RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
154

W. A. REYNOLDS

All hospitals and medical services in China were very short of medical supplies both in terms of medicines, anaesthetics, equipment and everyday requirements such as bandages and sheets. In addition, in a time of inflation, assets were put into easily saleable form of which medicine, such as quinine, was a favourite. This meant that there was little western medicine for sale in the open market and supplies of such materials, whether in store or in transit, were a favourite target for thieves. However the greatest losses in the Nationalist armies were undoubtedly from the malnutrition/dysentery cycle from which, beyond a certain point, there was no recovery.

3 The daily routine on the road varied with the fuel used, but there were common features. The driver and mechanic (or assistant if carried) slept on the truck, the shorter in the cab and the taller on top of the cargo. This helped to prevent theft of cargo and removal of parts such as headlamps and half-shafts which were in great demand. Passengers slept in the nearest inn, or perhaps mission station. Techniques for an undisturbed and loss-free night in an inn included an oiled sheet (p.8) sewn into the bottom of the mosquito net which was then slit at one end and fastened with clips, and placing the bed or table legs into shoes to make unauthorized removal of them difficult.

Activity started at dawn and after refuelling and a check on wheels and springs a quick breakfast of ji dan dou jiang (p.8) taken from a travelling salesman, the truck would get under way. There would normally be a stop at a convenient fandian (p.8) between 10.30 and 12 noon- refuelling, wheel and spring checks and away again until late afternoon and a stop for the day.

Liquid fuel was carried in 50 (US) gallon drums and was siphoned out into 5 gallon cans for transfer to the truck tank. A skilled man, using a rubber hose, can induce a siphon by sucking at the end and avoid getting his mouth full of raw alcohol, rape seed oil or whatever the fuel might be. Operation and refuelling of the charcoal burning trucks was a much longer and dirtier procedure and is described in the section devoted to them.

4 The Sentinel/HSG trucks had an interesting history. With the loss of the coastal region and the main railway lines, China had not only lost the possibility of importing diesel fuel and petrol but had gained a number of experienced, but unemployed, steam railway engine drivers and firemen. The IRC decided to enquire into the possibility of steam road transport and got in touch with the Sentinel Steam Carriage and Wagon Co. Ltd. at Shrewsbury, England, the major manufacturer in the past of steam road engines. The transport would use local coal or charcoal fuel and the available engine drivers and firemen. However, the tare weight of steam wagons is high and the gross weight would have been greater than the bridges would have stood. The Sentinel company suggested an alternative. They had recently taken up the designs of the High Speed Gas engine and offered a 5 ton capacity truck fitted with a 4 cylinder horizontal HSG engine with a 12:1 compression ratio. This burnt producer gas made from charcoal in a gas generator of the cross-draught type. Four of these Sentinel/HSG were purchased and may have been the first (and possibly only) ones built. One of these had been lost on the Burma Road and the remaining three contributed to the death of one man, resignation of another, and almost broke the hearts of several other Unit members. It should be a cardinal point never to introduce any equipment, mechanical or electrical, into a tough environment lacking supporting services, unless it has been in series production and has been thoroughly tested in similar conditions.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
218

Tai Sheung Lo Kwan, the notes add, is none other than Taoist Patriarch Lao Tzu.

THE HONGKONG MILLING COMPANY'S FAILURE*

E. W. WRIGHT

The suicide of A. H. Rennie, manager of the Hongkong Milling Co., and the subsequent closing down of the big milling plant which Mr. Rennie founded, is still causing much discussion in Pacific coast milling circles. Late particulars of the tragedy and the causes which led up to it, seem to indicate quite clearly that the death of Rennie and the failure of the institution which he established have combined to postpone indefinitely the attempt to build up the milling business in China on anything more than a very moderate scale.

Whether or not it is possible to manufacture flour at a profit at Hongkong, is still a matter of doubt with some Pacific coast millers. They do not regard the failure of Rennie as proof conclusive that the business cannot be conducted with a profit, for Rennie, while a remarkably good flour salesman, knew nothing about the details of manufacturing flour. His failure, however, has made Pacific coast millers sceptical about the future success of milling in China in competition with the product that is shipped across the Pacific.

The rise and fall of the milling project at Hongkong is so much a part of the remarkable career of Mr. Rennie, who promoted it, that its history can best be told by relating his.

A. H. Rennie was a native of Canada, where he was born in 1857. He became the confidential adviser and secretary of Hon. John Norquay,

* This very interesting account is reprinted from the Northwestern Miller of 24 June, 1908, published at Minneapolis. Rennie left his name in Rennie's Mill, Junk Bay, near Kowloon. The editor is grateful to Mr. W. J. Howard, a long-time member of the Society, for contributing this item to the Journal.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j
95

United States and other Western countries simply because, as we have pointed out previously in this paper, culture is a very close neighbour to ideology.

The experience in the period 1979 - 1986 shows that the exchanges events were predominantly carried out in the realm of music which had been the least controversial of the arts in China. Despite its rather suggestive costumes, which met strong opposition up until the mid-1970s, Western ballet by the early 1980s was also accepted cordially by Chinese audiences. As for the writers, many of whom were often involved in the periodical political reassessments in China as leading figures to be bridled for their challenge to government policies, the arrival of American writers would not normally receive sufficient publicity and therefore their influence was marginal.

Generally speaking, the presence of American arts and artists in China did not bring about any forceful and immediate changes sufficient to affect China's socio-political development in an obvious manner, in spite of the fact that through this cultural presence certain American values and life styles were presented to the Chinese. The most significant impact of Sino-American arts exchanges on China's socio-political development, as has been mentioned, was the connections Chinese artists established with American artists, which was in turn used by the artists as an instrument to incorporate themselves into the modernization programme as an independent entity which they succeeded in doing to a certain degree. As a result, the government has given more emphasis to cultural development since 1982.

Roughly speaking, the number of American cultural events in China between 1979 and 1986 was about the same as those from countries such as Japan, France, the United Kingdom and West Germany. Nevertheless, two characteristics made the American arts presence in China much stronger than that from those countries. On the one hand, American events in China normally received greater publicity and drew better attention from the people than those from other countries. Events such as the BSO's visit, the Boston Museum paintings exhibition and the production of the play Death of a Salesman were widely publicized so that the events carried much more significance than artistically equivalent events from other countries. The publicity was sometimes generated by the organizers, but in many cases it was just created by the interest in and enthusiasm about American cultural events.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j
96

The interest of the Chinese in American culture was surprising. For example, between 1979 and 1986, 13 American plays were produced by Chinese theatres, including Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The production of Death of a Salesman was not, in fact, an American event because all the people involved directly in the staging were Chinese, except for Arthur Miller who directed the play, and it was a production of the Beijing People's Art Theatre. Nonetheless, it was seen as a symbol of Sino-American affinity and cooperation. The opening night performance in Beijing was attended by the American ambassador to China, and David Rockefeller, Jr. In the Chinese press, the production of the play was hailed as "the most significant cultural event in China since the Cultural Revolution".38 This interest in American cultural events in China actually upgraded the intensity of American cultural presence.

On the other hand, the American involvement in China's arts education was massive and intensive. In 1985, for instance, the number of Americans teaching in Chinese arts institutions roughly equaled the total of artists from all other countries serving in similar capacities. In sum, the eight years between 1979 and 1986 saw an influx of American culture nurtured by as well as resulting from the disproportionate interest of the Chinese in the United States and its culture.

At the beginning of the process of diplomatic normalization and in the two years following it, China's external relations were almost monopolized by developing the American linkage. The much-publicized visit of Deng Xiaoping to the United States, the signing of dozens of agreements between the two governments, the massive arrival of Chinese students on American campuses, the exchanges of delegations, and the encouragement of non-governmental contacts by the governments and so on, all helped make the impression on the Chinese that the United States was the best in everything and the American linkage was the only relationship to be valued. In the first two years following normalization, an average of 100 Chinese delegations visited the United States monthly." Furthermore, the use of arts exchanges to consolidate the general relationship and to win U.S. economic and technological cooperation made arts exchanges a handmaiden of politics.

In specific terms, when a major American cultural event took place in China, it was praised all around for political reasons, while the necessary objective evaluations of the quality and the artists involved were rarely or sometimes never provided. The flaws in the BSO's
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