RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v
NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE

115

journey by chair. He was the first Englishman to travel by this route, which it was hoped would develop into an important trade route from Upper Burma and West China.

In 1872 John Swire of London formed the China Navigation Company to trade on the Yangtse, and started by purchasing the two steamers of the Union Steam Navigation Company, following this up a year later with three ships of their own specially built on the Clyde. In this same year of 1873 the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company was formed, a Chinese company partly under government control and direction. This company purchased the steamers of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company in 1877, and so became the owners of the largest river fleet. A few years later Jardine returned to the Yangtse with the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, and by the early 1880's the greater part of the Yangtse trade was shared between these three companies: the China Navigation Company, the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company.

The formation of the China Navigation Company in 1872 was a logical development from that of the Blue Funnel Line by Alfred Holt in 1866. Alfred Holt and John Swire were close friends and business associates, and when the latter opened an eastern branch of his company in Shanghai he took over the agency of the Blue Funnel Line ships. One reason behind the formation of the China Navigation Company was to provide cargoes for the Blue Funnel ships to and from the Yangtse. Alfred Holt was unwilling to operate ships so far from his personal control, but was willing to support the Swire enterprise. The inauguration of the Blue Funnel Service to the Far East, the opening of a Far Eastern branch of John Swire and Company in Shanghai in the same year, and the formation of the China Navigation Company six years later, meant the introduction of a new and powerful combination to the China coast. Holt and Swire, in association with the Clyde shipbuilding family of Scott, were soon to play a very important part in the China trade, and in the shipping of the whole of the Far East. Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Japan, and Australia, were all to come within their orbit before many years had passed.

In 1881 the various shipping interests of Jardine were merged into the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, of which Jardine were made permanent managers. For a list of the main shipping companies plying on the Yangtze see Appendix on p. 130.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241
CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE

91

trade for their own China Navigation Company. During most of the inter-war years a Norwegian company also operated a weekly service between Swatow and Bangkok in opposition to the China Navigation Company; but the latter's faster and more modern ships enjoyed the lion's share of this trade. The Singapore trade was an inheritance from the Blue Funnel Line, and came to the China Navigation through their close connection with the Holt family.

For several decades before the First World War much of the emigrant trade to Indonesia was in the hands of German companies, but when German overseas shipping was eliminated after the outbreak of war in 1914 this trade passed to Dutch companies, in particular the K.P.M. and the J.C.J.L. lines. Previous to 1890 a consortium of Dutch planters had employed coolie brokers in Singapore and Malaya for recruiting purposes, and Malaya was always something of a reservoir of Chinese labour for much of South-east Asia, especially for Indonesia and Siam. Entry into Malaya was easier than elsewhere, and there were more frequent and cheaper shipping services between south China and the Straits. It was always a comparatively simple matter for Chinese—authorised or unauthorised—to cross the short Malacca Straits into Indonesia or the ill-defined boundary between Malaya and Siam.

The Indo-China Steam Navigation Company was not nearly so deeply involved in the southern deck passenger trades as the China Navigation Company, but their Japan-Calcutta ships took part in the Straits trade on their way up and down the coast, and their Hong Kong-Sandakan ships had a near monopoly of the comparatively small trade to British North Borneo. Most coasters on the Hong Kong-Shanghai service called at Canton and carried deck passengers, but there was also a small fleet of specially designed river steamers employed between Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao, which provided daily and nightly services between the three ports, and thus an out and in connection for emigrants. The Canton river steamers were smaller editions of the Yangtse steamers, and their night departure from the Praya at Hong Kong, when they were a blaze of flamboyant and garish lights, was a spectacular sight before the Second World War. The six or seven hour passage between Hong Kong
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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
IN SEARCH OF THE CHINESE NAME FOR “LI SUN”

111

Lo Hsiang-lin's book translated into English, Hong Kong and Western Cultures (Hong Kong, 1963) which gave this same official name for the interpreter of the Chinese Educational Mission,

Thus, it may well be concluded that Chan Laisun was the name given at his birth in Singapore and Tseng Heng-chung

was his official name in later years.

It is hoped that this article about the search for a Chinese name will stimulate a response from relatives and friends of Tseng Lan-sheng (Tseng Heng-chung) and bring forth corrections and additions to the story of an unusual person and family who lived during the early historical period of China and American cross-cultural exchanges.9

NOTES

1 See pp. 92-106 of JHKBRAS 16 (1976).

2 William N. Armstrong, Around the World with a King (London: Heineman, 1909), pp. 92-93.

3 Tin-Yuke Char, The Sandalwood Mountains: Readings and Stories of the Early Chinese in Hawaii (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1975), pp. 44-51.

4 Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (New York: Holt, 1909), p. 183.

5 容閎自傳:西學東漸記, 台北文海出版社 1973 重印,

6 Carl T. Smith, "A Register of Baptised Protestant Chinese, 1813 - 1842," Chung Chi Bulletin, December 1970, pp. 23-26; Smith, "Idols on a School Hill: the American Board School for Chinese Boys in Singapore, 1835-1842,” Chung Chi Bulletin, December 1974, pp. 28-30.

7 舒新城編: 近代中國留學史, 上海中華書局 1933.

8 羅香林著: 香港與中西文化交流,

9 Tsung-1 Dow, Chronological Biography of Li Hung-chang - 著: 李鴻章年, 香港友聯社, 1968 does not include King Kalakaua's visit in 1881 nor does it mention Chan Laisun (Tseng Heng-chung), although otherwise most comprehensive.

Mr. Char has since added the following extra note:

It would add great interest should Hamilton College be able to find Chan Laisun's family photograph of 1872. Also, some one in Hong Kong may be able to add to the family story of his son Spencer who married the daughter of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong of Hong Kong. Probably Carl Smith has additional materials and will write the next article.

The October 1975 issue of Smithsonian carried a good article on Li Hung-chang's visit to New York in August 1896, accompanied by 18 aides and 2 servants, 300 pieces of luggage, a golden sedan chair, several cargoes of song-birds, 2 noisy parrots. He brought along his own chefs, bakers, valets, guards, footmen, secretaries, interpreters, and physician. His chief interpreter was then Lo Fing-luh, a skilled linguist in German and French as well as English. There was no mention of Chan Laisun as an interpreter or secretary. Perhaps by that time he had gone on to other work or may have died. In 1896 he would have been 67 years old (born 1829).

Editor's note: Carl Smith's article extending the story of Chan Laisun and his family follows on.
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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
SIIIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED

107

the theme of "restoring rivers and mountains" to the point of becoming formula, but no one complained.

Mai further describes how the Guangdong opera actors practised the martial arts of the Shaolin branch (*) and finally put this art to use when in 1854 their leader, the actor Li Yunmao (***) also known as Wen Mao () led three armies of actors to join the Taiping effort against the Manchus. These armies were destroyed along with the rest of the Taiping army, and in the aftermath, the Qing court issued an order forbidding the performance of Guangdong opera and had the actors' Qiong Hua (hortensia flower) Association Hall (1446) in Fushan burned to the ground.

A gilt wood carved altar in the Ancestral Temple in Fushan, and a Shiwan frieze depicting the story of the Yang Family Generals, preserve in their carvings the significance of these events and their broader implications for a community not under the domination of a foreign Manchu government, but also besieged with Caucasian foreigners pressing for trade and territorial rights.

The Qing dynasty gilt wood altar carving has double meaning. The carving depicts the story of Tang dynasty Li Yuanba fighting the dragon colt (*£#£#6). On a second level however, the horse represents the unruly foreigners, and Li Yuanba, having the same surname, represents Li Wenmao. Verifying this are two hidden plaques hung above the scene which can only be seen from a crouching position. One reads "Great Ming Mountains and Rivers" (11) and the other "Qiong Hua Hall" (44), with the middle character Hua (4) substituted as disguise for the similar sounding Hua (*) of the Hortensia Flower (Qiong Hua) Association. Furthermore, according to Mr. Zhang Tao (**), curator of the Ancestral Temple, the characters on these two wood plaques were originally covered with extra slabs of wood and were only discovered while renovation was being done to the temple between 1971 and 1972. (Plate 14).

In addition to this gilt wood altar scene, a beautiful ceramic frieze depicting the story of the Yang Family Generals, Song dynasty loyalists, is displayed in the rear courtyard of the Ancestral Temple. In addition to this anti-Manchu theme (the Yang family's loyalty to the native Song dynasty during the period of barbarian Yuan conquest, symbolising the loyalty of the Chinese people to the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n
56

Special envelopes were printed for use by the CLC with a central red band and black printing in English, French and Chinese. In France this mail was posted in special boxes and transported by despatch riders to and from Noyelles. Mail between CLC companies in France did not require stamps or special envelopes.

The Imperial War Museum also holds two notebooks, written in literary Chinese, which may have been compiled by a clerk or labourer in his leisure time. There are random jottings with notes on, amongst other topics, the ancient political system in China, moral precepts, quotations from Chinese poets, lists of 95 individuals' names and places of birth, and also three letters.

These letters reveal the feelings of an ordinary man, rural and urban labourers, and his feelings for others. The first letter is addressed to the Kaiser and is a petition to end the war. It was written by 'Spiritual Man Yuan Chun'.

To the Great Emperor of the German Empire.

The war in Europe is a matter that does not concern us, the Chinese people, and as Your Majesty knows the world is full of people with greater talents than we have.

However, as the ancients have said, a model emperor would be a brave warrior and merciful; however, if one loves war for its own sake and treats human lives as blades of grass, you will invoke the anger of the gods.

We Chinese came to Europe as neutrals, our aim is to make a paltry living; however, the war made our journey to Europe somewhat less than peaceful.

An examination of the world situation now shows that within the universe we are all one family, and a virtuous ruler would seize this opportunity to put righteousness before profit, to follow the will of the gods and the wishes of men, to stop the evil of the world and together with other nations create a new world. A virtuous ruler's name will be remembered for ten thousand generations, so why not halt your troops and select
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