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 27 called Chang Ta-Laou-Yay3, the first word being his name and the three last an appellation of respect. He was from Pekin. has been here three years on service and has served in various parts of the Empire. He was very tall and thin, thick heavy moustache, red nose and altogether a very forbidding aspect. Vain and ignorant he behaved with a deal of hauteur and stiffness, all of which was entirely thrown away so far as I was concerned. but it looked well probably to his servants who crowded into the room where we were sitting. The other Kiang Tsung-Yay was a northerner also, but quite a different man from his friend. He wore an opaque white button, a rank lower than Chang Ta-Laou-Yay, [was] talkative, cheerful, and of an exceedingly good address, no pretensions, though apparently far better informed than the crystal button man. They both came on horseback attended by a large quantity of lantern bearers, and servants, sword bearers, pipe carriers etc. etc. It was their night on guard at the Consoo House behind the Factories but were on a social visit to Hwang Ta-Yay, the Custom-House officer, for a few hours. We talked about a great many things relative to China, America, England and so on and parted the best of friends. Sunday, 14 April, 1839 It is twenty-four days since all communication with Whampoa, Macao and the shipping outside was cut off. Three weeks ago over 400 Chinese compradores, servants, coolies, cooks, porters and others were driven from the foreign Factories, and all our intercourse with the natives no matter in what business has entirely ceased since that time. We are allowed to communicate what we want to the linguists39 who are all viz Old Tom, Young Tom, Ahtore, Alanci and Ahi, stationed on board a large boat opposite the Factories and alongside the small Hoppo House from where foreigners go, passing through the Hoppo House to see and make known to them their wants. It is quite laughable to sit there a few hours daily as I do to observe the scenes that pass between the Fan Kwais40 and interpreters. They come to them in all and every business. One wants his clothes sent to wash, another his trousers or coat procured from the tailor, in comes another who blows them up sky high41 because he has not had his daily supply of spring water. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 27 THE POPULATION OF CHINA A LETTER ON THE POPULATION OF CHINA, addressed to the Registrar General, London: By SIR JOHN BOWRING. Read to the Society, 8th August, 1855. (Editor's Note:-Beginning with the present volume the Society will reprint a selected article from the Transactions of the old China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society whenever it is convenient to do so. There were published in Hong Kong six Transactions of the China Branch between the years 1847 and 1859. 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 present selection is taken from Transactions, Part V, 1855, pp. 1-16. The author was Governor of Hong Kong, 1854 to 1859, and an able early President of the Society. The subject is one of continuing, intriguing interest. The article is reprinted here in its original, unrevised form.) Government House, Hong Kong, 13th July, 1855. Sir, I wish it were possible to give a satisfactory reply to your inquiries as to the real Population of China. There has been no official census taken since the time of Kia King, 43 years ago. Much doubt has been thrown upon the accuracy of these returns, which give 362,447,183 as the total number of the inhabitants of China. I think our greater knowledge of the country increases the evidence in favour of the approximative correctness of the official document, and that we may with tolerable safety estimate the present population of the Chinese Empire as between 350,000,000 and 400,000,000 of human beings. The penal Laws of China make provision for a general system of registration; and corporal punishments, generally amounting to 100 blows of the bamboo, are to be inflicted on those who neglect to make the proper returns. The machinery is confided to the Elders of the district, and the census is required to be annually taken; but I have no reason to believe the law is obeyed, or the neglect of it punished, In the English translation of Father Alvares Semedo's history of China published in London A.D. 1655, is the following passage "This kingdom is so exceedingly populous, that having lived there two-and-twenty years, I was in no less amazement at my ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d THE LIBRARY Taipei, Literature House, 1964. HENSMAN, Bertha, and MACK, Kwok-ping (AMA) 181 H52 Hong Kong tale-spinners; a collection of tales and ballads transcribed and translated from story-tellers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, 1968. HILL, Dennis S. H645 Figs (Ficus spp.) of Hong Kong. [Hong Kong] Hong Kong University Press, 1967. *KOLLARD, J. A. PAM K81 Early medical practice in Macao. Macao, Inspecção dos Serviços Economicos, Agencia de Turismo, 1935. MARTIN, W. A. P. M383 A cycle of Cathay; or, China, South and North, with personal reminiscences. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. MAYERS, William Frederick, M46 The Chinese reader's manual: a handbook of biographical, historical, mythological and general literary reference, Taipei, Literature House, 1964. MAYERS, William Frederick, ed. M46 t Treaties between the Empire of China and foreign powers; together with regulations for the conduct of foreign trade, etc. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. MICHIE, Alexander. M624 The Englishman in China during the Victorian era, as illustrated in the career of Sir Rutherford Alcock many years consul and minister in China and Japan, Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. MORSE, Hosea Ballou. M88 t The trade and administration of the Chinese Empire. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1966. REMER, C. F. R38 f The foreign trade of China. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publ. Co., 1967. WHISSON, Michael G. W576 Under the rug: the drug problem in Hong Kong. A study in applied sociology. [Hong Kong] Hong Kong Council of Social Service, 1965. WILLIAMS, S. Wells. W727 The Chinese commercial guide, containing treaties, tariffs, regulations, tables, etc., useful in the trade to China & Eastern ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 40 CHIU LING-YEONG be what her many well-wishers fondly desire her to be unless she will first cast aside all her unjust dealings with her own children and learn to dispense justice with an impartial hand, — to discountenance official corruption in every form and to secure the happiness and unity of her people by a just and liberal policy. In short, before undertaking anything else, she should look after the all-necessary reforms in her internal administration. She must not wait for another more convenient season, but begin at once 'to set her house in order', even before she feels that she can rely on the bolts and bars she is now applying to her doors.' Bad servants are worse than thieves and robbers while a united household is in itself a strong bulwark against any external eruption. Of what avail are bolts and bars where, in terms of danger, no one is found competent or faithful to attend to them. As for equitable rule and right government, Ho Kai said it was not the emperor but the people who built up the country. It was also the people, not the emperor, who could make a country become prosperous. The duty of an emperor, therefore, was to protect his subjects and direct them to establish the empire. His responsibility was to benefit the people and to direct them to make their country prosperous. The administrators, especially those in the Court, often thought that they had already made their best attempts and put their best efforts into fulfilling their duty. But, whatever they had done, it was only the common people who fully realised, whether it was beneficial or not, whether it was profitable or not, because it was they who actually experienced their ruler's administration. Therefore, even though the emperor was so overburdened with his responsibility of ruling that he could neither sleep nor eat peacefully, the people still could not see any good in his rule. Ho Kai believed that there was no difficulty in governing the people. He continued: The people may not be very learned and yet they cannot be ill-treated. The people may be ignorant and yet they can be easily enlightened. Therefore, there must be some reasons within. If those who rule the country want to understand such factors, they have to learn the principle of knowledge and adopt the most efficient way of ruling. ================================================================================ 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-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Hong Kong Region 135 Chu Ch'ih-shih #, Notes on the History of Canton *** 8 chuan, Chia Ch'ing year, 1806-07. [YCKC] Ho lineage of Pui O, South Lantau, Hong Kong **1*4*££*...✯ Family record: apparently 1930s. In manuscript. Hsu Ch'ien-hsieh, A Comprehensive Geography of the Ch'ing Empire #₺ 356 chuan, first edition, 1743. [TCITC] Jao Tsung-i ✯ ✯ 1 (Compiler), The Ch'ao-chou Gazetteer # # & Swatow, circa 1946-48. [CCC] Jen Yu-wen § 2 x (Compiler), Kwangtung Art and Scholarship ✯✯X» Hong Kong, Committee for the Advancement of Chinese Culture, 3 vols, 1941. [KTWW] Jen Yu-wen § 2x (Compiler), Sung Wong Toi—A Commemorative Volume *££*** Hong Kong, Chiu Clansmen's Association, 1960. Juan Yuan and others ¥, Gazetteer of the Kwangtung Province ★★ . 334 chüan, revised edition, 1823, reprinted 1864 and reissued 1933 in 5 vols. by Commercial Press, Shanghai. [KTTC] Li Chin-wei (Editor) ###, Centenary History of Hong Kong ✯ * 4. Hong Kong, Nan Chung (†) Printing House, c. 1947. [Centenary History] Lo Hsiang-lin 4*, Historical Sources for the Study of the Hakkas #Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture +**, 1965. [LO1965] Mao Hung-pin and Jun Lin, Atlas with Commentary of Kwangtung ★★☆. 92 chuan, Canton, about 1865. [KTTS] Mao Yuan-¡ *, Record of Military Preparations. 240 chüan, Canton, late Ch'ing reprint of Original of 1620. Shu Mou-kuan 4 and Wang Ch'ung-hsi 1, Gazetteer of the Hsin-an District #✯.§. 24 chüan, revised edition, 1819. [HNHC] Tai Chao-chen and others A, Gazetteer of the Canton Prefecture ★★✯✯. 163 chüan, Canton, revised edition, 1880. [KCFC] + ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.L. CO. 55 retired, and shortly after made their appearance in magnificent uniforms, and drew up in a body opposite to us. The palace gate now opened, and a Mandarin slowly advanced towards me; he addressed me in Chinese, to which I could only reply by shaking my head and showing him my petition. He put out his hand to receive it, but I drew back mine, and made a sign I wanted to go into the palace to deliver it. He shook his head, and seemed decidedly averse to such a proceeding. We were soon relieved from this embarrassment by the arrival of the two senior security merchants, Mowqua and Howqua, the first a fine old man of upwards of eighty years of age, and it was supposed that to those two we principally owed our detention,- the rest of the Hong came soon after. Mowqua was in great agitation when he arrived, and addressed me in his usual Chinese-English, “Ah! Mister Commodore, what for you come here? you want security merchants have cutty head? Hoppo truly much angry English come his house, he will cutty my poor old head."-My reply was, "Mowqua! it is your own fault; why did you not present the Typan's (chief supercargo's) petition to the Hoppo? had you done so, I should not have come here."-"Good Mister Commodore, me takey petition, and will truly get answer directly."--"No, no, Mowqua! I will give it into the Hoppo's own hand myself”,--on which all the security merchants set up a cry as if I had uttered some treason against the Celestial Empire, What you come here? you wanty see Hoppo? That you no can do-Hoppo send you to prison as soon as he know you come him house—we takey petition before he know you come city-get out fast you can; truly he too much angry he know you here.” There now appeared a Mandarin of high rank, to whom the merchants paid great respect; he came up to Captain Craig, Mr. Perry and myself, who were standing with the two senior security merchants in front of our party; he, with civility, enquired what we wanted? and was instantly replied to by Mowqua, but I was determined to be my own interpreter. I therefore held up the petition for him to read the address, and made signs as before that I wanted to go into the palace to present it. This compelled Mowqua to come to an explanation with the Mandarin, who left us, as I supposed, to inform the Hoppo of our being there; he soon returned, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 16 LEIGH WRIGHT porcelain cup full, the size of an egg, of a distilled liquor made from rice. We ate also rice and sweetmeats, using spoons of gold shaped like our own. In the place where we passed the two nights, there were always burning two torches of white wax, placed on tall chandeliers of silver, and two oil lamps of four wicks each, while two men watched to look after them. Next morning we came on the same elephants to the sea-side, where, forthwith, there were ready for us two praus, in which we were re-conducted to the ships. The city is entirely built in the salt water, the king's house and those of some chieftains excepted. It contains 25,000 fires or families. The houses are all of wood, and stand on strong piles to keep them high from the ground. When the flood tides make, the women, in boats go through the city selling necessaries. In front of the king's palace there is a rampart constructed of large bricks, with barbacans in the manner of a fortress, on which are mounted fifty-six brass, and six iron cannon. During the two days we passed in the city many of them were discharged. That king is a Moro and his name Raja Siripada. He was forty years old and corpulent. No one serves him except women who are the daughters of chiefs. He never goes outside of his palace, unless when he goes hunting, and no one is allowed to talk with him except through the speaking-tube. He has scribes, called Xiricoles who wrote down his deeds on very thin tree bark. Thus Pigafetta's description of Brunei. II The nature of the traditional kingdom in the Malay world differs markedly from the western conception of state. In very general terms it consisted of a ruler and his followers whose kampong or court was at a relatively strategic location such as on a narrow strait, (e.g. Malacca), at the mouth of a large river, or at the confluence of two streams where his forces could collect tolls on water traffic and his city could act as a trading center or entrepot. From his court the sultan's power radiated outward along the coasts, up rivers and along waterways as far as both his revenue collectors could operate, and his ecclesiastical title as sultan was respected. His kingdom or “empire” had no bounds as such. He "owned" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 8 CHAN KIT-CHENG Office's wish. The Far Eastern division in the department believed that "the sympathy of the American public would lie almost entirely with China and would be strongly critical of this Government,”32 The American government was fortunately spared the embarrassment of having to reject the British request in that the Chinese, for some still unknown reasons, agreed on 31 December not to raise the question of the New Territories in connexion with the extraterritoriality treaty.33 Under the changed circumstance, Lord Halifax, British ambassador to Washington, was given to understand that the American government would have been prepared to indicate its displeasure had China been obstinate over the inclusion of the New Territories in the treaty.34 The interesting question remains as to what attitude the United States would have adopted had China requested her support. Meanwhile, the Institute of Pacific Relations was actively preparing for a conference to be held at Mont Tremblent in the United States at the beginning of December. The conference attracted the serious attention of all those countries concerned with Pacific affairs because of the increasingly wide publicity enjoyed by the Institute since Pearl Harbour through its large publishing programme of books, pamphlets, and periodicals. From late spring onwards, earnest preparations for attending the conference were made by Chatham House, the British national council of the Institute of Pacific Relations, together with the Foreign Office which, despite its earlier apprehension of "the risk of a lot of washing of dirty linen in public' ”, had now decided to make full use of the conference as a platform from which Britain could educate the American opinion about the British empire. From the beginning the Foreign Office was alive to the danger that the question of Hong Kong would arouse great attention at the conference. However, it was decided that the British delegation would not be briefed on Hong Kong because it was feared that the idea of returning Hong Kong on terms after the war, a point the British government had conceded after much painful inter-departmental consultation and deliberation, would be badly received by the Americans and Chinese who would denounce anything short of an outright retrocession,35 The Chinese delegation was equally well prepared. Pressure coming from the Chinese delegates, who explicitly expressed their desire for Hong Kong, was so intense that Sir John Pratt, the British delegate charged with the duty to speak on China, Japan, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 90 DAVID LUNG 'just growed,' how, or why, no one knows or cares. At some remote and generally unascertainable time in the dim past some families arrived from somewhere else, camped down, made themselves a 'local habitation.' ... and that was the village. It has a street, and perhaps a network of them, but no two are parallel, except by accident, and no one of them is straight. . ."22 There is little doubt that fung-shui has played an important role in the planning of Kam Tin village. The reluctance of Smith and other Western observers alike to accept geomancy as a viable scientific planning principle has rendered their statements inaccurate. The manifestation of the innermost layer of the Chinese mandala in built forms is the private home. In the farmsteads of Kat Hing Wai, the longitudinal axis penetrates through the enclosed space and open space recapturing the rhythm of light and shadow, gradient intimacy, and fusion of space, time and motion. The private dwelling, resembling the cosmic diagram of the walled city and the walled empire, focuses inwards. The central courtyard in the house, just as the term t'ien-ching, well of Heaven, implies, is the ceremonial centre for worship vis-à-vis the two roofed areas housing mundane activities of men. The exceedingly narrow lanes and the windowless rear walls reiterate this idiom of privacy. No one from the outside world can tell what goes on behind the blank facades of the row houses, since rich men and poor men live side-by-side. Only the telltale granite slabs in the exterior walls show unostentatiously which house was once occupied by a scholar. Inside the house, the back room is generally more private and is, therefore, used as sleeping area and storage for more personal belongings, while the front room is an undesignated space in which various activities take place according to the purpose and the time of the day. In a way, Kat Hing Wai is more like a large house inside which there are many rooms. The clustering of several walled hamlets together resembles a residential neighbourhood. As Wong Chung-hong points out in "Walled and Moated a Hong Kong Village", the Chinese regard a village, a town or even a nation as just an enlarged family... all were to be built with the same principles in mind."23 Such a strong desire to attain an intimate relationship between man and nature in Chinese cities and villages ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 106 JAMES HAYES Nor did he mince his words. “You have disobeyed and neglected your instructions” he told Elliot. "You seem to have considered that my instructions were waste paper which you might treat with entire disregard, and that you were at full liberty to deal with the interests of your country according to your own fancy." The Foreign Secretary accused Elliot of having settled with the Chinese for much less than he had been told to demand “without the full employment of that force which was sent to you expressly for the purpose of enabling you to use compulsion, if persuasion should fail”. He was not impressed by the cession of Hong Kong “a barren island with hardly a house on it” and clogged by conditions which made it doubtful if it was a cession in full sovereignty." 196 This myth, for myth it was, has died hard. Indeed, I fear it is not yet dead. It has always been more striking to compare the glowing present with such an insignificant past, and this has been the case at all times in Hong Kong's later history. Over forty years after the British occupation of Hong Kong, Governor Sir G.F. Bowen, addressing the Legislative Council at the opening of the 1884-85 Session, stated that "... the Island of Hong Kong... when annexed to the British Empire in 1843 (sic) was merely a barren rock, inhabited only by a few fishermen and pirates.” This view was expressed another forty years on by the American Consul-General, George E. Anderson, writing on the Hong Kong Consular District in an official publication of the American Department of Commerce. "The island of Hong Kong consists of a broken ridge of lofty hills, the highest, Victoria Peak, being approximately 1,800 feet in height. There are few valleys of any extent and scarcely any ground for cultivation... In general, the hills and mountains are bare and the soil is poor." He added usefully, "The island of Hong Kong, 28 square miles in extent, is about 11 miles long and from 2 to 5 miles broad; its circumference is 27 miles".* Is this a justifiable description? Was Hong Kong ‘a barren island with hardly a house on it"? Were its people, such as they were, "a handful of fishermen and pirates"? The answer is NO, on both counts. There were several villages of some size, as well as hamlets, and a few larger coastal villages which served as market towns for the villages and as home ports for a permanent boat population and visiting craft. The land people were settled, and as we shall ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 58 D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU Lordship that the house in which he resided, (situated within the grounds alluded to), has been tendered to me for a Government House; I did not trouble your Lordship with this matter, being of opinion that the house in question, considering its locality and other circumstances connected with it, is totally unsuitable for the purpose." Following continued discussions with the Hong Kong Government, the Governor, Dr. Sir John Bowring, F.R.S., F.L.S. a botanist in his own right, wrote on August 14th 1855 to Lord John Russell asking for money from the Colonial Funds to establish “a Public Botanic Garden”. In addition, Bowring suggested that a house would be built for such a person (to be recommended by Sir William Hooker, Superintendent of Kew Gardens). Bowring stressed the commercial importance of the venture in the following passage: "The access we are now obtaining to the Chinese Empire itself, and to circumjacent countries, would enable me, with such an auxiliary, to render valuable services, not to science alone, but to the commercial interests. As associated with science, inquiries are constantly addressed to me on the subject of dyes, oleaginous matters, fibres for textile purposes, materials for paper-making, and other topics; which the presence of a Botanist would enable me more satisfactorily to answer. ++ The Governor continued; "Independently of which I might be able to render services to the Botanic Gardens in India, — to send useful plants and fruits to the mother Country and the Colonies, and generally to promote objects to which I cannot now personally attend,. . . Despite these overtures to London not much was done in Hong Kong to get the Botanical Gardens established, though various despatches in the form of Answers to Queries from Downing Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 188 CARL SMITH ty. He received us in his office attached to the hall of the company whose chief he is. His dress is the native silk gown, close pants, and embroidered shoes. His address impresses strangers as both dignified and courteous. His education is perhaps defective in the Chinese classics, but he may reach powers under his own government, on the basis of wealth, and hereafter wield an important influence over the undisclosed but portentous destinies of the vast empire of whose subjects he is begotten.” Mr. Speer, the ever-hopeful missionary, envisaged A-chick playing an influential part in the future of China. Actually it was a brother, Tong King-sing, who played a rather important role in the modernisation of China. However, Tong Mow-chee, or as we have been calling him A-chick, was associated with his brother in some of the enterprises. As hopeful as Mr. Speer was, he was not able to get A-chick as one of the charter members of the congregation he organised. He did, however, assist by raising money within the Chinese community for building a mission house for the small Christian group. Already recognised by the Chinese as a leader, A-chick took around the subscription paper. Some US$2,000 was raised. The Chinese associations as well as business firms contributed liberally. Tong K. A. Chick and Company is listed for US$100. Though not a member of the first Chinese Christian congregation organised in America, A-chick retained the goodwill of the Christian community. In 1853 when he returned to Hongkong for a brief visit, he took with him a letter from the Rev. Mr. Van Mehr to the Bishop in Hongkong. He was still impressed by the young man. “It is impossible not to appreciate his sociable disposition, his kindness, his gentlemanly behaviour, his Christian deportment." The Bishop welcomed him back and listened with interest to his account of both religious and political developments in the Chinese community in California. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 28 NOTES Virgile Pinot, La Chine et la formation de l'esprit philosophique en France, 1640-1740 (Paris, 1932). 1 From Diderot's Encyclopédie. English translation from A. Reichwein, China and Europe, Intellectual and Artistic Contacts in the Eighteenth Century (Kegan Paul, Trench, Turbner & Co., London, 1925), p.92. Reichwein offers the best comprehensive treatment of China at the Age of Enlightenment, together with L. Maverick (see note 10). 3 Pierre Poivre, Voyages d'un Philosophe (English translation by Reichwein, loc. cit.). François Quesnay, Le Despotisme de la Chine (Paris, 1767). His friends had dubbed him 'the Confucius of Europe'. $ Lo Hui-min, The Tradition and Prototype of the China-watcher, 1976 G.E. Morrison lecture (Australian National University, Canberra, 1978), p. 9. 7 Louis Lecomte, Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine (Paris, 1969). Du Halde, Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise (Paris, 1735). $ Hugh Honour, Chinoiseries, the Vision of Cathay (John Murray, London, 1961). In 1951, at the Lycée de Chartres where I was teaching history, the bicentenary of Diderot's Encyclopedia was celebrated at the initiative of left-wing teachers who were keen to stress the connection between the Encyclopedia and French Revolutionary traditions. I gave a public lecture: 'China and the Encyclopedists', of which the present Morrison Lecture might be considered the direct descendant. 10 Lewis A. Maverick, China, a Model for Europe (Paul Anderson Company, San Antonio, Texas, 1946). || From Les Fleurs du Mal (my translation). 12 Evariste Regis Huc, L'Empire chinois (Paris, 1854). For a more severe evaluation of Huc, see Simon Leys, The Burning Forest (New York, 1986), pp. 47-94 ("Peregrinations and perplexities of Pere Huc'). 13 Eugene Simon, La Cité chinoise (Paris, 1885). 14 Paul Claudel, Connaissance de l'Est (Mercure de France, Paris, 1908). 15 The novel by Jules Verne, Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1879), is quite unique in its concern for the politics of nineteenth-century China. The hero, Kin Fo, is torn between his fascination with modern technology and his loyalty to his teacher Wong, who is an ex-Taiping leader. It is to my knowledge the only appearance of the Taiping rebellion in French literature. 16 V. Hugo, Lettre au Capitaine Butler, Hauteville House, 25 November 1861 (my translation). 17 Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organisation in China: Changes in Management and the Division of Labor, trans. by Alfred Ehrenfeld (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974). See also China Since Mao, by Neil G. Burton and Charles Bettelheim (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1978). 18 Claude Roy, Clés pour la Chine (Paris, 1954); Etiemble, Le Nouveau singe-pèlerin (Paris, 1957); Philippe Sollers, Tel quel (a literary magazine edited by... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 7 1966. One of the few changes that have taken place over the centuries in methods of scaffolding was that, until the 1970s, bamboo poles were lashed together with “slivers” from the sheath of bamboo, each about one metre long. Since the 1970s, plastic binding has been employed. V Hong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria, Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society (1980); and Tom Briggs and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: The Vanishing City (1977); and Tom Briggs and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong, The Vanishing City, vol. II (1978); and Hong Kong, Then and Now, South China Morning Post (1982). 10 Solomon Bard, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988). Saul Lockhart, "How Long Can Hong Kong's Heritage Last? What Goes Up... Must Come Down", The Asia Magazine (26 April 1981), pp. 3 to 8. 12 "Landmarks safe from demolition”, South China Morning Post (9 June 1990). **Stanley's historical landmark** South China Morning Post (1 October 1983). 13 14 Alice Greenway, "Post Office wins reprieve”, South China Morning Post (11 October 1986). 15 "Landmarks safe from demolition" loc. cit. 16 Michael Chugani, "Hope fades for Murray House rebuilding plan" South China Morning Post (1 July 1985). Paul Gillingham, At the Peak, Hong Kong Between the Wars (1983), pp. 162 to 166. Malcolm Purvis, Tall Storeys, Palmer and Turner Architects & Engineers: The First 100 Years (1985), passim. 19 Lockhart, op. cit., p. 5. 20 Harold Ingrams, Hong Kong (1952), p. 42. 21 Helen Sam, "The Architect and his dream", Property Review Hong Kong Standard (25 September 1986), p. 3. 22 Alan Birch, "The Problems of Progress", Hong Kong Standard Anniversary Magazine (1 March 1978), p. 1. 23 Vaudine England, "The Awnings: Remnants of an empire”, Asia Magazine (28 July 1975), pp. 14 to 16. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 51 Another version of this legend claims that it was the T'ang emperor Kao Tsu (618-626 AD) who wished to test the 'pope's' powers by hiding 360 of his most elite literati (and not failed scholars) in the basement where they were required to play music. The 'pope' was instructed to stop the unidentified noise in the cellar and having waved his magic sword all sounds ceased. The 360 were all found dead, decapitated. The 360 complained to Yen Lo Wang, the ruler of the Underworld on their arrival at his Court who criticised the emperor and required him to appease the dead literati. This the emperor did by appointing them all to be Wang Yeh and by ordering a magnificent Buddhist mass to be said for their souls. In some versions the detail of the test set by the emperor for the Taoist 'pope' suggests that the imagination of the tea-house story tellers was stretched to the limit. In one, when the music reached its crescendo the emperor ordered the 'pope' Chang to put a stop to it. Chang replied that the only way he could do so was by killing the makers of the music but the emperor insisted. Chang sprinkled rice and salt on the floor, struck it with magic sword or wand and all 360 were instantly decapitated. After their souls had appeared before Yen Lo Wang in the Underworld demanding to be restored to life and Yen Lo had explained that this was not possible, the spirits of all 360 were confined to a box and cast into the waves of the sea. Found later by a fisherman on the foreshore, the box was opened and the spirits released. They returned to haunt the emperor who thereupon ordered that they should be deified as Wang Yeh. He also decreed that they should be revered in all parts of the empire. The spirits separated and went their ways with five going to Fukien where they have been worshipped ever since. A version heard in rural Singapore claimed that Chang T'ien Shih was told by some immortals that other immortals, heavenly ones who played music and wrote poetry, were in fact demons in disguise and that they should be destroyed. Chang, who could not resist a challenge, drew his sword and killed a mere 36 at one blow. Chang was later horrified to hear that the 36 were not demons at all but genuine immortals, and immediately sped to the Court of the Jade Emperor in Heaven to apologise and request that the 36 should be deified. The Jade Emperor granted his request and the 36 were sent to all parts of China to serve as pestilence deities. This legend in one form or another is possibly one of the best known legends about pestilence deities amongst the Chinese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft Symbol, and the Folk Tradition (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990). Knapp does not cover the paintings and stucco work that were a marked feature of the Kwangtung architectural style. For examples of this fine traditional decorative work, see Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Government Information Services Department, 1979). In the Hakka villages of the Tsuen Wan district, this "animal" was always a unicorn. In Cantonese villages the lion was usual. However, their purpose and motivation was clearly the same. Informants said there were differences in the dance performances of lions and unicorns; unicorns "crept, bobbed and weaved", whereas lions would "stand up and prance". The musical accompaniment, drums and gongs, was the same, and previously firecrackers had been an indispensable part of any performance by lions or unicorns. Hugh Baker mentions that the Liaos of Sheung Shui were known throughout the New Territories for their unicorn dance team. See the interesting information given in his Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village (London, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), p. 193. See my "Notes on Temples and Shrines on Hong Kong Island" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27 (1987), p. 287. Monlin Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), p. 9. John Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, 1836) Vol. 2, pp. 29-30. From the memorial tablet to Mr. Chan Wing-on, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the 18th Term, New Territories Heung Yee Kuk 1950-52, at the Wing On Pavilion, Fu Yung Shan, Tsuen Wan. Mr. Chan died on 15 October 1956; see Annual Departmental Reports, District Commissioner, New Territories, (1953-54 para. 56, and 1956-57 para. 119). From a “Short History of Yeung Uk Village" (in Chinese), published at the time of the village resiting in 1965 and written by Yeung's eldest grandson, Mr Yeung Cho-ling. According to the commemorative tablet, the grave was repaired on a lucky day in the middle month of the autumn season in the 10th year of Kuang Hsu, that is in September-October 1884. 1736; but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Ch'ien Lung's long reign. There was probably another, less altruistic factor at work here too: since it was believed that the graves of good people have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of their family for generations to come. It is implicit in this case that the good influences of the grave were not yet spent. For a more recent example from Tsing Yi Island, see my Rural Communities, op. cit., p. 143. Contents more than values, I suggest? Wolfram Eberhard, Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei, The Orient Cultural Service, 1972), p.2. R. David Arkush, "Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Proverbs" at pp. 310-335 of Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.) Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990). Helen Kwok and Mini Chan, Fossils From a Rural Past, A Study of Extant Cantonese Children's Songs (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 17, 29. Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1971), successively pp.126, 94-95. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 223 the 'Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade', A romantic web has been woven around Jardine's, far more than any other western firm in the Far East. This romanticism stretches to fiction, and Taipan and Noble House, both written by James Clavell, are reputed to be based on the 'Princely Hong'. Also a play named Poppy, about the Opium War of 1840, with comic Gilbert and Sullivan style songs, was staged in London in the early 1980s. Another better-known song, 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' written by Noel Coward in 1932, has it that: "In Hong Kong They strike a gong And fire a noonday gun There is no agreement, however, as to where the Hotchkiss Mark I, three-pound, quick-firing naval gun came from. Some say documents prove that before 1961 it was owned by the Hong Kong Marine Police. Others believe it came from the Royal Navy although Jardine's maintain the Senior Service has no record of the gun. The colourful myth that appears in guidebooks is that a penalty was imposed on Jardine Matheson by an irate British admiral because the firm fired a salute to its chief manager as he sailed into the harbour. Another tale has it that the gun was fired to honour the arrival of its opium-carrying fleet. From then on, so both stories go, the Navy compelled Jardine's to fire a gun daily. As A.I. Diamond, previously of the Public Records Office in Hong Kong, wrote: "Neither version explains by what authority the Navy could have compelled Jardine Matheson and Company to fire a gun at all let alone daily at noon, presumably in perpetuity." The true account is quite different. In the British Empire the armed forces used to fire guns at set hours to signify the time. In Hong Kong this practice stopped in 1869 because, by then, many people owned watches, and to save the cost of gunpowder. An extract from the Hong Kong Daily Press, dated January 3, 1870, records: It is interesting and just to note that the renewing of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 36 something more than ordinary adventure.' Again, after a theatrical performance by a Chinese actor and actress in a provincial town in Kueichou province, Mesny wrote that local people, believing him [he was then 36] to be very old as he had a beard, knew that foreign women must be inferior; "They must be, “they added", as foreign men pass by but never foreign women, and foreign men marry Chinese wives.' Mesny added that he had one 'with very small feet and wears elegantly embroidered red satin shoes!' This must have been in 1878. Writing a paragraph under the heading of 'Slave Girls', Mesny noted that it was a common thing for well-to-do people to present a couple of slave girls to a daughter as part of their marriage dowry. It was also customary with respectable people to release slave girls when marriageable. Mesny added that he had bought three different girls, two in Szechuan, for a few taels each [less than 15 dollars Mexican]. One he released in Tientsin, another died in Hong Kong; the other he gave in marriage to a faithful servant of his. In his Miscellanies he described a number of Chinese women, young and beautiful, who [or so he claimed] desired to marry him. Some he encouraged but in each instance the story peters out, others disappear out of his stories without explanation or further mention. He also had a 'romantic and intimate interlude' with a young Chinese widow, who did not appear to be short of money, and who accompanied Mesny down river to Hankow where they remained in a house near the Yamen where Mesny frequently visited her. He noted at one point that 'there was nothing like gushing love between us, but I could not fail to admire such an admirably sensible woman. What she thought was admiring in me I know not, but I know she said from the first that she required my protection. The only time that I ever noticed anything like affectionate love on her part for me was on my first visit to her after my misadventure at the Lung-wang Miao". Then she wept. She took my head very gently between her fine hands and repeatedly kissed the fresh scars of my recent wounds... we were both silent.' Despite this, he shortly afterwards described in the Miscellany that he, Mesny, 'had been busy at work and with his friend Pickerell, and paid frequent visits to my charmer near the Tao-t'ai's Yamen. She complained of the scarcity and brevity of my visits and showed unmistakable signs of being in a condition likely to increase the already great population of the vast empire of China.' ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 4 included (CO129/414, p. 177). The three German females in the 1921 census are mentioned in a report Canon Bannister sent to the Church Missionary Society in 1914. The Berlin Foundling House had 150 children and the two Blind Homes had 120 children. "The Government has allowed three German ladies to remain in each home and the writer was asked to take general oversight”, (Archives of the Church Missionary Society, University of Birmingham, England, CH1/P/4 No. 149, Bannister, 5 Nov. 1914). The German community gradually reestablished itself in Hong Kong, but in 1931 it was less than half of what it had been in 1911. Hong Kong being a British colony, the British were the largest non-Chinese community. Next was the Macanese-Portuguese. The third were the Germans. They were followed by the Americans, Germans in the Canton trade German-speaking merchants participated in the China trade in the eighteenth century. The trade was confined to Canton. In 1729, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor of Austria, chartered the Imperial East India Company to trade in the East using the port of Ostend in the Netherlands as its home base. At that time Netherlands was a part of the Austrian Empire. This company did not use German ships, but chartered British vessels which were principally manned by British crews. This was a stratagem to get around the efforts of the British chartered East India Company to control the European trade with China. Over the years there were usually two or three ships each season from Bremen or Hamburg arriving at Canton. British free traders used the protection of the office of Consul for foreign states to acquire the privilege of permanent residence in China. These free traders were large importers of opium of India, a trade the British East India Company ships did not engage in as it was prescribed by Chinese Imperial Edict and the company wished to maintain a good relation with the Dragon Throne. It feared that if it was too closely identified with the opium trade the Chinese authorities would curtail the company's lucrative and traditional trade in tea. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 65 an extra $4 million because of an extension of time granted to a contractor when residents complained the district's fung shui was being disturbed. During the 1980s, amounts paid out annually by the Government varied between $500,000 and $950,000. From 1989 to 1991, ex-gratia payouts of nearly $2 million were made. The dilemma is always that if the Administration pays out on unproven claims, it will be accused of wasting taxpayers' money, and, if it does not pay, others will say the Government does not respect Chinese culture, But as one retired Scottish civil servant explained, there are two kinds of fung shui. There is the one that villagers will accept money for to have it overridden. But nothing will compensate for actually severing the main "dragon's vein". 'Money cannot buy good fung shui,' Tang clansmen told the Government when they turned down an offer of $1.7 million for agreeing to a 200-year-old ancestral grave being removed at Nim Wan, in the Deep Bay area, so that a landfill project could proceed. The Clan did, however, say that it would consider allowing the grave to be moved for a fung shui 'swap' scheme, and if Government demolished a police station at Ping Shan. They claim the station has for years 'crushed' good fung shui. In retaliation, the Tang Clan closed an ancient study hall and an ancestral hall along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail. At the time of writing, the dispute had still not been settled. The Hong Kong Government has also tacitly accepted certain aspects of Chinese folk religion. Some Government offices have had Earth God shrines (82) erected outside them. An example was Murray House (near where the new Bank of China now stands), which was demolished in 1982. It had a reputation among Rating and Valuation Department staff, who worked there, of being haunted. Other Government offices which have had shrines outside them include the office of the project manager at Empire House, while it was being built in 1991, in Tsim Sha Tsui East. Also, various government project managers' offices in the New Territories have had small shrines erected outside them. Who actually paid to have these shrines set up is not clear. Again, on countless occasions, the ceremonial carving of a suckling pig, on an appropriate day, has appeared to civil servants to be well worth the expense in that it allayed concerns of staff and, afterwards, members worked better. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 201 Forsyth, Sidney A, An American Missionary Community in China 1895-1905, Cambridge (Mass), Harvard University Press, 1971 Fortune, Robert, Five Year's Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China, London John Murray, 1844 (Shanghai Reprint University Press) Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China and the British Tea Plantations in the Himalaya, London John Murray, 1853 Fox, Helen, ed and trans, Abbe David's Diary, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1949 Franck, Harry Alverson, Wandering in Northern China. New York and London The Century Company, 1923 — Roving Through Southern China, New York and London The Century Company, 1925 Franek, Rachel (Harta), I Married a Vagabond the Story of Family of the Wandering Vagabond, New York Appleton-Century 1939. Fritz, Chester, China Journey, Seattle Washington University Press, 1981 Gallagher, Louis J ST, trans, The Journals of Matthew Ricci 1583-1610, New York Random House, 1953 Gamewell, M N, The Gateway to China Pictures of Shanghai New York Fleming H Revell Company, 1916 (Taipei: Reprint Cheng-wen Publishing) Garman, Schuyler New Fight on Hua and Gabet. Their Expulsion From Lhasa in 1846. Pacific Eastern Quarterly | 148-63 (1942) Gardner, James. In and Out of Chungking Changteh - Wenchow - Chanchow. Missionary Life, Experience and Adventure During the First of Three Periods of Residence in China, Sydney 1947 Garon, Shirley S. The Chamber of Commerce and the YMCA in Mark Elvin and G William Skinner, eds. The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, Stanford Stanford University Press. 1974 213-238 Gaunt Mary Elizabeth Bakewell (b. 1872). A Woman in China, London, Lane, 1914 Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze, New York Eaton and Mains, 1904 (Copy at Yale published by Methuen in London 1926) General Description of Shanghae and Its Environs Shanghai The Mission Press, 1850 Goes, Bento de, The Travels of Benedict Goez, a Portuguese Jesuit from Lahore in the Mogul's Empire to China, in 1602. in Pinkerton, John, ed, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels London 1808-14:577-587) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 THE YANG FAMILY OF GENERALS Yang Chia Chiang 楊家將 KEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH 39 The story of the Yang Family of Generals is inextricably involved with the struggle between the Chinese of the Sung dynasty [early in the 10th century AD] and the invading hordes from Central Asia. Memories of the fearless Yangs, who were dreaded by the Tatars from beyond the Wall, are kept fresh by tea-house story tellers, Chinese opera, and tales told by temple keepers. We have, therefore, three versions of the story of the Yangs: first, as we read it in history books; then, the story as told in novels, by professional story tellers, and in opera; and finally, tales related by temple custodians and devotees about the deified Yang heroes. We shall never know the real story of the Yang family; nevertheless, the chronological story as told in history books is relatively straightforward. General Chao K'uang-yin became the first emperor of the Sung in AD 960 with his capital at Kaifeng and with the reign title of T'ai Tsu. He eventually achieved his primary aim and unified most of China under his rule, one of the exceptions being the small state, a princedom in the area of today's Shanxi province known by its dynastic title as the Northern Han, and also known by its regional name as Ho-tung [East of the (Yellow) River]. When the Northern Han refused to submit to him in the Autumn of AD 968, T'ai Tsu decided to invade and moved on Taiyuan, the capital of Ho-tung. The Prince of the Northern Han, realising that they were powerless before the Sung, called on the warlike and powerful Liao [Khitans'], a minor empire to the north of the Great Wall, for assistance. Also realising that outside aid could not arrive in time to save the immediate situation, the Prince made his most able soldier, Yang Chi-yeh, possibly better known simply as Yang Yeh, Generalissimo and ordered him and his five senior sons to lead the resistance against the Sung to allow time for the Liao forces to join up with them. The combined Northern Han and Liao forces were too strong for the Sung, and even though Taiyuan had twice been besieged by the Sung, T'ai Tsu pulled back and turned south where he subdued the Southern Han. Once more, in 976, he sent an ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 230 HONG KON (from the notes of a Russian traveller) Of the many islands, scattered along the shores of the extensive Chinese empire, the English selected for themselves a small island not particularly distinguishable for its fertility, almost bare, of little use to China; but with a good harbour and lying on the route from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean - hence very useful to them - and founded a city here, a depot for trade not only with China but with neighbouring islands. The city, whose proper name of Victoria is hardly known even to its own inhabitants, looks over the strait separating the island from the mainland, and consists of one main street following the course of the shore; it's called Queen's Road, although neither the present, nor any future queens of Great Britain are likely to travel on it; a number of other smaller streets run parallel to this main street or cross it at right angles. The latter rise up the mountain so steeply, that the houses behind stand a whole storey above the ones in front and that is why all of them have a wonderful view of the harbour and the picturesque shores of China. Magnificent too is the view of the city from the harbour. The houses, arranged in the form of an amphitheatre at the foot of the hill, are shaded by groups of trees; the main street is interrupted in the middle by an avenue, from which a garden with convenient, winding paths, runs further up the mountain, so that the mountain itself, previously completely bare is now covered to a certain level by shady bamboo lanes or groves of various trees. People building houses here mainly tried to shield themselves from the burning rays of the tropical sun, which is why the houses all have something in common: each one has, without fail, a covered balcony, and has some semi-dark hall through which the breeze blows; also shutters are an essential accessory of windows. The best building, in my opinion, is where the beautiful is united with the useful, which is - the barracks of the regiment stationed here. The two-storeyed peristyle surrounding it gives it the appearance of a Roman temple and shields it on all sides from the sun's rays. The Governor's House built recently on an elevated site in the middle of a newly cultivated garden, would have been one of Hong Kong's best adornments, were it not obstructed by extensions which completely obscure it. Other magnificent buildings I must include are the hospital, the club and many private homes. The western part was the first to be settled and is now nothing very much: - narrow streets with small houses ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 155 IMAGES ON CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION ALTARS OF THE HEROES INVOLVED IN THE SUPPRESSION OF THE AN LUSHAN REBELLION [AD 755 - 763] KEITH STEVENS China suffered a major internal political upheaval between 755 and 763 when General An Lushan led a rebellion against the Tang emperor. It took some seven years for it to be decisively suppressed by government forces. From some records it would appear that An Lushan was half Turkish and half Soghdian, the son of a Soghdian officer and known as Rokhshan before he took the Chinese name of An Lushan. Recent histories written by foreigners only rarely refer to An Lushan prior to his command of a punitive expedition against the Khitan in 736. This campaign was a failure to such an extent that his superior general considered having him executed. Within ten years, however, he became one of the most powerful of the generals, ruling most of the north-east of what was then China, and in particular holding the governorship of three frontier cities, Pinglu, Fanyang and Hedong, along the northern borders of present day Hebei and Shanxi provinces. This meant that he commanded the best and largest armies of the Empire. Professor Giles' provided An Lushan's biography in some detail, and although very dated it is still of great interest: An Lu-shan died in AD 757. He was born in Luk-chak, of Turkic descent, whose original name had been K'ang. [Presumably Giles was quoting Chinese sources when he related that]... An Lu-shan's mother had been a witch who had prayed for a son on the Ya-lao mountains and at his birth, a halo was seen around the house, and the beasts of the fields cried aloud. The authorities sent to have the child put to death, but he was successfully concealed by his mother. His father died young and his mother re-married, a man named An; ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 23 45. Cabinet Minutes, 6 June 1934, 23(34)6, 13 June 1934, 24(34)6, 3 Oct. 1934, 33(34)5, CAB23/79, PRO. 46. Confidential Circular Despatch, June 1934, CO323/1298/10 and CO854/175. 47. Colonial Office to Governor Hong Kong, 6 April 1934, CO323/1298/11. 48. Information from R.R. Todd, an administrative officer in Hong Kong 1924-56, interviewed in 1986. 49. CO323/1298/11. CO852/16/10. 50. CO852/219/13. 51. Circular Despatches, 13 April 1934, and 15 May 1934, CO854/175. 52. Havinden and Meredith, 188-90. Governor Hong Kong to Colonial Office, 2 May 1934, CO323/1290/6. 53. Circular Despatch, 19 Sept. 1936, CO854/170. 54. Governor Jamaica to Colonial Office, 6 July 1936 and 11 Aug, 1936, CO852/51/9. Governor Jamaica to Colonial Office, 3 June 1937, CO852/106/19. 55. An Economic Survey of the Colonial Empire, HMSO Colonial No 95 (London, 1934), 137. Economic Survey Col. 109, 170; Economic Survey Col. 126, 170. Hong Kong Trade Statistics 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935. 56. Circular Despatch, 13 March 1933, CO323/1230/11. 57. Letters and Memorandum from Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce in Caldecott to Colonial Office, 25 July and 4 Aug. 1936, CO852/51/9. McKenzie (Custom House) to Eastwood (Colonial Office), 18 Sept 1936. Rydderch (Custom House) to Colonial Office, 26 Feb. 1937, CO852/107/1. 58. In 1936 exports of electric flashlight torches totalled HK$2,930,000, including India HK$595,000, Netherlands East Indies HK$379,000, and Britain HK$167,000. Hong Kong Trade Returns 1936. 59. Minutes on Caldecott to Clauson, 15 Oct. 1936, CO852/51/9. Clauson commented: 'It is all too seldom we get from a colonial governor so thoughtful and comprehensive a review of the future of the colony he governs.' 60. Officer Administering Government, Hong Kong to Colonial Office, 30 Sept. 1937, with enclosures, CO853/109/5. King (Board of Trade) to Eastwood (Colonial Office), 13 Nov, 1937, CO852/109/5. 61. Circular Despatch, 2 June 1937, CO854/176. 62. Memorandum by Hamilton (Superintendent of Imports and Exports Hong Kong), 22 April 1937 CO852/106/19. Hong Kong Trade Returns 1937. 63. Circular Despatch, 24 Feb. 1938, CO854/177. 64. Minute by Caine (Financial Secretary Hong Kong 1937-39), 24 Jan. 1940, CO852/215/3. Gas masks, CO129/580/9. Aircraft assembly, CO129/571/15 and CO129/580/4. 65. Hong Kong Blue Book 1936, 1938, 1939, 1940. 66. Calculations made as in note 5 from Hong Kong Trade Returns 1938 omitting all raw materials, unprocessed agricultural products and exports of banknotes (valued at HK$36,000,000). 67. Clausen described the policy of the Colonial Office in these words when speaking at a meeting of the Overseas Trade Development Council, 31 July 1935, CO852/16/7. 68. Colonial Office to Neville Chamberlain, 15 Jan. 1936. Federation of British Industries to Warren Fisher, 14 Feb. 1936. Minutes in Treasury file T160/763/F14811/1. 69. Minutes of the second meeting of the committee, 23 April 1937, T160/763/F14811/1. 70. CO852/16/13, The inventor approached the Colonial Office directly and officials referred the project to the governor of Trinidad. The governor appointed a committee which doubted if the project was feasible. The Colonial Office received a number of similar proposals in the 1930s. Often the entrepreneur was eager to set up a factory provided that he was granted a high protective tariff, an exclusive license, part of the capital costs, subsidised freight rates and other financial privileges. In effect the businessman was asking the colonial government to bear all the risks while he would enjoy the profits if the project was successful. See for example CO852/16/9, a proposal to set up a factory in Nyasaland to process sisal into binder twine. An official commented that this was a last desperate attempt by a bankrupt farmer to keep his own sisal estates going. Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 215 reject the Christian form of life and its teachings he had followed for five years, proving it by "go[ing] to a temple and burn[ing] incense before some idols," would he be spared further torture. Refusing to bend to their manhandling, the patience of his enemies grew thin.8 87 Other letters tell that as he still refused to give up Christianity, his persecutors carried him to the banks of a river [near the village of Kong Tung on the evening of October 16th] and swore that if he would not then and there deny Christ, they would put him to death. He only answered, "How can I deny Him who died for me?" Infuriated by his steadfastness they rushed on him, struck him down, cut off his head and threw his body into the river. For a number of weeks after this murder the rioters continued to rampage the district of Poklo, but gradually the vigilante dream faded, and the seriousness of their offences weighed on the leaders' minds. Attempts at compromise were offered, asking for clemency in return for the mission society's free use of the house in Poklo. To this Legge is claimed to have responded that the missionaries "would take no measures to bring them to justice," but as missionaries they could not interfere if the Chinese government itself charged them with serious offences.$8 PART SIX: Confused lights in the dark halls of foreign affairs By the end of October, two weeks after Ch'ea's murder, Legge wrote not only about the limited details he had heard regarding Ch'ea's sufferings, but also characterized the vigilantes themselves. For him and others there was much "not easy to understand." On the surface, they seemed to be supporting the Qing empire, and even carried a flag with the inscription, "Security to the Government, and Extermination for Barbarians" (possibly using the derogatory term, fanyi). But from the extensive description of the larger picture given here it is undeniable that they acted "in defiance of the authorities," even taking prisoner a number of the local Qing officials (whose fate was never clarified). During this same period the occupation ================================================================================