RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f
LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES

87

Heaven. In Canton itself there was a serious plot to seize the city in October 1894, which led Consul Fraser to write in his next report

There is little doubt that dissatisfaction with the administration of their native country is growing among the Southern Chinese, and if no attempt at reform is made, may result in a serious insurrection". He mentioned the plot but remarked that its failure was due more to the ineptitude of its organisers than to the vigour of the local authorities.33 His colleague at Pakhoi, in the south-east of the province, was more critical.

Such as is Chinese civilisation, Pakhoi is of its outskirt only and shows a lower level than I have seen anywhere else in this country. Piracy is in the blood of the race. A glance through the year's diary shows a monotonous record of petty coast raids, hoverings of pirate junks (which still terrorise the neighbouring coastline) and robberies of every degree of dignity from the sacking of the larger pawnshops to the plunder of a returned emigrant from the Straits or Sumatra. Of Chinese local authorities at Pakhoi itself there are practically none, the highest native Civilian within 20 miles being an officer of the rank of sub-district deputy magistrate armed with an amount of authority that barely enables him to call in question the theft of a matchbox. It would be invidious to say this much of the Pakhoi neighbourhood without adding that most of the adjacent areas are worse.34

Whilst these reports were confined to individual districts there can be little doubt that the general unrest was known and felt in the New Territory. It will be recalled that SUN Yat Sen was a Cantonese and some of his followers are credited with swelling the ranks of the village bands which offered resistance to the British troops who entered the New Territory in 1899.35 This tale of unrest and lawlessness, and weakness on the part of the civil authorities, provides a background to the unsuccessful reform movement of 1898, sponsored by the southern party at Peking, whose sequel was the incarceration of the emperor by his formidable aunt, the Empress Dowager, the stringent capital measures against the reform party and their dispersal overseas or in foreign concessions in China. The leader of the movement and adviser to the emperor was KANG Yue Wei, a prominent scholar and mandarin, and himself a Cantonese.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g
BOOK REVIEWS 

179 

The reprint, in so attractive an edition, of Derk Bodde's translation of the Annual Customs and Festivals of Peking by Tun Li-ch'en is most welcome. In setting himself the task of compiling information on the day to day life of the capital the Manchu author must have had a premonition of change, and that much that he recorded would be forgotten. The disastrous war with Japan in 1894 had laid bare China's shortcomings, and the efforts of K'ang Yu-wei to reform the structure of the Empire by modernisation had been thwarted by the old Empress Dowager. The country was seething with discontent at foreign encroachment, and the Boxer movement threatened to provoke the "carving of the melon" by the European powers and the loss of independence. The decay of the dynasty was accompanied by the disintegration of temples and architectural monuments for want of funds for maintenance, a process much accelerated by the advent of the Republic in 1912. Within a few years only the renting of the famous monasteries in the Western Hills as week-end residences by foreigners saved them from ruin, whilst many centres of pilgrimage mentioned by the author have since completely disappeared. 

Though the archaeologist may throw light on a vanished civilisation by the study of inscriptions and works of art, he cannot reveal its day to day life in the way that Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims depict mediaeval English society. Tun's record has a similar value since, though it is just over sixty years, or a 'Cycle of Cathay', since he recorded the highlights of each lunar month, there would be little he would recognise were he to revisit the scene of his life's activities. 

In the original preface to Tun's book, written by his friend and fellow student Jun-fang Shu-t'ien, his wide interest in, and knowledge of, ancient customs is cited in commendation of the work, and the reader will be struck by the thoroughness with which the subject is treated. 

Beginning with New Year's eve the author describes the ceremonies for celebrating the coming season, and all the festivities appropriate to the Holiday Moon. The great temples, within and in the vicinity of the capital, are described as the annual festival of their patron saint comes round, and the appropriate dishes for the feast are invariably given. Even the belief that the consumption of candied crab apples is a prophylactic for coal-gas poisoning is recorded.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d
180

THE LIBRARY

BACKHOUSE, E. and BLAND, J. O. P.

Annals and memoirs of the court of Peking, from the 16th to the 20th century. London, Heinemann, 1914.

BALL, J. Dyer.

Things Chinese; or, Notes connected with China. 5th ed., rev. by E. Chalmers Werner. Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1925.

BELCHER, Sir Edward.

Narrative of a voyage round the world, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, during the years 1836-1842, including details of the naval operations in China from Dec. 1840 to Nov. 1841. Publ. under the authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. London, Colburn, 1843, 2 vols.

BERNARD, W. D.

Narrative of the voyages and services of the Nemesis, from 1840 to 1843; and of the combined naval and military operations in China: comprising a complete account of the Colony of Hong Kong, and remarks on the character and habits of the Chinese, from notes of W.H. Hall, London, Colburn, 1844. 2 vols.

BISHOP, John L., ed.

Studies in Chinese literature. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard U.P., 1965.

BLAND, J. O. P., and BACKHOUSE, E.

China under the Empress Dowager; being the life and times of Tzu Hsi, compiled from state papers and the private diary of the comptroller of her household. New and rev. cheaper ed. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1914.

BODDE, Derk.

China's first unifier: a study of the Ch'in dynasty as seen in the life of Li Ssŭ († 208 B.C.). Hong Kong, University Press, 1967.

BOUCHOT, Jean.

Scènes de la vie des Hutungs; croquis des moeurs pékinoises. 2e éd. Pekin, [Nachbaur] 1922.

BREDON, Juliet.

Hundred altars. Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1936.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d
THE LIBRARY

181

BREDON, Juliet.

Sir Robert Hart: the romance of a great career, told by his niece. London, Hutchinson, 1909.

BUCK, Peter H.

Explorers of the Pacific: European and American discoveries in Polynesia, by Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck). Honolulu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1953.

BUSHELL, Stephen W.

Chinese art. 2nd ed. London, H.M.S.O., 1909 reprinted 1924. (Victoria and Albert Museum handbooks) 2 vols.

CAHILL, James.

Chinese painting. [Lausanne] Skira, 1960.

CARL, Katharine A.

With the Empress Dowager. New York, Century, 1905.

CARNÉ, Louis de.

Travels in Indo-China and the Chinese Empire: with a notice of the author by the Count de Carné. Translated from the French. London, Chapman and Hall, 1872.

CHAI, Fei, and others.

Indigo prints of China. Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1956.

CHENG, J. C.

Chinese sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864. Hong Kong, University Press, 1963.

CHU, Hsi (AO

Kia-li (†): livre des rites domestiques chinois de Tchou-hi, traduit pour la première fois avec commentaires by C. de Harlez. Paris, Leroux, 1889.

CLAUDEL, Paul.

Chine. Photographies d'Hélène Hoppenot. [Genève] Skira, 1946.

CLAVELL, James.

Tai-pan: a novel of Hong Kong. London, Michael Joseph, 1966.

COATES, Austin.

Prelude to Hongkong. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d
CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS

15

including a big reclamation project.14 The name of the company contained the names of the partners, "Kai" from Ho Kai and "Tak" from Au Tak. Hence the name of our airport may be taken as a name in commemoration of both Ho Kai and Au Tak.

Although very westernized himself, Dr. Ho Kai always entertained a very sympathetic understanding of the Chinese masses. In May 1887 when the Government introduced the Public Health Bill, Dr. Ho Kai, to the surprise of his European friends, opposed it strongly as a member of the Sanitary Board. He accused the Bill of making the "mistake of treating Chinese as if they were Europeans" and argued that to improve standards indiscriminately would mean cutting down the available building space, and forcing rentals to go up,15 thereby causing great hardship to the poorer Chinese. Because of his opposition the Bill had to be amended substantially. This is only one example of why Ho Kai was so much respected by the Chinese community as its leader and forthright spokesman.

In addition to his interest in Hong Kong affairs, Ho Kai, like many educated Chinese of his time, was very much concerned with the modernization and reformation movements that were going on in China. On 8th February 1887, the China Mail carried a reprint of an article by Marquis Tseng Chi-tze, Chinese Minister to Great Britain and Russia, entitled "China, the Sleep and the Awakening". On 16th February 1887, Ho Kai published, under the pen-name "Sinensis", a long article in the China Mail refuting many points raised by Marquis Tseng. In subsequent years he wrote quite a number of articles, voicing his ideas on political and economic reforms in China, and refuting the views of such Chinese personages as Viceroy Chang Chi-tung and Kang Yu-wei, the reformer who aroused the ire of the formidable Empress Dowager. In 1897 he was offered a post in China by his brother-in-law, Wu Ting-fang.16 However, he went to Shanghai to have a look at things for himself and he decided to return to Hong Kong.

In 1895, when Dr. Sun Yat-sen, one of his students in the Hong Kong College of Medicine and founder of the Chinese Republic, started the Hsing Chung Hui, a revolutionary organization, in Hong Kong, he had the assistance and support of Dr. Ho Kai. Indeed Dr. Ho took an active part in planning some of the early abortive attempts in Canton to overthrow the Manchu Government.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h
SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART

77

Lastly, reference should be made to Lockhart's great interest in Chinese painting. He built up during the forty years he spent in Hong Kong and China a notable collection of Chinese paintings dating from the Sung Dynasty (960-1279) down to the closing years of the Empire, including one by the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi herself. Lockhart's collection was exhibited in June 1928 at the Betty Joel Galleries, Knightsbridge, and created wide interest. In January 1972 a painting by Yün Shou-p'ing (1633-1690), one of the six masters of the early Ch'ing Dynasty, was presented to the University of Hong Kong by Lockhart's daughter, Mrs. Mary Stewart Lockhart, 'in memory of her father and as a perpetual token of her father's admiration and affection for the Chinese of Hong Kong.'65 The remainder of Lockhart's collection of Chinese coins, paintings, and papers have been given to George Watson's College.

LAST YEARS

Lockhart returned to England in 1921 and settled down with his family in South Kensington, London. He returned with undiminished vigour, his interest in China and in things Chinese as acute as ever, and he continued to keep in touch with his Chinese and European friends in Asia. Jean Gittins, Sir Robert Ho Tung's daughter, tells us in her autobiography66 that when the Lockharts heard she was contemplating staying in England, they at once suggested she should live with them and that Lockhart should act as her guardian. Lockhart became a regular attendant at the Council meetings of the Royal Asiatic Society — he was in fact one of its oldest members (nominated in 1879) and of its vigorous North China Branch (nominated in 1885) — and he contributed a number of book reviews to its Journal. He frequently presided at the ordinary meetings and lectures given under the Society's auspices and in 1928 became its honorary Secretary and also the Society's nominee on the Governing Body of the School of Oriental Studies at London University. He held both these honorary appointments until 1935, when failing health forced him to resign from both. He died on February 26, 1937, aged 79, at his home. The Times obituary was headed appropriately: 'Forty years in China', and it spoke of him as 'a colonial official who had served with distinction for more than 40 years in the Far East.'67 The obituary in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society said: 'most of his contemporaries in Hong Kong have passed away or have left the Colony, but there are still
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
330

BOOK REVIEWS

Chapter XIV: "The Nineteenth century: Looking Backward and Forward", is mainly a discussion of the landscape paintings of the 19th century, represented by Ch'ien Tu (1763-1844) and Tai Hsi (1801-1860).

Chapter XV: "Bird-and-flower painting: The end of a tradition”, five artists of the Ming Dynasty; Lu Chih, Hsiang Yuan-pien (1525-1590), Chou Chieh-mien (act. 1580-1610), Chang Hung, and Sun K’o-hung (1532-1610), and two artists from the Ch'ing Dynasty; Hua Yen (1682-after 1755) and the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (1835-1908) form key figures for discussion.

The merits of this book are shown, first of all, by a detailed chronology of the artists of the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties. This point can be clearly seen if the chronologies of the same group of artists as they appear in other writings on history of Chinese painting are compared with those in Prof. Li's new publication. In order to make this point clear, a concordance table about the chronology of many artists is provided below.*

The second merit of this book seems to be a new use of old editorial principles practised in Chinese historical writings. As stated, Volume I consists of 15 chapters. In every chapter, a detailed study of each picture is always preceded by an introductory essay. The origin for presenting such an essay in a descriptive catalogue, when old writings on Chinese painting are studied, can be traced back at least to the early 12th century work, Hsuan-ho hua-p'u *1#," a descriptive catalogue about paintings, in Emperor Sung Hui-tsung's imperial collection, the Ming Hua Lu ***;14 and also to "Records of History of painting in the Ming Dynasty", edited by Hsü Hsin in late 17th century, both edited according to this principle. In the former, the subject-matter of Chinese painting is classified by the anonymous editor into 10 categories; and in the latter, into 15 subdivisions. Using modern concepts to review Hsuan-ho hua-p'u and Ming hua-lu, each category in these two historical documents should evidently be read as an independent chapter. More significantly, introductory essays, no matter whether long or short, are always addressed to each chapter-like category.

p. 330.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
14

RICHARD J. SMITH

foreign military aid reaped few long-term gains. Western officers from "Chinese" Gordon to Constantin von Hanneken introduced a measure of modernity to at least a few armies in the late Ch'ing period, but none of these individuals was able to promote more basic institutional reform.10 The effects of Japan's success and China's failure in this regard were far-reaching.

Generally speaking, China's approach to military reform in the years from 1860 to 1895 may be compared with that of Japan in the years from 1853 to 1868. In each instance, foreign assistance was acquired piecemeal by both the central government and local governments, with no real coordination between the two. Similar rationales were offered, and similar results obtained, although in the case of China the new knowledge and technology acquired was used to bolster rather than to undermine the existing central government.11

A high priority for both pre-Meiji Japan and late Ch'ing China was the training of troops and officers in Western techniques. In each country, the use of foreign military assistance followed similar lines. The training program established for the Bakufu by the French Minister, Leon Roches, at Yokohama during the mid-1860's, for example, may be compared with the central government training program set up by the British Minister, Frederick Bruce, at Tientsin in the early 1860's.12 Similarly, the various foreign-training efforts begun in Chōshu and other han during the 1860's bear a basic resemblance to the post-Taiping training camps established at Shanghai, Canton, Foochow and elsewhere.13 The Japanese even had their own rough equivalent of China's famous Ever-Victorious Army.14 Common problems in these early military improvement programs included language difficulties, foreign rivalries, financial limitations, lack of standardization in arms and training, and foreign meddling.15

China never overcame these problems. From the 1860's to the early 1890's, a handful of foresighted individuals, most notably Li Hung-chang, undertook a variety of modernizing enterprises aimed at building up China's “wealth and power.” Their efforts succeeded in a limited way, but were severely hindered by obscurantism, official opposition, bureaucratic inertia, and the deliberate policies of the Empress Dowager, Tz'u-hsi, who carefully manipulated political factions in order to maintain and enhance her own power.16
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593
40

RICHARD J. SMITH

116 I have discussed many of these problems in Mercenaries and Mandarins and "Foreign-Training," 215-223 and notes.

117 Powell, chapters 2-8; Hatano, "The New Armies"; Young, “Nationalism," etc.

118 Powell amply documents this point. See also the discussion by Sue Fawn Chung, "The Image of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi," in Paul Cohen and John Schrecker, eds., Reform in Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), esp. 105-106.

119 For the importance of ideology in other areas of reform, however, see K. C. Liu, “Politics, Intellectual Outlook, and Reform: The T'ung-wen Kuan Controversy of 1867," in Cohen and Schrecker, Reform.

120 See Wang Chia-chien, cited in note 104; also Rawlinson, 89.

121 See note 104; also Ayers, 111.

122 The civil service examination system continued to be a nearly irresistible lure to the best minds of the empire, and even Li Hung-chang encouraged foreign-trained military and naval personnel to seek identification with the civil service. See Rawlinson, 203. Biggerstaff, 85, maintains that vested interests were more pervasive in military organizations than the navy.

123 On these problems, see Smith, Mercenaries and Mandarins, chapter 9.

124 See Smith, "Reflections"; also Liu and Smith, "The Military Challenge.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522
64

the need to make the record appear to indicate a full three years' participation in such a scheme. This is slightly more convincing as an explanation. A final possibility is that Mok wished to draw attention away from the fact that he was a teacher at the Central School from 1884 to 1887. It is interesting to speculate about the reasons for this desire. Is it a coincidence, for example, that these were precisely the years during which Sun Yat Sen, the future revolutionary leader and President of the Republic of China, then known as Sun Tai Tseung, attended the Central School? It is possible that the young assistant teacher and the new pupil became friends. It is also possible that, in 1906, it struck Mok Man Cheung that public knowledge of this attachment would have been inconvenient and, therefore, he post-dated his teaching career's commencement to 1888, the year after Sun Yat Sen left the Central School for the newly formed Hong Kong College of Medicine for the Chinese. In 1906, the Empress Dowager was still alive. A belated Reform Movement was in operation in a last desperate, but vain, attempt to save the Qing dynasty and the Imperial system. As mentioned above, only two years earlier, in the first edition of his English Made Easy, Mok Man Cheung had given precedence to words like Emperor and Crown Prince. He had referred to queues and queue-strings as normal items, at the very time when for revolutionaries and even reformers they were regarded as symbols of Manchu oppression. There is no doubt that at this particular time open evidence of an affiliation with Sun Yat Sen would have been commercially, socially and politically undesirable, though, like several other middlemen of the period, Mok might have been quietly keeping his connections open with all sides.

Discussion of the significance of Mok Man Cheung's career

So much then for the worldly successes and possible problems of Mok Man Cheung. Whatever his innermost thoughts may have been, there can be little doubt that he strove outwardly to take advantage of the colonial, commercial, and social establishment of his time. Significantly, his book, English Made Easy, attempted to bridge the enormous gap between the Chinese and British communities in Hong Kong at the beginning of the twentieth century. As mentioned above, this was a period which was not
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
338

considers the scale of the task that he set himself. The Search for Modern China is a landmark in China scholarship. Spence's talent as a raconteur and his immensely readable style enable him to succeed in making history interesting to the nonspecialist.

On the present succession crisis in China, Spence points out the eerie parallel between Deng Xiaoping's behavior today and that of Mao Zedong in his last years, with each man anointing, then purging, one hand-picked successor after another. Even greater perspective is provided by his relating the present situation to that of the early Qing dynasty, when the emperor Kangxi was brought, as Spence put it, "to the edge of despair" by the succession question (p. 245), not being able to decide which of his many sons to name as his heir.

The author provides a rare perspective on China's centuries-old struggle to come to terms with the rest of the world,

He recalls that the reformers of 1898 had sought to resolve this tension by developing the concept of ti, or "essence," and yong, or "practical use." This formulation, Spence says, "affirmed that there was indeed a fundamental structure of Chinese moral and philosophical values that gave continuity and meaning to the civilization. Holding on to that belief, China could then afford to adopt quickly and dramatically all sorts of Western practices, and to hire Western advisers" (p. 225).

Spence sees Deng and the other Chinese leaders today falling victim to the nineteenth-century fallacy that China could join the modern world entirely on its own terms, sacrificing nothing of its prevailing ideological purity" (p. 746).

He feels this effort is doomed to failure. "The task was even more hopeless in the late 1980s than it had been in the 1880s”, Spence concludes. "What was left of Chinese Communist doctrine after the rejection of many of Mao's ideas and the emergence of the enterprise system was a thinner gruel even than the overformalized Confucianism that had guided the reformers of the late Qing. The party elders flailing out at Zhao Ziyang and his noisy supporters were reacting in an oddly similar way to the Empress Dowager Cixi as she struck back at Emperor Guangxu for attempting his Hundred Days' Reforms" (p. 746).
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
339

As Spence and other students of history are well aware, circumstances in later years forced the Empress Dowager to implement even more radical reform measures than the ones her nephew the Emperor tried to put in place. But those came too late to save the dynasty.

FRANK CHING

Wong Siu-Lun, Emigrant Entrepreneurs Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988. xii+244pp. Bibliography. Index

The role of the Shanghai industrialists in the post-War development of Hong Kong is a tale often told. A comprehensive, authoritative and readable book on this subject would be a welcome addition to those interested in modern Hong Kong history. Unfortunately, Professor Wong's book does not justify such a welcome.

This book is the result of research performed by the author over a period of ten years. His objective is to provide a detailed account of (the Shanghainese group's) industrial accomplishments to fill a gap in our knowledge about the process of industrialization in Hong Kong, which he hoped would 'help to answer two theoretical questions. First, why do people with common regional origins often congregate in particular economic spheres? Second, what are the distinctive features of Chinese industrial entrepreneurship?' His research was based on his B.Litt. thesis at Oxford, conducted in 1975, and was supplemented by interviews conducted after his return to Hong Kong. However, it was not until 1985 that he was able to undertake a thorough revision, resulting in the publication of this manuscript.

As a sociological study, this book was probably destined not to appeal to a businessman such as me. In any case, I found this book to be extremely dry, one of the dangers of releasing to the general public work originally done for an academic audience. There were and are a number of colourful characters among the Shanghai textile industrialists, but little of this is reflected in this book; there is no sauce to go with the meat. Names of individuals are sometimes disguised and textile mills are numbered; suitable perhaps for an academic thesis, but not for a more general audience.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x
Chinese Military Services which have not before been recorded in English. One aspect of Mesny's writings which will bring wry smiles to a number of western faces was his occasional essay into the ever-popular art of China-watching. In 1896 his conjecture that Earl Li Hung-chang was a likely candidate to be the first ruler of a China ruled by Chinese is now, with the benefit of hindsight, amusing to say the least. Even more so was Mesny's next thought. Li perhaps might even marry the Empress Dowager and thus amalgamate his influence with that of the reigning line. He added that the Empress Dowager was however too old to bear children and would therefore only be a witness to her own departing glory by seeing her husband, [and Li would then have been 74] begetting an heir to the throne through a younger woman.

Between 1850 and 1873 peasant discontent, both Chinese [Han] and non-Chinese, led to a wave of rebellions, some of exceptional size. These included the Taipins, the Nien and the Moslem revolts, but not Ya'qub Beg's Sinkaing rebellion which ended in 1877. Mesny first became involved in the Taiping rebellion [1850-1864] towards its latter days, a time when the imperialists were gaining the upper hand and had confronted the Taiping leadership in its capital, Nanking where he was held captive for some months. Later, whilst he was working with the Chinese Maritime Customs in Hankow, he became involved with the Nien-fei [the Nien rebels] bandits who ravaged north of the Yangtze between 1851 and 1868.

The Nien, a decentralised association of peasants, were basically bandits without any ideology as such, whereas the Taiping rebels were a pseudo-Christian movement led against the imperial rulers in Peking by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan who had adopted some elements of Christian beliefs into his ideology. The Taiping rebels, whose capital city was Nanking, enjoyed some sympathy from westerners but eventually the rebellion was defeated but not until many millions had died. When the final defeat came it was due mainly to the Chinese imperialists under Tseng Kuo-fan, Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-t'ang, aided to some extent by several foreign-trained Chinese forces which included the much-vaunted western-trained force, first under an American Frederick Ward and finally under a British colonel in the Royal Engineers, Charles Gordon, together with direct British and French military intervention in Shanghai and Ningpo areas. The rebels, with whom Mesny and many Christian missionaries at first sympathised, introduced many reforms such as monogamy, and the banning of opium, tobacco and alcohol, and foot-binding.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x
34

had a head of steam and wrote several pages of detailed description on one particular theme, usually with an educational value aimed at foreigners in China. One in particular was his portrayal of a Chinese banquet, consisting not only of various menus, but seating plans, courtesies and the role of the servants.

His Promotion of Western Education

Since 1868, Mesny claimed, he had had an inclination to do something towards dispelling some of the gross darkness that prevailed amongst the Chinese. In 1870 he established a small day school for boys and girls in a temple called the Yu-huang Kung [The Temple of the Jade Emperor], which served as a club house for the people of the Hu-kuang provinces who resided in Kuei-yang. He imported some school books which he considered suitable and paid a Chinese teacher to teach the children during the four years of his residence in Kuei-yang.

Mesny in later years had interviews with senior Chinese mandarins with a view to promoting western sciences and other subjects of study for examinations in China. He also claimed that he had persuaded a Chinese Viceroy to submit a memorial on educational reform to the throne and that this was the start of such reform. The reforms were abolished by the Empress Dowager in 1898.

Mesny and Women

Despite the genuinely colourful life he led in China, his experiences living with the Taiping rebels, his service with the Szechuan Force în Kueichou and his treks across much of the country; when we come to his descriptions of his love life with Chinese ladies, although they may have been real and authentic, for the most part they read like episodes out of a modern pulp novelette. This may be due to a possible inability to describe them without a modicum of exaggeration or 'editing' or, though unlikely, they may have been figments of his imagination. There is little doubt that he was red-blooded and normal, and as a single man in foreign parts with few if any women of his own race or culture it was the understood thing for expatriate westerners to have a local female partner. He frequently wrote of pretty women at the roadside during his journeys across China who attracted him or, more to the point, were attracted by him. However, the exact measure of his intimacy with any but his wives is destined to remain tantalizingly obscure.

Corrected minor OCR errors, reformatted text into paragraphs, and corrected "în" to "in" for consistency and correctness.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995
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In that case, they are victims rather than the promoters. I read in some articles that a high official of the Ch'ing Dynasty painted a landscape picture for the famous actor Tan Hsin-pei (譚鑫培) and addressed him as Hsiao-xiong (小雄) meaning "Little Brother” another euphemism indicating the recipient as one of his homosexual friends. The result? Tan tore the scroll up as soon as he received it.

There were no human rights in the early days. Actors and actresses could be penalized for what they delivered, which was actually part of the text of the play. In one case, it was rumoured and has to be clarified that the same actor - Tan Hsin Pei - was entangled in another debacle in which he was greatly humiliated. He was invited among others into the Palace to play the role of Ch'ing Ying (程嬰) in a play called 《趙氏孤兒》 (To Sacrifice One's Own Son to Save the Son of a Loyal Friend.). When Ch'ing Ying went in to consult his wife for the giving up of their only son, his wife, naturally like all mothers, refused. Then he sang his morbid arias “常言婦人心腸狠,最狠莫如婦人心”- "The most cruel hearts in the world are the hearts of women".

One thing he forgot was that he was singing the song in front of the Dowager Queen H. M. Tz'u Hsi. She immediately stopped the play and asked Tan to explain why the hearts of women were the most cruel hearts in the world. Tan replied that he merely followed the text of the play. Of course, she wouldn't listen and gave the poor man forty strokes with the birch to make him know better how and what to sing before the Empress the next time. This shows that there was little human rights in those days.

The social position of the theatrical people greatly improved after the 1911 Revolution, but still there was a ground swell of general discrimination of society toward the theatrical people as a whole - a custom which takes long to eradicate. Even in modern times, few parents will allow their daughters to marry an actor or their sons to marry an actress. They consider that this may lower their social standing if they do.

The ice is breaking, though. Not long ago a famous Hong Kong medical practitioner who was happily married to another famous doctor's daughter with children suddenly asked to divorce his wife to marry a famous Peking Opera star. This did not materialize and the
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notes on nature and hunting in Manchuria. He founded the first natural history museum in China, at the Anglo-Chinese College and this brought him to the notice of directors of museums in the United States and England.

We have little idea what he did between his return from the Duke of Bedford's expedition and the start of the next expedition nearly three years later, the Clark expedition of 1908/9, which again sought specimens. This time they again set out from Taiyuan to the west, across the Yellow River into Shensi and then on to the north-west, into Kansu province travelling up the Silk Road as far as Lanchou. It was a well-financed private expedition with Sowerby taken on as the Naturalist and though not spelled out - the interpreter. Their route took them through Yulin, a city in the Ordos desert in Shensi province, noted for its large Buddhist temple. This was selected as the first main stopover where they remained undisturbed within the temple compound. Sowerby, brought up in Taiyuan, spoke the local dialect and was able to converse with the local officials and obtain their co-operation and assistance. They remained in Yulin over the winter during which time the Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in Peking. This event brought the second most senior Chinese official in Yulin to the compound to break the news and warn the party of the general apprehension that the deaths of their Majesties might bring about a revolt against the dynasty. Clark, who was also an amateur astronomer, had been seen by Chinese peering through his telescope at the night sky leading the second most senior Chinese official to ask Sowerby whether Clark had foreseen this calamity? Sowerby's answer that he had foreseen it led the official to demand to know why Clark had not passed on the warning to him. Sowerby was able to answer that the official knew full well that it would have been treason for anyone to even suggest that such a thing would take place before it happened. This satisfied the awed official, though the warning of possible unrest left the expedition in a quandary. They decided that the best move would be to set off at once for Sian [now known as Xi'an], the provincial capital, where they would expect to have better protection. On reaching Yenan, some short distance to the south of Yulin, en route for Sian they were assured that the situation was stable and once more settled down for a while, hunting and prospecting locally. After several weeks of visits to Loyang and Honan Fu [now Chengchou] in a neighbouring province, whilst Clark returned to Shanghai to settle a family matter, they continued on to
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Appendix

Activities for 2001/2002

Date Lectures

2001

Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch

Fri 20th April: Dr Janet Lee Scott on The Fung Chew of Hong Kong

May 4th: Harry Harum on The Last Emperor's Garden Restored after 75 Years.

May 18th: Pauline Poon Pui-ting on Domestic Servant Girls: the Po Leung Kuk

Fri 1st June: Drs Gillian and Verner Bickley on "How Hong Kong History entered the Space Age”.

Fri 3rd Aug: Hugh Phillipson on 150 years of Hong Kong's Water Supply

Fri 31st Aug: William Shang on Imagination and Reality in the Drawings of William Alexander.

Fri Oct 19th: Kim Salkeld on Life in Government House.

Fri October 26th: Cesar Guillen Nunes on "Macau's St Paul Façade: a Re-table-Façade?".

Fri 16th Nov: Dr James Hayes on Village Culture in South China.

Fri Dec 7th: Dr Dan Waters on Hong Kong in the 50s and 60s

Sat Dec 8th: Tim Ko and Jason Wordie on 60th Anniversary of the Fall of Hong Kong

2002

Fri Jan 18th: Dr Paul Van Dyke on Daily life in the Pearl River Delta during the era of the Canton Trade.

Fri 1st Feb: Susannah Hoe on Lady Macdonald and the Empress Dowager. Summer 1900.

Fri 8th Feb: Prof Paul Cohen on Humanizing the Boxers.

Fri 15th March: Jonathan Wattis on South China and the Pearl River Delta in Western Maps.

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The Treaty showed Japan that white races would stand together against the yellow, and the Japanese as a race were mortified at what they were convinced was a dishonourable peace.

The peace treaty provided for, amongst other things, the mutual withdrawal of Russian and Japanese armies from Manchuria within eighteen months; and the return of Manchuria to China except for the leased territories of Liaodong (Guandong) and the southern section of the Manchurian Railway which was transferred to Japan by Russia.

However, at a Conference held in Peking in December 1905 at which the Chinese government approved the Treaty, the now enfeebled and impotent Qing dynasty gave Japan even greater rights in Chinese territory than had been agreed in Portsmouth. The Japanese had now acquired rights and concessions on Chinese territory for the first time.

Chinese involvement

It has not been my intention to describe the detailed progress of the war as this has been covered in numerous books and articles, but to highlight how the Chinese were involved. It has proved disappointing to find that even when China and the Chinese position are referred to, writers usually skim over the subject in a single page or two.

The Russian promise to evacuate territories in Manchuria occupied after the Boxer insurrection was ignored and the progressive Russification of the Three Provinces could only mean one thing - that the Russians had no intention of withdrawing. During 1903 the Chinese Government showed a firmer attitude in their request for promises from the Russian Minister relating to the evacuation of Manchuria. Japanese strong moral support acted as an incentive to the more progressive Chinese to strengthen the influence of the few patriotic Chinese statesmen who had the welfare of the Empire at heart. Meetings of the literati in most of the larger cities in China during October 1903 denounced Russia in no uncertain terms. Little could be expected from the Empress Dowager and her clique. One day she ranted on hearing some real or fancied desecration by Cossacks in the former Manchu capital at Mukden where the ancestors of the Manchu ruling clan were buried, and threatened reprisals; the next day she was considering possibilities of closer links between Russia and China and even, perhaps,

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