RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 115 BRITAIN AND CHINA' Reviewed by COLINA LUPTON, M.A.2 China is and will probably continue for some time to be the most unpredictable element in world affairs. With the passage of time she becomes more, not less so; her motives grow more obscure, her economic development more problematical, her political life—within the echelons of the Communist Party—more a matter for conjecture. On the face which she turns to the world there is little sign of the stresses and strains which she is undergoing; the information which China publishes about herself is remarkable only for the lack of knowledge it conveys. Unhappily—in view of our ignorance China is likely by sheer weight of numbers to be the dominant influence in the world in perhaps twenty years' time, and how this unleashed dragon will deal then with other nations largely depends on the kind of handling she receives now. Hence any book which sheds light on Chinese thought processes, in particular relating present policies to past treatment, is a valuable one. Mr. Luard has gone one better and conjectured the course of the future. His book sets out a sane and lucid account of relations with China since the first British ships reached her shores in 1637, and describes both what he expects to see and what he would like to see happen in the next few years. In what really amounts to a series of essays on the historical background, on the Kuomintang, the Communists and the Korean war, on missionaries and merchants, Hong Kong and Taiwan—he neatly discusses, without a superfluity of chronological detail, the past, the present, and the future. This method necessitates a little overlapping between the chapters, but it is worth this since it saves a lot of narration inessential to the point of the book. For the author is trying to discuss sentiments and policies as much as facts, and this kind of pattern gives him the scope to do so. This is certainly not to say that he has ignored facts; though the historical background is compressed, the account of Britain's dealings with the Mao Tse-tung regime is very fully treated. By Evan Luard. Chatto and Windus, 1962. 25/-. * The writer was formerly a research assistant in the Far East Department of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. She has been living in Hong Kong since the end of 1960, and is Assistant Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d BOOK REVIEWS 175 of conflict and contradiction, between different strands of the population which would have had comparative value, whether explicit or implicit has been missed. Had it been taken, it would have provided a justification for publishing these papers in one volume. As it is, the papers are uneven in content and in quality, and there is little here that might not have been more suitably published in separate journals (this, and Far Eastern Economic Review, for example.). That said, the volume does contain papers which provide major contributions to the study of Hong Kong as a total society. The best of these is, without question, Henry J. Lethbridge's study of the changes brought about by the Japanese Occupation in the relationship between Government and the Chinese and the British business communities; research into the Japanese Occupation from the point of view of the Chinese population is in any event long overdue. The feeling of release, and the outburst of racial antagonism, which immediately followed the Japanese takeover, revealed the extent of the grievances felt by the Chinese community — grievances arising from years of remote, paternalistic, and sometimes racially discriminatory government. The Japanese successfully exploited these feelings until it became evident that their regime was to be no less imperialistic, and considerably less benevolent and efficient than that of the British had been. But they did draft larger numbers of Chinese into the administration than the British had ever done; and it is significant that at the end of the war, the Chinese appeared to have forgotten all about their former rulers. British authority was reestablished but in a chastened, placatory, and more cooperative form: there was little recrimination for the events of the Occupation, and the move towards greater Chinese participation in government was continued. Lethbridge points out most significantly, however, that there was very little internal change in the personalities at the head of the Chinese business community during or after the Occupation, or in the procedures by which individuals rose to prominence: what changed was the Government. In the event, relations between Government and the business community, Chinese and British, were considerably improved by the experience of the Japanese Occupation. Far from being destroyed, the pre-war social and economic order was strengthened by the elimination of conflicts of interest which had previously existed, and by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 BOOK REVIEWS 213 academic subject. Indeed, Scott has tried this with American actors: the Butterfly Dream was played at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Theatre Arts of New York. This approach to theatre breaks a new path in research. Generally speaking, academics store culture in books as if they were canning it — but tinned food loses its flavour. Here Scott treats Chinese plays as a living part of culture, made to be played, not to be kept in libraries. But if the author, by trying not to cut culture off from life, shows that universities need not necessarily be funeral parlours of art, his publisher is singularly backward. It is very difficult to visualise movements from written descriptions alone. It would have been much better if we could have had photos and drawings of each movement in the margin and colour photos for the costumes; and if, as well as providing the tapes, the publisher could supply a little film. Books continue to be published on the same old pattern. In this instance, a little case with a tape, a film, an album of photos and the text itself would have suited the aims of A. C. Scott far better. A documentary film might have been even better than a book; but from my own experience here in Hong Kong, where I have tried to persuade companies and so-called “cultural” organisations to make a purely explanatory film on Chinese opera, I have learnt that films are the monopoly of a mafia and the scholar is condemned to be book-bound. Hong Kong, 1970. ANON GOLDEN GUIDE TO HONGKONG AND MACAO. P.H.M. Jones, Hong Kong, Far Eastern Economic Review Ltd., 1969, pp. 453, with colour and black and white illustrations and maps. HK$10. (Paperback) The preface to this work states that the Far Eastern Economic Review had long planned a companion volume to its Golden Guide to South and East Asia in the form of a detailed guide to Hongkong. This has now materialized in the present Guide ‘which is designed primarily to help tourists and travellers on their way and to sharpen their interest in the modern scene'. The compiler ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 256 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: PARR, M. J. · · · PARRINGTON, Miss J. PARRY, R. H. · + PAUL, Mr. & Mrs. A. M. PEACOCK, B. PERESYPKIN, O. P. + + Wardley Ltd., G.P.O. Box 8983, Hong Kong. Arts Faculty Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. The Marine Dept., 102 Connaught Road, C., Hong Kong. 9, Jade House, 47C Stubbs Road, Hong Kong. Museum of History, Star House 4/Fl., Kowloon, P.O. Box 1382, Hong Kong. PETERS, Mr. & Mrs. R. K. 15, Magazine Gap Road, Hong Kong. PICKFORD, J. B. PNIEWSKI, T. J. PORDES, F. PRENTICE, E. PRESCOTT, J. A. PRYOR, Dr. E, G. - QUESTED, Dr. R. K. I. - RAM, Mrs. J. - REID, A. J. H. REYNOLDS, Prof. W.. A. RICHARDS. Mr. & Mrs. S. F. RIBEIRO, Mrs. S. RIELY, Miss C. C. - RIGG, Mrs. J. R. · E/M Department, Public Works Dept., Caroline Hill, Hong Kong. 'Serious Music', Radio Hong Kong, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon. 47/50 Gloucester Road, Lap Heng Building 1/F, Hong Kong. Flat 7, 94C Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 67B Perkins Road, Jardine's Lookout, Hong Kong. Colony Planning Division, Crown Lands & Surveys Office, Murray Building, Hong Kong. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 80 Kennedy Road, Lee Building, Hong Kong. Kleinwort Benson (H.K.) Ltd., Wing Lung Bank Building 9/FL, 45 Des Voeux Road C, Hong Kong. 19, Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Far Eastern Economic Review, P.O. Box 160, Hong Kong. ROBERTSON, Mrs. A. G. - 5A, Hatton House, 15 Kotewall Road, Hong Kong. ROBERTSON, Mrs. W. G. Park Mansion, 4 Mile Tai Po Road 1/Fl., Kowloon, RODGERS, R. D. - B1 Harbour View Mansions, 11 Magazine Gap Road, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 EDITORIAL With this Journal, No. 18 in the series, our printer and member, Mr. Lam Yung-fai, has completed eighteen years of sterling work for the Society. In my twelve years as Hon. Editor and to my knowledge before that, Mr. Lam has always treated the Journal as a special job, something dear to his heart and therefore the subject of his special attention. I have not been the best of the editors because my official duties leave little time and less energy for other pursuits, and in consequence Mr. Lam and his staff have had to accept papers as and when I was able to deal with them and often "bad copy" in my poor hand. It is largely owing to Mr. Lam's tolerance, patience, and his affection for the Society that a satisfactory Journal is produced each year. For this, we are indeed most grateful. It is therefore with great pleasure that I record here the Council's decision to appoint him an Honorary Member of the Society in recognition of his services to the Branch. It is eleven years since I penned an editorial. During that time and since its inception, the Journal has provided a useful, indeed major, outlet for work on Hong Kong. The result is, by now, a large body of material on the subject that is of value to the Hong Kong community and of use to many persons seeking background to their own studies and literary work of all kinds. Perhaps the greatest compliment paid was the extensive and acknowledged use of material from the Journal in P.H.M. Jones' Golden Guide to Hong Kong published by the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1968; though of course, much more has appeared in these pages since then, thanks to the interest in Hong Kong and China that draws so many researchers here for academic work. Much of the material provided is historical. This is important in a period of sweeping change when, otherwise, much of value that would provide essential background to the current, ever-changing scene, is swept aside and lost forever unless recorded. Some of it relates to the contemporary, equally threatened by the rapid pace and face of change. Most is sociologically-based. Here, I renew the thought expressed in 1967, and earlier by our first Hon. Editor, Professor Cranmer-Byng: that since ethnography is a particular ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 88 EUGENE COOPER it were triggered initially by a lockout at a plastic flowers factory in Kowloon and fanned by some arbitrary police action taken against demonstrating workers and students. Anti-colonial demonstrations occurred and anti-British sentiment ran high, fueled by stepped up anti-imperialist propaganda radiating from the mainland then in the midst of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. While most carved wood furniture factory and shop proprietors were unlikely targets for anti-imperialist attack, the Woodwork Carvers' Union seems to have taken advantage of the widespread unrest to extract a wage increase from the Merchants' Association at the time. One school of thought (with its locus in the Far Eastern Economic Review) maintains that the Peking government was dissatisfied with its compatriots' handling of the 1967 disturbances and called a halt thereafter to revolutionary activity in the Crown Colony. While these claims are difficult to substantiate with any certainty, it is widely admitted in the Hong Kong pro-communist community that Peking was desirous of a stable situation in post-1967 Hong Kong so that it could actively pursue, from its viewpoint, more pressing diplomatic questions like its entry into the United Nations and the liberation of Taiwan. "Hong Kong is a historical problem that will be solved at the appropriate time" goes the refrain. The Hong Kong "problem" does not have the status of a "principle contradiction" for the People's Republic. Hong Kong continues to remain valuable to the Communist government in terms of the significant amounts of foreign exchange which China earns by marketing its products in and through the port, and also as a place in which trade and diplomatic contacts are still pursued. While such functions may decline as China continues to open up diplomatically and economically, they are still a factor in Hong Kong's historical viability as a colony. In any event, in the post-1967 period, industrial peace in Hong Kong was the common desire of the British colonial government and the communist government in Peking. This led to the assumption on the part of the communist Federation of Trade Unions of some rather odd poses in the local adaptation of Mao Tse-tung thought to the Hong Kong scene. This was particularly so in so far as the implementation of Mao's thought has entailed a disciplined adherence to a policy of delayed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 132 NOTES AND QUERIES Is this mismanagement? It can be called mismanagement by all who are dissatisfied: by ardent Maoists and by the proponents of greater liberalization. Teng Hsiao-p'ing must feel sometimes like a squeezed beancake. He will be criticized by some no matter what he does. The reader must be tired of articles that breathlessly give eye-witness accounts of the truth about China. There is no simple truth about China, which is too large and complicated a country. Articles about it often tell more about the observer than the observed; and about those on whom the observer depended for his information. This problem is not unique to China. England is complicated. The United States is more complicated. Russia and China are still more complicated. About Russia it is hard to learn because of the paranoid secrecy emanating from the Kremlin. About China it is hard to learn because of its long history of ups and downs, ins and outs, and the tendency of most Chinese to assume that "behind the curtain" much is going on that differs from what is going on in public view... During my whole trip in China I never heard any Chinese bring up Mao Tse-tung. His portrait was still everywhere—though I have heard that it is rarer in Canton. There was a very long line of people waiting to enter his mausoleum in Peking. But no guide—no one at all, in fact—brought up the name of Chairman Mao. I had an interesting experience in Nanking. The local head of the China Travel Service gave our tour-group a banquet in order to make amends for a mix-up about our arrival in his city. At the end of the banquet he proposed a toast to friendship between China and the United States, to future tourism, and so on. Then one of our tour group responded by proposing a toast to Mao Tse-tung. I was watching our host's face. He was at a loss. Then, after a moment's pause, he joined in the toast. If I had been he, I would have responded with a toast to George Washington. I had very good luck in visiting monasteries and meeting monks when I went to Sian, Loyang, Nanking, Soochow, Shanghai, and Peking. I have described some of what I learned in the Far Eastern Economic Review for August 15, 1980. Let me say here only that my good luck was because China is a free country today in a way that the Soviet Union is not. While my tour group went off in a bus to see the sights, I hired a taxi and visited a monastery. Only on ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p Page 362 BOOK REVIEWS + + + to provide a succinct general survey of British policy in the Far East with the emphasis placed primarily towards China and Japan; South East Asia is discussed, particularly in the nineteenth century and the period after 1941, when it is more important to assess developments within the pattern of British advance and retreat in the Far East. Within that framework Peter Lowe has succeeded admirably in laying bare the flesh and bones of the subject. And, indeed, so far as the body of the book has been anatomised as a living tissue of encounters, resulting from the impact of one Western civilization upon several Asian societies, the only possible criticism might be that the need to be succinct has forced the author to cut through the nervous system of cultural and diplomatic relations rather too drastically. However, it must be recognized that there is an awful lot of relevant data — economic as well as political — to be included in this survey. I admire Peter Lowe's skill in compressing these not insignificant details into the narrative. (I suspect that he relieved the pressure of his expositions when the text, presumably, was given as lectures by anecdotal asides to generate a feeling of the period and the place.) Therefore it would not be appropriate in a short review such as this to raise any particular issues for discussion or criticism. The text, in fact, is supplemented by well-informed references to recent book and periodical literature where the serious university student would follow up the cryptic clues to the problems of interpretation so precisely indicated in the author's presentation. Britain in the Far East, in fact, represents that happy example of a text book which so clearly reflects a mastery of the subject obtained by meticulous research and command over sources in Western languages. The authority so evident will therefore also commend the book to the general readers of Far Eastern History whether they are located in the British metropolis or in the surviving periphery of the British formal and informal empires laid down in the nineteenth century. Again, Peter Lowe puts this perspective into a lapidary concluding remark “In essence, Britain's role in the Far East belonged to history.” All we can add in Hong Kong is the rider that here a certain instalment of that history has yet to be played out. ALAN BIRCH Page 362 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v Links with other Overseas Branches of the RAS From time to time we have established short-lived links with one or other of our sister branches of the Society, including the Korean Branch (established in 1900) and the Asiatic Society of Bengal (established in 1784); and since Mr. K. M. A. Barnett left Hong Kong I have been the Corresponding Member in Hong Kong for the main Society in London. At the last AGM a member asked if ties could be renewed with branches in the region. This has been discussed by the Council recently, and I have written to the Korean and Malaysian Branches asking for information on their activities and expressing an interest in maintaining contact. I was also invited to attend the bicentenary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in January 1984, but unfortunately the notice came late and no direct reply was given to my letter expressing willingness to go. (In this connection Members may have seen the rather distressing account of this venerable body in the Far Eastern Economic Review for 15/3/84). We will continue the effort to keep in touch. Membership Our total membership as at 29th February 1984 was 478, comprising 7 honorary members, 105 local life members, and 2 institutional members, with 75 overseas life members and 37 ordinary overseas members. Changes since last year at this time included 36 resignations, 2 deaths, 19 persons not sending subscriptions and 20 renewal notices returned by the GPO because the members were no longer at their notified addresses. Against this there were 29 new members. There was, as you will perceive, a marked reduction in total membership, mostly in local ordinary membership and mainly attributable to the doubling of the annual subscription from $50 to $100 in 1982. There had been an earlier loss of this kind when the subscription was raised from $30 to $50 in 1975. This is seemingly unavoidable in a busy place like Hong Kong with its many competing interests and claims on people's time, leading some members to say, in their letters of resignation, that they felt they did not take sufficient advantage of the Society's activities to warrant the increased cost. All the more reason, then, for us all to make a special effort to provide interesting programmes if we are to find new members. xiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 140 D.L. MICHALK China Daily (1983) “Hainan Island draws more foreign interest”, November 25, 1983, published by Xinhua News Agency. Clark, L. (1938) "Among the Big Knot Lois of Hainan", National Geographic Magazine, September issue, pp. 391-418. Dehergne, J. (1940) “Les Origines du Christianisme dans l'ile de Hainan”, Monumenta Serica, 5: 329–348. Dunne, G.H. (1962) “Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decade of the Ming Dynasty”, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, U.S.A. Eberhard, W. (1969) A History of China. Fairfax-Cholmeley, E. (1963) "Hainan: Awakening Paradise”, Eastern Horizons, 2: 35-42. Fenzel, G. (1933) "Die Insel Hainan: Eine landeskundliche Skizze, dargestellt auf Grund eigner Reisebeobachtungen und des vorhandenen Schrifttums", Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft Munchen, 26: 73-221. Fusson, C.G. (1929) "The Peoples of Kwang-tung: Their Origin, Migrations and Present Distribution”, Lingnan Science Journal, 7: 5-21. Gao, Da-Xian (1981) “The Li People of Hainan Island”, China Reconstructs, 10: 59-65. Henry, B.C. (1886) Lingnam: Travels in the Interior of China, S.W. Partridge & Co, London. Hollingworth, C. (1982) “Letter from Hainan”, Far Eastern Economic Review, April issue, p 78. Iskoldsky, V. (1958) "The Development of Agriculture on the Island of Hainan”, Sovetskoe kitaevedenie, 2: 117-123. Kirk, D. (1965) "Unknown Hainan", Far Eastern Economic Review... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 7 reader's thoughts must carry on. + + This poem is an example of the ferocious difficulty of putting across the idea in another language, while not losing the cameo effect. Softly drips the clepsydra Dim the incense glows Keen keen, a blade of wind Blows, rests, blows: 春色惱人眠不滿 :南風陣:郭 上眠 M] T Along the wall, fantastic Mooncast shadows creep Spring torments torments me + 4 Will not let me sleep. I forget who it's by; I have mislaid my copy, only I have many of these poems by heart; in [wartime prison] camp there was plenty of time for learning Tang and Sung poems by heart. I leave it to others to judge the quality of his translations and whether his verse was merely minor; instinctively, I find it comforting when those wielding power spend their spare hours writing poetry. But that is an illogical piece of sentimentality. Mao Zedong was a versifier. And a few weeks ago I interviewed President Ershad of Bangladesh. After telling me how well his country was progressing towards the restoration of full democracy (though admittedly the opposition and the press were, he felt, abusing their new freedoms), he presented me with another volume of his somewhat sentimental verse (REVIEW, 12 Nov.). Almost as soon as he got back to Dhaka, the rage against his rule exploded against a man who wrote: Peace, only peace that is all we want. DEREK DAVIES Reprinted, by permission, from the Far Eastern Economic Review, 3rd Dec., 1987. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 224 REVIEW NOTES The following publications briefly noted here have been received from the publishers. WEI PEH TI Bonavia, David, China's Warlords, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995. This paperback of the Oxford in Asia series represents the 'last contribution to Chinese studies' made by David Bonavia. Bonavia, who died in 1988, was a respected journalist on Asia and especially China, first reporting for the London Times, then commenting for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was the author of several books on China as well, informing and explaining to readers all over the world the events of the turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s. Always writing in a hard-hitting style but clearly with compassion and understanding of the Chinese, Bonavia completed this manuscript on the Chinese warlords before his death at the age of 48. His widow, Judy, brought out this volume but asserts that all the work had been done by Bonavia. For this work Bonavia looked backwards to the 1920s when the military governors of the provinces, known as the warlords, legacies of the Yuan Shikai era, devastated the country. They were always looked upon as a hungry bloc of blood-thirsty power seekers, but here Bonavia looks at them as individual human beings. Choy, Philip P, Lorraine Dong, and Marlon K Hom, The Coming Man: 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese, Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1994. This publication comprises a collection of political and editorial cartoons of the Chinese in the United States that had been published in American journals and newspapers during the 19th century. The authors, all scholars in the field of Chinese-American studies, have included a chronology of the Chinese in America, a respectable bibliography, and a bi-lingual glossary in English and Chinese. This work is not just for students interested in the Chinese in the United States, it is for all readers to savour the flavour of being a Chinese immigrant in America. In perusing the clear text and superb reproductions of the cartoons, time is in suspense. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 78 47 # Government Press The total land area of Fanling and Sheung Shui was 13,184 acres (20.6 square miles). See Heung Yee Kuk, Xin Jie Xiang Yi Ju Cheng Li Lu Shi Zhou Nian Jin Dian Te Kan (The Special Issue for the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk's 60th Anniversary [published in 1986]), p. 182 A name list of successful applicants was posted on the village notice-board in 1991. A total of 69 ding houses were allowed to be built. But unsuccessful applicants tore down the list and then submitted objections to the District Office. They complained that some successful applicants were found to be living abroad, some came from the same family, and that most village council members of Fanling Wai (cun wei hui cheng yuan) were successful applicants. The result was considered unfair because many of these successful applicants were said to have bribed the Village Representatives for their applications. So the District Officer and Village Representatives had to set up new criteria for reconsidering the applications. "The detail of the criterion is as follows (Data collected from the Fanling Wai village notice-board in 1994): (1) Villagers having large families and those whose present living conditions were comparatively less desirable. (1) Villagers who could afford the construction costs of the houses and were unlikely to dispose of the completed houses to outsiders. (11) Villagers who were enthusiastic towards serving fellow villagers and were benevolent towards the affairs of the village. (iv) Villagers who had submitted applications before June 1989. (v) Applicants who were or had been members of either the village committee, or Da Jiao Committee or Village Guard would be considered to have served their fellow villagers and to be benevolent towards the affairs of Fanling Wai. (Da Jiao is a lineage-based religious festival, see footnote 10). (vi) Where two or more applicants having a father and son relationship were successful in this selection exercise, only one application would be selected for allocation of a Small House site. "Some villagers anticipated that their building rights would not be realized in their lifetime due to the keen competition or to their lack of money, so they decided to sell their "right to build" (ding quan) to land developers to profit. That is, land developers have offered villagers money to make use of their building rights to apply to build houses elsewhere. During my fieldwork, I found a total of seven Pangs who had successfully applied to build ding houses outside Fanling Wai. Six were built in San Wai of Lung Yeuk Tau (the Tang lineage settlement in Fanling), and one in Long Chai, Fanling. In fact, the phenomena of selling ding quan by villagers to make a profit has been a common one. For example, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, ten villagers living abroad who had no intention of returning to Hong Kong made a total profit of $500,000 by selling their ding quan to land developers (1982: 55, quoted in Allen Chun, op. cit., p. 222). * In 1976, in order to discourage villagers from making profits by selling their ding wu, the government amended the policy to pay the government full market value premium if houses are sold within five years of the end of construction work. 27. The emigrant Mans also built new village houses in San Tin as the ultimate proof of their stake in the community of their birth. See James Watson, op. cit., p. 165 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 226 prints available from the first survey, some 85 photographs, with accompanying text, were included in Hong Kong: Going and Gone, published by the Branch in 1980. A reprint, using enhanced negatives from the first edition, is now being contemplated. The prints from Yaumatei helped identify locations of interest when a second photographic survey with the help of the Cathay Camera Club resulted in a later RAS publication, The Heart of the Metropolis: Yaumatei and its People which appeared in the late 1990s. Ian's article on the new Hong Kong PRO (The Paper Chase Archives and the Public Records Office of Hong Kong) was published in Vol. 14 of the Journal (1974), and is both informative and entertaining. Another useful essay, Facilities for Research in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong (Alan Birch, Y.C. Jao and Elizabeth Sinn [eds.]) appeared between pages 153-192 of Research Materials for Hong Kong Studies, published by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong in 1984. Ian also produced an interesting Note on Lieutenant T.B. Collinson, Royal Engineers (later Major-General) who served in Hong Kong in the 1840s and was responsible for the early mapping and accurate sketching of the area. Some of Collinson's letters had survived through the philatelic interest of their covers, and Ian had somehow spotted them, but I am unclear as to whether the Note was published, or where. A humorous man, dry and contained in the Australian way, Ian was quick to see the funny side of any situation, and was a good raconteur. He made full use of these attributes in his article on the PRO, when he described what he styled 'the classic delusions about us [archivists].' One was that he 'should look like a cross between Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in their old age, and that when not poring over old papers all day, he should be scouring cellars or attics for more documents, and 'making delighted chuckling sounds in my [his] throat like Ben Gunn discovering a cheese' when he lit upon a choice specimen. And I shall always recall his unbounded glee when he found (I think in the Far Eastern Economic Review, or else in a leading English daily) a reference to ‘a Sawn-off Damocles' instead of the famed 'Sword of'! Ian was a skilful, extraordinarily patient worker in wood and metal, as well as a collector of Peking and also Afghan glass, the latter being Roman-like glass work found in the bazaars of Kabul (he had gone to Afghanistan in 1974 on a UNESCO consultancy). ================================================================================