RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 191 of the United States and for some time lived at Charlestown, South Carolina. His wife was an American woman. His dress was a bizarre combination of Western and Chinese modes. He was an early arrival in San Francisco and operated for a time the Macau and Wosung Restaurant. His domination of the Chinese population was heavy-handed, but it was challenged by an equally colourful character, A-toy, the doyen of San Francisco's "women of pleasure." The transfer of leadership came just at the time the question of Chinese labour was becoming a political issue in California. A bill to introduce contract labour was put before the State Legislature. Due to a slump in available cheap labour, the merchants wished to import it from China. The miners were strongly opposed. They viewed contract labour as capitalist exploitation of immigrants who would work under living conditions that free miners would not endure. Contract labour was regarded by them as an economic threat. This view appeared to be that of the political majority, and Governor Bigler addressed the legislature in April 1852, opposing the legislation of contract labour. His address had been noted by the few Chinese who could read English. They, in turn, explained it to the general Chinese community. As representatives of their fellow countrymen, Hab Wa of the Sam Wo Company and Tong A-chick of the Tun Wo Company published a letter replying to the Governor's remarks. In it, they emphasised the important economic contribution to the state made by the business of the Chinese merchants. They emphasised that Chinese immigrants were not coolies under contract but free labourers. The letter did not stem the anti-Chinese feeling of the miners, but it did influence more of the American merchants to support the Chinese cause. This encouraged the Chinese in their efforts to win a hearing. They sent Tong A-chick to discuss this with Gover- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 192 CARL SMITH nor Bigler. The Chinese account says: "We charged him to see the Governor face to face and to tell him again the truth about us, and to endeavour, by supplicating words, to induce him to use his powerful influence in persuading the American miners to abide by the law which the legislature had passed, allowing foreigners, Chinamen as well as others, to work in the mines on the payment of a tax." To create a favourable climate Tong A-chick took with him on his visit to the Governor "shawls of rarest pattern, rolls of silk of costliest texture, and some 70 handkerchiefs of the choicest description." Tong A-chick reported back to his compatriots that he had been hospitably received and entertained. Indeed the Governor had requested that the Chinese present another letter stating their case. He promised to answer it by a speech or proclamation on their behalf. "When we heard this, we were much rejoiced, and believed our sorrows were nearly at an end." The rejoicing was premature. They drafted another letter and sent it by A-chick to the Governor. His Excellency found it unacceptable and drafted a version of his own. The Chinese, however, found that "the words were not our words, and that we cannot say them with the truth of honest men, and they contradict what we have already said." Despairing of the Governor's support, they published the original letter they had sent for his approval. In this letter they stated that the miners had been provoked to drive out Chinese from their claims by the Governor's original message against them, the unfavourable report of the Committee on Mines and Mining Interests, and the resolution passed at a public meeting at Sacramento, the state capital. All these had been circulated extensively among the miners, feeding their animosity against the Chinese. The letter protested that the Governor had not followed the advice of the legislature, which had passed a bill levying a tax of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 78 reporting has still not been up to desired standards Doubts over the performance of some non-party-member journalists are hinted as the cause of the unachieved standards (Zhongguo Xunwen Nianjian, 1985–99) 16 Training Journalists into self-conscious mouthpieces of party and people is a principle laid down by the education authorities (Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian 1986 8) The New China News Agency has carried out a campaign on political-ideological background of press cadres to promote a sense of responsibility in them towards the evolutionary targets of the Party, so that they would concur with central party policies, and act as mouthpieces of the Party (Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian 1987 5) Although recently, advertisements do appear in the various provincial as well as nationwide papers and also on television etc, the small amount of them in comparison to the gigantic media labour machinery and the low price charged to users suggest that a large proportion of the revenue must come from the producers themselves In fact, many scholars have argued and confirmed that sport closely portrays real life Sport is closely related with the social order, and if sports does not represent the real social order, it represents idealized versions of that order, and as such it takes on for them an aura of the sacred" (Hargreaves, 1982 33) Sport has the potential to expand our knowledge of a form of human behaviour that spans the gap between the playful, spontaneous, and expressive and the formal, institutionalized, bureaucratic, and work-like dimensions of life. [Also, it helps disclose] several layers of reality and thus has the potential to further our understanding of this segment of society (Snyder & Spreitzer, 1983. Epilogue) 19 The author exemplified these functions by citing evidence from international sporting events Taiwan gained a place in international affairs by getting the Little League Baseball world title. The Commonwealth Games, the Pan-American Games all strengthened regional ties and national identities Since those who have achieved something displayed dominance, nations are seen striving to become the best International propaganda could be launched by emphasizing the success a nation has achieved. The Chinese Ping Pong diplomacy and the African boycott in 1976 Olympics are two diverse branches of sport policies that shoulder political errands Sports as international events could pose as a stage for nations to show their ideologies. The massacre of Mexican students, the Israeli massacre are good examples Politicians could reinforce their humanity and reduce their distance with commoners by relating themselves to sports, an activity widely practised among people 20 Although sports events appear to be without the political circle, they are actually not Sports is closely related with politics Political battles are often transcended to the sport arena But sport is not inherently political, [rather] it becomes [so] because of its utility as a widely observed medium for ideological expression' (Figler, 1981. 229) As such, sports events as data for the present study could avoid losing argumentative power for face, a social-psychological matter, to political considerations while still maintaining a glimpse of the total life conditions 21 The second largest paper, Gongren Ribao has a total distribution of 808,821,000 (average 2,221,700 per issue) in 1986, less than half of those for People's Daily All figures quoted here are released in the 1987 Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 22 · 79 23 No value of the number () would be the score assigned for factors of face or personalities not available in a sentence which contain other face attributes and vice versa 24 25 The reliability of the categorization scheme and coding system is checked. All cases which have been mentioned as semantic treatment of face-enhancing or face-threatening situations are brief and generalized summaries of the contents in the sample 26 The functions of sports has been discussed earlier 27 In fact, there are a great number of works on sports and media sports written by social science scholars. To quote a few, they include Chorbajian (1985), Figler (1981), Hargreaves (1982), Loy, Kenyon and McPherson (1981), Snyder and Spreitzer (1983), and Trujillo and Ekdom (1985) ================================================================================