RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g HON EDITOR of the period in later life in two well-known books entitled The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days 1825-1844 (Kelly & Walsh, 1882 and 2nd edition 1911) and Bits of Old China, also published by Messrs. Kelly & Walsh at the same dates. C. Toogood Downing's The Fan-Qui in China (three volumes, London, Henry Colburn, 1838) is another well-known contemporary account. Extracts from the Letters * TO HIS SISTER, DATED CANTON, 12TH DECEMBER, 1835 My time here is fully occupied, I am glad to say. If sometimes rather too much so there's no great harm done; I assure you I have supped too full of the horrors of idleness in time gone by, to fret at hard work now. There are several circumstances in Canton life which agree with me very well—and these are just enhanced by contrast with its disadvantages. There is some interest too in the strange faces, browned and weather-beaten, of the ship-captains from Liverpool and London etc. who are lodged and boarded of necessity in our Hong here all the time their Ships are in the Port, so that Covers are laid every day for an indefinite number, and the whole Domestic Establishment in short is a Boarding-House with a Table d'hôte at 7 p.m. The comfort of this evil, is the sanctity with which folks' private-rooms are regarded—seeing that there is no privacy whatever elsewhere; and in my bedroom accordingly, I enjoy greater security and deeper seclusion than if I were a stranger in an Inn with boots and chambermaids and postboys to interrupt me whether I have business with them or no. Sundry persons who dislike the strict imprisonment of a Canton-life, venture out, of evenings, on the river, in wherries. As there is a barrier, a break-water, of some thousands of boats and river-crafts of the most unutterable forms and still more unmentionable characters, to break, bruise and burst through, before ten square feet of dirty water can be won free, this is not an amusement I have taken to; and fond as I used to be of it, I think I shall become more and more averse to experiments on the Canton River the longer I remain in China. Three Europeans have been drowned by accident since my arrival here, which is just an * * The text has been left in the writer's style. Additions and queries in square brackets are the Editor's. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 83 * For example, Aeneas Anderson, A Narrative of the British Embassy to China in the Years 1792, 1793 and 1794, London, 1795. James Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, 4th edn., Hong Kong 1903. John Barrow, Travels in China, London, 1806. J.F. Davis, Chinese Miscellanies, London, 1865. C. Toogood Downing, The Fan-qui in China in 1836-1837, London, 1838. James Bromley Eames, The English in China, London, p. 82. Mary Gertrude Mason, Western Concepts of China and the Chinese 1840-1876, New York, 1938. + * See H. Kwok and M. Chan, "Where the Twain Do Meet", General Linguistics, Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, #2, 1972, pp. 63-82. K. Luke and J. Richards, "The Role of English: Status and Function", paper for RELC Conference held in Singapore, 1982. A survey on English Language Use in different fields is being undertaken in the Department of English Studies and Comparative Literature by K. Luke and K. Bolton with the aid of a research grant from the University. Findings should be published shortly. * Charles F. Hockett, A Course in Modern Linguistics, New York, 1965, pp. 393-423. Partial Listing: David Bonavia, The Chinese, London, 1981. J. Clavell, Taipan, London, Joseph, 1966. Noble House, London Hodder and Stoughton, 1981. Eric Cumine, Ways and Byways, Hong Kong, 1981. R. Elegant, Dynasty, New York, Fawcett Crest, 1977. Manchu, New York, McGraw Hill, 1980. R. Hughes, Borrowed Time, Borrowed Place, London, Deutsch, 1968. Maxine Hong Kingston, China Man, London, PAN, 1981. Woman Warrior, New York, Knopf, 1976. T. Mo, The Monkey King, London, Deutsch, 1978. Sour Sweet, London, Deutsch, 1981. Ian Steward, The Peking Payoff, Middlesex, Hamlyn, 1978. 10 In Webster we find this definition: 'enthusiastic, cooperative, enterprising, etc. in an unrestrained, often naive way.' Collins gives the definition: 'U.S. slang, excessively, or foolishly enthusiastic (c. 20th Century — pidgin English from Mandarin, Chinese kung work + ho together.) The Chinese morphemes involved would seem to be [gung] 'work' and [ho] 'together'. The term may well be pidgin English, as Collins suggests, since the expression [gung ho] does not in fact occur in Chinese. 11 * K. Luke and J. Richards, op. cit. **L. Bloomfield, Language, New York, 1933, p. 461. This is the O.E.D. spelling of the word derived from Chinese. In Hong Kong the word is usually written wui, reflecting the Cantonese pronunciation. Wu is used with this spelling as a technical term in the New Territories Ordinance. "The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words and Phrases, compiled by C.A.M. Fennell, C.U.P. 1982. 15 A.J. Bliss, op. cit. 16 R.W. Langacker, Language and Its Structure, Some Fundamental Linguistic Concepts, New York, 1968, pp. 177-194. 17 Eric Cumine, Hong Kong Ways and Byways: A Miscellany of Trivia, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 177. Page 105 Page 106 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 199 Dewey, John and Alice Chapman Dewey, Letters from China and Japan, New York Dutton, 1920 Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644, edited by Carrington Goodrich, et al, New York Columbia University Press, 1976 Dingle, E.J., Across China on Foot, Bristol Arrowsmith, 1918 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing) Dobell, Peter, Travels in Kamchatka and Siberia, with a Narrative of Residence in China, London H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830 Donne, G.H., Generation of Giants. The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decade of the Ming Dynasty, Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press, 1962 Donovan, John F., The Pagoda and the Crows, the Life of Bishop Ford of Maryknoll, New York Charles Scribner, 1967 Downing, C. Toogood, The Fan-qui in China in 1836-7, London Henry Colburn, 1838 (Shannon Reprint, Irish University Press) Dyce, Charles M., Personal Reminiscences of 30 Years Residence in the Model Settlement, Shanghai 1870-1900, London Chapman and Hall, 1906 Eames, James Bromley, The English in China, London Curzon Press, 1909 (New York Reprint Barnes and Noble) Earl, Lawrence, One Foreign Devil (on Mary Ball. A Medical Missionary in North China), London Hodder and Stoughton, 1962 Edkins, Jane Rowbotham, Chinese Scenes and People, London Nisbet, 1863 Edwards, Dwight W., Yenching University, New York United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, with a sequel by Y.P. Mei on Yenching in Chengtu, 1959 Elliot, Robert, Views From the East, London I. Fisher, 1835 Ellis, Sir Henry (1777-1855), Journal of the Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, Comprising a Correct Narrative of the Public Transactions of the Embassy, of the Voyages to and From China, and of the Journey From the Mouth of the Pei-Ho to the Return to Canton, 2nd edition, London J. Murray, 1818 Enders, Elizabeth Crump, Swinging Lanterns, New York Appleton, 1923 — Temple Bells and Silver Sail, New York Appleton, 1923 Englishman in China, The, London Saunders, Otley, 1860 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 53 * Giles, Glossary, op.cit., p.57. 44 Downing, C. Toogood (1838). The Stranger in China, or The Fanqui's Visit to The Celestial Empire in 1836-7. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 2 vols., Vol. I, pp.9-10. A diary kept on a French ship in 1779 tells of an "outside" pilot boat from Macau, whose five occupants spoke a kind of corrupt Portuguese. Charles de Constant (1939). Recit de Trois Voyages A la Chine 1779-1793. Passages chosen and annotated by Philippe de Vargas. Published by L'Ami, Revue Mensuelle, Yenching, Peking.. 45 46 Davis, The Chinese, op.cit., (1836 edition, London, Charles Knight), Vol.II, p. 447.. Downing, The Stranger in China, op.cit., Vol.I, p.10. * Ibid., Vol. I, p.27. 48 Morse, International Relations, Period of Conflict, op.cit., p.74 Davis, The Chinese, op. cit., (1836 edition, London, Charles Knight), Vol.II, p. 449. 50 Ibid., Vol. II, pp.448-9. 51 Morse, International Relations, Period of Conflict, op.cit., p.74. 32 China and the English (1835). New York, p.73. Written for Abbott's Fireside Series. 53 Ball, Rambles in Eastern Asia, op. cit., p.99. 54 Abbott's Fireside Series, op.cit., p.73, 55 A striking instance is given in Wei Peh T'I (1981). Juan Yuan's Management of Sino-British Relations in Canton 1817-1826, The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, (hereafter JHKBRAS), Vol. 21, pp.153-5. Pidgin English has been described succinctly as being 'a singular admixture of corrupted Portuguese, English, Hindustani, and other foreign words spoken largely in a Chinese syntax': Chang, Commissioner Lin, op.cit., pp.235-6, n47. For a recent detailed statement on Pidgin, see Selby, Anne and Stephen (1995) ================================================================================