RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 FROM THE HON EDITOR The annual Journal is, or should be, published a year in arrear and a few months before the following AGM. Volume 42 for the year 2002, therefore, should have appeared towards the end of 2003. For various reasons unfortunately, publication was delayed until July 2004. Volume 43 has been similarly delayed for which I tender my regrets. This is my 13th Journal and as always I have striven for freshness and diversity - within the ejusdem generis of the Society's objectives - and "value for money." Whilst I enjoy the duties of Hon Editor however, I never forget that, sooner or later, we all reach the end of our shelf life. I have seen too many people hang on to the bitter end with their zest, creativity and energy inexorably declining in the process. I shall not be one of their number as it would be neither fair to the readership that I serve, nor to me. End of personal lucubration. There are a total of seven Articles, six items under Notes and Queries, two Book Reviews and on this occasion, sadly, an Obituary. Sidney Cheung, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong discusses the history of three Hakka villages in the Sai Kung area of Hong Kong, namely Tai Long Wan, Pak Lap and Chek Keng and the competing demands of conservation and progress. Contrary to the sanctimonious sermonizing of so many (and on so many issues) these days, there are no easy answers. The essay by Eric Danielson on Shanghai's Longhua Temple is delightful. Eric has studied his subject for many years and has lived in Shanghai for the last five, and thus writes with authority. Equally erudite is James Hayes' sojourn into the world of the Old China Trade. James has dug up some fantastic sources for his article and reading it one can almost feel the wind on one's cheeks and sense the excitement of the foreign barbarian seamen gazing upon fabled Cathay for the first time. Lan Li and Deidre Wildy of Queen's University Belfast have unearthed two statutory declarations made by Sir Robert Hart, the distinguished Anglo-Chinese statesman at the turn of the 20th century iv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT ..XX FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ..xxviii HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT .......xxxix FRIENDS OF THE HKBRAS (UK) REPORT ..xlvi VOLUNTEERS REPORT ...xlviii ARTICLES Sidney Cheung - Traditional dwellings, conservation and land use: A study of three villages in Sai Kung 1 Eric Danielson - How old is Shanghai's Longhua Temple? 15 James Hayes - Canton symposium: The world of the old China trade: the locales and the people 29 Lan Li and Deirdre Wildy - A new discovery and its significance: The statutory declarations made by Sir Robert Hart concerning his secret domestic life in 19th century China 63 Roderick O'Brien - Justice, law, and the proposed tribunal for the Khmer Rouge 89 Jonathan Parkinson - H.M.S. Hermes: China Station, 1930-1933 105 Keith Stevens - Between Scylla and Charybdis: China and the Chinese during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 127 xiv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Seoul appeared in Volume 41 of the Journal (liz_teather@hotmail.com). Dan Waters, Ph.D., is a former Assistant Director of Education with the Hong Kong Government and a noted Sinophile and historian. He is a Past-President of HKBRAS and has contributed prolifically to the annual Journal (benefit@netvigator.com). Deidre Wildy, is a Librarian at Queen's University Belfast. She is the Subject Librarian for the School of History and is responsible for the Library Special Collections. Though her career has been in academic libraries for the most part, she was Project Manager for the Northern Ireland Publications Resource (www.nibooks.org) and also worked with RASCAL a web-based directory of research and special collections in Northern Ireland (www.rascal.ac.uk). Her interests lie in research support and the exploitation of new technologies to provide access to special collections materials. (d.wildy@qub.ac.uk). xix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 63 A NEW DISCOVERY AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE: THE STATUTORY DECLARATIONS MADE BY SIR ROBERT HART CONCERNING HIS SECRET DOMESTIC LIFE IN 19TH CENTURY CHINA LAN LI AND DEIRDRE WILDY [Hon Editor: See also NOTES ON THE ROBERT HART PAPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG LIBRARY, JHKBRAS, Vol. 29, pp. 367-382] Introduction Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911) was one of the extraordinary Westerners who made a substantial contribution to both early China's modernisation and its foreign relations with the West. He was the only Westerner in the latter half of the nineteenth century to occupy an official post in the metropolitan bureaucracy—a position that allowed him daily access to China's highest officials in the Grand Council and Zongli Yamen. He built the first modern institution in China, the Chinese Imperial Maritime Custom (CIMC), and he also played a crucial role in China's imperial politics, significantly influencing its internal reform and diplomatic policy. During the early period of his life in China (1857-1865) Hart was involved in a sexual relationship with a Chinese girl called Ayaou. The relationship had a significant influence on Hart in that it immersed him deeper in Chinese society. Hart's success in China has been attributed to his good understanding of Chinese tradition. He acquired this capacity in a number of ways, one of which included a long-term intimate relationship with the Chinese girl Ayaou. Hence, Hart's secret domestic life is not simply the personal life of a Western man, who, according to the prevailing custom in the colonial Asia of the 1850s, kept a Chinese girl; it is more significant and, as Bruner, Fairbank, and Smith point out, "does him credit as a human being" and "also shows his capacity for immersion in Chinese society and culture." (1986: 232) The paper will examine and analyse the recently discovered statutory declarations made by Hart in 1905 and 1911. These documents provide us with new primary and significant material about Hart's relationship with Ayaou and his three children by her. This will address ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 85 Graveson, R. H. and Crane. F. R., A Century of Family Law. 1957. London: Sweet & Maxwell Ltd. King, Paul. 1980. In the Chinese Customs Service - A personal record of forty-seven years. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc. Little, Lester K. 1975. Introduction in Fairbank, John K, Bruner, Katherine F, Matheson, Elizabeth M. 1975. eds. The I.G. in Peking - Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs 1868-1907. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. McCusker, John J. 2003. “Comparing the Purchasing Power of Money in the United States (or Colonies) from 1665 to 2002.” Economic History Services, 2003, URL: http://www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd/. Smith, Richard J, Fairbank, John K, Bruner, Katherine F. 1991. eds. Robert Hart and China's Early Modernisation - His Journals, 1863-1866. Cambridge and London: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University. Wang, Hongbin. 2000. He De Jue Shi Zhuan - Da Qing Hai Guan Yang Zong Guan. (The Biography of Sir Robert Hart - The Foreign I.G. of Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs) Beijing: Culture and Arts Press. Wright, Stanley F. 1950. Hart and The Chinese Customs. Belfast: WM. Mullan & Son (Publishers) Ltd. NOTES 1 Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 18 September 2003 2 Transcribed by Lan Li and Deirdre Wildy, 15 August 2003 3 It is supposed that Hart had made Declaration 1 as a legal document, as in his letter to Campbell dated 11 August 1905 he added a post script dated 19 August - the same date that Declaration I was written: "Yours 7th July received: herewith cover with statement for Murray Hutchins." (Fairbank, Bruner and Matherson 1975: 25, 1479) Murray, Hutchins & Co. was Hart's private solicitor, in Declaration I he mentioned: "The children were sent to England and it was arranged that W. Hutchins my lawyer should take charge of them..." Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 18 September 2003 * In Declaration 1 Hart wrote: "Anna died some seventeen years ago". In his letter to Campbell on 8 July 1906, he wrote: "The enclosed from Mr. Anderson, announcing the death of a former ward, Herbert Hart, has just reached me here through the Legation." (Fairbank, Bruner and Matheson 1975: 1513) "Gertrude Bell in her diary on 5 May 1903 recorded that she went to Sir Robert ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 86 Hart's house and photographed him: "He was extremely friendly, asked us to dinner, kept us talking, assuring us that he was a man busy enough always to have time to give people. Month after month, year after year, for the last 50 years has found him always at work; for 25 years he has had no holiday; he never goes away and has never been even to the Great Wall. 'My wife used to do my sightseeing and my visiting for me' he said. 'She was very useful to me. It's difficult to live alone.' I didn't know what to answer as Lady Hart seems to find it more difficult not to live alone." * 7 The marital relationship between Hart and Lady Hart, as Bruner, Fairbank and Smith argued (1986: 322), is that "each offered something the other was seeking." In his journal entry for 22 August 1867 - their first anniversary - he wrote: "No one could have a better wife than I have got & so far, we have got on well together." Then he added: “At the same time, matrimony does interfere a man's work at times." (Volume 9, Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 15 September 2003) $ * Similar statement can also be seen in Declaration 1 "Census place: Cliffton, Gloucester, England. Source: FHL film 1341597, PRO Ref RG11, Piece 2482, Folio 38, Page 22. 10 See Bruner, Fairbank, and Smith edited “Entering China's Service” (1986: 150): "Volume 3, as it now exists, begins on 20 March 1858, after a lapse of almost three years. The first pages of this new book, however, were torn out by Hart, who then wrote on the flyleaf '20 March to 6 Dec. 1858' as if that were the normal content of the volume." "It seems evident that Hart did some tidying-up of his journals years later, perhaps in 1902 when Hosea B. Morse asked 11 permission to see them in connection with a proposed biography." In March 1866 Hart left for home on leave and in late May he fell in love with Miss Hester Jane Bredon. This happened less than a year after Hart's third child was born. Hart was very determined to find a European girl to marry during his visit home. He knew that his proposal to Hester might be refused if he told her the truth, particularly the year when Arthur was born - giving proof to the fact that he continued his sexual relationship with Ayaou until at least late 1864. For Hart the best way to convince Hester to accept the reality of the situation was to let her believe that all these events had taken place a long time ago and she could therefore "forget the past and welcome the future". Perhaps it is for this reason that there are contradictions between Hart's statements concerning the year of Arthur's birth in Declaration 1 and 2 and those in his letter to Campbell as well as that which is recorded in 1881 British Census, 12 Hart only felt a bit annoyed when he received two letters from her in 1870 and 1872 and troubled by two of his wards by her between 1904 and 1905. 17 13 See Declaration I. 14 The sum of money equals £28,704, as $5 at that time roughly equals £1. In his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 87 diary entry for 24 November 1854, Hart says: "Mr Meadows has made over to me the Post Office duty today. He gave me 5 dollars or £1:0:10:” (Bruner, Fairbank, and Smith, 1986: 84) 15 Same statement can also be seen in Declaration 1. 16 Hart diaries, Volume 9, Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 15 September 2003 ================================================================================