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NOTES AND QUERIES

But in a local and a directly utilitarian point of view, the author is encouraged to believe that his work should not be placed as a candle under a bushel. This wealthy and most important Colony stands in the midst of the Sun-on District, and it seems to betoken a feeling in rear of the age, that the topography of the immediate neighbourhood should be a matter of perfect indifference. To the naturalist, the traveller, the sportsman, and the Missionary, the information should be acceptable, to say nothing of its political value. Besides, for police purposes in dealing with the all prevailing evil of piracy, when the subtlety of the Mandarin is considered, the author cannot doubt the value of his work to the British authorities.

He therefore calls attention to his Map, and solicits the favor of subscriptions to enable him to publish it.

REVD. S. VOLONTIERI, Mission, Apost.

Hongkong, 10 May, 1866.

A CASUALTY OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Before the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898 the villagers on the British side of what became the new border area at the market village of Sha Tau Kok were accustomed to worship in the Man Mo temple (X) there. After 1898 this temple was located on the Chinese side of the Border, but this apparently made little difference to the religious practice of local people thereafter, even after the Communist take-over in 1949.

One of the images in the temple was that of Tin Hau (A), the Queen of Heaven who is a popular goddess among boat people and villagers near the seashore in the Hong Kong area. The people of three Hakka villages on the British side of Sha Tau Kok, namely Tan Shui Hang, Tong To and Sha Tsui which in 1961 had a total population of around 1,000 persons, were particularly accustomed to visiting the Man Mo temple to worship Tin Hau. When the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution developed in China in 1966 Red Guards singled out temples for particular attention, and it seems that iconoclastic activities also
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973
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NOTES AND QUERIES

145

ning among other matters the subjugation of the non-Chinese tribes of the interior.*

At the age of 71 he was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Civil Affairs in Nanking and later Vice-President of the Censorate. He died in great poverty in 1587 aged 74, his friends defraying the cost of his burial.

In November 1965 the editor of the Shanghai Wen Wei Pao, Yao Wen-yuan, who was also a left-inclined literary and theatre critic, published an article in which he criticised an historical drama "The dismissal of Hai Jui" written by the then Deputy Mayor of Peking, Wu Han. Yao's article was the opening volley in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which created such turmoil in China and purged so many of the senior communist cadres including Wu Han himself. Yao rose quickly and by 1969 was sixth in the leadership of the Chinese People's Republic only to slip to a lower position at the 10th Party Congress in August 1973. Yao, still a member of the Politbureau, is reported to be the son-in-law of Chairman Mao and a close associate of the radical Madame Mao.

Wu Han's historical play which cost him so dearly was criticised by Yao as an analogy of Mao's treatment of his "loyal minister” Peng Te-huai, the Minister of National Defence purged by Mao in 1959. P'eng had been very outspoken in his opposition to two of the things closest to Mao's heart, the Great Leap Forward and the establishment of the People's Communes.

Hai Jui is well known to many Chinese as the minister who steadfastly opposed corruption. A legend told to me in Singapore by an elderly Buddhist nun recounted how Hai Jui as a very young junior official had been posted to the Swatow region (Ch'aochow) where a group of tyrannical landowners together with the local magistrate's police runners were terrorizing the people. The legend then told of Hai Jui's fight, first against his local superiors in support of the poor, later against the Prime Minister and finally against the Emperor himself. Hai Jui was forced to commit suicide, she said, to compel the Emperor to take notice of the problems of the masses and for this he was deified by the subsequent Emperor and is now one of the patrons of the Ch'aochow people.

See, in part, Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London and Shanghai, Bernard Quaritch and Kelly and Walsh, 1898) pp. 242-243. Also W. F. Mayers, The Chinese Reader's Manual (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, and London, Trübner and Co., 1874) pp. 45-46. Ed.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978
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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
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return to what might be called the amateur ideal. One was supposed to be both "red" and "expert,” but the emphasis was on being "red." Local Party secretaries were given extensive powers to intervene in almost every phase of production and administration, not to mention the judicial process. The extent of this intervention tended to vary in degree of intensity during the following years, and for a while before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution a certain degree of professionalism returned to the managerial and scientific research fields, but not to the law.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Anti-Rightist Movement was not so much the immediate suffering of many intellectuals and the suppression of professionalism in various fields but was rather the greatly increased emphasis on class struggle. Class struggle is an essential ingredient of Marxism, and Mao's first important work as a Marxist was an analysis of the various classes in Chinese society. It was this analysis that brought him to an understanding of the Chinese peasant's potential for revolution. During the early years of the People's Republic the major class enemies were landlords and bureaucratic capitalists who were a relatively small and fairly well-defined group. After the Anti-Rightist Movement the major class enemy became the so-called bourgeois rightists, a label which could be applied to anyone, but which was in fact especially applied to intellectuals suspected of disagreeing with the current policies of the Party leadership. The expanded use of this label paved the way for the bloody violence and repression of the Cultural Revolution. Bourgeois rightists were no longer considered to be merely backward elements in the society but were vilified as counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people, a sub-human category, beyond redemption, which deserved to be destroyed in any way possible and without mercy. The humanistic idealism which had been such a part of the revolution in its earlier stages, and indeed, led many people at first to support the Cultural Revolution itself, gave way to fanaticism and factional violence.

During the Cultural Revolution the police, procuratorate, and courts became early centres of attack by Mao's Red Guards. Although the police and courts continued to function in most places throughout the Cultural Revolution, their top personnel
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if the wife of Swire's Taipan, accompanied by two pipers, did fire Jardine's gun to salute the arrival of 1967. Although 1967 saw several months of 'Disturbances' (spillovers from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China), it was also Swire's centenary in the East and a nice gesture on Jardine's part to invite the Taipan's spouse of the rival firm to fire their cannon.

Originally, the company was a textile firm, founded by John Swire (1793-1847), in Liverpool in 1816. It was inherited by his two sons, John Samuel (1825-1898) and William Hodson (1830-1884), by which time the firm was involved in the import-export trade. An office was opened by Richard Shackleton Butterfield (a Lancashire mill owner) and John Samuel Swire in Shanghai in 1867, and in 1870 a trading and shipping branch was established in Hong Kong. Even until 1974 the company was still known as 'B&S' (Butterfield and Swire), Its Chinese name, Taikoo (**太古**), means great and ancient. The partnership did not last long. John S. Swire wrote:

"Mr Butterfield retired (in 1868) from our firm at my suggestion; he was grasping and bothered me.

The astute, disciplined, sarcastic, autocratic John Samuel Swire was proud of his Yorkshire origins. Common expressions of his were:

**I told you so!**

"I write as I speak, to the point."

"I aim to be strong enough to be respected, if not beloved."

It was maintained by an American contemporary that he lived by and for business alone. He was addressed as 'The Senior' by his partners. Like many taipans, John Samuel Swire did not remain long in the East.

He was said to have been single-minded, forthright, ruthless and energetic, and drove himself and his staff, whom he discouraged from taking part in civic affairs. After his successes on the Yangtze he decided to expand into coastal trade. Here he used the same tactics

a vigorous attack that disheartened his rivals.

―

A residence had been constructed on the Peak for the B&S taipan and messes for the young 'gentlemen' officers of the firm by the late
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Bank Limited', partly to remove the impression, prevalent at the time, that it was an Indian, and not a British, bank. In the same year, a share exchange took place with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation for the entire share capital of Mercantile.

In 1967 in Hong Kong, the 'Disturbances' (spill overs of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic) resulted in a flight of capital which reduced deposits in banks fortunately only temporarily. The following year, as a number of members served on both the London Committee of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile's counterpart, it was decided to disband the London Committee of 'Mercantile'. Finally, the full amalgamation of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile took place in 1982-3.

Insurance

In the early days of trading in Canton insurance posed something of a problem for the small European community. Members formed a local underwriting syndicate (on the Calcutta pattern) to provide facilities for marine insurance. The Canton Insurance Office was established in 1804 (other records say 1805), and for the first 30 years of its existence it was managed alternately by Jardine's and Dent and Company, changing every three years. A great deal of trust appears to have existed between the Chinese hong merchants and the European traders, and a document shows that Chinqua, a Chinese businessman, promised to make good any loss suffered by a merchant in France, to whom he was shipping tea, without having to prove loss by the return of goods.

The Union Insurance Society of Canton was established in Canton in 1835, by a number of far-sighted British Merchants under the guidance of Dent and Company. After Dent's went into liquidation, in 1864, Union Insurance became a separate entity. It had already moved its headquarters to Hong Kong in 1842, which is still its home even though it has offices and representatives in many cities in the Far East and agencies throughout the world.

In 1861, Hong Kong had 73 merchant houses and 18 of these acted as agents for insurance companies. Jardine's has retained its early interest in insurance, and, in 1868, when the Hong Kong Insurance Company was formed, it became the agent. This, a century
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which came out at the end of the last century (about Europeans living in the Colony), that (Spurr 1995: 48):

There was no real pleasure, nothing but a heavy and pompous extravagance, with no return on the large sums fooled away, an outstanding ignorance of all the surroundings, the Chinese, their language and their ways, or even of the very place itself.

Yet, having said that, today, as in the past, many Europeans do come to Hong Kong and, during their stay, they do learn something about local history, and Chinese customs and culture. This need will no doubt continue. In such cases the RAS can help.

In addition, a number of scholars visit Hong Kong or write to the RASHKB from overseas. Information has been requested on the pre-World War II Fox Hunt, held at Fanling in the New Territories, details regarding past Hong Kong personalities and wildlife sightings, to give but a few examples.

Hong Kong can be proud of its religious tolerance, with regard to temples, ancestral halls and the like, and, when the British took over the New Territories in 1898, on a 99-year lease, they promised that Ching dynasty laws would be retained and local customs respected (Endacott 1958: 38). Consequently, unlike many territories occupied by more oppressive colonial powers, in spite of the British and the Chinese keeping largely apart, an affinity of sorts developed between the two races. Governor Sir John Bowring, too, who chaired RASHKB meetings in the 1850s, disliked weaning the Chinese away from their own religious beliefs and practices (Spurr 1995: 51). A fair amount of local culture has been retained in spite of westernisation and the passage of time.

This retention of local culture in the Territory means that, if scholars want to study "things Chinese" which are closer to customs of the old China, and to visit locations where fewer changes have taken place, they are more likely to come to Hong Kong (or go to Taiwan). Here old customs and the modern can be seen side by side. This is less likely to be the case in the People's Republic where much has been disrupted by the influences of Communism over the past half century, including such events as the devastating Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
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Yet mime performer, Philip Fok Tat-chiu, who worked for the Hong Kong Government before emigrating to Australia as recently as 1992, although a relative newcomer, seems to have made a success of his life 'Down Under.' The greats in the field of mime include Sid Caesar, the contemporary French master Marcel Marceau and, of course, Charlie Chaplin himself (Lee, 1999).

Another form of entertainment, Chinese 'cross-talking' (‘double voice' as it is known in Cantonese,) is much like American vaudeville. It needs one serious performer with a deadpan face and one comic to deliver the punchline. Acting out 'sketches,' like those performed by Ho Bo-man and Chou Chi-hung in Guangzhou, using every-day hilarious situations with rapid-fire exchange, amount very much to the art of language and repartee (Cheung, 1996:5). Slang is important. Jokes can be about portable telephones, which no self-respecting person-about-town can manage without, or about climbing up the beam of a torch (flashlight) in the dark. Isn't it slippery and dangerous? What happens when I switch the torch off?! Maybe the banter is stupid, but gags like these can serve a useful purpose. They can help motivate people,' says comedian Harry Wong of Metro Radio. 'Something useful can come out of such jokes.'

After the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) ended the 'Gang of Four' was a popular target for 'quick-fire twosome' acts in China, although many tried (and still try) to steer clear of politics. But unless one possesses an extremely good knowledge of Cantonese there is limited chance of a European understanding a great deal of this rapid-fire talk. In fact at a Chinese banquet, with one European and the remainder Chinese, when the conversation is in rapid-fire Cantonese interlaced with slang, if the gwailo appreciates six out of 10 jokes he or she is not doing at all badly.

Of course there are jokes which people of most nationalities, if they can grasp the language, can laugh at. Like the chap in northern China who always ate at a government canteen.

'All the time cabbage!' he nagged, 'cabbage, cabbage, cabbage! 'Can't you give us a choice?'

'Of course you can have a choice,' came the chef's reply.

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(15) Humour changes over time and many Chinese, for example Singaporeans, have become Westernised in various ways, including regarding their sense of humour.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), and its vicious aftermath, even though it was for many Chinese largely of their own making, had a profound effect on China physically,

politically and morally. But the Chinese have considerable capacity for survival boosted largely by their philosophy of life, acceptance of realism, and capabilities to surmount the vicissitudes of life with understanding, limitless grace and (it must be stressed) with considerable humour.

Nevertheless, where there are differences in senses of humour, the more a Westerner learns about and appreciates Chinese culture, or when a Chinese understands Western culture, the more he or she 'extends' his or her own sense of humour in an alien culture. More rigorously chronicled jokes and more well-researched material will assist this process.

But with time, improved travel facilities and communications, including radio, television, the Internet, other forms of the mass media and information technology, the world is becoming more of a global village. In spite of Hong Kong becoming in some respects more 'Chinese' since the 1997 Handover, from Britain to China (including more use being made of the Chinese language), the merging of western and Chinese cultures will continue. This will, in the end, result in differences being narrowed and Chinese and Westerners laughing more at each others' jokes. Laughter will then cross the Great Wall more easily.
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therefore to the outside of the building, which is of neo-gothic design. Although built in the 1930s, long after Germany ceased to hold sway over Tsingtao, the cathedral was built largely with German money. However, before it was completed the money supply was drastically reduced by the incoming Nazi government. Hence the inside, had we been able to see it, would have shown such incongruous features as flat ceilings instead of the vaulted and beamed roof that the outside would suggest. Legend has it that during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, two over-zealous Red Guards climbed the towers with the intention of removing the crosses from the top, but they fell to their respective deaths before completing their mission. As the cathedral is in a very narrow street, it is not possible to get a good camera angle unless one walks somewhat away from the front, down to the street to the left, where a lively street-market gives interesting and contrasting foreground possibilities - the whole looking rather medieval. In fact, the street market is worth a visit in its own right, being very extensive and lively. A chopper seller (as used in Chinese cooking and violent crime) was being very vocal at the time we were there.

Hills and beaches - the east of the city

We had organised a picnic lunch from the hotel. Given that time was tight we did not want to spend an hour or so hidden away in a restaurant. Instead, we took our picnic lunch up Qingdaoshan Hill, formerly Bismarck Berg. Access to the hill was somewhat unusual, being through a small museum on Jing Shan Road. The museum was in fact closed, but our guide managed to navigate us through and out of the back door, whence up the hill. A look-out post at the top gives good panoramas of the city and out to sea. The picnic lunch was adequate, but Philip Bruce appeared to be very pleased that he had brought his tin of sardines from the Co-op in Worthing.

Fortified and refreshed, our next mission was to find any remains of the German cemetery. Its location was clear enough from the many old maps that we had between us, but the guide was not hopeful of finding anything of interest. And so it turned out, or almost. The cemetery is now Baihua Park, and is remarkable for a reason that cannot be much further removed from cemeteries. On entering the park we noticed a wedding couple, and another - and another. There must have been upwards of 30 or more newly married couples wandering around
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999
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They have been banned ever since.

One Chinese woman complained to the Author that, in her family, heirlooms were always handed down from men to men -- never to women.

15 Women still do not work in tunnels because men believe they bring bad luck.

16 Only since 1994 have women been allowed to inherit land in the New Territories -- say from a parent - if the owner dies intestate.

17

E.g. during the ten-year Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
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Today, globalisation is going full steam ahead. Who could have forecast in the 1960s, that most of the little compradors' shops on street corners, with their delicious kum wah hams hanging from ceilings, would be nudged out by mighty supermarkets?

Who could have guessed that, with globalisation of palate, McDonald's would become 'haute cuisine' for young Chinese many of who are now overweight?

Of course things were cheaper then and, at my Chinese wedding banquet on the Queen's Birthday in 1960, at the old Sun Ya restaurant on Nathan Road, the cost was an exorbitant HK$130 for each circular table of 12 guests. We tipped $10 a table. That was the going rate. On the afternoon of our wedding day my wife and I were invited to the garden party on the lawn at Government House. In those days people were proud to receive an invitation from His Excellency just as, more recently if they care to admit it, they are proud to receive an invite to the reception on China's National Day.

But wages for old one hundred names (the man in the street) were low and there was little in the way of social amenities. My Chinese amah was paid $160 a month with half a day off a week. She was lucky. Many received far less and no time off unless they specially requested it. People did not complain. They knew things were much worse in China where famine raged after the failure of the 'Great Leap Forward.' Hong Kong citizens queued up at the post office, in the early 1960s, to send food parcels to relatives on the Mainland. Later Hong Kong changed and, after the 'Star Ferry Riots' of 1966 and the protracted riots of 1967 (an overspill of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution), Hong Kong became richer and conditions for the man on a tram began to improve.

Corruption was rampant in those early years before the setting up of the ICAC, although, in my over 26 years of government service working in education, I personally was never once solicited. It was more common in departments such as the Police, Public Works and New Territories Administration. The receiving of presents, however, had to be watched. After the riots, a watershed in many ways, Hong Kong became richer with, more recently, a higher GDP than that of Britain. A large Chinese middle-class formed.

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and the 1967 Riots. The former were sparked by a five-cent increase on the lower deck of the Star Ferry. Nevertheless, the root cause was largely the community's displeasure with social conditions, shortage of schools, housing, and the like. It was reported that in 1966 in the district of Tsz Wan Shan, in Kowloon, with a population then of 70,000, there was not a single telephone. The Kai Fong Association requested that at least a few public phones be installed. Soldiers marched down Nathan Road with fixed bayonets during the 1966 Riots. The protracted 1967 riots were a spill-over from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. Firecrackers were banned from then on. The military kept in the background during the 1967 Riots because of fear that China might react. The riots badly affected community stability and, in 1968, office space in Chung King Mansions, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was advertised at 60 cents a square foot.

The 1966 and 1967 riots were really a watershed. From then on, the government started to listen to the populace more. Social conditions improved, and Hong Kong started a process of de-colonisation. In 1972, government servants were instructed to use the word 'territory' rather than 'colony', other than in a historical context. The Colonial Cemetery became the Hong Kong Cemetery, and so on. A Hong Kong identity and a larger middle class began to form.

It is interesting to recall that the sparks which ignited the 1956, the 1966, and the 1967 riots all occurred in Kowloon. Hong Kong Island has generally been a more peaceful place. That was why, when I came to the colony in the mid-1950s and there was talk of building a cross-harbour tunnel or a bridge, some Hong Kong Island residents expressed fear, if this happened, of being 'swamped' by 'hordes' from Kowloon.

Corruption

Corruption had long been a serious concern in Hong Kong, and, as the Territory became richer, the problem became more serious. When a colleague of mine said there was a price for everything, our old boss soon shut him up. That was part of the trouble. Most Europeans did not appreciate the magnitude of the problem. I recall a Chinese girl telling me, in 1955, that her grandfather had been caught by a policeman smoking opium. The old man gave the copper $20, and the whole matter was conveniently forgotten about. Squeeze affected the Chinese
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