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and then transferring back again to the infantry, commanding 17th Battalion of the King's [Liverpool] Regiment [Pals] before being severely wounded and gassed at Trones Wood in July 1916, being invalided home in early August 1916 aboard the Asturias. He was again gassed, after returning to France on the night of the 29th July 1917 at Guillemont. He established the HQ for the CLC at Noyelles in 1917, staying at the villa, with an unusual name of “Daisy Cottage", serving as GHQ Adviser Chinese Labour, from 1917 to 1919. During World War II he was a Zone Commander for the Yorkshire Home Guard and died on 24 January 1950 at the age of 76. 4 pai is a section and tou is a head or boss. Decauville was a French company that manufactured a portable light railway system much used by the military. It was almost a full-size [but narrow gauge] railway system which could be laid down and picked up like the old model toy train sets. • The difference between Male and Female tanks was based on the type of weapons they carried. Male tanks, like "Fan-tan,” carried a pair of 57mm cannon, one on each side, together with two or three auxiliary machine-guns. Female tanks only carried machine-guns, two each side and one at the front which, in First World War terms made them more dangerous than their male counterparts. [The female being deadlier than the male!] Numbers after names or in the text refer to the man's service number. * Demeestrere, Matthieu : article in a French magazine th Mellor, Norman: With the Chinese Labour Corps - France 1918 10 The CWGC, in a written reply to the author, stated that the fifth phrase used on CLC headstones is translated as "True till death", but the characters used would ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 282 Egypt, which was built in the 3rd century B.C. - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was an eight-sided tower on top of which was a cylinder that extended up to an open cupola where the fire that provided the light burned. On the roof of the cupola was a large statue of Poseidon (the Greek God of the Sea and Earthquakes) facing the sea, northward. It was said ships could detect the light from the tower at night or the smoke from the fire during the day up to 100 miles away. The lighthouse collapsed in the 14th century, probably as the result of an earthquake. The remains of Pharos are now at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Its name, however, has become the root of the word "lighthouse" in the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian languages.2 Modern navigation aids By the 21st century traditional aids to navigation have already gradually taken over. These include satellite navigation systems in order to cope with the needs of high speed and the huge volume of modern sea transportation. Even more recent inventions like the Radio Beacon and the Decca Navigator System are now almost obsolete. The Global Positioning System (GPS), provided by satellites, is now the primary position fixing system for marine navigation. A public Differential GPS service is able to enhance the accuracy of GPS signals to within 10 metres up to 50 nautical miles around the coasts off the United Kingdom and Ireland. This system assists the safe passage of all classes of vessels from cargo ships, cruise liners and fishing vessels to small yachts. As a back-up system to the GPS, chains of Loran C on land are also adopted.3 Nineteenth century Hong Kong In Hong Kong, things were quite different. There was not much sea traffic going to China before the first Opium War (1839-42) because of the Chinese policy of keeping its doors closed to foreign trade. Canton (Guangzhou), in the Pearl River Delta, was the city where limited foreign trade was permitted under stringent conditions. Macao under Portuguese administration served well as a buffer for foreign merchants waiting for the start of the trading season. Only after the Treaties of Nanking, Peking and Tientsin (1842-1860) was China forced to open up more and more ports for trade. Hong Kong's Victoria harbour became ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 297 CROWN B.P.36 1844 (Harrison; 1999) Apart from oral history, no written evidence has been uncovered to confirm that these two cannons, now at Queen's College, once fortified Waglan Island (Lee; 1999). Badly corroded, an old cannon is set on its muzzle and buried into the rocks up to its trunnions, where the old landing stage used to be. This old cannon acted as a bollard for tying up boats. A small boat would transport supplies from the mother ship to shore. From there drums of diesel, bags of coal, firewood and other material were manhandled up the steps to the top of the Island. Coal and firewood were the only fuels for cooking up to the late 1960s. A new, larger landing stage, a little to the north, was constructed in the 1960s. A cable railway was also installed for raising stores and equipment. Because it is a restricted area, there were (and still are) few visitors to Waglan although there was a visitors' book. It was considered an auspicious day when the late Sir Robert Black, Governor of Hong Kong from 1958 to 1964, visited the lighthouse in 1963. Communications In other parts of the world lighthouse keepers, years ago, would use semaphore for signalling. The author has not seen nor heard of this happening in Hong Kong. Also, in the Hong Kong Marine Police (previously called Water Police), up until about 1926 around 50 pigeons were kept on strength. Half a dozen or so were taken out on each police launch to fly messages back to headquarters. There is no record, as far as the author knows, of pigeons being used to fly messages from lighthouses. Signals used to be sent by flashing lamps, however, using Morse code, to passing ships. In the mid-1950s HMS Tamar operated a radar station on Waglan. Waglan also had two sets of fog horn signalling equipment (there were also two electrical generators), in case one broke down. When the foghorn was operating it sounded every five minutes. Normally the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g بلد 325 they listened to his plans to modernise China and how he could raise the capital to assist them succeed in doing so, they always went their own ways, often adapting his plans but - as he stressed - without his guiding hand they were never the success they could have been had he been permitted to supervise them. In 1905 he described how back in 1879 he had travelled to Sichuan from Guiyang where he had been trying to persuade the Guizhou Provincial Governor, Chen Yuying, to develop the resources of the province by means of a railway from Guiyang to Yongxian in Guangxi province, connecting that city with Canton by a line of steamers on the Yun and West Rivers. He then spent over six months in Chongqing, again offering to supply funds and plans for building suitable steamers to navigate the upper waters of the Yangzi, through the Gorges as far as Chongqing and beyond to Yibin. He added that he was able to speak with authority on the navigation of the upper Yangzi by steamers, "but no one would listen to me, and even intelligent foreigners, when consulted on the subject, declared I was a visionary and an imaginator of many impractical plans. Some ten days later in a subsequent issue of his Miscellany he wrote 'Whilst here in Shanghai in November 1875, I offered to superintend the construction of a suitable steam-boat for navigation on the upper Yangzi, as far up as Yibin and Chengdu, but the wise Britishers of those days declared that was an impossibility, because British naval officers had studied the subject and declared it to be impossible. I proved to be a good quarter of a century ahead of the progressive age.' Steam-boats now navigate the Upper Yangzi for all that, though they are not as useful as they might have been, had they been devised and constructed under the guidance of a mastermind! 3 Paul King : In the Chinese Customs Service: Heath and Cranton Ltd : London : 1924. Archibald John Little : Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China: Sampson Low, Marston & Co.: London : 1898 [Third and Revised Edition]. Facing p. 288 of Little's book, Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China. William Mesny: Mesny's Chinese Miscellany : Shanghai : 1st January Page 375 Page 376 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 382 run on iron plates inlet into the lower frame. The two do, however, have some connection. Three vertical iron plates are mounted between the two main timbers of the frame, running from front to back. A mechanism, known as a compressor, attached to the gun carriage is designed to grip these plates. (Figure 7) The levers on either side of the carriage adjust the amount of pressure applied to the plates. The purpose of this seemingly complicated mechanism is to control the recoil of the gun. The friction between the plates and the clamp absorbed the recoil energy and limited the backward movement. After firing and reloading, the clamp could be loosened and the carriage run forward, reclamped, and made ready to fire another round. All in all, a very ingenious solution, although not very efficient in practice as the action was rather harsh. The cannon was obviously up-to-date when it was installed but the world was experiencing an arms race at the time. This was particularly true of coastal defences. Ships had thicker armour plating and bigger and better cannon. They were not only more difficult to sink but they constituted a serious threat to the forts. Coastal artillery had to respond and it too became bigger and better. Breech loading and rifling were introduced to increase the rate of fire and improve the accuracy. The advance in technology meant that cannon like the one at Taipa Fort soon became obsolete and were usually replaced. Fortunately Taipa was not attacked and Taipa Fort was never tested. Its strategic significance was less important as pirates could be more easily controlled with modern ships, hence there was no pressure to update its defences. Although similar cannon and mountings were in position in other forts in Macau, the Taipa Fort gun is a lone example left with a barbette mount in its original position. Not only is it a reminder of Macau's past, but it also bears testament to the engineers of the nineteenth century and their never ending quest for better weapons, a quest that continues to this day. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 206 on the doctrines" written in the books. Kot himself visited Ch’ea twice more in the latter's home, sharing again in worship and conversation. Sometime later, he claimed, "I was six tenths of a believer." Rather than base his methods on a strict adherence to intellectually understood doctrines, Ch'ëa took a more traditional Chinese approach in inviting "seekers" to join him in an experience of prayerful worship. Understanding doctrines might come only after a concrete experience of "worshipping in spirit" had opened new religious vistas for the seekers. Kot admits that he was “still kept back by the influence of worldly custom," probably threatened by neighbours who told him that if he followed Ch'ea's radical departure from traditions, he and the village would suffer a spiritual blight from higher powers. Gradually convinced by Ch'ea's "great earnestness and reverence," Kot himself in the end chose to risk further incriminations by joining Ch’ëa in travelling to Hong Kong. There he was notably impressed not by the doctrines expounded but by "such pious worship, and such excellent rites, surpassing even what Mr. Ch'ëa himself said and did." Though it is not clear that Kot represents the only kind of positive response to Ch'ea's evangelistic methods, it is significant that his approach to Christian doctrine came through a complex interaction of experiences including private worship, friendly discussion, earnest exhortations, and extensive reading. What seemed to impress him most was the form of life expressed in Christian Sabbath culture more than the "essential doctrines" of the Christian religion, though these were undeniably expressed and discussed as well. 63 Another picture is offered later in 1859 by two German missionaries who passed through Poklo. Recognizing them as Christians, Ch'ea became their intermediary among the local people and the "mandarins," suggesting that Ch'ea's boldness was increasing over time.64 (Germans at this time were given some special privileges since their nation was not involved in the prolonged military problems centred on Canton. At this time there was still an official state of war being actively pursued by groups of Qing and Cantonese militia using "guerrilla warfare tactics" against British and French troops stationed in the area of Canton.) The European travellers noted that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 207 Ch'ea was also in the "habit of going about with a board on his back," announcing by this means certain "striking sentences of the New Testament" written in large Chinese characters. One can imagine that if these "striking sentences" were considered offensive by neighbours and acquaintances, a complaint would also travel back quickly to the civil leadership. Legge himself recorded numbers of comments about Ch'ëa's evangelistic zeal and preaching as they travelled together in the Poklo district in May, 1861. Since several weeks were spent together on boats travelling up and down the East River, there was much time to reflect on their shared missionary project, pray over problems, and work together during various periods of literature distribution and preaching. Overall, Legge was impressed with Ch'ea's consistency in character and genuine interest in others. In addition, Ch'ëa acted as their interpreter before the Poklo magistrate, Wang Shouren, causing "astonishment and exaltation among the people," because the "gauntlet of scorn" he had often passed through in other settings was now surprisingly forgotten, even to the point that he was given a position of relative honour.67 66 Often Ch'ea and Leung Man-shing (Liáng Wenchéng), one of the Chinese colporteur-evangelists, went into a new town first to present the cards and map-sized travel documents of the foreign missionaries to the local mandarin, facing any threats that might come their way for associating with British citizens. This was a very sensitive problem because, although new treaty provisions promised free and safe travel for all foreigners entering China, there were still at this time British and French troops bivouacked in the city of Canton. In fact, they had remained in Canton for more than three years, maintaining their military posts since taking the city after a major offensive move in 1857. In addition, the British attack on the emperor's Summer Palace in Beijing during the summer of 1860 only heightened fears and resentment, even though it squashed Qing opposition and brought about their compliance at the treaty table. Undoubtedly all of this was common knowledge among the Cantonese citizens, a warrant for making any attacks on foreigners or their associates in spite of the treaty conditions.68 Besides, these signs of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 339 bath water first, then the wife, and father, who was the dirtiest and the smelliest, went in last. One man put an advertisement in the South China Morning Post. It read: Wanted Gentleman in Kowloon with water supply on Monday would like to meet attractive lady from Mid-Levels with water supply on Wednesday: purpose, sharing bath water. Those were the days before Plover Cove and High Island Reservoirs were built and before large amounts of water were piped in from China. Then, on 4th May 1964, Hong Kong had 2.44 inches (62 millimetres) of rain in 24 hours, its biggest downpour in 19 months. Again, during parts of July and August 1967, we were also down to four hours of water every four days. In some respects that was even more frightening because, as that was the year of prolonged riots in Hong Kong, we had no prospects of obtaining more water from China. Runs on banks Also in 1965 there were runs on banks, largely fuelled by rumours. Two banks which suffered were the Canton Trust Commercial Bank and the Hang Seng Bank. Rainstorms Although the 1960s was generally a dry decade there was a very heavy rainstorm one Sunday morning on 12th June, 1966. The heaviest downpour was over Aberdeen where 6.18 inches (15.69 centimetres) fell in one hour. That day we had 15.8 inches (40.13 centimetres) of rain in 24 hours. That compares with May 1889 when 27.44 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. By comparison, London has an average annual rainfall of about 23 inches, less than Hong Kong has had in one day. Riots To round the decade off there were also the 1966 Star Ferry Riots Page 405 Page 406 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 32 could see, and it seemed as if it were one vast garden'." Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas (1937) writes: "When the whole [EIC] China fleet was collected there, twelve or sixteen of the largest merchantmen in the world, together with the country ships, the spectacle must have been magnificent." He records that sometimes the Viceroy at Canton would come down to visit the fleet. The ships would be decked to receive the great man, with yards manned and officers in full dress.12 Canton Canton was, and is, the capital of the Guangdong Province. One of the larger and richer cities of the Chinese Empire, and dating back to pre-Han times, it had long been a major sea port for overseas trade, notably in the Tang Dynasty when it had a significant Arab and Muslim population. During the turmoil which accompanied the change of dynasty from Ming to Qing, it upheld the Ming, endured an eleven-month siege in 1650, and suffered a wholesale massacre of its inhabitants. However, it recovered, and by the mid-nineteenth century was credited with a population of around one million persons. It was renowned for its manufactories, carried on by human industry, without the aid of machinery, particularly in silk and cloth, women and children included, whilst trade - international and regional trade - was described as being 'the great business of life'.13 Canton was a walled city (actually two walled cities in one, the Old and the New) with major suburbs along the Pearl River, and to the West.14 As befitted its status, it contained the yamens (office-residences) of many senior government officials, including those of the governor-general of the two linked provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, the governor of Guangdong, the Canton prefect, two county magistrates, the Tartar general, the provincial naval commander, and the like, as well as those officials with charge of other, specialised concerns, and (of special status, since he was responsible directly to Beijing) the Hoppo or Superintendent of Maritime Customs, who oversaw the foreign trade and its accruing revenue. The Foreign Factories (British, French, Swedish, Spanish, Danish and Dutch) of the river suburb were so-called from their being the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 46 own 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 69 Fundamental aspects of the China Trade A Mutual Ignorance Whilst 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 The 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 75 confession as similar as possible to that which he made in 1866 to his fiancée Miss Hester Jane Bredon, but also acceptable at this later date - almost half a century after his relationship with Ayaou. Hart's ceasing and resuming his sexual relationship with Ayaou The duration of Hart's sexual relationship with Ayaou has long been vague to researchers due to limited primary sources concerned with this matter. It has only been possible to give a rough idea: "Hart's years of liaison with Ayaou (roughly 1857-1865)..." (Bruner, Fairbank, Smith 1986: 154) In Declaration 2 Hart himself states: "Ayaou lived with me at Ningpo during 1857 and went with me when I was transferred to Canton in February 1858. ... In 1866 I went home on leave and on that occasion the connection between Ayaou and myself was finally dissolved." This confirms that Hart did indeed start his relationship with Ayaou in 1857, but it was not finally terminated until 1866. This, however, does not necessarily mean that Hart maintained a sexual relationship with Ayaou for this time. In his diary entry for 6 August 1864 Hart writes: Temptation to get a concubine is very strong, I must confess: nothing bothers me so much, as my liking for women. It is, however, more than a year since I even touched one! (Smith, Fairbank, Bruner 1991: 171) In his diaries entry for the 14 August 1864 he also writes: "Now, for a whole year, I have on principle abstained from womanising.” (ibid: 179) These records give us a clue to the time when he ceased his sexual relationship with Ayaou. If "more than a year" is traced from 6 August 1864 back or “a whole year" from 14 August 1864 back, we are talking about the summer of 1863. This tallies with the time indicated in the second gap left in Hart's diaries: it starts on 6 December 1858 and ends on 6 June 1863 - ending at the exact time when he started to abstain from womanising. It indicates that Hart did not have a sexual relationship with Ayaou between the early summer 1863 and the late August 1864. In both Declaration 1 and 2, Hart states: "Between 1858 and 1864 ================================================================================