RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 60 K. M. A. BARNETT NOTES 1 "Amah Rock” — A more decent title would be the Mother and Child Rock. The Chinese name for this and many similar rocks is mong fhuuh sreak, ★❶. 2 Baat Xheong, ★❴. 3 Boo-ghonn, ❵. 4 Boo-shaann, ❷. 5 Braak-gok, ★❸. 6 Braak-mrong, ❹. 7 Braak-shaah-qou, ❻★. 8 Braak-xrok-dheonn, ❼. 9 Brok, ❽. C 10 Ceak-traap-gok, ★❾★. 11 Chaah-xhang, ★➀. also Taai-xhaang, ★ṃ. 12 Cheng-criw, ★☆ (+1644—+1911). 13 Cheng-jhih, ❵, name of a local fish. 14 Cheng-shaann, ❶☛. 15 Now called Cheng-shaann-whaann, ❶ which formerly applied to a smaller bay at the foot of Castle Peak itself. Cirn-whaann, ★★ see 26. 16 Corgwok, approximately +927-+951, but it is doubtful whether a nienhao was adopted. 楚剧 17 Crann, ★. 18 Crann Gwor, ❸. 19 Creah, ❹, Hakka eria. 20 All the other words now pronounced creah having formerly had initial ts, not ch. 21 Creah-drou, ❺, which however in this territory is always called xrorn-wroh, ★. 22 Creoy-criw, ★☆ +581 (locally from +589) to +618. 23 Creoy Crung-sreak, ★❶. 24 Crih-jrynn, ★❷. 25 Crih-xoe, ★❸. Crinn-whaann, ★★ see 26. 26 Crynn-whaann, (Crinn-whaann) and ★ also written , ★ (Zin-whaann), ★★ (Cirn-whaann), ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 246 1884/85 1885/86 CARL T. SMITH 16 Dec. 1884 "Still Waters Run Deep" comedy (T. Taylor, 1855) given in 1862, 1878. 17 Dec. 1885 "Chiselling" farce (J. J. Dilley and J. Albery, 1870) "Nine Points of the Law" (T. Taylor, 1859) in 1878. 18 Feb. 1886 — "The Overland Route" (T. Taylor, 1860) second performance of season. 1886/87 9 Mar. 1886 "Weak Woman" (H. J. Byron, 1875) benefit with Canton Amateurs for burned Canton Theatre. 7 Apr. 1886 — "Heads or Tails" (J. Palgrave Simpson, 1854) "Chiselling" farce (Dilley and Albery, 1870) given in 1885, 18 Nov. 1886 "A Widow's Hunt, or Everybody's Friend" comedy (J. Sterling Coyne, 1859) 30 Dec. 1886 — "Cups and Saucers" musical sketch (G. Grossmith 1878) "Our Wife" comedietta (J. M. Morton, 1850) 13 Apr. 1887 — "A Comical Countess" (Wm. Brough, 1854) "Our Soldiers" comedy (H. J. Byron, 1873) 1887/88 8 Nov. 1887 "Withered Leaves" comedietta (J. W. Broughton, 1875) "The First Night" comedy (J. M. Maddox, 1853) "The Rivals" (Sheridan, 1775) 17 Jan. 1888 1888/89 1889/90 1890/91 apparently no production this season. 26 Dec. 1889 last performance Mar. 1890 - 1 Christmas Pantomime: "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" Grand 26 Dec. 1890 --- "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" pantomime 30 Mar. 1891 - "The Two Roses" (J. Albery, 1870) 1891/92 24 July 1891 1864) "David Garrick" comedy (T. Robertson, 26 Dec. 1891, 23 Jan., 20 Feb. 1892- Christmas Pantomime: "Beauty and the Beast" 27 Feb., 1 Mar, 1892 21, 30 Apr. 1892 + "Betsy" (F. C. Burnand, 1879) "Turned Up" (or "Too Much Married") comedy, (M. Melford, 1886) Page 268 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 152 FOUND IN A PENNSYLVANIA ATTIC – Letters from China 1903-1906* WEI PEH T'I While cleaning out his mother's attic in Bala Cynwyd, Harry V. Ryder Jr.' found a bunch of letters that had been sent from Taiho. Bala Cynwyd is an affluent suburb of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; Taiho a river town in the northwestern corner of the interior province of Anhui in China. 2 The letters were dated between January 1903 and April 1906. They were written to Harry's maternal grandmother, Louese Hedges Strawbridge, by Edith Rowe, who was a classmate at a "finishing school” in Philadelphia. Both Louese and Edith were Baptists. Edith's letters reflected the high standard of private school education in eastern United States at that time. Her command of written English was more than respectable. Scenes and events were vividly described; ideas eloquently expressed; and grammar and spelling impeccable. Except for one or two words, her handwriting can be read without any difficulty. Two of the letters contain charming line-drawings, an old-fashioned practice still favoured by young students in American schools today. Louese Strawbridge was the only child of Samuel and Ann Hedges, who had come originally from Ohio. Samuel Hedges had served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war he brought his wife to Philadelphia where he became a successful horse trader.3 Bala Cynwyd is near Devon, in the heart of the Pennsylvania horse country. After graduating from the Friends School, Louese went to a “finishing school", then was married to George Strawbridge, scion of a family that had founded and operated the prestigious department store, Strawbridge and Clothier. Louese and George had four children. Catherine was born in 1896, Helen in 1900, Janet in 1903 and Benjamin in 1907. Except for Benjamin who died in * Lecture delivered to the Society on 6 October 1986. The author is grateful to Harry and Phyllis Ryder for making available the letters and for information on Harry's grandmother and her family. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 157 the letter back to Wuhu. I was explaining the delay in answering to you. Indeed your letters are worth the extra postage but I have never had to pay any on yours. This postage due system we have now takes a good many of the extra pennies and they are not always fair and square is why I sent your letter back. The letters on the average took five to six weeks to travel between Taiho and Bala by land and sea not slow progress even by today's standard of speed. They went by way of Wuhu, Shanghai, San Francisco or Seattle, and Philadelphia. One letter went by way of Nagasaki; another by way of New York. It usually took overnight between Philadelphia and the post office at Bala. One envelope bore the cancellation stamps of both Shanghai in English and that of the French Concession of Shanghai in French. Another envelope showed that the post office at Bala had forgotten to change the date on the cancellation stamp, since it had the letter arriving at Bala before it was even sent out of Philadelphia. Missionaries of the China Inland Mission were to learn the Chinese language before they were sent to their assigned stations; then the local dialect as well since they were to live among the populace in the interior provinces. Their primary objective was "to diffuse as quickly as possible a knowledge of the Gospel." Conversion to Christianity was not an essential part of their mission. In order to be as close to the populace as possible, lifestyle of the missionaries was "to conform as nearly as possible to the social and living conditions of the Chinese" around them. Until way after 1900, women missionaries of the China Inland Mission wore Chinese dresses. Edith Rowe's life at Taiho conformed to this pattern. Immediately after arrival in China, Edith went to the "Yang-chow House" of the mission to study Chinese. Her lessons continued at Taiho. Learning Chinese meant reading and writing the language as well as conversational Chinese. Commenting on a drawing she did of six Chinese men with pig-tails sitting on two benches listening to the Bible being read to them, Edith wrote that "my teacher... has a very nice tail indeed," indicating that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 166 WEI PEH T'I other hand, Edith wrote three letters in 1905 — mostly because she had so much to complain about Mrs. Ferguson. Therefore, more likely than not, Edith had written after April 1906, but these letters had not been saved. We do know that Louese had a new baby in 1907. With four children under ten years of age, even with a household of servants that Louese must have had, she would have found little time for letter writing. We also know that she became seriously ill shortly after the last child, her only son Benjamin, was born. The family today thinks that she had leukemia. At least it is thought to be a form of cancer. She was sick for a long time, and died in 1909, when she was only thirty-seven years old. NOTES Harry Ryder is serving as Commercial Counsellor at the United States Embassy in Kuwait. The Strawbridges were originally Quakers who had settled in Philadelphia, but the Ryders are Episcopalians. 2 At first, the Ryder family had believed Edith to be a classmate of Louese at the Central Friends School. Correspondence with Clayton Faraday, Archivist of the school, however, reveals that Louese had been a member of the class of 1890, but there was no mention of her among the list of graduates. Edith Rowe is unknown at the school. Therefore, a conjecture must be made that they were most likely classmates at the "finishing school". Had they been academic scholars, they would probably have been sent to Bryn Mawr College. I am grateful to Mr. Faraday for his timely reply to my inquiry, making it possible to correct the error in my original presentation to the society. 3 Colonel Hedges lived in an apartment attached to the Strawbridge house in Bala Cynwyd after his daughter's marriage. He survived both his wife and daughter. Harry Ryder remembers his great-grandfather, but never knew his grandmother. 4 Rowe letter dated 1 October 1903. 5 Protestant Missionary records. I am grateful to the Reverend Carl Smith for looking up this information. Hopefully there is more data on Edith in the archives of the China Inland Mission in London or Shanghai. 6 Jane Hunter, The Gospel of Gentility, American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the-Century China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 13ff 7 Hunter, 29-30. 8 Rowe letter dated 2 March 1905. As it turned out, one of Louese's grandchildren, Harry V. Ryder Jr., did join the Foreign Service, but it was the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 168 38 /hid WEI PEH T'I 39 Rowe letter dated 29 January 1903. 40 Rowe letter dated 17 February 1904. 41 Rowe letter dated 5 January 1905. 42 Rowe letter dated 1 October 1903. 43 Rowe letter dated 5 April 1904. 44 Rowe letter dated 24 August 1905. 45 Ibid. 46 Rowe letter dated 5 January 1905. 47 Rowe letter dated 2 March 1905. 48 Rowe letter dated 5 April 1906. 49 Rowe letter dated 1 October 1903. 50 Rowe letter dated 5 April 1906. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. Appendix: Letters from Edith Rowe to Louise Strawbridge (Mrs. George Strawbridge) of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania: (1) Yangchow January 29-03 My dear Louise: It was so kind and thoughtful of you to write to me here and send the book "The First Christmas". Both the letter and book came to me Christmas afternoon, so they had a double appreciation. My hands are so cold today I cannot hold my pen very well. Our house here is very comfortable, but we have no fires except in the sitting room and dining room, so the thermometer ranges from 30 degrees to 40 degrees in my room. I enjoy it for our Chinese clothes are very warm. You would laugh if you could see me, so we did at each other when we first put them on. Would you be interested for me to describe what I have on? We wear foreign underclothes, but try to dress as much like the natives as possible. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 82 The site of the flat in the case study is not perfect. The hills could surround the home, at the sides, more, thus providing a better 'armchair effect'. The shapes of hills and features on hills, similar to boulders such as Sha Tin's Amah Rock, frequently form the backdrop for wayside shrines. This rock did not ask, some rustics will tell you, to be eroded into the shape of a woman with a baby on her back, and the wind and the rain did not want to sculpt them, it is something that just happened. Such features display the power of nature and the majesty of the cultural landscape. Like the Australian aboriginals, boulders or other objects in Hong Kong can take the forms of beasts, real or imaginary. This is especially so for the Hakka Chinese. There is some resemblance between aspects of Chinese folklore and its Gaelic counterparts. The latter has its mischievous leprechauns. But whether it be a Chinese village hovel or a palace, the ideals to aim for are similar. With the basic grammar of an ideal site, with us 'armchair of slopes' and 'ring of sunny hills', the spur on the right is known as the 'Azure (green in Cantonese) Dragon'. That on the left is described as the 'White Tiger'. More of an armchair effect would give the building in our case study better protection against calamities. Like typhoons for instance, which rampage in from the south-east. In the case of a mountain, which should be tranquil but can also signify 'authority and vigour, it may 'overpower' the natural environment. A 'killer breath' (shaar hei), as mentioned earlier, with harmful currents that travel in straight lines, may develop. There, the chi is violent. In some instances these forces can be deflected by screens, fences, water, fountains, mirrors or lucky charms. An eight-sided Baat Kwa, with Trigrams in the centre, may be used. A small, hand-held 'windmill' can be employed to disperse strong chi. With such remedial measures an unfavourable site may later be classified as favourable. Nevertheless, because of inauspicious circumstances and the anger of the gods, a slope or cliff consisting of partly decomposed rock may turn to mud during a storm. Thus a hill may not provide the intended security to a building. 'Feels as if the mountain top is always watching you,' is how some villagers explain it. To overcome such 'negative influences', trees can be planted to form a 'curtain' in an effort to 'mask' the ridge (Ajmer, 1968:75). But, during the Japanese Occupation in World War II, such trees were sometimes felled because of a fuel shortage. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 91 There are, for example, the Nine Stars and the 24 Mountains. The 24 Celestial Mansions, the 24 Fortnightly Climatic Periods, the 24 Characters, and the Five Elements are also represented. The compass, made from timber and coated with lacquer, not only tells direction, namely east, south, west, north and centre (the 'five' cardinal points), but it also shows the position of the sun at different periods of the year. To use the compass the base is placed parallel with the door, wall or other object to be oriented. The rings are then rotated so that things are lined up. As a model of the universe, then, the loh poon helps its fung shui master interpret and predict, from the mystic Chinese characters, the client's future. This is done with the 'Eight Trigrams' forming the paat kwa (the eight-sided divining diagram as detailed in the I Ching) which is displayed on the inner section of the compass (Sung, 1934; and Sung, 1935). With the 'Eight Trigrams' two parallel continuous lines represent the 'Great Male Principle', and two parallel broken lines represent the 'Great Female Principle', and so on. The ancient book, the I Ching, is regarded as almost sacred in some quarters and dates back to about 2800 BC, although the oldest extant commentaries were probably written closer to 1300 BC (Markert, 1986). The I Ching deals with prognostication, fortune telling and philosophy, with sets of symbols and different ways of combining these symbols so that they form titular statements. Much is written in poetic language which is difficult for the lay Chinese to understand. These Trigrams mentioned above, made up of broken and unbroken lines in various relationships, are loathed by evil spirits in the same way that Holy Water, blessed by a Christian Priest, will fight evil. In fact in China's Fujian Province, to the North-east of Hong Kong, large circular, communal dwellings have one ring of houses encircling another ring (Huang, 1994, 11). A whole complex, as large as an Olympic stadium, houses hundreds of families. Such structures are said to be earthquake proof and designed to provide natural temperature control. Each complex is shaped similar to the baat kwa, as outlined above. As previously stated Chinese culture is woven around the 'Five Elements' in various ways (Needham, 1956, 243). The Five are employed, in fung shui, after consulting both the lunar and solar calendars (which ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g them to call a meeting of the manufacturers and seek a voluntary agreement to limit their exports to Britain as the committee had recommended." This was not an easy matter. If the industry in Hong Kong had been established by Jardine Matheson, Swire or one of the other leading British trading firms, the governor could have spoken personally to the directors and appealed for restraint; but the rubber shoe manufacturers were small Chinese firms which were most reluctant to co-operate." Before they would agree to limit their exports they demanded guarantees that the quota would be large enough to keep their factories operating at a profit; that no new footwear firms should be allowed to open in Hong Kong; and that there should be a comprehensive agreement between Canadian, British, Singapore and Hong Kong manufacturers to divide up the British market and exclude any new entrants from India or elsewhere. The British manufacturers suggested a quota for Hong Kong of 1,500,000 pairs. Hong Kong said this was far below the current rate of exports to Britain, and asked for at least 2,500,000 pairs. Negotiations between the British and Canadian manufacturers to divide up the British and Canadian markets between them broke down when one of the largest firms, Bata, refused to join the cartel. This failure left Hong Kong manufacturers free to expand their exports to Britain without a limit. The largest manufacturer in Singapore went bankrupt in 1935, enabling Hong Kong firms to penetrate further the British market. They exported 2,403,900 pairs of canvas and rubber shoes to Britain in 1935, 3,309,088 pairs in 1936, 4,849,324 pairs in 1937 and 7,007,604 pairs in 1938. These figures do not include exports to British colonies, which were also substantial. In 1939 a representative of the British manufacturers went out to Hong Kong to negotiate directly with the Chinese firms before going on to Canada. Agreement was reached for Hong Kong to have a quota of 6,600,000 pairs in the British market provided that the colony agreed to raise its prices to British levels. The Hong Kong government foresaw considerable administrative difficulties in implementing such an agreement. Legislation would need to be enacted to licence factories and to regulate exports, which would be extremely unpopular. The outbreak of war in September 1939 caused the agreement to be suspended indefinitely. Page 50 IV The imperial preferences agreed at Ottawa and the additional specific duties on footwear, hosiery and textiles failed to achieve their intended objective of excluding Japanese competition and leaving the colonial markets free for British and Canadian textile manufacturers. The Japanese had little difficulty in absorbing these additional costs and undercutting British and ================================================================================