RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author 8 and contributions from the community, it built a commodious home for itself with a spacious lecture room and provided accommodation for its very valuable library and museum. In Hong Kong we hope that some facilities may be afforded in the new City Hall for societies like ours but if our plans are to mature we need a meeting place of our own where we can build up an Oriental library which should fill a special need which cannot be supplied by the University, whose library is not readily accessible to the public, or by the new City Hall, whose library will probably be of a wider popular interest. As the basis of our projected library we propose to print a sufficient number of our periodical journals to enable us to exchange periodicals with kindred societies in other parts of the world. We also propose in our journal to review books on Oriental affairs which may bring us a useful nucleus of publications. Until we have enough money to buy books it would be greatly appreciated if members who have any books of interest and connected with the objects of the Society would kindly remember that any gifts of books and journals would be most welcome. The Branch is greatly indebted to benefactors who have been generous with donations. In Sir Richard Winstedt's message on its formation he expressed the hope that both European and Chinese firms with their accustomed generosity would help to foster the growth of a Branch of high promise. This hope was realised in the donations received of 500 dollars each from Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., and The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, and 250 dollars from Mr. Ellis Hayim. Then in April last year there came a munificent gift from an anonymous donor who is not now resident in the Colony. This was the gift of 10,000 dollars in memory of Arthur de Carl Sowerby, a great authority on the natural history of China, who was the founder and curator of the museum of the Society in Shanghai. These contributions have enabled us to put aside a capital fund which will help us in our aims for the future while yielding a useful interest in the meantime. It is greatly hoped that other merchant houses and individuals in the Colony may, without any direct appeal, emulate the example of these benefactors and help us to build up a Branch of the Society in Hong Kong worthy of the heritage which Professor Drake in his inaugural address coupled with the corresponding task which such heritage implied. During the year there was little change amongst the officers and members of the Council. Mr. Endacott resigned owing to pressure of work and the vacancy was filled in accordance with the rules by the co-option of The Hon. A. G. Clarke. Mr. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 13 During the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, this region became one of the most important regions for archaeological study by Russian, French, German, Japanese, Swedish, and British archaeologists. The great names for the English reader are those of Dr. Sven Hedin of Sweden, and Sir Aurel Stein. The geographical exploration of the one, and the archaeological exploration of the other provide reading material of the utmost fascination and charm, and offer a key to open the closed door of Central Asian studies. To these must be added the scholarly work on Central Asian languages Sogdian, Karosthi, Persian, Turkish, Uighur, and Mongolian that illumined the work of the archaeologists, including the names of the two great French sinologues, Edouard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot, and of the Russian Central Asian historian, W. Barthold. The greatest episode in the history of Central Asia was the outbreak of the Mongols of Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The most extensive land empire that the world has seen stretched from Russia to Mongolia, and embraced also China, Annam, and Persia, and in its later developments the Moghul dominion in India. The trade routes between East and West were once more opened, mediaeval travellers from Europe made their way to Mongolia and China, which they knew by the name of Cathay, and for the first time the West had detailed accounts of farther Asia. The book of Marco Polo is known to all, but not so widely known are the slightly earlier journeys and narratives of the Franciscan Friars, John of Pian Carpine, one to the court of Kuyuk Khan (1245-1247), and the other to the court of Mangu in Mongolia (1253-55). Yet these both present to the reader first-hand information of the Mongols, and of the Chinese, on matters overlooked by Marco Polo. II. The Persians were the first of the great Oriental Empires with which Europe was confronted. The main theme of the History of Herodotus was the invasion of the independent city-states of Greece by the King of Kings. It was to understand how this situation came about, how and why the invasion failed, that Herodotus set out on his seventeen years' travels, collecting material—geographical, historical, sociological, and religious from all the peoples and tribes within his reach, to work into his great history. A hundred years later Alexander reversed the process and the Greeks invaded the East. In three great battles Syria, Egypt, and Persia fell, and the Macedonian army penetrated to the tributaries of the Indus. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 15 Egypt had sailed through the Red Sea, and keeping the land on their right had rounded Africa and returned through the Straits of Gibraltar; on the way they had found that the sun appeared for a time on the north side. A hundred years later, after Egypt had fallen into his hands, Alexander had founded the city of Alexandria on the western side of the delta of the Nile. The city was destined to become the second city of the Roman Empire. Connected by canal with the Red Sea, and making use of the newly understood monsoon winds (A.D. 47) for crossing the Arabian Sea, it became the chief port of the maritime trade with Persia, India, and the regions beyond. References to this maritime trade exist in the Chinese histories as well as in the writings of the Greeks. In A.D. 97 a Chinese envoy, Kan Ying, travelling from Central Asia reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, and was informed by the seamen whom he met that the sea-route from the Gulf proceeded first south-west and then north-west to the port of Wu-ch'ih-san (Alexandria), the return journey taking three months with favourable winds, and two years with unfavourable winds. The Chinese records speak of the Persians and the Indians trading by sea with Ta-ts'in (the Chinese name for the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire: Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor) and of the fact that the profits were ten-fold. They speak also of traffic between India and China by sea, and record that in A.D. 120 two jugglers who claimed to have come from the Roman Orient (Ta-ts'in) reached Burma, and were sent by the king of Burma as a present to the Emperor of China, via the Burma Road. About the same time a book was written by an unknown Greek sailor called The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea giving a port-to-port description of the voyage down the Red Sea and around the Indian Ocean to the Malay Peninsula (The Land of Gold) 'under the very rising of the sun, with a notice of China beyond. Shortly after this in the 2nd century A.D. the Geography of Ptolemy was written at Alexandria, where Ptolemy gathered together and systematized all that was known to the Western world about Asia and Africa. In particular he plotted the longitude and latitude of the places known, which when transferred to a modern map give surprisingly accurate results, reaching to China itself. From this time notices of the sea-route increase, both on the Greek and on the Chinese side. The Chinese histories in particular show a rapidly increasing knowledge in the early ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 37 and well versed in history and literature. So Hsieh made her his private secretary. At that time, the military governors were practically independent war-lords paying only nominal homage to the crown. A rival governor, T'ien Ch'eng-ssu, was increasing his armed forces and planning to annex Lu-chou. Seeing that Hsüeh was worried about this, Hung Hsien offered to go to the rival governor's city one night to investigate. Brushing aside Hsüeh's misgivings, she pushed her hair back to form a bun, put on a short embroidered jacket and black silk shoes, carried a dagger, and wrote a magic spell on her forehead. In a moment she was gone. Hsüeh waited for her alone, and after a dozen cups of wine, it was already daybreak. Suddenly he heard something falling lightly like a leaf on the ground outside. It was Hung Hsien coming back. She had travelled several hundred miles and gone to the rival governor's headquarters, and, without disturbing the armed guards or waking up the governor, had taken from his bed-side a gold case containing his horoscope. Next morning, Hsieh sent the gold case back to his rival, with a letter saying, “Last night a visitor came and brought this from your bed-side. I dare not keep it and am returning it herewith." On receiving this, the rival governor, T'ien, was petrified. He sent Hsüeh rich gifts and a humble letter of apology, saying that he had no aggressive intentions and that he was going to cut down his forces. All was peace and quiet. Two months later, Hung Hsien asked permission to leave. Hsüeh was naturally reluctant to let her go, whereupon she said, "In my previous incarnation I was a man and a physician, who, by mistake, caused the death of a pregnant woman conceiving twins. As a punishment, I was re-born as a girl and became a serving maid. Now that I have repaid your kindness, I must go." Hsieh realized it was no use trying to keep her, so he held a great farewell banquet in her honour. After a tearful goodbye, she disappeared and was never seen again.11 The above story is written in elegant classical prose. At the same time, chivalric tales also existed in the popular colloquial literature of T'ang times. Among the manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang at the end of the last century are many tales known as pien-wen (#), which may be translated as "popularized texts".15 These are for the most part Buddhist legends re-told in a semi-colloquial style, often in a mixture of prose and verse. However, some of them are not of a religious character. Among these is 14 T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi ***, chüan 195. For a full translation of the story, see E. D. Edwards, Chinese prose literature of the T'ang period, vol. II (London, 1938), pp. 123-7. 15 For further information, see Arthur Waley, Ballads and stories from Tun-huang (London, 1960). 1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 53 the failure of subscribers to return the books on leaving the country-so that there is a large space occupied by books that are of little value to the Society, or to the public. I would recommend that the Library be inspected, and that those books which are not worth binding anew should be disposed of, and the proceeds be devoted to rebinding those that are worth keeping. In this way, the library will be freed from a good deal of trash, and the really valuable part of it, which is by no means small, could be more easily accommodated in the apartment designed for it, and better fitted for the use of subscribers. The reports of the Society for 1844, 1845 and 1846 do not specifically mention the Library, but it is interesting to note that at a meeting of the subscribers in January 1846 it was unanimously resolved, "That a bust of the late Hon. J. R. Morrison (who had also died, at the early age of 29 in 1843) be immediately commissioned from England, to be placed in the public rooms of the institution of the Morrison Education Society; that a copy of Chinnery's painting of his father (the late Rev. Dr. Morrison) engaged in the translation of the Bible into Chinese, be obtained for the same purpose; that the sum of $1,000 be appropriated to meet the cost, and the expense of placing these memorials in China. By 1849 the Society was running into financial difficulties, the premises had to be closed and the Library was packed up. By 1855 it was open to the public again when, according to an advertisement appearing in the Hong Kong Register on 30 October, 1855, "The Library of the Morrison Education Society, now deposited in a room in the Court House, is open every day from 1 to 4 o'clock p.m. to Members of the Society for the giving out and exchange of Books. Parties, not members of the Society, may obtain the advantages of the Library, on payment of an Annual Subscription of $5. By order of the Trustees, James Legge, Secretary.” At the annual meeting of the Society in 1858 the question of the permanent disposal of the Library was scheduled for discussion. In this same year they had accepted on trust a collection of 400 books belonging to the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society which had been founded in Hong Kong in 1847 by Sir John Davis, later revived by Sir John Bowring, but which was now defunct. A report of the founding of the Asiatic Society appears in the Hong Kong Register for 1847 with a list of 44 titles of books, prints, etc., which had been presented. There had been a growing demand for a proper public library and in May, 1863, the Morrison Education Society issued a circular urging the foundation of such a library in a City Hall and offering its own books and those of the Royal Asiatic Society ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 54 as a free gift to form a reference library. The books had suffered a good deal in being constantly moved about, the number was now 3800, all of them dilapidated and 3000 were considered worth rebinding. This would cost about $3,000 but the Society had no money for this work. A despatch dated 29 December, 1863 from the acting Governor, W. T. Mercer to the Colonial Secretary quoted the Morrison Education Society's circular and asked for action.1 A City Hall containing a Library and a Museum was eventually built on the site now occupied by the Bank of China and the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in Queen's Road Central and adjoining Statue Square. It was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on the 2 November, 1869 and during his tour of the building His Grace visited both the Library and the Museum. A printed catalogue of the Morrison Library was issued in 1873 by the City Hall Committee. It contains 1666 entries arranged in alphabetical order of authors or titles, editor, translator, etc., where the author is not known, only eight of which I have been able to identify as belonging formerly to the Royal Asiatic Society. The books are classified, single letters indicating the following groups :- A History. Peerages, &c. B Biographies and memoirs. C Geography including works on various countries. Travels, Voyages and Adventures, D Natural History: Ornithology. E Botany. F Atlas Gazetteers, Meteorology, Guidebooks, Geology, Metallurgy and Mineralogy. Topography. G Mechanics. H Encyclopaedias, I Commercial Statistics. International Law, Jurisprudence, J Complete Works. K Astronomy. L Chemistry. Optics. M Mathematics. N Painting, Music. Science and Art, O Medicine and Surgery. P Biblical works. Q Oriental Societies. Journals. R Classics. Dictionaries. S Novels. T Drama and poetry. U Periodical works. Directories. V Divinity. Law, Treaties and Conventions. W Miscellaneous works. A stocktaking was made in 1956 and of the 1666 titles there are now 1233 remaining (2748 volumes out of 3583). Some volumes were removed during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and were not subsequently recovered. The condition of the books is poor. Nearly all are worm-eaten to a greater or 1 C.O.129/94, Public Records Office, London. (I am indebted to Mr. G. B. Endacott of the University of Hong Kong for supplying this reference). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 55 lesser degree and the rebinding and repairing which has been done is unskilful in the extreme. The City Hall Library flourished in spite of some administrative difficulties and, in the Annual Report for 1880, it was stated that there had been 1917 readers during the year, that subscriptions amounting to $650 had been received from Europeans and $347 from Chinese and that it was 'fairly self supporting'.2 The salary of the Curator was paid by the Government. The Library continued to justify its existence and in Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, published in 1908 it is described as follows:- The nucleus of the Public Library was the library received in 1869 from the Morrison Education Society as a free gift for the use of the public, on condition that in consideration of this gift and of the great services of Dr. Morrison to both European and Chinese, the books are to be kept distinct from all other collections in the City Hall, and designated the Morrison Library in perpetuation of the great missionary's memory'. In 1871 the City Hall Library consisted of 8,000 volumes, 3,000 of which were unconditionally presented by the Trustees of the Victoria Library. Since that date it has been added to from time to time, and now contains 3,332 volumes in the Morrison Library, 6,220 including 320 Chinese religious and devotional books, in the City Library, and 3,287 in the lending collection—a total of 12,839 volumes. There are many valuable philological, biographical and other works, including some rare first editions, the department dealing with China and Japan being especially well filled. The Library is freely used, the register bearing the names of nearly 500 borrowers. The visitors to the reading-room, which is well supplied with local, home, and American newspapers and magazines, average about 1,412 non-Chinese and 628 Chinese a month. The library is open from nine to nine. But a few years later the usefulness of the Morrison Library to the general public was in doubt and it was thought that it would have more practical value in the newly founded University of Hong Kong. At a meeting of the Senate on 25 September, 1913, the Vice-Chancellor was authorized to approach those concerned as to the feasibility of the University's taking over the Morrison Library. This was agreed to in the following terms: "Upon the petition of the... Attorney General . . . praying for an Order that the Committee of the City Hall be at liberty to hand over to the University of Hong Kong a collection of books designated the 'Morrison Library' upon conditions IT IS ORDERED that the petition be granted in the terms 2 China Mail, 27 August, 1880. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author 56 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 thereof. 30th day of June 1914". One of the conditions was that the Library should be unconditionally returned to the City Hall upon demand of the Committee but this right was revoked in 1925 when they "definitely and permanently renounced their right to demand the return... of the... Library" and it became University property. The books may now be consulted by any interested member of the public upon application to the Librarian of the University. Another move is still planned for it to the new air-conditioned University Library where it should continue to provide rewarding browsing for the curious for many years to come. Perhaps a note on the end of the first City Hall Library should be added. The rest of it remained open until 1932 when an ordinance was passed by the Legislative Council on 23 June to the effect that Government had decided to resume possession of the City Hall site. The ordinance stated that; The premises together with all buildings now standing thereon revert to the Crown free from any restriction whatever. The City Hall Committee also has to hand over the furniture, fittings, bookcases, books, show-cases, specimens, exhibits, etc., of the City Hall, including the library and museum to the Director of Public Works who shall dispose of them, or any of them as the Governor in Council may direct.... The Future. It is not the intention of the Government to re-erect a City Hall on this site, part of which will be sold and part developed to accord with a general scheme of town planning; but as part of that scheme it is the intention of the Government to make provision for public amenities of the kind hitherto provided by the Committee of City Hall.' So did the Government of the day commit itself to providing a public library for the community and at last in 1960 piling for a new City Hall Library is under way. THE BOOKS It would be unfair to judge the library which bears Morrison's name as a reflection of his own taste or scholarship. Too many books have been added to it from a variety of sources for that and too many from his original collection have been lost. Morrison's signature can still be found in a number of the books extant; from indications in his Memoirs quite a number of others can be identified, enough to reflect his qualities as a careful and 3 Letter from Deacons (Solicitors) to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, 24 August, 1925, 4 Hong Kong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report, 10 June, 1932. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 75 with the worship of the Pole Star and with astrology. These can be found in the Tao Tsang (Two Collections of Taoist Literature). To identify him with the Vaisravana of popular legends was advantageous both to the Buddhists and Taoists. It has been said that Vaisravana helped the Emperor T'ai Tsung during the war which led to the founding of the T'ang dynasty. But in some Tantric texts, the story is dated in the year A.D. 742 (the 1st year of Tien Pao in the reign of Hsuan Tsung). When the city of An-si (2) was besieged by the troops of five states including Tashkend and Samarkand, Vaisravana appeared above the tower of the city-gate with his celestial soldiers and defeated the invading troops. The sutra reads, It was in the 1st year of T'ien Pao, the cyclic year being Jên-wu (4), when the city of An-si in Kansu was besieged by the troops of five states, Tashkend, Samarkand ... (five characters missing in the text). On the 11th day of the second month the commander of the city sent a petition for reinforcements. The Emperor told the Monk I-hsing (一行), “An-si is twelve thousand li away from our capital and it would take eight months for our reinforcements to reach there. I am afraid the city will fall." I-hsing said, "Why does Your Majesty not supplicate the celestial soldiers of Vaisravana, the heavenly king of the North, for help?" "How do I get his help?" the Emperor inquired. I-hsing said, "Your Majesty need only summon the foreign priest Amogha and he will do everything." Amogha was summoned and said, "Your Majesty sent for me. Is it not because the city of An-si is besieged by the troops of five states?" The Emperor answered, “Yes.” Amogha said, "Bring your urn and follow me to the place of worship and I will supplicate the celestial soldiers of Vaisravana the heavenly king of the North to rescue the city from danger." Hardly had he finished chanting his spells for the fourteenth time when the Emperor saw celestial soldiers clad in armour standing in front of the hall. "Who are they?" the Emperor asked. "Tu Chien (毘建), the second son of Vaisravana, who is leading the celestial troops to An-si, has come to say farewell." The Emperor gave them food and dispatched them. In the fourth month the commander of An-si reported again, “On the 11th 13 Li Ching's name appears in the Tao-chiao Hsiang-ch'êng Tzu-ti Lu *(道教相承次第録 "Order of Taoist Teaching") in Yün-chi Ch'i-ch'ien (雲笈七籤)(XL). chüan 4. In the Tao Tsang (道藏), Tung-shên Pu (洞神部)(1), Fang-fa Lei (方法類)(5) T'ien-lao Shên-kuang Ching *(天老神光經) is attributed to him. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author 76 * Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 day of the second month, before noon, thirty li from the city, on the north-east and in the mist there was a general, who was ten feet tall, at the head of some three to five hundred soldiers all equipped with armour. Near twilight, the sound of the drums and the hubbub shook the mountains and earth within three hundred li and they stayed there for three days. The troops of the five states all retreated. The strings of their bows were gnawed through by golden rats and their other equipment was broken and became useless. Some of the enemy soldiers who were old and feeble could not escape, and were going to be killed by our men. Then there was in the air a loud voice which ordered, "Release them and do not kill." We looked at the place and saw Vaisravana revealing himself over the tower of the north gate of the city with a bright light behind him. A portrait has been made and is attached to this report. Vaisravana defends our boundaries and comes to the relief of our besieged garrisons to carry out the orders of the Buddha. His third son Nata (E) follows him holding up a pagoda with both hands. It is said by the great priest of the Tripitaka, Amogha, that on the first day of every month Vaisravana assembles his devas and genii; on the eleventh day his second son Tu Chien would say farewell to the father and go on a tour of inspection; on the fifteenth day the four heavenly kings would meet and on the twenty-first day Nata would receive or give back the pagoda to his father. + The above quotation is translated from the Tantric Pi-sha-mên I-kuei ("The Ceremonies in the Worship of the Vaisravana") alleged to have been translated from the Sanskrit by Amogha himself. As Amogha's name appears also in the text it cannot be taken as an impartial translation.14 However, as Li Ching was such a famous general in the T'ang dynasty, who fought many victorious battles against the Turks, it was again very natural for the Chinese to identify him with one of the four newly-introduced Maharaja-devas (the four heavenly kings). The legend of the pagoda held in the hand of Vaisravana was developed from Tantric texts into a very complicated and interesting story in the Fêng-shên Yen-i (Chs.12-14). I think 14 No. 1249, P'i-sha-mên I-Kuei; No. 1247, Pei-fang P'i-sha-mên T'ien-wang Sui-chun Hu-fa I-kuei (#SNIU); No. 1248, Pei-fang P'i-sha-mên T'ien-wang Sui-chun Hu-fa Chên-yen (IBR), all translation of Amogha, in The Tripitaka in Chinese. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Vol. 1 (1961). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author ISSN 1991-7295 85 No-cha then partially pulled off the celestial robe of the dragon-king and revealed the scales under his left ribs. He tore off some forty or fifty of the dragon-scales and the dragon-king was wounded and suffered a violent pain. He begged his assailant to spare his life. No-cha said, “If you want me to spare your life you must give up your law-suit against me before the Jade Emperor, and follow me back to Ch'ên-t'ang Pass." The dragon-king could not free himself and yielded to No-cha. Transforming himself into the shape of a small black snake, he hid in No-cha's sleeve and they descended from heaven. (Ch.13) Some references can be cited here for comparison and we can see how clever the author was in composing his ingenious and complicated plot which surpasses all the materials he made use of. In the prompt-book Ch'in Ping Liu-kuo P'ing-hua ("The Annexation of the Six States by the Emperor of Ch’in”), chüan 2, there is a sentence, "to fasten the cuirass he should use the sinews of the old dragon." In the Ta-T’ang San-tsang Ch’ü-ching Shih-hua ("Tripitaka's Search for Buddhist Sutras"), chuan 2, (7), the Monkey-monk (Hou Hsing-chê) pulled out the sinews from a dragon with nine heads for a belt to hold the cuirass. According to the Min Shu (M), there was a Taoist priest named Yu Chên-chai (2) living in the epoch of Hung Wu, who was called upon by an old woman: She was a female-dragon... and was to be struck to death by lightning on account of her failure in regulating the rains. She begged him to save her life. Yü said, “Can you transform yourself to a small shape so that I may hide you in my alms-bowl?" The dragon followed his advice and transformed herself into a snake wriggling into the bowl. The story of No-cha goes on as follows: One day as the weather was excessively hot, he felt restless and annoyed, and ascended the tower over the city-gate. On the weapon-stands he found a wonderful bow called ch'ien-k'un kung (the cosmic bow) and three arrows called chên-t'ien chien (heaven-shaking arrows) which he appreciated very much, and did not know that they were left by the Yellow Emperor and since then no one had been strong enough to use them. He was so glad of this discovery and he seized the bow and shot an arrow toward the south-west. With a startling sound the sky was covered with red mist and auspicious clouds floated around. (Ch.13) In chuan 13, in the chapter of the "Competition in Martial Exercises for the Hand of Yasodhara" of Abhiniskramana-sutra (DATE · #), we have the following paragraph: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author 86 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 The prince Siddhartha thereupon asked, "Is there any good bow in this city which will suit my strength?" The father, King Suddhodana was very glad and said, "Yes, there is." "Where is it then, Your Majesty?" asked the prince. "Your grandfather Simhahanu (the lion's cheek) had a bow which is now kept in the temple and flowers are offered to it. No man has ever been able to bend it." The prince urged the king to send for it, and when it had been fetched, all the Shakya nobles were allowed to have a trial, but no one could string, nor draw it. Then the minister Mahanama was given an opportunity. He exhausted all his energy yet he could not move a single inch of the string and so he presented it to the prince. The prince remained seated without moving. He seized the bow with his left hand and bent the string with a single finger of his right hand. A startling noise broke out throughout the city Kapilavastu which made all the people frightened. "What noise is it?". + 28 In Ch.2 of the Pei-yu-chi, the king of the Kingdom of Ko-ko () received a tribute from the Western tribes. It was a bronze drum twelve inches thick. Upon the challenge of the tributary messenger, no one in the court, not even the generals, could pierce its surface with an arrow. The prince, The prince, who was only seven, claimed that he could shoot through it. "He seized the bow with his left hand and put on the arrow with his right hand. The arrow darted off and pierced the surface with the feather of the arrow left outside.' The age of No-cha and that of the said prince were seven years. We can see that No-cha's story is derived partly from the Pei-yu-chi and both originated from the story of the Buddha. No-cha's arrow darted off to a far distance and accidentally killed a Taoist disciple of Madame Shih-chi (ENR), who was a goddess of the Intercepting Sect. Shih-chi sent the Athlete of the Yellow Turban to bring Li Ching to her grotto in the K'u-lou Shan (Mt. Skeleton) and pressed him for an explanation, Li Ching vowed his innocence and was set free so that he could investigate the matter. No-cha again admitted to his father what he had done, and followed Li Ching to Shih-chi's place to settle the matter. At the entrance to the grotto he had a desperate clash with the goddess, and though he hurled all his precious weapons they fell into her hands and sleeves. No-cha fled to Mt. Ch'ien-yüan for protection. His master, the Immortal T’ai-I had a violent quarrel with Shih-chi on his behalf, and the quarrel 28 No. 190, The Tripitaka in Chinese, translated by Jfianagupta; also Sister Nivedita & Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists, Harrap, 1914, pp. 261-2. Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 129 HAINES, Miss F. 10-F Headland Road, H.K. HALLIDAY, Lt. Col, P. A. T. Headquarters Land Forces, H.K. HARRISON, Prof. B. Dept. of History, H.K.U. HAYDON, E. S. The Supreme Court, H.K. HAYE, C. Education Dept., Fung House, H.K. HAYIM, E. J. 41 Island Road, Deep Water Bay, H.K. HELLBECK, Dr. H. German Consulate-General, 1 Duddell St., 4th fl. H.K. HENSMAN, Dr. Bertha Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. HINDMARSH, R. H. Hong Kong Club, H.K. HO Teh-Kuei 61 Fort St. 3rd fl., North Point, H.K. HOGAN, The Hon. Sir M. Chief Justice's Chambers, Supreme Court, H.K. HOLMES, D. R. N.T. Administration, N. Kowloon Magistracy, Kln. HOLMES, G. M. 9 Chater Hall, 1 Conduit Road, H.K. HOLMES, The Hon. J. C. U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. HORSMAN, Miss A. M. Colonial Secretariat, H.K. HOOK, B. G. Queen Mary Hospital, H.K. HORTON, J. R. U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. HOWARD-WILLIAMS, E. D. The British Council, 133 Gloucester Building, H.K. HOWORTH, J. F. Leigh & Orange, P. & O. Building, H.K. HSIA Tung Pei 12 Ming Yuen Street W., 3rd fl. North Point, H.K. HUANG Sheng-Fu P.O. Box 9066, Kowloon City Post Office, Kowloon. HUGHES, G. M. American International Assurance Co. Ltd., H.K. HUGHES, Mrs. G. M. 175 Sassoon Road, H.K. HUGHES, Prof. W. I. Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, H.K.U. HUNG, C. S. 19, Hec Wong Terrace, 1st fl., H.K. INGLES, Miss J. M. Government House Lodge, H.K. JACOBSON, H. W. U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. JONES, Dr. J. R. H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn. H.K. KAMATH, F. M. de Mello Commission of India, Tower Court, H.K. KAY, B. Flat 4, 52 Island Road, Repulse Bay, H.K. KEOWN, W. C. Butterfield & Swire, H.K. KHAN, Dr. L. A. M.O., Tai Lam Prison, N.T. KIDD, S. T. N. Kowloon Magistracy, Kln. KILBORN, Prof. L. G. Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. KIRBY, Prof. E. S. 2 University Drive, H.K. KNOWLES, W. C. G. Butterfield & Swire, H.K. KNOWLES, Mrs. W. C. G. Butterfield & Swire, H.K. KRAMERS, Dr. R. P. Tao Fong Shan, Shatin, N.T. KUNG, Mrs. T. P. 8 Sunning Road, 2nd fl., H.K. KVAN, Rev. E. St. John's College, H.K.U. KWOK Chan, The Hon. Hang Seng Bank Ltd., H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 2 flourished between 1858 and 1948 was more fortunate because it was able to draw on the services of a far wider group of people who came to work in China in the years after travel and residence there was no longer restricted. The present Society is luckier still because, thanks to air travel, we have been able to draw on an extremely wide range of contributors in the first two volumes of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. When examining the table of contents of the six volumes of Transactions published in Hong Kong between 1847 and 1859, one sees the titles of several articles which it would be most interesting to read if copies of these volumes were available in Hong Kong. For example, in Volume III Harry Parkes, at that time British Consul in Canton, and later British Minister at Peking, described proceedings in a criminal Court at Canton, while Dr. Bowring contributed an article “On the Character and Writings of Commissioner Lin Tsih-seu”, which at that time (1851) was still very recent history. In Volume VI (1859) Dr. D. J. Macgowan wrote on Chinese opium while the Rev. Krone contributed “A notice of the Sanon district *”. This is of particular interest since the Sanon district included all of what later became the New Territories. The full list of contents of each of these volumes can be found in Bibliotheca Sinica by Henri Cordier, Volume IV, columns 2401-2. 44 By way of contrast it is interesting to consider the contents of the first two volumes of the Journal of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S. published in 1961 and 1962. Perhaps the first point which strikes one is the wider range of subject matter covered by these two volumes. In Volume I, Mr. Hugh Richardson, the last head of the British mission at Lhasa wrote on Tibet as it was, and Professor Drake reviewed the whole field of Western contacts with Asia. In Volume II Mr. Evan Luard's newly published book Britain and China, which covers the story of recent Sino-British relations, is the subject of a review-article by Mrs. Colina Lupton. Another noteworthy point is the number of admirable contributions from Chinese scholars in these two volumes. The six volumes of Transactions published between * Although I have made extensive enquiries I have been unable to locate copies of the Transactions in Hong Kong. The City Hall Library ought to have a set. (Ed.) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f should like to appeal to other merchant houses and individuals in the Colony, who probably need only to have the nature and needs of the Society made known to them to follow the generous example of our first benefactors. In the second place, the greater part of the amount of about $7,000 now in hand will soon be needed to cover the cost of the production and distribution of the Journal Vol. II, to a free copy of which each member is entitled by virtue of his subscription. We also urgently need a public address system, made necessary by the steadily increasing size of our audiences. We shall have to consider the purchase of projectors and apparatus for the exhibition of colour slides with which many lectures are now illustrated. Hitherto we have been fortunate in that we have been furnished with all the necessary equipment by the British Council, to whom and to their projectionists I wish to tender the thanks and appreciation of the Society. Furthermore, until now the British Council Room has been our home ever since the first preliminary meeting of the Society in 1959, and all except three or four of our meetings have been held here. Our lecture expenses in 1961 amounted to only $213.75, and most of this sum was incurred when a larger room had to be taken in the Hong Kong Club. Without the generous help of the British Council and its Representative here, Mr. R. E. Lawry, who is our Honorary Secretary, in placing this room and all its amenities at our disposal free of charge the Society could not have been in the financial position it is in today. On behalf of the Society I wish to express our deep appreciation to the British Council and to Mr. Lawry and his staff for all they have done in giving the Society a home for now over two years, and in the absence of a home of our own we hope that the Council will continue its generous support. Finally, there is one other matter of expenditure we have to consider—the building up of a library. We are already in touch with many learned societies all over the world who send us their journals and publications, usually in exchange for copies of our own Journal. These will form a valuable nucleus of a collection. We need and appeal for money and gifts of books to build up an Oriental Library worthy of the Society, a collection of books and periodicals which we hope may serve to supplement the more general library of the City Hall and which can be made available for research study and reading not only to members ================================================================================ 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 95 2 Extracts from the Report are given between pages 181-209 of Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1899, (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1900). For this quotation see p. 198. Lockhart was referring specifically to development which was noticeably lacking. The same cannot be said of the population during this period. The evacuation of the coastal areas (1662-69) caused a great disruption to the villages at the time. For a brief mention in English, based on Chinese authorities, see S. F. Balfour, "Hong Kong before the British", an article in T'ien Hsia, Vol. XI, No. 4, 1941, p. 334. In any case there has been a continuous inward flow of both Cantonese and Hakka since then, more especially of Hakka in the 19th century, from which time many of the hill villages in the Colony take their origin. It is interesting to compare this report with a book on Wei Hai Wei, Lion and Dragon in North China (London, John Murray, 1910) which was written by a junior colleague from Hong Kong, R. F. Johnston (1874-1938) who went to Wei Hai Wei as Magistrate and Secretary to Government in 1904, probably at Lockhart's request. Johnston, later knighted and Professor of Chinese in the University of London was a man of great application and erudition who became tutor to the deposed boy emperor, P'u Yi, (1919-25) and wrote the well-known book Twilight in the Forbidden City, (London, Gollancz, 1934). He was himself Commissioner of Wei Hai Wei 1927-30. His detailed description of Wei Hai Wei, its people and their customs leaves an impression of the striking similarity of life and thought between that remote part of Shantung and this small corner of Kwangtung. The means of government was of course the same, but so also are the ways of doing and thinking which seem, in my own experience, hardly to differ at all despite the different agricultural background. To anyone interested in the Chinese peasant Johnston's book is a mine of information. The annual reports on Wei Hai Wei presented to both Houses of Parliament are, too, an interesting commentary on life in this northern leased territory. The market towns of the New Territories in 1898 were Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tai O, Cheung Chau, Sai Kung and Tsuen Wan. A despatch of 1905 in connection with the Kowloon-Canton Railway No. 59 dated 11th January 1905 from Governor Sir Matthew Nathan to the then Secretary of State, Mr. Lyttelton gives some figures. Yuen Long had "seventy-four shops of which twenty-five are large and deal in rice, oil, samshu etc. The remainder belong to barbers, doctors, jewellers, vegetable sellers, piece goods dealers etc." Tai Po Market consisted of twenty-three large shops and fifteen smaller ones, Tsuen Wan had a few shops supplying the local needs". No figures are given for Cheung Chau or Tai O with which the railway was not concerned, but an inscription of 1878 inside the grounds of the Fong Pin Hospital at Cheung Chau states that there "used to be over two hundred shops trading here". Lockhart Papers 1899, p. 207 gave Cheung Chau a population of 5,000, whilst Tai O with its fisheries and salt pans was reported to have about 3,000. These were larger towns than Yuen Long (no figure given), Tai Po (280), Sai Kung Market (800) and Tsuen Wan (900). The present New Territories towns were not the largest in the San On district. Pride of place went to Sham Chun, now on the Chinese side of the border, with sixty-one large shops and three hundred and twenty-three medium sized shops, and to Kun Lan Hui, also north of the border which was the cattle centre of the whole district with fifteen large and one hundred and thirty-six medium sized shops. (Enclosure C to No. 59). See Eastern No. 88 Correspondence relating to the Kowloon-Canton Railway (London, Colonial Office, 1907). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 120 COLINA LUPTON argued that any reform in the constitution, especially one which permitted elections, would immediately be exploited by the Communist regime in China, seizing the opportunity to infiltrate its own supporters into positions of power and using political meetings to stir up trouble. While it is true that the economy has hitherto flourished because of Hong Kong's exceptionally stable conditions, the government should remember, as Mr. Luard points out, that it has an unequalled opportunity for disseminating the ideals of western culture, of which democracy is one, on the very shores of China. Too much should not be sacrificed to material prosperity. Yet despite all the criticisms which could be made, the fact remains, as Mr. Luard says, that "it has proved a more fertile and more stable meeting ground of East and West than almost any other city of the world". And whatever its political driving force, it is one of the finest examples existing of the speedy and successful development of a non-Marxist economy, which alone should provide some food for thought for the pragmatic Chinese over the border. As to the future, Mr. Luard predicts that Britain and China will almost inevitably find themselves in conflict in both South East Asia and Hong Kong, since the new China expects to expand to the borders reached in its historic periods of greatness. Not everyone agrees that China's plans stretch only thus far; many close observers of the scene might think that China has territorial designs on South East Asia at the least—an area which in the past she has held in fee but not actually settled (if the Overseas Chinese are excluded). And today China is trying to extend her influence as far afield as Africa and Latin America. Nor is it Britain's interests only which are affected; not only the whole of the west, but also the neutrals have an interest in preserving the status quo in these areas. In this context particularly to speak of British interests in isolation from the rest of the world gives the book a false emphasis. But when Mr. Luard deals with the future of British policy—as he does in a highly practical manner—this is avoided, partly because he discusses subjects which are specifically British concerns, trade and economic relations with Communist China and the future of Hong Kong, and partly because he conceives British policy as it truly should be in these days of her declining power—as a matter for giving advice and bringing influence to bear. Page 135 Page 136 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 126 NOTES AND QUERIES THE SUNG WONG TOI INSCRIPTION In the year 1277 A.D. Mongol troops overran the Canton area and the one but last Sung emperor, Ti Cheng, who was still a boy, took refuge in the neighbourhood of the present Kowloon City. In this area there was a small hill with a flat top and on this the followers of the boy emperor constructed a lookout, which afterwards became known as Sung Wong T’oi ('terrace of the Sung emperor') while the hill was called the 'Sacred Mount'. In 1807 the three characters 宋皇台 (Sung-wong t'oi) were carved on a very large boulder on the Sacred Mount, and remained there until 1943 when the Japanese partially demolished the hill during their occupation of Hong Kong in order to make room for an extension to the airport. Eventually the inscription from the great rock of Sung Wong Toi was placed in its present position in the Sung Wong Toi Park which is off Sung Wong Toi Road near Kai Tak airport. Thus this stone inscription has been preserved and provides a permanent reminder of Kowloon's association with the end of the Sung Dynasty. There is a detailed account of these events written in Chinese by Mr. Lo Hsiang-lin ✯ of the Department of Oriental Studies in the University of Hong Kong which can be found in his book Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, 1959). J. L. C-B. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v # PRESIDENT'S REPORT 1962 This is the third Annual General Meeting of the Society since its revival in December 1959. During 1962 the work of the Society, judging by the popularity of the lectures and the success of the Journal, has shown a vitality which has justified the initial promise of the first two years, and has established its position as a permanent factor in the intellectual life of the community in Hong Kong. The ten public meetings at which lectures were delivered were again all consistently well attended. The first two in January and February were held at the premises of the British Council, through the good offices of the Representative Mr. R. E. Lawry, who is also our Honorary Secretary. By the beginning of our third year the audiences had outgrown the normal capacity of the British Council Room and it was opportune that just then the City Hall with its admirable facilities became available for our subsequent meetings. The term "lecture" has now become inappropriate and somewhat of an anachronism in connection with meetings such as those of the Society. I recall an Annual General Meeting of the North China Branch held in Shanghai about twenty-five years ago when the late Mr. A. de C. Sowerby, the well-known naturalist and curator of the Society's museum, in his Annual Report referred to the "lectures" which had been given during the year. "Of these," he said, "two were illustrated with both motion pictures and ordinary lantern slides, seven were illustrated with lantern slides only, the remainder being without illustrations. It is evident that lantern slides form an added attraction, since it was noticeable that, regardless of the subject, lectures so illustrated were markedly better attended than those that were not." To some extent the same may be said of the more sophisticated audiences of Hong Kong today. However, the lectures that were not illustrated were of such interest that they brought excellent audiences, while those which were illustrated had the advantage of brilliant colours, such as Mr. Nixon's slides of flowers and Mr. Hugh Gibb's documentary films, and this added greatly to their popularity. The fantastic 1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 10 LINDSAY RIDE Let us first go to the top of Monte Fort and view this historic spot where so many foreigners lived their eastern lives and not a few found eternal rest. From the Fort we can see practically the whole of the peninsula and the city of Macao. To the east, beyond the Guia lighthouse, stretches the South China Sea, studded by the Ladrone Islands of which the two nearest - Taipa and Coloane form part of this overseas Province of Portugal. Between these islands and the peninsula lie the Macao Roads and the Outer Harbour. To the west can be seen the narrow neck of land with its barrier gate which bars access to the large delta island of Heung Shan and to the mainland of China. Separating the main portion of this island from the city of Macao, is the Inner Harbour whose two lines of junks, Communist and Macanese, are separated only by the narrow fairway used by the larger sea-going junks, launches and the Hong Kong ferries. Just below us as we view this busy scene, stands, stately and calm, the façade of all that remains of the Jesuit Church of St. Paul, commenced in the sixteenth century, completed in the seventeenth and destroyed by fire in the nineteenth century, Behind it, almost at the harbour's edge, is a low wooded hill whose trees shelter the Camoens Grotto and on whose lower slopes nestle the Camoens Gardens and the neighbouring cemetery. It is but a short walk from the Fort to the cemetery and gardens, access to both of which is gained from a small grassed and treed square the Praça Luis de Camões. On the extreme right as we enter this square, is a high stucco wall pierced by a most unimpressive gateway over which is mounted a small tablet; on which is carved: PROTESTANT CHURCH AND OLD CEMETERY (EAST INDIA COMPANY 1814) This inscription poses a number of questions, a characteristic which, as you will find out later, it shares with many of the inscriptions in the cemetery itself; in fact it is the attempt to solve these problems that supplies much of the fascination and the interest of this cemetery. What was the British East India Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 14 LINDSAY RIDE predominantly Protestant, or to the Indians and Chinese who were not Christians. The Portuguese officials for a long time could not be persuaded to sell land to the Protestants for use as a recognized cemetery, and so, as on the islands up the river, the bereaved foreigners in Macao had to bury their dead on the hillsides beyond the city walls. In 1821 however, on the occasion of the death of Mary Morrison, wife of Dr. Robert Morrison, the Portuguese authorities at last agreed to let the East India Company have some land for burial purposes. The Morrisons had lost their first born, James, ten years before and he had been buried on Mesenburg Hill. During her last illness, Mary Morrison had expressed the wish to be buried with her first born, but the Chinese were reluctant to open an old grave. Strong representations were made by the Select Committee to the Portuguese and although they could not let her be buried in their cemetery, the pleadings plus the popularity of Dr. Morrison won the day, and a plot of land near one of the Company's official residences, now the Museum, was sold to the East India Company for use as a burial ground. Later, the East India Company allowed it to be used by all foreigners, and then a number of people sought permission for the remains of those formerly buried on hillsides to be moved into the newly established cemetery: that is why, if one looks carefully at the memorials, it will be found that a number of them have dates of death earlier than 1821, when the cemetery was opened. The earliest death recorded was of George W. Biddle of Philadelphia, U.S.A., he died in 1811, so that the date over the gate referred to earlier is neither that of the opening of the cemetery nor of the first death recorded there. It is probably that of the year in which the new charter came into force under which the East India Company operated in China at the time of the opening of the Cemetery. The name "Old Cemetery" came into use after 1858 when the Portuguese authorities decided that no more burials were to take place within the city limits. This decision necessitated the closing of the cemetery and the opening of another, The New Protestant Cemetery, outside the city walls. A property named Carneiro's Gardens was bought at a public auction in 1858 by Osmund Cleverly (Cleverly Street in Hong Kong was named after him), acting on behalf of the Protestant community in Macao, and a Board of Trustees was set up to administer the property as a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 86 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG in the north-east quarter of the city, well away from the new diplomatic quarter.2 All accommodation for foreign embassies was to be concentrated in one area outside the east wall of the city, and about one and a half miles from a newly constructed gate, just near to the old astronomical instruments which can still be seen on top of the east wall. Eventually, after negotiations, the new British Legation was allotted two large houses and two blocks of flats in this new diplomatic quarter. The last christening was performed in the Legation chapel, the books in the small library were taken off their shelves, the flag at the gate was hauled down, and everything was packed.3 Among the more colourful of the closing scenes in the life of the old British Legation should be mentioned the two Commonwealth cricket matches played in the Autumn of 1958 between the Moonrakers, captained by Mr. Duncan Wilson, the British Chargé d'Affaires, and the Woolgatherers captained by the Indian Ambassador, Mr. G. Parthasaratly. The rules governing this diplomatic cricket were many and local but the chief rule of all was that if anyone hit a ball into the grounds of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security next door his whole side was out. Finally, in September 1959, the staff moved to their new quarters and thus after nearly one hundred years of continuous occupation the existence of the old British Legation in Peking came to an end. From an historical and sentimental point of view its loss was sad. But from a realistic point of view which 20 This was built on a site which had been granted to Russia as far back as the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689). As a result of fighting between Russian settlers on the frontier between Siberia and Manchuria about a hundred Russian prisoners were brought to Peking in the period 1683-5. They were formed into a company, given a place of residence in the northeast corner of Peking, close to the Lama Temple, and intermarried with Chinese and Manchus. They retained their Greek Orthodox faith and were allowed to have their own priests. See Michel N. Pavlovsky, Chinese-Russian Relations (New York, 1949) 145-164. It was to this place, known as the Pei-kuan ("Northern Hostel") that the members of the Russian ecclesiastical mission transferred in 1861. 30 Unfortunately the imposing Royal Coat of Arms which dignified the gateway of the old Legation was too large to fit properly into the new Legation buildings. Mr. Michael Stewart, the Chargé d'Affaires at the time of the move, arranged with Sir Robert Black, the Governor of Hong Kong, that the Coat of Arms should be sent to Government House in Hong Kong. It is now fixed onto the wall at the far end of the long ballroom of Government House, which it dominates by the brilliance of its colours, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 102 J. W. HAYES 36 shops from Hong Kong, 28 from Peng Chau and 15 from Tai O contributed to the Po On study (presumably all or mainly of Tung Kwun origin); a few outside shops sent donations to repair the Tin Hau temple; hardly surprisingly no outside shops contributed to the Defence Bureau; but the subscriptions for the Fong Pin hospital came from a wide area and the list included over 20 shops and 40 individual persons (including 2 tongs from Tung Kwun and Hok Shan), from Canton, Pun Yue, Tung Kwun, Nam Hoi, Shun Tak, Macau, and other areas of the province, Most of the temples still contain tablets and other dated items which record their repair from time to time. However, the series is far from complete and many tablets have been lost. A typical instance is the loss of commemorative tablets from the Tin Hau Temple at Tai Shek Hau (the local place name). A prominent citizen remembers seeing a whole row of them fronting an outside wall when he was a young man, about thirty years ago, but they have now all vanished without trace. 15 For mention of these Cheung Chau posts see the following tablets: salt (Tin Hau and Fong Pin), stamp (Tin Hau and Fong Pin), customs, e.g. tax on kerosene (Fong Pin). There was also a customs post on Lamma (Fong Pin), and there were various patrol boats (both tablets). The officer in charge of the military post on Cheung Chau is mentioned on the Tin Hau tablet, whilst the Fong Pin tablet lists eight officers of the Tai Pang battalion. 16 Only the defence bureau tablet gives donors their official ranks, though comparison with others shows that some of the graduates are mentioned there without their titles, i.e., persons mentioned in these tablets may also have been graduates. A comparison of the Tong's genealogical record with the names on the tablets is at first sight disappointing. The genealogical record does not record titles for the later generations, i.e. those of the generation whose names appear on the tablets. An additional confusion is that the clan generation names may not have been used on the tablets where business or personal names may have been recorded instead. However, I think we can be fairly certain that most of the WONGS on the tablets belonged to the Tong. 17 I have translated "WU" as "petitioned the district magistrate". 18 See Kung-Chuan HSIAO Rural China; Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, (Seattle, University of Washington Press 1960), pp. 294-306 for defence organisations in this period. 19 His precise title was described on the Cheung Chau tablet as 城鎮 *which was probably the equivalent of colonel. A few years later he presented a large painted wooden commemorative tablet to the Hau Wong temple outside Kowloon City, on which his rank is described as tsung-ping or brigadier-general (see Ralph L. Powell The Rise of Chinese Military Power 1859-1912 (Princeton University Press, 1955) pp. 15 and 367). "The brigadier-generals were semi-independent, yet their units were scattered and practically sedentary," ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v CHEUNG CHAU 103 20 See T'ung-tsu CH'U Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Harvard University Press 1962) chapter 9, especially pp. 161-164. I am indebted to Mr. W. Schofield, a former District Officer, and Cudet Officer, Hong Kong Government, for a reference to an inscription, now lost, relating to the foundation of the Lung Chun Yee Hok *** in 1847. The school, which is still standing inside the former Kowloon walled city, was opened by the district magistrate WONG Ming Ting after the sub-district deputy magistrate HUI Man Sham had reported that it was being built. Orme in his "Report on the New Territories 1899-1912” in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 63, Appendix G, gives a school census for April 1912, by which time there had apparently been little change since 1898. There were 10 schools on Cheung Chau, average attendance 20, average monthly fee 38 cents. 21 See HSIAO op. cit. pp. 235-240 and CH'U, op. cit., pp. 161-162. Occasionally government-sponsored schools were granted land for their maintenance. In the 28th year of Kuang-hsü (1902-3) four years after the lease of the New Territories to Great Britain, land inside the boundary, previously used for the purpose of aiding a school still in Chinese territory, was sold by order of the Commissioner of Education for San On district. Part of the proceeds had also been used for offerings at the Confucian temple (in Nam Tau). 22 The group of titles on the defence bureau tablet is another demonstration of the widespread sale of degree titles and positions in the late Ch'ing period already remarked in several places. (see HSIAO Kung-Chuan Rural China p. 415 and chapter 10 of CH'U's Local Government in China under the Ch'ing op. cit., pp. 168-173 and notes and, in more detail, Chung-li CHANG, The Chinese Gentry. Studies on their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society, (Seattle, University of Washington Press 1955) pp. 102-111. For contemporary notices see Rev. Krone "A Notice of the Sanon District" in Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong), Part VI (1859) p. 84 and Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier c. 1900 p. 121, amongst others.) No fewer than twenty-one persons have titles prefixed to their names, many of them minor ones, of which three-quarters were probably purchased. the first Of the purchased titles and posts five were chien-sheng degree by purchase, which was the prerequisite to purchasing any superior post, such as that of district magistrate or prefect. It was the most commonly purchased degree. Two others were styled chih-chien and chih-sheng. There were four chin-kung and four chih-yüan 職員。 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 128 A. D. BLUE an unofficial association of Chinese pilots stationed at Hankow, whose members were employed by the companies on this section of the river. For the Upper River there was a branch of the Chinese Pilotage Service, whose members were licensed by the Customs, and an apprenticeship of five years was required to qualify as a pilot on the Upper River. The Yangtse was opened to foreign trade through British diplomatic and naval action, and the Yangtse Valley was always a particular preserve of British commerce and industry. This was tacitly recognised by the other Powers, even during periods of intense international rivalry. By the early 1920's it was estimated that British investment in the Yangtse Valley, including Shanghai, was over £200,000,000. This was almost as much as was invested in the whole of British India at that time, and much more than was invested in British Africa. More than half of the shipping regularly employed on the Yangtse was owned by two British companies—the China Navigation Company of John Swire of London, and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company of Jardine Matheson and Company of Hong Kong. Both Companies also had substantial investments in other industries in the Yangtse Valley, as well as in docks, wharves, and warehouses. The operations of the British Yangtse steamers were severely curtailed shortly after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Within a few months of the outbreak of the war the Japanese had captured Shanghai, and soon after that Nanking, the capital. The capital had previously been moved up river to Hankow, and when Hankow in turn was threatened it was moved further up to Chungking, which remained the capital for the remainder of the war. The capture of Hankow resulted in the closure of the Lower River to British shipping, but the services above Hankow were still maintained. After Ichang was captured in June 1940, a still more restricted service was maintained in the Upper River until the end of the war. No British ships operate on the Yangtse nowadays, and the Red Ensign is seen only on the rare occasions when a British ship under charter to the Chinese government visits Nanking or Hankow. 17 By Shanghai is meant here the Chinese city surrounding the International Settlement and the French Concession. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 159 STRICKLAND, Mrs. P. G. c/o Caldbeck Macgregor & Co., Ltd., H.K. SWIRE, A. C. * TALBOT, H. D. TANG, Shiu-kin * THOMAS, L. F. + THOMAS, Dr. O. L. Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. Department of Geography, The University, H.K. The Kowloon Motor Bus Co., (1933) Ltd., 505, Pedder Building, H.K. Co-operative Development & Fisheries Department, Li Po Chun Chambers, 11th Floor, H.K. 17, Magnolia Road, Yau Yat Chuen, Kowloon. THOMPSON, Lt. Col. P. H. CRE Hong Kong B.F.P.O.1, H.K. THOMPSON, R. W. - TILL, The V. Rev. B. * - TOPLEY, Dr. Marjorie TREGEAR, Miss M. TRISTRAM, M. P. W. - TSEUNG, Dr. F. I. TURNER, Sir M. * VETCH, H. - VETCH, Mrs. H. VIO, Dr. E. G. VISCHER, Mrs. H. B. VISICK, Mrs. Mary WADDINGTON, Mrs. A. WALDEN, J. C. C. WARD, Miss J. E. A. WARD, W. L. - WARNER, J. M. WATSON, K. A. WEI, Dr. Tat + Dept. of Modern Languages, The University, H.K. The Dean's House, H.K. 6, Peak Mansions, H.K. c/o Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University, Oxford, UK. Rating & Valuation Dept., Murray House, Queen's Road E., H.K. China Building, 4th Floor, H.K. "Whispers" Riversdale, Boume End, Bucks, U.K. c/o H.K. University Press, H.K. c/o H.K. University Press, H.K. 315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. A-23, Estoril Court, 15 Garden Road, H.K. Department of English, The University, H.K. 9, Middle Gap Road, H.K. c/o Commerce & Industry Department, Fire Brigade Building, H.K. 51, Buxey Lodge, Conduit Road, H.K. Apt. 3, No. 7, Magazine Gap Road, H.K. City Hall, H.K. c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. H.K. Anti-Tuberculosis Association, Queen's Road, East, H.K. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r # PRESIDENT'S REPORT 1963 The year 1963-1964 - the fourth year of the Society in Hong Kong after its revival - was a very successful one. The membership has steadily increased each year. At the end of the first year, we had 160 members, of whom 20 were life members; at the end of the second, 266, of whom 25 were life members; at the end of the third year, 280, of whom 33 were life members; and at the end of last year, the fourth, we had a total of 371, of whom 41 were life members. Since then, more than 30 have joined as ordinary members and 2 as life members. The great increase in the number of members last year is doubly welcome in that it reflects the increasing interest of the younger generation in the objects and activities of the Society. It is a healthy and gratifying sign of the intellectual vitality of the young people of the Colony to see them join. We rely largely on them to ensure the future success of the Society. During 1963, we had twelve meetings, all of which were very well attended. On several occasions, the capacity of the City Hall was fully taxed. The expedition to Tung Chung on Lantao Island was a highly popular feature. The lectures given were: January 21st March 4th March 25th April 22nd Professor S. H. Hansford "Some Problems of Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes" (Illustrated by colour slides) J. D. Bromhall "Underwater Photography in Eastern Seas" (Illustrated by colour slides made by the speaker) Dr. Maurice Freedman "Social Anthropology and the Study of China" Miss B. T. Chiu "Flowers of Hong Kong" (Illustrated by colour slides taken by Miss Chiu and Mr. F. A. Nixon) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 11 in the Pearl River estuary. This estuary formed a great bay on the eastern edge of which was Hong Kong and on the western edge the Portuguese city of Macao. Many of the ships whose cargo were destined for Canton stopped first at Macao and the city was the summer home of a considerable number of foreign merchants trading to Canton. The island of Lintin, consisting of little more than a sharp peak rising in the center of the bay, was the entrepôt of the opium trade. At the mouth of the Pearl River a series of forts known as the Bogue dominated the estuary, at its widest three miles and at its narrowest one mile.* European ships were required to stop at the fortifications and receive permission from the Chinese authorities to proceed up the Pearl River. They then sailed on thirty miles to Whampoa, an island in the river where they anchored and discharged their cargos which were taken by barges and smaller ships thirteen miles to Canton, Neither the depth of the river nor the Chinese government permitted the "Foreign Devils" to bring large ships to the provincial capital. On March 28, 1839 Elliot agreed to turn over to Commissioner Lin the entire holdings of opium which he stated as 20,283 chests. As each major consignment of opium was delivered restrictions on foreigners were eased in regard to food supplies and employment of Chinese workers. By early May conditions outwardly had returned to normal, the embargo lifted and the river opened to commercial traffic. The first crisis was over but the basic problem had not been settled. The journal of William Hunter covered the critical days of siege from March to May 1839. Hunter graphically presented the dangers and concerns of the western community in Canton yet more significantly he showed the necessary patterns of life which develop even in the midst of agonizing uncertainty. In short the routine of peace was exchanged for the routine of confinement. All in all, tension produced by a state of siege, rumor, and the anticipation of an unknown fury ready to be unleashed by Chinese authorities were key ingredients of the spirit of the beleagured foreign community in Canton in 1839. Hunter was not concerned about the morality of opium trade. Apparently he saw no justification whatsoever for the action of the Chinese government. * For places mentioned here and in the Journal see the map facing p. 27. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 38 10 Linguist purser. W. C. HUNTER See note 39, (J.L.C-B) 11 Elliot's last day. On 25 March Elliot formally requested the Viceroy that passports should be issued within three days for all the English ships and people at Canton and that if passports were not issued he would consider the men and ships of his country as forcibly detained and act accordingly. Blue Book, Correspondence relating to China, 1840, p. 367. (J.L.C-B.) 12 Edward Elmslie. Secretary and Treasurer to the British Superintendents of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot and the Deputy Superintendent, A. R. Johnston, (J.L.C-B.) 13 Houqua. Known to Westerners at Canton as Howqua 7. His family name was Wu Ch'ung-yüeh (1810-1863). He was the fifth son of the famous Hong merchant Wu Ping-chien whom he succeeded as head of the firm in 1843. For his biography see Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 867-8. (F.L.C-B.) 14 Nam Hoe. Also written Nam Hoi. This means Nan Hai Hsien #i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the western part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included the area in which the foreign Factories lay. (J.L.C-B.) 15 Kwang Hup. The author may be referring to the Kwangchou hsieh "the Canton brigade", and so to its commander. (J.L.C-B.) 16 The Governor. The Governor of Kwangtung province at this time was I-liang (1791-1867). For his biography see Hummel, op. cit., I, 389. (J.L.C-B.) 17 K'an-ch'o (J.L.C-B.) 18 An-tsou (J.L.C-B) 19 Columbia & John Adams. According to the Chinese Repository Vol. 8, p. 56 the Columbia was a U.S. frigate and the John Adams was classed as a sloop-of-war. The Columbia was commanded by Commodore George C. Read. (J.L.C-B.) 20 Johnston, Alexander Robert Johnston, H.M. Deputy Superintendent of Trade. When the Government of Hong Kong was set up he was deputy first to Elliot and later to Sir Henry Pottinger and in this capacity he administered the Government of the Colony on various occasions from 1841 until 1843. (J.L.C-B.) 21 Pwan Kei Kua. Probably the merchant whose name was also spelt by Westerners at Canton at that time Ponkhequa and Puan Khequa. This was P'an Chengwei (1791-1850). See Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 605, (J.L.C-B.) 22 Saoqua. His family name was Ma Tso-liang and the name of his Hong was Shun Tai Hong A. (J.L.C-B.) 23 Sturgis. Russell Sturgis (1805-1887) of Boston was first named Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, Jr., but he was always known as Russell Sturgis after his name was changed by decree of the Middlesex County Court. He graduated from Harvard in 1823, married in 1828 but was widowed four months later. After an extended tour of Europe he returned to Boston and for a while practised law. He remarried and in 1833 took his family to the orient where he became a partner of Russell & Sturgis of Manila and Russell, Sturgis & Co. of Canton. Later in 1842 when the latter firm became incorporated with Russell & Co., China, he became a partner in 1842. In May 1844 he retired to Boston, his second wife having died in Manila in 1837. Being far too young to give up work altogether he decided to return to China in 1849 but while passing through London he ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON 39 was persuaded to join the firm of Baring Brothers & Co. In 1873 he became senior partner of the house, finally retiring in 1882. (L.T.R.) 24 Lin Tse-hsü's fate. Hunter long survived Commissioner Lin. Lin Tse-hsü was dismissed from office in 1840 and later sentenced to exile in Ili in Chinese Turkistan, where he remained for three years. He was allowed to return to Peking in 1845. He later served as Governor-General of Yunnan and Kweichow, and retired from office in 1849. He died in 1850 at the age of sixty-seven. (J.L.C.B.) 25 Heang-shan (Heungshan). Former name of the District in which Macao lies. Re-named Chung-shan in honour of Sun Yat-sen. (J.L.C-B.) 26 Morrison. John Robert Morrison (1814-1843) was born in Macao, the second son of Dr. Robert Morrison and his first wife Mary (née Morton). He had some schooling in England but at the age of twelve he came back to Canton with his father in 1826. He became a fluent Cantonese speaker as well as a Chinese scholar, and on the death of his father in 1834 was appointed Chinese Secretary to H.M.'s Commission in China. In 1838 he became, in addition, Interpreter, and in 1841 succeeded Elmslie as Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendent of British Trade in China. In 1843 he was appointed Chinese Secretary and member of the Executive Council of the newly founded Colony of Hong Kong and was recommended for appointment, by the Governor, as Colonial Secretary. Before the appointment was approved, however, he died in Macao in August 1843, and was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery there. (L.T.R.) 27 Kwang Chow Foo. Kuang-chou fu The Prefect of the Prefecture of which Canton was the chief city. (J.L.C-B.) 28 Kam Hay Hue. No such title. But I suspect Hunter intended to indicate the Namhoi Hien which title was sometimes written Nam Hoy Hien. See note 14. (J.L.C-B.) 29 Pwan Yu Hue. Also written Punyu Hien. The magistrate having jurisdiction over the eastern part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included Whampoa and the foreign shipping there. (J.L.C-B.) 30 Fearon, Samuel Turner Fearon was the second son of Christopher Fearon and Elizabeth Noad who were married on 14 May 1818 at the Streatham Parish Church. His father served as a midshipman at the Battle of Trafalgar and after being discharged from the Royal Navy he joined the Honourable East India Company's marine service. In this service he made a number of voyages to Canton and when he decided to take a shore posting there he brought his wife and family out with him. Samuel became a fluent Cantonese speaker and in 1838 was appointed Interpreter to the Canton General Chamber of Commerce. After the cession of Hong Kong he was appointed interpreter and clerk of the Chief Magistrate's Court and a couple of months later were added the duties of Notary Public and Coroner. Three years later he was appointed Assistant Magistrate of Police and on 1st January 1845 he became Registrar General and Collector of Revenue. In July 1845 he was granted a year's sick leave and while in England he was appointed Professor of Chinese at King's College, London, an appointment which he held from December 1846 until December 1852. (L.T.R.) 31 Van Basel. Magdalenus Jacobus Senn van Basel, born in Groningen, Holland on 27 September 1808, was appointed clerk in the Dutch Consulate at Canton in 1826, and Vice-Consul in November 1831. He was later in partnership with G. M. Toe Laer and P. Tiedenan in the firm of Senn van Basel & Toe Laer & Co. In 1848 he became Collector General of Taxes ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 57 should not, in the course of scientific investigation, be omitted as a possibility; even though subsequent events thrust them apart, by interposing a new and more vigorous culture, based on intensive agriculture and possessing sufficient military power and social drive to impose on the less numerous people of the waters and of the forests a language, a dress and a society different from that which they originally had. I will here ask you to turn your eyes for a moment to Canton, which is less than 100 miles from here and which when the first Chinese settled in this territory was, and had been for many centuries, the metropolis (and probably the only city of any size known to the inhabitants) of this region. Canton was founded originally as a Chinese trading settlement or colony, in the middle of non-Chinese territory with ethnologically non-Chinese inhabitants. It became first the capital of a peripheral kingdom, which from time to time acknowledged and was acknowledged by the Son of Heaven: then the capital of a province which from time to time, when the central government was weak, tended, and has continued to tend even into modern times, to re-assert its independence. Then in the Sui22 Dynasty it became the first port in which foreigners were officially permitted to settle and trade—I mean of course the Arabs, whose completely assimilated descendants are still to be found in Canton and Hong Kong; and finally, following the same well tried pattern (since Chinese administrators, like all others, adopted new ideas with grave reluctance and preferred to follow the old ruts) the first port to which the ebullient Europeans, following in the track of the Arabs, also came to purchase goods the Chinese did not particularly want to sell and to offer in exchange commodities they did not want to buy. The frame of our picture, or of our jigsaw puzzle, would not be complete without a reference to Canton. Bricks bearing the imprint of, and presumably made in, Pun-yue1—that is to say Canton can be seen today in the roofs and walls of the ancient tomb, if it be a tomb, at Li Cheng Uk.83 Throughout the Tang139 Dynasty the inhabitants of Canton must still have been mainly non-Chinese, since the author of the Hsin Wu Tai Shih121 is at some pains to explain why it was that so many Chinese came and settled in this region during the disorders which brought down that dynasty. From the point of view of Canton, and therefore ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 58 K. M. A. BARNETT from the point of view of my present subject, the event which ushered in the new age is the capture of Canton in +878 by the Huang Chao146 rebels. Between this event and the re-incorporation of Canton's territory into China in +971, by which time the earliest Chinese had already a firm grip on what is now Hong Kong, the Liu76 family gave five emperors to the Nan Han99 Dynasty at Canton. This family was allied by marriage with the Cheng163 and Tuen families which successively at this period ruled the powerful kingdom of Nan Chao;100 with the Ma89 family which ruled the kingdom of Tsu1 and no doubt, if the evidence could be pieced together, with many other peoples. For we are told that the emperor Liu Chang78 had a Persian princess in his harem, and among the many Arab travellers who visited Canton there must be some who left a description of these flamboyant half-Chinese rulers, with their eighty or more palaces, the walls of which were encrusted with pearls, their bloodthirsty exuberance and, what shines even through the disapproving accounts of the Chinese historians, their courage and administrative skill. The name Po On3 revived by the Republic of China as the name for the district of which geographically, Hong Kong is a part, was adopted by the Canton rulers in obvious reference to the pearls for which this district was at that period famous. The statement in the San On Yuen Chi123 that the name comes from the hill called Po Shan north of Nam Tau8 city is the "cart before the horse". The pearls were fished in great numbers somewhere near Tolo Channel, probably in Double Haven where the name Chue Tong Wat162 survives as a bay on Kar O Island." They were then transported overland along the route marked by a chain of forts over the pass northeast of Tai Po Tau34 village, through Kau Lung Hang, over the present golf course and skirting the Pat Heung2 marshes to the present Ping Shan, and across the creek to the fort of Tuen Mun4 which I mentioned earlier in this paper. The route, I would have you observe, almost at every point passes one of the chief settlements of the Tang44 clan who are, I believe, together with all the old Cantonese-speaking clans of this territory, the descendants of the soldiers stationed here in the Nan Han Dynasty and its successors for the express purpose of guarding these precious pearls. They were as I have said encouraged, when too old to serve with their arms, to settle down ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 97 HONG KONG BUTTERFLIES V. R. BURKHARDT Richard South, the author of the most popular handbook of British butterflies, prefaces his work by saying, "Almost everyone admires the wild flowers that Nature produces so lavishly, and in such charming variety of form and colour; but, in addition to their own proper florescence, the plants of woodland, meadow, moor, and down have other blossoms that arise from them, although they are not of them. These are the beautiful winged creatures called butterflies, which, as crawling caterpillars, obtain their nourishment from plant leafage, and in the perfect state help the bees to rifle the flowers of their sweets, and at the same time assist in the work of fertilisation. English butterflies rarely obtrude themselves on the stroller's gaze apart from the whites which devastate his cabbages, and the apparently aimless flight of the Meadow Brown, when crossing a hayfield. The real country lover passing through the leafless copse on a sunny windless day in February, may be heartened by the sight of the sulphur yellow of the male Brimstone which, as the "butter-coloured fly", gives its English name to the whole race. In Hong Kong, the most unobservant cannot fail to notice the brilliant "aerial flowers" referred to by the British naturalist, as the purple shot Euploeas, or the yellow Euremas pass him in the very centre of the city. Though the Colony lies just within the tropic of Cancer, at least seventy per cent of its butterflies are Palaearctic, that is to say, to be found normally in a zone running from Africa north of the Sahara across Europe and Asia to Japan and Formosa. The geology and climate of the Colony both militate against the luxurious vegetation associated with a tropical country. Though much has been done by the Government in the way of afforestation, there has not been time since the British occupation to produce the leaf mould and rich subsoil found in primitive jungle and forest, and the flora on which the larvae of butterflies feed is much more restricted than in countries like Malaya and Indonesia. Early collectors identified about 140 different species of butterflies in the Colony, and J. C. Kershaw in his "Butterflies of Hong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD the mainland. In this latter passage, up which the Jackall had to sail so slowly, there are vicious back-eddies along both shores and there is often no appreciable period of slack water at the turn of the tide. After heavy rains in the Pearl River, the ebb tide from west to east along this channel is particularly strong27. The coasts in general shelve steeply, with few good landing places and often with cliffs plunging straight down to the sea. The only large coastal plain which Parish saw during this survey was at Tung Chung, on the west coast of Lantao behind Chek Lap Kok island (Shatlapko on Parish's chart see note 9) but weather and timetable combined to prevent him from getting a close look at it. There is a general absence of good anchorages, except in the shallow waters between Chek Lap Kok and the coast of Lantao, and there is an 8-foot tidal range. The steep hillsides produce fluky gusts of wind in all but the calmest weather. It is surprising that Parish made such detailed observations in the face of these navigational hazards. Parish's comments on Ma Wan itself are also a fair summary of its geographical limitations. The island is geologically complex, with an interesting variety of soils. The underlying rocks, however, are not sufficiently porous to hold large supplies of ground water, and the size of the island (less than a square mile) is too small to form an effective catchment. Any trading post established on Ma Wan would have been severely restricted in size by this problem. The two small settlements on the island have probably not grown appreciably since Parish's visit28. Perhaps it was fortunate that impressions of Ma Wan were coloured by his attempt to land at the most difficult and dangerous point on the coast. The general elevation of Ma Wan is much lower than the hills of North Lantao or of the mainland opposite, and the island is so badly overlooked as to be indefensible. Parish was quite right in rejecting it as a potential site for a large trading settlement, and it is a pity that his orders did not permit him to stay longer on the coast of North Lantao. It is invidious to speculate on the course of history, but if the weather had been better his initial impression of the suitability of the west coast of North Lantao for settlement would no doubt have been confirmed. Possibly the first British trading post would have grown up on Lantao instead of on Hong Kong Island, and the city of Victoria would have looked out over the Pearl River estuary. Page 135 Page 136 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 116 CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD which lies in the mouth of the Pearl River estuary between Macao and Castle Peak on the opposite headland. However, during the south-west monsoons the anchorages of Kapsuimun門 pq 29, and Hong Kong were used because they provided greater protection. The Kapsuimun anchorage was situated south of Ma Wan island and sheltered to the west by the headland of Lantao and to the east by Tsing I island. Because of the smuggling of opium from depot ships at these outer anchorages the capabilities of the anchorages off Lantao island and between Hong Kong island and Kowloon on the mainland became thoroughly known to British merchants and sea captains. In 1835 a former member of the British East India Company published a book in which he advocated the need for Britain to obtain some island from which trade with China could be carried on because of the uncertain conditions of trade at Canton following the ending of the Company's monopoly30. In a review of this book published in the Chinese Repository the reviewer remarks on the fact that the author pressed the idea of Britain acquiring Macao from Portugal, which he considered ill-advised. He wrote The want of a good harbour, and its dangerous position in the season of typhoons and strong north or east gales, unfit it for the possession of a commercial nation, as point d'appui. Lantao is better, and this we should prefer of the places named by our author. It is an island, capable of defence, producing abundant supplies of food, with many good harbours, is not so near the provincial city as to render it dangerous for natives to resort to it, for the purpose of commerce.31 Thus in 1835 Lantao was still considered eligible as a possible British settlement. In May 1839 the British Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot, and all British subjects, left Canton as a result of the measures taken by the Imperial Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü, and retired to Macao. However, when in mid-August of 1839 the British were forced out of Macao by Chinese pressure it was to the anchorage of Hong Kong that the English ships went. Although Hong Kong was eventually ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking 1842 this had not always been an automatic choice, the possibility of forming a settlement on Formosa, the Bonin Islands, and on Ma Wan and Lantao island had previously been given serious consideration. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r NOTES AND QUERIES 149 An expert could say what the ranges of such cannons were, but after you have landed at the pier and walked to the fort, you will appreciate that it is 1,200 yards from the coast. It is unlikely that guns in the fort could be really effective at this range, so that one questions the wisdom of its planners in placing it so far from the sea, if it was meant to be a work of coastal defence. What of the garrison? In the later Ching period there were at least three military installations on Lantau at Tung Chung, Tai O and Fan Lau, another on Cheung Chau, and a considerable number of troops in the Kowloon Walled City. These were all sedentary garrisons drawn from the Tai Pang (Mirs Bay) battalion of the Chinese regular forces, which was scattered in forts and guard posts all over the eastern and southern part of the Sun On district, of which the present Crown Colony of Hong Kong formed the major part. The garrison at Tung Chung was commanded by a subordinate officer and probably consisted of a score or two men who were very likely without modern weapons. Writing in 1903 Dyer Ball said of the Chinese military forces that "matchlocks, gingals, bows and arrows, spears and lances are still the weapons of many". Their military efficiency was probably very slight. A missionary, who wrote an interesting account of the San On district for the last number of the transactions of the old Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1859, has an amusing description of the guard post at the Shatin Pass. However, they probably had a deterrent value, but owing to the poor state of local communications at that time, they were much too far away to assist if anything happened elsewhere on Lantau, particularly on the south side, though their influence was felt there. When the local leaders of the Pui O community (South Lantau) rebuilt the Hung Shing temple there in 1875, they persuaded the garrison commander at Tung Chung to make a contribution. In the commemorative tablet recording the event he is styled Fu Ye, a respectful form of address for this subordinate officer. To bring these rather rambling notes to a close, the fort was used after 1898 as a police station. The District Officer who recovered the cannons for the fort has left a vivid picture of his occasional magisterial visits there about 1920: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 150 NOTES AND QUERIES The Police Station at Tung Chung was in an old Chinese fort, walled in. I heard my cases under a huge tree there and always had to drink a large tumbler of goat's milk provided by the Indian Sergeant in charge. He would have been awfully hurt if I had refused. It might be O.K. with half a pint of rum or whisky, but I had not the heart to do it! J. W. HAYES SOME NOTES ON TUNG CHUNG1 Tung Chung, Eastern Stream, appeared on the historical scene of the region earlier than most other places in the New Territories. The valley acquired its eminence because the last of the Sung emperors was proclaimed there and upheld some sort of a Court in the valley for at least three months in 1278, the last year of the Sung dynasty. Though the place of proclamation cannot be ascertained to be Tung Chung itself, Chinese historians have been tackling the problem from the name Huang Lung Hang*, Yellow Dragon Valley, which refers to the inhabited part of the valley of the Eastern Stream. Historical documents have indicated that a yellow dragon appeared in the sea when the boy emperor was proclaimed and the fact was recorded because it was thought to be a good omen for the fast vanishing dynasty. Apart from legends, there is more vivid evidence of the brief stay of royalty in the area because wherever the fugitive Sungs held court, the people erected temples to remember a loyal courtier, Lord Yeung, a member of the royal household who followed the Court to the very end. Today, we can find three of such Hou Wong temples in our region: Kowloon City, Tai O and Tung Chung. The temple at Tung Chung cannot, of course, be dated as far back as 1278 but it is certain that it was renovated around 1870 and subsequently in 1910 and 1959. There is next to nothing to tell what happened in the region between the fall of the Sung dynasty (1278) and the coastal 1 The above historical note on the Tung Chung area contains material collected by Mr. C. Y. Ng of the University of Hong Kong for his Ph.D. thesis on "Rural Development". A more detailed historical paper on Tung Chung by Mr. Ng is expected to be published next year. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 PRESIDENT'S REPORT 1964 This report covers the activities of the Society during the year 1964, the fifth year since the reconstruction of the Society in Hong Kong. A year ago, H.E. Sir Robert Black, who not only was our Patron but who had followed with great personal interest the growth of the Society, declared, before he left the Colony, that the Society in the four years of its restored existence had fully justified the faith of those who were responsible for bringing it back to life and that it had become established firmly as an important activity in the cultural life of the community in Hong Kong. During 1964 it continued to develop both in numbers and in the range of its interests and activities. Membership has grown from 160 at the end of the first year, 1960, to 386, including 46 life members at the end of 1964. Although during the year 87 new members, including 5 life members, were enrolled, we lost 64 members, most of whom resigned on leaving the Colony or were deemed to have resigned in default of the payment of their subscription, so that the net gain was only 23. In a changing community like Hong Kong it is inevitable that membership should fluctuate. Each year, however, has shown an increased membership which is now approaching the 400 mark. The ten meetings held during the year show that we have a very keen and zealous membership and audiences have uniformly taxed the capacity of the City Hall lecture room. For the lectures, we have been fortunate in enlisting the services of eminent scholars, experts in their respective subjects, including three distinguished scholars from abroad, all of whom we warmly thank. The arrangement of lectures is always subject to the availability of suitable speakers but your Council has endeavoured to cover a wide field within the scope of the objects of the Parent Society and of this Branch, namely, the investigation of subjects connected with and the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia. The lectures given were: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 into close contact with the people of the rural districts of the Colony. The success of these studies proved so encouraging that we have considered it to be a worthy task to follow up and to record in print all that can be recorded now of the traditional aspects of Chinese life which can still be seen in the rural areas of Hong Kong, but which are in danger of dying and vanishing forever. The results of the Symposium, including the substance of the papers read on the first day, have been recorded in a booklet edited by Dr. Marjorie Topley which will be published in a month or two. It will be the first comprehensive sociological study of New Territories organization. We commend this booklet to members and we hope that we can recoup the cost of its printing. We hope to be able to continue this line of study and research and that it might be of assistance to the Committee of the City Hall Museum, who are considering a project for the inclusion in the Museum of exhibits illustrating the ethnography and history of the native peoples of Hong Kong. A particular feature of the Society's work is the production of its Journal and we may justly feel a sense of pride in the vigorous scholarship exemplified in the first three volumes. Owing to a series of unforeseen difficulties, the issue for 1963-64, which should have been published last summer, has been much delayed. Mr. Cranmer-Byng, the Chairman of the Editorial Committee, who had been mainly responsible for the first three volumes left the Colony early in 1964, and Mr. Talbot, who kindly stepped into the breach, was on leave until the late autumn. The printers also had been unable to obtain the special accented type for the romanization of oriental languages which had been ordered in October 1963. The Journal, however, will, we are assured, be out next month. During 1964 the Society suffered serious and regrettable losses. In March, Sir Robert Black, who had been our Patron since the branch was revived, left the Colony. He was not only our Patron but had enrolled as a life member. He had taken an active interest in the Society and both he and Lady Black, in spite of the many calls on their time, attended most of our meetings. In the same month, Mr. Cranmer-Byng left. He took a leading part in the re-establishment of the Hong Kong Branch in 1959; he was a tower of strength on the Council and was the Chairman ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 9 # ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY IN AND ## AROUND HONG KONG A lecture delivered on 15th February, 1965 S. G. DAVIS The exhibition of neolithic finds in our City Hall has for the first time brought together the choicest specimens from the collections of Rev. Fr. D. J. Finn S.J., who concentrated his main work on Lamma Island, Rev. Fr. R. Maglioni who worked along the Kwangtung coast around Swabue, and the University of Hong Kong Archaeological Team that excavated at Man Kok Tsui on Lantau Island. The sites were all dug carefully and have fortunately been written-up in detail and published. But they represent a very small fraction of the total number of sites that have been recorded together with those not so far discovered in this part of South China. Many sites have only been examined cursorily and there is still very much work to be done with well-organized "digs". Unfortunately many sites have suffered and many finds have been lost through free-lance enthusiasts with varying degrees of competence not working systematically and not keeping detailed records. The vast amount of pottery and artifacts already found in this area certainly indicates the population in neolithic times was considerable and that there were well-established communications throughout. The types of materials used, the quality of design and the workmanship also point to a civilization that was highly cultured and organized. It is strange that neolithic archaeology in China was neglected or barely known until the present century. Berthold Laufer claimed in his Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty (12) that the first mention of Han pottery in European literature was made by S. W. Bushell in his book Oriental Ceramic Art (New York, Editor's note: Numbers in parentheses in the text are references to fuller particulars on specific book titles in the bibliography which accompanies the article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY 13 of conventionalized T'ao T'ieh is also highly prized. There are also fine specimens of both glazed and unglazed pottery decorated with the "Double-F" pattern, a design thought to be unique in the Hong Kong area and not so far found elsewhere, even around Canton. The design was quite new to such an eminent authority as Professor Paul Pelliot. Much study and conjecture was given to this design by Father Finn (7). Apart from exhibits of Lamma archaeology at the British Museum and locally at the City Hall and the Fung Ping Shan Museum there are other smaller ones held in Ricci Hall (a University Hostel) and the University Team Working Centre. Further away there are collections in Honolulu at the Bishop Museum and at Harvard University. There are without doubt also many other good private collections that have not been recorded, Following the historical sequence of discovery in and around Hong Kong come the Hoifong sites located about eighty miles away in northeast Kwangtung. All these sites are fairly close to the indented coastline and near well-established ports such as Swabue. It was a student in the Jesuit Seminary at Aberdeen (Hong Kong Island) who first reported the presence of remains in Hoifong that were similar to those in the Seminary collection. He brought several pieces to Father Finn who was soon convinced that he should visit the area for an on-the-spot examination. This he did in 1934 and very quickly established the fact that there were many rich sites with remains probably the same in age and culture as those in Hong Kong, especially Lamma. Father Maglioni, an Italian priest in the Pontifical Institute of the Milan Foreign Mission accompanied Father Finn on much of his fieldwork, especially around Swabue where he was stationed in a Catholic Mission. During this time he learned much from Father Finn and when Father Finn died it was natural that he should continue collecting and studying the remains. Father Maglioni modestly proclaimed himself as being strictly an amateur archaeologist without any scientific training. However, while this amateur status was correct, when he took over ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 16 S. G. DAVIS The findings of the Man Kok Tsui site showed similar remains to those reported by Father Finn and Dr. Schofield at Hung Shing Ye, Yung Shu Wan and Tai Wan on Lamma Island and Shek Pik on Lantau Island. There was also a similarity of seashore settlements on raised beaches and low hills. Geologically however the sites are dissimilar. The Lamma sites are on granodiorite, Shek Pik on volcanic rock and Man Kok Tsui on porphyritic granite. Although the finds at Man Kok Tsui were not as varied as those from the other sites mentioned above, the area of study was wider and closer attention was given to the relative position and distribution of finds. These showed a rough zoning of finds leading to a possible theory of "working", "dwelling" and "burial" areas. The map of archaeological sites and positions of discovered remains indicates the richness of our Hong Kong area. Recent site studies have been made at Ha Tsuen, Deep Bay; Fanling; Upper and Lower Shek Pik villages, Lantau Island; and at Kau Sai Chau, Rocky Harbour (27). During the levelling of the Shek Pik Reservoir in March 1962 the bulldozing machines brought to light coins clearly dated in age from A.D. 713 to 1226 (Tang Dynasty to Sung). Also found were richly glazed potsherds, These finds come from poor farming land, until recently malarial and with no nearby natural resources of economic value. They might have been the property of a rich man (or party) who was possibly in transit or resting, or as has been suggested was the property of the court of the boy Sung emperor, Ti Cheng. In A.D. 1277 when the Mongols were extending their control over China, Ti Cheng in his flight stayed for some time in Kowloon City. Later he crossed the mouth of the Canton River over to Chung Shan, and thus probably travelled along the southern shore of Lantau Island, going ashore for food and rest. In 1954 when the Shek Pik area was being surveyed for a reservoir, the University Team was first to do archaeological work there by trenching across the sandy raised beach, where in 1938, Professor W. Schofield had reported artifacts. During the work, a rock carving behind the beach was found about 200 yards from the seashore on the east side of the valley. It was cleaned up and later in 1958 had a protecting wall built round it, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 The Population of China 35 In all parts of China to which we have access, we find not only that every foot of ground is cultivated which is capable of producing anything, but that, from the value of land and the surplus of labour, cultivation is rather that of gardeners than of husbandmen. The sides of hills, in their natural declivity often unavailable, are, by a succession of artificial terraces, turned to profitable account. Every little bit of soil, though it be only a few feet in length and breadth, is turned to account; and not only is the surface of the land thus cared for, but every device is employed for the gathering together of every article that can serve for manure. Scavengers are constantly clearing the streets of the stercoraceous filth—the cloacae are farmed by speculators in human ordure; the most populous places are often made offensive by the means taken to prevent the precious deposits from being lost. The fields in China have almost always large earthenware vessels for the reception of the contributions of the peasant or the traveller. You cannot enter any of their great cities without meeting multitudes of men, women, and children, conveying liquid manure into the fields and gardens around. The stimulants to production are applied with most untiring industry. In this colony of Hong Kong, I scarcely ever ride out without finding some little bit of ground either newly cultivated or clearing for cultivation. Attention to the soil not only to make it productive, but as much productive as possible is inculcated as a political and social duty. One of the most admired sages of China (Yung-ching) says, "Let there be no uncultivated spot in the country—no unemployed person in the city;" and the 4th maxim of the sacred Edict of Kang-hi, which is required to be read through the Empire on the 1st and 15th day of every moon in the presence of all the Officers of State, is to the following effect: "Let husbandry occupy the principal place, and the culture of the mulberry tree, so that there may be sufficient supply of food and clothing.” Shin Nung, the name of one of the most ancient and honoured of the Chinese Emperors, means "the divine Husbandman." T J The arts of draining and irrigating, of preserving, preparing, and applying manure in a great variety of shapes, of fertilizing seeds—indeed all the details of Chinese Agriculture—are well L ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 THE DIALECTS OF HONG KONG BOAT PEOPLE 63 10 In KS the zero final is found in syllables of only two types where an initial consonant occurs without a following vowel. These two types are /m2/ 'not' and several words /ng/, as in [ng6/ "Ave. 11 The semivowels are unnecessary in SC and many other Kwangtung Province dialects since there are no contrasts of the type /y/ versus /i/. The analysis here turns on factors which Hockett (1955, pp. 59-60) terms syllable juncture and a concomitant predictability of syllable boundaries. In most Cantonese dialects, with no atonic syllables, it is simplest to delimit the syllable to the domain of one tone and to analyse any difference between non-peak [y] and peak [i] as the allophonic variations of a single phoneme. Chao's decision to retain the semivowels may rest on requirements of his romanization system. 12 This is a possible exception in a rime group predominantly /i/. 13 There is evidence in KS, and some other Cantonese dialects such as Toishan, to suggest that syllables ending in -iek, -eng may be colloquial readings as opposed to literary readings in -ik, -ing/. For KS I did not turn up any double readings for the same word so this hypothesis remains to be tested, but in the speech of Toishan City we find contrast of the type /mieng3/ 'name', usually standing alone, and /men6/ for the same character in more formal compounds. The tone /3/ on the first example is a Toishan changed tone from the regular /6/. The Toishan contours are /3/ high rising and /6/ low level. Compare also SC. 14 This is the only example I have of this syllable final and may well be a loan reading. I include it pending further investigation. 15 /m2/ is a common negative in a number of southern Chinese dialects but it cannot be traced to a form in the ancient rime tables. In KS, as in SC, it is the only form in syllabic /m/. 16 As an example of similarities, we have the forms developed by the loss of initial /ng/ before ho-k'ou finals giving readings such as KS /ui5/ "outside". Compare Tung Kun /wi/ cited by Yuan (1960, p. 204) and probably taken from Wang Li. BIBLIOGRAPHY Note: These titles include only those items referred to in this paper. An excellent and possibly definitive bibliography on the Boat People, including some language data, see Ho Ko-en, 'A Study of the Boat People', Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. V. No. 1 and 2. Hong Kong 1959-60. 1. Chao, Yuen Ren (1947). Cantonese Primer. Cambridge, Mass. 2. (1951a), "T'ai-shan Yu-Jiao Hsü-lun" (Preface to Materials on the Toishan Dialect), Kuo-li Chung-yang-yen-chiu-yüan Li-shih-yü-yen yen-chiu-so Fuso-ch'ung Chi-nien-te-k'an (Bulletin of Academia Sinica, National Research Institute of History and Philology, Special Printing in Memory of Institute Director Fu). Taipei. 3. (1951b). "Tai-shan Yü-liao” (Materials on the Toishan Dialect), Kuo-li Chung-yang-yen-chiu-yüan Li-shih-yü-yen-yen-chiu-so Chi-k'an (Bull. of Academia Sinica, Nat. Res. Inst. of Hist. and Phil.), Vol. 23, Taipei. 4. Egerod, Søren (1956). The Lungtu Dialect. Copenhagen. 5. Hockett, Charles F. (1955). A Manual of Phonology. Baltimore, This book is Memoir 11 of the International Journal of American Linguistics. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 86 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG STEVE S. C. HUANG The need for a university in Hong Kong teaching through the medium of Chinese has existed for many years. As the "Report of the Committee on Higher Education in Hong Kong," published in 1952 by a group of British scholars led by Professor John Keswick and commonly known as the Keswick Report, said, "Hong Kong is unique geographically and politically and its people have a more advanced cultural background than the peoples of most other colonies." The vast majority of its inhabitants are Chinese, and the Chinese have a traditional love of scholarship, and a highly developed language, literature, and artistic sense. Hong Kong, it was thought, by reason of its location and circumstances, should certainly be a centre for the East and the West to meet, not only for commercial advantage, but also for cultural exchange. To accomplish this, a university with Chinese as the medium of teaching was considered as important as a university with English as the medium of teaching; each would make a valuable complement to the other, Ever since the inception of the University of Hong Kong, even among the British residents in the Colony, there have been many who have advanced the idea of establishing a university which would teach through the medium of Chinese, or a university which would teach through the medium of both Chinese and English, in all branches of learning. The Keswick Report gave strong support to such an idea. For various reasons, however, this recommendation of the Keswick Report did not lead to immediate action. Nevertheless, the need existed. Since 1949, social and political conditions in China have undergone a great change. In addition to the large number of young men and women of college age who could no longer return to China for their higher education as earlier generations did, there were thousands who emigrated from The author, a former student of Journalism and History at the University of California, Berkeley, and City Editor of the Hong Kong Tiger-Standard, is currently Assistant Registrar of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY 15 ditti" abounding in the countryside,' “instances of kidnapping by ex-pirates [which] were so frequent that no man could feel himself safe alone in the streets of Canton after 9 o'clock at night".8 Time and again during these years the local officials issued proclamations condemning such activities and urging the people to revert to peaceful pursuits. In 1828 the district magistrate of Nan-hai hsien urged the people at the New Year's time to remain peaceful and orderly and not to imitate "the vagabonds" and “local blackguards” who cause much trouble. In 1829 the same gentleman complained of the fact that "the people of this province are addicted to gambling, opium, whoredom, and lotteries. And the city of Canton is preeminent in all of these vices." It was, he said, "the shameless banditti that are to blame". In another proclamation of about the same time, he condemned the bandits who extorted money from the peasants. "In the vicinity of Canton, Whampoa, and Macao," he complained, "and in the districts of Shun-teh, Tung-kuan, and Hsin-huy (all within the Hong Kong-Macao-Canton axis), the people who cultivate land on the banks of the rivers are particularly distressed by these practices."11 In 1832 it was reported that in Hsiang-shan hsien bandits were levying taxes on the people in like fashion.12 Village and clan feuding compounded the problem. In 1828 the Kwangchou prefect issued a proclamation in which he condemns the feuding between clans. "The larger clans," he said, "in villages insult smaller ones... They presume on their numerical strength and seize the best land and the most useful streams. They insult both men and women of the smaller clans. And when disputes arise about graves and debts they proceed to barbarous violence."13 And in the same year the Canton authorities, condemning clan feuds, complained of how “..... in pursuance of the feuds of the halls of their ancestors, they (the clans) proceed to collect together a multitude of their own clan's people, and seizing spears, swords, and other weapons, they fight together and kill people".14 In 1829 1,000 men were involved in a village feud in Hsun-teh hsien,15 and in 1834 400 people were reported killed in a similar affair in Tung-kuan hsien.16 In most cases the government was powerless to intervene. What was behind all this chaos? Here, of course, we are on tricky ground. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 18 JOHN J. NOLDE larger problem. That this may have been the case is reflected in a memorial to Peking from an “unknown writer", a translation of which appeared in The Chinese Repository of April, 1838.24 The author states that the present sad state of affairs dates from the disastrous fire of 1822, the uprisings of minority tribes on the Kwangtung-Kwanghsi border (which I have not mentioned) and the devastating floods of 1833 and 1834. The memorialist urged Peking to take strong action, included in which should be the suppression of the opium traffic.25 From 1840 to 1842, the Opium War probably dominated the day to day life of our Hong Kong-Macao-Canton area. The Royal Navy controlled the river from Canton to the sea. The city itself underwent a kind of siege in 1841, and British troops and elements of the local militia actually clashed on the heights north of the city in May of that year. Hong Kong became a British colony. The local histories report almost nothing but the activities of the barbarians, as do the official memorials and edicts. Yet one wonders whether or not this is a case of the "big news story stealing the headlines". Except for the episode of May, 1841, the local populace was rarely and only peripherally involved. After the May incident, the British action was conducted in the north and Canton was outside the main stream of events. The best we can say is that we don't know, When we come to the late 1840's, the historian is faced with the same problem that confronted him in the 1820's and 1830's. The standard documents seem to suggest that the dominant theme was again barbarian-oriented, and the historian's emphasis has generally been on the post-war treaty settlement, the reopening of trade, and, especially, the anti-foreign movement which culminated in the "Canton City Question” of 1849.26 But what was really happening? It would seem rather obvious that the diplomatic negotiations of the time were of little concern to the average villager along the river. Similarly, the reopening of trade per se could have had only a minor impact. But the anti-foreign movement seemed to have been another matter, one in which the populace was directly involved. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY 19 Between 1842 and 1849, Canton and its environs seemed to have been rocked by a series of violent anti-foreign disturbances. Three of these were full-scale riots in which the foreign factories were either directly attacked or seriously threatened. In one case six young Englishmen were murdered while strolling in the countryside. Throughout the period foreigners, either singly or in groups, were subjected to attacks and insults. In 1849 a massive demonstration succeeded in forcing Great Britain to abandon its demand that British subjects be permitted direct access to the city.27 The 1849 demonstrations were particularly impressive. Organized by members of the upper levels of the gentry class and aided and abetted, if not actually inspired by, the local authorities, they served to convince Sir George Bonham, then Governor of Hong Kong, that should he seek to force an entrance into the city, which Britain had always claimed as her right according to the terms of the Treaty of Nanking, his troops would be met by massive resistance on the part of the populace. Now, no one would deny that all this reflected a certain degree of anti-foreign spirit on the part of the people of Canton and its environs. After all, foreigners were attacked and their property was stolen or destroyed. But what happens when these incidents are examined more closely? In the cases of attacks upon the foreign factories, each episode was provoked by an ill-considered act of the foreigners themselves. In perhaps half, or more, of the attacks on individuals or groups of foreigners, robbery was the primary motive. Some "attacks" were not really "attacks" at all. One involved some small boys who threw stones at a group of passing barbarians (and were severely reprimanded by their parents for doing so).28 Yet Sir John Davis made this an occasion for a formal protest to the Chinese high authorities. Another "incident" concerned the looting of the house of the Reverend I. J. Roberts by a "ruthless gang of Chinese". Investigation shows that the ruthless gang was really Roberts' own congregation, who fell to fighting among themselves over the distribution of coins which the Reverend used to reward them for attending his services.29 As to the murder ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 22 JOHN J. NOLDE political chaos. Surely this was the major concern of the peasant, merchant, or fisherman who found himself and his property at the mercy of marauding bands of lawless men. And surely this was the main concern of officials at all levels, especially the high authorities in the city, who were faced with demotion, exile, or worse, if this trend should continue. Now, I would be the first to admit that this thesis is hard to prove. The official documents are not of much help, for no bureaucrat wants to bring matters of this kind to the attention of his superiors. Even the local gazetteers are not as helpful as one would think, for, after all, they were the work of a scholar-gentry class which had close ties to officialdom. Western accounts are unreliable for obvious reasons. Yet if this material is pieced together carefully and with imagination, I think it is possible to create a fairly accurate picture of what really happened. Ultimately, this kind of history requires a certain intuitive sense, and this can come only from a personal awareness of the land and sea, the winds and tides, the people and their characteristics and peculiarities. This is why, as I have suggested in the first part of this article, a regional approach to Chinese history might be fruitful. All China is simply too big and variegated to lend itself easily, if at all, to this kind of awareness. But a smaller unit, with geographical, social, linguistic, and economic limits does so lend itself, if for no other reason than that the historian can bring all of it within his comprehension. Eventually we may acquire a greater insight into China's past by trying to construct total pictures of a series of small areas rather than a series of unconnected vignettes of a big area, simply because we can grasp all aspects of the former but only unrelated bits and pieces of the latter. Hong Kong, especially, lends itself to this kind of approach. The land and its people are here to be studied. The Cantonese reaction to a certain type of situation is probably much the same as it would have been a hundred years ago. There exist scores of villages which have changed little since the 1830's and 1840's. Cooperative research by experts in several disciplines, using the pooled resources of the two universities, and with the help of Government, especially the Office of Chinese Affairs, could go far in the direction of creating a picture of the past which would be in many ways more accurate than the one now existing. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 120 OLD BRITISH KOWLOON JAMES HAYES On 19 January 1861 a ceremony took place at Tsim Sha Tsui, a village on the Chinese mainland directly opposite the British Colony of Hong Kong. On that day a mandarin of the provincial government at Canton handed over a paperful of soil in token of the cession of the Kowloon peninsula to Great Britain. In this way a tiny fraction of Chinese territory passed under British rule. It is not the object of this article to give a comprehensive account of the development of Old British Kowloon as the area became known after 1898 when another treaty transferred the adjoining area of Chinese territory to England; for this could not be done within the confines of a short article. Rather, it is my intention to give a short description of the peninsula and then to turn to a more detailed examination of some of its villages, with special reference to the origins of the settlers, their way of life, and their local institutions. What was the Kowloon peninsula like in 1861 when it passed under British rule? A contemporary description reads: 44 The land may be briefly described as being about 2,366 yards in length and 966 in breadth: its surface being extremely rugged from the presence of numerous small hills divided by ravines and patches of marshes and rice fields; rocky and precipitous on its southern and eastern shores and gradual shelving off on its western one to a fine sandy beach. A good idea of the unpromising terrain may be had from a drawing by Lieut. Collinson made from the Kowloon foothills behind Kowloon City about fifteen years earlier (see the illustration to this article). A specialised account of the newly acquired territory was sent home to the British Government. This was the report of the Anglo-Chinese Land Commission of April 1862. Due to the The author is an administrative officer in the Hong Kong Government service. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 122 JAMES HAYES permitted to settle there, and stringent measures will be taken to prevent its becoming as heretofore a resort for thieves and outlaws, who are hereby warned that they will be proceeded against with severity if they attempt to conceal themselves within the above-mentioned limits **6 Who were these people? Most of the inhabitants of Old Kowloon at this time were Hakkas, whereas the earlier inhabitants of the flatter and more fertile areas of the peninsula, especially round Kowloon City, not far beyond the northern boundary of British territory, were Cantonese. The major Cantonese settlements in the area south of the Kowloon hills date back to the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) and even before, whereas the Hakka settlers of the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula are of much more recent origin. Most of them appear to have come into the area in the first half of the 19th century, especially after 1841. Several factors can be said to have operated in bringing Hakkas into the area in the middle years of the 19th century. In the first place, there appears to have been a continuing movement of Hakkas early in the century, seeking to settle on new land. Then, after 1841, there was the attraction of nearby Hong Kong with its opportunities for work, and perhaps wealth. The development of Victoria, the capital city, brought a demand for granite and this was readily available in the rocky outcrops of Kowloon, from which it could conveniently be transported across the harbour to the new building sites. In 1871 there were no less than eighty-one stone quarries in Kowloon more than for the whole of Hong Kong island. Quarrying is traditionally work in which Hakkas engage: they pride themselves on their strength and ability to engage in such strenuous labour.10 Thirdly, the prolonged unrest of the Taiping Rebellion forced many individuals and even whole families to leave their homes and settle in British territory." One of the more picturesque settlers in Ho Man Tin Village in the 1860s was a Hakka who had allegedly been one of the Taiping generals and rejoiced in the nickname "Seven Legged Heavenly Flying Tiger". A contemporary observer who had spent nearly thirty years in South China described these people as follows: 12 Parties of tramps, called Hakkas or ‘guests' roamed over Kwangtung province squatting on vacant places along the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 OLD BRITISH KOWLOON 135 24 With regard to the quantities of firewood brought on foot into Kowloon from as far afield as Sha Tin, see Sessional Papers 1903 p. 209 which list 66,521 loads of firewood, each estimated at 70 piculs (approx. 93 lbs.) as being carried over the hills in 1902. The Sham Shui Po Kaifong, through operating the Mo Tai (A†4) temple's public weighing scales, got its revenue from the vegetable and livestock market there. Much of the produce sold there crossed the harbour to Hong Kong. (See the Registrar General's Report for 1907 in Sessional Papers 1908, p. 194. Other information supplied by elders). I am also informed by Mr. WAI Tau Shue (b. 1885) that in his youth the Kowloon Lok Sin Tong levied a small weighing charge on each load of firewood sold in the Kowloon City market. In each case the proceeds were supposed to swell public funds for charitable work. For social advancement see the career of WONG Lan-shang described in this article. 25 The Third or Kowloon Police Magistrate was not appointed until 1925 (Colonial Estimates 1924-1926). For an example of police assistance in an emergency see the press reports of the two big fires at Hung Hom village on 11 and 16 December 1884 (Hong Kong Daily Press). 26 See Report from the Hong Kong Land Commission of 1886-87 on the History of the Sale, Tenure and Use of the Crown Land of the Colony published in Sessional Papers 1887 pp. XXVI-XXVII. 27 Between 1853 and 1862 the Hong Kong government paid village elders as tepos (18) in an endeavour to enlist their services in the public interest. See G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962, Hong Kong; University of Hong Kong Press, 1964, pp. 37-38. The Colonial Estimates for the period, under Registrar General's department, show that payment was not extended to the elders of the Kowloon villages acquired in 1860. 28 Eitel, p. 160. 29 See, for instance, pp. 8 and 9 and note 40 of my typescript article "Some villages in the North Western Part of the Kowloon Peninsula in 1898” presented to the International Conference on Asian History held at the University of Hong Kong, August 30-September 5, 1964. See also note 37 below. 30 The temple was re-erected in Shantung Street Kowloon in 1927 on a site provided by Government which also gave a grant of $6,000 towards the reconstruction. The rest of the money required for the new building was supplied by the Kwong Wah (Tung Wah group) Hospital, to whom the management of the temple was entrusted. 31 Shui Yuet Kung (KA) is an alternative name for a Kwan Yin temple. See S. Wells Williams, Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect, Canton; Office of the Chinese Repository, 1856, p. 650. See also E. T. C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, New York; The Julian Press, 1961, pp. 225-227. 32 See E. T. C. Werner, China of the Chinese, London; Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1920, pp. 196-197, and S. Wells Williams, Tonic Dictionary under p. 308 and p. 581 under A. 33) E. J. Hardy, John Chinaman at Home, London; T. Fisher Unwin, 1905, p. 86. See also W. Stanton, The Chinese Drama, Hong Kong; Kelly & Walsh, 1899, pp. 5-6 for a brief description of the position in "China and in the villages of Hong Kong". 34 Robert Morrison, A View of China for Philological Purposes. Macao; Hon. E. I. C. Press, 1817, p. 105. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 136 JAMES HAYES 35 The informants who assisted me with their recollections of the N.W. Kowloon villages in the article mentioned in note 29 above recalled that similar proceedings took place yearly at the Sham Tai Chi or Temple of the Third Prince on the beach at Law Uk, Cheung Sha Wan until it, too, was removed for redevelopment in the mid 1920s. Fights between the various participants, especially Hakkas with Hoklos, were quite common at festival times. 36 See S. Wells Williams, Easy Lessons in Chinese, Macao; Chinese Repository Press, 1842, p. 127. 37 This type of organisation is also common in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Indeed it was apparently found all over China: see Werner's China of the Chinese, pp. 163-165 for a good general description. 38 In 1897 Yau Ma Tei had a population of 8051 (Sessional Papers 1897, p. 485) and by 1907 as much as 17,812 (Sessional Papers, p. 273). The name means Oil and Hemp Ground, though my informants tell me it has an older name Tai Shek Lat (私大石ᑟ) which may be translated as Row of Big Stones. "Lat" is a colloquial word. 39 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 1877, p. 81. 40 See Mr. Chadwick's Reports on the Sanitary Conditions of Hong Kong, Eastern No. 38, printed for the use of the Colonial Office in November 1882, pp. 42-43. Through a printer's error he calls Yau Ma Tei “Yan Ma Ti”. See Sessional Papers 1899 p. 482 for another description of the adjoining area. 41 No evidence of this particular type of activity survives from the Yau Ma Tei district. However a few examples can be cited from the Kowloon City area. Mr. W. Schofield has sent details of a tablet (1828) found pre-war beside a broken bridge near the former Kowloon City rifle range which records the names of officials, shops and passage boats contributing to the work; and a tablet dated December 1895/January 1896 recording the repair of "Temple Road" at Kowloon City is still in existence. A direction stone at the site gives left for Kowloon Tsai and Sham Shui Po and straight on for the Hau Wong Temple. The work was organised by sixteen directors (财事) who are listed on the tablet. 42 For a description of one of these processions see Hardy, p. 280. 43 The inscription above the main entrance also records reconstruction (equivalent of) November/December 1878. 44 The tablet is dated the equivalent of November/December 1894. 45 I am indebted to Messrs. Patrick Wong and Dicken Yang of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for part of this information. 46 See, for instance, G. T. Lay's account of missionary visits to Hong Kong and Kowloon in 1839 between pp. 279-300 of his The Chinese as they are, London; William Ball & Co., 1841. Rev. George Smith's visits to Kowloon in 1844/45 are described in his A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China and to the Islands of Hong Kong and Chusan, London, Seeley, Burnside and Seeley, 2nd edition, 1847, pp. 72 seq.; and Rev. William Burns' visits from Hong Kong in 1848 are mentioned in James Johnston, pp. 71-74. 47 Impressions of China and the Present Revolution: its Progress and Prospects, London; Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, 1855, p. 24. 48 See James Johnston, p. 71. 49 See The China Mission Hand Book, Shanghai; American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896, pp. 272-280 for an account, with statistics of the Basel Mission's work in South China for 1893. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 BOOK REVIEWS 147 Thomas Braddell, James Guthrie, A. L. Johnston, W. H. Read and 'Mr. Whampoa' (Hoo Ah Kay) are traced. The setting is that of a British colonial society in its heyday; the viewpoint is rather parochial. The author was himself a prominent resident of Singapore for nearly fifty years. He arrived there in 1864, having been told by W. H. Read that it was ‘a fine healthy place for a young man'. He dryly noted that at the time of writing (1902) the English idea that Singapore was somewhere in the centre of India was becoming less generally held. The author writes over-modestly that his book 'will interest those only who have some association with Singapore'. It should in fact interest many today for its detailed picture of the years of growth of a great South-east Asian city-state. To take one year — 1848 — at random; we read of Chinese gang robberies, the P. & O. mail, restrictions on firecrackers at Chinese New Year, the price of gambier, the inability of the Government of India to understand the special conditions and needs of the Straits Settlements, the sending of Chinese convicts from Hong Kong to Singapore, the trade depression, interference by the Malay ruler of Johore with the movement of guttapercha to Singapore, the failure of the Balestier sugar plantation, Captain Keppel and the new harbour, the arrival of Mr. James Brooke on his way to Labuan, and Singapore as a naval station. The author remarks, in passing, that the year 1848 had also been a very exciting time all over Europe'. The Anecdotal History was well worth re-publishing for its lively if limited treatment of an era in Singapore's history. There is an excellent index, particularly important in a work of this kind. University of Hong Kong. B. HARRISON VIA PORTS: FROM HONG KONG TO HONG KONG, Alexander Grantham. Hong Kong University Press, 1965. pp. HK$30. The author, Alexander William George Herder Grantham, is better known to the people of Hong Kong as Sir Alexander, Governor from 1947 to 1957. His book traces his own official career from 1922 when he arrived from England as a Government Cadet, to 1957 when he retired as the Governor. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 170 NOTES AND QUERIES These investigations showed that yields in these places appear generally to have little bearing on the prices paid by tenant farmers when reaching an agreement with their prospective landlords. Other factors arise which discount yield on the basis of kuk produced by any one tau chung of land. If, for example, as in one case, an area is inhabited by a very tight, closely knit clan, which keeps to itself and discourages outsiders (even from the next village) from entering its lands or its village, this lessens the competition for their land and the low tenant rent reflects this community spirit in its affairs. On the other hand, an area whose owners keep their land wide open to the highest bidder, without restriction, attracts large numbers of immigrant farmers whose entry has raised tenant rentals to well above average. Some areas have special problems. One border area is largely low-lying padi, protected from the sea by a strip of marsh-land and subject to flooding during the rainy season. Cultivation presents problems familiar to the local people but ruinous to outsiders. The rent paid shows this trend. As a last example of outside factors affecting tenant rentals, large tracts of former padi fields in a locality quite close to the urban areas of Kowloon and Hong Kong have now been converted to the growing of flowers. These blooms fetch good prices in the city and are always in demand. Consequently, rentals are high. To summarise, it appears that the main factor in fixing a tenant rental is not so much yield but market opportunities and freedom from restrictions. Since 1950, the immigrant farmer has become very important in the New Territories and is primarily concerned in vegetable cultivation as it pays higher profits. He has to work harder, as there is no slack season as with padi farming. With the encouragement of Government, these farmers have formed themselves into groups, dependent generally on locality and have registered themselves as cooperative societies. These groups enjoy the benefits of the Government wholesale market and transport facilities at cost less 10%, which is much better than going through a middleman. As hillside land is less easy to cultivate, the vegetable farmer seeks to acquire low-lying paddy fields and converts them into vegetable plots for which he pays a higher price than his predecessor in the tenancy, the former padi farmer. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g and ethnographical interest that relate to the Hong Kong region of South China, we are fortunate in having an item dealing with the fall of the Sung dynasty and local relics relating to that dramatic and pathetic time; a note on the recovery in 1956 and 1966 of two cannon dating from the end of the Ming period; an article on Hong Kong mammals; and a study of a group of Hakka mountain villages in the New Territories by a Swedish anthropologist from Stockholm University who spent eleven months in Hong Kong in 1964-65. The 1966 Journal contained an account of the Five Great Clans of the New Territories by a British scholar, Dr. Hugh Baker, who spent several years in the New Territories recently, and an article ‘A Plea for a Regional Approach to Chinese History: the Case of the South China Coast' by Professor John Nolde, of the University of Maine, then a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. The Branch may therefore claim to have been making its contribution towards the elucidation of the little-studied history and sociology of the Hong Kong region. However, it is now time to study the urban area more intensively. Whilst the South China village has been examined by a number of scholars, in both the pre and post war periods, urban studies have received scant attention from scholars. In Hong Kong we have had an urban population for a hundred years. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote: "Going ashore our visitor would see..... in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world..... It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding one square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre. These words serve to remind us that Hong Kong has an urban history and that the city has always been one in which over-crowding, housing and social problems and concern for public health have for long exercised the authorities. The records of the Hong Kong Government are available in considerable quantity and quality, both here in the Colonial Secretariat Library ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g and in the Colonial Office in London. Mr. Endacott's History of Hong Kong (1958) has already indicated what sort of material is available to form the necessary background to new studies in urban history and sociology. We hope, then, that this Journal will receive contributions in this neglected field and that, in particular, it will benefit from the new project in urban studies, now being initiated by Dr. Alan Birch of the History Department at the University of Hong Kong. We hope, too, that some of the material being obtained from the Urban Family Life Study commissioned by the Hong Kong Government and now in progress under the direction of Dr. Robert Mitchell from the University of California, Berkeley, may appear in its pages. As a Hong Kong publication the Journal must play its part in encouraging and making available some of this basic information. Meantime we have not made much progress with the ethnographic aspects stressed by the Hon. Editor in 1962. Unfortunately, pure ethnography is rather neglected by scholars nowadays and, probably for this reason, less progress has been made in this field, though the curator of the City Hall Museum and Art Gallery, with the help of the New Territories Administration and others, has begun collecting items of interest, with a view to forming a local collection. Members were fortunate recently in hearing a lecture from Mr. Alan L. Kagan on the Cantonese Puppet Theatre in Hong Kong. It is hoped to include this article in the 1968 Journal. Mr. Kagan's assessment has reinforced Mr. Cranmer-Byng's remark five years ago that time is indeed short. Whereas there are only two part-time puppet troupes operating in present-day Hong Kong, there were more full-time operators twenty years ago, when a smaller, poorer, less-sophisticated and less westernised population supported this type of entertainment enthusiastically and business was good, their services being in demand all over the territory. The Editorial Committee welcomes articles of this sort and would be glad to have more of them from interested persons. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g HONG KONG MAMMALS 17 the populations of herbivores. These would increase until they in turn were checked by shortage of food. This may be only when most of the vegetation has been destroyed. In Hong Kong we are losing our carnivores. There are no tigers, no leopards, no wolves, no wild dogs, no crab-eating mongooses, no five-banded civets, no badgers; and at the present rate of progress there will soon be no seven-banded or masked palm civets, no foxes, no ferret-badgers. When this happens there will be little to check the population of rats—only snakes and birds of prey which are also being markedly reduced in numbers. Tons of insecticide could be put down to kill the insect pests, thousands of traps and tons of poison bait could be put down to kill the rats (this would also kill the birds). Unfortunately, even if insecticides, traps and poisons could be used in massive quantities, some insects and some rats would survive. It is impossible to kill all, or even 95% of any population by these methods and those that survive could be immune, so that new, stronger insecticides and poisons would be needed thereafter. In the meantime a great deal of damage would have been done to insect-eating birds, parasites of pests and even to man himself. Man is not immune to poisons or insecticides. By far the best and most economical way to control animal pests is biological control. What should be done, and has been advocated for a long time, is the setting aside of areas of land as National Parks or outdoor natural recreational areas and other areas as nature reserves where research can be carried out. In these areas indigenous animals that have become rare could be re-introduced. Research could be carried out into methods of maintaining a balanced community. With the right publicity, people could come to value the countryside and to enjoy and appreciate wild life. There are a number of places suitable for these parks including water catchment areas. Taitam reservoir has a very beautiful catchment area which already many people visit to get away from the stresses of the city. To be able to see wild animals on walks adds something to life, and with scientific research and a proper understanding of what these wild animals do, the countryside of Hong Kong would become a more interesting place to visit. The Jubilee reservoir and Shek Pik reservoir areas could also be used. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 24 II. KUAN-FU JEN YU-WEN Where was Kuan-fu Ch'ang? It can be definitely identified with no other place than the eastern side of the Kowloon Peninsula. For several hundred years from Sung to mid-Ch'ing Kuan-fu was the official name of the area, while Kowloon was the vernacular name used by the local people. To avoid confusion, we must carefully differentiate Kuan-fu Ch'ang from Kuan-fu Tsai (stockade), Kuan-fu-shan (mountain) and Kuan-fu hsun-ssu (sub-district). Kuan-fu Ch'ang meant Kuan-fu Field, one of the four salt-producing fields in the Tung-kuan District amongst the thirteen fields of the whole province of Kwantung in the Sung Dynasty. The area of the Field covered not only the entire peninsula but also the nearby islands, including the present Hong Kong. It was under the administration of an office in the stockade called Kuan-fu Tsai, the present so-called Kowloon Walled City. During the last years of the Emperor Tu Tsung (1265-75) the administrator of the field was Yen I-chang of Kaifeng, Honan Province, who had the engraved stone made at North Fu-t'ang in 1274, less than three years before the royal visit to Kuan-fu.6 My interpretation is that the name Kuan-fu has a political and economic meaning: “Kuan" means Tung-kuan District and "fu" means rich. The field was thus christened by officialdom to signify the rich resources of Tung-kuan. Or else, it might signify the riches of the Emperor, for Kuan Chia was a popular term for the emperor. Anyway, it could not be a natural name and it may be inferred from this that the name of Kuan-fu Mountain, which was a long range of mountains with many hills, was adopted from the Kuan-fu Ch'ang and not vice versa. Researches into the Gazetteer of Hsin-an District, the writings of some historians and maps furnished by the Public Works Department of the Hong Kong Government lead to the conclusion that the Kuan-fu Mountain was along the western side of the Kowloon peninsula (see Plate 12). There were a number of hills of various heights inside the area and the highest, the rocky peak west of Ma-tau-wei Road, reaches a height of 405 feet. On the plain and in the valleys at the foot of the hills were separate salt-producing fields. Certainly, there were other such fields all over the Kuan-fu ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 62 L. G. AIJMER Illegal immigration in the countries of Southeast Asia and elsewhere seems to have been rather difficult in the post-war period. With regard to legal immigration, people from the New Territories have one advantage in their competition with the crowds of recent immigrants from China. A Hong Kong Chinese who can prove that he was born in the Colony is able to claim British nationality. In the 1950s, an increasing number of New Territories residents left Hong Kong to seek employment in Great Britain. This movement reached a peak during 1961-62 when at least 2,270 people are known to have left for work in Britain. Most of these emigrants take up jobs in the restaurant trade. The Chinese-style restaurants in Britain have boomed since 1957, at which period some 50 establishments are said to have existed in the whole country, whereas the corresponding figure today is differently estimated between 1,000 and 2,000. It is said that pre-war London had only about eight or nine Chinese restaurants, but at the present time the number in the capital city may be some 300. The Hong Kong Chinese in Great Britain are now supposed to exceed 30,000 and the whole Chinese community there is estimated at about 45,000. The main part of the Hong Kong Chinese are from villages in the New Territories.33 Nearly all young and middle-aged men in the area of study have left their home communities and are now working in Britain. This absence of grown men is one of the most striking features of all Hakka villages in this particular mountain area. The village scene is completely dominated by women of all ages and small children not yet in their teens. Old men are found there, but generally they seem to prefer an indoor life. Sometimes one may meet a young man on an occasional visit to his home village. Agricultural work is entirely carried out by the women. At harvest, the children assist. A few of the old men, however, also work in their fields; one is a non-emigrant in Plum Grove Village who has devoted all his life to farming, the two others are masons in Grass Field Village, who work their fields when the masonry trade is not so good. It is difficult to estimate the efficiency of the women in their work in the fields, as compared with that of men. Some elderly men do not think too much of woman-labour, but on the other hand, Hakka women have traditionally taken part in all kinds of agricultural activities, and their toil in the fields is no innovation.34 What is certain is that during this last ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 107 of the mountains, in order to procure a more luxuriant herbage, and these conflagrations seen at night have a very picturesque effect. The height of the Mountains is not very considerable, but some of them reach to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. The Islands usually consist of mountains and rocks; the Chinese therefore very seldom use the expression “island” — Hoi-taou, but call them "mountains" — Shan, as Lin-tin-shan 零丁山. There are only three Plains of any extent in the district. The most important lies in the N. W. part of the district, and is well watered and covered with villages; it is under the government of the Mandarin of Fuk-wing, who, by-the-by, though he is supposed to rule over 200 villages, confided to me, in a conversation that I had with him, that he had nothing to do but to eat, to drink, and to smoke. The important towns of San-keaou, Wong-kong, Cap-sui-hou✯, and Sha-tsing #, are situated in this plain, and it might be named the San-keaou plain, San-keaou being the largest and most influential of its towns. The inhabitants of the plain are industriously occupied in the pursuits of agriculture and trade; and in the more populous and richer towns, is found the highest degree of cultivation and learning which the Sanon district affords. The north-west angle of the plain lies very low, and is covered with rushes, some parts of it only being under cultivation, and in these only a certain kind of rice will flourish. The second plain extends from Si-heong to Deep Bay, and is continued on the southern side of that bay, there forming a triangular perfectly-even plain, the sides of which measure about five miles. The third plain occupies the eastern part of the district, near the city of Ti-pung, and is not personally known to me; even these plains have ridges of hills running through them. Amongst the principal mountains, that of 'Ng-tung † ♫ is said by the Chinese to be the highest and the most powerful; all remarkable mountains are supposed by the Chinese to have some spiritual influence over the affairs of mortals. It lies in the eastern part of the district near Mirs Bay, and is probably about ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 154 NOTES AND QUERIES 1626 the Manchus were stopped in their tracks at Ning-yüan by the foreign artillery. But this setback was not to last very long. They saw the usefulness of these weapons and set about casting some themselves. These proved effective in the conquest of the northern frontier (1643-44) and in the years to follow as their armies plunged on down across both the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers to Kwangtung and Kweichow. Columbia University L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH NOTES 1 In this I have consulted Mr. C. N. Tay of the American Museum of Numismatics, New York City. 2 The inscription on the cannon is given below. This cannon was found lying on open ground in the Tsiu Keng sub-district in the northern part of the New Territories. It was reported by Mr. R. E. dos Remedios, Senior Land Assistant in the District Office, Taipo in August 1966. The cannon was completely exposed and must have been in this condition for a long time. It is not clear how it came to be there. * This cannon, which was mentioned in passing in the note on the Tung Chung Fort, at p. 148 of Vol. 4 of the Journal (1964), was dredged from the sea in 1956, either from Kowloon Bay in the course of work on the extension to Hong Kong airport or from Fat Tong Mun (otherwise called Joss House Bay) in the approaches to Hong Kong Harbour—sources differ. It is now mounted with a plaque in Chinese and English outside the Central Government Offices (East Wing), Hong Kong. It was heavier than the one recently discovered; 300 catties as compared with 300 catties. The Chinese inscription, which is much the same, is also given below. 4 An insight into the happenings of these troubled times is preserved in the family record of the Tsui (徐) clan formerly of Shek Pik on Lantau island, to which their ancestor had removed in the 16th Century. The family came from Mong Ngau Tun (望牛墩) in Tung Kwun district (東莞) where they had settled in the Sung dynasty from Kiangsi province. There was fighting in Tung Kwun against the Manchus after their success in the North. The record which gives no precise date for this occurrence, though it must have been within a few years of the change of dynasty in 1644 — reads — Sau Yeung-kap, a civil officer, and Li Shing-tung, a general, instigated an uprising against the new dynasty in Tung Kwun. As the revolt gathered momentum, oxen and horses were killed for food, and rice and corn became as expensive as pearls. For miles, one could see nothing animate; the fields were covered with dead bodies. In some places, human flesh was eaten by the starving people, and piles of human bones filled the ruined houses. A detachment of the Manchu army was sent to besiege the district city, then occupied by the rebels. In the conflict that ensued, human beings were massacred as though they were ants, and law-abiding people and bad characters alike were destroyed. Fortunately, our clansmen, then living at Mong Ngau Tun, escaped this calamity. However, many of our former neighbours and fellow-natives in Ming Ka Lane lost their lives and [as the record says in another place] all the dispensations of the previous dynasty were regarded as scrap paper. (I am grateful to Mr. Gilbert Louie for this translation. Ed) Readers will note that Li Shing-tung (Li Ch'eng-tung) is mentioned in Prof. LO Hsiang-lin's Additional Note where he is described as Governor of Kwangtung. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 156 NOTES AND QUERIES ADDITIONAL NOTE to the above, kindly supplied by Professor LO Hsiang-lin, Professor of Chinese, University of Hong Kong, at Professor Goodrich's suggestion and the Hon. Editor's request. Professor Lo writes: “I am pleased to provide a note on Tu, Fan and the Superintendent of Inland Seas, Chief military commissioner, installed as Ting-hai General. I regret that I have not been able to identify the other two persons, namely Hsiao Li-jen and Su. Tu, Fan and the Superintendent of Inland Seas also appeared on the inscription of the cannon constructed in June 1650, discovered in 1956, for which I have written a short treatise entitled "Researches on a Cannon made in the Fourth Year of the Yung-li Period of the Southern Ming (1650 A.D.), in Hong Kong”, (in Chinese) Ta-hsüeh Sheng-huo★ Vol. II, No. 10 (January 1957). For detailed information the reader may refer to my treatise on the cannon discovered earlier. TU, GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF KWANGTUNG AND KWANGSI ✯t, who re- 1648 and offered Tu can be identified as Tu Yung-ho † †¤, a follower of the Governor of Kwangtung. Li Cheng-tung volted against the Ch'ing dynasty in Canton in his allegiance to the Emperor Yung-li (Chu Yu-lang *. formerly prince of Kuei) of the Southern Ming dynasty. When Li Cheng-tung died in the following year, the Ming emperor appointed Tu as Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi with his head-office at Canton. Thereupon Tu took up the responsibility of leading his men in their fight against the army and fleet sent by the Ch'ing government to crush the revolt. The Ch'ing general Shang K'o-hsi laid siege to Canton in February of the fourth year of Yung-li (1650). To check the enemy's advance, Tu used the two forts built by Li Ch'eng-tung which stretched out into the sea outside the city of Canton. However an officer under Tu conspired with the Ch'ing army and assisted the latter to land on December 2nd. The forts fell into the hands of the Ch'ing army and the city met the same fate. Tu and his fleet consisting of several hundred vessels made their escape through the sea route and headed for Kiungchow ] (the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 160 NOTES AND QUERIES of Hong Kong, when the latter was studying Chinese in Canton, and in later years, so the villagers say, the two used to claim to be fellow students (同窗) (F). Although in his youth he did not take any of the Imperial examinations, he had some reputation as a literary man and wrote fine characters. He was married to a CHENG (鄭) from the nearby Cantonese village of Pak Kong (白崗), and also had a concubine from a fishing family. His ancestral tablet perversely records the wife as KAN (簡) and the concubine as CHENG (鄭). Both wives apparently lived amicably in Tseung Kwan O, where Chan spent much of his time. At the New Territories survey of 1905 he was recorded as the owner of 2.3 acres of agricultural land and 6 building lots in Tseung Kwan O, and was the manager of the CHAN Hok-yin Tso (陳學賢祖) with 2.7 acres of agricultural land and 2 houses. He also owned 4 shops and a house in Hang Hau market. It was during this period that Hang Hau was at the peak of its prosperity as a porterage town for produce to and from Sai Kung and Hong Kong. According to local gossip he did not pay much attention to business, but smoked opium and lived on the wealth he had inherited from his father. The Yi Hing shop in Kowloon City lost money and had to be sold in about 1930. In spite of this he apparently continued to play a part in the affairs of Kowloon City and of the Lok Sin Tong. NOTES 1 Most of this information was supplied by Messrs. Chan Shui (陳瑞) the village representative and Chan Kin Ming (陳健明) the supervisor of the village school. 2 See S. F. Balfour, "Hong Kong Before the British" in Tien Hsia Monthly, 1936. 3 See Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963), Chapter IX for the Tang clan. 4 The three large Cantonese villages of Ho Chung, Pak Kong and Sha Kok Mei, which dominate the three main valleys of the Sai Kung area, also give foundation dates of late Ming or early Ching. For brief notes on Ho Chung and Pak Kong, see my note "Visit to Ho Chung pp. 46-47 of M. Topley (ed), Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories (Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1965), and James Hayes, "Visit to Villages in the Sai Kung District", ibid., pp. 41-42. Hong Kong. 1967. BERNARD WILLIAMS ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 176 BOOK REVIEWS population is involved in all this and its relationship to the institutional life of the society. There are a few useful pieces on such matters however. A section worth mentioning here is on the city gods who are second only in importance on the island to the goddess Ma Tsu. The section includes a detailed description of the temple to the city god in Hsinchu, It appears that before the Ch'ing dynasty set up official law and order in Taiwan the need for public control in the early days of immigration was met largely by the city gods and their temples. In some cases temple attendants became the administrators of local justice and a group of bone-healers (associated with the temples?) the police force. Their shops in Taiwan, says the author, still display swords and helmets associated with their former role. Mandarin officials sent by the Ch'ing court in Peking had first to report to the city god temple and ask permission for any changes in local administration, and this went on until the Japanese curtailed the activity during their administration. Not only did the city gods "take the place of the Imperial government" in the early days, but "each were given titles and enfeoffed (sic) with their territories" (p. 58). The resident in Hong Kong might be interested particularly in a section on Ma Tsu, who has assumed something of the status of patron saint in Taiwan. Ma Tsu, in fact, is none other than T'in Hau, "Goddess of Heaven" who is so important here to the boat population. The author gives us various legends of her origin which are popular in Taiwan and show us why she should have such importance for sea-faring folk (interestingly enough T'in Hau is similarly known as Ma Tsu in Macau and some believe Macau is in fact named after her). It is also interesting to note that those seven "fairies" known as the Seven Sisters in Hong Kong and worshipped by girls looking for husbands appear in Taiwan as the Seven Old Maids, with a particular role in care of children. It is my impression that this book is probably written more with the interests of the foreign visitor or new foreign resident to Taiwan in mind, and perhaps those also of people working in Christian missions on the island. However, even if not directed especially to the research worker or resident elsewhere, there is much in this account to repay study by them. Hong Kong, 1967. MARJORIE TOPLEY ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 188 BOOK REVIEWS 3. GUIDANCE IN HONG KONG, SECONDARY SCHOOL RESEARCH PROJECT: by Beryl Robina Wright, being Publication No. 6 of the Hong Kong Council for Educational Research, Hong Kong, 1967 pp. viii, 54, H.K.$3.00. These three local publications, one a survey into the household expenses of 120 families edited by Dr. Topley and the other two reports produced by staff of the Child Guidance Centre, University of Hong Kong, are recommended to local members. They provide interesting and enlightening material about the life of poor persons in this crowded city. Their importance lies principally in providing background information to instruct and guide specialists and administrators working with practical problems in the Colony and to provide post-graduate students of the humanities and social sciences with basic facts on which they can construct their own research projects. Page 195 Page 196 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 5 1 June 19 June Miss Barbara E. Ward “Social and Economic Changes among the Boat People of Hong Kong.” Mr. Alan L. Kagan 44 Cantonese Puppet Theatre in Hong Kong" 4 September Dr. Patricia M. Marshall 2 October "The Meaning of Conservation and its Application in Hong Kong. Professor L. B. Thrower "The Flora of Hong Kong in its Geographical Setting. 20 November Professor G. B. Harrison "The Dutch Embassy to Peking 1794-95." 18 December Mr. G. B. Endacott "The Old City Hall. ** ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 56 NOTES ON HONG KONG LIBRARIES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY H. A. RYDINGS* Those of us who have watched the rapid development of libraries of all kinds in Hong Kong since the new University Library building was opened in 1961 may sometimes think that there is no library history worth considering for the first hundred years of the existence of the Colony. Certainly an appeal to members of the Hong Kong Library Association, made some two years ago, for any information on the early history of Hong Kong libraries met with no immediate response. Later, however, my colleague Mr. G. W. Bonsall, in searching through local newspapers and other sources for information on other subjects, came across a number of items about libraries, which he kindly brought to my notice. The present article is based upon this, slightly augmented from other materials, and in no way purports to be a comprehensive history of Hong Kong libraries up to 1900. It is evident that much more remains to be found by the diligent searcher before such a history can be written. For the moment, however, this brief sketch based on what has so far come to light may be of interest as an introduction to Hong Kong's library history. Foremost of the early libraries in the Colony is undoubtedly the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms. 'Colonial', writing in 1933, stated: “A privately organised library was established in Hong Kong as far back as 1848. A small library with attached reading rooms was run by this organisation for some years, and really formed the basis on which the City Hall library was subsequently established." Although 'Colonial' does not name the library, he goes on to say: “In 1871, probably in view of the coming into being of the public library, the original institution, retaining its more or less private character, was organised into a club, which was known as the Victoria Club." As will be seen later, this makes it certain that the reference is to the Victoria Library. The next reference2 found to the Victoria Library & Reading Rooms is a report of the Annual General Meeting held on June * Mr. Rydings has been University Librarian at the University of Hong Kong since 1961. He is a member of Council of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society and is currently its Hon. Librarian. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d NOTES ON HONG KONG LIBRARIES 63 made in the previous May, that the Morrison Library should be amalgamated with the other. Two years later, Hong Kong's first City Hall was nearing completion, and the subject of libraries was once again in the news. An unknown writer, quoted by 'Colonial' in 1933, wrote on May 5th, 1869: "The library room which will be entirely completed in a few days will before long contain a collection of books properly assorted and catalogued which, if not very extensive, will at least be the best collection in South China. It may be confidently hoped that its resources will be increased by private gift... The Morrison Library which forms the nucleus of the collection is... in a state which necessitates the outlay of nearly a thousand dollars... The former Asiatic Society's Library has also [been promised to the] librarian without... prospect of receiving with it any funds towards its restoration". From a much later source we learn more about the City Hall, which it is worth noting was a private enterprise, not an official one, although Government provided the building site and a grant in aid at its foundation. “In 1871 the library consisted of 8,000 volumes, 3,000 of which were unconditionally presented by the trustees of the Victoria Library." This confirms the statement made by 'Colonial' and quoted earlier in this article, and vindicates the China Mail in its campaign to bring together the Victoria and Morrison Libraries. The arrangement with the Club Lusitano for the housing of the Victoria Library therefore lasted at most only four years, from 1867 to 1871. This same source also quotes the terms of the gift under which the Morrison Education Society presented its books "as a free gift for the use of the public, on condition that in consideration of this gift and of the great services of Dr. Morrison to both European and Chinese, the books be kept distinct from all other collections in the City Hall, and designated 'the Morrison Library' in perpetuation of the great missionary's memory." Although there is little call in the present day for use of the Morrison Library by the public, the conditions imposed on the gift in 1869 to the City Hall are still observed, and the Morrison Library, housed since 1914 in the University of Hong Kong Library, is kept as a separate entity named in memory of its founder. Since the story of this collection has been covered in detail elsewhere, no more will be said here about the Morrison Library. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 64 H. A. RYDINGS The City Hall Library continued in existence till a much later date, beyond the scope of the present article. According to Twentieth Century Impressions, by 1908 the total stock was 3,332 in the Morrison Library. However, at this same date, according to the same source, the Hong Kong Club had over 18,000 volumes in its library, so the situation had not radically altered since the days of the Victoria Library. There is apparently only one other library in Hong Kong the history of which goes back to the early days of the Colony. This is the library of the Supreme Court, which may in fact claim to predate the founding of the Victoria Library, since it was started by Chief Justice J. W. Hulme, who in 1847 presented his own collection of law books. Yet even eleven years later Government had made no attempt to add to this collection. The inadequacy of the Supreme Court library became a standing cause of complaint with a later Chief Justice, Sir John Smale, of whom it is said that he "seldom delivered a judgment in which he did not make the time-honoured complaint as to the state of the library." Perhaps, however, he had an ulterior motive in so doing, since in 1881 Government bought part of Sir John Smale's collection to add to the Supreme Court library—and then had to keep it for a time packed away in boxes since the room used for a library was full. Two years later it was felt that the Supreme Court had grown sufficiently in importance to require the appointment of a librarian. The position was advertised on 1st June, 1883, at a salary of $5 a week, the duties including to give general assistance as a copying clerk in the Registrar's office as well as to take charge of the library. The first appointee was Mr. E. B. Shepherd.10 The use of the Supreme Court library was not restricted to the Judiciary and Crown Law Officers, though misuse by other entitled persons resulted in the application of 'Rules for the Supreme Court Library', which were approved by the Legislative Council on 20th March, 1891. Amongst other matters, these specified that "The books shall be in the custody of a Librarian to be appointed by the Governor," surely the most high-powered appointment of a librarian that the Colony has ever known. The supervision of the Library was, however, entrusted to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, who was expected to submit an annual report on the state of the Library, including a list of books added. Books could ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 66 H. A. RYDINGS 4 G. H. Preble, The opening of Japan; a diary of discovery in the Far East, 1853-1856, ed. by B. Szczesniak, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962, p. 58. 5 By 1867 Hong Kong was minting its own dollars. The English gold sovereign was quoted at this time at HK$4.60. 6 From the article on "The City Hall" in V. H. G. Jarrett, op. cit. 7 Twentieth century impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other treaty ports of China, ed. by A. Wright and H. A. Cartwright, London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publ. Co., 1908, p. 162. 8 D. Scott, "The Morrison Library”, JHKBRAS, vol. 1, 1960-61, pp. 50-67. 9 J. W. Norton-Kyshe, The history of the laws and courts of Hongkong, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1898, vol. II, p. 252. 10 ibid., vol. II, p. 369. 11 ibid., vol. II, p. 429. 12 ibid., vol. II, p. 430. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FURTHER NOTES ON THE SUNG WONG T'OI 73 evidently of later date. The sherds with partially preserved glaze appear to represent a local attempt to imitate Yüeh ware, while one or two of the smaller glazed fragments are of better quality and may be imported from kilns further north and are definitely of T'ang date. It need only be added that one fragment, of soft pinkish earthenware, is certainly proto-historic; and that the attribution of the whole of the fragments to the T'ang Dynasty or earlier raises the question whether the earthwork, or at least that part where the cutting was, may not date to the troubled period at the fall of that dynasty. If so, it might be that the Sung army re-used and strengthened an old fortification, very likely adding the high rampart with its ditch, counterscarp, and glacis at the north end, where an attack was evidently expected. The total absence of Sung pottery is certainly an unexpected feature, and if any part of these earthworks still survives, a few trenches dug across them would reveal enough pottery to prove or disprove this view. The turf and spoil removed could easily be put back, as is done in most modern excavations. One thing is certain: the work at the north end faces Kowloon City, so cannot be a defence work for the salt depot there, as the wall on the Kowloon T'ong gap west of the city was. There was Sung pottery on the hill when the writer saw it, so that an earthwork thrown up in 1276 should contain some pieces of it. The small number of 13 pieces found may well be not enough to yield a satisfactory basis for a conclusion: yet the total absence of both Sung and later porcelain among them points at least to the extreme scarcity of such porcelain at the time the earthwork was thrown up. As the evidence now stands, it is reasonably likely that the earthwork is connected, like the watch-tower recorded as erected on the summit rock, with the defence of the palace of the last Sung emperors. Acknowledgement My thanks are owing to the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum, for their expert advice on the pottery from the beach and the earthwork cutting, to which this paper owes much of its value. Biographical Note Mr. Schofield served in Hong Kong as a Cadet (Administrative) Officer in the Civil Service between 1911-38. He is well-known for his published articles on the archaeology and geology of the Colony in pre-war years, and is M.A. (Liv. and Oxon). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 90 ARMANDO M. DA SILVA It will suffice here to say that the exterior defence of the Chu Kong estuary consisted of a series of forts, customs-stations and guard-posts in the Lo Man Shan 老萬山, Kai Pong 鷄澎, Sam Chau Mun 三洲門, Ngoi Ling Ting 外伶仃, and the Tam Kon ## groups of the outer off-shore islands. The civil administration ruled from Nam Tau, the district city of the San On district. The military administration was centred at Tai Pang, on the western arm enclosing Tai Pang Hoi (Mirs Bay). The civil administration operated on a north-south axis, as against the east-west axis of the military coastal defence system. This is understandable when one realizes that the military could facilitate their control of the coast-line by establishing easy communications by water running the length of the coast-line from strongpoints on strategic head-lands and the offshore islands. 3 For the Chinese characters of place names of some locales in the vicinity of Tai Yu Shan see map 3. For names of places within the present territory of Hong Kong see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1960). 4 So far as I know there has been no published study of this fort by Hongkong's local historians, except for a brief mention in one work which states that Kai Yik Kok fort was of Ch'ing dynasty date. Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and its External Communication before 1842, (Hongkong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) p. 172. 5 The principal ingredients of this cement are clam and oyster shells which are crushed and burnt to produce slaked lime. The lime is then mixed with fine sand to produce a holding cement. Shells and fine sand are common to many local beaches and are, apparently for this purpose, used in lime kilns. 6 San On Yuen Chi, kuen 22, under section on Coastal Defence reads: 看復界後海絮籹寧而設險更捻周密雖今之汎地 及設兵皆與舊制不同而大嶼山雞翼角炮臺南頭 炮臺赤濘炮蠱最為餓要 7 Fan Lau is also known as Shek Sun meaning "boulder growths", a reference to the numerous residual boulders at Kai Yik Kok, 8 Luis Gomes, Monografia de Macau (Macau, 1951), a Portuguese translation of the O Mun Kei Leuk p. 70. "No 7° ano de long Tcheng (1730) construiram-se fortalezas nas duas montanhas, distribuiram-se as guarniçoes para a sua defensa e foram reforçadas as tropas que guarneciam Tai-U-San formando assim como que um angulo semelhante ao que e constituido pelos chifres dum boi, para servir de defensa exterior de Macau e o Boca Tigre", 9 J. J. L. Duyvendak, "Sailing directions of Chinese voyages" T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938) pp. 230-237; and "The true dates of the Chinese maritime expeditions in the early fifteenth century", T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938), pp. 341-412. 10 The district of San On (新安) was formed in the sixth year of Lung Hing (隆慶) ie. 1572-73, Fourteen years later, in 1587, the San On district gazetteer was written by Yan Tai-kon (縣太君), the District Magistrate. Various editions followed. The latest edition was published in 1819. This gazetteer provides the best primary source of information on pre-British Hongkong. Chapters (kuen) XIV and XXII deal with Coastal Defence. These are chapters of special interest to historical geographers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 102 MORRIS I. BERKOWITZ therefore that happiness in the resettlement area is purely an economic phenomenon. All of these families have the motivation and energy to have a source of income, sometimes two, other than rent, and although our data are not yet adequately analyzed to explain this difference between families, the source of the motivation would seem to be the variable working here. All of this information would seem to reveal that those adult villagers least privileged in education, least worldly in language abilities, least able to secure employment, tended to look towards the village as a less complex, simpler and more satisfying way of life, despite the nearness to markets, entertainment, availability of amenities and transportation which the new site offers. The urbanness of the site seems to demand a kind of flexibility and adaptability which many of these rural people have not yet acquired. Several housewives, for example, displayed a basic inability to adjust to the simplest of economic demands of city life, were upset by and complained about the monthly water and electricity bills and spoke longingly about conditions when one's amenities (meager as they may have been) were available for anyone who wanted them without incurring future debt. There is a strong feeling from the data that putting all of life on a money basis has severely damaged the villagers' confidence in their own ability to cope with the world, even in a situation where money from rental of property is available to the villagers and they have become (by Hong Kong standards at least) rich and self-sufficient. This feeling of inadequacy comes out most clearly in the women's responses to a question concerning what occupations they would most like to have if they had the proper qualifications: most cannot even conceptualize themselves as qualified and as a result did not attempt to answer the question. Several others (after saying they didn't know) continued by pointing out, "I am only an illiterate woman and have to look after the children." The men are not substantially better off: one man who had been a soldier would like to be a general officer, but the others want to be small business men, truck drivers, assistant supervisors, and so on. Urban Villagers The response to these problems of inadequacy has been the cloistering of the villagers by self-selection into a largely isolated and (thus far, at least) non-integrated part of the urban community. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 124 H. G. H. NELSON tional Chinese rules of inheritance ensured the rapid redistribution of any accumulation of property. Estates could be created only by the injection of external capital derived from bureaucratic or commercial activity; and they were maintained by this device of incorporating them as collective holdings. Naturally enough, the ancestor in whose name an estate was incorporated was rarely, if ever, more remote than the father of the man who actually accumulated the land, so that no-one but his own and his brothers' sons and their descendants ever enjoyed the benefits of the property. Even if estates were concentrated in the hands of local, and not absentee landlords, the capital which created them was derived from external sources: and it may well be that the Treaty Ports stimulated this form of land-concentration by providing opportunities for the accumulation of capital on a greater scale than had ever been known before. There is evidence that this has happened in the New Territories: local men who prospered in business activities in Hong Kong city returned to their homes and invested the proceeds in land. It would have been instructive if Potter had told us exactly how Tang Jui-t'ai, ancestor G in the diagram, was able to accumulate his property. (It is not clear from the book whether he used the schedules of holdings drawn up in respect of private property by the Hong Kong Government a few years after the lease of the N.T. in 1898 which provide a unique source of socio-economic information about its many villages and form a base for later enquiries).* It is worth commenting, in passing, on another feature of the lineage's collective land-holdings, in which it is possible to see an exacerbation of the pre-existing situation. From Potter's description of the private benefits accruing to members of the corporation who are in a position to exploit their control of the land, it is quite clear that by far the majority of the benefits go to a small group of powerful men - political leaders and racketeers: and the poorer villagers, even if they know of this manipulation of property in which they, rightfully, have as good a share, can do little about it. Potter himself points out that this was probably always so, but that it is only recently that economic conditions — i.e. the enormous increase in land values and rents — have allowed such great profits to be made. * These have been utilised by Göran Aijmer in his article between pp.74-81. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 150 NOTES AND QUERIES canal which would give access to warehouses and so on built in the Valley (a plan which A. T. Gordon, the Land Officer, endorsed in the 'dream' of the future City of Victoria which he communicated to Pottinger in 1843).4 But if Pottinger's description is accurate, it would have taken a good deal of imagination to see it that way. The East Point site was purchased, at the first Land Sale on 14 June 1841, in the name of Captain William Morgan, a ship's captain who may have been Jardine's Hong Kong manager, and the actual area purchased was not specified then or when Pottinger's Second Land Committee was attempting to settle the Land Question in Hong Kong. We learn, from a later source, that it amounted to almost 170,000 square feet (about 3.4 acres). It is, however, often overlooked that the firm also purchased three other marine lots at the same sale: numbers 26, 27 and 28 and it is here that they had already commenced building by the time of the sale. This contention is upheld by a number of contemporary accounts of the sale. The Canton Register (predecessor of the Hong Kong Register) intimates that one purchaser had commenced building before the sale,6 We are told in an unpublished history of the early years of Jardine, Matheson & Co. that in February 1841, within a month of the naval forces taking possession of the island, that they had erected a large matshed godown above the foreshore. An anonymous correspondent of the China Mail, writing 8 years after the event, but who attended the first sale in 1841, states that Matheson, in order to avoid the expenses involved in landing goods at Macao for transhipment, resolved to land a consignment of cotton at Hong Kong. To make this possible, he sent from Macao materials for the erection of a godown. This building, he avers, was four feet above the ground at the date of the sale and was sited on what later became known as the Commissariat Stores. The fact that they were building and had ground cleared, he continues, gave additional value to adjoining lots. As will be seen, Marine Lots 26, 27 and 28 were shortly to become the Commissariat stores. If further support is needed, I may quote from Tarrant's History of Hong Kong, published in 1861 or 1862: he states that "some months before the sale......Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co, erected those godowns which now form part of the Naval Yard, near the Canton Bazaar.” I ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 166 NOTES AND QUERIES tions and answers produced an interesting picture of life among the soldiers at the Fort in the few years before they withdrew from it after Lantau and other parts of the present New Territories were leased to the Hong Kong Government in 1898. Put together they amount to this: I was 24 sui when the British came to take over Lantau. Tung Chung Fort had a permanent garrison of Chinese troops before then. I can't remember exactly how many troops there were or what the rank or title of the officer-in-charge was, but they were none of them local people. Their families lived at Tung Chung too, in several rows of brick houses outside the Fort and some inside the walls also. There was a house nearby in which soldiers or their family members were put when sick, with a burial ground behind. The garrison's provisions were brought in by ship, though they bought fish and vegetables locally at Tung Chung. There were military boats at Ma Wan Chung [where the main stream empties into the sea], about 7 or 8 of them of different kinds, but they were not under the command of the Tung Chung officer and came and went between such places as Canton [the provincial capital], Nam Tau [the district city], Shum Chun etc. The soldiers at the Fort had a big parade each year on the 1st day of the seventh moon. It was held on the level ground beside the Hau Wong temple (1) near the beach. Inspecting officers came from Nam Tau, Shum Chun and Canton, I think. There was much drumming and noise on that day, and the troops paraded with all their weapons. The soldiers had uniforms of all sorts, and many kinds of weapons too, but there was no uniformity of clothing or equipment. The soldiers were generally well-behaved and gave no trouble to us local people, though they did not have much to do as they didn't cultivate any fields, inside or outside the Fort. They did not ask for money, but kept watch. There was a guard station at Ma Wan Chung, though there were rarely soldiers in it. There were lots of robbers and pirates in this area when I was young. They came from ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d DAWSON, Raymond, ed. THE LIBRARY The legacy of China. Oxford, Clarendon P., 1964. DEBNICKI, Aleksy. 183 The Chu-shu-chi-nien (+) as a source to the social history of ancient China. Warszawa, Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1956. DEGROOT, J. J. M. The religion of the Chinese. New York, Macmillan, 1912. DE MOUBRAY, G. A. de C. Matriarchy in the Malay Peninsula and neighbouring countries. London, Routledge, 1931. DER LING, Princess. Two years in the forbidden city. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1929. DRAKE, F. S., ed. Symposium on historical, archaeological and linguistic studies on Southern China, South-East Asia and the Hong Kong region: papers presented at meetings held in September 1961 as part of the Golden Jubilee Congress of the University of Hong Kong. F. S. Drake, general editor; Wolfram Eberhard, chairman of the proceedings. Hong Kong, University Press, 1967. EASTHAM, Barry C. Chinese art ivory. Tientsin, Paradissis, 1940. EBERHARD, Wolfram. Settlement and social change in Asia. Hong Kong, University Press, 1967. ECKE, Gustav. Atlantes and Caryatides in Chinese architecture. [Peking, Catholic University, 1930] EDWARDS, Richard. Pine, hibiscus and examination failures. [Ann Arbor] Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan [1966] Extract from Michigan. University. Museum of Art. Bulletin, v.1, 1965/66. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d Plate 21. Reaping hook from Lantau Island, Hong Kong (see p. 161), Plate 22. Reaping hook from Lantau Island, Hong Kong (see p. 161). (Plates 21-22 by courtesy of the Curator, City Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong.) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d # CONTENTS ## PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1968 ## HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1968 ## TRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH 1968 ## Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils in Hong Kong up to 1941 ### T. C. CHENG ## ARTICLES CONTRIBUTED: ### Y ### Militia, Market and Lineage: Chinese Resistance to the Occupation of Hong Kong's New Territories in 1899 #### R. G. GROVES ### Tung Kwu Island; the Type Site of Hong Kong's Older Prehistoric Culture #### W. SCHOFIELD Page 1 Page 5 Page 7 Page 31 Page 65 ### King Mongkut and the Kingdom of Siam #### R. BRUCE ### The Linguistic and Literary Value of Ming Dynasty 'Mountain Songs' #### JOHN MCCOY ### The Chinese Descent System and the Occupancy Level of Village Houses #### H. G. H. NELSON ### Some Notes on Ethno-botany in the New Territories of Hong Kong #### ARMANDO DA SILVA ### The Mapping of Hong Kong #### J. T. COOPER Page 82 Page 101 Page 113 Page 124 Page 131 ## ARTICLE REPRINTED: ### The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri #### RONALD C. Y. NG Page 141 ## NOTES AND QUERIES: ### Bethesda and the Berliner Frauenverein Für China #### ALBRECHT PLAG ### The Comet of 1532 — #### L. Carrington GOODRICH ### What Inspired Sir John Bowring's Hymn? #### L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH ### Books from the Victoria Library — #### H. A. RYDINGS ### Early Hong Kong Libraries #### J. R. JONES Page 149 Page 150 Page 151 Page 152 Page 154 Page 154 ### Defence Wall at Pass between Kowloon City and Kowloon Tsai — #### W. SCHOFIELD ### Removal of Villages for Fung Shui Reasons. Another Example from Lantau Island, Hong Kong #### JAMES HAYES ### The Occupancy Level of Village Houses in the Hong Kong Region #### JAMES HAYES ### A Pair of Pottery Covered Jars found at Shek Pik, Lantau Island #### JAMES C. Y. WATT ## BOOK REVIEWS ### Kelly and Walsh ## THE LIBRARY, 1968-69 ## LIST OF MEMBERS ### HON. EDITOR Page 156 Page 158 Page 161 Page 163 Page 165 Page 179 Page 183 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 2 J numbers. The complete set of the volumes now 8 in number with the 9th in the press is now being regarded as of increasing value. Vol. 1 is long out of print, but we expect to have sufficient demand for a limited new issue to justify reprint as soon as possible. As to our Library we can now say that we have a considerable number of books upwards of 300 volumes but unfortunately no library room of our own to accommodate them. One section including some of the rarer volumes and the growing number of exchange journals is kept in the library of the University of Hong Kong; the remainder are housed in the library of the British Council in the Gloucester Building. The library of the original branch of the Society founded in 1847 was the first library organised in Hong Kong, with the exception of that of the Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in 1845 whose members with their small collection of books—mainly professional joined the new branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1847.* The Society's library of 400 volumes was housed at the old Court House where the Society had been granted by Sir George Bonham a room to hold its meetings: but in 1859 when the Society became defunct the whole of its library was handed on trust to the Morrison Educational Society which later in 1869 presented its own and the R.A.S. library to the City Hall. Now we are back where we started in 1847, with a library of 400 books gradually increasing but with no generous benefactor to give us a room in which we can house them. From the Hon. Treasurer's Report you will see that the Society's finances are in a reasonably healthy condition. There appears to have been an excess of income over expenditure, but that was partly due to a greatly increased income from the sale of journals and the bank interest and dividends received. The annual subscriptions amounted to $11,590 but the expenditure was $17,398. The gap was bridged mainly by interest from investments, bank interest, and the sale of journals. Since the last general Meeting there have been several changes within the Council of the Society. Mr. Robert Bruce left Hong Kong on retirement in March 1968 and his place on the Council was filled by his successor as Representative of the British Council, Mr. G. A. Bridges. Professor K. E. Robinson resigned from the * See page 154. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 46 R. G. GROVES Yee Yuen and donated sums to its resistance fund. The two lineages also comprised two yeuk within the Ts'at Yeuk and, as such, were represented in the fighting at Tai Po. At some point after 1st April, leaders from the Yuen Long and Sheung U Divisions went together to the Tung P'ing Kuk at Sham Chun and attempted with little success to enlist wider support for their activities. An agent was sent to Tung-kuan Hsien, where a number of 'bare-sticks' were recruited. In addition, the help of the Tang lineage of Pan T'in, in the northern part of Hsin-an Hsien, was solicited. This lineage appears to have stood in a clan relationship with the Tang higher order lineage within the New Territory. Members of the Pan T'in lineage participated in the fighting within the territory and subsequently felt themselves threatened by the British occupation of Sham Chun. The first confrontation between the Ts'at Yeuk and the vanguard of the occupying force occurred at Tai Po. Since late March, contractors had been erecting matsheds for the Hong Kong authorities on a hill near the market. Work had been obstructed by local villagers who claimed that the hill was private land and that the matsheds would disturb the feng shui of the area. On 3rd April Captain-Superintendent May set off for Tai Po, with a mixed party of Sikh policemen from Hong Kong and a detachment of Chinese soldiers, which had been temporarily assigned to him by the Commander of the Chinese military garrison stationed at Kowloon City. He hoped to get work on the matsheds started again and intended to leave the soldiers as a guard for the construction materials, pending assumption of British authority in the Territory. May arrived at Tai Po early in the afternoon and went to a nearby temple, almost certainly the Man Mo Miu, where he knew he would meet local leaders. A large crowd gathered, both within the temple and in the narrow street outside. His efforts at persuasion failed and the bystanders "became very offensive in their language and demeanour."59 May thought it wise to leave, but hope of a dignified withdrawal ended as soon as the British party reached the street. They were set upon by an angry crowd, wielding brooms, buckets, and other improvised weapons. An escape was made after the soldiers had threatened the crowd with their rifles and the Sikhs had made a bayonet charge to clear a path. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 65 TUNG KWU ISLAND: THE TYPE SITE OF HONG KONG'S OLDER PRE-HISTORIC CULTURE INTRODUCTION W. SCHOFIELD* The present paper describes the writer's investigations of the large site revealed from 1925 onwards by sand diggers on the island of Tung Kwu beyond Castle Peak,† This dumb-bell island, which is formed entirely of Hong Kong granite and the sand which links its two portions by an isthmus, has not only yielded pottery of the historic period in one area of its western beach, but a great many remains of a culture obviously earlier than that of the Bronze Age in Lamma described by Father Finn.‡ DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND (See Plates 1 and 2) Tung Kwu is a typical single dumb-bell with an isthmus joining a large northern hill ridge 76 metres high to a smaller southern one of 68 metres. These hills show all the signs of early loss of their original woods, followed by washing away of most of the thick subsoil of clay full of quartz grains which formed beneath their cover, some of which remained on the isthmus and beaches. Much of the hill surface is occupied by large masses of granite boulders formed by chemical action in the clay, and left behind when it was washed away. A noteworthy feature of the northern hill area is the 35 metres hill that rises just north of the isthmus and is surrounded by a * Mr. Schofield (1888-1968) served in Hong Kong between 1911-1938 as a Cadet Officer and Police Magistrate, He was noted for his work pre-war on the geology and archaeology of Hong Kong, in which fields he was a pioneer scholar. More recently his article "Further Notes on the Sung Wong Toi" appeared in the 1968 Journal. Ed. †This island has long been misnamed on local maps. The Hong Kong Government's official Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (no date, but 1960), p. 161, calls it Lung Kwu Chau (##) and describes it as "an uninhabited island in area 0.158 sq. mile off the west of the Castle Peak Peninsula, incorrectly named TUNG KWU (Tongku) on the 1:25,000 official map. (Sheet 13, 1957 edition)". ‡ The photographs which illustrate this article may be found at Plates 1 to 9 at the rear of this volume. They are representative, and not ordinarily related to items mentioned in the text because Mr. Schofield died before we had chosen and discussed the illustrations. I am greatly indebted to Mr. James C. Y. Watt, Assistant Curator of the Hong Kong City Hall Museum and Art Gallery and Hon. Sec. of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, for much help and advice with the sketch-map, charts and plates. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 131 THE MAPPING OF HONG KONG LARGE-SCALE PLANS J. T. COOPER* Rapid and intense development requires accurate and up-to-date large-scale plans. This is equally true of large housing or engineering projects. Where such plans are not available, all detailed planning and design must await their completion. This is particularly true of Hong Kong, where the steep terrain usually requires extensive earthworks before construction of buildings or roads can commence. Another factor adding to the necessity for accurate large-scale plans in the Colony is the high value of land, especially in the built-up areas, where a square foot of land can be worth $300 or more. The Survey Branch of the Crown Lands & Survey Office (a sub-department of the Public Works Department) is responsible, not only for all land surveying and mapping in the Colony, but for the demarcation of all lot boundaries in the urban areas, and the implementation of town-planning layouts. Hong Kong is one of the few Commonwealth territories where there are no licensed land surveyors in private practice. With the intense development which began in the nineteen-fifties, the staff of the Survey Branch became fully occupied with title surveys, the setting-out of lot boundaries, Government sites, roads, etc., and was unable either to produce large-scale plans of all the areas planned for new development or to keep up to date the plans in the older areas where re-development caused many changes. The city areas of Victoria, and the northern part of Hong Kong Island, together with most of the Kowloon peninsula (south of Boundary Street) had been mapped at 1/600 scale (50 ft. to one inch) before the war, but the plans had been plotted onto linen-backed paper, and in the climatic conditions of Hong Kong, they had become distorted and inaccurate. None of these plans * Mr. Cooper is Assistant Superintendent (Survey), Crown Lands and Survey Office, Public Works Department, Hong Kong. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d NOTES AND QUERIES 153 Land, labour and gold; or, Two years in Victoria, with visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, by William Howitt, London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855. 2 vols. The chop of the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms appears on the front end-paper of each volume, with the shelf-mark C244 written in ink. The transfer of this work to the City Hall Library in 1871 is evidenced by its chop on the half-title and title-page. It is interesting to speculate whether the selection of this book, the title of which on the spine is "Two years in Victoria”, was due to a confusion between Victoria, Australia, and Victoria, Hong Kong. At least one user of the Victoria Library, or possibly the City Hall Library, got as far as p.57 of vol. 1, since a bookmark consisting of a strip from an old Hong Kong newspaper (not identified) is inserted there. Similar marks of successive ownership appear on the other book, though here the Victoria Library chop appears on the title page and dedication leaf as well as on the front end-paper or fly-leaf. The shelf-mark on the fly-leaf appears to be F404. The title-page is reproduced at plate 18, to show the two ownership chops. The rectangular chop at the top is the processing chop of the University of Hong Kong Library, to which this book came as a gift from an unknown source in 1962; it is impressed on the back of the title-page, but shows through. All three volumes are bound in a typical mid-Victorian style, brown polished calf with marbled paper. The shelf-marks do not appear on the spines, though they may have been on labels which have long since come off. The precise significance of the shelf-marks is not clear, though probably they were similar to those used in the Morrison Library, where the letter indicated a broad subject grouping (e.g. C for books of travel, D for natural history), each volume being given a running number within the appropriate group when added to the collection. It is much to be regretted that no copies of the catalogues of any of the earlier Hong Kong libraries appear to have survived, other than the 1873 catalogue of the Morrison Library, when it was located in the old City Hall. Hong Kong, 1969. H. A. RYDINGS ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 154 NOTES AND QUERIES EARLY HONG KONG LIBRARIES Vol. VIII of the Society's Journal contained an introduction to Hong Kong's library history under the heading of "Notes on Hong Kong Libraries in the Nineteenth Century". It mentioned as foremost of the early libraries in the Colony the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms which had been privately organised in 1848. There was, however, a still earlier library—that of the Asiatic Society of China which was founded in January 1847 and later became the China Branch and, still later, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Some of the founders of the Society had belonged to a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in Hong Kong in May 1845 and to a Philosophical Society of Hong Kong formed shortly before the Asiatic Society. Both these societies were merged in the Asiatic Society in January 1847, and the books of the Medico-Chirurgical Society were handed over to the Asiatic Society to form part of the new Society's library on the understanding that members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society be admitted as members of the Asiatic Society without ballot or entrance fee. The Asiatic Society's library was kept from 1849 in a room at the Court House which had been granted for the use of the Society for its meetings by Sir George Bonham. When the Society ran into difficulties in 1858 it handed over its valuable library of 400 books on trust to the Morrison Education Society which had been formed in Canton in 1835 and which, from 1855, had also kept its library in the Old Court House. When the demand for a proper public library grew on the building of the City Hall the Morrison Education Society presented its own library and that of the Royal Asiatic Society to the City Hall Library which was visited by the Duke of Edinburgh when he opened the City Hall on 2 November, 1869, Hong Kong, 1969. J. R. JONES DEFENCE WALL AT PASS BETWEEN KOWLOON CITY AND KOWLOON TSAI This item on one of the antiquities of Old Kowloon City is taken from a pencilled note in one of Mr. Walter Schofield's note-books, dated 15th April, 1928. It is clearly a contemporary description. The note is reproduced ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d NOTES AND QUERIES 161 A PAIR OF POTTERY COVERED JARS FOUND AT SHEK PIK, LANTAU ISLAND The Shek Pik area in the south-western corner of Lantau Island has yielded archaeological finds of more varied interest than any other area in Hong Kong. Before the construction of the reservoir in the valley (1958-62), it was mainly known by the neolithic sites on the raised beach which W. Schofield excavated in the thirties. During and since the building of the reservoir various archaeological finds of comparatively recent periods have been made. The latest of these finds is a pair of earthenware jars with identical blue and white porcelain bowls as covers. They were discovered in February 1968 and February 1969 by James Hayes who had reported all post-war archaeological finds at Shek Pik†. Both pairs of jar and bowl were broken when discovered and the first pair has now been restored by the City Museum and Art Gallery (see Plates 19 and 20). These jars and bowls were located on a sloping hillside west of the former village of Shek Pik Wai (abandoned before the War for sites a few hundred yards lower down the valley). The area had been scoured by bulldozers for 'fill' for the dam and the jars were found in an exposed bank. This was, in fact, the site of the earlier discoveries reported by Hayes. Though located less than a foot away from each other and each about two feet from the surface, the pots were discovered singly as progressive eroding of the bank by rain brought them to light. Mr. WAN On (溫安) of Pui O, South Lantau was with Mr. Hayes on both occasions. The porcelain bowls are the first known pieces of Ming blue and white porcelain reported in Hong Kong, at any rate since the War, although they are a type of trade porcelain which is commonly found in the Philippines and in Indonesia. The bowls have fairly straight slanting sides and high foot-rims. They are decorated on the outside with vertical fern leaves (sometimes identified as plantain leaves) with wavy edges and with a band of floral design round the mouth rim. On the inside they are decorated with a double ring near the mouth and with a lotus flower within a circle in the centre. The lotus flower (Sanskrit padma) is one of the "eight glorious emblems" in Buddhist art † See reference to this article at p. 73 of this issue. Ed. ================================================================================ 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 173 and their connection with the militia movement rather confusing. (See pp. 39-40 and 62-64 and Appendix II.) It seems that they could be long-established schools with pupils and teachers whose buildings were from time to time used by the local gentry for meeting purposes when such matters as local defence might be considered; or could be restored or newly set up schools which, at the time, were intended as meeting houses, drill halls and armouries first and as academic institutions after, because this was a convenient 'cover'. It also appears that they could be local schools (she-hsüeh) or charity schools (i-hsüeh) the two being apparently of much the same academic level at this period. It would have been useful to have had more detailed information on some of these establishments. Writing in Hong Kong, there is one example of a large charity school in Kowloon which may serve to illuminate the position a little. This was the Lung Chun Yee Hok (**龍津義學**) in Kowloon City (九龍城), one of the sub-administrative centres of the San On District. This building was erected in 1847 and fortunately the text of the wall tablet commemorating its establishment has been preserved, though the stone itself is now buried under concrete laid after a fire. This indicates that the school project originated with local officials who each contributed money to assist its progress and (reading between the lines) encouraged local gentry to participate. At this time its stated object was 'to stimulate the morale of local inhabitants and set a good example for the foreigners to follow'. Whether this school served as a headquarters for local militia in the 1840s and 1850s is not known; but it is reported that at the end of the 19th century just before the lease of the New Territories to Britain in 1898, this school, in addition to being a reputable academic institution, was also the meeting place of officials and local gentry when there were matters to discuss. Why and how often these meetings took place can, at this distance of time, hardly now be determined but it is likely that the two-fold use of the premises, and the interest of officials and gentry in both sides of its activities, paralleled those of the she-hsüeh. In an earlier review of this book (Journal of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1967, p. 728) Dr. Hugh Baker asks "But of what area of organisation was the local school a manifestation? Was it based on a marketing area or on an administra- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 174 BOOK REVIEWS tive or sub-administrative area?" So far as the Kowloon school was concerned it served the rural areas immediately east, west, north of and round Kowloon, whose principal villages were linked in yeuk (yueh) (#5) or 'compacts” — though whether the latter were self-organised or instituted by Government is still unknown to me. These villages used Kowloon as a market centre though there were small local markets in some of the yeuk. Together these yeuk do not appear to have constituted either an administrative or sub-administrative area of the county (1) save in the sense that the Kowloon sub-magistrate utilised their existence as a medium of contact and, no doubt, control. Again, whether they had any tuan lien is unknown - though village tradition at Nga Tsin Wai just in front of the Kowloon Walled City has it that, assisted by the Tin Hau goddess from the village temple, whose image glistened with her supreme effort, the villagers 'saved' the City from the Red Turban rebels in the 1850s and their leading elder was given a kung ming (1) by Government in recognition of their part in the defence. In short, the detailed picture remains unfilled but we stand greatly in Mr. Wakeman's debt for having set the scene in such a stimulating and authoritative manner. Hong Kong, 1969, JAMES HAYES HONG KONG: A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY OF HONG KONG SOCIETY, ed. I. C. Jarvie, in consultation with Joseph Agassi, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969, pp xxix, 378, illustrated. A symposium such as this might be approached from one of two angles: its theme could be either an exploration of the conflicts within Hong Kong society, or a comparison between the problems of Hong Kong and those of other areas in a similar situation of rapid and profound change. None of the papers in this volume attempts the latter; and those which attempt the former are noticeably more stimulating and more valuable than those which attempt neither. Hong Kong is a place in which a number of almost totally disparate groups, their interests sometimes diametrically opposed (e.g. the indigenous people and the immigrants in the New Territories), coexist in an exceedingly small compass: an opportunity to survey the relationships, often Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d CAVOUR. ALL 45 7 VOUR. $ A MEMOIR. LIBRARY 香港 LIBR HONG KONG: 二楼書大 Beceù Eldior. (HONGKONG. WOOR BY EDWARD DICEY, H HOME IN 1908.", ** Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. AND 18, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, 1881. Plate 18. Title page of Edward Dicey's "Cavour" (1861) showing copy of the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms and the old City Hall Library, (By courtesy of the Librarian, University of Hong Kong and the Curator, City Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d Plate 19. One of an identical pair of Ming dynasty pottery-covered jars found at Shek Pik, Lantau Island, Hong Kong in 1968. By courtesy of the Curator, City Hall Museum & Art Gallery, Hong Kong: A ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d Plate 20. The same jar and bowl, separated. (By courtesy of the Curator, City Hall Museum, Hong Kong). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 2 to extend the same co-operation to the officers of the Society here in Hong Kong, as has happily been the case throughout the past decade. I would like here to add a final word of thanks to the Curator of the City Museum who has helped with the production of photographs for the Journal at various times since I became Hon. Editor in 1966. The interest shown by Mr. Warner and his senior staff in our work has been continuous and, need I say, very much appreciated. Dr. Marjorie Topley has very kindly assisted with the book review section of this year's Journal. Hong Kong, 1970. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 The Society was, however, very fortunate from the start in the support given by the British Council and its representative Mr. R. E. Lawry who later became the Hon. Secretary and also Vice-President of the Society and to whom the Society owes a great debt of gratitude. It was in the rooms of the British Council that the Society held its meetings until the City Hall became available. It is in the Council's rooms that the Council still holds its meetings and that a great part of the Society's books are kept ready for members to consult or take out. Each of Mr. Lawry's successors, including Mr. Bridges to-day, has become a member of the Council, and it has been the British Council that has provided the successive Hon. Secretaries—Mr. Lawry, Miss O. Michaeliones, Mr. T. H. Thomas and now Mr. J. L. H. Webster, C.M.G. The Society has no home of its own, and ever since its revival the British Council has been the base of its operations; and now after ten years of such continued support it is difficult to express in adequate terms our gratitude to the British Council and its Representatives in Hong Kong. The Society was also fortunate in the full support given by its Patron, Sir Robert Black, who in spite of his arduous and manifold duties as Governor of Hong Kong rarely missed a meeting of the Society together with Lady Black and his family and staff and often took part in the Society's activities. Sir Robert is now an Honorary Member and still takes a keen interest in the affairs of the Society. Two other keen supporters and regular attendants were Sir Michael Hogan, the Chief Justice, one of our founder members, and also the late W. G. C. Knowles who was also a founder and life member both of whose support was much appreciated and both of whom are greatly missed at our meetings. During the year the Society met twelve times at which addresses of a high standard and of great variety and interest were given. And in the last two months not less than seven meetings were held including the lecture by Commander Warrington-Strong on porcelain, that of Professor Frank Chippindale on the Chinese Influence on Chippendale's Designs, that of Capt. Roger Pineau on Commodore Perry's Japan Expedition, the tour of Tsun Wan Temples under Mr. Graham Johnson, the Week-End Symposium on the Vegetation of Hong Kong conducted by Professor Thrower ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 and last Monday's lecture by Dr. Hu on Flowering Trees. The most popular activities each year are the annual symposia held under the Chairmanship of Dr. Topley and the occasional excursions, such as the tour of Old Shau Kei Wan organised last year by Mr. J. W. Hayes. These tours, as well as being studies in the history and social life of Hong Kong, are popular and prove of great service in bringing members together, giving them an opportunity of knowing each other and welding them into one Society of common interest and purpose. In accord with the objects of the parent society and the principles enunciated by Sir John Davis, we have tried to direct attention to practical projects and to natural history as well as to literary pursuits. Thus, a week-end symposium was organised in 1968 under Professor Dwyer of the University of Hong Kong on the subject of The Changing Face of Hong Kong, and recently another week-end symposium was organised by Professor Thrower, as mentioned above. A record of these studies is being edited and will in due course be published by the Society and so make a valuable contribution to the natural history of the Colony. The Journal of the Society maintains its high academic standard and interest under the Editorship of Mr. J. W. Hayes. The tenth volume is in the press and will be out later this year. Vol. I, which had long been out of print, has now been reprinted and is now available to meet the increasing demand of members and of scholars and readers overseas for a complete set of the Society's publications, which are now becoming very valuable and much sought after by libraries and learned institutions as well as by individual readers all over the world. Our greatest problem is our library, and our great sorrow is that our resources do not enable us to rent a room to house our books, let alone to pay a librarian. The original society in Hong Kong had been granted by Sir George Bonham a room in the old Supreme Court to hold its meetings and to house its library. When the Society ran into difficulties in 1858, it handed over its valuable library of 400 books on trust to the Morrison Education Society, which also kept its library in the Old Court House, and in 1869 the Morrison Society presented its own library and that of the Royal Asiatic Society to the City Hall Library. I feel, therefore, that the Government is not without obligation to the Society in respect of the housing of its present library. In Shanghai ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 34 STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR., 12 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 231, Inclosure No. 1, Shanghai, January 6, 1859, BB, IX, 454. 13 Ibid., Inclosure No. 2, p. 455. 14 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 445. 15 Ibid., Inclosure 1, p. 447. ** 16 Wade, in adjoining sentences, says that "The prices put upon the articles we named were not exorbitant and, "This part of our errand done we took our leave, glad to escape from the pressure of this most disorderly mob, and the offensive atmosphere they created." Ibid., p. 448. 17 Oliphant, II, 361. 18 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 445, 19 Oliphant, II, 362-364. 20 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 446. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., Inclosure No. 2, pp. 448-449. 23 Ibid., Inclosure No. 4, p. 450. 24 Lindsay Brine, The Taeping Rebellion in China, London, 1862, pp. 226-228. Despite his reputation for relatively dispassionate reporting Brine makes similar omissions in discussing other episodes as well. In discussing the visit at Wu Hu he uses only passages from Oliphant that reflected poorly on the Taipings without mentioning that the Taipings graciously complied with the request for supplies - pp. 223-226. Regarding the bombardment of Anking, Brine does not mention that the Imperialists were attacking the city simultaneously -- pp. 220-221. 25 Only the surname of the Taiping leader is given in Wade's account, which is the basis of the other versions of this visit, That it was Li Ch'un-fa is a surmise concurred in by Jen Yu-wen in personal conversation with the writer. As a lieutenant of Li Hsiu-ch'eng it is likely that Li Ch'un-fa was well-disposed toward foreigners, as indeed, he seems to have been depicted in Wade's own account. 26 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, Inclosure No. 5, pp. 450-452, 27 Ibid., p. 451. 28 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 232, Inclosure of Elgin to Seymour, Shanghai, January 6, 1859, BB, IX, 455. 29 This poem was not included in the Blue Book collection of documents, but was subsequently translated and printed in Oliphant, II, 334-341, and in Brine, pp. 229-236. It will soon be made available once again among Franz Michael's documents of the Taipings to be published in the near future. The Chinese text, which should be consulted, for the English translation is inconsistent, is found in Jen Yu-wen, T'ai-p'ing Tien kuo tien-chih t'ung-kao (TPTKTCTK), Vol. II, 881-883. 30 We learn of the use of this specific form of address from Chester Cheng's recording of the cover letter in his book on Taiping documentary materials in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, Cheng does not mention the important poem itself - Chester Cheng, Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864, Hong Kong, 1963, p. 150. It is possible that the word shang was used as an honorific in place of the more usual kuei, a word that may have been proscribed by the Taipings because of its phonetic similarity to kuei meaning devil. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 42 H. J. LETHBRIDGE unsatisfactory. Instead, the system was adopted in the early 1880s of sending cadets to Peking where they learned Mandarin, which was little used in Hong Kong.24 Finally, in the late 1880s cadets were sent to Canton to learn Cantonese, and this arrangement continued in force until the Second World War. Cadets at Canton were billeted in the former residence of the Tartar General, which was taken by Britain after the war of 1857-60 and became His Britannic Majesty's Yamen. When the Consulate was transferred to Shameen, the area of original European settlement, the Yamen was turned over as a place of residence for cadets of the Malayan and Hong Kong Civil Services learning Chinese. Some cadets also resided in Shameen. In the early 1920s, according to Victor Purcell,25 who was then a Malayan cadet, there were in Canton usually about 15 or so cadets, the majority from Malaya, but a few from Hong Kong, and one or two police probationers, who were taught Chinese by a small band of Cantonese teachers... with a core of about half a dozen stalwarts who had taught generations of cadets in the past'. Sir Alexander Grantham, who was also a cadet in the 1920s, tells us that in his day there were about half a dozen cadets living in the Yamen.26 It is clear from his memoirs that the Hong Kong Government exercised little supervision over its protégés in Canton. So long as the cadets passed their examinations—four examinations taken at six-monthly intervals—cadets had two years of glorious freedom in a very free and easy Chinese city. Cadets appointed to the Hong Kong Civil Service, or transferred from other colonial territories in Asia, had much in common. All were British subjects of pure European descent and all entered the Colonial Service at approximately the same age. They were educated at fee-paying schools, but most had their schooling at minor public and obscure private schools, not listed in the Public Schools Yearbook: only one Etonian, one Wykehamist, two Rugbeians and two Harrovians are to be found among the eighty-five. The majority proceeded to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge but a substantial contingent—over 30 per cent—came from universities in Scotland and Ireland; only a handful—nine in all—were from London or English provincial universities.27 A few—Cecil Clementi, R. F. Johnston, J. H. Stewart Lockhart, F. H. May and A. M. Thomson28—had outstanding academic records; yet even the rest were above average. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 56 H. J. LETHBRIDGE under the Captain Superintendent in Hong Kong. The islands, and later, an outlying part of the mainland, were organised separately as the Southern District, with an assistant land officer appointed on 1 January 1905; he became an Assistant District Officer in 191054. G. B. Endacott Government and People in Hong Kong, pp. 134-5, Stewart Lockhart's Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong, 1900, says: "Since Mr. Lockhart's return to Hong Kong in July (1899) the work of the New Territory has been carried on by Messrs. Messer, Kemp and Hallifax, three cadets who are carrying out their instructions in a most satisfactory manner". The tradition developed of sending newly passed cadets to be "blooded" in the New Territory before they took up more sedentary duties in the Central Government Departments. 54 Austin Coates Myself a Magistrate. London, 1968, p. 13; speaking of his appointment as a Magistrate in the New Territories, Mr. Coates writes: "It was a job which would demand a complete change of thought and attitude after the Secretariat, occupied as I had been there with the doings of the modern world. Yet in this older world, bypassed by time, might I not find the roots—perhaps even the soul of the people who, met with in the city, held in their hearts something that everlastingly eluded me?” 55 G. B. Endacott Government and People in Hong Kong, p. 169. 56 Ibid., p. 169. 57 A particularly acidulous, but fictional, portrait of an Assistant Colonial Secretary is presented in Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil (London, 1925). This so enraged the then Assistant Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, A. G. M. Fletcher, that he threatened an action against the publishers, Heinemann. The name Hong Kong was replaced in the second issue of the book by "Tching Yen". 58 Richard Symonds The British and Their Successors, London, 1966, p. 16. 59 G. B. Sayer Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence, and Coming of Age, London, 1937, p.15. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 ASPECTS OF HONG KONG MARINE FAUNA 61 The University will have a functional Marine Science Laboratory to be completed during the summer of 1970. This establishment will greatly aid and encourage development of marine sciences in the Colony. Two aspects of our studies may be of immediate interest to the Colony. First, we are relating bottom fauna with the fishes that feed on such organisms. This approach has been used in other places for the past few decades as an effort to aid fishermen in finding more suitable fishing grounds. We have noted 146 species of fishes in and associated with Tolo Harbour. As some of our information comes from the Taipo office of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department, there is a likelihood that fishes from Mirs Bay and adjacent areas are also included. Another important study is pollution. By investigating the physico-chemical and biological factors important in Tolo Harbour, we intend to aid Government in guiding the development of communities like Shatin and Taipo, which are located on the shores of the Harbour. A sewage treatment plant will be established at the Chinese University site at Ma Liu Shui, and pollution studies will be correlated with the activities of this plant. The Future of Marine Resources in Hong Kong Of great importance for the future of the colony is the conservation of resources available, whether terrestrial or marine. During the spring of 1969, the University of Hong Kong sponsored the Conference on the Development and Conservation of the Countryside. The essence of the outcome of this meeting was that Hong Kong is in a critical state of planning. We must know what we are conserving, and do our best to plan all development with an eye toward future utilization and needs. Every weekend and holiday, thousands of city dwellers flock to the countryside to commune with nature. Just as a receding tide leaves layers of seaweed, these weekend tourists leave their residue. There is a tendency for everyone in Hong Kong to throw away their trash without thought of where it might land. This is true of the city, the countryside, and the beaches—extending into the water by boating enthusiasts and fishermen. This is on an enlarged scale when considering local industries, sanitary conditions, and indeed, land removal and filling processes. The Conservancy Society of Hong Kong has recently been formed. This organization will ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINATOWN IN HONG KONG: THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN DAFYDD Emrys Evans It seems unrealistic to talk of a 'Chinatown' in a place as obviously Chinese as Hong Kong. But for a very long time, there was indeed an area thought of by the Europeans as a part of the city into which they would not normally go. This area has, right from its inception, been known as "Tai Ping Shan' or Mountain of Peace, after the Chinese name for the mountain the Europeans called Victoria Peak. When the British arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1841, the north shore of the island was substantially unoccupied, there being nothing more than scattered huts between the village of Sai Ying Pun in the west and Wong Nei Chung in the east. The principal site for the new city lay in the present Central District of Hong Kong, and the first areas built up by the Europeans (apart from the waterside godowns and houses which extended from the Central Market to Causeway Bay) lay around the present Central Magistracy but rapidly extended within the first three years of the Colony's existence east and west of that spot. Although a small number of Chinese obtained grants of land in this area it is true to say that the town was exclusively European (with, of course, a number of Parsee merchants from British India) from the line of the present Garden road as far as the present Aberdeen Street and up the hill to Hollywood Road. At the time of the Colony's inception there were never more than a few hundred Europeans contrasted with several thousand Chinese who came as tradesmen and artisans. Where, then, did the Chinese live? Apart from the small town that Jardine, Matheson & Co. built out at East Point, there were three principal areas where the incoming Chinese settled at first. It is known that in the early days after June, 1841 a good many matshed huts sprang up on the hillside to the west of the area later to be the site of the main part of the town (and these were destroyed by the great typhoon in August, 1841) and one stretch of the waterfront was 'taken over'. As early as August 1841 the 'Lower Bazaar' was forming in the area of what later became Jervois Street and Bonham ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 92 A. D. BLUE and Canton, and the shorter passage between Hong Kong and Macao, was for many Chinese passengers an opportunity for a prolonged gambling and drinking session. The peak years of Chinese emigration to South-east Asia were those immediately preceding the world-wide economic depression of the early 1930s. The rubber and tin industries of South-east Asia were particularly hard hit by this depression, and Chinese immigration into all the countries of the region was severely curtailed. There had only been a very partial revival to pre-depression levels when the Pacific War broke out, soon after which Chinese emigration completely ceased. Owing to the different countries of South-east Asia adopting different methods of classifying nationality, it is practically impossible to obtain an accurate estimate of the number of Chinese in the region at any time; but well-informed authorities agree that at the outbreak of the Pacific War the number of people who regarded themselves as of Chinese race was about 8 million, that is between 5 and 6% of the total population. By far the greatest concentration of Chinese was in Malaya, where in 1947 the Chinese population of the Federation and Singapore was 2,605,000 out of a total population of 5,823,000. Singapore was, and still is, almost a Chinese city, and in 1947 there were 730,000 Chinese in a total population of 941,000. It is even more difficult to estimate how many Chinese were moving between China and South-east Asia in any year, but considering isolated figures relating to different countries, this must have amounted to several hundred thousands when the traffic was at its height. In 1929 Indo-China had a surplus of Chinese immigrants over emigrants of 40,000; while in the same year 195,000 Chinese males entered Malaya. In 1937 again some 8,000 Chinese entered British North Borneo. Although mainland Chinese have been unable to travel abroad since 1949, Chinese still move between Hong Kong, Formosa, and South-east Asia; but their numbers are infinitesimal in comparison with the vast traffic during the colonial era. However, the China Navigation Company is engaged in two specialised passenger trades which bear a little resemblance to the emigrant and deck passenger trades of the old days. One is the carriage of indentured labourers from Hong Kong to the Pacific phosphate ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 A BRITISH WARTIME CHART SHOWING HONG KONG 129 As can be seen from the illustration the chart has a somewhat old-fashioned appearance as it has the radiating lines indicating the 32 directions in the same manner as the Mediaeval Portulan Charts. It would appear that these lines indicate true and not compass bearings as one East to West line meets the point indicating 21° 54' N. on both sides of the chart, also a North line to the south of Hong Kong (not shown on the illustration) has a fleur-de-lis emblem on it; this is the usual symbol to indicate true north. The scale of the chart is not given, but the sides are graduated at one minute intervals of latitude. These can be taken as Sea Miles in use at that time. The precise length of one degree of latitude was in dispute during the eighteenth century, and lacking other information it is probably safest to assume that the value obtained by Picard in 1669 would have been used. This assumption would give a scale of 1:333,475, with 10 Sea Miles equivalent to 56 mm., 10 kilometres equivalent to 30 mm, and 10 Statute Miles equivalent to 1.9 inches. It should be noted, however, that the Kilometre did not come into use until 1799 and that the Statute Mile was established by an Act of Parliament in 1824.3 The latitudes of the southern point of Macao on the chart is 22° 12′ N., being 14 minutes too far north. The latitude of Canton, at the position of modern Shameen, is 23° 9′ N., being 3 minutes too far north, while Kowloon City at 22° 21' N. is 1 minute too far north. These latitudes are very accurate for the period, but not surprisingly so, considering the fact that the Portuguese had been in the area for more than 250 years, and that as the positions are within the tropics their latitudes could be deduced from the date of the sun at Zenith with the help of the Solar Declination Tables. The small error for Kowloon City is fortuitous, due to surveying errors.4 Regarding the content of the map it is clear from the title that we are faced with a composite map with at least two and possibly three distinct sources. These are 1. A Portuguese Chart 2. A Chinese Chart 3. Possibly original surveys by Hayter or others. The Portuguese influence can be seen in the names "Furado" and "Porado”. The contents of the "Chinese Chart of the Macao Pilots" is not known, but if the maps in the local gazetteer of the Hsin-an Hsien are any indication they are not likely to have been based on accurate surveys. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 A BRITISH WARTIME CHART SHOWING HONG KONG 131 The name "Iron River" given to the present-day Hebe Haven may be related to the fact that Ma On Shan to the north has iron-ore (Magnetite) deposits on its south western side. It would seem to indicate that the deposits were known in the eighteenth century, if not worked. Mers (Mirs) Bay is shown as being very small. A number of soundings near the entrance indicate the visit of a ship, so the error in its size and shape would seem to be yet another indication of poor visibility causing errors in observation. Suggested Identification of Place Names (Alphabetical Order) Botoe Is. East Brother (Siu Mo To) Cape Lintin and Bay South West Point and Deep Bay Castle Land Nam Tau Peninsula Chang Cheou Is. Cheung Chau Chin-falo Tsing Yi Island Co-chee Ma Wan Island Co-long Kowloon City False Hook Wong Chuk Kok (on Lamma Island) Fan-Chin-Cheou or He-ong-kong Hong Kong Furado or Poo Toy Po Toi Island (N.B. Fury Rocks, 1 Sea Mile to N.E. on modern charts) Hay-tae-man Bay Tai Shan Bay Ichou Chi Chau I of Gatto Shek Wu Chau Iron Point Fat Tau Point Keyzers Hook Fan Lau Point Lammon Lamma Island (Nam A Island) Lang Shitoe or Chato Id. Lafsami Lantoe or Magpyes Island Lantao Island Lantoe Bay Bay at Sham Tseng Lentua Lantao Island-Peninsula north of Cheung Chau Lintin Lintin Lon-ko Lung Kwu Chau ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 132 HENRY D. TALBOT Lo cheou-Lo Chau (Beaufort Island) = Mers Bay Mirs Bay Mew Is.-Mo Chau Nako chau-Papai (Nei Kwu Chau or Hei Ling Chau) Nine-pin-Ninepin Group Po-ke-long Point=Lei Yue Mun Point Psang-chau-Kau Yi Chau Ragged Island Steep Island Rat Island or Ling Ting-Ling Ting R. Povado or Iron River-Hebe Haven Sin-can-hien-Hsin-an Hsien (San On Yuen) or, rather, the district city of Hsin-an Singan Islands-Siu Chau and Tai Shan Shu-lap-ko Is.-Chek Lap Kok Island Sui-pak Siu Kau Yi Soko Cheou Is. the Soko Islands Song-kco Sung Kong Ta baco=Chung Chau Tat-hong Moon-Tathong Channel = Tay Pak Peng Chau Tay-pak-hoe Green Island (or perhaps the sea between Hong Kong and Lantao Islands) Tsa-cheou Is. =Sha Chau Tsan-Cheou-Kau Pei Chau (off Cape D'Aguilar) Tysa=Small island 1⁄2 mile south of East Brother Wang Laang-Waglan Island NOTES 1 Cf. The British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books (London, 1961) Vol. 100, Col. 222. The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Maps. Charts and Plans (London, 1967) Vol. 7, Col. 359, Morse, H. B. The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834 (Oxford, 1926-29) Lists of Ships. 2 Cf. Bonacker, W. Kartenmacher Aller Lander und Zeiten (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1966) p. 200, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 151 Tonkin delta set up an independent kingdom comprising both the Tonkin and Canton estuaries. His capital was Pun Yü, the modern Canton, and was the first walled city to be built in Nan Hai. The connection between North China was kept up and tribute was sent regularly to the Northern capital. By this means the routes between Kwangtung and the Yangtze were developed. An important step was the opening of a canal which made a complete water route between the Yangtze via the Tung Ting Lake to the west river at the modern Wu Chow and thence to Canton. The canal exists to this day. When the kingdom of Nan Hai was finally subdued by the Hans in 111 B.C. a Chinese river fleet descended by this route onto Pun Yü and sacked it. After this victory the Han emperors extended their direct rule over the whole of the coast line from Canton to the Tonkin delta and farther south to places in modern Annam. Min Yüeh, that is the eastern part of Kwangtung, the whole of Fukien and a part of Chekiang, continued to be governed more or less independently. There was no extensive colonization by the Hans probably because their effort was directed towards the west and their ambition to link up through India their vast empire in the North West with the conquests they had made in the South. Not being a maritime people and possessing only a river fleet they were not interested in maritime routes, and the only effort they made on the sea was the conquest of Hainan Island. For this reason the earliest settlement of the Chinese spread west, not east, from Pun Yü, across Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces. We can trace it in the walled cities built at that time. There were a group of them round the present site of Canton which have now been abandoned. Wu Chow or Ts'ang Wu was the point of contact on the west river, between it and Chiao Chih or Hanoi was the modern Nanning or Wu Lin. There were other towns built on the littoral such as Lim Chow and Ko Chow. The Chinese inhabiting these cities were soldiers, political exiles and traders. There cannot have been much agricultural settlement. In the fortified centres the Han conquerors taught the natives some of their arts, the use of metals, as we have seen, was among them, and in exchange took all the produce and sent it to North China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 155 not a general practice, it was probably due to the easiness of running before the wind that the ships could become such large hulks. Unfortunately, we do not know who built them. By the eighth century, the boats had become huge. "Ladders several tens of feet high had to be used to get on board." The trade was organised. Foreign captains had to be registered with the Office of Trading Ships, which inspected manifests and collected export and import duties. These captains had legal powers to deal with offending passengers when at sea. In 758, the Mohammedans had so much the upper hand in Canton that they yielded to the temptation of sacking and burning the city and making to sea with the loot. However, trade continued to flourish, the principal imports being, according to Soleyman, ivory, frankincense, ingots of copper, turtle shells, and rhinoceros horns (with which the Chinese used to make girdles), and the principal exports: silk and porcelain. The foreign ships also carried as passengers Chinese Buddhists visiting the holy places in Java and India. In the biographies of sixty pilgrims composed by I Ching,12 37 of them took the sea route to India. Some of these went from the Tonkin delta region, but the majority started from Canton or returned thither. The compass was still unknown in those days, and the first mention of its use for navigation in Chinese literature occurs at the beginning of the 12th century. V. T'UN MUN In the preceding sections, a picture has been given of the elements which made up the population of South China up to the end of the T'ang dynasty. We now come to our region — the peninsula South East of the Canton delta, and we must do our best to piece together such fragments of historical knowledge that we can find into a sequence which will indicate how its population developed and thrived. The first historical reference to any place in the region occurs in a list of itineraries from China to the Persian Gulf collected 11 Tang Kuo Shih Pu, by Li Chan. 12 義淨,大唐西行求法高僧傳 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 171 the Portuguese suddenly arrived and increased in an unexpected way the problem of the Chinese authorities in coping with local disorders and foreign traders. The first mention of their arrival is in Portuguese in the history of the Navigators by Barros, a contemporary, who states that in 1514 Jorge Alvares reached a place called Tamao in China and put up a monument to commemorate his discovery on which he engraved the arms of Portugal. His son, who had died on the voyage, was buried in the same place at the foot of the mountain. Tamao is undoubtedly T'un Mun but some difficulty in placing the exact locality is found owing to the frequent references by Portuguese historians to an island. For instance, one contemporary states: "The island is three leagues from the coast and the Chinese call it Tamao while we call it the Ilha de Veniaga (Island of Trade, the last word being Portuguese pidgin from Malacca). From this place none may proceed to any of the places near the coast without the permission of the Council at Canton, which is a city 18 leagues away. Even when going there the ships do not enter but stay at the outskirts and there carry on trade." The Portuguese received a good welcome and were impressed with the extraordinary riches of China and with the possibilities of trade. Other voyages were made and the results reported to Alburquerque who was then at Malacca. Three years later an expedition commanded by Fernando d'Andrade arrived at T'un Mun with instructions to go to Canton and open negotiations for a trading treaty with China. Fernando d'Andrade very nearly succeeded in his work. He did not return the shots which were fired at his ships by a Chinese fleet, but succeeded in obtaining the permission of the official at Nam T'au they called Pio (whose full title was "Pei Wo Tu Chih Hui” or local officer for defence against Japanese pirates) to sail as far as Canton and after a whole year of investigation and exploration his expedition returned safely to Malacca where they made a report. The next year, 1519, Simon Andrade, brother of Fernando, was sent to carry on the negotiations but as soon as he arrived at T'un Mun he began to terrorise the whole neighbourhood. In justice to the Portuguese it must be remembered that they were continually being attacked by the Tanka and other pirates. 27 Castanheda quoted in Tien Hsia, May 1939, by J. M. Braga. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH 177 "At first the people thought they would soon return and tried to stay together, but when they saw that there was no hope they began to separate. Sons were sold for a bushel of rice, daughters for a hundred cash. Speculators were able to buy people into slavery for practically nothing. Those who were young and strong were made to join the army. The authorities looked on the people as so many ants." The evacuation had in fact led to more disorder on the coast than there had ever been before. In 1663, for instance, the Tanka fishermen who were prevented from earning a living revolted all over the Canton estuary and at one time attacked Canton itself. They were defeated in this neighbourhood and retired to Mirs Bay, where they menaced the town of Tai P'ang. At the same time, a revolt was organised near Sha T'in in our region, which spread as far as Kun Fu Cheung or Kowloon City. It is obvious that these disorders must have prevented the troops from building adequate fortifications. In spite of this, however, the evacuation lasted from 1662 to 1669. During this time, enormous numbers perished, and others were forced to go far inland to obtain food. The Topography states that only 2,172 males were allowed to remain (presumably as soldiers), and no women or children during the whole of this period. These figures include the whole of San On district, and they are perhaps exaggerated and give too ideal a picture of the effectiveness of the evacuation, such as local officials would have felt themselves bound to present, and it seems most probable that more of the population may have remained. I have heard from a source that cannot be checked that the area west of the Tai Lam Ch'ung valley was not affected. This would include most of the fertile land held by the Tang family, and it would be natural that this part of our region, which is nearer to the Canton estuary than any other, would have been less suspected than the islands and wilder parts of the mainland of helping the Ming cause. These places, except in so far as they harboured rebels, may have been entirely emptied. This fact, if it is a true one, will explain why so many Punti villages in that area were abandoned and later colonised by Hakka. The attached map (see T'ien Hsia Vol. XI, No. 4)* shows *Plate 16 here. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 WINDOYC WŰNDOW? CLOTH OVER BEAM ONE O --OPEN PLATFORMI YERANDA FIG. 2. New Shed (from a rough sketch). Scale: " to 1' (for this figure only). (Redrawings by courtesy of the Curator, City Museum, Hong Kong) ================================================================================ 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 205 The stated goals of these projects are "to determine the nature and extent of religious practices in Hong Kong" and to “understand the meaning of these practices for the people." A third, unstated, purpose is obviously to communicate this knowledge both to interested laymen and to specialists in sociology and religion. The actual research was conducted, and the book written, by three social scientists, but they endeavor to make the book meaningful to those without sociological training as well. The population studied was a group of Hakka villagers from Plover Cove, who were removed by the government from a rural setting several years ago to make way for the construction of a reservoir, and resettled in the market town of Tai Po.2 Their way of life has changed drastically, and it is the general aim of the study to discover how the move from a rural to an urban environment has affected their religious practices. Unfortunately, the authors never explain why this particular population was chosen for study (except that Dr. Berkowitz and others were already conducting a larger research project there), nor do they attempt to relate the experience of the Plover Cove people to that of the general population of Hong Kong, which is also experiencing rapid urbanization. The Plover Cove situation is a highly unusual one in the context of Hong Kong. While most of Hong Kong's population is urban, or rapidly becoming so, the people have for the most part experienced these changes as individuals or families who have migrated to the city, not as whole villages suddenly removed. In order for this study to have been more generally useful in increasing our understanding of the impact of urbanization upon religious practices in Hong Kong, the authors might have explained the theoretical value of studying the Plover Cove situation and attempted to briefly compare the experience of those people with the experiences of other segments of Hong Kong's population. The book is introduced by a chapter on the theoretical background of the study. This is followed by a brief history of the six villages and a very interesting description and comparison of the villagers' rural environment and the urban environment into which they were removed (one hopes that more research will be published in the future on such topics as the effects of the physical layout of the new apartment buildings in Tai Po on the villagers' ================================================================================ 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 211 to a local princess. Fifteen years later he hears that his mother and several members of his family are guarding the Chinese border very close to where he is. When the play starts, he is longing to see his own people again, and his wife, the princess, makes him admit the reason for his sadness to her and also his identity. She agrees to help him to get out of the barbarian camp on condition that he comes back the next day. The most dramatic moment of the play is the brief encounter between Ssu Lang and his mother and his first Chinese wife. However, he keeps his word and returns. The second play is a farce. The philosopher Chuang Tzu tests his wife. He pretends to be dead and reappears under the form of a young handsome scholar. He seduces his wife and even persuades her to break open the coffin in which her husband lies to remove his heart to make a medicine for him. However, when the wife opens the coffin, the philosopher reappears and confounds her. She commits suicide from shame. Besides the translations, the book also includes a general introduction to Chinese opera, some photographs of scenes from the two plays, detailed explanations of extracts from Ssu Lang visits his mother (the latter have been recorded on tape and are available from the publisher), a glossary of Chinese theatre terms and an index. By choosing these two plays, the author has presented nearly all the different kinds of Chinese opera characters (only the painted faces are not represented). Both plays are very well known and often played; for example here in Hong Kong, by the Chun Chau Peking Opera School in Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park. Ssu Lang visits his mother was, moreover, played two months ago in the City Hall by a group of amateurs; and famous airs from this opera are as well known to the Chinese as are the famous airs of Verdi to Italians. The background explanation is an excellent summing-up of what must be known in order to enjoy a Chinese opera; and if one wants to know more, one can read the Chinese Classical Theatre by the same author. This earlier book speaks in generalities, but here A. C. Scott gives two precise examples and shows how the principles of Chinese operas work in a given play. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 232 TURNER, Sir Michael* UHALLEY, Dr. S., Jr. VALE, Miss M. VARNEY, Dr. C. B. VETCH, H. VETCH, Mrs. H. VIO, Dr. E. G. - VISICK, Mrs. M. VOSS, Dr. A. · WALDEN, J. C. C. ► WARD, Miss J. E. A.* WARRINGTON-STRONG, Cmdr. F. WATERS. D. D. WATSON, James L. WATSON, K. A. WATT, James C. Y. + WEBB-JOHNSON, S. A. - WEBSTER, J. L, H. WEI, Dr. Tat WEINREBE, H. M. WELCH, Holmes, H.* WHITE, Robert N. - WHITELEGGE, D. S.* WILLIAMS, A. T. - WILLIAMS, B. V. WILLIAMS, P. B. + ■ + + - + + "Whispers", Riversdale, Bourne End, Bucks, England. c/o Dept. of History, Duke University, Durham, N. Carolina, U.S.A. 1-B, 126 Pokfulum Road, H.K. c/o Dept. of Geography, United College, C.U.H.K., 9A, Bonham Road, H.K. Belmont Court 10A, 10 Kotewall Road, H.K. As above. 315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Dept. of English, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 27, Babington Path, H.K. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. c/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, North Devon, England. c/o Registration of Persons Office, Causeway Bay Magistracy Building, 4th Floor, H.K. c/o Technical College, Hunghom, Kowloon. P.O. Box No. 8, San Tin Village Post Office, N.T. c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. c/o City Museum & Art Gallery, City Hall, H.K. H.K. Chinese Liaison Office, Abbey House, Victoria, London, S.W.1, England. c/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. 3, Fontana Gardens, 5th Floor, Causeway Hill, H.K. c/o Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805, The Bank of Canton Building, H.K. 4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., U.S.A. 12 Pokfield Road, 1st floor, H.K. 58 Mt. Nicholson Gap, H.K. Geography & Geology Dept., University of Hong Kong, H.K. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 10, The Albany, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g TEXT OF A LETTER SENT TO THE HON. THE COLONIAL SECRETARY ON THE SUBJECT OF A NEW CITY MUSEUM FOR HONG KONG. 24th May, 1971. Dear Sir, A NEW CITY MUSEUM At a meeting of the Council of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society held earlier this year, the question was raised as to whether we, as the executive committee of a Hong Kong learned society, could, with advantage to all concerned, formulate our views on the above-mentioned subject which is exercising the minds of many residents of this Colony at the present moment. The members of the committee were unanimously of the opinion that we should do this, firstly because the main purpose in founding our Society as long ago as 1847 was to foster the preservation, and to encourage the study, of all matters concerning the history of this part of Asia; and secondly and more specifically because in the inaugural address of our first President, Governor Sir John Davis, he urged the adoption by the young Society of two practical aims in addition to the lecture and discussion programmes usually adopted by learned societies. His suggested aims were the establishment in Hong Kong (a) of Botanic Gardens, and (b) of a City Museum. A brief statement concerning what was accomplished towards achieving these aims about a century and a quarter ago was recently made by Dr. J. R. Jones, the past President of this Branch of the Society, in his letter published in the South China Morning Post on Friday, 18th December, 1970, under the title of "Sir John Davis, and Hong Kong's First Museum". After some discussion which was purposely confined to generalities, and did not extend to the consideration of details, it was unanimously decided that we should support the proposal that the present museum should be re-organized and that the opportunity should then be taken of re-housing it in a new and specially designed building situated on a site chosen for its suitability and adaptability rather than for reasons of expediency. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO 29 Ningpo, for a long time had been a difficult city to administer, but the Taiping occupation seems in retrospect to have been an exceptional period. To better appreciate this it is worth considering Ningpo in a somewhat broader perspective. For example, a year and a half before the Taipings took the city, a Jardine Matheson Company agent reported that the Ch'ing officials were unable to control the pirate-infested countryside.41 Three months after the Taipings left Ningpo, the Jardine agent gloomily reported that trade was bad and would remain so until "a stop was put to the squeezing on the part of the Imperial Authorities."42 Six months after the departure of the Taipings, the agent revealed that Ningpo was in the throes of civil chaos. The unpopular tao-t'ai had been forced into hiding following a dispute with men from Frederick Townsend Ward's so-called Ever Victorious Army. The situation was resolved by Captain Dew who actually had to reoccupy the city. Dew and Harvey ignominiously had to search long and hard to find the affrighted Ch'ing official.43 Small wonder then, that the Jardine agent's report of January 1863, speaks of how the country people of Ningpo are now fondly recalling that the Taipings had always paid for what they took.44 Judgment on the victorious expulsion of the Taipings from Ningpo has been varied. Consul Harvey congratulated himself: For my part, let me state that it will be a source of great satisfaction and I may add, of pride, in after time to think that I have been placed in a position to use my feeble pen, and to have exercised my humble powers (always within the limits of my official duties) in weakening and undermining, as perseveringly and indefatigably as I have been able, the most gigantic imposture and the most blasphemous structure that ever disgraced ancient or modern pages.45 Foreign Secretary Russell, from London, also congratulated Harvey for the "judgment, courage, and temper, which he displayed on all occasions...."46 Another influential writer on these events termed Dew's accomplishment "a brilliant feat of arms."47 But the Hong Kong Daily Press, for one, expressed the view of many contemporaries: "There never was a falser, more unprovoked, or more unjustifiable act than the taking of Ningpo by the allies from the Taipings. It should, in fairness, be recorded to the eternal disgrace of Captain Roderick Dew, of HMS En- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g ADV : 32 STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. 23 Inclosure 7 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 46. 24 Inclosure 8 in No. 32, Ibid., pp. 46-47. 25 Inclosure 12 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 49. 26 Inclosure 13 in No. 32, Ibid. 27 Harvey to Hammond, No. 27, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, Inclosure 2, Ibid., p. 38. 28 Dew to Hope, Ningpo, May 7, 1862, No. 32, Inclosure 15, Ibid., p. 50. 29 Inclosure 16 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 51. 30 Harvey to Hammond, No. 27, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, Inclosure 1, Harvey to Bruce, Ningpo, May 9, 1862, Ibid., p. 36. 31 Dew, "Proceedings of Encounter at Ningpo detailing the events which led to the capture of that city on May 10th, 1862,” Gordon Papers, Vol. VII, British Museum 52392, p. 22. Intriguingly, there is in this handwritten account a following sentence which says that Hope replied to Dew asking the latter to keep the peace until he could get there with sufficient force. This sentence was crossed out in the manuscript. 32 Inclosure 17 in No. 32, "Further Papers relating to..." p. 51. 33 Inclosure 19 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 52. 34 Hsiang Ta, et al, eds., T'ai-ping Tien-kuo, Chinese Modern History Collection, Shanghai, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 602. 35 Inclosure 1 in No. 27, "Further Papers relating to....,” pp. 36-37. 36 T'ai-ping T'ien-Kuo, Vol. 6, p. 604. 37 Admiralty to Hammond, July 14, 1862, Inclosure 2, Dew to Hope, Ningpo, May 10, 1862, Ibid., p. 30. 38 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, May 15, 1862, No. 592, Local Correspondence Section, Ningpo (1858-62), B2/132, Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library, 39 Cited in A. F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution, London, 1866, II, 536. 40 Jen Yu-wen, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-Kuo tien-chih t'ung-kao, II, Hong Kong, 1957, p. 1059. 41 Captain D. Patridge to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong) via Shanghai, Ningpo, July 28, 1860, Local Correspondence Section, Ningpo (1858-62) B2/132, JMA, 42 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, August 1, 1862, No. 602, Ibid. 43 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, November 5, 1862, No. 613, Ibid. 44 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, January 20, 1863, No. 622, Ibid. 45 Inclosure 3, Harvey to Bruce, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, in No. 27, p. 39. 46 Russell to Bruce, No. 28, July 22, 1862, "Further Papers relating to..." 47 Alexander Mitchie, The Englishman in China, I, Edinburgh & London, 1900, p. 380. 48 Cited in Lindley, II, 538 49 Ibid., 537. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 56 HONG KONG EDITOR miles away round yon corner to the South! I ran down there for a day, to recruit, last week, and there, one walks by permission of these Celestial exclusives ashore, viz. on an island, called (I don't exactly know why) - Dane's Island. It is about 3 miles in circumference, and has a triple-peaked hill on it about as high as Arthur's Seat in Edin[burgh] which I mounted; and you can understand the titillating pleasure I derived from discovering a resemblance the most remarkable between the view from this hill and that from Ehrenbreitstein on the Rhine! The absence of a fine City and bridge was all (quite enough, you will say!) and was compensated by a river-reach (in like situation, i.e. immediately below you) occupied for the length of two miles with full 50 gallant Ships of 1500 tons and downwards. The rest of the view the character of the country -- the distribution[?] of the water the mountainous horizon-bore a great resemblance to that on the Rhine + persons Society here is at the very lowest intellectual ebb-and is thus unencumbered by that pretension and affectation which the half-educated and half-literary disgust you with..... whether they infest the walks of literature, science, art, or anything else. We are so far, therefore, much to be envied. I discover however ominous indications in certain editorial labours of certain here who actually arrange the types for two weekly newspapers imagine if you can, what a Canton Newspaper ought to be! Apart though from what seems, and of course is, mere banter in this - we are as a community perhaps the least enlightened, the least informed, and the most vain, and the most unamiable in our intercourse together, that ever existed of its size. An American missionary who conducts our "Monthly Repository” excellently well-is a marked but almost solitary exception. The rest of us, unless there be some "singular few" who like myself think of all this in secret and are unknown, are to a Man engrossed in business — Oh most dreadfully engrossed — it beats every bondage of lucre I ever beheld; mammon rules not only in the office, but at the dinner-table, and no doubt over the sleepers' dreams; not a moment of life spared to one hearty thought of any other topic that might interest liberal Englishmen and, more shocking than all, not a moment of the 24 hours (I desire not to speak uncharitably and therefore only deplore what I fear to be generally not untrue) given to the consideration ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN CITIES AND THE KAIFONGS IN HONG KONG ALINE K. WONG* VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS IN OVERSEAS CHINESE COMMUNITIES There are many kinds of voluntary organizations among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, such as chambers of commerce, clan associations, district and dialect associations, trade unions, religious societies, secret societies, political clubs and recreational clubs. However, in terms of contribution to the public life of the Chinese communities, three types of organizations, viz., the chambers of commerce, the district and dialect associations are more important than the rest. District and dialect groups are always closely connected; it is difficult to speak of one apart from the other. And in some cases, the chambers of commerce are in fact federations of local district associations. Well-known literature on the Chinese voluntary associations in this part of the world includes such works by William Skinner1 and Richard Coughlin on Thailand, Maurice Freedman3 on Singapore, Victor Purcell on Malaya, Ju-k’ang T’ien5 on Sarawak, Donald Willmott on Semarang and Lea Williams on Indonesia. Examining this wealth of literature, one finds that the chambers of commerce, the district and dialect associations serve three main kinds of functions; namely, economic, social and political. While the chambers of commerce are manifestly merchants’ * Mrs. Wong is head of the Department of Sociology at United College, Chinese University of Hong Kong. This paper was contributed to a conference on "The City as a Centre of Change in Asia" organised by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong in June, 1969. 1 Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca, 1958. 2 Double Identity. The Chinese in Modern Thailand, Hong Kong, 1960. 3 Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, London, 1957. 4 The Chinese in Malaya, London, 1948; The Chinese in Southeast Asia, London, 1965. 5 The Chinese of Sarawak, London, 1953. 6 Chinese of Semarang, Ithaca, 1960. 7 Overseas Chinese Nationalism, Glencoe, 1960; The Future of the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, 1966. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 66 ALINE K. WONG Kong stands apart from the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, or elsewhere, in the United States, England, or New Zealand. The reasons are these: 1. Unlike the Chinese communities in Asia or elsewhere in the world, the Chinese in Hong Kong are not a minority people in the numerical sense. On the contrary, the Chinese make up 99% of the local population. 2. The Nationalist and the Communist governments in China have never regarded the residents of Hong Kong (and Macau) as "overseas Chinese" in the same way as they look at the Chinese in other parts of the world. Residents in Hong Kong are considered by both governments as Chinese citizens per se, and not as people with dual nationality, as were so many Chinese in Southeast Asia before the Communist government took a firmer stand on the question of nationality status, beginning in 1954. 3. The dominant culture in Hong Kong is the Chinese culture. If it is true that many overseas Chinese in other parts of the world still consider themselves as "Chinese" irrespective of their actual nationality, it is more true of the beliefs and attitudes of the Hong Kong Chinese. The organization and cultural content of their social life is unmistakably Chinese, although Hong Kong seems to be very westernized in certain aspects, such as in the styles of dress, food habits and recreational life. 4. A large number of people in the Colony are political refugees from China. According to the 1955 United Nations Report on the Problem of Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, at least 385,000 people could be considered as political refugees at the time.11 As such, these people demand a special kind of status and require some special policy treatment. The problem of the refugees is not just a problem of cultural assimilation, but is one calling for political solutions. For the above reasons, I do not think that Hong Kong should be considered as one of the "overseas" Chinese communities. It is a city with a unique society of its own in which social life bears an unmistakable Chinese stamp. It is within this context 11 E. Hambro, The Problem of Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong. Report submitted to the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, 1955, p. 125. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS AND KAIFONGS 71 they really lack the funds to employ professionally qualified staff. Therefore, many Kaifongs ran into financial problems soon after their establishment. Their activities are therefore not only conducted on a charitable basis. Some have organized recreational and educational classes, charging participation fees for them, and others run large-scale fee-paying schools. On the other hand, the work of the Kaifongs is very much under the influence of Government policy, although theoretically the Kaifongs are independent associations. In the 1950s the Hong Kong Government was relying a great deal on the voluntary organizations for providing social welfare, because the Government itself had limited financial resources during the post-war years. However, when a Social Welfare Department was established in 1958, it seemed that the Government was ready to extend its own hand over many branches of welfare work. A special section for Community Organization was formed within the new Department, the specific purpose of which was to organize and assist residents in community development projects. Thus, again with Government encouragement, the Kaifongs began to change their emphasis to community organization in the early 1960s. Both the Government and the Kaifongs' attention was caught by the so-called youth problem, considered to have reached threatening proportions after the 1966 Riots. Earlier the 1961 Census had shown that 50% of Hong Kong's population was below 21 years of age and that 40% were under 15 years of age. The youth programme has thus claimed a good deal of both the Government's and the Kaifongs' effort in the present decade. In addition, the Kaifongs have increasingly made representations to the Government. Such representations cover mainly social and economic policies, particularly those concerning local Kaifong districts, such as involving urban renewal, public health and sanitation, and business control. Although the Kaifongs have always claimed to be representatives of public opinion, before the 1960s the Kaifongs mainly transmitted Government policies to the general public. They also helped the Government departments in organizing community drives such as Road Safety, Keep Your City Clean campaigns, Anti-epidemic campaigns etc. But they had seldom exerted any pressure over Government decision-making. But since the mid-60s, particularly since the 1966 and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 96 CARL T. SMITH Wong Shing, newspaper editor and manager of the London Mission press; and Cheung Achew, a wealthy carpenter.29 The Rev. Ho Fuk Tong and his family lived at the nearby compound of the London Mission Society. In time this area around Peel, Graham, Gage Streets and Hollywood Road became a centre for Parsee and Indian merchants, as well as European brothels. Some of the old families stayed on, but the opening up of the area bounded by Wyndham, Wellington and Pottinger Streets by the Dents provided a needed location for the houses of the better Chinese. After the Peak was developed in the 1870s and 1880s, the wealthy Chinese moved up to Mid-levels occupying the mansions of the Europeans who moved to the Peak. Of the individuals who had their family residence in the former Middle Bazaar area were two who were on the organizing committee of Tung Wah Hospital, Wong Shing and Ho Asek alias Ho Fai Yin #alias Ho In Kee. Ho Asek first appears in Hong Kong records in 1849 when he purchased a lot in Tai Ping Shan. At the time he was compradore of the opium firm of Lyall, Still and Company. It failed in 1867 and Ho Asek embarked upon his own business ventures under the firm name of Kin Nam. According to a newspaper account, he was subject to a $2,000 “squeeze” from the mandarins during the second Sino-British War.30 He traded extensively in opium as well as rice, and in 1871 held the gambling monopoly from which within a year he realized a $28,000 profit. In an action brought against him in 1871, he testified that he operated with a capital of $200,000.31 In 1868 two of his employees were brought before the court on a charge of extortion. In the evidence presented it was stated that about September 1866, some influential Chinese started a system of subscription or unofficial taxation to support district watchmen. The city had been divided into two sections, East and West. The West District was superintended by Tam Achoy and Ho Asek, "a most respectable and honest trader”. A shopkeeper resisted the pressure put upon him to contribute and brought the charge of extortion against two of Asek's employees who had been collecting for the scheme. The court gave judgment in favour of the defendants.32 Ho Asek was still a member of the Kai Fong Committee in 1872. He died in Pang Po (likely Ping Po+), Shun Tak District in 1877. His wife was granted letters of administration on his estate, but she being blind, gave her power ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g A # THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE 117 quarrymen a lawless and potentially dangerous class of people. But Chinese on Hong Kong Island, like their fellow countrymen in Hsin-an hsien (a county which then comprised the future British Kowloon Peninsula and New Territories) formed a socially well-organised community, knit together by ties of family and kinship and involved, apart from the boat people, in wider forms of social organisation such as the clan and the lineage3. They were constrained by the type of in-built social controls found typically in any rural Chinese community. On the other hand, immigrant Chinese arriving after 1842, who came mostly from Canton and the delta counties, formed a purely urban population, lacking roots and sentiments of belonging: they had necessarily few attachments at first to their new area of residence. Congregated in the mushrooming city of Victoria and soon outnumbering the old, established Chinese population of the island, they were not subject to any in-built system of social control. The new population of urban Chinese from Kwangtung Province, like newly arrived Europeans, were faced with the problem of maintaining public order and protecting their families and properties. The better-off Chinese merchants and traders were soon compelled to employ their own guards and some householders and shopkeepers engaged their own street watchmen, either paid for by the individual householder or collectively by subscription. By the 1850s Hong Kong Chinese had developed not only their own associations, such as Kaifong, but even a rudimentary system of self-government, if the evidence is to be believed. A note in the China Review claims, for example, that in 1851 the shopkeepers of Sheung Wan (i.e., the area of the Chinese 'Bazaar', west of the European central district) 'repaired the Man-mo Temple, elected a Committee, and therein afterwards decided all cases of any public interest5'. The same writer also claims that in 1857 'the U-lan-shing-ui (a sworn mutual aid association) united Tai-ping-shan, Sai-ying-pun, Sheung-wan and Chung-wan under one public committee, and these four districts were called the Sz-wan or four circuits'. Eitel states (but cites no authority) that around 1851 the Committee of the Man Mo Temple 'now rose into eminence as a sort of unrecognised and unofficial local-government board (principally made up by Nampak-hong or export merchants). This Committee secretly controlled native affairs, acted as commercial arbitrators, arranged for the due ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g A BRIEF REPORT ON SUNG-TYPE POTTERY FINDS IN HONG KONG J. C. Y. WATT* THE SITES Over the past thirty years various pottery finds attributed to the Sung period have been made in many parts of Hong Kong. For the purpose of this paper, two representative sites will be described and the finds discussed. The sites are: the area of Kowloon City near the present Kai Tak Airport, and Nim Shu Wan on the eastern coast of Lantau Island, the largest of the islands of Hong Kong. Kowloon City, formerly called Kuan-fu Chai, was the administrative centre of the salt-pans on the north coast of Kowloon Bay. These salt-pans were one of the chief official centres of production of salt in south China during the Southern Sung period2. The existence of the Kuan-fu salt-pans, which we know from historical records, is confirmed by an inscription written by one of the salt-officers, Yen I-chang, in 1274 and carved on a rock which still stands today. The rock is situated behind a Tien-hou temple in Joss House Bay. Kuan-fu Chai was also one of the stopping places of the fleeing court of the last princes of the Sung dynasty3. It is not surprising that a site with so much connection with Sung history should yield archaeological finds of the Sung period. The first group of finds made in this area, which are still partially available for inspection and have a fair claim to be Sung, were unearthed intermittently from a small hill which used to be known as the Sacred Hill. This hill, on which stood the Sung Wang T'ai, the Sung Princes' Rock, was levelled during the Japanese occupation in the Second World War when the airfield was extended. When the hill was demolished a large quantity of pottery was unearthed, which consisted of celadons, green glazed *Mr. Watt is Assistant Curator, City Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong. His note "A Pair of Pottery Covered Jars found at Shek Pik, Lantau Island" appeared in Vol. 9 (1969) of this Journal, pp. 161-163. This article is based on a paper presented by the author at the Manila Trade Pottery Seminar held in March, 1968. Plates 1-10 illustrate this article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 144 J. C. Y. WATT quality of the glazes and bodies of the Nim Shu Wan finds than those of Kowloon City. However, Lung-ch'uan type celadons and soft white wares are so far not found in Nim Shu Wan. THE MAIN TYPES OF FINDS Finds from Kowloon City Area (a) Lung-Ch'uan type celadons. These are usually white coloured porcelains with transparent green glazes. Their shapes and potting characteristics would place them in the group of celadons which have so far been attributed to the Southern Sung. One of the diagnostic points may perhaps be mentioned. The dishes and "incense burners" usually have a wide horizontal rim which is slightly concave on the upper surface so as to form a trough to retain the glaze. (see diagram in article referred to in note!). The corners of the rims thus appear paler under the glaze than the centre part of the flat surface of the rim. This is connected with the technique called “Ch'u Chin” (a term equivalent to “raised rib") by the investigators of the Lung-ch'uan kilns in 1956-61. The walls are usually decorated with raised designs under the glaze so that the designs stand out paler than the rest of the wall. A curious class of pottery may be described in connection with the Lung-ch'uan celadons. This consists of a group of green glazed bowls with moulded lotus petals on the outside in the style of the Lung-ch'uan celadons, but the glaze is non-transparent and the body is quite porous and brick red in colour. (See plate 2). Similar pieces have recently appeared on the Hong Kong market and are supposed to have come from Indonesia. (b) Black Glazed Wares. These are tea-bowls of the well-known "temmoku" shape, i.e. fairly straight sides with an in-turning rim. (Plate 3). Recent investigations in Fukien have revealed a number of kilns all producing these stoneware bowls with a reddish body and a thick black "slip glaze". Some Fukien kilns, such as the one in Fu-ch'ing Hsien combine the production of temmoku-type wares with green glazed wares very similar to those discovered in Nim Shu Wan in Hong Kong. Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g SUNG-TYPE POTTERY FINDS IN HONG KONG 145 Kong described in the next section. Others, such as the Mao-tien kilns in Kuang-tze, produced in addition to these two types a variety of Ying Ching (a light blue glaze on a white body), but it is difficult to make any comparison between the Fukien ying-chings and the ones found in Hong Kong. Incidentally, the author of the report on the Kuang-tze kilns also mentioned that he discovered another kiln in this area which produced only white wares and blue-and-whites, but he summarily dismissed this kiln as being of a later date than the Mao-tien kilns—presumably on the assumption that white wares and blue-and-whites are generally later than black wares and green wares. (c) White Wares. These are very similar to the class of pottery described as soft "creamish white wares" in the Philippines and come in the same "limited variety of shapes". These are also extremely similar to the finds made at the Te-hua kilns in 19569 and in 196310 and which have been attributed to the Sung period. (See Plate 4). (d) Ying-ching Type Wares. These include a high-fired and very resonant porcellaneous ware with pale bluish glaze (Plate 5) and another type which is intermediate between the high-fired resonant ware and the white wares mentioned under (c). The latter type has the porous and uneven body of the white wares but is more high-fired. The shapes and glaze of this type are closely related to those of the Ying-ching ware of Kiangsi (Plate 6). The Ying-ching type wares, as a whole, come next to the Lung-ch'uan type wares in abundance in the Kowloon City finds. (e) Greenish Glazed Wares. These include a great variety of stonewares and porcellaneous wares which are similar to the Nim Shu Wan finds. II. Finds from Nim Shu Wan, As mentioned earlier, the finds from Nim Shu Wan include some glazed earthenware jars of the types which are commonly found in the area of the Pearl delta. The present evidence ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g Plate 10. Green glazed stoneware bowl with incised formalised "petals" on the outside (and a "square stamp" in the centre of the inside), from Kowloon City, Diam, 11 cm. Plates 1-10 by courtesy of the Curator, City Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g SUNG-TYPE POTTERY FINDS IN HONG KONG 149 among the sites, will at least be an important step towards an understanding of the overall pattern of early cultural and trade relations between China and South-east Asia over a period of several centuries. This comparative study will, of course, become more meaningful still when the pottery traditions of South China are better known, NOTES 1 A report of the finds at Shek Pik by Hayes and Watt appeared in the Journal of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, Vol. I, 1968, pp. 19-23. 2 Jao Tsung-i: Kowloon in Historical Records of Sung Period, Hong Kong 1959. 3 Lo Hsiang-lin: Hong Kong and Its External Communications before 1842, Chapter on “Last of the Sungs", Hong Kong 1963. 4 According to the survey sheets and land ownership schedules kept in the District Office, Islands, New Territories Administration. 5 WW 1963.1, pp. 27-35. 6 WWTKTL 1958.2, pp. 34-37 and WW 1959.6, pp. 62-71. 7 WWTKTL 1958.2, p. 37. 8 L. and C. Locsin: Oriental Ceramics discovered in the Philippines, Tuttle, 1968. 9 Ku-Kung Po-wu-yuan Yuan-k'an, No. 2, 1960, pp. 121-123. 10 WW 1965.2, pp. 26-31. 11 UKK 1965.6, pp. 287-288. 12 Kuang-chou Hsi-ts'un Ka-yao I-tzu, 1958.9, Wen Wu Press. 13 See, for example, Plate V, KKTH 1956.4. Also Plate XVI (2) in J. C. Y. Watt: A Han Tomb in Lei Cheng Uk, Hong Kong, City Museum Handbook, 1970. 14 WWTKTL 1955.10. 15 See notes on pp. 161-3 JHKBRAS Vol. 9, 1969. 16 KK 1962.8 pp. 414-415 and KK 1964.4 pp. 196-199. WWTKTL = Wen-wu-ts'an-k'ao-tzu-liao WW = Wen-wu KKTH = K'ao-ku-t'ung-hsün KK = K'ao-ku Chinese Names and Terms Nim Shu Wan 稔樹灣 Kai Tak 啟德 Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g HISTORY OF MILITARY VOLUNTEERS IN H.K. 157 statue now in Victoria Park at Causeway Bay which, up to 1941, stood in Statue Square, beside the Hong Kong Club in the centre of the city. Continuing with our survey, the period from 1893 up to the outbreak of war with Germany in 1914 was one of great activity for the Hong Kong Volunteers. It was one in which a great many important persons in the local community joined the Corps and when, reading between the lines, it was not only the 'done thing' to join the Volunteers but might be remarked upon if one did not. Pressure came from the Governor himself. When the Volunteer Reserve Ordinance of 1910 was in passage, Sir Frederick Lugard ended his statement by saying "I think that every young Englishman in this Colony ought to join the Volunteers, and every Englishman who is no longer young ought to join the force which I hope will at once be enrolled when this bill has been read a third time."14 The Volunteer Corps' annual inspection reports for the period are available in Hong Kong. They were printed for tabling at Legislative Council, itself an indication of an important activity. They make interesting reading and show the vitality of the Corps and its impact on Hong Kong European polite society and on the Establishment.15 As stated, the Governors of the time took a keen interest in the Corps and it was Sir Mathew Nathan himself (Governor 1902-07 and formerly an officer of the Royal Engineers) who is credited with inspiring the formation in 1906 of the Mounted Troop—known irreverently as "Mathew's Mounted Mugs"16—and the institution of the Volunteer Reserve Association which was eventually embodied by Ordinance in 1910. Another, more temporary, inspiration in 1899 had been the calling out of the Volunteers to assist the Regulars in repelling an expected attack on Kowloon by New Territories' villagers in arms against the British take-over, and their part in the occupation of the Kowloon Walled City later in the same year.17 Much of this resurgence in the popularity of the military—a phenomenon which is usually held to be un-British— 14 Han., 1910, p. 91. 15 See S.P., 1894-1908. 16 Vol, 1954, p. 50. was 17 See S.P., 1900, pp. 637-638, Y.B., 1940, p. 23, and Vol, 1954, p. 43. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG From a lecture by the Rev. JAMES LEGGE, D.D., LL.D., on reminiscences of a long residence in the east, delivered in the City Hall, November 5, 1872. Editor's note. The following article is reprinted from the pages of The China Review, Vol. III, (1874) pp. 163–176. Its subject, and its distinguished author, (1815-97, appointed first Professor of Chinese at Oxford, 1876) are of equal interest and require no introduction from me. [The lecturer, having stated that his main object would be to interest his hearers by a review of the progress of the Colony, almost from its commencement down to nearly the present time, and by some references to the changes which during that period have taken place in the relations of China and Japan with the Christian nations of the West, the old nations of Europe and the young nation of the United States, proceeded to say that wherever he might interject views of his own in the course of his historical survey, he claimed perfect freedom in doing so, and was ready to accord the same to others in estimating the value of his opinions. He then sketched briefly his arrival in the East in 1839, and a residence in Malacca of nearly three years and a half, which brought him to his removal to Hong Kong in 1843. From this point, he shall speak in his own person.] In the month of May, 1843, I reached Macao, and, a few days after, came over with my family to this place. Our passage was made in a small cutter, chartered for the occasion, and I have not forgotten the sensations of delight with which, when we had passed Green Island, I contemplated the ranges of hills on the north and the south, embosoming, between them the tranquil waters of the bay. I seemed to feel that I had found at last the home for which I had left Scotland; and here has been my abode, with intervals occupied by visits to the fatherland, for nearly thirty years. The hill-sides now occupied by the graceful terraces of our city then presented a very different appearance. But the small and rude beginnings would not have been what they were in the middle of 1843, if they had not dated from before the treaty of Nanking. The island had been ceded to Great Britain in January 1841, by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 175 on from them a little way was the Cemetery, still a small enclosed space, which, it had been thought, would be sufficient for the needs of the Colony. Hardly any one but myself, I suppose, ever thinks now of paying it a visit. Beyond that, hardly any buildings were met with, till we came to Spring Gardens, where two or three English firms had begun to occupy the ground on the left. Then came Hospital Hill, with diminutive buildings on it, devoted to the same purposes as the larger erections that now crown it; and Morrison Hill, where the school of the Morrison Education Society was in vigorous action, with the Hospital of the Medical Society, the foundations of which can hardly be traced now, but where I found hospitable quarters for several months. Arrived at the Happy Valley, there were to be seen only fields of rice and sweet potatoes. At the south end of it was the village of Wong-nei-ch'ung, just as at the present day, and on the heights above it were rising two or three foreign houses, with an imposing one on the east side of the valley, built by a Mr. Mercer of Jardine, Matheson and Co.'s House. All these proved homes of fever or death, and were soon abandoned. Beyond the Valley somewhere was a range of buildings, which had already become tabooed as unhealthy, and then came the offices of the great Firm, with the workmen still busy about them, and far from being what they are at the present day. If I have omitted to mention in this retrospective view of Victoria as I first saw it any of the foreign houses then existing, they can only be a very few. When I contrast the single street, imperfectly lined with hastily raised houses, and a few sporadic buildings on the barren hill-side, with the city into which they have grown, with its praya, its imposing terraces, and many magnificent residences, I think one must travel far to find another spot where human energy and skill have triumphed to such an extent over difficulties of natural position. I sometimes fancy Britannia standing on the Peak, and looking down with an emotion of pride on the great Babylon which her sons have built. Although I was charmed with the general appearance of the place, and the energy that was manifest in laying out the ground and pushing on building, I found many of the residents oppressed with gloom because of its unhealthiness. 1843 was, no doubt, a very sickly year, more so, perhaps, than any one has been since. The left wing of the 55th Regiment lost a hundred men between ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 181 freely with all the men under his command; cultivating, moreover, the confidence of them all, and seeing that distinguished fidelity and efficiency are liberally rewarded; who shall be proud of his position, and feel that his own happiness and honour are identified with his success;-give me such a superintendent and such a force, and I will undertake that in a few years crime shall be as rare as in any city at home, while the expense of the department will be very considerably reduced. — It is thought, I know, by many that my views on this subject are visionary and Utopian derived from my acquaintance with Chinese literature more than from acquaintance with the Chinese people. I will only say that during many years of my long residence here, my intercourse was quite as much with the people as with their books. Several hours of every day were spent in visiting them from house to house, and shop to shop, conversing with them on all subjects, and trying to get them to converse with me on one subject. When I went home in 1867, I could say that, excepting the brothels, there was hardly a house in Victoria and the villages in which I had not repeatedly been, and where I was not known as a friend. I am confident of this, that, keep away the calamity of another war with China, my views as to the constitution of the police force will be the prevailing views of the Colony, and acted on by its Government. Having said thus much about the police force, let me say further that I think that that department is at present, in 1872, in a better and more efficient state than it ever was. Let me give expression also to a protest against the doctrine which I have sometimes heard and read, that our laws are too lenient for the Chinese population which we try to govern by them. By all means let the treatment of crime be deterrent; but that we must institute a new code of penalties taken from Chinese or other barbarous practice is an outrageous suggestion, the birth of reckless thoughtlessness, or of minds soured from their own distemperature. But the laws of the Colony should be fully made known to the Chinese population. This is a work that yet remains to be done, the preparation of a clear, distinct, intelligible translation of most of our statutes, purchasable by the inhabitants at a small price. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 183 the Governor, and many members of the community, in what was long afterwards called, in commemoration of the affair, K'e-ying house. His visit, no doubt, had reference to the evacuation of Choosan by our troops, and the opening of Canton city, for at that time the Governor of Hongkong was also superintendent of trade in all China;—an unfortunate arrangement, which continued till provision was made for the residence of an ambassador in Peking by the treaty of Teen-tsin in June, 1858. The wily Manchoo was more than a match for Sir John Davis. Choosan was evacuated, but Canton was not opened. K'e-ying had promised that it should be opened on the 31st March, 1847, and that not being done, as well as to avenge other injuries, Sir John made his famous raid upon the city, and on the 5th April dictated a convention, stipulating among other things, that Canton should be opened: --not immediately, but in two years, on the 1st April, 1849. It was an unhappy concession; but Sir John Davis somehow wanted "the stalk of carl-hemp." Speaking after the manner of men, the refusal to open Canton was a sufficient casus belli, and I could wish that our second war with China had been fought upon it, rather than on the affair of the lorcha Arrow, nearly ten years later. The Cantonese, from the Viceroy of the Kwang provinces downwards, were encouraged in their insolent contempt for foreigners, and various outrages were perpetrated in consequence. I may mention that in 1846 a little steamer called the Corsair began to run between Hongkong and Canton, people being doubtful whether the enterprise would pay. The foundation of the Cathedral, then a church merely, was laid in January, 1847. The old Union Church had been opened in 1845. I returned to Hongkong in the summer of 1848, and found that Sir John Davis had resigned the government of the Colony, and that his successor was Sir George Bonham, whom I had known as governor of the Straits' settlements, when I was in Malacca. I remember, as he was about to proceed in the spring of 1849 to an interview with the governor of Canton at the Bogue, asking him whether he was going to insist on the opening of the city on the 1st April. He replied, "How can I? My instructions are to keep the peace, and by no means bring on another war with China." He did keep the peace,—kept it with China, and kept it among the members of the government of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 185 I hurry on to the month of October, 1856, when there occurred the affair of the lorcha Arrow at Canton, which grew out of the practice of granting sailing letters to native craft, adopted, I think in the previous year, by Sir John Bowring, and which was rendered necessary to save the holders of them from capture by the insurgent fleets in the neighbourhood of Whampoa. A more unfortunate occasion of hostilities could not have presented itself; it was almost as bad as the opium complications which brought on our former war. It was felt to be so by Sir Michael Seymour, into whose hands the management of the thing soon passed from those of the Governor, and he tried to shift the quarrel to the old question of throwing open the gates of the city. The sense of many at home was sufficiently declared by the decision of Parliament against going to war about the matter, and under any other prime minister than Lord Palmerston the adverse vote would have been final. He appealed from it, however, to the country, which supported his policy, and Lord Elgin was called to proceed to China, and square up all the accounts between it and Great Britain. Before that, however, on the morning of the 15th January, 1857, occurred the diabolical attempt to poison a large number of the inhabitants of the Colony by means of bread supplied from the bakery of A-lum. I was one of those who partook of the poison. I did so twice; early in the morning, and again at breakfast time; soon getting rid, however, of all the noxious matter through violent paroxysms of sickness. Never was such a day of excitement in the Colony; and had A-lum been caught at once, he would have been lynched beyond a doubt; but he had gone off with all his family by the early steamer to Macao. Being pursued thither, and brought back, he was subsequently brought to trial and acquitted, the guilt of the deed being thrown by him on his foreman and another man, who had made their escape. He was subsequently kept in gaol at large for some time, and there I made his acquaintance. He was a tall, imposing-looking man for a Chinese, and had been well educated. The respect and deference shown to him by all the prisoners were wonderful. On the Sundays, when I went to conduct a religious service with them, he quite took me under his patronage, had the books ready, and maintained perfect order among all who attended. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g # THE COLONY OF HONG KONG # 187 As I walked out, after the service, round the wall of the city, I had a singular and pleasing rencontre with a countryman and fellow-townsman of my own. Passing the quarters of the English troops, near the Five-storied Pagoda, a fine-looking fellow of the Engineers came panting up the hill, and addressing me, said, “Are you Mr. Legge of Hongkong?” "Yes, but I do not know that ever I saw you before." "But you have," said he, bursting into the sweet Aberdeenshire Doric; "I cam oot for the wark here, and we hadna time to land at Hongkong, or I would hae come to see ye. Dinna ye ken the sma toon o' Huntly in Aberdeenshire?" "I know Huntly well, and so, I suppose, do you. Are you from Huntly?" "Eh! aye. D'ye mind the Piries at the brig-fitt?" All I could do, I could not bring the Piries to my recollection; but this was one of them, John Pirie; and seeing that he had the Victoria Cross on his breast, I touched it, and said, "Weel, I see you hae na been disgracing oor sma toon; what did ye get this for?" "It was a sma matter, and nae worth speaking about." "But tell me what ye got it for." "Weel, ye see, I was in the Crimea in the attack on the Redan. You ken it was a failure, an' we had to retreat, and many o' oor men were i' the open exposed to the fire o' the Russians. I was wounded mysel', but nae sae sair that I couldna keep the field, and I thought I would try and bring aff some o' these men. An' I did sae, an' they thought it was a brave thing, and gied me this cross for it. But it was a sma matter; I couldna but dee't.” On returning from Canton, I started for a short visit to England by way of Calcutta. I reached that city on the day that news came down to it of the taking of Lucknow; and a few weeks after I sailed for home in the same steamer with Sir John Inglis, and many officers of the garrison of Lucknow, and many widows also whose husbands had died there. You may be sure the passage was not tedious with such companions, but I have not time to dwell on my intercourse with them, and many of the thrilling narratives about the siege which I received from their lips. In September, 1859, I was back here again, and found that Sir Hercules Robinson had arrived a little before me as our new Governor. The news also greeted me of the violation of the T'ëentsin treaty by the Chinese, and of the defeat of our fleet at ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 198 NOTES AND QUERIES ROPE-MAKING AND DYEING/ CALENDERING ON AP LEI CHAU, HONG KONG Editor's note. The following Note describes a visit to Ap Lei Chau in March, 1971 with several members of the Ap Lei Chau Kaifong, namely Messrs. Tam Wah, Tam Keng-fat and Yue Yiu-wah. We first visited the shop, Kwong Po Wah (**), at 141 Main Street where Mr. Yue's father, Yue Kou, aged 73 and born on Ap Lei Chau, was waiting for us. Pre-war, Mr. Yue had operated a dyeing manufactory whilst his elder brother, Yue Yip, had operated a rope manufactory. Mr. Yue explained to us how the glazing or calendering part of the dyeing was carried out. The only visible sign of this activity was a large cut-granite slab. (See Fig. 1).* This had been the top part of the equipment. It had been obtained from Kowloon City, where there were many dyers and had been brought by boat and then carried by four coolies to his shop. The lower part, now destroyed, consisted of a wooden block of lai chee wood and a wooden roller of the same wood. (See Fig 1). The cloth, measuring two or three (up to 30 feet) in length and 2.4 ft in breadth was wound round the roller. A man stood with a foot on each end of the granite block and, holding on to a specially made wooden frame with his hands, moved it over the roller. Mr. Yue had not learned this trade from his father but from a partner whom he had financed. They did not buy cloth to sell retail but operated whenever persons brought white cloth to them for dyeing. At that time it was customary to dye dark blue or black. This was a part-time activity, and Mr. Yue supplemented it by rearing pigs and chickens and cultivating fruit trees. His elder brother, Yue Yip, had been a rope-maker at a long level platform behind and above the shop, Kwong Po Wah. This space, known as Ta Lam Lo (T), is now occupied by squatter huts. The area was long and wide enough to provide a working space 300 feet by 15 feet. One-sixth of it had a thatch made of palm leaves (). This was to provide cover for storage of materials and completed goods. Rope-making was of two kinds: using mit lam (*) for the trawling ropes of trawlers and wong ma lam (*) in com- * On p. 197. † Ap Lei Chau with Aberdeen has always been a home base for a fishing fleet. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 214 BOOK REVIEWS into a modern system of law. No less important is the way in which this book tells us much of western attitudes towards Chinese law and of the ways in which the westerners attempted to come to terms with a system which was so unlike their own. Though we might today criticise Jamieson's comparative law approach and his defective anthropology, his book was a creature of its own time and of his own intellectual experience, and as such it must take a place on the sinologists' bookshelves. Notes 1. A. M. Kotenev, Shanghai: its Mixed Court and Council, (Shanghai: North China Daily News and Herald Ltd, 1925; now reprinted by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei, 1968). 2. But see now Hao, The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, Cambridge (Harvard U.P.), 1970. 3. pp. 124-126. Hong Kong, 1971. DAFYDD EVANS CHINNERY AND CHINA COAST PAINTINGS, Henry and Sidney Berry-Hill, 64 pages text, 144 photographs, F. W. Lewis. Publishers, Ltd., England 1970, U.S.$30.00. The writers operate a picture gallery in New York City. In 1963 they published George Chinnery 1774-1852, Artist of the China Coast, which was reviewed in this Journal, Vol. 4, 1964, pp. 128-132. In spite of severe criticism of their previous efforts, the authors, in another volume under the present title, persist in claiming that Chinese Port Scenes painted in Cantonese style were influenced by Chinnery and therefore are "Chinnery School". Even though there are numerous pictured examples in both books that Chinese Port Scenes before, during, and after Chinnery do not change and bear no resemblance to English painting, the authors plod on with their futile theory. For some 26 illustrations in the List of Plates marked "Chinnery School", substitute “Chinese artist". Obviously this book is written for the inexperienced collector. It lacks bibliography, an index, and a comprehensive table of contents. The text is largely a lyrical history of China from Macartney through the Arrow War. It positively oozes opium and frequently lacks accuracy. Page 240 Page 241 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 236 LOBO, Mrs. R. H. - LOCKING, J. R. LOFTS, Prof. B. - LOSEBY, Miss P. LOTHROP, F. B.* LUCAS, Col. E. S. S. LUK, George Ping-Chuen* LUM Miss Ada* LUPTON, G. C. M. LUTZ, Hans F. - LYNCH, Rev. P. Francis MA, Prof. Meng - MACK, A. M. MACKEITH, J. S. - MACKENZIE, J. MACLEAN, Roderick MAGEE, M. W. P. MAHLKE, W. J. MANSFIELD, Miss M. B. - Race View Mansions, Apt. 72, 46 Stubbs Road, H.K. c/o Trade Development Council, Ocean Terminal, Deck 2, Kowloon. c/o Dept. of Zoology, University of Hong Kong, HK. c/o Russ & Co., Rooms 523/5 Gloucester Building, H.K. 176 Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, U.S.A. 94, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. B-38, Po Shan Mansions, 10 Po Shan Road, H.K. 142, Boundary Street, Kowloon, c/o 54 Ravenscourt Gardens, London, W6, England. Tai Yuen Lau, Flat A, 3rd Floor, Tai Pak Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T. Maryknoll Center House, 120 San Min Road, 1st Section, Taichung City 400, Taiwan. c/o Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Hong Kong, H.K. No. 34 Wilton Crescent, London, S.W.1., England. 7 Bodga Wood Walk, York Y01 5 HN., England. c/o Davie, Boag & Co., Ltd., Jardine House, H.K. c/o The Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. c/o Operations, Cathay Pacific Airways, Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon. 19, South Bay Close, Repulse Bay, H.K. c/o Diocesan Girls' School, Jordan Road, Kowloon, MAO, Dr. Wen-chee, Philip - 326-8 Tung Ying Building, 100 Nathan Road, Kowloon. MARTINHO-MARQUES, E. J... McBAIN, E. B. McBAIN, G. P. O. Box 104, Macau, c/o Geo. McBain & Co., S.C.M.P. Building, H.K. c/o Imperial Chemical Industries (Japan) Ltd., Central P.O. Box 411, Tokyo, Japan. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g WESLEY SMITH, Peter WHITE, Robert N. - WHITELEGGE, D. S.* WILLIAMS, B. V. + WILLIAMS, P. B. WILLIAMS, R. A. WILLIAMS, W. D. F. - - - 14 Pokfield Road, 4th Floor, H.K. 12 Pokfield Road, 1st floor, H.K. 58 Mt. Nicholson Gap, H.K. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 10, The Albany, H.K. c/o Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 243 King Fung Villa, 104 Miles, Castle Peak Road, N.T. WILLIAMS, Mrs. W. D. F. As above. - WILSON, B. D. · WILSON, Miss E. M. WINKLER, E. - WONG, Kwok-fong WONG, - Mrs. Margaret Homan. WONG, Peng-cheong* WONG, Shing-tsang WONG, Miss S. WOO, Dr. Pak-foo WRIGHT, Miss B. R. WRIGHT, D. A. L. WRIGHT, Dr. L. R. WU, Hei-tak - - YAO, Miss Joyce T, Y.- YEUNG, Walter, W. T. · YOUNG, Miss P. ZIGAL, Mrs. I. + ZIMMERN, W. A. + + - · 3-C Homestead Road, The Peak, H.K. Flat 104, The Hermitage, 75 MacDonnell Road, H.K. Flat 402, 12 May Road, H.K. 92-A, Pokfulum Road, 1st floor, H.K. 39 Mody Road, 10th floor, Front, Kowloon, c/o Wong, Tan & Co., Chartered Accountants, Room 732/735, Alexandra House, H.K. 16-B, Tai Hang Road, 1st floor, H.K. G. P. O. Box 497, H.K. Room 204 China Building, H.K. Dept. of Education, University of Hong Kong, H.K. c/o Hong Kong Club, H.K. c/o Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K. c/o The Registry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. 38 Kotewall Court, Kotewall Road, 6th Floor, H.K. - · 60-B Conduit Road, Ground floor, H.K. c/o Peak School, Plunketts Road, H.K. c/o Triangle Motors Ltd., Morrison Hill Road, H.K. City Hotels (Development) Ltd., Executive Offices, 2nd Floor, Mandarin Hotel, H.K. The Hon. Secretary (P.O. Box 13864, Hong Kong) would be grateful if members would kindly inform him of any inaccuracy in the list of names and addresses. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h The other accommodation problem that required for our meetings you will remember I touched upon briefly in my report last year. The problem still exists but in a more intensified form, and there is no doubt in my own mind that Dr. Jones's oft-reiterated solution-premises of our own — is the ideal one. But the cost of that is, at the present moment and in the near foreseeable future, far beyond our financial means. But the recent proposal concerning a HONG KONG ARTS CENTRE may well be a practicable solution, and your Council has already taken steps to associate itself actively with this well worth-while proposal. In my view it will be one of the most important subjects on the agendas of Council meetings during the forthcoming year. Community Problems. It is a very controversial point as to how well advised the executive committee of an organization such as ours would be in becoming actively or even theoretically involved in general matters of community interest. There is one field however in which your Council felt no doubt about the direction in which its duty lay, and that was in the consideration of the problem of a CITY MUSEUM which was exercising the minds of many resident members of our community earlier last year. The members of your Council present at the meeting when this subject was discussed, were unanimously of the opinion that we could and should discuss the subject in council. For this decision there were two main reasons. Page 44 First, because the main purpose in founding our Society as long ago as 1847 was "to foster the preservation, and to encourage the study, of all matters concerning the history of this part of Asia; and second, and more specifically because in the inaugural address of our first President, Governor Sir John Davis, he urged the adoption by the young Society of two practical aims in addition to the lecture and discussion programmes usually adopted by learned societies. His suggested aims were the establishment in Hong Kong (a) of Botanic Gardens, and (b) of a City Museum." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h The Council therefore unanimously decided that we should emulate the example set by our first President in 1847, by affording our moral support to the modern proposals of 1971 concerning a New City Museum. It was therefore further decided that letters should be sent to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary and to the Chairman of the Select Committee of the Urban Council on Museum and Art Galleries, pledging our support to "the proposal that the present museum should be re-organized and that the opportunity should then be taken of re-housing it in a new and specially designed building situated on a site chosen for its suitability and adaptability rather than for reasons of expediency." In these letters, we were careful to point out that this expression of opinion was that of the Council and not necessarily that of the Society as a whole, but I suggest that if you see fit to accept this Report at this meeting, your incoming Council will be justified in assuming that the general line of action taken last year has your approval. If any member should wish to have further information about the achievements of the Society concerning the original aims of a century and a quarter ago, they will find a brief statement of these from the pen of Dr. J. R. Jones, the past-President of this Branch of the Society, in his letter published in the South China Morning Post on Friday, 18th December, 1970, under the title "Sir John Davis, and Hong Kong's First Museum". Thanks: It now remains for me but to put on record my thanks to the members of the Society in general for their generous support of the Society's activities during the year under review, and my hope that you will continue to afford the same measure of support to the Council you are about to elect to look after your affairs throughout the forthcoming year. In one respect, however, I must particularise, and that is to thank the British Council and its staff members who continue so willingly to render us invaluable service and assistance. 27th March, 1972. L. T. RIDE ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h Scarth3 NINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON T - 23 an excellent artist by the way (who) told me he once saw 150 people beheaded on the execution ground at Canton”.4 The Bishop of Victoria, the Rev. George Smith has almost the right initials, but neither he nor Scarth were on the Adelaide. None of the artists in the Catalogue of the Chater Collection has the initials G.A.S. Among the passengers arriving on the Adelaide, the "Friend of China" of December 2nd notes the twenty officers by name, among them Lieutenants Schomberg and Short. "The Hongkong Shipping List" of the same date, refers to Major Schomberg, R.A., and Lieut. Short. The artist of the paintings must have been subsequently sent from Hong Kong up the Pearl River to the Bogue before December 16th, to join the troops which had arrived earlier on the Imperador and Imperatrix who had been sent on to the Bogue immediately after their arrival. Indeed the Adelaide, with her troops on board, moved up the river from Hong Kong on December 2nd. The artist presumably was present at the capture of Canton on 29th December, and at any rate was in the city in February 1858. He took part in what he calls the "Jingal pic-nic" on the 20th of that month. This curious inscription (a jingal being a sort of portable Chinese field-gun hardly conducive to a picnic atmosphere) is explained further, and at some length in Col Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, Col. Fisher relates: "On the 20th February a pic-nic party went out to see a little of the country and of the people; and as we did not know what sort of reception we should meet with, we made rather a strong muster. There were nine officers and twenty-four men, with a couple of ponies to carry the luncheon. We started before seven o'clock, going out through the north-east gate of the city. + "After walking for about three hours, we rested in a very pretty spot under some fine trees, and one of the party shot a woodcock, which was hailed as a great event; and we determined to devote some little attention to so good a cause. We did not wish to return by the same road by which we had come out. The valley in which we were, we knew to be divided from the great north plain, by the White Cloud Mountains, a range familiar to our eyes from Canton. We hoped to reach that plain by some pass through the hills, and so return to Canton by way of the North Gate. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON 25 whilst our original attackers were in our rear. There was no time to be lost, so we skirted along the base of the White Cloud Mountains, for then we knew we had only one flank to watch. In case of being hard pushed, we could get up and make a stand, and the struggle might be seen from the city walls, and relief be sent to us. The fellows came out after us with their flags and their jingalls, running along at our side, and following in our rear, and banging away with really wonderfully bad luck they never could hit any one even by chance. Meanwhile we posted on as fast as we could, firing a shot every now and then, and when they came too near, sometimes making a little charge towards them, when, of course, away they scampered. But time was everything to us, and we could not afford to chase them, for as we passed each village we saw armed men turning out, and flags hoisted on the mandarin poles. One or two of the marine artillerymen got knocked up from fatigue and had to be put on the ponies; at last, after some five miles of this fun, on turning the corner of a hill, the pagodas of Canton rose before our eyes to our immense relief. Our pursuers evidently thought they had gone far enough and hauled off, and we sat down on the grass, and finished our cold chickens and beer, determined not to be done out of our pic-nic. We got in about five o'clock, after ten hours' enjoyment of rather mixed feelings. Presumably the artist was among the officers who took part in the 'picnic'. Unfortunately Col. Fisher does not name them. Continuing his account of events in Canton in the spring of 1858, Fisher states that "in the middle of May some troops moved off for the expedition to the Pei-ho under Sir Michael Seymour; a company of Engineers went on the 11th from Canton; the 59th were taken up from Hong Kong, and on the 16th of June a detachment of Marine Artillery was removed from Canton for the same purpose." Again he mentions no names, but this corresponds with the departure of the Adventure from Hong Kong for the Peiho river on 22nd June 1858, and with paintings XX, XXV and XXVI of the present collection. The gunboat in painting number XX was the Slaney, commanded by a Lieutenant Hoskens. For the remainder of 1858, it seems, the artist stayed in or around Canton. From the information deduced from the paintings, the artist was almost certainly the Major Schomberg who arrived in Hong Kong on board the Adelaide on December 1st, 1857. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 66 HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE In 1889 Lockhart had married Edith Louise Rider Hancock, second daughter of Alfred Hancock,28 a Hong Kong bill and bullion broker, and he and his wife and two children moved in 1902 to their new home, Government House, at Ma-t'ou village, now renamed Port Edward. Ma-t'ou village had been originally the port of the old walled city of Weihaiwei29 and Government House was situated on a slight eminence overlooking Ma-t'ou village and divided from it only by an orchard planted by a Kew expert; there was not a fence anywhere. Port Edward was the centre of administration and contained the Government offices and the buildings occupied, until 1906, by the officers and men of the 1st Chinese Regiment of Infantry.30 But Port Edward was always very much of a 'pocket' capital, with only a handful of resident Europeans, mostly civil servants, and a few hundred Chinese merchants, craftsmen and fishermen. Equally the European community in Weihaiwei was always sparse, consisting of a few officials, merchants, and missionaries. With two or three exceptions all the Europeans resided on the small island of Liukung, where the native population was to a great extent drawn from the south-eastern provinces of China and from Japan. Liukung was only two-and-a-quarter miles long with a maximum breadth of seven-eighths of a mile but it became the headquarters of the permanent naval establishment and the site for the naval canteen (formerly a picturesque Chinese official yamên), the United Services Club, bungalows for summer visitors, a large hotel, and the offices of a few shipping firms. The several streets of shops were occupied mostly by Cantonese and Japanese. + In 1903 there were only fourteen Europeans involved in the administration of Weihaiwei: the Civil Commissioner, the Secretary to Government, who also acted as magistrate, a financial assistant, three inspectors of police, two medical officers, one civil engineer, one foreman of works, two corporals, and two sappers of the Royal Engineers. The size of the establishment did not increase markedly over time, though an additional magistrate was procured. The Territory was divided by 1910 into two divisions, North and South. The North Division contained only nine of the twenty-six districts and was much smaller in both area and population than the South but it included the island of Liukung, where a small naval dockyard had been constructed, and Port Edward. It was under ================================================================================ 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 81 21 'Despatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong', Sessional Papers, no. 32 of 1899, p. 13. 22 Ibid., p. 36. 23 Ibid., p. 65. 24 Ibid., p. 69. 25 'Report on the New Territory during the first year of British Administration', Sessional Papers, no. 15 of 1900, p. 252. 26 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901', Sessional Papers, no. 22 of 1902, p. 4. 27 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1921. 28 Alfred Hancock and his brother Sydney were partners in the firm of A. and S. Hancock of Queen's Road, Hong Kong. In 1906 Alfred Hancock had resided for over fifty years in Amoy and Hong Kong. In the 1920s the firm had moved to Des Voeux Road and the chief partner was H. R. B. Hancock, Lockhart's brother-in-law. The firm was still active in 1940. 29 The walled city of Weihaiwei, captured by the Japanese in 1894, by the terms of the 1898 Convention was not under British jurisdiction but nominally under a Chinese sub-district deputy magistrate. The British sphere of influence extended for an area of 1,500 square miles east of the Leased Territory. 30 On the Chinese Regiment see: Captain A. A. S. Barnes, On Active Service with the Chinese Regiment, London, 1902; C. E. Bruce-Mitford, The Territory of Wei-Hai-Wei, Shanghai, 1902, pp. 22-24; R. F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, London, 1910, pp. 82-3; and Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1906. The only servicemen left in Weihaiwei after 1906 were the small body of Royal Marines of the Island Guard, 31 Johnston, op. cit., p. 82. 32 L. K. Young, British Policy in China 1895-1902, London, 1970, p. 73. 33 Johnston, op. cit., p. 80. 34 The Weihaiwei School was opened with only four pupils in 1901 by a Mr. H. J. L. Beer. In 1903 a new school house was built near Port Edward, partly with the aid of a debenture loan subscribed by British subjects in Shanghai. The new school had dormitories for forty boys. The school, which took boys between ages of 8 to 14, was mainly for the sons of British expatriates. Pupils came from places as far apart as Mukden, Canton, Kobe, and Chungking. The school closed in 1925 when it became apparent that the rendition of Weihaiwei was close at hand. Weihaiwei's fine climate contributed to the school's success with expatriate parents. 35 Johnston, op. cit., p. 96. 36 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston, K.C.M.G. (1874-1938). Johnston was educated at Edinburgh University and Oxford. He arrived in Hong Kong as an Eastern Cadet, fresh from Magdalen, on Christmas Day, 1898. In 1904, Robert Walter, Secretary to Government and Magistrate at Weihaiwei, was seconded for service as Emigration Agent at Ch'iu-wang-tao for the Transvaal Government and Johnston was appointed to take his place. In 1906 he was appointed District Officer and Magistrate and resided in the heart of the Territory. In 1919 when he took up his appointment as tutor he was Senior District Officer. In 1927 he returned to Weihaiwei as Commissioner. After the rendition of Weihaiwei in 1930 he became Professor of Chinese, University of London, and Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Studies, 1931-37. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 82 HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE It is an interesting comment on Johnston that he visited England only twice in twenty-eight years of residence in China. See Johnston's obituary in the Times of 8 March, 1938. 37 R. F. Johnston's, Twilight in the Forbidden City, London, 1934, describes his experiences as an Imperial tutor. 38 Much information on Johnston's experiences as District Officer and Magistrate are given in his book, Lion and Dragon in Northern China. 39 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1921, p. 3. 40 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1903, p. 5. From time to time the Magistrate's office issued proclamations in Chinese, notifying the people of the wishes of the Government. All the villages of the Territory were provided with large notice boards on which such proclamations were posted. The style of governing in Weihaiwei owed much to Chinese example. 41 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1904, p. 26. The statement is taken from Johnston's 'Report of the Secretary to Government for the Year 1904'. This is a most interesting report on Chinese society in Weihaiwei, 42 The China Review was founded in 1872 by N. B. Dennys. The publication terminated with vol. xxv, 1901. It was published bi-monthly. 43 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1937, pp. 391-3. 44 In his obituary notice of E. H. Parker, E. T. C. Werner wrote: "The editor's request to write this notice puts me in a rather awkward position, for I cannot but refer to the very great amount of valuable sinological work which has been done by members of the British Consular Service in China. Considering its relatively small size, the Service has produced proportionately more brilliant sinologists than any body connected with the Far East.” See Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (henceforth cited as JNCBRAS), vol. lvii, 1926, p. vi. 45 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). Educated at Oxford. Hong Kong cadet in 1899. Governor of Hong Kong 1925-30. He published, among other books, The Chinese in British Guiana, Georgetown, 1915, Cantonese Love-Songs, Oxford, 1904, and Summary of Geographical Observations taken during a Journey from Kashgar to Kowloon, 1907-8, Hong Kong, 1911. 46 Lockhart's interest in the Chinese language is recognised in the dedication to him of Mok Man-cheung's Tah Tsz Anglo-Chinese Dictionary, 2nd edition (Chinese foreword dated 9th October, 1914). Mok had served in the Registrar-General's department with Lockhart, and moved to the Supreme Court as an interpreter in 1891. See also note 71 below. 47 China Review, vol. xxi, 1892/93, p. 405. 48 Vols. xx to xxii. The disputants included E. J. Eitel, E. H. Parker, E. D. H. Fraser, H. A. Giles, and Lockhart. The first edition of Lockhart's book was dedicated to Dr. John Chalmers, the distinguished sinologue, and the second to Dr. James Legge as well. Lockhart spoke of them as 'two famous Aberdonians'. 49 China Review, vol. xxi, 1892/93, p. 412. 50 China Review, vol. xxii, 1893/94, p. 547, 51 T'oung Pao, vol. viii, 1897, pp. 412-430. 52 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 6, 1930-32, p. 812. 53 Chinese Recorder, Sept. 1903, p. 464. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 94 E. G. PRYOR The Governor was favourably inclined to the petition but at the same time wished to "save face" for his Surveyor General. He thus expressed the view that he "... would be glad to learn that the memorialists could see their way to conforming to the essentially Chinese style of dwelling . . . and which, while economising space to the utmost, admits of a certain amount of light and ventilation through the small square spaces left at the back, called smoke holes."4 It is worth taking some note of the contents of the petitioners' statement, particularly in respect of the "deep rooted" living habits of the Chinese and the limited capacity of the tenants to pay rent as both these issues emerge in subsequent chapters of Hong Kong's history. By 1876 the population of Hong Kong had increased to over 139,000 of whom 93.5% were Chinese. Steady growth occurred over the next five years so that by the time of the 1881 census 160,400 persons were resident in the Colony, representing an increase of 15.3%. It is relevant to note at this juncture that over the period under review (1841-1881) development was heavily concentrated along the western part of the northern coast of Hong Kong Island and that, in view of the steep terrain, a series of reclamations had to be formed to provide room for new urban growth (Figure 2). The expense and difficulty of creating building sites consequently placed a high premium on land and this, in turn, provided developers with a good reason to justify the fullest exploitation of their properties. The Chadwick Report After some 40 years of growth and general neglect over both the enforcement of building and health regulations and the provision of sanitary services, the condition of the city by 1881 was extremely bad. The British Government therefore sought the services of a sanitary engineer, Osbert Chadwick, who presented a report in 1882 giving his assessment of the situation in Hong Kong. Chadwick's report provides some most interesting information which is worth considering in depth in view of events in subsequent years. 4 Ibid., p. 372. 5 5 Chadwick O., Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1882. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 98 E. G. PRYOR ment should carry out improvements to existing properties financed from an improvement fund set up by contributions from the license fees on gambling houses; and that for buildings not capable of improvement the Government should acquire, demolish, rebuild and sell the properties concerned. Chadwick's report was a landmark in the history of Hong Kong, and as with Dr. Ayres in 1873 he drew attention to the serious consequences that would arise if nothing were done to alleviate the bad sanitary condition of the Colony. On this point Chadwick reported that: It is stated that, hitherto, Hong Kong has escaped the epidemics which have afflicted other places in the neighbourhood. The settlement is but 40 years old and the subsoil beneath the city may not yet be sufficiently saturated with filth to make it a hot bed for disease and a breeding ground of filth poison. It is somewhat premature to assume that this happy immunity will always continue for the process of saturation is slowly but surely going on and if unchecked cannot fail to bring forth abundant fruit, in the form of misery and disease. Another twelve years elapsed before Chadwick's warning took the form he predicted. Prelude to Disaster 1882-1894 Chadwick's report prompted the government into action and, as a first step towards meeting the problem, a Sanitary Board was set up in 1883 under a draft Order and Health Amendment Ordinance which gave the Board wide powers to deal with insanitary houses, the inspection of premises, compulsory disinfection and the removal of persons who were a source of disease. However, strong opposition from property owners caused these provisions to be withdrawn although the Board remained in existence. Further attempts were made in 1887 to introduce a Public Health Ordinance which, among other things, provided for the reservation of open spaces at the rear of buildings, the provision of privies and the fixing of a minimum standard of 300 cu. ft. of internal living space per adult. Great opposition against these proposals was voiced in the local press on the basis that the poorer classes would suffer 8 Ibid., p. 22. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 102 E. G. PRYOR the Commission reported that "there are many insanitary properties in the Colony, and dwellings which, in their present condition, are unfit for human habitation." The Commission came to the conclusion that it was unnecessary for the government to undertake widespread resumption but that it would be sufficient for various improvements to be carried out at the owners' expense. The principal improvements which were recommended were the provision of open spaces at the rear of premises and the prohibition of cubicles under certain conditions. In the compilation of the Commission's report, the views of Dr. Ayres, the one-time Colonial Surgeon, were sought. He very observantly commented that: Many laws have been made in the 20 years previous to 1894 to remedy the insanitary state of the Colony, but most have remained dead letters owing to the difficulties of enforcing them and the prejudices of the Chinese especially and other sections of the community. The labours of Hercules in cleansing the Augean stables were a trifle compared with that the Government has to contend with in the near future in cleansing the City of Victoria and other inhabited portions of the Colony.14 The recommendations of the Commission were by and large incorporated in the Insanitary Properties Ordinance of 1899, the provisions of which, however, the then Director of Public Works regarded as a compromise designed to meet objections by the unofficial members of the Legislative Council and the propertied interests which they represented.15 Chadwick Returns and New Reforms Despite all the steps taken by the colonial government to come to grips with the problems created by the disorderly growth of the city, deep feelings of discontent were expressed by certain sections of the community against the inadequacy of the administration's efforts. In particular, the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce in 1901 went so far as to gather 1000 signatures for a petition to the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies to set up a commission to investigate, report and make recommendations on the sanitary 13 Ibid., p. 12. 14 Ibid., Appendix 14, p. 52. 15 Letter of 18th July 1901 to the Hon. J. Chamberlain, op. cit., p. 48. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG 111 other parts of the Colony, excluding marine districts, there were a further 48,000 households (200,000 persons) that were also without proper accommodation (Figure 4). Thus, for the Colony as a whole satisfactory accommodation was lacking for 533,000 households containing 2.2 million persons. In the realisation that stimulus had to be given to the greater participation by private enterprise in the field of housing, the Buildings Ordinance of 1935 was radically changed in 1956 to permit a very much higher intensity of land use. This resulted in a moderate surge of development which reached a peak in 1959 when some 12,000 private domestic units were built (Figure 5); saturation of market demand thereafter caused a decline in building activity until 1961. The high intensity of development brought about by the relaxation of building volume controls, together with high residential occupancy rates, imposed severe strains on the urban transportation system, created considerable problems in the reprovisioning of utility services and also added to the congestion of areas which were already deficient in open spaces and community facilities. It was consequently found necessary to scale down the permitted intensity of development, and in 1962 new regulations were introduced for this purpose. These regulations became effective in 1966 and provide for a sliding scale for plot ratios and site coverage depending on the height and type of building. During the "period of grace" between 1962 and 1966 there was an unprecedented wave of private residential development, most of which was concentrated in the old inner suburbs where the already impoverished urban environment became over-saturated with the resultant intensification of the multifarious forms of human activity. Thus, within the space of only 10 years the urban form of Hong Kong underwent a transformation, as a result of which multi-storey buildings of up to 20 storeys and more became the dominant characteristic of the city which before 1956 was typified by four and five storey buildings. The effect of the 1962-1966 building boom was that the housing market became over-saturated, so that by 1966 there were 18,000 vacant domestic units in the private sector. The over-supply of residential accommodation and a bank crisis in 1965 caused a retraction of investment in private housing which lasted until 1970. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 170 KEITH STEVENS combination of an historical hero, with considerable legend surrounding him, and a mythical being who is very popular in Chinese folklore; thus creating a complicated and fabulous story. The second, Fa Chu Kung, was in all probability a historical being, the actuality of his origins lost in time, who now appears as a legendary being. The third, Cheng Ho, is a comparatively recent and well-documented historical being, deified by popular appeal, with little myth or legend added to his story. Two of the three are popular Taoist spirits or gods (†‡) and believed to be beneficent whereas the third, T'ai Sui, is a feared Taoist god. The detail of the development of each cult, the recognition features of each deity, the frequency of sightings and the identities of other deities co-located with the main deity described below are based on sightings and conversations in some two and a half thousand temples, and six god-carvers' shops located in Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan, the Philippines and in most parts of South East Asia; and also from notes culled from many books, mostly written by Christian missionaries who so often vented their spleen on the subject of heathen idols. One final prefatory note is necessary at this point, a short description of a novel which is one of the main sources of myth and legend about the gods. The novel, the Feng Shen Yen I (#Ħ✯A), The Deification of the Gods*, written in about the fifteenth century about the supernatural, describes the historical struggle between the last king of the Shang Dynasty, King Chou (*†£) and the victor, the first king of the subsequent Chou Dynasty, King Wu (1). The capital of the Shang Dynasty was the ancient city of Anyang, where King Chou, infamous for his tyranny, cruelty and excesses is said to have reigned for thirty-three years, 1154-1121 B.C. King Chou was destroyed with the Shang Dynasty in the flames of his palace at the Deer Terrace after a crushing defeat by a rebellious army under Hsi P'o (‡) on the banks of the Yellow River. Hsi P'o founded the Chou Dynasty and is remembered as King Wu (1). This defeat of the Shang and the inception of the Chou is variously * See (in translation) Lu Hsun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1959, pp. 220-224, where the title is rendered Canonization of the Gods. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h THREE CHINESE DEITIES 175 expert, a geomancer. In general everyday use, prognostications are looked up in the farmer's almanac which is still published annually in Hong Kong and Taiwan and sold widely. In former days the source of information on this subject contained in the farmers' almanac, was the Imperial Calendar, the Hwang Li (). This, until the end of the Empire in 1911, gave the details of T'ai Sui's position every year. Nowadays the birth hour and date of an individual is matched to the movements of T'ai Sui given in the farmers' almanac, thereby obtaining the auspicious and unauspicious dates for most social functions, such as weddings, travel, initiating business, starting building, launching a ship or burying the dead. As can be seen T'ai Sui is important in the life of individuals: but, despite this importance, T'ai Sui is worshipped on as few occasions as possible. Persons fear approaching him too frequently as he is so alarmingly unpredictable and, being so awe-inspiring, he is given a very wide berth. Very rarely indeed, will you see devotees worshipping before his altars in comparison with other altars in the folk religion temples. In the Yangtze Valley, and elsewhere in central and southern China, at the start of Spring, a clay bull and an image of T'ai Sui were carried on a float through the city with the civic officials bringing up the rear. The bull was constructed in a special pattern consisting of sixty separate parts. Hodous3 in 1929 tells of this image of the spring bull, a clay and coloured paper bull, being carried through the streets of Foochow together with T'ai Sui, the tutelary god of the current year. When the procession arrived at the Yamen the district officials formed a circle about the bull and each one struck it with a vari-coloured stick three times, breaking off pieces of clay. The bits of clay and other parts of the bull were picked up by the crowd and thrown to their pigs to stimulate their growth. Hodous also continued that "the position of T'ai Sui behind or in front of the bull tells the farmer whether to begin planting late or early; and upon the position of the tail, or the opening of the mouth of the bull depends the Yin and Yang principles of the year. The tutelary god of spring and of the year is Kou Mang () who holds a whip in his hand. The age of the image, the colour of his clothing and his belt and the position of his coiffure, the holding of his hand over his right or left ear, is determined by the 3 Hodous, L., Folkways in China, Probsthain's Oriental Series Vol. XVIII (1929). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 180 KEITH STEVENS If the image of T'ai Sui wears shoes, claimed a Fukienese temple keeper, a drought is presaged, and if without, floods are expected; but if one foot is shod and the other is bare, then balanced weather will be the lot of the region. Images of T'ai Sui with one bare foot have been seen in temples in Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. Variations from the basic characteristics The youth holding a scroll or plaque of split bamboo is depicted seated, except in a very few sightings where he stands. In the sixty-year cycle of Chinese deities, each year is ruled by a particular image of that year, who is called the “T'ai Sui of the present year" and the scroll has one of the following inscriptions on it: Tang Nien T'ai Sui (††★★). Liu Nien T'ai Sui (*) Chih Nien T'ai Sui (††✯✯) or Chia Nien T'ai Sui (P‡★A) Yin Ch'iao as a fierce general often has three eyes and six arms, wears armour, and a Taoist crown on a bald head, and has fierce, almost vertical, eyebrows. He holds in five of his hands two discs, one with the character for the sun and the other with the character for the moon, a large ring, a fly whisk, whilst his sixth hand rests on his left knee. In Foochow, in the temple of the City Guardian, one of the side altars was devoted to T'ai Sui. His image was dressed in yellow garments, he had a black beard and a necklace of skulls about his hand. The skull necklace, according to Hodous, is a symbol of his authority over the lives of men. Beside him on his left is a trio of small images a foot high representing the present year, last year and next year. Also on either side of him, are the twelve images representing the twelve months or branches and pictures of the twenty-four seasons. In only two sightings, one in Penang and one in Singapore, had he a blue face, fierce fangs, was standing, dressed in armour, and carried a mace in each of his hands. One of these images of T'ai Sui, labelled the Great Year of the Moon (A) was one of the twenty-four Celestial Generals (A) who range down each side of some temples. (Plate 17) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NOTES AND QUERIES 201 A NOTE ON AGRICULTURAL CHANGE IN HONG KONG. It is trivial to point out to those who are somewhat acquainted with the situation of Hong Kong that the British Crown Colony is in the midst of an intense process of change, embracing most if not all of the sectors of the society. This does not apply only to the city areas on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula, where the postwar explosion of industrialization has left an easily observable impact on the urban landscape and on the people who have congregated there. Even the New Territories—some 360 square miles of open country—have been involved in the spectacular process of change, and not even the most remote villages have remained unaffected by the larger society's striving for new economic achievement. Thus it is not only a question of certain minor industries moving away from the costly land in the industrially and commercially developed areas along the Hong Kong harbour to find new locations in the New Territories. Social life has changed there. A feature of change, which is easily observable in the New Territories, is a common switch-over from the cultivation of rice to horticulture and floriculture. This replacement of one agricultural system for another has been hinted at repeatedly in the literature on the New Territories. However, these remarks have hardly been accompanied by a penetrating analysis of this phase of change. Therefore, in this short paper, it is my intention to engage in a brief discussion on the economic-agricultural transition which has taken place in the Sha Tin valley in the New Territories where I conducted fieldwork in two stages between 1967 and 1969. I shall argue from the baseline of the social anthropologist rather than that of the rural economist. My focus of interest will be on social forms which could be seen as resultants of processes involving economics. It goes without saying that vegetable growing is no recent innovation, neither in the Sha Tin Valley nor in other areas of the New Territories. Higher level land on the sloping mountain sides has always been used for the cultivation of certain vegetables. Evidence at hand seems to indicate that these vegetables were planted entirely for local consumption. Today this is definitely so in many mountain villages in the area. It is clear also that this production of lesser importance occupied land of no vital interest. Rather, horticulture gave subsidiary crops only. The primary land was the irrigated rice land, and to this, villagers allocated most of their interest and their work. The present-day situation is very different, and the Sha ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 202 NOTES AND QUERIES Tin Valley is characterized today by the everywhere existent, superbly thriving garden beds. The development of intense vegetable farming in the traditional society of China seems to have been linked to the proximity of urban central places with great agglomerations of people. Urban marketing has, so it seems, been a prerequisite for a one-sided specialization on vegetable production. The geographic distribution of horticulture has been limited by one particular cultural barrier. Chinese palate calls for very fresh market goods, and every tendency in the marketed products to perish will considerably decrease the saleable price. Thus transportation to the city markets must be short or rapid. As a consequence, the urban areas were often surrounded by limited zones of intense horticulture. During the latter half of the 19th century, the twin cities of Victoria and Kowloon emerged as a result of foreign intervention and planning. Their growth was related to the attraction the new Colony had on a countryside impoverished under the strain of a fast-increasing population. The appearance of the new urban districts stimulated the interest in the surrounding rural areas, which later were to become New Kowloon and the New Territories, for the cultivation of cash crops. This was within a sector with reasonably good communications to connect with the city markets. According to available information, the start was made on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula, where the old villages seem to have taken advantage of the new development quite early. The continuous spread of the network of transportation, initiated after the British territorial expansion to the New Territories in 1898, when new roads were constructed and the Canton-Kowloon railway was laid out through the district, gave rise to new opportunities and the possibility to expand the zone of intense vegetable cultivation beyond the Kowloon Foothills. The Sha Tin valley is located just behind this range of mountains, but, contrary to what one might expect, vegetable farming was not to become important there until recently, in the post-Pacific War period. The obstacle against a switch over to horticulture may be found on the managerial side of production, but this by no means accounts for everything. An important barrier to change may be found in the social values and knowledge of the village population. In the Sha Tin valley, paddy fields are still to be seen scattered around in the area. The New Territories are situated in the double- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 204 NOTES AND QUERIES vides a frame-work endowing meaning to social events and distributing them in time. Rice farming in this area combines two cyclic technical systems, nearly identical in nature, into one cultural and social system. Vegetable farming combines many minor self-contained systems into an agglomeration which assumes no specific cultural or social form as an overall system. Each crop on each plot forms a province of meaning. These are discrete and not necessarily linked to each other. An integration is obtained only by way of converting these crops into cash. At this point we must consider the decline of rice cultivation in the New Territories. When the British arrived at the turn of the century rice was everywhere the predominant crop. At this time in Sha Tin the balance between paddy fields and dry cultivation comes out strongly in favour of the former. Records from the valley reveal that in 1905 a portion amounting to 90.1 per cent of the acreage was under rice cultivation. I have pointed out already that the growth of urban areas on Kowloon Peninsula brought about a major change in the villages there, in that the farming community increasingly switched over to cash crops — vegetables to be marketed in the new and expanding cities. We do not know exactly how this change came about, only that it happened in the near proximity of the urban markets and in the presence of immigrants in the villages. It was not until the 1950s that vegetable cultivation rapidly spread into the Sha Tin area to encroach on old rice land. There are two parallel processes on the macro level which we must understand as background for further enquiries into the mechanisms for the drastic change in the agricultural landscape. Let us first consider two facts. Rice cultivation in this area was never very profitable, and landholdings were small in relation to the growing population. The increase in population between 1911 and 1931 was about 14 per cent. There was little space for an accompanying expansion of the arable land. The soil was not very suitable for wet rice and yields were low. The increase in population was experienced as a pressure on the economy in many villages. Many took advantage of the new occupational choices offered in the city areas and they became urban workers, sailors, or emigrés in overseas countries. In the post-war years emigration increased as the possibility of going to the United Kingdom open to holders of British passports (granted to people born in Hong Kong) had a feverish effect on the Page 210 Page 211 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NOTES AND QUERIES 205 New Territories villages. It is well known that Chinese-style restaurants have mushroomed in Britain since the 1950s. By and large, the people in this catering business are former rice peasants who have switched over to culinary activities. Rising costs of living, falling prices of rice, lack of arable land and population growth are factors which created a situation characterized by the feminization of the farm work process, and an increasing abandonment of land. In some instances, villagers have sold off their inherited land holdings to urban speculators and deposited the money in a bank. They claim that the interest gained surpasses the value of the yield of rice of their former holdings. Accompanying this decline in traditional farming is the increasing financing of households by remittances from Britain. The other macro process is the chain of major political events in the People's Republic of China. I shall not discuss these here. For our present purpose, it is important, however, to note that one aspect of this drama is a strong immigration from China into the Crown Colony of Hong Kong. In Sha Tin, there had been an increase in population of 345% between 1931 and 1961. Today, there are about 35,000 people in the valley as compared with 4,346 persons counted in the last pre-war census. It was in the situation I have just described that the immigrants from China appeared on the scene asking for tenancy rights. By letting land to tenants, the owner makes more money from his holdings than he can by maintaining the traditional rice farming. This simple fact underlies the predominant pattern of land tenure in Sha Tin; native villagers let land to outsiders at rents that equal or surpass the gains from two crops of rice on that land. At the same time, their own energy is directed to other tasks, varying from overseas or urban work and cottage industry to long tea house conversations or gambling. Thus, the native villager's answer to the explosive city development was, in the first place, not an adjustment in his agricultural production to meet the emerging urban demands; instead, he converted the traditional two rice crops into two crops of cash, and reoriented his own efforts towards urban or suburban occupations which provide new external incomes. The change in land use was brought about by the immigrant tenants. A great many of the newcomers to Sha Tin are people of a definite urban background. Those who are not urbanites are generally influenced by men of urban experience. The vegetable market garden is in many ways ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 206 NOTES AND QUERIES the businessman's enterprise disguised as a rustic farmstead. The emergence of vegetable cultivation is a spill-over from the urban areas. What we deal with is the city's adjustment to the countryside rather than the adaptation of the rural husbandry to meet urban demands. This is not to say that rice peasants have not switched over to vegetable cultivation at all. Obviously this kind of person is not common in Sha Tin, but he occurs and there are a few native vegetable farmers in nearly every village. Still, it is a noteworthy fact that the present village gardeners did not give up their rice cultivation until they had precedent models for action in the form of immigrant garden enterprises. The example of the successful immigrant truck garden was something to be envied and reproduced, and thus a primary incentive for a new agricultural order. Paradoxically, the indigenous villagers have been able to remain in their traditional rice world by giving up rice cultivation. The main sources of change lie in the urban areas, in Hong Kong and overseas. New ideas flowing into the villages will not disrupt traditional notions concerning land, although land use may have changed in that land is rented to outsiders, abandoned or converted into building lots. The few native villagers who have engaged in horticulture did not venture the shift in land use until they had access to models in the form of outsider gardeners. I feel that the general lack of response to city needs for food in the Sha Tin valley is due to the proximity of the valley to the city, a feature which involved people directly in city life. On the other hand, we have found that city people have become involved in rural production. Thus, the change in land use in the New Territories is no simple process generated by the maximization of profits. Only our awareness of the social characteristics of the actors in the drama will allow us to gain some understanding of the complexity of the situation. University of Gothenburg, 1972. GORAN AijMER Footnote: This is an abstract from a report intended to form a chapter in a monograph on social life in the Sha Tin valley. Field work was conducted from June 1967 to February 1968, and in Summer 1969 for three months. The field work was supported by the Humanistic Foundation of Sweden. The writing of the report was carried out at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Cambridge, Mass., with the support of Carl-Bertel Nathhorst Foundation and Stockholm University. I gratefully acknowledge the generosity of these institutions. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h BOOK REVIEWS 233 Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society-richly deserves the reward of seeing the wildlife of the Republic of Korea better protected in the future. This is, after all, the ultimate aim of books like this. Hong Kong, 1972. MICHAEL WEBSTER. ASIAN URBANIZATION: A HONG KONG CASE-BOOK edited by D. J. Dwyer, University of Hongkong Press. HK$60. THE squalid living conditions which are typical of the bulk of Hongkong's housing have been a major focus for research at the University of Hongkong over the years. Overseas scholars have failed, unfortunately, to take much note of the lessons of the Hongkong situation. Asian town planners, too, have neglected to profit by the rich experience of Hongkong in attempting first to rehouse an immigrant population in a war-ravaged city and then to come to grips with the problem of holding a balance between what the Government could do to alleviate slum squalor without completely undermining the private entrepreneur in the housing market. This work draws together a number of papers which represent a bid by a combination of geographers and civil servants to discuss the background to urban living problems in this colony. The studies also include a provocative contribution by a lawyer and an interesting essay by a town planner (who is also a qualified architect) to round off the discussion. Half the papers were delivered first at a 1968 symposium, and this clearly has presented some headaches for the editor. The various chapters straddle, not always comfortably, the straightforward, simple narratives necessary to spark off seminar discussion while attempting to retain an academic approach based on original research. However, the volume is more coherent in style and more effectively drawn together than is usual with books of this sort, which is a tribute to the editor's labour. But much of the information is dated because of the time-lag in getting this work out. In many ways, the most interesting pieces have been put together by two civil servants. Pryor's effort to apply techniques developed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h Plate 1. J.H.S.L., with his Chinese teacher, 'Okl Ow' (Mr. Ou-yang Hui): probably early 1880s. The Plates 1-7 are by courtesy of Mrs. Mary Stewart-Lockhart, Curator, City Museum, Hong Kong, very kindly assisted with preparation of new negatives and prints. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h HYBRID Plate 9. With the introduction of new building regulations in 1956, there was an upsurge of building development the effect of which was to transform Hong Kong into a vertical city. Each of these blocks houses several thousand persons. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r or the government, to acquire or build our own premises. Dr. J. R. Jones during his presidency canvassed this subject regularly. Like many cultural societies in this modern world of space shortages and high rents, our hopes of ever obtaining such premises have dwindled and died. It might be worth noting here, that associated with the parent Society's 150th celebration is a special fund appeal to conserve its own library of 85,000 volumes, kept at present for safety at the British Museum in the absence of room for them at its own premises, and an appeal also to re-equip the 200-year-old building now serving as its head office. The parent Society hopes to raise £75,000 through its appeal and I am sure I speak for you all when I wish it well with this venture. For ourselves however, your Council has had to consider very seriously what to do about the future. We have been extremely fortunate in having the support of the British Council in Hong Kong right from our 1959 beginnings. The Council has lent us space to hold our meetings, helped us with day-to-day business, housed part of our library—the University of Hong Kong has kindly housed the other part—provided us some of the time with a postal address, and occasionally with the use of a room for our lectures. More and more, lecture rooms in Hong Kong become booked up months ahead. It is now very seldom indeed that we can obtain a booking at the City Hall. This threat to the cultural life of Hong Kong has largely prompted a group of concerned individuals to promote the Hong Kong Arts Centre, under the vigorous direction of Mr. Bill Bailey. It seemed to us that the Arts Centre might well meet our needs for a coordinated centre for our activities, and a place to house our full library which is presently restricted in expansion through lack of space. It might also provide space, although this is not yet certain, for our archives, files, and stock of publications. At present, the latter are housed in Watson's Estate, where they were transferred in February 1972 from the University, which itself has great problems of space. I am glad to report that our materials were not affected by the recent fire at the Estate. Thirty-six members attended the Extraordinary Meeting, and Mr. Bailey himself came along to explain the details of the Centre proposals. A majority of twenty-eight members voted in favour of the motion to join, and there were no abstentions. On January 30, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 5 our application for acceptance as a constituent Society was agreed by the Arts Centre, and we will have a nominated member of our Council on its Management Committee on all future occasions it meets to discuss plans for facilities. The two tours held during the year were organised by two of your officers. One, to the Chinese University, was arranged by Mr. D. A. Gilkes, Honorary Treasurer. The other, to places of historical interest in the Pokfulum area, was arranged by Mr. James Hayes, Vice-President and Honorary Editor. Both events appear to have been very successful. In November we had our 5th symposium which took place as usual at The Hong Kong Club--one of the few moderately priced places appropriate for this kind of event in Hong Kong. The subject was "Hong Kong: Chinese Tradition and the Development of a Town" and papers were read by people either actively involved in original research, or in the practical aspects of their subjects. It was accompanied by an exhibition of photographs arranged with the kind help of the City Hall staff, and an exhibition of ritual paraphernalia connected with Triad Societies, provided by the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in conjunction with a paper read by one of its officers. The very useful material emerging at this symposium will be published in our brochure series. The material from our previous symposium on the botany of Hong Kong is in process of publication, and this coming week-end we will have our 6th symposium, on Hong Kong Fauna, organised by Professor B. Lofts of the Department of Zoology, University of Hong Kong. Since the end of the last calendar year several other events have already taken place and might be mentioned here. The first meeting of this year, at which Mr. James Watt of your Council spoke on recent archeological discoveries in China, was attended by our Patron, Sir Murray Maclehose and Lady Maclehose. A very successful tour to Thailand was organised by Mr. Smithies, who has been our Honorary Secretary for the past financial year. It was preceded by a panel presentation on Thailand in which Mr. Smithies participated, together with Mr. James Watt, and the Royal Thai Consul General. Nineteen members and their guests attended the tour itself, which took place over the Chinese New Year in February. I am pleased to report that the event was a great social success, those taking part organising a party on their return. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r CHINA MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY 19 influence of Sir John Davis as Governor, and J. W. Hulme, Chief Justice, both of whom were members) and the Hong Kong Branch, which has yet to solve it. Since it was on condition that the books and apparatus of the Medico-Chirurgical Society should be handed over to "the Asiatic Society of China” (the original name of the R.A.S, China Branch) that the members of the former were to be admitted to the latter without ballot or entrance fee (17), the list of the library of the Medico-Chirurgical Society (Transactions, p. 78-9) is of particular interest to the present writer. The list is, however, by no means systematic, and has therefore been rearranged and rewritten as an appendix to this article. It cannot claim to be the first library catalogue to have been published in Hong Kong, since that of the Morrison Education Society was issued in the previous year (18). How far the Medico-Chirurgical Society succeeded in its second objective, "the formation of a Library" is difficult to judge, since the books and periodicals as recorded in the appendix to the present article were acquired over a relatively short period, and the problems of acquisition must have then been immeasurably greater than those about which present-day librarians (and their clients) in Hong Kong grumble. Probably most of the books were gifts from members, as also were some of the periodicals, since there is some overlap in the recorded holdings of the Lancet, presumably received from different donors. Nevertheless, the Transactions include references to orders placed for various publications, e.g. (p. 57) on November 4th, 1845, five periodicals and one book (W.L. MacGregor's "Practical observations on diseases of European and native soldiers in the N.W. provinces of India," not recorded in the catalogue, and so presumably not received). It has not been possible to trace the ultimate fate of any of these volumes. The Library of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, into which they were incorporated as already mentioned, was eventually donated to the old City Hall Library in 1869 (19). Unfortunately, however, only the Morrison Library was catalogued after this date (20), and none of the volumes listed in the appendix to the article appear to have migrated to that collection. One must sadly assume that, as the medical element in the membership of the China Branch dwindled, and as the depredations of white ant and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r CHINA MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY 23 • Lancer and cross: biographical sketches of fifty pioneer medical missionaries in China, comp. by K. Chimin Wong [Shanghai] Council on Christian Medical Work, 1950, p. 14-16. Europe in China: the history of Hongkong from the beginning to the year 1882, by E. J. Eitel, Hongkong, Kelly & Walsh, 1895, p. 180. * Information on the officers and committee members during the brief history of the Society in these two paragraphs, except where otherwise noted, derives variously from the Friend of China, the Hong Kong almanack and directory for 1846, and the Hongkong register, as well as the Transactions. 9 As well as in the Transactions, p. 1-2, the record of this first meeting appears in the Friend of China, v. 14, no. 40, May 17th 1844, p. 754, and the Chinese repository, v. 14, 1845, p. 245. 10 Presumably John Williams & Co., Book Sellers & Publishers, 18 Wellington St. "next house to the Roman Catholic Chapel.". From an advertisement in the Hongkong register, v. 18, no. 40, Oct. 7th 1845, p. 162, it appears that the shop also sold everything from fowling pieces to "rare old aniseed brandy". 11 Royal Society of London: Catalogue of scientific papers, 1800-1900, London, 1867-1925. 12 U. S. Surgeon-General's Office: Index-catalogue of the Library: authors and subjects, Washington, 1880-1950. Periodical articles are entered only under subject. 13 The chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, by H. B. Morse, v. 5: Supplementary, 1742-74. Oxford, 1929, p. 101. 14 Trans. p. 27 gives June 8th, but this must be an error, as Dr. Hobson's letter was dated June 15, 15 "The history of medical education in Hong Kong" by Sir Lindsay T. Ride, in Inauguration of the Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation, 3rd March 1963: commemoration volume [Hong Kong, 1963] p. 41. 16 The medical missionary in China... by William Lockhart, London, 1861, p. 141. 17 Royal Asiatic Society. China Branch, Transactions, v. 1, 1847, p. 76. 18 Chinese repository, v. 14, 1845, p. 288-91. 19 Anonymous writer quoted by V. H. G. Jarrett in the South China Morning Post; and H. A. Rydings in JHKBRAS, v. 8, 1968, p. 63. 20 Catalogue of works in the Morrison Library, City Hall, Hongkong, including also a synoptical index. Hongkong, printed at the China Mail Office, 1873. 21 The names adopted were, successively, the Philosophical Society of China (5 Jan. 1847), the Asiatic Society of China (19 Jan, 1847), and the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (7 Sept. 1847). 22 Royal Asiatic Society. China Branch. Transactions, v. 1, 1847, p. 71. 23 Ibid. p. 23. 24 J. R. Jones, op. cit., p. 2. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r SWATOW (CH’AOCHOW) HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS HELGA WERLE* # Introduction The so-called Swatow puppets are in fact wrongly named. This is due to a confusion which requires some explanation. In Western languages the adjective Swatow is used to attribute a dialect, culture or people etc., when the Chinese themselves speak of Ch’aochow. This is because the British gained access to the Ch’aochow area by the opening of the port of Shantou (Swatow) by the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858. Chinese know that the city of Ch’aochow heads one of the 8 prefectures of the province of Kwangtung and is situated on the Han River about 40 miles from the sea and as far from the border with Fukien. Swatow itself, a port with about 85,000 inhabitants in 1925, is in the delta of the Han River, five miles from the open sea. In this article the term “Swatow” has been replaced by the use of the proper Chinese description of Ch’aochow. Ch’aochow developed very early into a culturally independent area. Its seaboard position and flourishing port gave it the necessary economic basis and exposed it to various cultural influences. Culturally and linguistically, it is more like a prefecture of Fukien than of Kwangtung. Its dialect is distinctly different from Cantonese, so are its customs and its music, which all deserve to be studied in detail for the value of its rich ancient tradition. Among its cultural assets, the Ch’aochow puppet-theatre is truly amazing, with unique features found nowhere else in the world.† The author has studied in the Sinology departments of the Universities of Munich, Hamburg, and Cologne. She has been a resident of Hong Kong since 1966 and has followed up her studies with field work in Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. She is particularly interested in folk art and theatre and is at present on the staff of the Hong Kong Arts Centre Ltd. She has published various articles on puppet theatre and folk art. † For the Introduction, see L. Richard (translated, revised and enlarged by M. Kennelly), Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and Dependencies, Shanghai, T’usewei Press 1908, pp. 206 and 210. Also J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese or Notes connected with China (5th edition, revised by É. Chalmers Werner), Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai, Hong Kong etc., 1925, pp. 689-690. For the Min dialects of which Ch’aochow and Swatow are part, see R. A. D. Forrest, The Chinese Language, Faber & Faber, London, 1958, pp. 225-232. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 127 ) 3rd year of T'ong (統) dynasty, by a Buddhist priest named Yuen Chong (圓聰) in the Ts'z Yun monastery (慈雲寺) in Ch'eung On (昌安) city, Shensi (陝西) province, near the Great Wall. This monastery had been built about fifty years previously by the Emperor T'ong Ko Tsung (唐玄宗) for his mother. When the pagoda was being built a wild goose flew against it and was killed, and the monks buried the bird underneath the pagoda and in this way it received its name. It became the custom ever since Shan Lung (神龍) years A.D. 705 & 706 of T'ong dynasty for the Emperor to give a banquet in the monastery called the Kuk Kong Yin (曲江宴) “winding river banquet,” to all the new "Tsun Sz” (進士). Their names were carved on a stone tablet in the pagoda, and it became customary to use the expression “Ngaan T'aap T'ai Ming (雁塔題名) when congratulating successful candidates for the highest government examination. In Tang Lam's time the Tung Kwun people wished to have their own Ngaan Taap pagoda, and Tang Lam provided the money for them to do it. It was built some time during the ten years of Shun Yau (淳祐) A.D. 1241-1251 of Sung dynasty, and it was repaired in the 40th year of Shung Ching (崇禎) A.D. 1637 of Ming dynasty by a Tung Kwun "Tsun Sz” named Kwok Kau Ting (郭九錠). Lam's grave is still to be found in Hon Yee Haang (巷義行) in Tung Kwun district. The children of the four sons of Tang Tsz Ming seem to have left Kam T'in, and their descendants founded families in other villages. Those of Lam are to be found in the village of Lung Kwat Tau (龍骨頭) near Fanling (粉嶺); those of Waai still live in Tai Po Tau (大埔頭) near Tai Po market and Lai Tung (黎洞) near Sha Tau Kok (沙頭角), while Kei's descendants settled in Tung Kwun. But the great grandson of Tsz came back to Kam T'in. His name was Shau Tso (秀祖), he held the military rank of Chung Mo Kau Wai (忠武校尉) and in the Yuen (元) dynasty A.D. 1277 he received the honour of Hin Mo Tsueng Kwan (顯武將軍). He had two great-grandsons, brothers, named Hung Yee (鴻義) and Hung Chi (鴻志). The latter was a son-in-law of Hoh Tik (何狄) the younger brother of Hoh Chan (何真) who ruled Kwangtung (廣東) and Kwangsi (廣西) provinces at the end of the Yuen dynasty. When the Ming dynasty started Hoh Chan gave up his territory to the first Emperor, but later on he became involved in the case of General Leung Kwok Kung (梁國公) Laam Yuk (濫獄)... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r NOTES AND QUERIES NOTES ON CHINESE TEMPLES IN HONG KONG E. J. Eitel states in his history of Hong Kong, Europe in China, published in 1895, that at the time of the British occupation of Hong Kong there were four Chinese temples on the island: one at Ap Lei Chau dating from 1770, one at Stanley, one in Spring Gardens (Tai Wong Kung) and one at Causeway Bay (Tung Lo Wan). He states (p. 190) that after the occupation the Chinese "commenced building their City Temple (Sheng-wong-miu) on the site of the present Queen's College". The land on which the Shing Wong Temple was built was included within Inland Lot 91. The lot was sold by Government at a public land auction in 1852. It was bought by Floriano Antonio Rangel, a Portuguese bookkeeper in the employ of Jardine Matheson and Company. Rangel owned the entire block bounded by Hollywood Road to the north, Staunton Street to the south, Aberdeen Street to the east, and what became known as Wong Shing Street to the west. In the interior of the block he erected some fifty inexpensive Chinese houses. The complex was variously called Rangel's Row, Rangel's Alley, or Kow Kong Lane. Surrounded by these humble Chinese dwellings stood the Shing Wong Temple. It was somewhat more pretentious than the Tai Wong Kung Temple on Queen's Road East. In the 1865 Rates Schedule, the latter is valued at $120. The Shing Wong Temple's assessed value was $240. But it was considerably less impressive in size and value than the nearby Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road which was assessed at $1,320. By 1876, however, the relative assessed value of the three temples had changed. The Queen's Road East temple property was rated at $144, a $24 increase over the 1865 value. The Man Mo Temple was rated at $20 less than its 1865 assessment. The Shing Wong Temple was rated at double its value in 1865. This suggests that sometime between 1865 and 1876 a major renovation of the Temple had been made. F. A. Rangel retained ownership of the land upon which the Shing Wong Temple was built until his death in 1873. Three years later the Government bought the property as a site for the erection... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 140 NOTES AND QUERIES “LING CH’IH” AT CANTON, 27th MAY, 1886. The following account of a visit to the execution ground at Canton is taken from a type-script copy belonging to two of our Members, through whose courtesy it is reproduced here. The visit was made from Hong Kong by a party of 6 as yet un-identified persons, referred to in part and only by the initials of their surnames, For "Ling Ch'ih" (J) see Giles' Dictionary (1912 edition) under characters No. 7228 and 1986. Under No. 7228 he comments on 'the ignominious or so-called “lingering death" which properly consists of dismemberment by twenty-four cuts before the coup de grâce, but is practically confined to a few slashes followed quickly by decapitation'. Under No. 1986 he states that 'strictly speaking [it] should consist in mutilation of the limbs before giving the coup de grâce'. Ed. We left the "Vigilant" at 7 a.m.—there being six of us in the party. We found on landing Ah Cum, the guide, waiting for us with the necessary chairs and coolies which we had previously ordered. After calling at Jardine's Hong for A. and C.* we went on over the Bridge and through the City until we reached the Execution Ground at about 7.45. Very few people had assembled when we arrived, and there was nothing to show that anything unusual was expected to take place. We soon, however, had a considerable crowd round us, and on the guide making enquiries we heard that for certain there would be two executions to-day but at what time was not known—probably some time in the forenoon. As the crowd began to get oppressive we tried to get away from it and eventually found refuge in a "Tea-house" where we went upstairs to a large room having in it a number of small tables at which Chinese of different classes, from the coolie upwards, were drinking tea and eating sweets, to whom our advent caused some amusement. We ordered some tea for the good of the house but I don't think many of us drank it. I tried it and found it bitterly nasty. We waited wearily at this Tea House trying to pass away the time by pestering the guide with questions that he could not answer not identified. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r NOTES AND QUERIES WILLIAM THOMAS MERCER (1822-1879): HONG KONG'S POET LAUREATE? 151 Hong Kong, a city dedicated principally to the acquisition of wealth, has produced few, if any, English writers of quality. But it did provide a home for over twenty years for a poetaster deserving of a niche in D.B. Wyndham Lewis's anthology of bad verse, The Stuffed Owl? This colonial versifier was William Thomas Mercer, who arrived in Hong Kong in 1844 as Private Secretary to his uncle, Sir John Davis, Governor of Hong Kong, became Colonial Secretary in 1854 and remained thereafter the chief executive officer of the Colony until retirement on pension in 1867, being then only forty-five years of age.3 4 In 1869 Mercer appeared on the London literary scene as the author of Under the Peak; or, Jottings in Verse, written during a lengthened residence in the Colony of Hong Kong. This book, an octavo volume of 305 pages, was published in London by John Camden Hotten of 15lb Piccadilly. That Hotten published Mercer's innocuous poems is surprising. That Mercer should have entrusted his precious verses to such a man is even more startling. Hotten, a speculative and disreputable publisher, in 1866 took over the publication of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads after the original publisher, Moxon, had withdrawn, frightened by the clamour that arose over Swinburne's 'fleshly' poems. Hotten, who died in 1873 of 'a surfeit of pork chops', was in his day a notorious publisher of erotica and facetiae. His list included not only Swinburne and, in 1869, the 'unfleshly' Mercer, but such works as Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs and A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. Mercer, who was described by Sir Richard Macdonnell as 'a gentlemanly, scholarly person', was in Hotten's list keeping decidedly curious company. 5 It seems likely, however, that Mercer paid for the cost of publication of Under the Peak, for Hotten was a shrewd businessman and not likely to invest his own money in such a humdrum and tame book. Mercer had, in fact, done this before. In 1867, soon after his return from Hong Kong, he had put out at his own expense Addresses presented to W.T.M., recently Acting Governor of Hong Kong; with services, testimonials, etc., a eulogistic volume prompted by pique at failure to obtain a colonial governorship. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r NOTES AND QUERIES 167 By way of comparison, the tour also visited Ayuthia and saw the gigantic Buddha at Wat Phanan Cheong, by the river, and the ruins of Wat Yai Chai Mongkon, Wat Phra Sri Samphet, and Wat Phra Ram. The magnificent Wat Na Pramane in its peaceful country setting, with its elaborate carved pediment (the only one to survive the holocaust of the Burmese attack in 1767), its fine ceiling and remarkable bronze Buddha in kingly attire of the Ayuthia period in the main bot and the no less striking stone Dvaravati Buddha seated in the European fashion with its characteristically placid Mon face left a deep impression, Before leaving Bangkok a visit was made to three representative temples of the Ratanakosin period, Wat Suthat, with its wealth of Chinese statuary and carved and gilded doors said to be the work of Rama II (the vihara was unfortunately closed and its murals could not be seen). However at Wat Borworniwes the unusual murals depicting scenes of western eighteenth century palaces introducing alien perspective were noted; the bot also contains the revered statue Phra Buddha Chinasara, a good example of Sukhothai statuary. The peaceful temple grounds with their canals full of turtles were in considerable contrast to the roaring city outside the temple walls. The better known Wat Benjamabhopit with its copies of various statues, including that at Pitsanuloke of which the original had been seen, was also visited. Most interestingly perhaps, on the last day the group visited the gold-leaf beaters' lane where for several days layers of gold are pounded by hand to produce the wafer-thin pieces which are applied on statues by the devout. It should not be thought that the members of the tour remained aloof to daily life of contemporary Thailand; elements of this were seen at the weekend market at the Pramane Ground, and, in the country, working elephants, the pounding of rice flour in villages and the releasing of birds to gain merit in temple courtyards left their impression. In what was effectively four very full days, a great deal was seen and much ground was covered (it took ten hours by bus to reach Pitsanuloke from Bangkok). The pace was intense but rewarding. The tour was considered culturally illuminating, revealing the many facets of the rich artistic heritage of Thailand. Hong Kong, 1973. MICHAEL SMITHIES ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 168 NOTES AND QUERIES DEEP BAY MARSHES The photograph at Plate XV was taken in March 1973 by Mrs. F. O. P. Hechtel. It shows men and women collecting seaweed from an embanked pond at Deep Bay. They had come over from Chinese Territory by boat, bringing a punt with them on deck. The boat was anchored at the outer edge of the bund, left high and dry at low tide, and the punt was launched in the shallow pond and loaded with seaweed which was taken back for pig food. This is still a common practice, and has been observed by Mr. and Mrs. Hechtel on other occasions. This brings in another feature of the marshes. Our printer, and member, Mr. Y. F. Lam of Ye Olde Printerie Ltd., tells me that when he went shooting on the marshes just after the war, his party used regularly to meet a person who came over from Chinese territory using a waak baan (★★) or mud scooter on which he travelled easily over the areas of foreshore and swamp. The man landed at Mai Po, left his mud scooter there, and walked to Yuen Long Market to buy necessaries, after which he would return to Mai Po, load his scooter and set off for home. The mud scooter is also used by oyster farmers in Deep Bay and is an old form of local transportation. Two of them, one old and much used, and one made to order, have recently been obtained by the City Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong. Plate XVI is by courtesy of the Curator, and shows the used scooter. A very similar contrivance is used in the shrimp fisheries at Stolford on the Bristol channel, Somerset, England, C. M. Yonge writes: 'At Stolford where the nets are secured on soft banks of mud a mile from the shore, the fishermen use a type of intertidal sledge or "mud horse" which they push in front of them and which serves the double purpose of preventing them from sinking deeply in the mud and of carrying back the catch'. (pp. 321-322 of The Sea Shore, Collins, The Fontana New Naturalist paper back, 1963). There is an illustration of the "mud horse" at page 322. Hong Kong. April, 1974. HON. EDITOR ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 6 such facilities. Our representative on the Arts Centre Management Committee is Mr. David Gilkes, our Hon. Treasurer, who reports that because of the constantly increasing costs of building in Hong Kong (currently about 35% a year) and because of difficulties in fund-raising (always a problem with cultural projects in the Colony) building is not likely to start until April 1974. The Society is of course keeping an eye on developments. Because of this delay we are not now proposing to raise our subscription rate from $30 to $50 until January 1976 (we had originally intended to raise it in 1975). At present we continue to be extremely grateful to the British Council for the facilities they provide to us, both in the use of an office for Council meetings of the Society, in clerical assistance, and in housing part of our library. We are also grateful to Hong Kong University for the various facilities they provide, including housing more than half our library collection. In early December the Arts Centre held an exhibition at the City Hall at which constituent-member Societies each had a space to demonstrate their own activities or display examples of their work. Mr. Tony Rydings, our Hon. Librarian arranged our own exhibition most effectively and provided show cases. One of the items we showed was our Tibetan scroll obtained from the late Mr. F. A. Nixon, a former member of the Society (you will see from the Hon. Librarian's report that we are also indebted to him for a large donation of books from his estate). We also had samples of our Journal and symposium publications on display. A book was provided for people who wanted further information on the Society, to write their names and addresses. Nearly 100 people expressed interest and all were sent information. MEMBERSHIP Our membership increased this year, probably due to the interest shown in the Society at the Arts Centre exhibitions and to the Laos tour. At this time last year membership stood at 555. It is normal, in this very mobile community, for us to have our gains and losses during the year. During the last annual period we lost eight members through resignation, one through death, and thirty-two did not renew their membership: thus there were forty-one losses in all. Again I would urge members to avail themselves of that useful facility, the banker's order: both useful to our treasurer who has to chase up tardy members to discover if they have ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 24 A. I. DIAMOND hope adequate, library and reading room facilities. The repository will be specially air-conditioned to provide a filtered atmosphere and a temperature and relative humidity stabilised at the optimum levels. The records will be protected from fire by an automatic carbon dioxide extinguishing system. But the Murray Road accommodation will also be temporary. If our present intake of permanent records is maintained we shall exhaust the storage space available there by the end of 1978. It is planned, therefore, that in 1979 we shall move for the second and last time to premises in Murray Building II, which is to be constructed on the site of the Garden Road Open-air Car Park. In the Murray Building we shall have about 25,000 square feet of floor space, including accommodation for upward of 40,000 shelf-feet of records. Even this will not meet our storage needs; but as we cannot continue to expand in the city centre our space requirements in excess of that allowed for in the Murray Building will be met by the provision of satellite accommodation in low-cost areas. These satellite repositories will be used for the storage of intermediate records and of permanent records which are not often consulted. As the P.R.O. is the first Archives to have been established in Hong Kong it was no surprise to find that professionally trained staff were unobtainable here. What was less expected was the difficulty which we have had in recruiting suitable graduate staff even without archives training. In fact, after sixteen months I am still without any. Part of the reason for this is that the career prospects which we can offer at this early stage of our development are rather nebulous. As the scope and volume of the P.R.O.'s operations expand the avenues for advancement within the ranks of its graduate staff will presumably improve. In the meantime the problem is to find and keep staff with the interest and courage to take their chances in pioneering a new form of career. The intention is that Assistant Archivists (graduates) should undergo a year's in-service training at the end of which time they will sit an examination designed to test their knowledge and proficiency. If they pass this, and are suitable in other respects, they will be eligible for diploma-course training abroad, probably in Malaysia or Australia. Page 30 Page 31 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG 45 the Sedangs, a warrior chant. Mayréna was in full dress uniform, complete with multiform decorations. He was saluted by the other European passengers, who inclined their bodies, and he responded with a military salute. Present were the ennobled and happy industrialist and several rich young men from the Brussels haute-bourgeoisie. The chaplain was a former curé, who had been unfrocked for immorality. And so Mayréna left Europe for the last time. The voyage out was mostly uneventful, though Mayréna drank far too much and was often indiscreet enough to talk about his past with his courtiers. Court etiquette was strictly enforced aboard ship --- Buckingham Palace rules at table - except when brief forays were made ashore at Port Said, Aden and Colombo; then the King assumed his incognito as the Comte de Drey. On 18 April 1890 the Sachsen anchored in Singapore harbour. When Mayréna stepped ashore he was at once stopped by a courier from the French Consulate and told that the Consul wished to see him urgently. At the Consulate he was greeted politely but informed that the French Government now claimed rights over the territory of the Sedangs, that he was therefore no longer King, and would be arrested if he set foot in Indo-China. Mayréna, after much argument, returned to Ralph's Hotel, where his officials and courtiers had lodged temporarily, and informed the party that the Sedangs had revolted and that it was impossible to proceed to his kingdom. The group, it appears, were not surprised by the turn of events. They had enjoyed a splendid ocean vacation at the expense of the rich industrialist, Mayréna's backer, but had no desire to seek martyrdom among the savages of the Moï country. At the end of the week the party - court chamberlain, chaplain, other officials and passengers - all returned to Antwerp by the Sachsen. Mayréna stayed on in Singapore. There was little else he could do. Mayréna's sojourn in Singapore is not well documented, though Soulié claims Mayréna met in that city a European he had known formerly at Haiphong, a companion of Miss Dahlberg's brother, who was now domiciled on the island of Tioman and making a living by collecting birds' nests, those of the sea swallow, for the Chinese market. Mayréna decided to accompany this trader back to Tioman, because the island was under the jurisdiction of the Malay State of Pahang, and once settled there he felt he could not be extradited to either France or Indo-China, where he would have had to face trial assuredly for treason. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG 51 boarded Huck Finn's raft on the Mississippi went by the names of the Duke of Bilgewater (Bridgewater) and the Dauphin. But a title not only helped to disarm potential sceptics but allowed an adventurer to secure credit, often a necessity for the realisation of his schemes. Mayréna, as we have seen, kept himself afloat for some time by the sale of bogus titles, decorations and honours. A title, as it were, gave the claimant a fake persona, a social mask or facade behind which the predator could lurk. In this century, however, a devaluation of titles has taken place coincident with the rise of meritocracy. Poor communications helped an adventurer of the impostor or swindler type, for if knowledge of his past leaked out too soon, this would undermine any claim to respectability and diminish confidence in his intentions. News flowed more sluggishly in the nineteenth century, though it was a period of great achievements in the development of a network of world-wide communications. In 1853 the P. and O. had established a regular mail service between Hong Kong and Calcutta, thus establishing fortnightly communications with England; in 1863 the French Messageries Maritimes opened a route to the East; telegraph connection with Manila was achieved in 1880, with Canton in 1882. Nevertheless, mail, newspapers, and reading matter of all kinds took time — usually a month — to reach Hong Kong from Europe, even at the end of the century. There was also no Interpol to flash news by telegraph or wireless about international swindlers, pretenders and other social pests. The Hong Kong public had to wait several weeks before Le Courrier d'Haiphong brought news of the accusations Father Guerlach had levelled against Mayréna. It was not until 24 December 1888, six weeks after his arrival in Hong Kong, that the general public acquired some knowledge of Mayréna's chicanery and general untrustworthiness. It was not only the pursuit of adventure, of fame or fortune, that drew adventurers to alien shores. Some left their homelands to escape from the cultural constraints and legal bind of their own societies — an escape, as they saw it, into freedom, innocence and, its corollary, libertinage.57 Laurence Hope, the wife of Lieutenant-General M. H. Nicolson of the Bengal Army, in 1902 wrote: Upon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam, The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream,58 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 BRIDGEMAN'S LETTERS FROM CHINA AND HONG KONG 77 father's footsteps and entered the army by purchasing commissions, the usual practice then. Our Orlando, (the name has been a popular choice with the Bradford Bridgemans since the seventeenth century) purchased a commission as an ensign in the 98th Regiment of Foot on July 2, 1841.3 Within six months, Orlando Bridgeman and his regiment were on their way to the war in China. In March of 1843 he was promoted to lieutenant. The letters Bridgeman sent home were addressed to his sister, Selina, who at the time of writing was travelling the European continent in the manner of the fashionable young lady of her day. Only nine of the letters have survived, seven of which were sent from China or Hong Kong; the other two letters, which were also the first two, dealt with the voyage out to China via the Cape of Good Hope. Judging from the contents and dates of the letters it is quite possible that more were sent but have since been destroyed or lost. As one would expect in letters between brother and sister, much of the correspondence deals with family affairs, the condition and whereabouts of mutual friends, Selina's travels on the continent and like matters. After discussing such affairs, Orlando would then go on to recount to his sister details of his life in the not so mysterious and rather boring orient. Soon after his arrival in China, Bridgeman and his regiment took part in the expedition up the Yangtze to Nanking. His only letter about the war, written sometime in August, records its successful conclusion. You can have no conception of the general joy this affords. We are all very seedy. I myself am done up. The 98th are landed and have been for some time, and are encamped near the city of Nankin, more to recruit our health than anything else, as we have been suffering a good deal. Now that it is all over, I do not mind telling you all about it. We have had cholera very badly in the Regt. On our first landing to attack Tsing-kiang-foo* it attacked us and in less than three weeks we lost over one hundred men. Many others are still very ill from the effects of it and the regt. is a mere skeleton from the number of sick in hospital. We were only able to land three hundred and fifty strong. Do not let this frighten you or my mother, as all is nearly over, and the men are fast getting strong.4 Chinkiang, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Monuments of Vientiane and Luang Prabang Michael Smithies* The second international tour organized by the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, went over the Chinese (Lunar) New Year 1974 to Laos. 41 members and their guests visited Vientiane and Luang Prabang from 23 to 27 January, flying directly between Hong Kong and the Laotian capital. Some persons on the tour went ahead to visit Chiengmai in Thailand or Vat Phu in southern Laos and joined up with the main group later. The attractions of the monuments of Vientiane, the administrative capital of the Kingdom of Laos, are slight in comparison to those in the royal capital of Luang Prabang. This is less a reflection of the religious fervour or artistic sensibility of the inhabitants of Vientiane, but a proof of the efficiency of the Siamese sack of the city in 1828 as a reprisal for Chao Anou's attempted attack on Bangkok two years previously and his subsequent alliance with Hué. Vientiane's position in relation to Luang Prabang is ambivalent. Luang Prabang was the original capital of the Kingdom of Lane Xang (a million elephants) which was founded in 1353 by Fa Ngum, the son of a Lao chief who had been in exile in Angkor. King Potisarat moved the capital to Vientiane in 1520 and it was from the more central position of the kingdom, which then included much of the territory now in northeast Thailand, that the most famous Lao monarch, Souligna Vongsa, ruled from 1637-1694. On his death, however, the kingdom split into three, not counting the semi-independent existence of Xieng Khouang in the northeast: Vientiane, in alliance with Burma and a vassal of Annam; Luang Prabang, which at first drew support from China and later Siam; and in the south Champassak, which drew ever closer to Siam. The devastation of Vientiane by the Siamese in 1828 and the elimination of the line of Vientiane left in the centre a power vacuum, which the... Mr. Smithies, at the time of this visit and report, Lecturer in French at the University of Hong Kong, was Secretary of the Hong Kong Branch 1972-73 and Councillor until his departure from the Colony in 1974. He organized and led this visit to Laos. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Hong Kong Region: Its Place in Traditional Chinese Historiography and Principal Events since the Establishment of Hsin-an County in 1573 James Hayes* Hsin-an is a coastal county The edge of a coat is called pien, edge or border. A coat always starts to get worn at the edge: an article begins to wear at the edge. In the same fashion, if an officer is posted to a border district, his responsibilities are ten or a hundred times as heavy as his colleague's in an interior district. It is therefore very difficult to understand people who belittle such government posts, These lines are taken from an inscribed tablet dated autumn 1847 commemorating the opening of the Lung-ching charitable school (i-hsüeh) in the Kowloon walled city. They were from the brush of the then magistrate of Hsin-an, Wong Ming-ting, an officer who believed in the burden of his responsibilities. This article seeks to examine the historical background of the Hong Kong region as seen in Chinese traditional historiography,1 and to describe the main events of the local situation over the course of some three hundred years. A recapitulation of this kind may be useful, because Hong Kong's past is still inadequately recorded in English (or yet in Chinese), and is too easily imagined, or glossed over, as being of no consequence. The region does possess a considerable and interesting history; though to gain the necessary perspective this has also to be seen in the context of the historiography of the neighbouring counties of this part of Kwang-tung. Ideally, this statement should be set against an account of the peoples and settlement of the area, but to provide an authoritative description here would be to lengthen this article to double its size if anything like justice were to be done to the course and com- *Mr. Hayes has been an administrative officer in the Hong Kong Civil Service since 1956 and is a Vice President and Hon. Editor of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, R.A.S. 1 As defined in Chapter VII, 'Formal Classification' of Charles S. Gardner, Chinese Traditional Historiography, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1961). The full references to other works cited in the footnotes will be found at the end of the article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 CHAN TSUEN TƯỞNG CƯ HẢI P I SHEK KI PEARL RIVER DELTA MACAU НАМ ТАЏ تي PAD-AN HSIEN ĮPRESENT. KOWLOON. AWELSHIN MAVEN T TAM SHUI TAI PANG x GHUM CHUN ISHA TAG KOK AHAS PAY Таг YUEN LONG * KAM TIN PING SHAN CASTLE PEAK TSUẸN WAN SHA TINKUNGA SAI L KOWLNOW CITY TING CHEUNG x נל SHA WAMLINE LINGAU TAU KOK SHA LÓ WANTE TRUNG CHUNG LANTAU ISLAND PUI 01 PENG CHAJ „MUT WO ISLAND ITẠI TAM TUK SHEK PIK ABERDEEN. (CHEUNG CHAU LAMMA, ISLAND AP LET CHAU BELŞ BAY до +2 110 LO MAN SHAR TAM VON SHAN (LEMA ISLANDS) MAP OF HONG KONG REGION JAMES HAYES ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Hong Kong Region 113 fu. In the long entry on hills and streams, which covers three chuan (6-8), only one local feature is named: the Pui To or Castle Peak hill. There is another single entry, for Tuen Mun—the old name for the settlement at the foot of Castle Peak—in the chüan (10) dealing with customs and check points. Only one monastery, the Hai-kuang Ssu of Hsin-an city, is included in the chüan (14) dealing with Buddhist and Taoist temples: by comparison, 37 columns are given to those of Kuang-chou, Nan-hai and P’an-yu, and no doubt with good cause. Only when we come to the chüan dealing with residences (13) and tombs and graves (15) does Hsin-an attract a little more attention from the compilers. The entries in chüan 13 and 15 identify those items that most interested scholars attracted to local history and show how Hsin-an has been notable for two widely different topics. It had been one of the areas that had sheltered the last two boy emperors of the Sung in their flight and final struggles against the victorious Mongol invaders of their empire: and it was a coastal district that had forever been plagued by pirates and bandits. These entries are typical items of Chinese historiography and relevant to the scholar official view of Hsin-an. One item, in chuan 13, relates to the temporary stay of the Sung court and army in Kowloon in the winter months of 1278. A watchtower had been constructed as one of the measures taken to deal with the near-starvation conditions that afflicted the fugitive army. The tower was used as a vantage point from which to look over the encampment. Relief visits were made to any dwelling from which no kitchen smoke was seen to rise in the early morning. This is a graphic and unusual way of conveying an impression of impermanence and suffering. The second entry on the Sung is in chüan 15 which deals with noted graves and tombs. It relates to the grave of Lady Chin-fa, also in Kowloon. The brief statement is that the empress Chi-yuan lost her daughter by drowning, and that she ‘filled the body with gold' for burial at Kwun Fu Mountain.2 1KTKKCY 13/5. Two Sung 'travelling courts' are also recorded for the Hsin-an district in this section. See also Lo 1956. 2KTKKCY 15/2. Lo (1963) renders this as 'made a gilt statue', p. 67. The Government of Hong Kong established a Sung Wong Toi memorial park in Kowloon in 1960, and to mark the occasion the Chiu Clansmen's Association published a memorial volume edited by Jen Yu-wen entitled Sung Wang T'ai Chi-nien Chih which usefully brings together many old writings on this subject. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 The Hong Kong Region 117 overlooked in 1898 when only the inshore islands were included in the territory that Britain requested be leased to her at that time. What were the islands like? I have spoken with several old men who now live on Lantau but were born on two of the eight or more islands in the Lo Man Shan group in 1891 and 1893, and with several younger men. Their accounts show that there were long-settled villages there, with padi and sweet potato fields. There were also flourishing inshore fisheries using the largest types of stake net.1 These were owned by village families, and the catches were salted and taken to Macau by a public ferry operated by local people. Salt, which was needed in large quantities for the stake net fisheries, was bought mostly in Cheung Chau, where it was said to be cheaper than in Macau. This was the position in my informants' youth, early in this century. Some of the islands belonged to Hsin-an Hsien, others to Hsiang-shan, but this allocation for administrative purposes was less important than the economic and other ties which dictated the connections favoured by its inhabitants. Wind and sea also affected links in the different seasons of the year. Hsin-an and the outlying islands were thus part of the historical, strategical, social and economic life of the Canton Delta in the late Ch'ing period. The safety of their seaways was likely always to have been an important consideration with the provincial government. This contrasts with the relative unimportance of Hsin-an's history and record of scholarship when compared with the older hsien of the Kuang-chou prefecture. 2. The principal events in the local history of the Hong Kong region since the establishment of Hsin-an hsien in 1573 As already mentioned in the Introduction, the Hsin-an district, to which the Hong Kong region belongs, was established as a separate administrative division of the Kuang-chou prefecture in 1573. The area was then separated from the old Tung-kuan district in response to problems of defence. It followed upon a petition from local persons which complained that because it was 100 li from Tung-kuan City, ‘barbarians and dwarves’2, had been able 1 The village representative of Shek Pik on Lantau island (b. 1899) and friends of the same age had found regular work there in their youth. 2 HNHC 14/2. I have followed Peter Y. L. Ng's rendering of the character, pp. 143-144. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES 173 inhabitants of the New Territories fled. It was said that for three years the country presented the appearance of a battle-field, “The ground was covered with bones, in the day time nothing could be heard but the hum of flies, and at night the voice of weeping." Kam T'in might have shared the same fate as the other villages but for Tang Man Wai. Lei, remembering his former kindness, forbade his soldiers to go near the place, and seeking out Tang he taught him how to build strong walls to protect his village from other marauders. This story is still told by old people in the New Territories now, and, if true, what was stated in H.K.N. Vol. VII, page 255.... “during the civil wars of the Hong Hei years A.D. 1662-1721 of Ts'ing dynasty these three villages were walled is not correct.* Lei Maan Wing occupied the New Territories from A.D. 1647 until he surrendered to the Manchus in A.D. 1656 which means that the walls of Taai Hong Wai, at least, were built some time during that period. Tang Man Wai is also remembered for having built the old Yuen Long Market ⇓, in the 8th year of Hong Hei A.D. 1669. The date is inscribed on a tablet in the wall inside Taai Wong temple in the market. Tang also made three fish ponds to the west of the market place which can still be seen by the side of the main road. + + Tang Fong was a notable scholar who passed his Kui Yan degree in the 27th year of Kin Lung of Ts'ing dynasty, A.D. 1762. He studied a great number of books especially the canons of Confucius and Books of Histories, and was considered very skilful in writing both poetry and prose. While he was still a Lam Shang he was employed as a professor of arts in Man Kong Shue Yuen * a high grade school in San On district situated in Naam T'au Shing the capital city. Students were prepared there for the Sau-tsoi examination, and it was said that while Tang Fong was there “learning was at its highest pitch." ♬ Tang Ying Yuen was a military officer and passed his Mo Kui Yan A degree in the 54th year of Kin Lung A.D. 1789 of Ts'ing dynasty. Although of a martial disposition, Tang was fond of books and his penmanship was highly thought of. Some of the characters that he wrote to be carved on stone tablets can still be seen in Ling Wan nunnery on Kwun Yam Shaan 音山 and in So Lau Yuen 泝流園 and Tsoi Shui Yat Fong 在水✈both school buildings in Kam T'in. He was a simple man and * See p. 168. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 174 SUNG HOK-PANG used to help his grandfather in the fields, working like the farm labourers and he was much beloved in Kam Tin. In the 15th year of Ka Hing A.D. 1810 the coast of San On was repeatedly attacked by a large fleet of pirate ships, and the district magistrate asked for sanction from the throne to move the fortress then existing at Fat T'ong Moon near Lyemun to Kau Lung (Kowloon) city. This was granted, but money to do the work was scarce. The magistrate went to Tang in his difficulty: Tang said, "The hill round Kau Lung are full of large stones. Why not explain to the local masons that they should work on such an important matter for their country, for low wages." The magistrate, knowing that Tang had a great gift of persuasion with the country people, begged him to undertake the task. Tang was successful, the stone masons agreed to do what he suggested and when the fort was finished Tang wrote four big characters Chan Hoi Kam Tong. Chan to guard, Hoi the sea, Kam the city was built by strong metal, T'ong hot water; i.e. the water in the city moat is like boiling water that no enemy would dare to cross. These characters were carved on a large stone tablet which was built in the wall of the fort; unfortunately it is no longer to be seen. The public dispensary outside the Kowloon city wall now occupies the original site. Another useful public work that Tang Yin Yuen was responsible for, was the rebuilding of Man Kong Shue Yuen, the high grade school for San On district. This building was originally inside the West gate of the capital city of San On, and owing to the low-lying ground it was most unhealthy for the teachers and students. A desirable site was inside the South gate but objections were raised by a native of the town who declared the land to be his own property. Tang went to law on his own responsibility, and when the district magistrate declared himself unable to give judgment he took the case to a higher court. He won and the new building was completed in the 11th year of Ka Hing A.D. 1806. A new name was given to the school, Fung Kong Shue Yuen, and Tang carved yat ch'an pat yim, "not soiled by a particle of dust” over the top of the main door. Before he died Tang wrote in his will that he hoped one day one of his descendants would teach in the school and help to train good citizens. This wish was granted in 1904 when his great grandson Tang Wai Man went to teach in the school where he stayed seven years. Tang Ying Yuen helped to compile the "History of San On," and his house is still to be Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES 183 road,” now Victoria city, and So Kwun Po (7). From the fact that these references occurred in the Leung Ch'aak (##) or Register Book of Tung Kwun district, one may judge that the land was owned by the Tangs before the 1st year of Maan Lik, A.D. 1525, as after that the San On district was formed. To the East of Shui Mei village there is an ancestral Hall called Mau King T'ong (N). It was built by the descendants of Tang Chan (1) Tang Yui (*) and Tang Kuen (#) the three younger brothers of Tang Yam (3) the father of Tang Tsing Lok. When the descendants of Tang Yam completed the building of Sz Shing Tong, the descendants of the three younger brothers felt it was a disgrace that there were no ancestral halls for their respective ancestors. However they were far from being rich, so they decided to combine together and build one hall under the leadership of Tang Man Wai (4X4), who was a man of rank and a descendant of Tang Chan. On the top of the front door they carved the characters §; › §¡› ✯ ✯✯ “Chan, Yui, Kuen, the three Ancestors Hall," and on a signboard the three big characters ✯✯ Mau King Tong, were written by Ts'oi Hok Yuen (4) a scholar of San On, and hung in the hall in the 22nd year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1817, of Ts'ing dynasty. The reason why the name Mau King Tong was chosen was on account of the old story "Tin Shi King fa fook mau” ( # A#*M*) “the Judas-tree of T'in family again becomes luxuriant." The story is as follows:-- T'in Chan (₪) and his two younger brothers T'in Hing (w A) and T'in Kwong (□), natives of Chiu Shing district (#K) of Shantung, during the Hon dynasty, decided to divide their family property between them. Among other things, they owned a Tsz King (**), judas tree, and the evening before the dividing up was to take place they found to their surprise that the tree was withered. This upset T'in Chan's feelings very much, he sighed and said to his younger brothers, "The different branches of the tree come from one root; now that they have heard that they are to be divided up, they have become melancholy and look sorrowful. Now we brothers are human beings, but although we have separate bodies we all came from the same parents, so why should we divide the family property and live separately? Do we not feel ashamed in seeing the appearance of this tree?" Then the younger brothers were moved by this, and they never mentioned the idea of dividing the family property ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 NOTES AND QUERIES The purpose of the visit is to see 197 (a) the quiet residential terraces of this part of Kennedy Town, namely Tai Pak Terrace, Hee Wong Terrace, Ching Lin Terrace, To Li Terrace, and Hok Si Terrace; (b) the Lo Pan Temple which stands at the western end of Ching Lin Terrace. Kennedy Town was named after an early Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Arthur Kennedy in whose term of office, April 1872 - March 1877, the district was first developed. Kennedy ‘was genial, and possessed a great sense of humour, much common sense, and a strong Irish accent'. For a short but interesting and lively account of the events of his governorship see Endacott's History of Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1958, pp. 160-169), Endacott gives the following reason for the development of Kennedy Town, then located on the western fringe of the city of Victoria The telegraph and the Suez Canal had brought changes in commercial practice; large stocks used to be kept by the European firms to meet any advantageous price changes; but now shipments could be arranged far more quickly. The result was that large godowns in the eastern district were no longer necessary, and coolies moved to the western part of the city in search of employment. To meet this change a new Chinese area was laid out on partly reclaimed land, and named Kennedy Town after the Governor. The Five Terraces Carl Smith has very kindly provided the following information about the development of the particular section of Kennedy Town in which we are interested: The area we are visiting today, lying between Pokfulam Road and the sea shore and from Holland Street to Sands Street, was the earliest development in what is now Kennedy Town. George Underhill Sands was granted a Crown Lease in 1873 for 330,634 square feet at Belcher's Bay. The lot was numbered Marine Lot 239. It not only had a sea frontage suitable for docks and a ship slipway, but it extended up the hillside toward Pokfulam Road. Sands died in 1877 and his executors sold the lot with its patent slips and shipways to the Hong Kong and Whampoa ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 202 NOTES AND QUERIES moon) by carpenters and varnishers (the latter generally worship his two wives)." [Note the different date on which worship is carried on in Hong Kong. The above is given without the Chinese characters found in the original.] The Kwong Yut Tong states that between 1000-1500 persons visit the temple annually on Lo Pan's birthday, drawn mostly from bosses and workers in the construction trades. The God must be considered to be effectual, since deities who perform no miracles soon lose support and patronage. The hillside adjoining the temple has recently been cleared of squatter huts, and it is hoped to develop it as a public park, Lady Ho Tung Hall, University of Hong Kong According to the HKU's Jubilee publication The First Fifty Years (HKU Press, 1962) this women's hall of residence was donated by Sir Robert Hotung a few years after the War, to be named after his deceased wife. The foundation stone was laid on 14th August 1950 and the hall opened on 16 March 1951. It provided accommodation for 85 of the 206 woman students then enrolled, and was in addition to two other halls of residence for women administered by religious bodies. (2) VISIT TO OLD WANCHAI FRIDAY, 5 APRIL 1974 Background and Early Development Wanchai is one of the oldest districts of British Hong Kong. Under the name Ha Wan or 'Lower Bay', it was one of the 5 wan, alternatively 'bay' () or 'circuit' (#), a term used in the 1850's and 1860's to describe the residential and commercial areas largely developed by the new Chinese population of the Island. (See The China Review Vol. 1 (1872) p. 333 for an article "The Districts of Hong Kong and the Name Kwan-Tai-Lo'.) The area is described as follows in a list of the city districts, with boundaries, given in the Government gazette in 1857: 'Ha Wan, District No. 5. From Murray Barracks to Observation Point', Footnote: Those members who visited the Lu Pan temple at Ching Lin Terrace, Kennedy Town, in January may wish to know that there is an article on this subject in Colonel V. R. Burkhardt's Chinese Creeds & Customs, Vol. 2, pp. 117-120. The statement therein that the temple was built in 1928 is misleading: the entrance is dated in 1884-85. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 210 NOTES AND QUERIES Walk along Queen's Road West to the Tak Nam Tea-house and enter the lane between it and the site of the former Ko Shing Theatre (now redeveloped with a nearly-completed multi-storey building). Enter Ko Shing Street. Note the two old buildings housing Chinese medicine wholesalers, at nos. 21 and 23, Ko Shing Street, opposite the lane exit. Enter Sutherland Street and into the In Ku Lane with its old godowns, five of them occupied by wholesale dealers in Chinese medicine, one with rice in addition. Enter Li Shing Street and so into Queen's Road West. Proceed to Chi Mei Lane and so into Des Voeux Road (no. 150). Proceed west into Sai Woo Lane. There is a good view of the old shop houses in the lane from the steps at the Queen's Road West end. The various lanes contain many box-makers, rattan goods dealers, gummy sack makers etc. The buildings are of various dates, but some of them are very old, particularly those 2-3 storeys high with granite block counters at the shop fronts. Walk along Queen's Road West observing the high, old retaining wall on the opposite side of the road with the old Sai Ying Pun Hospital buildings above. Pass Eastern Street and enter Miu Fong Street. Note the unusual brick pavement. We shall stop at the premises of the Wo Sang Ho, a dry fish dealer. (The wrapping round the head of the dry fish is to prevent the sea salt, placed inside, from coming out). Walk back along Des Voeux Road West to its junction with Ko Shing Street. (Look across the road to the structure on the rooftops of the old houses to the left of the City College of Commerce Grace Lutheran Church—for drying salt fish, & similar to that at Wo Sang Ho in Miu Fong Street which we cannot visit because of its small size, narrow staircases and our large numbers. Walk along Ko Shing Street to its junction with Queen's Street. Proceed from Queen's Street to Queen's Road West and enter Bonham Strand, and so to the Ching Wah Kok Tea-house where arrangements have been made for us to have Chinese tea and bakeries. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 224 NOTES AND QUERIES The area still retains its distinctive character and is a tribute to the vision and public-spirit of its chief promoter, Mr. Ede (1865-1925). A small plaque set into the wall of a park in Essex Crescent perpetuates his memory. Another Garden City plan for the area south of Prince Edward Road, west of Waterloo Road and north of Argyle Street was initiated by the Hong Kong Engineering and Construction Company in 1932. Unlike the Kowloon Tong area, which was levelled by cutting and filling, this project was to utilise the natural features of the site. It was claimed that 'for excellence of situation, beauty of outlook, serenity of location and conformity with surrounding amenities, it will be without an equal in the Peninsula'. (South China Morning Post, Jan. 21, 1932, remarks at Sod Turning Ceremony.) Mr. J. P. Braga, Chairman of the Company undertaking the project, gave his name to the road at the centre of the tract, Braga Circuit. The area still retains some of its secluded and serene character and is a favourite of courting couples. It is better known today as Kadoorie Avenue, the general name used to describe the several roads that make up this residential complex. The Diocesan Boys' School As the name indicates the Diocesan Boys' School is an institution of the Anglican Church in Hong Kong. In 1859 the wife of Bishop Smith, being interested in the education of girls, organised a committee of women and founded the Diocesan Native Female Training Institute. It was established 'to introduce among a somewhat superior class of Native Females the blessings of Christianity and of Religious Training' (The First Annual Report). Education was to be in English. It was hoped the girls would make suitable brides for the male converts from St. Paul's College. However, there were some publicised instances of students from the School being sought after as mistresses of Europeans, their ability to speak English being a particular asset in such an arrangement. Due to this bad publicity local support fell off and the school was in financial difficulties. In 1867 all Chinese girls, except orphans and destitute, were dismissed. In 1868 Bishop Alford somewhat reluctantly agreed to head up a reorganisation. The following year the name was changed to the Diocesan Home and Orphanage. Under a new admission policy the Home was 'to receive and place children of both sexes, sound both in body and mind, of European, Chinese ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 228 NOTES AND QUERIES The few houses on the southern side of Boundary Street, just completed for the Credit Foncier d'Extreme-Orient, were the only buildings around; further at the junction of this street with Prince Edward Road was 'Mignon', a small bungalow occupied by Miss Santos; the rest was either carved out of Chinese gardens or totally undeveloped. Across what was later on to become La Salle Road was a garden lot of some three acres which Brother Aimar had acquired lately from Mrs. Chan Kwing Min, the wife of the former Waichow war-lord [the present site of La Salle Primary School]; there was a small Chinese house on the grounds, in which the Canadian Sisters of Our Lady of the Angels, newly arrived in the Colony, resided temporarily. There was not a single house standing on the southern side of Prince Edward Road. The locality was admirably situated, equally distant from Kowloon City and Kowloon Tong: two abundant reservoirs for a Chinese school population; and Homantin, where a large number of Portuguese families then resided. The Hong Kong architectural firm of Messrs. Little, Adams and Wood was engaged to draw up plans. This was the same firm that had designed not long before the nearby Diocesan Boys' School. In their plans for the new College they incorporated features of ecclesiastical architecture that we do not find in the D.B.S. building, such as columned porticos and a domed chapel. The dome is one of the most interesting architectural features to be found in Kowloon. The Great Hall was said to be modelled after the Theatre Royal of Naples, and the mushroom columns in the open area under the Great Hall reminds one of the pillars under the demonstration building of the Medical Faculty in Paris. The buildings were designed to accommodate 700 pupils, 350 of these being Portuguese boys living in Kowloon, and as Brother Aimar remarked at the Foundation Stone Laying, “We thought it only right to provision, as in St. Joseph's, for an equal number of boys of Chinese parentage and for a boarding department." (South China Morning Post, Nov. 5, 1930.) Though the land was bought in 1924, the plans for the building were not approved until 1929. The following year Governor Sir William Peel laid the foundation stone. The building was first occupied for classes in December, 1931, and the following month ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 260 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: O'HARA, Randolph O'H WARD, Dr. & Mrs. F. A. OTTWAY, Mrs. Joy OXLEY, C. W. B. PARKIN, Mrs. Elise PARRINGTON, Miss June PAUL, Mr. & Mrs. Anthony M. PAYNTER, J. L. PERESYPKIN, Oleg P. PICKFORD, J. B. PORDES, F. POW, Hugh J. PRESCOTT, Jon. A. PRYOR, Dr. E. G. c/o The City Hall Library, Edinburgh Place, H.K. Flat 58, 140, Pokfulam Road, H.K. 216, Windsor House, H.K. District Office, Sai Kung, Sai Po Kong Government Offices, 692, Prince Edward Road, Kowloon. 12, Peak Mansions, H.K. Arts Faculty Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 9, Jade House, 47C, Stubbs Road, H.K. Canadian Trade Commission, P.O. Box 126, H.K. P.O. Box 1382, H.K. E/M Dept., Public Works Department, Caroline Hill, H.K. 209, Gloucester Building, H.K. School of Physiotherapy, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon. 67B, Perkins Road, Jardine's Lookout, H.K. Colony Planning Division, Crown Lands & Survey Office, Murray Building, H.K. History Department, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. QUESTED, Mrs. R. K. I. REYNOLDS, W. A. 19, Middleton Towers, 140, Pokfulam Rd., H.K. RICKETT, Mr. & Mrs. E. A. 35A Shouson Hill Road, Deep Water Bay, H.K. RIFKIN, Miss S. B. RITCHIE, D. J. ROBERTSON, Mrs. A. G. ROBERTSON, Mrs. W. G. ROGERS, R. ROPER, C. W. ROSE, Miss Patricia RUDANT, Jacques SALMON, Mrs. P. A. American Consulate General, 26, Garden Road. H.K. Flat A-4, 45, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. 5A, Hatton House, 15, Kotewall Road, H.K. Park Mansions, 4 Mile Taipo Road, Taipo. 1st floor, Kowloon. The Chartered Bank, 10, Granville Road, Kowloon. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K. c/o Diocesan Girls' School, 1, Jordan Rd., Kowloon, French Trade Commission, 1505-7 Hang Seng Bank Bldg., 77 Des Voeux Rd., C., H.K. 40, Plantation Road, The Peak, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: SAPSTEAD, G. SCHWARZ, W. H. SCOBELL, C. L. SELWYN, J. B. SHAW, Dr. & Mrs. B. C. SHOEMAKER, J. F. SHU, Dr. H. T. SIEGEL, H. W. SIU, Miss A. V. SLEVIN, Brian SMITH, Rev. Carl T, SO, Dr. Chak Lam SOLOMON, Mrs. Miriam SPAIN, Mr. & Mrs. E. J. STAFFORD, Peter STEINER, Henry STEMPEL, A. STEWART, Miss J. M. C. STRANGER-JONES, A. J. STRICKLAND, John E. STUMPF, K. L., O.B.E. SU, Ming-Hsuan SU, Samson TAYLOR, Mrs. V. THOMA, Dr. Richard THOMAS, Rik THOMAS, Mrs. S. E. Highways Office, Public Works Dept., Murray Building, H.K. c/o Achelis (HK) Ltd., Kowloon City P.O. Box 9334, Kowloon City, Kowloon. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K. 2404 Connaught Centre, H.K. 72, Middleton Towers, 140, Pokfulam Rd., H.K. 73, Kadoorie Avenue, Kowloon. 70, Mt. Davis Road, H.K. c/o Bayer China Co. Ltd., 1916 Union House, H.K. Flat A, Hing Mee Bldg., 13th floor, 25-31 Leighton Road, H.K. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K. Chung Chi College, Shatin, N.T. Dept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 2 Wongneichong Gap Road, F5, Woodland Heights, H.K. D28 Burnside Estate, Repulse Bay, H.K. c/o The Mandarin Hotel, Connaught Road, C., H.K. Graphic Communication Ltd., Printing House, 6 Duddell Street, H.K. c/o Gilman Office Machines, 41st floor, Connaught Centre, H.K. 28, Lancashire Road, Kowloon. 12E, Cliffview Mansions, 25, Conduit Rd., H.K. c/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., G.P.O. Box 64, H.K. Lutheran World Federation, Dept. of World Service, 33 Granville Road, Kowloon. 28 Broadway, 10-B Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Kowloon. c/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road, C., H.K. 6A Pekao House, 30 Conduit Road, H.K. 44, Mt. Kellet Road, 3A, Mountain Lodge, H.K. 31 Conduit Road, 9th floor, H.K. C-3, Clearwater Bay Apts, Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY OVERSEAS MEMBERS: JOHNSON, Mr. & Mrs. Paul K. + JOHNSTON, James J. JUNKER, Mrs. Sibylle KRAMERS, Dr. R. P. - KIDD, S. T. LEAKE, Mrs. Sima B. LECKIE, J. B. H. - + - LYNCH, Rev. P. Francis, M.M. MACK, A. M. McCOY, J. - ORR, Iain C. PENNELL, W. V. - RAINBIRD, S. W. O.B.E. RASSIM, Mrs. E. SCOTT, J. M. P + SMITH, Dr. Ralph B. - SMITHIES, Michael SOO, Dr. Hoy Mun STOKES, John - 265 c/o Nan Shan Life Ins. Co. Ltd., 15, Nan King E. Road, Section 2, Taipei, Taiwan. P.O. Box 65, Marshall, Arkansas 72650, U.S.A. c/o Federal Foreign Office, Referat 412, Bonn (Germany-West), Adenauerallee 101. c/o Ostasiatisches Seminar, Der Universetat Zurich, Muhlegasse 21, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland. c/o Hong Kong Govt. Office, 54, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1, England. c/o American Consulate, Calcutta, India. c/o H.K. Trade Development Office, Britannia House, 30, Rue Joseph 2nd, Brussels 4, Belgium. Maryknoll Centre House, 120 San Min Rd., 1st Section, Taichung City 400, Taiwan. 34, Wilton Crescent, London, S.W.1, England. Dept. of Modern Languages, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14850, U.S.A. Pearce Institute, Govan Cross, Glasgow, S.W.1, U.K. Can Boyet Mear Puerto Pollensa, Majorca, Spain. c/o Hong Kong Govt. Office, 54, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1, England. 101, Holland Road, Hove 2, Sussex, England. c/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., 9, Gracechurch Street, London, E.C.3, England. School of Oriental & African Studies, Malet Street, London, W.C.1, England. Eng. Language Training Unit, University of Jadjahmada, Jogjakarta, Indonesia. 249, Jalan Pekeliling, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. c/o Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., Bandar Seri Begawan, State of Brunei. STRICKLAND, Mrs. P. G. Jaishan, Apartada 56, Marbella, Provincia de Malaga, Spain. STURM, Dr. F. G. + c/o Dept. of Philosophy, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, U.S.A. UHALLEY, Dr. Stephen, Jr. 7103, Kukii Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96821, U.S.A. WATSON, Dr. James L. - + c/o School of Oriental & African Studies, Malet Street, London, W.C.1, E7 HP, England. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 7 # MEMBERSHIP As a result of reorganisation in the British Council this year we have made alternative arrangements for much of our clerical work to be done. We are happy to have obtained the services here of Mrs. Rowena Lack, member of the Society, and we are grateful to the British Council for continuing to let us use their premises as a venue for our clerical work. Owing to the changeover, however, membership figures are not easily comparable with those of last year which were up to the actual A.G.M. Here I have them up to December 1974 which in a sense is more logical since our membership year runs by the calendar. So in looking at our present figures of 565 against last March's 610 it would be misleading to see this as a drastic drop. In fact we have had 135 new members up to December. The break-down of the 565 is: 37 overseas life members, 55 local life members—many have converted from ordinary to life membership over the year—46 overseas ordinary members and 427 ordinary local members. # CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION AND THE FUTURE All our extra activities have brought, as I said, more work. As you will see from our Hon. Librarian's report which he has tabled tonight, his own time has been very much taken up with the photographic survey which we consider, as things stand at the moment, a priority to the library itself which has no permanent home of its own. Our Hon. Secretary has also been involved with this project and both have spent many week-ends tramping Hong Kong and poring over photographs and arranging the exhibition for you tonight. (We are also grateful to the City Hall Management for lending equipment for this exhibition). All of us find increasingly, too, our own professional commitments increasing in the more complex Hong Kong in which we now live. It was for this reason we requested your permission to expand our Council at an Extraordinary General Meeting on March 3, and we are very pleased to welcome our new members—the two additionally voted and one replacement for Mr. Watt. It is hoped that with this expanded Council we will be able to meet all our commitments to provide you with a varied programme this coming year. So far several events have been planned by the past Council for the new period: Dr. Wellington Chan in April—on Chinese Patterns of Merchant Organisation—and a trip to Macau Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d A HONG KONG SPIRIT-MEDIUM TEMPLE 27 11 Jordan, op. cit., pp. 67-86. 12 For a discussion of "fairy bones" see Potter, op. cit., pp. 225-226. 13 For an English translation of the Monkey legend, see Wu, 1942. 14 MacGowan, 1889. 15 It is important that the medium performs this particular act of self-mutilation from time to time because the blood from his tongue is used to make "powerful" amulets known as ling chue ✯✯. 16 Lewis, 1971. 17 Feuchtwang, 1974. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahern, E. The Cult of The Dead in a Chinese Village, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1973. Doolittle, J. The Social Life of The Chinese, 2 vols., orig. Harper & Row, New York, 1865 (Reprint Ch'eng Wen, Taipei, 1966). Elliott, A. J. Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapore, London School of Economics and Political Science Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 14, Athlone Press, London, 1955. Feuchtwang, S. "City Temples in Taipei under Three Regimes", in M. Elvin and G. W. Skinner eds., The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1974, pp. 264-302. Jordan, D. Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1972. MacGowan, J. Christ or Confucius, Which?: The Story of The Amoy Mission, London Missionary Society, 1889, London (Reprint Ch'eng Wen, Taipei, 1971). Potter, J. "Cantonese Shamanism", in A. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1974, pp. 207-232. Wu, Ch'eng-en. Monkey (Translated by Arthur Waley), Allen & Unwin, London, 1942. ADDENDUM A run of annual mimeographed Chinese texts on spirit mediumship, covering the years 1933-1942 and produced in or for Hong Kong, was discovered by the Hon. Editor of this Journal in a second-hand bookshop recently and is now held by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 36 WELLINGTON K. K. CHAN and the Tung Wah Hospital asking them to discourage the populace from rash and violent reactions.25 The merchants themselves also looked to them to provide leadership. In the same episode, the large Chinese Landsmannschaft (Chung-hua hui-kuan) in San Francisco sent an account of the riots to these two organisations and asked them to petition the Chinese government on its behalf.26 Contemporary newspapers reported many instances in which merchants and officials referred cases to them for arbitration.27 In 1901, the Hong Kong newspaper, the Hua-tzu jih-pao, summed up the development of the charitable halls in Canton in this way: The charitable halls had begun with the aim of offering private social welfare, but they had since assumed a number of political roles. They were consulted by the officials on various occasions; as when surtaxes were needed, when commercial policies were decided upon, and when social disturbances in the community arose. The government regarded them as an organ where "titled merchants" (shen-shang and shen-tung) expressed the opinions of the merchant community. When the government sought their opinion, they deliberated with representatives of the various guilds, assessed their views, and then passed their judgements on to the government.28 Towards Community-wide Organisations Besides the charitable halls, there were other types of merchant organisations which sought to embrace community-wide concerns. Mark Elvin's recent study on Shanghai shows the rise of specialised agencies in which gentry and merchants joined efforts in providing municipal services from the mid-nineteenth century on. In 1905, their activities culminated in the formation of the City Council of Shanghai.29 In Newchuang and in Swatow, the guilds in each of these localities got together and formed permanent assemblies. The Newchuang Grand Assembly (ta-hui) was composed of principal Chinese merchants and financiers of the city. It had two areas of responsibilities. First, as a combination of merchant guilds it was concerned with the laying down and the enforcement of trading rules between guilds. Second, it provided unofficial municipal services supplementing what the local government did. They included maintaining the streets, a public water supply and some social welfare.30 In Swatow, the Wen-nien-feng Assembly was concerned with regulating differences between the guilds. It also dominated the Swatow Landsmann guilds in the various cities, so ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 52 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG they had never been presented, and that one which he had ordered to be carried to the city-gate had also been stopped by them in its progress. Mr. Brown declared it his positive determination to resist the pecuniary demands made by the Hong Merchants, and stated it to be his firm belief that, could a petition be conveyed to the Hoppo's own hand, the sailing of the fleet would no longer be delayed. It now occurred to me that I might find a way of obtaining this desirable object by gaining access to the Viceroy; I therefore suggested to Mr. Brown the propriety of the commanders and officers of the fleet presenting themselves at the great gate of the city, headed by myself as commodore, with a petition in the Chinese language, addressed, by my particular desire, "To the Viceroy", in large Chinese characters,--and this I said, I would endeavour to get conveyed by some means into the Viceroy's own hand. Mr. Brown agreed to my proposal, and said he would confide in my prudence to carry it into effect. I then requested I might be accompanied by Sir George Staunton, or some one of the interpreters belonging to the factory, but this Mr. Brown declined,—permitting Mr. Perry, one of the supercargoes to go along with me. When I left Mr. Brown, he believed it was my intention only to go to the city-gate, as was the usual practice, present the petition there, and endeavour, by waiting, to get an answer: but I was well aware, on the present occasion, of how little use this would be, and I determined to get into the city, if possible, to reach the Viceroy's palace and to deliver the petition to him in person; however, as my success was very doubtful, I did not disclose my intentions to any one, but determined to act as circumstances might direct. The petition stated, "That the commodore, the commanders, and officers of the fleet, having finished the business which brought them to China, and having carefully observed all the laws and regulations of the port, were desirous of departing, but were informed by the security merchants that his Excellency the Viceroy had refused the port-clearance without assigning any cause for so doing, —that the petitioners, believing in the justice of the Viceroy, had reason to doubt that the detention arose from some misrepresentations made to him by the merchants for their own private purposes, -they therefore prayed the Viceroy would give them permission to depart". Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.L. CO. 55 retired, and shortly after made their appearance in magnificent uniforms, and drew up in a body opposite to us. The palace gate now opened, and a Mandarin slowly advanced towards me; he addressed me in Chinese, to which I could only reply by shaking my head and showing him my petition. He put out his hand to receive it, but I drew back mine, and made a sign I wanted to go into the palace to deliver it. He shook his head, and seemed decidedly averse to such a proceeding. We were soon relieved from this embarrassment by the arrival of the two senior security merchants, Mowqua and Howqua, the first a fine old man of upwards of eighty years of age, and it was supposed that to those two we principally owed our detention,- the rest of the Hong came soon after. Mowqua was in great agitation when he arrived, and addressed me in his usual Chinese-English, “Ah! Mister Commodore, what for you come here? you want security merchants have cutty head? Hoppo truly much angry English come his house, he will cutty my poor old head."-My reply was, "Mowqua! it is your own fault; why did you not present the Typan's (chief supercargo's) petition to the Hoppo? had you done so, I should not have come here."-"Good Mister Commodore, me takey petition, and will truly get answer directly."--"No, no, Mowqua! I will give it into the Hoppo's own hand myself”,--on which all the security merchants set up a cry as if I had uttered some treason against the Celestial Empire, What you come here? you wanty see Hoppo? That you no can do-Hoppo send you to prison as soon as he know you come him house—we takey petition before he know you come city-get out fast you can; truly he too much angry he know you here.” There now appeared a Mandarin of high rank, to whom the merchants paid great respect; he came up to Captain Craig, Mr. Perry and myself, who were standing with the two senior security merchants in front of our party; he, with civility, enquired what we wanted? and was instantly replied to by Mowqua, but I was determined to be my own interpreter. I therefore held up the petition for him to read the address, and made signs as before that I wanted to go into the palace to present it. This compelled Mowqua to come to an explanation with the Mandarin, who left us, as I supposed, to inform the Hoppo of our being there; he soon returned, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 56 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG however, and held another consultation with the Hong merchants, who again informed me that I could not possibly see the Viceroy, and that I must entrust the petition to their care. On this I thought it right to consult with Mr. Perry, Captain Craig, and some other senior commanders, whether they advised my yielding the point and giving up the petition. I however gave it as my own decided opinion that we should still persevere in demanding an audience, and in this I was supported by all but Mr. Perry, who thought we ought not to persist any longer. I however determined to resist, and informed the Hong merchants that nothing but force should compel us to leave the palace without an interview. I was the more inclined to persevere, from one of the junior merchants having whispered in my ear not to give up my point, and that he, and several other of the Hong, did not approve of what the seniors had been doing. After a long pause, Mowqua said to me, if I was resolved to see the Hoppo I must send away all the commanders and officers except one, and that he and I should then be admitted into the palace. To this I instantly agreed, and it was settled that Mr. Perry, the supercargo, should be the person to remain with me, and that Captain Craig and the rest of the party should retire out of the city, which they accordingly did. Mr. Perry and myself were now left in the court of the Hoppo's palace, surrounded by a great number of Mandarins, Hong merchants, and soldiers; the Mandarin who took the lead then showed us into a large and splendid hall in the palace, where we were accompanied by the Hong merchants, who appeared extremely disconcerted at our success. It was now near twelve o'clock, and from that time until four every effort by promises, persuasion, and threats, was made use of by the Hong to prevail on me to give up the desire of seeing the Hoppo, but without effect; I was perfectly decided and firm, although frequently and most anxiously urged by Mr. Perry to yield the point. Finding that I was not to be moved, Mowqua at last told me I should soon see the Viceroy,—"And now, Mister Commodore, when great man come, you must knocky head."—"What is knocky head, Mowqua?” said I.—"You must down on knees, and putty head on ground", was the reply.—"That's not my country fashion, Mowqua—I don't do so to my King, therefore will not do so to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA (MA) HELGA WERLE Ms. Helga Werle, whose article on Chiuchow (in Mandarin Chao-chou) puppets appeared in the 1973 Journal, describes two typical plays of the Chiuchow opera, and gives background information about this particular regional theatre of China. Ed. In urbanized Hong Kong today one can see a performance of Chiuchow Opera at City Hall or Lee theatre two or three times a year, but the traditional purpose of this opera is the shen-kung hsi—a performance to celebrate the birthday of a deity. Many areas of Hong Kong have their organized Chiuchow communities centred upon the temple of a certain deity. The Chiuchows have innumerable deities, often completely different from the Cantonese. Some of those worshipped in Hong Kong with temples erected in their names are: Li-shan lao-mu T'ai-i chen-ren Li lao-ch'un 李老君 Ch'i t'in ta-sheng San-shan kuo-wang San t'ai-tze lao-yeh Mu-ch'a Chin-ch'a and No-ch'a called the three princes "san t'ai-tze", the three sons of Li Ching 李靖 Han Chung-kung To ensure the prosperity of each temple community the birthday of its deity must be properly celebrated. The most outstanding members of the community are chosen to form the prestigious festival committee, which has the duty to collect the necessary amount of money (between 50 and 100,000 HK$) to organize a worthy celebration. And what could rejoice a god's heart more than the luxury of a series of opera performances? After the dates are decided with the consent of the deity involved a large space is booked with a Government office (usually a public playground), Plates 5-12 at rear of the volume illustrate this article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY 91 between those who were, and were not, socially acceptable. An inordinate degree of effort went into securing release from this social limbo. Release, when it occurred, was achieved in most cases by judicious entertaining, by obtaining entrée to the right clubs and associations, or by a change of occupation. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a beachcomber as ‘a settler on the Pacific islands, living by pearl fishery, etc., or loafing about wharves and beaches' and as 'a white man in Pacific islands etc., who lives by collecting jetsam, longshore vagrant'. The term, a pejorative one in European circles in the East, in time was applied to all European vagrants by those in established positions and meant, simply, a loafer. It was difficult to survive on the beach in Hong Kong for the climate, with its cold winter months, did not provide the lush consolations of life on the Pacific islands; and the Chinese, the host population, whose traditions supported the values of hard work, frugality and sobriety, were not as easy-going as the denizens of the South Seas. Beachcombers in Hong Kong were defined as loafers, destitutes, down-and-outs, spongers, and paupers, and were referred to as such in the newspapers of the time. A news item in the China Mail of 1888 sheds light on contemporary attitudes toward beachcombers: A 'Dead-Beat' named George Smith was brought before Mr. Sercombe Smith, in the Police Court to-day, charged with being a rogue and vagabond and having no visible means of subsistence. Defendant, who admitted having no occupation, no money, and no place of abode, was sent to Gaol for a month's hard labour, during which time steps will be taken to procure a more desirable berth for him.3 Beachcombers in Hong Kong were mostly discharged seamen, seamen who had jumped ship, or deserters from foreign navies, especially the American. A few were work-shy nomads who moved from port to port, waiting for something to turn up. Others adopted an itinerant mode of life because their capacity to work regularly had been undermined by drink, drugs, or debauchery in general. Some were escaping from a criminal past. All were objects of suspicion. A European constabulary had been recruited to police the city of Victoria and adjacent areas soon after the establishment of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 94 H. J. LETHBRIDGE employment; but few stayed with the department. Most took to their gypsy life again, once they had accumulated a few dollars, and left for either Shanghai or Singapore, or simply went to earth in Tai Ping Shan or Wan Chai until disinterred by the police, always on the look out for European destitutes. There were always some troops on garrison duty in the colony or manning the various fortifications designed to repel a seaborne invasion. The garrison normally was small and numbered usually less than 1,500 men. But numbers fluctuated markedly at times. In March 1860, for example, over 14,000 troops (10,000 British and 4,000 French) were being drilled in a vast tented camp on two square miles of the Kowloon peninsula, leased from the Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and awaiting transportation to the theatre of operations in the north. A witness of these events wrote that 'the streets of Victoria were thronged by soldiers and sailors; commissaries and staff officers were to be seen everywhere; all as busy as mortals could be'.7 It was a policy of the government and the military to keep troops if possible out of European Victoria—the central commercial district—and to confine their debaucheries to special areas of the colony. Thus five brothels were specially opened at Wan Chai in the 1850s when soldiers at that time were prohibited by their officers from entering the central districts of the city. For soldiers on outpost duties access to Victoria was difficult in any case: Garrison life at these outposts is usually melancholy; society is impossible, as the fortifications are eight miles by water from the city, and communication over the mountains is arduous. It is not a question of which is the better of the two, but which the worse, to be of the British Garrison Artillery or the Chinese Lighthouse Service.& There were usually more sailors than soldiers ashore in Hong Kong, or afloat in the harbour, at certain times of the year. During the three winter months, the British China squadron was stationed in Hong Kong; in summer most naval vessels left Hong Kong for the north and other stations. The large number of sailors, who at times outnumbered the civilian European population, was supplemented by merchant seamen of many nationalities; for by the 1890s Hong Kong had become, after London, Liverpool, and Port Said, the fourth largest port in the world in terms of seagoing tonnage ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 98 H. J. LETHBRIDGE and debtors from Australia, as well as mercenaries and American deserters. The luckless ones became in time indistinguishable from beachcombers, the poor whites of the Colony. At a rough estimate, about a third of the total European population (excluding soldiers, sailors, and seamen) would have been classified as working or lower class by the resident European middle class of merchants and government officials, and were treated as such by those implacably class-conscious Britons. In Hong Kong, the 'two nations'—of rich and poor Europeans—were not driven into social amalgamation by the fear of a common fate as aliens on the shores of far-away Cathay. A government clerk, who lived in Hong Kong in the 1850s, complained that: the exclusiveness, jealousy and pride of 'caste' that have been so long and so justly attributed to our English brethren and sisters in our Indian possessions attain more luxuriant growth in China. The little community, far from being a band of brothers, is split up into numerous petty cliques or sets, the members of which never think of associating with those out of their immediate circle... Even here (England) one sees a somewhat similar state of society in many of our small country towns, where everyone knows everybody, and the minutest details of your neighbours' daily lives, manners and conversation, are noted with watchful assiduity. Anyone who has had the happiness to spend some time in one of these rural paradises can form a pretty good notion of the state of matters in an English colony, only that things are much worse.16 In 1885, an American found the same conditions prevailing, though possibly in a more exaggerated form: To an American, it seems extremely silly for wholesale merchants and their clerks to hold themselves, socially, above the retail merchants and their clerks, regardless of the amount of business they do, and their moral and intellectual standing... Distance from Britain, far from loosening ties that bound Britons into a rigid world of class distinctions, tended to tighten them.17 The effects of these divisions will be discussed in a later section. SOCIAL LIFE OF THE EUROPEAN LOWER CLASS. Until the cession of the Kowloon peninsula in 1860, most lower-class Europeans lived in the city of Victoria, especially in the streets ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 102 H. J. LETHBRIDGE Row in Tai Ping Shan was then known as 'Samshu Corner' because many Europeans resorted to it for cheap topping. The commissioners ascertained that much drinking went on in barracks, troops sending Chinese 'boys' out to buy bottles of samshu or whisky for them. Drunkenness was a direct consequence of boredom and idleness. The problem of venereal disease was related to that of drinking, for bars and brothels clustered together. From 1867 to 1887, the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, patterned on the English act of 1866, was in force in the colony to protect the health of British servicemen. Briefly, the 1867 ordinance made all prostitutes working in licensed brothels for Europeans only (Chinese brothels for Chinese only were exempted) subject to compulsory medical inspection at the Lock Hospital. European prostitutes, on the other hand, could undergo examination at home. It was claimed that the repeal of the Hong Kong ordinance in 1889, following the repeal of the English act in 1886, led to an upsurge in the rates for venereal disease. In 1895, admissions into hospital for venereal infection in the home army were 173.8 per 1,000; in India, 522.3; in Hong Kong, about the same figure. It follows, then, that the chance of a male member of the European lower orders becoming infected with venereal disease was always high during the period under review here, 1842-1900. The police, for example, were so prone to catching this social disease, almost an occupational disease for them, that at one time they were also subject to compulsory medical inspection. The practice was stopped in 1873, but before that date, there was a monthly examination of all foreign members of the force. Middle-class Europeans did not escape entirely from all these afflictions from alcoholism, syphilis, boredom, and loneliness. Both classes Taipans and pong-paan — also fell victim at times to a variety of diseases, such as malaria, typhus, cholera, and bubonic plague, as the Colonial Cemetery at Happy Valley amply testifies. But the well-to-do could at least escape to the Peak from Hong Kong's enervating summer, or recuperate in cooler latitudes, in Japan or northern China; and since many of the prosperous were respectably married and lived a normal family life, cosseted by a houseful of servants, they were protected to some degree by domestic circumstances from the temptations that soldiers, sailors, seamen, and their kind, had to face day and night in the city. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 106 H. J. LETHBRIDGE In 1881, a missionary wrote: Victoria has been called 'the city of palaces', from the extensive hongs and numerous and elegant residences. The men who principally hold its commerce in their hands are real merchant-princes. They furnish their mansions at great expense, and in the style of the home aristocracy. Their tables abound with every native and foreign luxury, and a liberal hospitality is dispensed toward casual visitors from distant parts of the world,30 The ostentatious and extravagant mode of life adopted by Taipans enlarged the gap between high and low status Europeans, Taipans and pong-paân. The standard was set by the Taipan and all strove to follow, but many lacked the means to put on dog. We are told that every foreigner (a term that signified European), whose salary was above seventy-five dollars gold a month (police, turnkeys, and inspectors were therefore excluded) retained a passenger chair, that is, a sedan chair, carried by either two or four coolies, who were uniformed, often in striking and colourful liveries designed by their employers.* The Governor, imitating the Mandarin style, was borne by eight bearers in scarlet dress. A man's social standing was given not only by his occupation but revealed by such social indicators as the elegance of his private passenger chair, membership of the Jockey Club or the Hong Kong Club (a sanctum sanctorum indeed), numbers of servants retained, sports played, and recreations indulged in. Much of this extravagance, this open flaunting of wealth, was a direct consequence of the parvenu origins of the Taipan class, many of whom were hard-nosed Scots from respectable but needy Lowlands families, who had done well on the China coast and wished to demonstrate the fact. But another factor operated in the early years - the feeling that life was fleeting and chancy in Hong Kong, with its high mortality and morbidity rates for all classes of people, so that life should be enjoyed to the full. The European lower orders were excluded from the social world of merchant and official and forced either into isolation within the circle of their own occupational and status group or into a segment For an illuminating insight into this situation see the Commission on chair and jinriksha coolies in Sessional Papers, 1901, No. 47. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY 107 of the underdog Portuguese or Eurasian communities. The one social event that united—for one evening—all classes of European was that great Scots tribal festival, the St. Andrew's Day Ball. Celebrated on November 30, it ushered in the Hong Kong season, a season that closed with the Volunteer Ball.* The St. Andrew's Day Ball was open to any Scot or his friends who could afford the price of a ticket. Held in St. George's Hall, a spacious ball-room within the City Hall edifice, it was attended normally by over a thousand adults. Although an Army chaplain inquired plaintively: "Why should pig-iron turn up its nose at ten-penny nails (in Hong Kong)?" for one evening at least status distinctions between retailers and wholesalers were partially ignored, although the proceedings were always dominated by the chieftains of Jardine, Matheson and Co., the patriarchal Scottish hong, The European lower orders were excluded not only from the more amusing social life of the colony, they also had little say in its government. In 1885, for example, the total number of ratepayers was eighty-two: from this small group the unofficial members of the Legislative Council normally were elected or chosen. The pong-paân were thus totally unrepresented in this, a British colony. Their names, moreover, are not found on the lists of Justices of the Peace, Special Jurors, and those of members of official and other important committees. They were of course sworn in on occasion as common jurors. Why did the European lower orders experience such treatment from the well-to-do and influential? Partly, it was a consequence of social attitudes formed in the homeland: Victorian notions about the ordering of social classes and occupational groups, such as are analysed in Thackeray's The Book of Snobs. However, in early Hong Kong another notion was also prevalent: the view that there were 'dangerous classes', a term that connoted the lumpenproletariat, a class of persons spawned in the new industrial cities of Europe, 'those who had so miserable a share in the accumulating wealth of the industrial revolution that they might at any time break out in political revolt as in France'.32 Predictably enough, working-class Europeans were often viewed with some suspicion; there was fear that middle-class control over them would cease to prevail in certain For the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force see James Hayes' article in this Journal Vol 11, 1971: 151-171. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY 109 in the main it is a limited number of English words used more or less according to Chinese idiom, and also mispronounced. The fewest possible number of English words is used.35 The widespread use of this lingua franca prevented Chinese and Europeans from even remotely grasping the subtleties of each other's culture. The amount of social contact, outside work and the market place, between Europeans and Chinese must not be exaggerated, for both groups enjoyed a healthy contempt for, and misunderstanding of, the other. W.A.P. Martin, at that time a Presbyterian missionary, relates that when he stepped ashore at Canton in 1850 he was greeted by a hooting mob 'who shouted Fanqui, fanqui! Shato, shato! ("Foreign devils! cut off their heads.")'36 L.C. Arlington, of the Chinese Maritime Customs, claims that, even in 1891, when a foreigner passed in his chair from Shameen (the foreign concession quarter in Canton) through the native city the coolies would shout out 'Take him to the execution ground'. No foreigner, he continues, be he white, Indian or Japanese, could escape the contemptuous term ‘foreign devil'. 'It was shouted at you from the tops of houses, from alleyways, and from courtyards.'37 Despite the language barrier, a working class European did not find it too difficult to establish a liaison with a Chinese woman. In the early days, such women were found usually among the Tanka boat population, a pariah group that populated the fringes of the Pearl River delta region. A few of these women achieved the status of 'protected' woman (a kept mistress) and were, sometimes, well provided for by their paramour, such as a ship's captain. In time, a considerable number of police, overseers, tidewaiters and others, entered into alliances, even marriages, with local women, since, of course, there was always a scarcity of marriageable young European women in Hong Kong.* But mixed marriages were condemned by Taipans; the partners were ostracised by polite European society since a mixed marriage clearly stigmatised a European as an outcaste. Such racial attitudes became more rigid toward the end of the century. Although some Europeans lived with or even married Chinese women, it does not follow that such social arrangements provided See Carl T. Smith's interesting article on one of these Tanka Women in Chung Chi Bulletin, No. 46, June 1969, 13-17 and 27. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 156 DONALD C. BOWIE steeply to one of the passes, Magazine Gap, through which roads passed from one side of the Island to the other. The hospital had wide shady verandahs but no lifts, and all windows had heavy wooden shutters for use during typhoons. A reservoir for fire fighting purposes had been constructed a little above hospital level and was fed by hill streams. Above that again was the Nursing Sisters Mess. About the same level as the hospital were quarters for warrant officers and a barrack block for male staff, a NAAFI block for recreation and a tennis court together with some lesser outbuildings. Below the hospital was the Sergeants Mess and a residential block for married staff, "H" block. There was only one approach road winding up to the hospital, Borrett Road, but there was a subsidiary road, Bowen Road, running along a contour line but not strong enough to take heavy traffic. The hospital was one of the landmarks of the Hong Kong scene when viewed from the mainland. Below the hospital the ground fell steeply to the main road linking the city of Victoria and the Island to the east, and to the Naval Command Headquarters in H.M.S. Tamar, the Naval Dockyard and the headquarters of China Command. The hospital was therefore close to legitimate enemy targets and any margin for error in artillery fire and aerial bombing was reduced still further by the precipitous slope on which it stood. The hospital however had nowhere else to go, and Colonel Shackleton the commanding officer used his considerable ingenuity to have two operating theatres with their necessary adjuncts and X-Ray rooms constructed in the basement of the administration block. Engines for generating electricity, one capable of supplying the theatres and X-ray room, the other able to serve part of the hospital as well were installed and were of great value during hostilities and during the long period of captivity. When the hospital was severely damaged and the kitchen totally destroyed very early on by aerial bombs and shell fire, Shackleton speedily got an emergency kitchen operating in the sergeants mess and set up a protective wall of concrete blocks, known to us from a much publicised local court case as "Mimi Lau's”, on the harbour side of the ground floor wards. Shackleton was a forceful character, apparently not aware of fear, who was ready to cut through any red tape which obstructed his aims. He liked his own way and was not an easy man to have under command, but to those relying upon his administration in war he always provided what was needed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG 161 troops, in my opinion, put up an excellent resistance from the static strong points which were the mainstay of the defence plan. They were pitted against a numerically superior and much more mobile enemy and no blame should be placed on them for the fact that our resistance was broken in under three weeks, nowhere near the ninety days originally judged to be desirable. These views imply no criticism of the defence plan for the circumstances of the Colony decided the plan. The defence was further prejudiced by the huge population of non-combatants in Kowloon and Victoria. Given the conditions under which our troops had to fight, I believe that our defeat could never have been avoided except by avoiding hostilities altogether. I believe we could have accepted any loss of face which a pre-war withdrawal, leaving only internal security forces, would have entailed. Having said that, however, the troops thereby released from Hong Kong would probably have been used in Singapore and almost certainly would not have changed the outcome there. One can only sympathise with the Governor and the G.O.C. and their staffs in their task of defending a Colony whose fate was sealed long before the fighting and they and the troops did their jobs well. The story unfolded slowly but inexorably after the style of a Greek tragedy. 26 DECEMBER 1941–7 AUGUST 1942 The Japanese were slow to move in to take control of the hospital though they did concentrate our fighting troops at once and moved them to prisoner of war camps. For years I wondered why the hospital and indeed the whole of Hong Kong was spared the large scale rape, murder and looting which seemed to be the reward for Japanese troops upon the capture of large cities in China. The case of Nanking in December 1937 was the best known of these, when the city was given over to the victorious Japanese troops and for some weeks suffered on a huge scale. It was not until I read the Official History of the War Against Japan that the probable explanation appeared in Volume 1. The Japanese attack on Hong Kong was made by the 38 Division reinforced by additional troops. The division had three regiments, the 228, 229 and 230 Infantry Regiments. The 228 regiment was transferred from Hong Kong to Davao on 18 January 1942 and thence to Amboina and Timor. The 229 regiment and one battalion ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 162 DONALD C. BOWIE of 230 moved on 20 January 1942 from Hong Kong to Camranh Bay and thence to Sumatra. The 230 regiment left Camranh Bay on 18 February 1942 and landed at Java. The whole Japanese operations in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya and elsewhere had been carried out by only eleven divisions. As soon therefore as Hong Kong fell on 25 December 1941 it must have been Japanese policy to withdraw the fighting troops in order to replace their losses, which had been substantial, reequip and reorganise them for the next operation. The atrocities in Stanley, Happy Valley and elsewhere were carried out by fighting troops flushed by success in battle. I imagine that these must have been withdrawn before our hospital and Hong Kong generally suffered. This seems the most likely explanation for the facts, for as I said earlier Bowen Road was practically in the front line as the fighting ended and the city of Victoria was an exceedingly rich prize. During hostilities we in Hong Kong learned of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse off the Malayan coast, which with the destruction also of a large part of the American fleet of course extinguished any hopes of relief. Rumour spread among us and was eagerly passed on that a Chinese army was hastening to our rescue. To those who had watched the failure of the Kuo Min Tang Chinese to make an effective attempt to dislodge the Japanese armies from Canton and South China since 1938 this story was considered to be most unlikely to be true, as so it proved. Soon after our surrender, nurses and other staff and patients who had survived the outrages of Stanley, Happy Valley, St. Albert's Convent Hospital and elsewhere rejoined Bowen Road and their experiences soon became known to all staff and patients. Even so it came as a shock to many to see and hear Japanese methods with captives. For several nights for example our guards had a number of Chinese as prisoners; these they had tied to trees and seemed to carry out barbarities upon them. Some of our people reported that they had smelt burning flesh and certainly the cries of the prisoners were shattering. Rumour had it that the Chinese were caught looting, of which large numbers were undoubtedly guilty, but this experience shook patients and some staff considerably for a while. One of the early Japanese officers to visit the hospital expressed surprise at finding women there at all, and advised that they should make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. This warning spread ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 178 DONALD C. BOWIE he did not explain his meaning. I concluded that the fish had probably been taken from the harbour whose waters were thoroughly polluted. Some of the fish was quite horrid and my diary recorded on 8 August 1942 that I could not touch mine. This was quite an admission for it was rare for me to boggle at any sort of food. Our cooks at first removed the fish heads before cooking but Seino pointed out to us that this was a waste. As a result we began to make what we called fish head soup; this proved to be not to everybody's taste but it did add a new if not always attractive flavour to plain boiled rice and vegetables. Additions to the Japanese supplies of Food. (a) Gifts from Friends in Hong Kong Unfortunately I have no record to show the date on which these gifts started, but by August 1942 visitors from the City of Victoria were being allowed to bring gifts of food to the hospital on Mondays and Thursdays. The food was usually contained in gunny sacks and included tins which contained food sealed in by the makers e.g., jam, or which were filled by the donors with for example peanut butter. I have never learned the whole story about these supplies and I hope that Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, then Dr. P.S. Selwyn-Clarke, will find it possible to relate this in detail.* A little later I shall have more to say about this remarkable man who was Director of Medical Services in Hong Kong at the outbreak of war. As may be imagined the tins and containers became the vehicles for an exchange of notes between the hospital and citizens in Hong Kong. These notes contained personal and family items of news but very useful information came in from our friends to us suggesting methods of combating the deficiency diseases. Small supplies of important drugs were sent in by this route and information was given on methods of cultivating yeast, hop barm and other preparations thought to remedy vitamin deficiencies. Much ingenuity was expended in the hospital in making false bottoms and lids to tins and I can remember only one time when a communication was discovered. The culprit, a Hong Kong man, reacted by his cries and behaviour in a most satisfactory manner to the slapping he * Sir Selwyn's autobiography, Footprints, the Memoirs of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, was published by Sino-American Publishing Company, Hong Kong in 1975. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG 239 too much water, a complaint which I imagine rose from a need to save electricity which powered the water pumps in the mains system in the Island. In the first half of 1944 we drained our reservoir twice to repair leaks and on the first occasion we found quite a number of British rifles, pistols, grenades and a substantial quantity of ammunition which British troops had obviously jettisoned during their retreat. During hostilities R.A.M.C. personnel were armed to protect their patients if need be, but all such arms in Bowen Road together with those which had come in with patients had been withdrawn and returned to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps as the end of hostilities approached. I never heard that firearms were ever used by medical personnel. We were never asked to explain the presence of arms after they were discovered in the reservoir. Mains water was cut off intermittently from mid 1944 onwards and in November we read in the Hongkong News that water supplies would be cut off in a large part of the city of Victoria, while we in the hospital were warned that we might possibly get a mains supply on one day out of three. Our engineers thereupon laid a water pipe from the reservoir to the kitchen with tanks which were baths removed from the hospital, at the reservoir and on the kitchen roof. Provision was made for showers and special arrangements were made for gardeners. The sappers were required to extend our water supply to the Japanese guardhouse and they also dammed a nullah above the hospital to provide a supply for the Japanese administration. The pipes were taken from the handrails on the stairs in the hospital and elsewhere, and the work was timely for the mains supply ceased at the end of November 1944. We then chlorinated our drinking water in containers in the wards and hoisted water to the upper ward levels in buckets using a system of pulleys. Thereafter we relied on hill-water for our supplies though in our new quarters in Kowloon after March 1945 the mains supply system was operating. The mains supply of electricity, interrupted for a time during hostilities, was restored after our surrender and this was extremely valuable to us in the long months of 1942 and 1943 when we had so many seriously ill men. Each ward had a small electric instrument sterilizer which we were allowed to retain and they proved of the greatest value in preparing drinks, small dishes of food and boiling eggs etc. for patients. Our skilful engineers kept them serviced and they were used as long as we had any current from the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 298 NOTES AND QUERIES concerned at the fact that not even Schedule 1 is 100% complete (and some of the buildings scheduled have already been demolished). Taking the photographs, although the most important function, is actually one of the least time-consuming. Sorting out the photographs and numbering them is by far the slowest job, and writing up the schedules is also slow work. Now that we more or less know what we want to achieve, and how to set about it, we should be able to speed up, particularly if we can organize more workers. When the existing five schedules are completed, we intend to cover Wanchai, and then possibly move across the harbour into Kowloon; but our plans are flexible and must take account of such factors as which areas are scheduled for redevelopment, and the availability of people with a knowledge of the area to make the schedules. In conclusion, it may be as well to point out that we are not intending to form a collection of old photographs of Hong Kong, important as this would be. Such a collection is already in the process of acquisition in the City Museum and Art Gallery, while the Hong Kong Collection of the University Library also intends to acquire similar materials, including copies of the R.A.S. survey. The Honorary Secretary would be pleased to hear from any members who would like to help with the survey in any capacity; though we must repeat that we may not be able to make use of all offers immediately, owing to the organizational problems which we have already experienced. Exhibition This exhibition is intended to show what the survey aims to achieve. The selection of photographs is not necessarily based on artistic merit, though some qualify on these grounds: rather they have been chosen to show how particular buildings or streets, some familiar, others less so, may be covered photographically to bring out the most important features. The sites included in the exhibition are as follows: Site 4 6 : Schedule 1 Shops at 145-155, Hollywood Road. Institute of Pathology, Medical & Health Dept., between Caine Lane and Po Hing Fong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 312 NOTES AND QUERIES The Deputy Commander at Taipang was the highest ranking officer in the locality of Kowloon during the Ch'ing Dynasty. At that time, the headquarters was set up within the Kowloon Walled City. This office, which also served as a garrison, still existed before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, but had been converted into a Home for the Aged run by a Catholic Mission. In accordance with the [Kwangtung] military system adopted in Ch'ing Dynasty, there were altogether 6 battalions of armed forces under the Kowloon garrison commander. The reason why the Kowloon headquarters was named the Taipang Garrison is that the geographical name of Kowloon was once alternatively called Taipang Shan (⚟) and was politically under the sovereignty of Po On (then San On) District Magistracy.* Besides, there is also a very good harbour by the name of Taipang Bay located at the southeastern part of Po On District and east of Kowloon. In Taipang harbour the water runs to 5-10 fathoms deep where large warships can cast anchor. It was partly due to the importance of local coastal defence and partly due to the necessity of civil administration that such a garrison was established at Taipang Bay. The post of Deputy Commander was normally held in a 3 years' term; and among all the previous commanders, General Cheung was the most important in terms of historical significance. Cheung Yuk-tong, alias Hon-sang,† was born in Wei Yeung District, Kwangtung, and for many generations the Cheung's family lived in the Peach Garden in the capital town of the Wai Yeung District. In the 4th year of Hsien Feng (A.D.) (1853) he was appointed as Deputy Commander at Taipang, being promoted from staff officer at the Chin Shan Checkpoint [near Macao]. For four successive tours of service, in all a total of 13 years Gen. Cheung had been holding this post, and in those days the local inhabitants enjoyed a very peaceful time. It was not until the 5th year of Tung-chih reign (1866) that General Cheung retired from the military service at the age of 72. When the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to Britain as a consequence of the signing of the Peking Treaty he was still in office. As the Treaty was signed by the Imperial Court, *This is not so, but the Taipang garrison force served in and controlled Kowloon and district. Except where stated footnotes are supplied by James Hayes. † ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 314 NOTES AND QUERIES the plaque with its inscription there was a pavilion [inside the City] with the title of "Spare the Waste-Paper Pavilion" (*) built through his financial contributions, with the object of advising the people to save the used paper and then try to make the most use of it.* The Pavilion was originally built at the East Gate of the Walled City, but now it is almost demolished with the ruins of only 2 walls left, one at the back, the other on the left. In meditating over the past one can hardly refrain from sighing and grief whenever we come across such valuable things in connection with the General, General Cheung's ability is two-fold—civil as well as military administration. In spite of being a military officer he was well-versed in letters, and talented in the composition of verses and Chinese calligraphy. He was not only skilful at handling brushes but also acquired the technique and skill in applying his fist and fingers to writing. The method he adopted for fist-writing is to wrap his fist with moistened cotton. On the four walls of the Spare Paper Pavilion there used to be his fist and finger calligraphy, but unfortunately all these valuable things have disappeared. The only remaining fist-writing by him is the sole big Chinese character of (literally means longevity) which still exists in the Hau Wong Temple at the wall exposed to the open air. In addition there is another wooden plaque, about 10 feet in width, on the inscription of which are two big Chinese characters" (literally "the mirror of the sea") which appears inside the Ma Kok Temple ( * M) in Macau. Among the General's literary works, there are two books written by him; one being Poems Composed at Leisure (2 volumes); the other being Journal at Leisure (1 volume).† From this, we may say that General Cheung is a scholarly general. ANOTHER ACCOUNT (translated from p. 96 of the same Journal, again by Francis Sham). Cheung Yuk-tong (†), alias Hon-sang (±), was born in Wai Yeung District () until the early Republic known as Kwei Sin district (歸善縣) Actually to prevent written papers, which were held in respect because of the Chinese characters on them, from being trampled under foot or otherwise disregarded. ↑工餘日记,and 工餘開詠,Regrettably not available in Hong Kong libraries. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d NOTES AND QUERIES 315 When Yuk-tong was a boy, he sat the local preliminary examinations. For seven times he failed in these examinations, so decided to give up and joined military service, where he enjoyed a very good reputation on account of his accumulated merits. In the 20th year of the Tao Kuang reign (*) he led his troops to fight a battle in Kwun Chung ('È'). Later, in the spring of the 4th year of Hsien Feng (A), i.e. 1853 he was transferred from being a staff officer stationed in Chin Shan Checkpoint to Taipang City and was promoted to be Deputy Garrison Commander, with his headquarters in what we call nowadays the Kowloon Walled City.* He held this post for 13 years, once acting as Commander-in-chief of naval forces in Kwangtung province. It was under his care and supervision that Fort Bocca Tigris (✯✯) was repaired. When the Kowloon peninsula was first leased to Britain in 1860 and Sino-British diplomatic relations were established, negotiations between the two governments took place frequently. In spite of the fact that Gen. Cheung, the chief officer in the locality, was unavoidably involved in external affairs, he insisted that he was only responsible for local defence and the garrison and thus had no authority for making any decisions on foreign affairs. What he could do was to submit himself to instructions from higher authorities. It happened on one occasion that the general crossed the harbour to Hong Kong island, where he stayed overnight, and on the next day all the inhabitants of the Walled City set off fire crackers in order to welcome him back. It is, of course, beyond our imagination nowadays to realize just how excited were those inhabitants at that time, but we do have strong reasons to believe that the general must have been greatly admired by them.† Although the general himself was not known for his academic achievement, yet there was one thing of which he was proud in his later days; that is, that his grandson Cheung Ching-san ( ) passed with distinction in the local examinations. In the 5th year of the Tung Chi reign (♬✯) (1866) the general retired from military service at the age of 72, and died four years later, at the age of 76. * His rank was which may be translated as brigade-general. † At this time Hong Kong was under foreign i.e. British rule, and (though the article does not say so) the visit probably took place when a state of war existed between the two nations. Hence the great excitement. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 162 DAVID FAURE including the New Territories, was part of San On county. The magistrate governed from the county seat at Nam T'au, across what is now Deep Bay. There were also sub-county offices, at Tai P'ang on the northern shore of Mirs Bay, and at Koon Foo, later renamed Kowloon City. These, with Nam T'au, were responsible for the southern part of San On county, that is, the area which includes the present-day Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The officials hardly ever visited the villages. By default, these villages were for the most part left to conduct their own affairs. Taxes were often collected with the co-operation of the rich and influential families in Yuen Long and Sheung Shui. Litigation could be conducted at Nam T'au, but lawsuits were rare. The principal markets on the mainland in this area were Tai Po, Sheung Shui, Yuen Long, and Sham Chun, and understandably, the main trade routes in the eastern New Territories went north-south, linking Kowloon City, Sha Tin, Tai Po, Sheung Shui, and Sham Chun, from where there were ferries to Nam T'au. Cut off from these trade routes by Ma On Shan, the Sai Kung villages were very much in the backwaters of the county. The history of the development of these villages is the story of a backward area slowly pulling itself up by its bootstraps.1 Development came in two stages. From the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, population increased steadily. In the late seventeenth century, only three villages in the entire district merited entry in the San On Gazetteer, i.e., the Punti-speaking villages of Ho Chung, Pak Kong, and Sha Kok Mei. Not surprisingly, all three were located in well-watered valleys that were close to the footpaths leading to Sha Tin and Kowloon. By 1819, the next edition of the gazetteer recorded, in addition to these three, the Punti villages of Wong Chuk Yeung, Tai Long, Chek Keng, Ko Tong, Pak Tam, and Cheung Sheung, as well as the Hakka villages of Mang Kung Uk, Tseng Lan Shue, Sha Kok Mei (sic), Pan Long Wan, and Lan Nei Wan (later Man Yee Wan). The listing is not complete, but it accords with the general pattern of Hakka immigration into the Hong Kong region throughout the eighteenth century. There must have been a substantial boat population in the eighteenth century. There was, in fact, a larger boat population ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 163 3 in the Hong Kong region in the late Ming dynasty than in the early Ch'ing. Then, from the early Ch'ing, after a period of decline, the boat population must have expanded until almost 1900. A particular type of settlement grew up in the area, quite possibly within the eighteenth century, such as on Kau Sai Island or Leung Shuen Wan, where a group of Hakka people farmed on the coastal strip and fished in coastal waters, and maintained a symbiotic relationship with a group of boat people whose boats moored in a permanent anchorage nearby. Boat people's temples, in honour of T'in Hau or Hung Shing, were frequently constructed in these communities. Ships from the naval squadron based in Tai P'ang occasionally called at these inlets and contributed to the construction and repair of the temples. The earliest datable object in these temples is a Ch'ien-lung 6 (1741) bell in the T'in Hau Temple on Leung Shuen Wan.5 The second stage of economic development began in the middle of the nineteenth century when Hong Kong was opened as a port. This stage continued until the Second World War. At the beginning of this period, Sai Kung District consisted of farming and fishing communities, with some salt-making at Yim Tin Tsai. But the opening of Hong Kong had an immediate impact on Hang Hau and the islands near Sai Kung. A bell was donated to the Hang Hau T'in Hau Temple in 1840, and there were a number of donations to both this and to the Hung Shing Temple on Tung Lung Island from the 1870's on. The temple at Tai Miu (Joss House Bay), and those in Po Toi O and Tin Ha Wan, were possibly built or repaired at this time. Donations were also made to temples on Kau Sai and Leung Shuen Wan in the 1880's and 1890's. The wide connections of Hang Hau are attested to by the donation tablet that was set up for the repair of the temple in 1876, on which are recorded the names of well over a hundred and fifty shops. Many of these were obviously not located in Hang Hau but conducted business there.6 The reason for this apparent increase in wealth from the mid-nineteenth century on in these coastal communities is the growing importance of fishing as a source of cash income. The new city provided a large market for fresh as well as salted fish, and a fishermen's community was growing at Shaukiwan on ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 164 DAVID FAURE Hong Kong Island that had connections with Hang Hau and the Sai Kung islands. The city also needed fuel and building materials, and villagers in Sai Kung were soon carrying firewood into Kowloon City, sometimes selling it to the shops, but often to passers-by. Charcoal burning was also practised in the second half of the nineteenth century, but the practice died out in the early 1900's. Moreover, along the Sai Kung coastline and in several places in Junk Bay, lime kilns sprang up, producing lime from coral. The lime was used as plastering in city as well as village houses. A considerable brick-making industry also grew up in Pak Tam Chung, which at first produced red bricks for use in the city. Later, when this proved to be unprofitable the area concentrated on producing green bricks for building village houses. Even farming was affected. Towards the early 1900's, pig raising became an important source of cash income for the village household. The pigs were sold to butchers in Sai Kung and Hang Hau. Much of the meat was consumed locally, but a substantial amount must also have found its way into the city.8 As in other parts of the New Territories, some villagers in Sai Kung were recruited as seamen by foreign shipping companies. Foreign remittance came to be a regular source of income, and not a few returned with savings. There were those that did not go as far, who accepted work in Kowloon or Hong Kong.10 The extreme example of wealth derived from the city must be the business operations of Chan Ue Kwong of Ho Chung, Chan Wai T'ong of Tseung Kwan O, and Cheng Chiu Tsoh of Pak Kong. These three opened the I Hing General Store in Kowloon City, and became the richest men in their own villages. Some of this income was spent on land purchase and buildings, but Chan Ue Kwong became even wealthier as a money-lender in the village. Quite a few Sai Kung villagers who later entered business began as assistants in their shop. Chan Ue Kwong was well connected through his uncle with the officials in Kowloon City, and this must have helped his business.11 So far as we can tell, from the middle of the nineteenth century, economic development in Sai Kung proceeded unimpeded. After the New Territories was leased, land registration instituted by the Hong Kong Government further benefited the villagers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 169 He paid when he had money, but he always settled his accounts before Chinese New Year so that the shops would give him his New Year supplies.2 Interest was charged for credit; it was nominally 30 percent per annum.25 The rice, salt, oil, and many other articles (school books and stationery, incense and ritual paper, etc.) had to be imported into Sai Kung from outside. Kerosene was introduced towards the 1910's or 1920's and came to be used in kerosene lamps. Villagers from seaside villages and the boat people also depended on the Sai Kung shipyards for boat building, repair, and the annual removal of barnacles from the boats. The wood used in the shipyards was imported from Fat Shan or Wai Chau, and iron nails were supplied by a ship (the Sai Kung) that came regularly to the Market to take orders. Fishermen also needed fishing explosives.20 Neither the land residents nor the boat people were by any means self-sufficient. The markets, Sai Kung and Hang Hau, provided other important services besides ship-building and repair. Quite a few shops made rice wine, and a shop made beancurd. Sai Kung also provided a Taoist priest, and the most important temple in the area. Roman Catholic converts from villages nearer Sai Kung (e.g. Nam Shan) as well as other villagers attended Sung Chen, the Church school in the market. There can be no question that from the early 1900's, Sai Kung Market and Hang Hau were growing as local marketing centres. A substantial portion of the trade in the Sai Kung region must nonetheless have bypassed the two markets. Lime, much of the firewood, and some of the pigs were taken directly to Kowloon without passing through the markets. Where Sai Kung and Hang Hau were crucial, it would seem, was in the provision of local services and retail, and in gathering fish for Kowloon and Hong Kong. Even those fishmongers who collected directly from the fishermen for the city markets sent the fish ashore in Sai Kung to be carried into Kowloon by village women. The fish could not have been very fresh when it arrived, and much of it was probably salted before it was sold.28 On the premise that the primary functions of the markets were largely local services and retail, the marketing regions can ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q THE TEOCHIU: ETHNICITY IN URBAN HONG KONG 29 groups in relation to a number of variables, as well as behavioural questions concerning actual interaction with other ethnic groups. Teochiu generally conceive of their own ethnic group in positive terms, although there are some exceptions. Positive conceptions of Teochiu focus on three pivotal elements: (1) Economic values-Teochiu are very thrifty and hard working, and want to fully support their families by themselves (this usually means that they want to run their own business). (2) Group solidarity-Teochiu are united vis-a-vis other ethnic groups and place strong emphasis on willingness to assist other Teochiu. (3) Familial and social behavioural norms-Teochiu place greater emphasis upon traditional norms than do other ethnic groups and particularly stress filial devotion, respectful behaviour toward elders, the importance of maintaining face, protecting the family and clan reputation, concern for public affairs. A small number of respondents to the questionnaire verbalized negative conceptions, primarily emphasizing the selfishness of Teochiu, their concern only for themselves and their families rather than for the wider group. Teochiu generally consider Shanghai people fairly positively, emphasizing their ability to manage large scale factories and their politeness (which is seen as a function of having lived in a large city like Shanghai). Cantonese are generally not perceived as very threatening to Teochiu but are considered to be lacking in moral fibre, in that they do not place much emphasis upon traditional norms (that is, they eat out too much, spend rather than save money, the men allow their wives to leave home to work, are not as filial as Teochiu, etc). Teochiu either know very little about Fukien or consider them to be friendly and polite. Hakka are simple, plain and diligent, although there is some question about the morality of Hakka men in allowing their women to work so hard. The most vehement and outspoken statements are reserved for Hoi Luk Fung (*), people from two districts adjacent to Teochiu further south along the Kwangtung coast. This group is relatively unknown except to people from northeastern Kwangtung. Most Teochiu The questionnaire data has not yet been fully analysed. Findings presented here represent general trends in the data. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q THE TEOCHIU: ETHNICITY IN URBAN HONG KONG 33 between Hong Kong and Thailand was at its height during two periods of several years following the two World Wars. Teochiu import/export firms trading with Thailand established a commercial association in 1946 (Hung, 1961:4). In the 1920s there were at least 21 Teochiu firms involved in trade with Singapore, and in 1930 these firms established a commercial association which by 1951 had 41 member firms (Hung, 1961:2). Teochiu trade between Hong Kong and Vietnam began in the last years of the Ch'ing Dynasty and became substantial in 1914, apparently as a result of World War I. This trading gradually increased until the involvement of the U.S. in the war of liberation at which time the importation of goods into Vietnam from China ceased. This drastically curtailed the importing activities of Teochiu firms in Hong Kong exporting Chinese commodities to Vietnam (Hung, 1961:7). After the opening of Swatow as a treaty port in 1858, Teochiu firms in Hong Kong became active in importing Teochiu products from there and then re-exporting them to Southeast Asia, primarily for Teochiu consumption. In 1946 there were at least 20 firms involved in such trading and by 1948 about 100. Many of these were evidently forced out of business or into other areas of business after 1949, although there were still about 20 firms still involved in Swatow/Southeast Asian trading during the 1950s. These firms were evidently forced to operate with a very low profit margin (Hung, 1961:8). Immediately prior to World War II there were perhaps 20,000 Teochiu in Hong Kong, many living in Western District. During the 1930s, however, some Teochiu began to move over to the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Kowloon, particularly Haiphong, Hankow and Canton Roads (Lee, 1969:55). Many of these people were employed as coolies in the Kowloon Godown, which still today employs predominantly Teochiu laborers. Most, however, were forced to move out of the area after World War II with the commercial and tourist development of Tsim Sha Tsui. Another area of Teochiu concentration prior to World War II was in the hills around Kowloon Walled City where Teochiu squatters raised pigs and poultry (Lee, 1969:56). This early concentration was undoubtedly a factor in the later heavy concentration of Teochiu in Kowloon City in the 1950s and 1960s. By 1961, according to the government census, there were 257,319 Teochiu in Hong Kong and by 1971 the figure ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q # THE TEOCHIU: ETHNICITY IN URBAN HONG KONG 35 a reflection of the general mutual animosity between Teochiu and other Chinese. Any further discussion of general patterns becomes less meaningful given the variation within the Teochiu population. The discussion in one of the following sections of the Teochiu population in one resettlement estate considers this variation and the processes discussed above in a particular social setting. The geographical distribution of Teochiu in Hong Kong in 1971 is presented in Table 1. The only area of heavy Teochiu concentration in Hong Kong Island is the West census district, which of course includes Nam Pak Hong, the oldest area of Teochiu concentration. Hung Hom is the only area of substantial Teochiu settlement in the Kowloon census districts. More than one half of the Teochiu recorded in the census reside in the New Kowloon census districts, with one-fourth of all Teochiu in the Kai Tak district and almost one-fourth in Ngau Tau Kok and Lei Yue Mun districts. The Kai Tak census district includes Kowloon City, an area of heavy Teochiu residential concentration. The Ngau Tau Kok and Lei Yue Mun census districts roughly correspond to the industrial town of Kwun Tong. Thousands of Teochiu squatters were resettled into Kwun Tong's resettlement estates, particularly Ngau Tau Kok Resettlement Estate. Another census district in New Kowloon with significant Teochiu concentration is Shek Kip Mei; many Teochiu in this district reside in the Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Estate. The only areas of significant Teochiu concentration in the New Territories are Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long. Again, many Teochiu in Tsuen Wan reside in resettlement estates, mostly in Kwai Chung. Personal experiences in Tsuen Wan suggest that the actual number of Teochiu in Hong Kong is greater than the 1971 census figures. Table II indicates that more than 39% of Teochiu land domestic households are located in resettlement estates and almost one-half are located in one kind of housing estate or another. I would estimate that at least one half of Teochiu households at one time or another resided in squatter structures. In 1971 over 8,000 Teochiu households resided in "temporary housing" and another 4,700 households in "stone structures". These two categories refer primarily to illegal squatter structures, which suggests that a fairly large number of Teochiu are still squatters. 1 The information in Table 1 and in the other tables was very kindly provided by Mr. M. C. Leong, Statistician, Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Government. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 44 DOUGLAS W. SPARKS These changes may have future implications for the continued growth and viability of Teochiu religious organizations. Present growth in number and size of Hungry Ghost festival organizations, the majority of which are located in resettlement estates, suggests that Teochiu local leaders have been successful in mobilizing support for this festival within the lower socio-economic levels of the Teochiu population. This mobilization has obviously been carried out and expressed in terms of ethnic solidarity and a common cultural heritage, and has been successful partially because it has utilized and, in fact, worked through the extensive and dense friendship and kinship networks that have developed within the housing estates. These festival organizations can be viewed as extensions of these networks into the organization of rituals which express Teochiu cultural solidarity to others and reflect underlying inter-ethnic rivalry and hostility in the local area. One purpose of this article is to derive a preliminary conceptualization of ethnicity in the urban areas of Hong Kong. Such a conceptualization should involve more than an analysis of ethnic groups residing in a city. It should also indicate in what ways urban ethnicity is different from rural or non-urban ethnicity as a result of particularly urban processes and urban structure. This would involve the consideration of such factors as urbanization and urban planning, transportation networks, available housing and different types of residential settlements, the extent of housing segregation, occupational structure, and occupational specialization by particular groups, differential access to, and ethnic competition for, economic resources. This paper has briefly discussed some of these factors with reference to urban areas of Hong Kong; in particular, the relative lack of Teochiu occupational specialization, the absence of housing segregation but the tendency of many Teochiu to segregate themselves in squatter settlements, the general absence of restrictions on social mobility based on ethnic group membership, the effects of urban housing policies on ethnic identity in resettling large ethnic concentrations to housing estates. Certain features of the urban system have thus clearly influenced the expression of ethnic identity and hostility. It is questionable, however, whether any part of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q The Teochiu ethnicity in urban Hong Kong 47 There are no comparable local level organizations in the urban areas,* though the government has encouraged the development of local-level urban neighborhood associations (Kaifongs), which are presumed to reflect local opinion and to be effective in influencing government decisions affecting the local area. The Kaifongs in resettlement estates with which I am familiar currently fulfill neither of these functions and are hardly considered organizations worthy of much effort to control. Teochiu have primarily been "isolationist" in devoting attention and effort to developing their own associations into what are clearly the most active and representative organizations in the local area. The local Kaifongs have thus not become an important focus of interethnic competition. Kaifong associations in other areas of Hong Kong are at times more active in local affairs. They appear to be particularly active when organizing local protest against new governmental policy which would adversely affect local residents. Hong Kong's newspapers periodically carry stories telling of the efforts of particular Kaifongs to mobilize support of local residents against new policy. The primary functions of Kaifongs have been to provide social welfare services, serve as a communication channel to government, and to provide prestigious positions for ambitious local leaders (Kan, 1970:95). Kan describes the general image of Kaifongs in the following manner: the more 'generalistic' orientation of the Kaifongs is more amenable to the government than is the 'particularistic' orientation of the clan, district, and dialect associations. For this reason, the majority of the population as well as the government itself have believed that the Kaifongs may become the most effective intermediaries between government and people. (Kan, 1970:94). *The City District Office scheme, initiated in 1968, is intended to bridge the communication gulf between the masses of people in urban areas and government. City District Officers are charged with assessing the overall impact of government policy, and with maintaining contact with all local organizations. In effect, the purpose of the scheme is to "provide the public with a local manifestation of the Government... (The City District Officer Scheme, 1969: title page). For brief discussions of divergent government policy in the New Territories and urban area, see Report by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, The City District Officer Scheme, 1969; Wong, 1975; and Miners, 1975. See Annual Departmental Reports of the District Commissioner, New Territories, for brief descriptions of the Rural Committees. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q # THE TEOCHIU: ETHNICITY IN URBAN HONG KONG Crissman, Lawrence 1967 Han Sin-fong 1971 Hong Kong 1970 55 "The segmentary structure of urban overseas Chinese communities". Man, vol. 2, no. 2, 185-204. A Study of the Occupational Patterns and Social Interaction of Overseas Chinese in Sabah, Malaysia. Ph.D., thesis, University of Michigan. Hong Kong Census Reports, 1841 - 1941. Hong Kong Government. Kan, Aline Lai-Chung The Kaifong (Neighborhood) Associations in Hong Kong. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Kani, Hiroaki 1967 McCoy, Alfred 1972 Miners, N. J. 1975 Secretary for Chinese Affairs 1969 Skinner, G. William 1958 Wong, Christopher K. K. 1975 ## TEOCHIU PUBLICATIONS A General Survey of the Boat People in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Southeast Asian Studies Section, New Asia Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. New York: Harper and Row. The Government and Politics of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. The City District Officer Scheme. Report by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. "Communication between Government and People: Hong Kong's New City District Officer Scheme". In Marjorie Topley (ed.), Hong Kong: The Interaction of Traditions and Life in the Towns. Published by the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce (ed), 1971 州會館落成開—香港潮州商會金禧紀念合刊 [Joint Publication on the Celebration of the Completion and Opening of the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Union Building and the Jubilee Anniversary of the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce]. Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce. Hung, Cheung Piu, 1961 新校舍落成紀念 [Publication for the 40th Anniversary of the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce and to commemorate the establishment of a new school building of the Chiu Chow Commerce School], Hong Kong: Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 64 DOUGLAS W. SPARKS dually pushed into the hilly regions further away from the coastal areas and the majority were eventually exterminated or assimilated after a series of rebellions during the seventh and eighth centuries (Chan, 1974:123). In successive dynasties, as southern Fukien became over-populated, there was further extended migration into Teochiu beginning at the end of the T'ang Dynasty and lasting until the 1660's (Chan, 1974:125). There are a few settlements of the original natives of Teochiu that have survived until the present in several of the Teochiu districts (Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce, 1971:66; personal communication with Jao Tsung-i of The Chinese University of Hong Kong). Hoi Luk Fung was presumably populated during these successive waves of southward migration by groups who moved a short distance beyond the present day boundaries of Teochiu. According to Jao Tsung-i, who has edited and compiled Teochiu local histories or gazetteers, a separate administrative unit was first established in Teochiu in the Ch'in Dynasty (221-209 B.C.) and was a part of the Nan Hai prefecture (☞☞) (Jao, 1965). There then followed a confusing series of boundary and name changes which will not be mentioned here. The name Teochiu first appeared in 591 A.D.; this name was chosen because it refers to a coastal area where the tides move constantly and the first character of the name () has the literal meaning of “tide” (Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce, 1971:59). Although there were later name changes this particular name survived into the present. There were also frequent internal boundary changes. To simplify, in 1936 Teochiu was divided into 9 districts, one city and one supervised area (Chan, 1972:93). After 1949 other surrounding districts, including Hoi Luk Fung, were added to the traditional districts to make a larger administrative area, In the late 15th century the town of Hui Lai, three surrounding districts of Teochiu (which was then known as Chiu Yeung, * () and a small subdivision of Hoi Fung were joined together to form the administrative district of Hui Lai (Chiu Kiu, 1975:33; Hui Lai Gazetteer, 1930:80). At that time the village of Kap Jih was part of Hoi Fung and everything 5 li inland from Kap Jih became a part of Hui Lai and the villages and towns along the banks of the river running into Kap Jih became part of Hui Lai (Hui Lai Gazetteer, 1930:59). This new district contained 160 square miles. The district was established as a result of a petition from a local official stating ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q "PATTERNED BANDS” IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG Introduction ELIZABETH L. JOHNSON* These notes on a form of peasant textiles are based on research conducted in Kwan Mun Hau (关门口), one of the old villages of Tsuen Wan District, in the New Territories of Hong Kong.1 Tsuen Wan, now an industrial city with a population of nearly 600,000 with a small rural hinterland,2 consisted until after World War II of a group of about twenty Hakka villages, with a central market area. The villages remain, (some have had to be resited) but most are now surrounded by the city. The area's rapid urban development has meant that traditional forms of dress and adornment have virtually disappeared, to be replaced by western-influenced styles of clothing. Despite this, women of Kwan Mun Hau village were able to describe the use and significance of these textiles, and to demonstrate the technique of weaving them.3 The information reported here, which refers to Tsuen Wan of about thirty years ago but is applicable to the more rural areas of the New Territories even today, is derived from interviews with informants in Kwan Mun Hau Village, as well as from observations elsewhere in the New Territories. The findings are only preliminary; additional research must be done elsewhere in the New Territories to supplement this report. Definition The fa tai (花带) or "patterned band” is worn by Hakka women in the New Territories of Hong Kong as an article of personal adornment. Patterned bands are hand woven, intricately patterned ribbons about 1 CM wide, and ranging in length from about 65-145 CM. They are most commonly flat, with tassels of varying length and thickness at either end, and are either multicoloured, or white with coloured or black patterns. If multicoloured, they are made of silk (now often synthetic) threads with silk tassels; if white, they are of cotton with the patterns in silk or cotton and the tassels of white cotton cord. * Dr. Johnson is on the staff of the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia. The plates illustrating this article are at the back of this volume. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 94 TIN-YUKE CHAR The 1876 Reciprocity Treaty with the United States increased the demand for labor. The 1876 biennial report of the Hawaiian Minister of Finance furnished some data of government expenditures for its active assistance in importation of Chinese labor. The expenditures for the aid of immigration during that past fiscal period was $8,850; of which $3,850 was to pay the passages for 154 arriving Chinese laborers and $5,000 was advanced to a firm of rice planters, Chulan and Company, who had 210 Chinese laborers on their way from Hong Kong. 3 Letters of credit were also given to Afong and Achuck and to Luke Asiu to assist passages of 400 laborers to come to Hawaii's sugar plantations. The Hawaiian government expected return of the money advanced by an arrangement with the plantations through payroll deductions. Labor conditions in Hawaii were strongly influenced by Christian missionary presence in Hawaii. In the 1882 report of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, it was said that missionaries kept vigilant watch on the treatment of laborers. "A responsibility rests upon the plantations and the Christian public for the moral and spiritual welfare of the Chinese laborers who are not mere chattels but as human beings possessing rational and immortal souls and having the same natural rights as all others. The labor supply problem was one of the concerns that led King Kalakaua to make his historic voyage. With the affairs of his Kingdom in good order, King Kalakaua started on his world trip on January 20, 1881, on the City of Sydney which was then northbound from Australia to San Francisco. Accompanying him were Attorney General William Armstrong and the Royal Chamberlain, Colonel Charles H. Judd. Armstrong was commissioned as Minister of State, which would place him in the same rank as the Cabinet Ministers of any sovereign and entitle him to the respect and courtesies due to that rank. He was also made Royal Commissioner of Immigration to look for "cognate" sources of labor to solve the problem of a depleted native population. Colonel Judd, also from an American missionary family and an 1849 schoolmate of David Kalakaua at the Royal School, joined the Royal party to advise and guide the King on protocol and etiquette. Robert von Oehlhoffen, former German baron and an... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 96 TIN-YUKE CHAR countries in the hope to find suitable people to replenish our population. We have the productive land. Sugar and rice are our main and most profitable crops." The letter also mentioned that the Chinese did not bring their women and that it was dangerous to give them franchise because their numbers would be a threat to the Kingdom. The suggestion was to try India where the British had been successful in using their coolies in agricultural development of the colonies. Armstrong, however, later sent a report that the East Indians were not suitable nor desirable as immigrants to Hawaii. Minister Green had also written on January 18, 1881 to William Keswick, Hawaiian Consul General in Hong Kong to expect King Kalakaua's arrival and to assist Armstrong in obtaining a good class of Chinese immigrants to be accompanied by wives and children. From Hawaii the party first started for San Francisco where the Chinese Consul General entertained the Royal party at Hang Fen Lou Restaurant and took the occasion to thank the King for his kind treatment of the Chinese in Hawaii. Sailing for Japan on the Oceanic, the Royal party arrived after twenty-four days at the Bay of Yedo on March 4, 1881 and landed at Yokohama. King Kalakaua wrote back from Tokyo on March 15, 1881, “Our reception has been most cordial and pleasant with the Emperor [Meiji]. He extended the hospitality of being his guest during our stay in the City of Tokio, occupying the same buildings that General Grant did when he was here and other distinguished guests, Prince Henri of Germany and the Duke of Genoa.” The subject of possible Japanese emigration to Hawaii received some consideration by the Japanese officials. And on February 8, 1885, the first group of Japanese immigrants (676 men, 159 women, and 108 children) came to Hawaii. Major credit for this successful endeavor was due to "the personal friendship of the Emperor of Japan for King Kalakaua." commented the editor of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser. To proceed to China, the party sailed on the Tokio Maru. Upon arrival at Shanghai, they were furnished the Pautah by the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company to take the Royal group to Tientsin. They had hopes of being received at Court in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q A HAWAIIAN KING VISITS HONG KONG, 1881 97 Peking. The China Merchants Steam Navigation Company had been doing business with Hawaii. Their two steamers, the Ho-Chung ** and Mei-Foo, ✯✯ were used to transport Chinese laborers to Hawaii in 1879 and 1880.* In Tientsin, King Kalakaua was received by Viceroy Li Hung-chang ✶ who asked penetrating questions about Hawaii: "How many islands are there in your Kingdom? Do you have a Parliament? You have many Chinese in your country. Do you treat them well?" The secretary and interpreter for the Viceroy was Li Sun (Tsang Lai-sun, a graduate of Hamilton College in New York.) The King wrote back on April 6, 1881 to William L. Green, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, that he went to North China to see Li Hung-chang "for the purposes I had in view: First, of stopping, if possible, further immigration of Chinese to the Islands [who came alone] without carrying their wives, and Secondly:--to secure for our government the same privileges as granted to the United States Government, the right at any time to restrict, return, or remove, the large influx of Chinese to our islands. On these two subjects our mission has been successful.” The Royal party returned to Shanghai and embarked on the S. S. Thibet for Hong Kong, arriving on April 12, 1881. Already Hong Kong officials had been informed of the King's coming and were ready to extend a royal welcome. Owing to the considerable commerce between Hong Kong and Hawaii, the King was represented as Consul General by a British merchant of high standing William Keswick of Jardine, Matheson and Co. The twelve-oared barge of Sir John Pope Hennessy, the Colonial Governor, also appeared alongside with an invitation asking the King, in the name of Queen Victoria, to be his guest. The Hawaiian King had to adjust his schedule to accept the Governor's invitation for a royal reception at the Government House. As Armstrong recorded in his book, "While we were taking coffee, the next morning, the forts, with seven warships, fired the usual salute of twenty-one guns. From the balcony of the Government House, high above the city, we looked down on a dense mass of smoke, rolling away to the mainland, pierced with the flashing of the guns, the Hawaiian flag ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 126 CARL T. SMITH I am safely lodged with two men of my own province Soo Keen and Seu Yuen, who are disgusted with the monstrous behavior of the Imperial soldiers and have been the means of saving a few long-haired men from their hands. Some members of their family being in the Provincial city of Yean King (held by the rebels) they wished to give me several hundred thousand cash to take there for the purposes of trade. But just as I was about hiring a junk to go, the long-haired men arrived at Hwang Mei (in Hoo Peh) so I stayed a short time here to see whether I could go to Hwang Mei or not. However, on the first of December, four steamers made their appearance; I was told they were English, French, and American. I embrace this opportunity of writing to you.7 After arriving at Nanking, there was little communication between Jen-kan and his former patrons. The monthly allowance to his family guaranteed by the Mission Society ceased in September 1859, but Legge and Chalmers agreed to continue the support on their own to the end of the year, when his wife returned with her children to her home village in Fu-yüan, in Kwangtung. Although Hung Jen-kan did try to interpret the West to the Taiping movement, he soon became caught up in its internal power struggle and found that it was not expedient to push the missionary interests. This added to the growing disillusionment of missionary circles who had been looking to the rebel movement as the golden opportunity for the Christianization of China. In August 1860, Legge comments regarding Hung Jen-kan that he was "sorry to see that he has given up his principles on the subject of polygamy. It does not appear whether he has become a polygamist himself, but he keeps silence among the other chiefs on the subject", and again in January 1861, Legge states that the Rev. Dr. Griffith John had had an interview with Hung Jen-kan which led him to conclude that "he is sacrificing what he knows to be right and true to a miserable expediency". Legge comments, "my own disappointment is great".8 A brother of Hung Jen-kan named Sy-poe was baptized by Legge in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1859.9 In August 1860, Sy-poe went to Canton to bring down to Hong Kong his own family and that of his brother. They had a difficult time maintaining themselves in Hong Kong until Hung Jen-kan sent them $5,000 from Nanking. This enabled them to rent a house and live more... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q IN THE PATH OF THE ANCIENT MON --PAGAN, PEGU and NAKORN PATHOM MICHAEL SMITHIES The fourth overseas tour of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society and the third led by the author of this article, went to Burma from 26 December 1975 to 2 January 1976. Forty-two members and guests went on the tour, and most stayed on for a two-day extension in Bangkok. Mount Popa, the extinct volcano which is the home of the 37 nat or spirits worshipped by the originally animistic Burmese, can be clearly seen on fine days as the plane comes to land at Nyaung-U. But the short drive from there to Pagan past an incredible number of vast ruined brown brick temples (whitewashed where they are still in use), soon gives an idea of the Kings' and peoples' devotion to Buddhism and the splendid ensemble Pagan must have been at the time of its greatness. This lasted from 1057, the date of the conquest of Thaton by the Burmese king Anawratha, to 1287 when the grandson of Kublai Khan, Prince Ye-su Timur, occupied the city and overthrew the dynasty. Some 5,000 temples still remain in part but virtually no lay buildings, with the exception of the traces of the city wall of Pagan and the Sarabha gate to the old city dating from the 9th century. Both are probably relics of the period of the Pyu, about whom little is known after 832 since they became totally absorbed by the incoming Burmese quite early. Anawratha brought from Thaton to Pagan thirty elephant loads of sacred texts, many monks, innumerable craftsmen as well as the conquered Mon royal family, and Mon culture was dominant in the early period of Pagan, to the extent that the Burmese adopted and still use the Mon script. Mon buildings were characterised by narrow blocked windows and a certain functional squatness. The materials used were brick, with a true arch, which was covered with stucco into which were sometimes inserted green glazed terracotta plaques. The inside of the buildings was nearly always covered in paintings applied to a dry surface and so not correctly frescoes. The buildings essentially form two different types. The first is the solid stupa, often raised on receding terraces, and the second a... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 205 greatly in importance in recent times, but it is now, as far as I can see, a large-scale charitable organisation of business men which, while it rests in theory on the representation of villages falling within the area once covered by the old yeuk-complexes, is in fact essentially both city-based and city-run. (At the present eighteen villages appear to be represented in the Lok Sin Tong: one in Sha Tin, one in Tsuen Wan, and eight each in Sai Kung and New Kowloon. But I am not sure that the representatives are members of the villages they represent). 25. Yeuk existed also in the Sha Tau Kok area (note the Nam Yeuk mentioned in the early British records) and in the area of Ho Sheung Heung (Hau Yeuk). It will be seen, therefore, that at the time of the advent of British rule many central, southern, and eastern areas of the mainland part of the New Territories were covered by a network of yeuk which, while certainly not including every village, nevertheless generally affected the political organisation of these areas. The striking omission is the west, that is to say, roughly the modern Yuen Long District. As far as I have been able to discover (my enquiries in this area were cut short by my premature departure from the Colony), the term yeuk has no traditional meaning here. (I stress 'traditional'. The British used the word for their own purposes; demarcation districts for land and the broader administrative districts were called yeuk after the new regime was established; and, as a result, by hearing the word used today one may be misled into thinking that it has a longer local history than it in fact has). Similarly, I know of no evidence that there were yeuk in the islands. Groupings of villages there certainly were in the Yuen Long area, under the names of heung (although I am not sure how old this usage is) kung shoh, just as these groupings sometimes appear in the areas where yeuk also existed; but the absence of yeuk seems to call for comment. 26. If we look again at the evidence on yeuk-complexes, we may perhaps conclude that they were formed to protect the interests of the weak against the strong. The powerful Liu of Sheung Shui were never members of a yeuk. Indeed, on their own they were the enemies of the Luk Yeuk of Ta Kwu Ling. Similarly, the Tang of Lung Yeuk Tau (in which name, incidentally, the character for Yeuk is not the one we are concerned with here) and Tai Po Tau stood aloof from yeuk. It is probably significant that the Man of Tai Hang formed a yeuk on their own when they assumed leader- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 207 promote among themselves morality, education, social solidarity, and mutual aid. The plan seems to have enjoyed some vogue in the Ming dynasty, but the early Ch'ing rulers took over the term to give it a new meaning: 'hsiang-yüeh' became a public lecture system by means of which the masses were to be indoctrinated with the political ethics of Confucianism. Yet by the nineteenth century 'hsiang-yüeh' had once again undergone a transformation, a lecture system developing into a framework of state control to the point where 'hsiang-yüeh' was sometimes taken to be synonymous with 'pao-chia' and 'li-chia', the state organisations for security and taxation. On the other hand, a contrary process of evolution was also at work moving ‘hsiang-yüeh' back towards the kind of self-government which had been originally conceived under its name. It is on record that in places in Kwangtung the heads of 'hsiang-yüeh' assumed roles of local leadership in such a way as to take command of local affairs. In addition, 'hsiang-yüeh' were used as a setting for organising ‘regiment and drill corps' ('t'uan-lien') for local defence, and it is an interesting speculation that just as the 'ke yüeh hsiang-yung', the village braves of the several yeuk, rallied to the defence of Canton against the British in 1842, so we might find on closer inspection that some of the armed resistance to the first British in the New Territories was bound up with the Ts'at Yeuk and other yeuk-complexes. (There are of course many sources, both Western and Chinese, for the history of 'hsiang-yüeh'. The best and most convenient is Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, pp. 184, 205). 28. My tentative view of the matter is that, while early Ch'ing policy may have popularised the term heung yeuk in the course of spreading the public lecture system, at the time we are concerned with, at least in our part of Kwangtung, yeuk were looked upon by the people who engaged in them as instruments of local control independent of state supervision. They might be used for treating with the state, as seems to have been the case especially with the three yeuk-complexes oriented to Kowloon City, and might have allied themselves with officialdom in the face of banditry or attack by outsiders, but they were far removed from being mere instruments of state control. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, whose home was in an area of Kwangtung which may be regarded as being in many ways comparable to San On, laid stress on the heung yeuk as a basis for a high degree of local independence and self-government in his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 213 to create local contacts; and some of the politicians are certainly not unwilling to be drawn into this, for them, new organisational version of kinship. In the spring rites in the main ancestral hall of one big clan there was represented this year a Hong Kong association based on the surname of the clan but largely recruited from among townspeople with no original New Territories connexions. One of the politicians of this same clan is the sponsor of an occult religious group which is a branch of a widespread esoteric religion in Hong Kong, the members of which are chiefly immigrants. At the only meeting of this group that I was able to attend the great majority of the people present, including all the specialists, were immigrant business men from the urban areas. It is not easy to disentangle the politician's motives in agreeing to sponsor the group, but it is at least clear that his own economic interests, on some of which I am informed, are likely to be served by the ties he has in this way created or strengthened. Indeed, the penetration of New Territories leadership by urban interests and residents, and the orienting of New Territories leaders to the city are a significant index of the way in which in recent times the once partly isolated back garden of the Colony has become a part of the city's organisational life. Many aspects of this increasing loss of autonomy by the New Territories need to be looked into, for, apart from anything else, it suggests that in the planning of research we can no longer assume that town and country can be treated separately. 38. Between the abandonment during the first decade of the century of the idea that there was a regular and readymade system of leaders and tribunals for the Administration to make use of and the development after the Second World War of the institution of the Village Representative (based, it seems, on innovations made by the occupying Japanese), the elders and leaders appear to have been anybody whom administrators might from time to time place trust in and care to consult. The accessibility of the administrators was so high and their prestige so great that they came to assume a chief role in the field of social control. It was not simply that they were magistrates and land officers; their courts were informal and they were prepared to help settle disputes on an even less formal basis. (Present-day administrators lament the disappearance during the war of the New Territories Administration papers, for they look back on them as a lost guide to Chinese custom and its application. The social historian and the anthropologist should join in the mourning... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 229 her grave was on the head her descendants would be very great men: but if on the tail they would be more humble people, perhaps officers of low degree, and, although prosperous, none would succeed to high rank.' The princess chose the tail because she preferred her descendants to stay humble, she herself having suffered so much. See Sung Hok-p’ang, ‘Legends and Stories of the New Territories”, IV. Kam T'in (continued)', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VII, no. 1, April 1936, pp. 34f.) 62. The term fung shui is often used to mean simply a grave, and there is no need to stress the point that burial lies at the heart of geomancy. But in fact fung shui covers all aspects of men's dwellings on earth. Every territorially defined unit of society has its fung shui, from the household up to the state. The residence of the head of the state affects the prosperity of the country. (For this reason great emphasis is often placed on the geomantic excellence of Government House). The fortunes of cities, towns, and villages depend on their physical arrangement and dominating buildings. Political units take their fate from government offices. (The fung shui of the new Fanling District Court has impressed many locals). The fung shui of an ancestral hall determines the fortunes of members of the clan. (For this reason it is hardly ever to be found inside a wai, a walled enclosure; it must have free access to its site). A house shapes the destiny of its master and those for whom he is responsible. Consequently, geomancers are often employed to advise on the siting, orientation, certain architectural features (especially height), and work—and opening-dates of domestic and other buildings. Indeed, there appears to be some specialisation among fung shui sin shaang in the New Territories, some of them putting themselves out to be experts on graves and others on buildings. 63. Burial and the fung shui associated with it differ markedly in city and countryside. Only the rich among the people in the urban area can afford to escape the regimentation of their dead in cemeteries and seek geomantically favourable sites in private plots. (Some in fact acquire the right to bury their dead in land forming the traditional preserves of village communities. They may have to pay dearly for the privilege. Along one of the main roads in the New Territories there stands a pavilion, now many years old, which was put up as part of the compensation to the local people for the geomantic disturbance caused them by the burial in their area of a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 230 MAURICE FREEDMAN rich man from Hong Kong). Similarly, the fung shui of buildings plays a less important role in the city than the country. There are naturally severe limits to what can be done in the urban area to extract the best geomantic possibilities from a given site and to avoid places which have been labelled as bad fung shui risks. By and large, I think we may say that in the city fung shui is a retrospective explanation of fortune rather than a prediction of it, and that in urban conditions far more reliance is placed on the dominant geomantic effects of crucial sites (government offices and other public and semi-public buildings). City-dwellers conducting a stranger around their streets point out to him the residences of rich men which have brought them good fortune or the houses which, because of their unfavourable sites, have exerted a malignant influence on their inhabitants. (A new road, pointing like a deadly arrow to Mr. A's house, brought him disaster. Mr. B enjoys the protection of wind and excluded and static water). In the countryside, in contrast, the geomancy of buildings is both forward-and backward-looking. The height of a new village house must take into account the height and position of the ancestral halls and other houses, in order that the fortunes of other people may not be prejudiced by one's efforts to improve one's own. In a remarkably interesting case being argued out during my stay in the New Territories a disproportion in the two halves of the roofs of new houses was the cause of an agitation which cost the people responsible for the houses much money and frustration. It was held that, the front sections of the roofs being longer than the rear, the future of the inhabitants would be cut short. As for retrospective geomancy, misfortune - disease, death, lack of male children, poor harvests, and so on - may come to be attributed to faults in fung shui which are then put right. The entrance to a wall round the village (wai) may need to be protected by new 'arms' or skewed to alter the orientation of the whole village. A building thought to be too high may be lowered. Again, good or bad fortune may be attributed to earlier fung shui actions for which in fact there is no evidence. It is a common feature of New Territories village organisation that communities which are now solidly or predominantly composed of one clan were in time past made up of several. The disappearance of the weaker ones, through emigration or failure to reproduce, is often said to have followed from their geomantic indiscretion or, as in a case which has impressed itself on me, from the superior geomantic techniques of the survivors. In this case the sole clan ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 235 who have been held to have spoilt a fung shui may be asked to pay for a tun fu. Some people suspect that the sums of money handed over in payment cover more than the fees of the ritual expert, but I doubt whether any great fraudulent profits are made. The victory scored over the 'intruders' by the very fact that they have been forced to acknowledge their 'trespass' and make it ritually good is a big enough compensation. A vital claim has been vindicated. 70. Will fung shui last? I suspect that from the very beginning officers of the Administration have detected signs of growing scepticism and confidently awaited the spread of modern enlightenment. Contemporary administrators are probably less tempted to the facile optimism of their predecessors of a generation or so ago, but one can hear it asserted that the young people of the New Territories today no longer believe in fung shui. If this were so the Administration could look forward to an imminent surcease of its anxiety. But I am not convinced that modern education by itself deals fung shui a deadly blow. Metaphysical beliefs supported by social props are not easily wafted away by the book learning of schools. There are unbelievers in the New Territories, but I suspect that scepticism, if it is at all thorough, stems from their having been prised loose from the grip of their society. Urban Chinese can easily stop paying attention to fung shui if they choose because they are free from the social pressures which, in a rural community, they would be forced to take into account. Living in the city they are not so closely dependent on one another that the actions of one can be held to affect the lives of the others, and they can more easily escape the consequences of neighbourly disapproval. In a village which is still a self-contained community people are tied to one another in a complex web of relationships. Conformity is produced as a response to a multitude of obligations and sanctions; it is not the result of a mere mechanical uniformity. One has to live fully within a village or get out. If, therefore, I am accused of harming my neighbour's fung shui and he is supported by others in his contention I must give way. If my village thinks generally that some outsiders have encroached upon its geomantic privileges, I must join in the reaction. And every response of this kind reinforces my neighbours and me in our faith. (I may believe that in my own case I have been hard done by, but this does not undermine my belief in the assumptions from which my neighbours are ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 236 MAURICE FREEDMAN working). As long, then, as village life remains the kind of community life it has been, fung shui is likely to continue undiminished. But in fact, life in the New Territories cannot remain unchanged; industrialisation and the blurring of community limits by the penetration of newcomers have already gone too far. So that there is a prospect that, just as in the city today, so in the New Territories tomorrow, geomantic ideas will survive (affecting the behaviour of people striving for status and providing a retrospective explanation of fortune and misfortune) without involving everybody in a sharp geomantic response to a challenge to his rights. 71. My analysis, as I have stressed, is provisional, and I should certainly hope that it will be checked by later research and against the experience of administrators. Once again, I should like to suggest the possibility of District Officers systematising the data they have in their files, so that, by comparing the situation in different areas and at different points in time, we may get a clearer picture of what is afoot and the likely direction of change. Of course, any field study by an anthropologist which sets out to analyse the life of a community will almost certainly produce case material on fung shui, but there would be no point in suggesting that the subject be made the centre of an extended anthropological enquiry unless a specialist in Chinese religion were available and willing to undertake the task. There is certainly a need for a broad enquiry into religious life in the New Territories—ancestor worship, cults, spirit-mediumship, temples, and so on—but it would take a mature and experienced research worker to do it. 72. There is a third and final problem I propose to discuss at some length: emigration and its effects. It is generally assumed that there are some 20,000 Hong Kong men in the United Kingdom at the present time, most of them in the restaurant trade. (The figure may be larger; the head of the biggest travel agency in the New Territories puts it at 25,000). Most of these men are from the New Territories. In addition, men have gone to other parts of the world to seek a living. It is known that the money remitted home is a sizeable portion of the annual income of the New Territories. I write without a copy of the 1961 census before me, and I am unable to calculate very accurately how large a proportion the emigrants must form of the relevant sector of the population; but if we remember (a) that very few of the emigrants are men from the city, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 243 £5 orders; these will presumably have been sent into town by the bank to be cashed through a city post office and, along with orders actually presented at city post offices, fail to appear in New Territories figures. The indications from the travel agencies in the last month or so of my stay in Hong Kong were of few men going to Britain; the main agency has almost stopped any new business; and it seems unlikely therefore that remittances will increase further. On the contrary, the probability is that after a while they will fall as men remain away longer, their ties with the New Territories being reduced and their commitments abroad increased. And the question will arise whether hardship will result for the New Territories. It is not simply a matter of people being deprived of extra money; if there is any resemblance between the New Territories and the emigrant areas of Fukien and Kwangtung in respect of their economic response to overseas migration, then we should be prepared to find that economic standards and activities have become so adjusted to external income that its falling away occasions disruption and distress. 81. It is of course artificial to treat the matter of overseas migration apart from the movement between the New Territories and the urban areas of the Colony. The city has always attracted New Territories people to it and provided the countryside with an income. It would be extremely interesting to have material showing where absent members of a village are at a given time and what they are doing for a living. I discovered that on one of the islands a local committee was keeping records on emigration and I was able to obtain the data which are presented below. They can have no general value for the study of the problem as a whole, but they suggest the possibility that some Rural Committees have gathered information of this sort and that others might be encouraged to do so. The total number of emigrants involved in this case is 183. Of these 62 are overseas and the remainder in the urban area of the Colony. Of the 62 overseas, 33 are seamen, 23 are in the United Kingdom, 5 in the U.S.A. and 1 in Borneo. All these are men, but 22 of the 99 people in the urban areas are women. Of the 23 men in Britain 5 are in their twenties, 7 in their thirties, 9 in their forties, 1 in his fifties, and 1 in his seventies. Of the 5 in the U.S.A. 2 are in their forties, 2 in their fifties, and 1 in his sixties. The sole man in Borneo is in his thirties. Over a dozen communities are involved in these figures. The distribution of overseas migrants and seamen ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 252 MAURICE FREEDMAN 91. Development in the New Territories has been so massive that the displaced population is not composed exclusively of refugees. Old communities have been resettled. Again, this is not something to be undertaken for the first time in New Territories history, but a novel element of recent removals has been the choice by many of the people resettled to alter their way of life completely by taking up residence in urban blocks of flats and abandoning agriculture for commercial and industrial pursuits. How have they fared? It seems to me that there is an excellent opportunity here for a scholar interested in urban sociology. What kind of community is being created in resettlement blocks? What is a neighbour and how far does one neighbour depend on the other? To what extent are pre-existing loyalties of kinship and village community built into the new networks of relationships? But in fact in raising these matters my report has come to a point at which research in the New Territories can no longer be discussed separately from research in the Colony as a whole; for if there is to be planning for investigations into urban and industrial subjects then it must be done on a basis which ignores the formal boundary between the New Territories and the rest of Hong Kong. Social organisation within factories; the growth of an entrepreneurial class within industry; kaifongs; voluntary associations such as those based on surname, origin in China, and trade; the family and marriage in an urban setting; religious life in the city—all these are topics which are relevant now to both the old urban areas and parts of the New Territories, and I do not think I should be justified here in making detailed recommendations for research involving the whole Colony. 92. On the other hand, there is a kind of urban sociology which is specifically relevant to the New Territories: the study of small towns. And I should like to suggest that an investigation carried out in, say, Tai Po would greatly enhance our understanding of modern social change in the New Territories. The market towns there have not been urban enclaves. They have not formed a frontier between the rural and the urban. They grew out of the countryside, were peopled by countrymen, and, although in some cases outsiders have built up economic centres in them, they remain largely under the control of the rural areas they serve. The country town is in fact the knot that ties many village communities together. Village people have businesses there; local leaders congregate there; information is collected and disseminated there. And despite the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 253 modern buildings, the banks, the cinemas, and the daily shopping, the country town still has many of the characteristics of the place it was in former times when the market was held only on certain days of the month and formed the only means by which people in different parts of the area kept in regular touch with one another. Marriages, business deals, and politics were and remain important elements in the body of transactions which the country town stands for. But not all the issues are to be prejudged; it may be that as the town grows in size and economic significance it develops an urban autonomy, and a kind of small-townsman emerges whose interests and values are no longer so tightly correlated with those of the villager. The town of Yuen Long, for example, may prove to have gone far in this direction already, and the advent of new business men into the market towns, some of them with bases in the city, may point the way to an increasing tendency for the small urban areas of the New Territories to set themselves up as independent social entities with their own mechanisms of internal order (chambers of commerce, kaifongs, and trade associations). It is for this reason that I hope that one of the two students from London who will be arriving in the New Territories in the autumn will be able to concentrate on a market town and its relations to the countryside. There is of course another kind of market town in the New Territories: the one which depends on fishermen and in which, as a result, there has traditionally been a social cleavage between the buyers and the sellers, such that the town has not been under the control of the people of the surrounding area. Such a town fell within the scope of Miss Ward's study. An outstandingly interesting example (especially attractive because its historical background has been explored in a paper, now in press, by Mr. Hayes*) is Cheung Chau; it should certainly be borne in mind for future investigation. It offers the promise of our being able to see the results of a long period of tight urban organisation, resembling very strikingly, I suspect, the kind of urban settlement built up by Chinese emigrants in many parts of South-East Asia. 93. I have been brought by questions of urban organisation to touch on fishermen. The Tanka were the first group of the New Territories population to be studied by an anthropologist, and there is little likelihood that fishermen, whether land-based or boat people, * "Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets" in JHKBRAS, 3, 1963: 88-99. — Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 260 MAURICE FREEDMAN are discarded, inscriptions neglected. I have already referred to the cast out stone in the Tin Hau Temple in Tai Po Kau Hui. The stock of genealogy books and old land deeds is being fast depleted by loss and decay. The apparatus of ancestral halls is in many cases being allowed to disintegrate. (I came across a village where only the initiative of the Village Representative restored to the ancestral halls the honours boards which villagers had filched to make beds). Now people are at liberty to do what they like about their past and I am not in favour of any artificial antiquarianism; but it is surely a good argument that both the world at large and their own future generations will be grateful to the New Territories people for the preservation of their historical relics. Would it not be possible for the Administration to undertake to register all monuments, to collect unwanted documents, to copy those which their owners are unwilling to part with, and generally to preserve what can stand as a witness to the past of an interesting corner of civilisation? I am told that it is the intention of the new City Hall Museum in Hong Kong to start collecting at some future date objects illustrating the art and material culture of the New Territories, but I fear that if action is long delayed there may be little to survive. 101. I have covered many subjects in this report and made a number of suggestions for research. In many cases I have implied the degree of priority I should give to particular kinds of investigation, but I have not attempted to offer a neat arrangement of subjects on a scale of usefulness, because it is for the Administration and not me to say what is more or less important to its needs. I have tried to indicate the kinds of research that I should sponsor if I were in a position to do so and within the limits of the talent and money at our disposal my colleagues and I hope to be able to pursue some of the investigations I have proposed. If the New Territories Administration is interested in the private research to be undertaken and should itself wish to sponsor investigations then a plan could be drawn up to co-ordinate more closely the needs of the Administration with the interests of the social scientists. Hong Kong, Singapore May-July 1963. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 300 Vol. No. NOTES AND QUERIES Village (and Gazetteer reference) Surname 70. Fan Leng (p. 208) # 71. Fan Leng (p. 208) 72. Wai Tau Tsuen (p. 200) Pang 彭 Pang Cheung 張 73. Tai Kei Leng (p. 167) #4 Chung 鐘 74. Tin Sam (p. 171) Tsoi 蔡 75. Ha Wo Hang (p. 216) F** Lei 李 75.* [Duplicate] 76. Kwu Tung (p. 205) Lei 李 moved from Sham Chun area. 77. 78. Sha Lo Tung Lo Wei (p. 198) ***ŁE Lei # Lin O (Map ref. 070854) Lei 李 79. Ha Tsuen (p. 164) Tang 鄧 80. Kat Hing Wai (p. 172) N Tang 鄧 81. 82. Kat O Au Pui Tong (p. 221) *** Sheung Tsuen (p. 171) # Lam 林 Tse 謝 83. Nai Wai (p. 162) 84. 85. Later additions 86. Man 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. a 1st generation Cheng group now living in Hong Kong City. 92. 賴氏族譜 (mainland China) 93. 94. (2 vols.) Ng Uk Tsuen (p. 169) A** Ping Yeung (p. 214) ** of San Tin (p. 203) Pro- vided by Dr. James L. Watson 廣東番禺潭山許氏族誌 Unidentified: surname Taam possibly from Kwan Mun Hau, Tsuen Wan. 四必堂陳氏族譜誌 (the same as 89). [***] Sheung Tsuen (p. 171) Graham E. Johnson, Courtesy of Dr. U.B.C. Received from Dr. H. D. R. Baker Census of Lin Fa Tei village (p. | From Mr. 171) drawn up for the Ta Chiu of | H. G. H. Nelson 1967. To Ng 吳 Chan 陳 謝陶 Page 315 Page 316 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q Plate 2. A traditional Hakka style hat with patterned band attached. From Chan (...) of Sheung Kwai Chung, Tsuen Wan (new). Plates 2-13 by courtesy of the Curator, City Museum of History, Hong Kong) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 172 DAVID FAURE Sixty-five years after the event, it is now quite difficult to capture the community spirit that was demonstrated in the renovation of the T'in Hau Temple that made it the centre of worship for much of this area. Apparently, the merchants of Sai Kung had just had two years of unexpected good fortune. At the outbreak of World War I, all vessels entering or leaving Hong Kong harbour were required by law to report to the Royal Navy's Examination Service. For reasons that can only be surmised, many junks that had previously gone to Hong Kong harbour approached Sai Kung Market for supplies, and as a result, Saam Shing and T'aai Shing especially made a substantial fortune.33 The two shops led in the renovation of the temple, paying a hundred dollars each. Following Saam Shing and T'aai Shing, Tak Shing donated seventy dollars, and San Shun Cheung, Fong T'ung Shing, Kwong Tak Lung, T'ung Hing, and Ts'ui Mau Fung all thirty dollars each. In addition, T'aai Shing and Saam Shing donated the couplets that were hung outside the doors of the temple. These were written by Chan Pak T'o, the much respected Tung Koon scholar who resided in Kowloon City and who was known to the Chans of Ho Chung. Several years later, Ling Shin Chung, owner of San Shun Cheung, also donated a wooden board to be hung in the centre of the main doorway.3 34 The principal donors for the renovation of the T'in Hau Temple became the local body that was in charge of the affairs of the Market. The term kaifong was soon used for this organization. At one time, Lei Ling of T'aai Shing was the chairman. Ling Shin Chung was also chairman at another time. The chairman was assisted by a committee, the members of which were known as the chik lei. Whenever a meeting had to be called, the chairman asked the temple keeper of the T'in Hau Temple to distribute to the chik lei bamboo chits on which their names had been written. The meetings were held in the T'in Hau Temple. One of the most important institutions of any Chinese rural market was the management body that was set up to keep the common scale. Every year, the kaifong committee auctioned the right to manage the scale. Subject to the payment of a fee to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC 23 Spaniards. She worried about the presence of France in Indochina on the opposite side of the South China Sea at mid-century; and later on she suspected imperial Germany of coveting northern Borneo and the Philippines. The British sphere was initiated by the private efforts of an English adventurer, James Brooke, a former officer in the Bengal Army. In 1840, he helped bring an end to an insurrection in the Sarawak River, in the southern-most area under the nominal rule of the Sultan of Brunei, and was rewarded by being granted the province. In 1845 Brooke was appointed diplomatic agent to Brunei and supervised the transfer of the island of Labuan to Britain as a colony and a naval station. He also, in 1847, negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan which effectively gave to Britain control over Brunei's foreign relations. The colony of Labuan languished but the quasi-protectorate over Brunei served as the de facto and legal base for Britain's sphere of influence in Borneo. Such a sphere was proclaimed in 1868 as a warning to all European nations to keep out. The real carving-up of the carcass of Brunei began in earnest in 1878 with the founding of another private venture, that of a syndicate of City of London businessmen which later became the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company. The syndicate was under the control of Dent Brothers Company. Alfred and Edward Dent were sons of the owner of the former Hong Kong firm of Dent and Company. Raja Brooke had annexed, by treaty with the Sultan, additional chunks of territory before 1878. In 1853 he purchased northward to and including the large district of the Rajang River. And in 1861 he purchased the five so-called “sago rivers” as far north as Kidurong Point. When that point was reached, the Governor of Labuan objected to any further northward encroachment of Sarawak and Labuan's wishes were supported by Britain. When, however, the British North Borneo Company purchased the large area of Sabah, the whole of the island of Borneo to the northward of Brunei Town, with strong support from the Foreign Office, both Raja Brooke and the Colonial Office protested. It is interesting to note that the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office who midwifed the company charter through officialdom in Whitehall was Julian Pauncefote, who was a former attorney-general. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 28 LEIGH WRIGHT The state of Brunei annual report for 1956 describes the water city, Kampong Ayer, this way, Set in a wide sweep of the river, this river town is in its way unique. At high tide under favourable conditions of light it takes on quite a remarkable beauty; viewed at close quarters it is even more remarkably ramshackle. The houses are grouped together in small villages, being connected by precarious plank walkways, and there the inhabitants carry on their multifarious activities in much the same way as if they were on land. NOTES 1 See e.g. O. W. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce; a study of the origins of Srivijaya, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967); and D. E. Brown, Brunei: the structure and history of a Bornean Malay sultanate, (Brunei: Brunei Museum, 1970). These works have drawn upon the earlier studies of such scholars as W. P. Groeneveldt (1880) and Lien Sung (1919). 2 See Brown, op. cit., Ch. XI. 3 The fullest account of the Moro wars is in E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493 - 1898, (Cleveland, 1903 -09). 4 Lord Stanley of Alderley (ed.), The first voyage round the world by Magellan, by Antonio Pigafetta, (London: Hakluyt Society, 1874). 5 J. Hunt, "Some particulars relative to the Sulo islands in the Archipelago of Felicia”, in Malayan Miscellany, I, (Bencoolen, 1820). 6 James Horsburgh, Directions for sailing to and from the East Indies and China, (London, 1811), the navigational handbook for generations of British sea captains. This work drew heavily upon the surveys of eighteenth century seafarers such as Alexander Dalrymple (1774) and Thomas Forest (1780). 7 S. B. St. John, Life in the forests of the Far East. (London, 1862), Vol. 2, pp. 248-49. 8 British Parliamentary Papers, 1854-55, XXIX (253), 9 Sarawak Gazette, 26 April, 1872. 10 Henry Keppel, The expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido for the suppression of piracy, with extracts from the Journal of James Brooke, Esq. of Sarawak, (London, 1847), 11 S. Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde, A History of Sarawak under its two white rajahs, (London, 1909), pp. 82-83. 12 Lennox Mills, British Malaya, 1824-67, (reprint: Kuala Lumpur, 1966), p. 248. 13 British interests in Borneo are treated extensively in, L. R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo, (Hong Kong, 1970). 14 See L. R. Wright, "The Foreign Office and North Borneo", in Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. VII, No. 1, (January 1969). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945 33 Tweed Bay Beach provided pleasure for many internees. During the summer months they were allowed to swim there, under guard. During the summers of 1944 and particularly 1945, however, many had to forego this pleasure as it required walking down and up a very steep flight of stairs and many simply did not have the energy due to lack of food. Although the Japanese had meticulously planned their capture of the Colony, apparently they had not formulated plans for dealing with the enemy civilians. Not only was it several weeks after the surrender until the internees were interned in Stanley Camp, but once they had been interned, the Japanese had little to do with them. A few necessities, namely a minimal amount of food, were provided, but the internees were left to run the Camp themselves. They soon began forming committees. The three main national groups — American, British, and Dutch — remained independent but did cooperate on such matters as welfare and medicine. At the beginning of internment, there were approximately 2400 British internees, 300 Americans, and 60 Dutch. Being such a large majority (and after repatriation in June 1942, only about twenty Americans remained), the British really ran the Camp. Five committees were elected, and each struggled with similar problems of food, housing, medical matters, etc. It is of interest to note that very few Government servants were elected to serve on these committees because there was strong anti-Government feeling in the Camp, largely due to the blame most internees put on the Government for the quick surrender of the Colony. An internee wrote: The first impulse that ran through camp would, on a larger social stage, have been called revolutionary. On every side, by almost every mouth, the former leading men of the colony were bitterly denounced. They were held to blame for what had happened in Hong Kong. Along the camp roadways where people gathered to gossip, one heard the same angry talk of the government servants' complacency, stupidity, and shortsightedness.* The Governor, Sir Mark Young, was not interned in Hong Kong. The next highest Government official in the Colony was the Colonial Secretary, Franklin C. Gimson, who remained in the city for the first few weeks but did go to Camp to attend meetings from time to time. * See also H. J. Lethbridge's article. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 34 G. C. EMERSON to time until he moved permanently into Camp in March 1942. During the occupation, his title was 'Representative of Internees'. An interesting point arose which today we might label "women's liberation". Throughout internment only one woman was ever elected to a Council. An American woman who was repatriated in June 1942, wrote: In the minds of the men, women just did not count in camp. As for expecting women to contribute to the work or thought for the camp, nil! In the community elections I was the only woman nominated for the council, and was speedily defeated. The biggest problem throughout internment concerned food. There simply was never enough, and what there was, was very poor. The rice frequently contained dust, mud, rat and cockroach excreta, cigarette ends and even, on occasion, dead rats. Food was delivered daily to Camp by a ration truck and distributed to the various kitchens in camp. Usually two meals a day were served, at 11.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m., preceded by rice congee at 8.00 a.m. The meals usually consisted of rice and a stew poured on top, made from whatever meat (usually water-buffalo meat), fish and/or vegetables were provided. In August 1944, following American air raids on Hong Kong, all electricity stopped, and thus cold storage failed. The internees thereupon received a number of partridges and pheasants from the city. There were only enough for about one bird for seventeen people, but as always a little was better than nothing and imagine eating even one bite of a pheasant after months of the terrible rice and stew diet! Had the internees been forced to exist for three and a half years on the food provided by the Japanese, almost undoubtedly there would have been many deaths directly attributable to starvation. Luckily there were other sources of food --- parcels from friends or relatives in the city, Red Cross parcels, a Canteen, gardens, and the Black Market. Only a very small percentage of internees, perhaps 10%, ever received parcels from the city. One woman, however, had a rich Swiss friend who sent her duffle bags full of all kinds of tins. She received so much cooking oil that she traded it for "very pretty ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945 35 dishes". After a few months she was allowed out of the camp in the care of this Swiss national. She then sent parcels to friends in camp. Among other things she bought bottles of vinegar, emptied out the vinegar, refilled the bottles with gin and sent them to camp! The Hong Kong News of April 16, 1942 reported that 300 parcels for Stanley were received by the Foreign Affairs Section of the Japanese government in the HK & Shanghai Bank. Still, few internees received parcels from the city, although one man was said to have received so many that he got a hernia carrying them up the hill to his room. More internees benefited from the Camp Canteen, which first opened in February 1942. Like most things in camp, it took a while to get the canteen running smoothly. At first it was first come, first served; later, a tab system was organised and this resulted in a more equitable chance for the internees. On one occasion in February 1942, the Americans bought the entire stock of the canteen. This was hardly popular with the British or the Dutch. It was, however, explained by the fact that only the Americans had the necessary small notes. Large notes, such as $500 notes, were rapidly depreciating in HK and were refused by the canteen operator. As for Red Cross parcels, they were delivered to Camp on three occasions: November 1942, September 1944 and March 1945. Containing clothing, tinned food and bulk supplies like sugar and coffee, the distributions of parcels were exciting events, not only for what was received but also for showing that the internees were not forgotten by the outside world. In regard to supplementing the Camp food with vegetables from Camp gardens, a few internees began gardening soon after being interned, but most did not, because they did not expect to be in Camp long enough to justify the work involved. Gardening on a large, communal scale did not begin for nearly two years, in 1944. The Black Market was an outstanding feature of Stanley Camp outstanding because of its magnitude. Food, the main item of trade, of course, was brought into Camp by the guards for sale to the internees, and valuables of the internees were sent out for sale in the city. Most transactions were made via internee-traders who acted as go-betweens. One unusual feature of the Black Market in Stanley Camp was that internees could “buy” yen by writing sterling ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945 37 fruit and ice cream for the children. In their departure there was promise that our own repatriation would follow. The writer's own repatriation did not follow until the war ended. Soon after the second repatriation, the Camp was stunned by the news of the executions of seven internees who had been involved in possessing a radio set. The troubles had begun in April 1943, when the Japanese arrested several internees concerning the radio set and passing messages in and out of Camp on the ration truck. Military trials were held and the seven internees were sentenced to death. On October 29, 1943, a group of children passing the prison saw a van drive out. As it went by, English voices shouted out, “Goodbye, boys". The van drove down to the jetty in Stanley Bay and internees at Bungalow C, as well as others, saw seven men walk from the van to the hillside. They knelt beside trenches and were shot. Apparently to lessen the impact of the executions, the Japanese announced that about 700 persons would be repatriated "shortly". This never took place. 1943 was a particularly bad year. In April, an internee returning from treatment at St. Paul's Hospital in Causeway Bay was found to have a large sum of money hidden under his bandages. At this time a number of British bankers, including Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, the Chief Manager of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, had been kept in the city to work on liquidating non-Axis assets in the bank. Furthermore, the Director of Medical Services, Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, had been allowed to remain in the city to assist with medical matters. Soon after the discovery of the money, both Sir Vandeleur Grayburn and Dr. Selwyn-Clarke were arrested. Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke and Lady Grayburn were sent into Stanley. In August 1943, Sir Vandeleur Grayburn died in Stanley Prison. His body was released to the internment camp and medical examination revealed that he had died of malnutrition. He rests today in Stanley cemetery. Dr. Selwyn-Clarke was kept in the prison until December 1944, when he was transferred to Kowloon. In 1975 he published his memoirs, under the title Footprints. Speaking of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, this is a good point to talk about medical treatment in camp. The internees were fortunate that * Sino-American Publishing Co., Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 40 G. C. EMERSON was summoned to Japanese Headquarters in Camp and informed of the surrender. The first days after the surrender were tremendously exciting ones as friends and relatives arrived from the city and prisoners-of-war came from the two Kowloon P.O.W. camps. On 23rd August, Mr. Gimson moved into the city and began re-establishing the Government. Nearly two weeks passed after the surrender before the British fleet arrived on 30th August. At 5.00 p.m. that afternoon, the Commander of the Fleet, Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt, came to Camp and attended a very moving flag-raising ceremony. It was several weeks before the Camp was finally closed. Many ventured into the city to begin picking up the lost threads of their lives but many, particularly those whose health was poor, remained in Camp waiting to board the ships which took them away from Hong Kong. From this brief account, it may sound as if internment was not a particularly bad experience. Such an impression would be far from the truth. Internment was a dreadful experience. Not only were the physical aspects - lack of food and of clothing, the over-crowding, the insufficient food, etc.- most unpleasant, but the mental aspects were extremely bad also. The humiliation of defeat, the separation from loved ones and the years of waiting for release are impossible to imagine for those of us who have never had such experiences. While the horrors of the German concentration camps fortunately never were experienced in Hong Kong, internment in Stanley Camp was a terrible experience for almost all the internees. I would like to finish by reading you a few lines from a poem written by Mr. C. J. Norman, later Commissioner of Prisons, Hong Kong, in 1954. The poem is entitled “A Farewell to Stanley”. A Farewell to Stanley! It's over. Of Internees there isn't a sign. They've left for Newhaven & Dover For Hull & Newcastle-on-Tyne. No tales where the rumours once started. The kitchen's devoid of its queues. The strategists all have departed With the lies which they peddled as 'news'. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n UNDER ALTARS 97 When the Mean One's slips are pasted up they are promptly beaten with a shoe or slipper, and then, over them, are pasted the red and green slips representing the control exercised over them by the Green Horse and the Nobleman. One form of the charm is a green paper cut-out horse about 24 inches long, mounted by a separate piece of red paper, cut out in the stylised form of a man. These are pasted in shrines to control the Mean Ones. One word of warning for the iconographer. Confusion may arise in temples of Overseas Chinese communities beyond the shores of Hong Kong and Macau, particularly in Fukienese temples in SE Asia. In these there is no Under Altar as such, except in Cantonese communities in places like Kuala Lumpur. There is a separate altar which has no special title, on which there are two or more images whose general features are very similar to the Local Wealth God. They wear dunce's caps, have gaunt faces with protruding tongues and carry a fan each. In addition they carry either a chain and padlock, or a tablet permitting them to carry out an official arrest. These are the lictors of the City God whose task it is to arrest the souls of humans when the ill-fated day of death arrives, and then drag the soul before the Judges of the Underworld. Usually, one of the two images is a short man and the other, very similar to the Local Wealth God, is a tall man. The Cantonese do not appear to hold them in awe as do the Fukienese, and only depict these lictors on murals, paintings and sketches of the courts and punishments of the Underworld. Incidentally, in Yunnan, the demonic lictor of the City God was known as the "Chicken Foot Demon", because down to his knees he was as described, "gaunt, with dunce's cap etc," but below his knees were two enormous chicken's claws. On the altar of these lictors in Fukienese temples one may see the occasional White Tiger and, very rarely indeed, a Green Horse. More frequently, the small image of Chao, the Wealth God Hsuan T'an can be seen astride or beside his tiger. One exception to the latter is interesting. In Stone Nullah Lane in Hong Kong a larger than life image of Chao Kung-ming stands with three other deities before the main altar. Beside him is a minute tiger, the size of a kitten. The image of Chao is the only one in Hong Kong temples which is coated with red and green ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n "LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)": SUB-NEIGHBORHOOD AND COMMUNITY IN NORTH POINT, HONG KONG GREGORY E. GULDIN⭑ "Ethnic neighborhoods" are found not only in city guidebooks but squat smugly astride the intersection of Urban Anthropology with Ethnicity Studies. Mention of such a neighborhood conjures up visions in both folk and anthropological minds of a distinctive and discrete portion of a city marked off by spatial as well as social boundaries from the rest of the urban area. Cultural peculiarities and perhaps even physical oddities predominate on the streets, in the homes, in the shops. So much for popular and anthropological expectations. Field research in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong has disclosed to me how misleading such a priori notions of ethnic neighborhood can be. In Hong Kong, certain neighborhoods are known as districts inhabited by certain groups of ethnically distinct Han Chinese,1 yet in every district in urban Hong Kong the majority Guangdongese (Cantonese) is indeed the majority group and not the purportedly dominant minority group. Since all these districts are peopled by a majority of Guangdongese, I submit it is rather imprecise to speak of a neighborhood such as North Point as "Little Fujian" when only 1/5 of the population there is Fujianese (Fukienese). To avoid the clumsiness of a terminology of "universal," "substantial," or "bare" majority predominance in a neighborhood, we should instead simply sharpen our tools and terms of urban analysis. We should realize that in the case of North Point and Hong Kong (and, I suspect, in many other cases) the concepts of "neighborhood" and "community" do not overlap, that the geographical/spatial boundaries of a neighborhood may not be coterminous with the sociocultural ones of a community. A city-wide ethnic community may encompass a number of neighborhoods or sections of neighborhoods. Conversely, a neighborhood may be composed of a number of spatially distinct sub-neighborhoods and/or a number of socio-culturally distinct communities. * Professor Guldin is on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 114 GREGORY E. GULDIN and Tsat Tsz Mui Road became the foci of middle-class Shanghaiese life in Hong Kong (see Fig. 1). If there was ever a time that North Point had a majority non-Guangdongese population, this was it.* By the early 1960s, however, changes had occurred in North Point which were having a profound effect on the area's demographics. A high-rise apartment building boom, replacing many of the post-war three or six-storey structures with 20-storey buildings, had led to an oversupply of apartments and a consequent drop in rents. Middle-income Guangdongese, who had been moving into North Point slowly but surely throughout the 1950s, could now afford to live in the once exclusive neighborhood and they poured into the area. Soon they found themselves the overwhelming majority not only in the high-rise buildings but in all of North Point as well. The Shanghaiese, certainly, could not fill all the empty spaces, for their immigrative tide had already begun to ebb. Since the late 1950s, there had been a net outflow of Shanghaiese from North Point as those who had found ways to replenish their wealth moved to richer areas and the many who had not adjusted so well, pauperized and forced into lower-status occupations, were no longer able to afford the high rents of Fort Street and North Point and also moved away. With a dearth of available Shanghaiese residents, the old system by which North Point's Shanghaiese had maintained their neighborhood's Shanghaiese identity by permitting only Shanghaiese (or approved others) entry into their three-storey buildings — rapidly collapsed under the sudden challenge of the seemingly cavernous 20-storey high-rises. As the Shanghaiese began to leave, another minority population, the Fujianese, began to arrive in North Point in greater and greater numbers until their total eventually surpassed their predecessors' and "Little Shanghai" was eclipsed by "Little Fujian." + To "Little Fujian" Most Fujianese who arrived in North Point in the late 1950s to form the basis of a future "Little Fujian" community had ironically already been living in a Fujianese community. Since the early 1950s, the few thousand Fujianese resident in Hong Kong had been living in Hong Kong Island's Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Poon districts, areas close to the city's commercial and trading centers. As the Fujianese (along with the Guangdongese) are one of Southern China's peoples who have adopted the strategy of seeking overseas ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n "LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)" 125 nity" should be reserved for ethnic social interaction and organization. If this divorce were to be granted it would clear up much confusion in the writings on neighborhood and community. We would thus realize that the disagreement between Joy/Lieberson and Drieger/Church is due to their concern with neighborhood on the one hand and community on the other. Application of such insights to Hong Kong's Fujianese helps us to evade the myopia that Fox (1977: 12) and others have recognized in all too many urban "community" studies. Viewing the city as a whole we are thus free to conceptualize the Fujianese community of Hong Kong as a somewhat dispersed entity - stretching from parts of North Point, to parts of other neighborhoods, and to the offices of the Fujian Commercial Association in Sheung Wan. Little Fujian as a local community is thus just one part of the larger Fujianese community of Hong Kong and cannot be understood without reference to it, just as village life cannot be fully grasped without a wider social perspective. Similar insights into the Shanghaiese community yield quite a different reading of the Shanghaiese status quo. Their ethnic sub-neighborhood, Little Shanghai, is gone, with only pale reminders of its once thriving communality dotting North Point's urban landscape. Yet a Shanghaiese community definitely persists in Hong Kong as both formal organizations and informal sociocultural patterns help maintain a level of interactional intensity sufficient for a "sense of ethnic community." Of course the study of such a community presents far greater methodological and analytical difficulties than are usually encountered in most urban studies. Communities based in clearly recognized and spatially distinct ethnic (sub-) neighborhoods are far easier to deal with; it is no wonder urban anthropologists have preferred to map out such discrete and concentrated domains. Such urban studies have been likewise drawn to communities with well-organized and formal social structures. These studies (Charsely 1974; Drieger and Church 1974; McBeath 1973; Neville 1975) have stressed the importance of formally organized institutions in giving that "sense of ethnic community" to otherwise anomic and isolated ethnics. Drieger and Church even go so far as to suggest (1974:36) that whenever an ethnic group's proportion of the population approaches 25% there is a corresponding tendency ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 128 GREGORY E. GULDIN REFERENCES CITED Amyot, Jacques 1973 The Manila Chinese, Quezon City, R.P.: Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila Univ. Charsley, S. R. 1974 "The Formation of Ethnic Groups." In Urban Anthropology. A. Cohen, (ed.). Pp. 337-68. London: Tavistock Publications. Department of Census and Statistics, Hong Kong Government 1966 By-Census. Hong Kong. 1971 Census Report. Hong Kong. 1975 Census Update. Hong Kong. Drieger, Leo and Glenn Church 1974 "Residential Segregation and Institutional Completeness: A Comparison of Ethnic Minorities." The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 11:1. Pp. 30-52. Fox, Richard G. 1977 Urban Anthropology: Cities in their Cultural Settings. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc. Freedman, Maurice 1958 Lineage Organization in Southeast China. LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology. London: The Athlone Press. Gordon, Milton 1964 Assimilation in American Life. New York. Guldin, Gregory E. 1977 Overseas at Home: The Fujianese of Hong Kong. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin Department of Anthropology. Madison, Wisconsin. Joy, Richard 1972 Languages in Conflict. Kuo Shou Hwa 1964 History of Hakka Chinese. Taipei, Taiwan. [in Chinese] Lam, Mickey 1967 Postwar Development of North Point. Unpublished Hong Kong University B.A. thesis. Univ. of Hong Kong Architecture Department. Li Yih-Yuan 1970 An Immigrant Town: Life in an Overseas Chinese Community in Southern Malaysia. Monograph Series B No. 1. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Ethnology Academia Sinica. [in Chinese] Lieberson, Stanley 1970 Languages and Ethnic Relations in Canada, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH 149 in demand, part of the foreshore was reclaimed, and houses of reinforced concrete began to appear in the village, modelled on Hong Kong tenement houses. A great difficulty with this development was the problem of ensuring proper inspection of buildings of this type, as the Buildings Ordinance of 1903 did not apply, and there were one or two rogue architects about who would run up such houses cheap, and make their profit by deviating from plans: swindles that can, as I saw in Hong Kong later, cost lives. The best way of controlling knavery of this sort is to refuse permits to erect any more houses to the architect responsible: that, I was told, is London practice. The Cheung Chau Kaifongs, who in my time were led by a Mr. Lo Yip, a prosperous shopkeeper, were certainly enterprising, and had not only started a ferry to Hong Kong on the funds obtained from the Pak Tai Temple at the north end of the town, but had renovated the Temple and set up an electric light installation for the village on the raised ground in the middle of the isthmus. The Ferries Ordinance was passed about 1917 and replaced the ancient launches plying to Yaumati and Kowloon City by much more suitable craft — some of them second-hand Star Ferry boats — far less likely to turn turtle than the overloaded, overcrowded craft which daily imperilled their passengers in the old days, the disasters to which brought about the new legislation. About 1925 the Ordinance was applied to the New Territory, which meant that the existing ferries had to be thrown open to public tender and their boats brought up to a higher standard. The Cheung Chau Kaifongs were encouraged to bid, and as theirs was the only one, and not unreasonable, they got the concession. The old pier by the former police station had sometime before been supplemented by a new wooden pier some 150 yards further north, and this was the Cheung Chau Terminal of the ferry. The concession expired in 1928, and under my successor, Mr. Wynne-Jones, new ferry concessions were made, which according to Mr. Lo Yip had caused great trouble to the Kaifongs. The timetable was certainly improved from the Hong Kong point of view, and day trips to the island became possible. I once discussed with the Kaifongs the question of making the ferry call at Nei Kwu Chau or Ping Chau, but they never agreed to letting the boat go there or to any other island, though a call at Nei Kwu Chau would have solved the education question there by enabling its children to attend school on Cheung Chau. I once spent a Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH 155 crews, who had no permit for that beach, were driven off without their sand. One of my duties was to discover and report beaches that could be dug without injury to cultivated land. Some of these have since then been completely worked out, notably on Sha Chau, as I found in 1938 during archaeological researches. Eventually the P.W.D.* started a scheme for dredging and working sand from the sea bottom off Tai Lam Chung about 1929, which enabled the builders to get what they wanted. The beaches at Tai Long in Lantau and Tai Wan in Lamma were specially reserved for the waterworks filter beds because of the cleanness and high quality of the sand there. One of the interesting communities on Lantau was the group of Buddhist temples and chai tong or fasting halls on the well-known high plateau between Tung Chung and Tai O figuring as 'Ngong Ping' on the maps. It lay at about 800 ft. above sea level and its members maintained a good pathway from Tai O across a stream and up the hill to their settlement and ran their buildings, somewhat in the manner of vegetarian youth hostels. They occasionally harboured strange characters, as might be expected in unsettled and revolutionary times. One such, I believe, was a big-scale opium smuggler and den-keeper who had operated in London, and was nicknamed ‘Brilliant Cheung'; I think he got banished from the Colony. The track from Tai O to Tung Chung was a favourite walk for many people: I unfortunately never did it. As I notice that Hong Kong seems to have become more and more a tourist attraction of late years, I may perhaps conclude these reminiscences with a few notes on the sites of historical or archaeological interest which can be found in the Southern District, and which may be thought worth preserving. Our chief site, Sung Wong Toi, was I know wrecked by the Japanese as an anti-Kuomintang measure, though the inscription has been preserved. Kowloon City was full of interesting things when I visited it, such as old yamens, drill grounds for Chinese troops, ancient cannon with inscriptions, and above all the old walls and gates; I once sat in the gate to conduct an enquiry, after the manner of King David, with the people assembled round. Close by was a walled and moated village, shown on maps but hard to find, named Nga Tsin Wai, which I hope will not be ‘improved' out of existence by planners! On the low hill west of Kowloon City a loopholed wall and gateway with a ruined guard-house barred the path crossing a gap * Public Works Department. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 168 NOTES AND QUERIES ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY VISIT TO TAI MO SHAN, 3RD APRIL 1976 HISTORICAL AND GENERAL NOTE 1. Tai Mo Shan is 3,140 feet (957 metres) in height, the highest mountain in Hong Kong territory. 2. It is a curiously unimpressive mountain at close quarters. Viewed from Tsuen Wan, the former small market town at its foot on the southern side, the visitor could be forgiven for not noticing the mountain at all. It is, from there, only part of a large hilly area that arises quickly from sea level and extends in all directions, with occasional higher points of which the Tai Mo Shan summit is only one, in no way outstanding or separating itself from its neighbours. 3. From a distance, however, the true splendour of its peak and general mass is revealed. A visitor looking north from Magazine Gap or Wong Nei Chong Gap on Hong Kong Island, some 10-12 miles distant, cannot fail to notice, to the north, the bulk and height of the mountain, overtopping all around. The Lion Rock range of hills behind Kowloon Peninsula, closer to the viewer and usually so impressive from low ground, then appears in its true and diminished scale. 4. Mountains figure prominently in Chinese historical geography. There is, in every district, prefectural, provincial or general gazetteer, a section devoted to Shan-chuen - 'Hills and Streams'. As befits its size, Tai Mo Shan always receives a notice in the local works. The earliest mention I can find so far is in the 1688 edition of the Sun On District Gazetteer. This is repeated with much the same text in the 1819 and last edition, and in the 1822 and 1879 editions of the provincial and prefectural gazetteers respectively. The 1688 notice may be translated as follows: Tai Mo Shan is 50 Chinese miles east of the District City. It has the shape of a big hat. It extends south and west from Ng Tung Mountain. Its peak measures 2,000 Chinese feet. It is a big mountain in the Fifth Division, with a stone pagoda and many tea plantations. 5. So far as I know, there never has been a separate gazetteer of Tai Mo Shan such as has been provided for the more famous mountains of the Province; e.g. the White Cloud Mountains near Canton or ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 177 26. Water was, of course, Tai Mo Shan's greatest natural resource. Before the construction of the Shing Mun catchwaters pre-war, and those for the Tai Lam Chung reservoir post-war, a tremendous flow of water ran down the mountain. It assisted in the gradual formation of land for houses and cultivation at its two main stream mouths in Tsuen Wan,* and was also used for industrial purposes. Water power drove the 24 incense mills located on the various streams of Tsuen Wan between 1900-1910 and before. (JHKBRAS 16 (1976):282-283). Stream water was also essential to the manufacture of bean curd and bean stick, another very old Tsuen Wan local industry, in which the quality of the product was directly related to the availability of a continually available pure water supply (see pp. 216-218 of this Journal). Public Works 27. In any hill area in which streams abound and become fast-flowing torrents in wet weather, there is a need for bridges across which travellers and villagers carrying heavy loads can proceed in safety. Tai Mo Shan has its share of such streams, and there are surviving bridges here and there in the hills and on its lower slopes. Among those known to me the largest is the Po Chai Bridge at Chung Hang, a few minutes' walk from my office in Tsuen Wan. Beside it is a battered slate-like tablet commemorating its repair in the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor, a curious titling which owes its inspiration to the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in the same year as its reconstruction (see Dingle: 89 for a similar dating that gave me the clue to this one and illustrates the wave of Chinese feeling that linked places as far apart in these two cases as Hankow and Tsuen Wan). The subscribers were the leading villagers and shopkeepers of Tsuen Wan and places linked to it by social and business ties. 28. Another bridge, further up the same valley at a place called Ngo Tei (#) or Goose Land—probably its geomantic name—has no tablet. However it is also an old bridge, and an elderly villager of Pak Shek Kiu, an abandoned hill village higher up, credits its repair fifty years ago by a city merchant from Hong Kong as the 'price' paid to the villages to allow burial of one of his relatives there. * The old name for Tsuen Wan was Chin Wan (**) or Shallow Bay which directly reflects the effect of the mountain on the bay. It was in use until the late 19th century, being replaced first by Tsuen Wan and then... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 192 NOTES AND QUERIES Continuously to the present, since elders in both communities were boys and reportedly before, worship of these heroes has been carried out twice a year, at the times of the first and second padi harvests (described as 春分*). It even continued throughout the Japanese Occupation, a hard time when traditional practices were sometimes dispensed with and not taken up again. Such practices, whilst tending to keep each community together, also had the effect of perpetuating a rift; and the existence of such shrines did nothing to reduce the endemic bickering that characterized much of local society at that time. NOTES 1 Sessional Papers 1928 (see the District Officer North's report which follows at Part C to the Notes for this Visit). 2 See Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong Government Printer, n.d. but circa 1960): 148-152. 3 Copies of genealogies of the Cheng (#) Tang (*) and some other local lineages have been recently deposited in the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong. 4 They also went to Tai Po Market and to North West Kowloon. 5 YEUNG Kwok-shui (#) of Yeung Uk, a small single lineage settled since the Ch'ien Lung period. 6 Local place name of the district city of Hsin-an. 7 Gazetteer: 154. * Gazetteer: 150. Lo Wai is claimed to be the oldest of the Tsuen Wan villages. 9 See e.g. G. N. Orme's Report on the New Territory 1899-1912 in the Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers 1912: paras 58-60; and the file CSD1903 Ext/17, minutes of 6 April and 5 May 1905 in Public Records Office of Hong Kong. 10 Gazetteer: 150-151. 11 GR. 12 Shek Lei Pui (†) was the name of a village moved to Sha Tin in the 1920s to make way for an extension to the Kowloon Reservoir. See H.K. Government's Administrative Reports 1924, page Q146, para. 4. 13 Gazetteer: 151. 14 The Tin Hau Temple inscription says a wooden tablet, worshipped for 70 years. 15 of Sam Tung Uk, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk, died 15th October, 1956: para. 119 of District Commissioner, New Territories' Annual Departmental Report 1956-57. 16 From the names listed it seems likely that, as stated by informants, friends and relatives of the Shing Mun people from the Pat Heung (Gazetteer: 170) aided them in the war against Tsuen Wan. 17 According to the Tsuen Wan tablet, the fighting took place with sharp weapons. (i). 18 This name was a purely Shing Mun description and does not appear in Gazetteer which only refers to the other Pat Heung to the north. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 205 Kok Shan. In general, the significance of Tang Foo is two-fold: 1) by establishing a famous school or study (Lik Ying Tsai #) near Kam Tin, he linked his name with scholarly achievement in San On and Canton, 2) by recognizing the qualities of the area's Fung-shui (風水) and locating his ancestors' graves accordingly, he assured future benefits for his descendents. 10. With reference to the former point, Tang expansion was undoubtedly assisted by the largely fictive "kinship" bonds established within the scholarly civil-service tradition. 11. It will be noted that in the two accounts of Fung-shui appended to these notes,* the landmarks recognized by Tang Foo correspond generally to the boundaries of territory claimed by the Kam Tin— Ping Shan- Ha Tsuen Tangs. Also notice the conflicting tales recorded by Sung and O'Dwyer,† particularly concerning whether Tang Foo was an official prior to examining the Fung-shui. An excellent example of how oral "tales” contradict orthodox doctrine. 12. There is considerable doubt that, after Tang Foo, the Tangs continued to be a force in Sham Tin; but, two generations later, ancestors reappear, and with them mention, for the first time, of the popular territorial division of Kam Tin. Two cousins (grandchildren of Tang Foo), Kwai (#) and Sui (*) settled respectively in Nam Pin (南邊) and Pak Pin (北邊) Villages. 13. The dispersal of their children, known as 'the Five Yuen (五遠)' is the first major migration or fission of the Tangs from Sham Tin. The descendents of the Five Yuen considered together form the highest order grouping of the Tang clan. Kwai (癸) gave birth to Yuen-hei (元喜) who settled in Tung Kwun City (東莞縣城) and Pak Wai (北圍), and Yuen-ying (元英) who settled in Fuk Lung (福隆) of Tung Kwun county. Sui (遂) gave birth to Yuen-ching (元貞) who remained in San On, establishing the branch of the clan at Ping Shan (坪山), Yuen-leung (元亮) who remained in Sham Tin, and Yuen-woh (元禾) who moved to Wai Tak (懷德) of Tung Kwun. These together made up the five great branches of the Tung Kwun San On Tangs. In the K'ang Hsi years of Ch'ing, their descendents established the To Hing Tong (蹈興堂), which built * pp. 214-216. Only one has been printed. † K. O'Dwyer, "Kam Tin, Memories and Legends" The Rock (a Hong Kong Catholic Journal) April 1940. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 206 NOTES AND QUERIES a temple outside Tung Kwun city whose upkeep and ritual observances were financed by large joint landed estates. 14. Yeung-leung's son, Tsz-ming (8) was married off, albeit unwittingly, to a princess of the Sung Dynasty. I have little to add here that Sung and O'Dwyer do not mention, but I believe it is important to stress that this tale (popularly known as the Wong Ku (*) story) served the important function, at least prior to the 1930's, of defining Tangs relative to outsiders (the powers-that-be) and locals (especially surrounding great and small lineages). 14. a. The San On gazetteer (a rare copy of which exists in the Fung Ping Shan Library of Hong Kong University), compiled in 1819, gives the tale in complete detail. 14. b. The Rev. Krone's "A Notice of the Sanon District," published in the Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1859, contains the following passage: "The inhabitants of a pretty little village on Deep Bay called “Kam-Tin”... also trace their origin up to the Sung dynasty. A high mandarin, they say, of the name of Tung, came to San On from the interior of China, and was so much pleased with the county around Deep Bay, that he settled down and made himself very popular, by giving gratuitous instruction. The grandson of this man having done some meritorious service to the State, the emperor Ko-tsung of the Sung dynasty, gave him his daughter in marriage.' 14. c. It will also be noted that the plaque commemorating the return of the iron gates to Kat Hing Wai makes especial reference to the tale. Several elders of neighboring villages, when asked why the Tangs were so powerful as to be able to concentrate five wais (walled villages) in the district, cited this imperial kinship link. 15. The second major migratory movement of the Tangs occurred during the generation of Wong Ku's sons. Lam (*) settled at Lung Kwat Tau (##), Kei (*) settled in Tung Kwun at Shek Tseng &✯✯, Wai (*) established the Tang branch-settlement at Tai Po Tau (†). Chi (#) remained in Sham Tin. [Chi's grandson Chu-on (₫) established the Ha Tsuen lineage-village.] * Reprinted in JHKBRAS 7(1967). See p.134. † See P. Wesley-Smith's article in JHKBRAS 13, 1973: 41-44. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: MAO, Dr. P. W. C. - MARKEY, J. C.- MATHEW, D. MATHEWS, D. A. MATHEWS, J. F. MARTIN, Miss R. M. MCCABLE, Mrs. S. J. MCCAHILL, W. - MCELNEY, B. S. MCKINNON, J. W. MELLOR, Mrs. M. - MINERS, Dr. N. J. MINTER, C. J. W. - MORRIS, M. G. MORROW, Miss S. E. MOYLE, G. C. - MULLOY, G. N. NEWBIGGING, D. K. NG, Miss Tonia NG, P. P. K. NGUYET, Mrs. T. NISHIMURA, M. O'HARA, R. ONG, Dr. G. B. - OXLEY, C. W. B. - + + PALMER, Mrs. R. M. + 1 - + + + + - + 255 326-8 Tung Ying Building, 100 Nathan Rd., Kowloon. Estates Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd., World Trade Centre, Hong Kong. SM Bowen Road, 3/Fl, Hong Kong, c/o Legal Dept., Central Government Offices, Hong Kong. Flat B 1, 10 Dianthus Road, Yau Yat Chuen, Kowloon. Penthouse 2, Valverde, 11 May Road, Hong Kong. American Consulate, 26 Garden Road, Hong Kong. Johnson Stokes & Master, Hong Kong Bank Building, Hong Kong. New Zealand Commission, 3414 Connaught Centre, Hong Kong. c/o The Secretary's Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 69 Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Survey Research Hong Kong Ltd., 10F Development House, 30-32 Queen's Road East, Hong Kong. 504 Tower Court, Hysan Avenue, Hong Kong. Flat 8C, Cambridge Villa, 8-10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong. 64 Mile Taipo Road, N.T. 6 King's Park, Kowloon, Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd., Jardine House, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Connaught Centre 35/F, Hong Kong. 304 Man Yee Building, Hong Kong. Arts of Asia, Metropole Building Rooms 1002-3, 5/F1, Peking Road, Kowloon. Fook On Building, Block 3, 11th FL, 2, Wan Tau Street, Tai Po Market, N.T. City Hall Library, Edinburgh Place, Hong Kong. 10A Skyline Mansion, 51 Conduit Road, Hong Kong. c/o District Office Tai Po, Tai Po, N.T. 2, Old Peak Road 2/F Front, 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 185 they were knocking on every door in the village to force villagers to act as their porters. Mr. Chung had little choice but to obey. For the next week, he and quite a few of his fellow villagers were taken away from the village. He remembered having to march up Fei Ngo Shan, down to Ma Yau Tong, and then to Lei Yu Mun, until he successfully escaped.66 It was probably on December 11 that Mr. Chau T'in Shang in Sai Kung Market saw the Japanese cavalry pass. The Japanese did not enter the market. There was no disturbance or fighting. The police had been withdrawn before the Japanese arrived, and people just stayed indoors.67 Quite a few villagers from Sai Kung and nearby villages were in the city when the War broke out. Mr. Wan Ts'eung of Tai Po Tsai was living in Kowloon City at the time. He must have learnt of the beginning of the War when he saw Kai Tak Airport bombed. But he recalled that one morning, he was in the street, and was shocked by machine-gun fire behind him. He hid behind some stone pillars, and then saw Fifth Columnists, known as the "victory fellows" (shing lei yau) who proclaimed that they were members of the Asia Prosperity Institution (Hing A Kei Kwan). Mr. Cheung Wing of Wo Mei was in Shaukiwan when he heard of the outbreak of war. He immediately went with several people back to the village, and feared all the way that they might be spotted and shot at by the Japanese. He arrived in the village before the Japanese came down from Keng Hing Shek. Mr. Tse Koon K'au of Tan Ka Wan spent the night of December 7 in the Nathan Hotel in Kowloon. This hotel was frequented by New Territories villagers when they went into the city. The next morning, he heard the aeroplanes and the bombs, and went out to ask what the matter was. When he saw that people in Shamshuipo were wounded, he realized that it was not a practice exercise, and started immediately to return to Sai Kung. A Mr. Chan Shing of Tai Po had a petrol station on Waterloo Road, and Mr. Chan drove Mr. Tse and five other people towards Sha Tin. They were stopped at a roadblock and were not allowed to drive into the New Territories. He left the car, with some difficulty bypassed the roadblock, spent some time with a friend in Chap Wai Kon (Sha Tin), and spent the night at Wu Kai Sha. He arrived in Sai Kung the next day, before the Japanese appeared ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 4 Hong Kong Museum of History invited members to the screening of three Korean films at the City Hall. The films concerned the art and archeology of important sites in Korea. In September we were again concerned with Hong Kong History when Dr. Alan Birch, Reader in History at Hong Kong University, spoke on Hong Kong 1937-45: Conquest and Liberation. Also in September Dr. Marilyn Grayburn, lecturer in Indian Archeology, University of Cleveland Museum, spoke on 5,000 years of the Indus Valley Civilization, and in October Mr. Lawrence Tam, Curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and himself also an artist of repute and teacher of Chinese Art History, spoke on the Shek Wan Pottery of Kwangtung Province in connection with an exhibition current at the City Hall Museum. In December Mr. Henri Vetch, a long standing member of the Society, spoke of his experiences in Peking where he worked as publisher between 1920-1951, when he was imprisoned for three years by the Communists. In January an interesting talk was given by Dr. Wen Hsiang-lai, a neurologist and neurosurgeon as well as authority on acupuncture. He spoke of his recent experiments at the Tung Wah Hospital in the use of electrical stimulation using acupuncture points and needles in connection with drug addiction. And finally Dr. William Parish gave a talk in February on "Status and Power in Kwangtung Villages under the People's Republic." Dr. Parish is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Both local excursions and overseas trips are a regular feature of our activities and in December Dr. James Hayes arranged a visit to Tsuen Wan where he talked about local temples, rural organization and traditional inter-village feuding. The Society is continuing its programme of cultural tours abroad with a ten-day visit to Kashmir and Kathmandu starting later this week. The trip has been arranged by Dr. Brian Shaw. Where possible we deal directly with hoteliers and pass on group discounts and commissions directly to members travelling. Your Council has been investigating the feasibility of mounting future tours to Afghanistan; the Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Taxila sites; Ladakh Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan; Dr. Shaw will again be looking into this possibility. Dr. Leigh Wright is also looking at the possibility of a tour to the old Straits Settlements. Now that the Chinese authorities are encouraging travel with. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 42 KEITH STEVENS In addition there were scraps of cotton, threads, one or two grains of rice, a tiny sac of cotton cloth stuffed with more cotton and several beads and slivers of mica. There were also two dried sea-horses* in the image dedicated in 1871 though there were no signs of any other remains. The strips of paper are not all that usual and are rarely found in Southern Chinese images. Precis translations of the six strips of paper are included later in this note. The papers show that five of the seven images were dedicated and placed on altars in the County of Wu Kang (A) in South East Hunan, one hundred miles due north of Kweilin and three hundred and seventy-five miles NNW of Hong Kong, near the Hunanese boundaries with its neighbouring provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow. The west and south-west of Hunan were not easily accessible until the 1930's due to the dangerous rapids in the upper reaches of the plentiful rivers. Then a system of highways opened up the area. Prior to that, apart from the occasional traveller, traders and, of course, the petty officials sent to such "punishment" posts, all that was known of the area came from tales passed on from mouth to mouth. Wu Kang is in rising country, on the edge of an area marked on old maps as the lands of the Thai minority peoples, the Ko Lao (z) and another larger minority people, the Miao (δ). The other two images come from Chi An prefecture () in Kiangsi province, some two hundred and eighty miles due east of Wu Kang. Chi An, an old walled city and a major centre on the north-flowing Kan Chiang, had closer cultural links with central rather than south China. The first image (Plate 2), from Wu Kang and dedicated in 1756, is a household deity to protect the home and family and to bring blessings. The slip of paper relates that Worshipper Fu Shih-hsiang, together with his three sons and others from his family, all of Hsin Wu Chang Village, Yen Shan, Lung Chu district of Wu Kang county in Pao Ching prefecture (now Shao Yang), Hunan, on the 4th day of the 7th moon of the 20th year of Ch'ien Lung (1756), offered sacrifices to the gods at the City God temple in Shih Pei.† He also reported to them in writing that he and his whole family * Seahorses, found as far inland, would have a rarity value, though they are commonly used by Chinese herbalists & pharmacists. † Chinese characters are to be found on the illustrations of the slips of paper. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI 43 had had made another image of Ti Chu ( ), (the tutelary deity of the home) which he presented for consecration so that it could be efficacious and able to expel all demons and evils, protect his family and bestow the three abundances (blessing, long life and off-spring) on him, his family and all his future generations. The slip also referred in passing to the "secrets of Lao Tzu”, “the magic of Erh Lang" "the five Thunder Magic" and the "Lei Kung"4, as charms, witnesses or aides. The image of Ti Chu was carved and decorated as a bearded and seated elderly man, in robes and wearing a tall, decorated hat. His right hand is holding his robe edge. The original colours have faded, but faintly discernible are the red of the robe and a flash of gilt on the hat. The second image (Plate 3), also from Wu Kang county but from a different area, is of an unidentified female, surnamed Jen (£). It was presented at the City God Temple for dedication in 1903 prior to being placed on the family altar. Her decoration, red, blue and white paint, is chipped but still quite bright. She is wearing red robes with a blue and white decorated shoulder cape, and open-winged bird headdress. The slip of paper in the back of this image says that "worshipper Yin Chang-kung, together with his son, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, younger brother and four nephews, all of Shuang Chiang Chiao, Shan Men (about sixty kilometers north of Wu Kang), on the 16th day of the 9th moon of the 29th day of Kuang Hsü (4th November 1903) offered sacrifices to the Gods at the City God temple, reporting to them that he had had an image made of a lady surnamed Jen, and presented it to undergo consecration prior to its installation in the family shrine for the perpetual worshipping by and protection of the whole family". Six other images in the shipment were identical or almost so, to this image, but the cavities in their backs had been emptied before they arrived in Hong Kong. The third image (Plate 4) from Wu Kang county, again from Shan Men, was dedicated in 1871 at the City God temple. This one is identified as Duke Wei, (±), protector of the family of the person who commissioned the carving, Yin Tso-fan, and of their domestic animals and poultry. The slip of paper calling itself a "Viscera and Stomach Document" () relates that devotee Yin (#) together with his wife, five sons, grandson and others, on the 25th day of the 4th moon, of the 10th year of Tung Ch'ih (June ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 46 KEITII STEVENS Mu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) "The Palace of the Essence of Brahma". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, "I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity". Of the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a "shoe" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God. A final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 THE POLITICIZATION OF CHINESE CRAFT ORGANIZATION IN POST WORLD WAR II HONG KONG EUGENE COOPER* In a private communication to John Stewart Burgess, to which Burgess refers in his 1928 work, The Guilds of Peking, the well-known Chinese economist, Ch'en Ta takes note of three characteristics of the modern industries of the time: 1. that modern industries often came into existence by a process of amalgamation of previously distinct, independent crafts. 2. that this synthetic structure often made it difficult to achieve unity between the various constituent craftsmen in a given industry in pressing for their demands as a unified working class (Burgess, 1928:223). 3. that it was often difficult to overcome provincial feeling in organizing workers from different native places into a unified working class (Ibid:227). The process of amalgamation of independent crafts into a single industry is one which Marx noted as characteristic of the early stages of European capitalist development from the middle of the 16th to the last third of the 18th century. This process resulted in a mode of production that Marx called “manufacture”, the archetypal example of which was carriage-making in which the wheelwright, carpenter, upholsterer, and blacksmith came together in a single enterprise to produce carriages, each coming to specialize in the production of carriage parts (Marx, 1967:1:336 ff.). Manufacture arose as a mode of production in the Chinese art-carved furniture industry in the 1920's, as the result of just such a process of amalgamation which brought rural temple carvers together under the same roof with carpenters and painters in what became urban Shanghai and Canton-based carved furniture factories. * Dr. Cooper is Lecturer in Sociology in the University of Hong Kong. This article first appeared as a paper read to the Symposium on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the Politicization of Asian Folk Culture, held at the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting in New York City, March 25, 1977. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 182 DAVID H. S. CHAU in print making for generations since Late Ming. To Hua Wu is a district in the city of Soochow. Fatshan is a town near Canton, also noted for its many temples, beautiful scenery and many other crafts. Prints made from these centers varied in style and printing technique, but only the prints made from Fatshan retain the ancient traditional forms, as Fatshan has been the supply center of folk prints for the Chinese overseas who have emigrated and settled down in South Asian countries for many generations. The folk prints used by Chinese people in Hong Kong were also supplied from Fatshan. There had been several woodblock printers in Hong Kong producing religious folk prints by using blocks supplied from Fatshan until fifteen years ago. Then, for economic reasons, some local printers closed down their business and the remaining ones turned to modern printing techniques by using machines. In the nineteenth century modern printing techniques were introduced to China from Western countries, and eventually the use of woodblock for printing started to decline and began to vanish. The remaining woodblock printers only engaged in the printing of religious matter. When the Communists took over the government of China in 1949, almost all these printers closed down their trade. Those still in existence are mainly engaged in reproducing paintings of old masters. One is Wing Po Chai in Peking, another in Shanghai is styled To Wan Huen. There is also one left in Hangchow of Chekiang Province. The usages of woodblock printing Woodblock printing had a wide range of usage in Chinese daily life. Besides printed books, calendars, folk prints and religious matter, woodblocks were used for printing stationery, account sheets, letter heads, calligraphic copy books, trade labels, posters, circular notices, playing cards, etc. The government's official documents, orders, legal contracts, etc. were also printed by using woodblocks. Decorated letter sheets had been in fashion in high society in the old days. High-ranking officials, noted families, wealthy merchants and literary scholars and artists had, for their own exclusive use, beautiful specially illustrated and coloured woodblock printed personal letter sheets for writing letters or poems. Card games were also popular in the feast gatherings of scholars, poets or artists. Monochrome, illustrated, woodblock-printed, paper playing cards ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 194 NOTES AND QUERIES are in rural areas. The major Sheng Gong cult temple in Taiwan is in Taiwan City, from which place his portable image is taken by sedan chair to other cult temples in the vicinity to renew the efficacy of the images there. Evidence of the presence of his cult has been seen, too, by the writer in Sarawak, Brunei and Indonesia, in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Sheng Gong is a comparatively little used short form for the local Fujian cult of Guang Ze Zun Wang (廣澤尊王) whose full personal name was Guo Zhong-fu (郭忠福) and who is equally well known as Guo Sheng Wang Gong (郭聖王公); hence the "Sheng Gong." He has some half a dozen other titles but all with a very limited local use, apart from Bao An Zun Wang (保安尊王). This is occasionally included in the title of his temple (* as compared with the more popular title of the Phoenix Mountain Temple (鳳山寺). He should not be confused with another and entirely different Fujian local cult deity, Hui Ze Zun Wang(惠澤尊王) The Saintly Guo's image is not difficult to recognise as it has certain characteristics which, whilst not individually unique, together identify him at a glance. He has a youthful, clean-shaven face; is seated dressed in robes over armour with his right foot raised parallel to the ground, pointing towards his left leg at knee height. His face is a dark red and he has protruding round eyes. There are two images of the Saintly Guo in the one temple in North Point, Hong Kong. One is the main, large image swathed in embroidered robes donated by devotees, and the other is a small wooden carving on the main altar before and between Guo and his consort. Neither were easy to photograph, and therefore I have gone through some old photographs, the best of which is to be seen at illustration at the back of this volume.* In this photograph Guo is the main deity on the altar of a temple in Seremban, West Malaysia, flanked by two other images of another Fujian local cult, Fa Zhu Gong (法主公). Guo is prayed to for the usual blessings though in certain temples he is specifically looked upon as a healer of the sick, a protector of children and as a wealth god for businessmen. He is also the patron of those who bear the same surname as himself. * Plate 22. Page 210 Page 211 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 NOTES AND QUERIES 205 DISTRIBUTION OF FORTS AND GUARD STATIONS ON LANTAU ISLAND DURING THE LATE CH'ING PERIOD Lantau, an island which lies to the west of Hong Kong Island, has an area of about 55.55 square miles. Situated at the entrance of the Pearl River estuary, the island enjoyed a strategic location in the past, especially during the late Ch'ing Dynasty. The position was reflected in the construction of forts and guard stations or shuen (屯) overlooking Tuen Mun 屯門. During the K'ang Hsi period (1662-1722), the island was fortified with a fort at Kai Yik Kok 雞翼角, known as the Fan Lau Fort 汾流砲台 or Tai Yu Shan Fort 大嶼山砲台; and with two guard stations; one at Tai O 大澳, the Tai Yu Shan Shuen 大嶼山汎; the other at Tung Chung 東涌, the Tung Chung Hau Shuen 東涌口汎. During the Chia Ching period (1796-1820), more forts and guard stations were constructed, partly because of the coming of the Europeans. Thus in the 22nd year of Chia Ching's rule, the Tung Chung Walled City 東涌城 was constructed, and a guard station with two forts called the Shek Tse Fort 石子砲台 was founded on the coast to its front. Later guard stations were established at Tai Ho 大蠔, Sha Lo Wan 沙螺灣, and at Mui Wo 梅窩. The military force on the island consisted of a Shau-pe 守備 or major, with his headquarters at the Tung Chung Walled City. Under him were 4 Tsin-tsung 千總 or lieutenants, 7 Pa-tsung 把總 or sergeants, and 5 Ngai-wai 外委 or corporals. They were in command of 691 soldiers, of whom 195 were infantry and 496 garrison soldiers. This force also manned guard-stations at the Kowloon Walled City 九龍城寨, Shum Shui Po 深水埗, Tsing Lung Tau 青龍頭, Cheung Chau 長洲, Tsing Yi Tam 青衣潭, Ping Chau 坪洲, Po Toi 蒲苔, Kap Shui Mun 急水門, and at Yung Shu Wan 榕樹灣. From this force 215 soldiers were in garrison on Lantau Island. The following shows the distribution of garrison soldiers in various forts and guard-stations on the island: Tung Chung Walled City: 100 garrison soldiers under 1 Shau-pe, 1 Pa-tsung, and 2 Ngai-wai. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 206 NOTES AND QUERIES Tung Chung Fort Shuen: 30 garrison soldiers under 1 Pa-tsung. Tai Yu Shan Fort Shuen: 30 garrison soldiers under 1 Tsing-tsung. Tai Yu Shan Shuen: 40 garrison soldiers under 1 Tsing-tsung. Sha Lo Wan Shuen: 5 garrison soldiers. Tai Ho Shuen: 5 garrison soldiers. Mui Wo Shuen: 5 garrison soldiers. For the support of these guard-stations, other guard-stations were established on the mainland and the neighbouring islands. The following shows the distribution of garrison soldiers in these guard-stations: Kowloon Walled City: 100 guard soldiers under 1 Pa-tsung and 2 Ngai-wai. Kap Shui Mun Shuen: 10 garrison soldiers. Shumshuipo Shuen: 35 garrison soldiers. Tsing Lung Tau Shuen: 50 garrison soldiers under 1 Pa-tsung. Tsing Yi Tam Shuen: 15 garrison soldiers under 1 Pa-tsung. Cheung Chau Shuen: 45 garrison soldiers under 1 Pa-tsung and 1 Ngai-wai. Ping Chau Shuen: 15 garrison soldiers under 1 Pa-tsung. Yung Shu Wan Shuen (on Lamma Island): 10 garrison soldiers. Po Toi Shuen (on Po Toi Island, south of Hong Kong Island): 20 garrison soldiers. These guard-stations were under the command of the Tung Chung Shau-pei of the Tai-pang Battalion. Besides the garrison soldiers, there were also war vessels with 60 soldiers under 2 Tsing-tsung and 1 Ngai-wai. These forts and guard-stations remained in position till 1898, when the New Territories and the adjacent Islands were leased to the British. After that, they were redundant. BIBLIOGRAPHY CITED (all from Chinese Sources) O Mun Kei Leuk ¶ g. 1800 edition San On Yuen Chi 1819 edition Kwong Tung Tung Chi ✯✯ 1864 edition ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 210 NOTES AND QUERIES fort in 1923. However, it is now ruined. The whole area is covered with shrub and mangrove. Before the Ming Dynasty, there was no military post on the island. It was not until the late Ming Period that a guard-station or shuen, which was administered by the commander of the Nam Tau Walled City, was set up.2 Before then, the area had only patrol-boats, probably stationed at Tun Mun.3 During the early Ch'ing Period, because of the increased strength of the pirates along the coast, more forts and guard-stations were set up. The Fat Tong Mun Fort on the Tung Lung Island was erected during the K'ang Hsi period (1662-1727)3, and a garrison of 25 soldiers under one pa-tsung or sergeant Tai Pang Battalion✯ was stationed there.6 The fort remained a strong outpost along the east coast of Hong Kong for nearly a hundred years. Then, in the 15th year of the Ch'ia Ching rule (1810), the fort was evacuated and finally abandoned.7 A new fort was built at the place of the present Hong Kong Marine Police Headquarters at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. The fort remains in ruins till now. Hong Kong, 1979. SIU KWOK-KIN NOTES 1 See note 4 of Mr. JAO Tsung-i's Kowloon in Historical Records of the Sung Dynasty九龍與宋季史料, 饒宗頤著 2 Chapter 8 of the San On Yuen Chi, K'ang Hsi edition, records, "In the 19th year of the Man Lik Period of the Ming Dynasty, guard-stations were established at Fat Tong Mun, Tor Ling Ngor Kung O, Kowloon, Tun Mun, Kap Shui Mun, Tung Sai Chung, Ngor Kung Tau, Chak Wan, Lo Man Shan and Long Pak." In the same chapter, it is also recorded, "Six guard-stations were set up during the Ming Dynasty. They were Fat Tung Mun, Lung Shun Wan, Lok Kat, Tai O, Long To Wan, and Long Pak. These guard-stations were administered by the commander at the Nam Tau Walled City." Thus, we know that the Fat Tong Mun Guard Station was established in the 19th year of the Man Lik period of the Ming Dynasty; but the fort must have been built at a later time. 3 Chapter 5 of the Cheong Wu Chung Tuk Kwun Mun Chi records, "Patrol boats from Nam Tau were stationed at Tun Mun. Some sailed through Fat Tong Mun to the region as far east as Tai Pang." The book was completed in the 32nd year of the Chia ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 NOTES AND QUERIES 211 Ching period of the Ming Dynasty (1553). From this, we can see that, at that time, there was no fort nor guard-station at Fat Tong Mun. 4 See my article "A Short History of the Pirates of Hong Kong before 1842," published in Volume 8, No. 4, of the Kwong Tung Man Hin 早期海盜略，原載廣東文獻第八卷，第四期。. 5 Chapter 4 of the San On Yuen Chi, Ch'ia Ching edition, ★★★✰ recorded, "North Fat Tong is an isolated island, A fort is erected during the K'ang Hsi period, for the protection of the waterway against the pirates." This proves that the fort on Tung Lung Island was erected during the K'ang Hsi reign. 6 See Chapter 13 of the Kwong Tung Hoi Tu Shuet. 1889 edition ★***, and Chapter 73 of the Kwong Chow Fu Chi, 1879 edition 廣州府志。 7 Chapter 125 of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi, Tao Kuang edition £ A records, "In the 15th year of the Ch'ia Ching rule, Viceroy Chin Mun Fu ✰✰ suggested to have the Fat Tong Mun Fort abandoned, and rebuilt near the Kowloon Walled City, Viceroy Pak Ling ordered the Magistrate of the San On District 4 to carry out the suggestion. The Fat Tong Mun Fort was under the command of the officer commanding of the Tai Pang Battalion ***. The fort stood on an isolated island, two hundred li from the Tai Pang Walled City, and forty li from the Kowloon guard-station. There were no villages on the island that could assist in protecting the region. Thus the fort had to be removed to the Kowloon City Region." Chapter 14 of the Kwong Chow Fu Chi, 1879 edition АЯ, and the Genealogy of Tang's of Kam Tin, New Territories of Hong Kong, 香港新界錦田鄧氏族譜 have the same record. 8 See Note 6, Chapter 8 of Professor LO Hsiang-lin's Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842, Chinese edition, 1959 -AS- 一八四二年以前之香港及其對外交通，羅香林著. FIRST RECORD OF THE PELOBATID FROG LEPTOBRACHIUM PELODYTOIDES BOULENGER IN HONG KONG It is indeed gratifying to find-in an area as small and zoologically well studied as Hong Kong-any amphibian not previously known to be part of our fauna. Not only does the discovery of Leptobrachium pelodytoides add another species, but represents a genus new to the known fauna of Hong Kong. The first specimens found here, and subsequently identified, are nine tadpoles collected by Dr. Frank F. Reitinger and Mr. Jerry K. S. Lee at an altitude of about 853 metres on Tai Mo Shan in the New Territories on 30 November and 7 December 1974. However, it was not until two adult frogs were found by Mr. Phillip J. Bishop ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 196 DAVID FAURE Wong Keng Tei, his village, where his family continued to live. In 1944, the rules were changed so that only he himself would receive the ration. He then resigned to return to the village. But the village did not produce enough rice even before the War. Life was very hard without the supplement from the city income, and they lived on sweet potatoes and even leaves plucked from trees.94 However, in the last few months of the occupation, city people went out even to villages as remote as Tai Long to buy sweet potatoes. This must be an indication that food was even more short in the city than in the villages.95 To some extent, food shortage was imposed on Hong Kong by external circumstances beyond the control of the Japanese authorities. The greatest failure of the Japanese Government in occupation, the single factor that alienated it most from the local population, was brutality, and its apparent inability to restrain its soldiers. Mr. Chau T'in Shang's first exposure to the Japanese Government when its forces returned to Sai Kung after the fall of Hong Kong was when he was taken with a number of other people to a house in the Market, and made to squat on the floor, while the soldiers singled out those who were supposed to be guerrillas. These men were taken to a jail in Kowloon. Some never returned. Those that did told horror stories of torture. Mr. Uen Tak Faat's father was beaten cruelly by Japanese soldiers when they came to Mok Tse Che after one of them was killed by the bandits (or the guerrillas). He was punished not for the killing, for which he was not responsible, but for speaking rudely. He finally died of his wounds. In Wong Mo Ying, on an expedition to find the guerrillas, the Japanese tied two men to a tree and tried literally to burn them alive, killing one and seriously wounding the other. Sai Kung villagers retain very vivid memories of these acts of brutality that they saw or heard about. Nevertheless, it seems to be the general impression that the most brutal were not the Japanese nationals, but the Koreans and Taiwanese working in the Japanese forces.96 Villagers also remembered the tension during the curfew that was imposed on Sai Kung Market when two interpreters ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 197 were killed by the guerrillas. The occasion highlighted the importance of the Chamber of Commerce in Sai Kung Market. Local people could not come out to fetch water, and Mr. Lei Shiu Yam and Mr. Lok Kau Kei of the Chamber of Commerce were given permission to distribute water to the shops and the households.97 "Smuggling" The fundamental cause that gave rise to smuggling on a massive scale in Sai Kung in the years of the occupation was the rice shortage in Hong Kong. Before the War, Hong Kong imported much of its rice from South-east Asia. The outbreak of the War disrupted supply from this source, hence a shortage developed. Rice was abundant across the border in China, in Sha Yue Ch'ung on Mirs Bay and in Wai Chau. But trade was forbidden between these guerrilla-held places in China and Japanese occupied Hong Kong. The trade that developed had to be regarded as "smuggling".98 There were three kinds of people involved, and the first was the "travelling merchant" (shui haak). Not all "travelling merchants" were engaged in smuggling rice. Mr. Shing of Mang Kung Uk, who was a "travelling merchant" with little capital, bought secondhand clothes from the pawnshops in the city, and carried them on foot to Sha Tau Kok. From Sha Tau Kok, he went into China. Then he would buy fish from Yim T'in, in China, which he sold in Lung Kong, also in China. He did not travel by boat because, as he put it, “Only rich people could take the boat."99 Mr. Chan T'in Po of Yim Tin Tsai was also a "travelling merchant". He bought secondhand clothes in Sai Kung Market. He said this had to be done carefully without the notice of the Japanese. He would carry the old clothes himself to To Kwa Ping, where he would take the boat to Sha Yue Ch'ung. The boat was operated by someone from a nearby village. He would sell his goods at Sha Yue Ch'ung or Kw'ai Ch'ung, and return to Yim Tin Tsai with oil, rice, or sugar. Mr. Lau Lui Faat of Pak Kong Au was also a "travelling merchant" on this route. He said he usually boarded the boat at night, and sometimes he came back with cash.100 He ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45 13 Taking advantage of the changed American sentiments regarding China and the allied victory in Europe, Britain began an active propaganda programme to influence American public opinion concerning Britain's imperial and colonial attitudes and policies and the British Empire's contribution to the allied war effort. The British Information Services, an agency of the British government in New York, published numerous booklets for the purpose.$7 Hong Kong naturally figured prominently in these publications. In the booklet entitled "Britain and Japan", for instance, it is thus stated: "When the Island of Hong Kong was ceded to Britain one hundred years ago, it was almost uninhabited. Since then Britain has built on that island the beautiful city of Victoria. By 1941 Hong Kong had a population of 1,650,000, mostly Chinese; it was a trading center and a port for commercial shipping which had enriched the communities all around it. Students from China came to the University of Hong Kong to get degrees in Medicine, Engineering, Science and Arts, which were recognized in Britain as fully reaching British standards. During the long troubles of China, the island of Hong Kong, and the city of Victoria, became a refuge for hundreds of thousands of distressed Chinese." The message was clear: if the British colony of Hong Kong had been beneficial to Britain, it also had been as much so, if not more, to China. Meanwhile, events were leading to the last stages of the Pacific War. In September 1944 the Americans and the British reached a clear understanding which laid down the general principle that in the British Far Eastern territories which were in the American command, the policies to be followed on the liberation of those territories should be laid down by the British government and accepted by the American force commander.58 Late in February 1945 the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, instituted in December the previous year for the purpose of coordinating the Department of State and the War and Navy Departments, directed that its Subcommittee for the Far East maintain, as a general guide for its activities, a master list of Pacific-Far Eastern problems, arranged in appropriate order of priority. Also, before initiating action on any one of such problems the subcommittee should submit in each case to the main committee a detailed recommendation showing “(1) a statement of the problem (2) the agency or agencies to be charged with initiation of the basic documents involved, and (3) the method of processing and coordination thereof, including ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 # THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG ## 1941-1946 ### INTRODUCTION The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Maryknoll) was founded in 1911, with headquarters thirty miles north of New York City, and took in its first students for the priesthood in September 1912. On Christmas Day, 1917 the French Catholic Bishop of Canton agreed to cut off the southern portion of his east South China vicariate and give it to the new American mission. By 1941 the Maryknoll Mission had stations at Yeung Kong (18-21) and Ka Ying (★ ★) in Kwangtung, and at Wu Chow (*) in the neighbouring province of Kwangsi. Work was also undertaken in Hong Kong where a Rest House and Language Centre had been completed at Stanley in 1934. Father James Smith of Maryknoll has completed an as yet unpublished account of the Mission's Work in Hong Kong, entitled The Maryknoll Hong Kong Chronicle 1918-1975. The lengthy extract that follows is taken from this work, and on account of its human interest is published here with Father Smith's permission. He has advised me that much of this section was, in fact, written by Rev. William Downs of Maryknoll, based on his personal experiences during those memorable years in Hong Kong's history. Also, that Fr. Downs was first assigned to Hong Kong in 1925, but left to take up mission work in the Kaying, Kwangtung, area in 1927. In July of 1938 his residence in Swatow was bombed by Japanese airplanes and totally demolished; he was seriously wounded and eventually sent to Hong Kong for treatment and recuperation. He remained in the Colony as Director of the Language School for those priests studying the Hakka dialect. This work was interrupted by the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, but in the Stanley Camp he taught the newly arrived priests, and when they were released and permitted to go into the interior, Fr. Downs accompanied them. In 1946 Fr. Downs was again assigned to Hong Kong and remained at the Maryknoll Stanley House until failing health forced him to return to the United States in 1968. He died there in 1970. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 29 descended and the patrol boat lost them. The Bishop will have to take the same route and the same risks on his forthcoming visitations. While here, he performed the ordinations at the Dominican Rosary Hill chapel, in the absence of Bishop Valtorta. Dr. and Mrs. Bagalawis also slipped into Hong Kong. The Doctor told of the hundreds of patients he has been treating in a refugee hospital organized by Fathers Joe Sweeney and Joe Farnen: some of his patients are victims of gunfire by Japanese patrols making incursions into the villages outside their front lines. MARCH March proved to be a quiet month. Outstanding visitors were Dr. S. K. Yee, Counsellor to the Chinese National War Council and Mrs. (Dr.) Yee. Dr. Yee's hobby is calligraphy and he promised to give us a talk on this interesting facet of Chinese culture. Mrs. Yee took her medical training in Cleveland and San Francisco. APRIL In early April, Father Bernie Welsh departed with 250 cases of supplies and arrived at Swabue just two days before the city was taken over by the Japanese army: Father Sandy Cairns sent word that he had arrived safely at Sancian Island after a two-day sail from Cheung Chau. However, his baggage and his bag were still at a half-way stop, Kwong Hoi, where the Japanese took the place on their way to the large city of Toi Shan. No doubt Father John Joyce at Sancian had been looking forward eagerly for the goodies in Father Sandy's boxes. Three Passionists, Fathers Cunningham, Caulfield and Richardson, arranged a special deal with the China National Air Company to ship their mission supplies from Hong Kong to Nam Yeung, across the Japanese lines, for U.S. $200 per ton. Our Father John Elwood accompanied them on the flight with 21 cases of Red Cross medicine for our Kweilin Mission, and 7 cases for Wuchow. Father Elwood managed the trans-shipping from Nam Yeung to Kweilin through unoccupied territory. Dr. S. K. Yee gave us the promised lecture, and graded the efforts of those present with Father Trube carrying off the honors with the best characters, displaying the most "inner strength". ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 32 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS Maryknollers in the Wuchow Mission, visited Stanley in response to many invitations received from his Maryknoll patients in Kwangsi. (After the Red take-over of Wuchow, he was arrested and jailed together with Bishop Donaghy and Father Kennedy. The two Maryknollers could hear his screams of pain in another cell for many days, and finally they were brought to the doctor's cell to cut down the body, which was hanging from a cross-bar, obviously to be used as "witnesses" to the good doctor's "suicide.") Father Joe Reardon and Sister Marie Regis, attempting to get to Hong Kong by way of Swatow, were turned back by the military. They returned to Kaying and took the only other route open, via plane to Shiu Kwan. However, when they reached this city, other difficulties were encountered and they were compelled to journey on to Kweilin in the West where, after a visit of some days, they succeeded in getting a plane for Hong Kong. Father Bill Whitlow and Brother William, coming by way of the Philippines, stop over-night on their return to Japan. OCTOBER Father Arthur Allie, the only representative from Korea to visit us in a long time, arrived by an evacuee ship, the Anhwui, from Japan. He is seeking medical treatment here. The "Double Tenth" passed with the usual firecracker spree and subsequent rush to medical clinics for treatment of powder burns. Mr. Wei, the manager of R.K.O. pictures in Hong Kong, who very kindly lends films to us, came to visit bringing "The Great Commandment" which was enjoyed immensely. The first contingent of new missioners arrived on the 15th, aboard the Pan-Am Clipper from Manila. They are Fathers Kruppelmann, Brennan, Winkels and Siebert. The rest of their classmates will follow along later. Father General arrived via Macao and, at dinner, gave us a talk outlining his journeys and future plans. There was some mystery about his reason for leaving us immediately for the States after coming from Japan, but he promises to be back here by Christmas. We did not know it at the time, but it seems he was bearing a message to our State Department in Washington from those in Japan who were trying to avert a war between Japan and the U.S. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 34 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS doubt, the most momentous year of its short history. After months and months of suspense occasioned by the occupation of the mainland, the war struck Hong Kong. Everyone, of course, was hoping against hope that the catastrophe would not affect the British Crown Colony, but such was not to be, and its peace and quiet was rudely shattered by the Japanese guns and ships which began shelling the city. As a precautionary measure our Econome, Father John Troesch, wisely put in a goodly supply of food stuffs in expectation of a long siege, but as a matter of fact, we did not benefit from it, as future events proved. From this point we shall quote from detailed diaries written by Maryknollers stationed at Stanley, eye witnesses of much of the attack and occupation, Fathers Troesch, Feeney and Downs. The month of December in Hong Kong was ushered in much the same manner as its companions of 1941, but its exit from the world was in striking contrast. We Maryknollers at Stanley rose to greet it, and at our breakfast table read the news of the day, news of the war in various sectors and rumors of war nearer at hand, but hope was uppermost in our hearts that the fair city of Hong Kong would not be embroiled in the world catastrophe. Due to the unsettled conditions in the Far East our 1941 group of new missioners had been delayed, and now that we had some news of their departure from the Coast, we were anxiously awaiting their arrival. One small group had already reached our shores, three of whom had left for their missions in Kongmoon; the fourth, a Hakkaite, Father Siebert, was waiting for an escort to his adopted land. This year the Hong Kong Language School was to move inland, and our plans, already formulated in our minds, were that as soon as we had definite word of the arrival of the new men, we would book passage on a plane leaving nightly from Hong Kong for Kukong. Because of the "China Incident" plane travel was the only means of transportation left with the interior of China, and we were all looking forward to our coming trip. The atmosphere, of course, was tense, and no one could hazard what was to happen, but hope was strong in our hearts that we could get to our inland missions before any storm broke. Among our house guests at this time were Bishop O'Gara, C.P., and two of his priests, Fathers Benson, the Passionists' Procurator at Shanghai and Norris, C.P., who had come to meet their Bishop; and they joined us in felicitating Father Meyer on the celebration of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 35 his twenty-fifth anniversary of the priesthood. He sang a Solemn Mass in the morning of the second in our Maryknoll chapel, being assisted by Fathers Downs and Vincent Walsh as deacon and sub-deacon, respectively. Besides Bishop O'Gara, our own beloved Ordinary, His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta was also present, he having graciously come out for the ceremony. At the tiffin which followed a number of the local clergy was present, and the usual speeches appropriate to the occasion were made. On the sixth of the month a long looked-for cable was received, announcing the fact that the second and last group of missioners was in Manila and would arrive in Hong Kong the next morning via the Pan American Clipper. Sunday—For some time the Clippers have been passing to the seaward of our house on their way to and from Macao, and on Sunday afternoon we were on the lookout for the one carrying our confreres. At about two in the afternoon we saw it winging its flight westward, and knowing that it would not take long to return to Hong Kong, we started out for Kai Tak, Hong Kong's only airport, to greet the newest arrivals. The day was a beautiful one and everybody seemed to be on the streets and in an especial holiday mood. The buses and trams were crowded, business was brisk and everybody seemed happy. The city was literally full of refugees who, it is said, have almost doubled the population and the streets were crowded almost everywhere. Despite this overcrowding, everything functioned normally and the city was happy and gay. In due time the Clipper settled down majestically on the bosom of Kowloon Bay and our eight new Maryknollers stepped ashore. They were immediately escorted across the Bay to Hong Kong and came out to Stanley which they reached just in time for tea. We were all eager to hear of their trip and get news of home and of Maryknoll, and at the same time to give them a little background on the news of this side of the pond. Later, rooms were assigned to them temporarily, as they hoped to be able to get away to their missions very shortly. In fact, they planned to go into town the next morning in order to reserve seats on the plane as quickly as possible, to make some belated purchases and to take care of the various requirements incidental to arrival and departure from the port of Hong Kong. In our recreation room that night the whole story of the trip was rehearsed, news of the homeland disbursed and ques- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 36 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS tions were flying thick and fast from both sides. Everybody was happy and elated, and when we retired it was with the thought of arising the next day to celebrate the glorious Feast of our Blessed Lady, Her Immaculate Conception, and to make preparations for our trip to the missions. December eighth in the Far East and December seventh in the Western world! Maryknoll at Stanley rose as usual. Masses and breakfast followed and shortly after we were electrified by the report that Kai Tak airport had been bombed at 7:45 and that the Pan American Clipper which brought our new missioners had been destroyed. WAR! And Hong Kong is in the news! Being eleven miles over the mountains from Hong Kong we had, of course, heard nothing of the bombing, and were inclined to believe that the whole thing was a hoax of some kind. But soon we were entirely disillusioned when the radio flashed news of Pearl Harbor and when shortly after tiffin the planes flew over Stanley and dropped a few bombs to the west of us, apparently over the sea. We tried to get news from Hong Kong over the telephone but nobody seemed to know just what was happening. We anxiously gathered around the radio and tried to pick up what news we could. Evidently, war was on in earnest and America and we were involved. About five o'clock in the afternoon, our telephone jangled and we heard the voice of His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, saying that all his Italian priests had been interned by the British Government, and that he would like to have Father Downs come to help him out at the Cathedral. His priests were given only a short time in which to pack up their personal belongings and were immediately taken away to a destination which was not disclosed to the Bishop. Father Downs hastily packed his suit case and caught the half past five bus for Hong Kong, and it must be confessed, with no little trepidation. The trip to the city was a tense one. Along the route the bus was stopped periodically by the British sentries, inspected and finally diverted by way of Aberdeen, instead of the usual Happy Valley route. The whole city, too, was tense, and though the downtown streets were crowded, there was fear and uneasiness everywhere. At the Cathedral were His Excellency, Father Rosello, a Spanish priest attached to the Cathedral and Father Craig S.J., from Wah Yan College, as also a few young Chinese priests. His Chancellor, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 37 Secretary, Procurator, and all his priests in the other parishes of the City were interned, he did not know where at that moment, but later on he was informed that they were at Stanley, in the prison. That evening our belated supper was eaten in more or less silence, as with guns booming in the distance and the suspense in the air, we did not have much heart for conversation. We retired early, but about eleven o'clock were awakened by the air raid siren, only to find that it was a false alarm. Incidentally, during the hostilities of Hong Kong there were no night air raids. However, after that false alarm, Father Downs in the city, at the Cathedral Rectory, could not get to sleep, and heard the clock strike every quarter of the hour until daybreak. And the next morning at about eight o'clock, the fun began! At that time planes appeared overhead, bombs were dropped at various points and wherever these bombs fell, anti-aircraft guns in the vicinity started barking. A couple of these anti-aircraft guns were set up in a small depression just below the Italian Sisters' Hospital on the hill to the east and south of the Cathedral, and when they began popping we thought they were in our backyard. During the day and those that followed, there were perhaps an average of four or five daily air raids, the targets being mainly gun emplacements, shipping and forts. However, on the very first day, as narrated by Fr. Downs a couple of bombs hit a portion of the Central Police Station, a block or two just west of the Cathedral. Guns were booming over on the Kowloon side and out in the New Territories along the Pearl River estuary where the Japanese landed, having come down the river from Canton. Whether these guns were land or naval batteries, of course we could not judge, but no doubt the shells came from both sources at times. On the night of the second day, after we had retired, the booming of guns seemed to be nearer, and finally we were awakened by a crash which seemed to be in the Rectory. As the booming kept up we were not desirous of making any personal investigation, and as we waited, another crash shook our building, and then another, a little farther away. The next morning we learned that the Japanese were evidently trying to get the range of the anti-aircraft guns just above us near the Sisters' Hospital, for the shells seemed to fall in a straight line; the first struck to the west of us, the second hit the edge of the roof of the house next door, the third crashed through the roof of the Cathedral, cutting a neat hole ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 41 while it remained in sight, but I understand a little later its crew beached it somewhere near Repulse Bay. The day after the parade of the ships in the harbor under bomb and shell fire, the harbor seemed entirely deserted and hardly any craft was discernible, the only shipping movement being a lone Star Ferry slowly coursing its accustomed way back and forth to Kowloon. Evidently during the night, the masters of the various craft had received instructions to scuttle or beach their vessels, and some river steamers could be thus seen along the Kowloon side of the harbor. By this time it was becoming increasingly difficult to cross into Hong Kong from Kowloon, and practically impossible to return. In and around Hong Kong, the British authorities were using super-human efforts to keep communications open and supplies delivered to crucial points. Trucks were tearing around madly through the streets and people were milling back and forth, not knowing what to do or how to do it. Police were endeavoring to preserve order and the defenders of Hong Kong, both regular and volunteer soldiers, were taking up positions assigned to them. Pillboxes and barricades had already been erected at strategic points in the city streets, and these were now manned by machine gunners; most of the buses stopped running, as well as private cars; and only government-operated trucks were allowed to carry on their important business of keeping the city supplied with food and necessary services. At the Cathedral for the first two or three days provisions could be purchased as usual, but gradually it became more and more difficult, and finally there was no more bread, no more eggs or fruit to be had. Then everybody went on rations of rice, soya beans, and green vegetables. Firewood, too, was beginning to be at a premium. At about this time, the Bishop heard it rumored that his priests were interned at the old Metropole Hotel on Ice House Street. Accordingly, that evening, when the shelling and bombing went into a lull, he and I went to the Hotel to investigate, but found there not his priests but a timorous group of Italian and German women and children. Fear and anxiety were written on their faces, and they complained to His Excellency about the treatment they were receiving and besought him to strive to alleviate their position. A little later, His Excellency learned that his priests were at Stanley Prison and, sadly needing their assistance in his work for the people, he wrote an appealing letter to the Governor of Hong Kong for the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 43 into the harbor fairway. Our first thought was that the Japanese were attempting a landing on Hong Kong, especially as soon after the barges left the docks, shells began falling all around them. One or two of the barges were hit and immediately the same kind of smoke came from the burning barge. Shells kept falling all around, but few of the boats were hit or sunk and they continued drifting until they came to a standstill some hundreds of yards away from the docks, and where they remained for several days. Apparently the British were trying to destroy their own supplies lest they fall into the hands of the Japanese. Friday, bringing the news of the Japanese occupation of Kowloon, was a tense day for the citizens of Hong Kong. Many of the Kowloon residents had already moved over to Hong Kong, others were caught in Hong Kong and now could not return to their homes or families on the other side. From our vantage point in the Bishop's house we could look across the harbor and pick out familiar buildings and spots, but all along the dock area and at the Kowloon Ferry wharf there was not a sign of life, and Kowloon seemed a wholly deserted city. However, at one time, a few British shells from Hong Kong batteries spattered against the buildings near the Star Ferry, but nothing could be seen moving in that area. Later on we learned that the Japanese were setting up big mobile guns in the streets just back from the Ferry. We also learned later that when British lorries tried to move through the streets of Kowloon, Fifth Columnists often obstructed their passage, and as soon as the Japanese began to infiltrate into the city, looting began. It was also said, but we cannot vouch for the truth of the statement, that a number of British and Chinese police remained in Kowloon to attempt to maintain order, even when the Japanese had arrived. The regular troops, of course, had all crossed to Hong Kong. During all this time the daily papers were printing communications from the Governor's Office that the situation was well in hand and that there need be no anxiety for the future. The next day, Saturday, there was a lull in fighting, and out of the silence and gloom which had settled over Kowloon a lone ferry or tug boat could be seen slowly leaving the Star Ferry Wharf and heading for Hong Kong. At its mast was a white flag, and it bore a peace mission, consisting of a few Japanese officers, who had with them as hostages, two British women. They were met at Blake Pier ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 47 requested the use of two classrooms for quartering his men, some two hundred or more, eventually. During their stay they were well disciplined and polite, and upon leaving for the Hong Kong side, they graciously handed over to the Sisters what stores they had left. On the 21st or so, though Hong Kong had not yet fallen, a Japanese officer appeared and requested space for housing some five or six hundred prisoners, more than half of whom were Indians, the rest English, Canadians, and Portuguese. Some were wounded, and the Sisters were soon at work attending them. Returning in our narration to Stanley, it may be well to note that in addition to our regular family, we also had with us two Salesians, one a Polish priest, Father Szeliga, and the other an Irish seminarian, Brother Bernard Tohill. As their house at Aberdeen was coming into the range of fire, they came out to the refugee camp at Stanley, bringing with them twenty or more of their orphan boys. Just below our house to the north, the British Government had constructed, as it had in many other places on the island, a refugee camp. Here three large godowns had been erected and had just been filled with stores of rice, peanut, and coconut oil for cooking purposes. A large open-air kitchen also had been constructed, containing about sixty large fireplaces with the usual Chinese wok t'au or rice caldrons, and close by, a huge pile of firewood had been built up. Simple, fabricated refugee shelters had also been planned, but they had not yet been erected. The plan seemed to be that, in case of intense bombing or bombardment of the city, the inhabitants could come out to Stanley during the day and stay at these camps, returning at night to their homes, but as a matter of fact, the camps were never put to much use. At Stanley, there were some refugees, and the Government placed Father Charles Murphy, a member of the Scarboro Mission, who had been studying Cantonese in our Language School for the past year, in charge. Some of our priests and Brothers likewise assisted in setting up some of these shelters, both at Stanley and Repulse Bay. When we learned that the Salesians were at the Camp, we invited them to eat with us, and finally put up their boys on the floor of our Mission Room at night. To return for a moment to the early days of the war, after their arrival, the new missioners journeyed to Hong Kong in order to satisfy the requirements of the Police Department in regard to pass- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 65 up-country missioners had their personal trunks and camphor boxes, there was also confusion. Trunks and boxes had been broken open and those of their contents which had not been carried away were strewn all over the attic floor, in some places two feet deep. As for cleaning up, we really did not know where to begin, and after working all day, we had apparently made little progress. Fortunately, the city water was turned on again, for we needed plenty of that in places, as the floors in spots were covered with filth. Someone remarked that pigs would have been cleaner. Personally, my chief concern was for my language notes, the work of over a year, and of which I had only one copy. However, upon returning to my room, there, in the midst of scattered effects, were the notes on my desk just where I had left them! I breathed a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. Only recently I had had my eyes re-examined and had gotten a new pair of glasses. These were missing, but I still had my old ones. And each one had his own particular tale of woe. The thirty-first found us continuing our work of cleaning up. The outside of the house was just as much of a mess as the inside, the front and rear lawns being strewn with empty tins and bottles. Our Ford V-8 still stood on the front lawn and the Japanese had evidently tried to start it, but someone had previously subtracted an essential mechanism from the motor and their efforts were baffled. Around the house, too, were many reminders of the battle—soldiers' overcoats, steel helmets (in fact, in addition to the many strewn around on the ground there was a whole big unopened case of these near our garage); hand grenades, parts of machine gun outfits and debris of every description, much of which had been thrown out of our windows. On our south lawn there was also a number of shallow pits and some mounds. Whether the latter are graves or not we do not yet know, but we filled up the pits with debris and levelled off the mounds. Near our garage, too, was an immense pile of miscellaneous boards and strips of wood, these evidently having been brought from the wreckage of the Repulse Bay matsheds to Stanley for firewood, and as our kitchen range was out of the question, we having neither electricity nor fuel oil, this wood came in very handy. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 66 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS 1942 New Year's Day. The cleaning up process continues and we have little heart in celebrating the day. We are allowed to walk down to the village at the foot of our hill, but no farther, without special permit. Japanese gendarmes have taken up quarters in some of the rich Chinese houses in and around Stanley and soldiers occasionally visit the top of our hill and walk through our house. As Carmel is within our limit of walking, we visit the Sisters, and find them and Father Hessler well. During the hostilities, a portion of their garden wall was broken down, and soldiers demanded admittance from time to time, but otherwise they were not molested. Besides the three Belgian Sisters, there are some twenty Chinese Carmelites and four Italian Canossian Sisters with a number of orphan girls in the convent. These latter had been sent out by the Bishop with the hope that, by reason of their residence in the convent, the Belgian Sisters might not be interned. The next few days are uneventful, and we continue our work of cleaning up and getting back to normalcy as best we can. There is still no electricity so we burn vigil lights and candles. We have managed to get a little kerosene oil and found two Aladdin lamps in the attic. We use these on our dining room table and recreation room, but have to be very sparing of oil. As before the war, we retire early and rise late, and each day expect to hear something concerning our fate. On the fourth, Father Toomey pays a courtesy call on an officer in one of the Chinese houses below us, and is received very well. The next day we were agreeably surprised to see His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, who had walked the eleven miles from Hong Kong to see what had happened to us. He shares our rice and beans and stays overnight. He tells us that food is very scarce in the city and the priests in the Mission House are on rations, so we decide to do the same. Accordingly, we get one dish of rice, a ladle of stew (meat, vegetables and beans) and an ounce of sugar per day. For breakfast we have three prunes, a little oatmeal and a cup of coffee, with a portion of that ounce of sugar allowed. Tiffin and supper are much the same, with rice, stew and a little Jello occasionally. In the village below, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy meat or vegetables. The porkers are gradually being killed off, and the price is rising, and our supply of money rapidly diminishing. T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 67 Looking forward, as only Father Meyer can do, he buys a small pig and puts it down in brine, and now and then in addition to our cans of bully beef, we have a slice of salt pork. Some of us are anxious to get to Hong Kong for various reasons. Bishop O'Gara to see the dentist and Father Troesch, with his procuratorial instinct, to see about food supplies. Permission therefore being duly secured, the Bishop, accompanied by Fathers Benson and Norris, C. P., start out for Hong Kong on foot, as there isn't a car on the road, save occasionally Japanese army trucks or official cars. Father Troesch also succeeds in getting passes for two, and he and Father Meyer trek in to see what is to be seen and what is to be done. We are also rationing our Mass candles and wine. After saying Mass on the sixth at the Carmelite Convent, the Bishop comes up again to see us. With him is a Korean Seminarian from Rosary Hill. As a few of our members are ill, this seminarian is instrumental in securing the services of a Japanese doctor. He seemed rather kindly disposed, but could not do much under the circumstances, though he promised to have the sick men transported to Queen Mary Hospital. Accordingly, in the afternoon, a truck drew up in our driveway and Father Bauer, Brothers Michael and Thaddeus are put aboard. Bishop Valtorta and Father Toomey get permission to accompany them. Fathers Troesch and Meyer return with the news that Bishop O'Gara and Fathers Benson and Norris have been interned in Hong Kong! We may be next, but nevertheless today we again started our language classes. And now for a little retrospect as to what happened in Hong Kong after the 16th, when the writer returned to Stanley. We left the Japanese in complete possession of Kowloon and as their peace mission failed, they returned to prosecute the siege of Hong Kong. The shelling and bombing kept up, and within a few days, they had effected a landing on the Island at North Point, from which place they advanced towards the city and inland to Stanley. Later, other landings were undoubtedly made as they were soon in control of Aberdeen and Repulse Bay. The guns on Stonecutters Island had been silenced as were those on Mt. Davis. Bitter street fighting took place as the enemy advanced to Causeway Bay and through Wanchai. The central part of the city suffered little actual damage, although an occasional bomb or shell fell there. Later on, the worst damage inflicted on property was by the looters, who virtually stripped buildings of all their woodwork for fuel. In many instances. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 68 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS only the masonry shell of a building stood, mute witness to the horrors of war. Whenever a building was left untenanted, it suffered this same fate. The area around St. Paul's Hospital was pretty badly scarred, and the Hospital itself received many direct shell hits. A few Jesuits and some Salesians were kept prisoners for a while close to the Hospital, but were released after a few days. While engaged in driving an ambulance in the city, one of the Christian Brothers, Brother Peter, was killed; otherwise, the clergy and religious of Hong Kong were uninjured, though I believe Father Tournier, Assistant French Procurator, was slightly wounded. One shell hit the Maryknoll Convent School in Kowloon, and though the Sisters had a trying time, they were unmolested. After the armistice, the Japanese began immediately collecting all vehicles, cars and trucks. Along the road at Stanley, on our return from the garage, we saw a number of trucks and cars on the road, either having been damaged by machine-gun fire, or abandoned by their drivers. These were all towed into town, in many cases by British army trucks which had been captured, and hundreds and perhaps thousands of cars, trucks and buses were corraled on the Happy Valley and Deep Water Bay recreation grounds. It is also thought that the Japanese took many of these vehicles to Japan, as it is reported that they took food supplies out of the Colony to Japan. Gradually, a few bus lines were started up, as was a ferry or two to Kowloon, but the only cars on the road were Japanese trucks and official cars. All business was at a standstill; shops and department stores were closed and boarded up; what business there was, was done by hawkers on the streets. All foreign enemy property was promptly taken over by the Japanese and strips of wood with Chinese characters painted or stenciled on them bore the motto: "Imperial Japanese Government Property." Our house at Stanley was likewise placarded and Father Troesch was appointed guardian for the Japanese Government. The French Fathers at Pokfulam were treated rather roughly, and were kept in a small room for several days, while their buildings were ransacked and looted. The Christian Brothers' College suffered the same fate, even though they were of mixed nationality and their head an Irishman. The Jesuits lost Ricci Hall but managed to keep Wah Yan College and the Seminary at Aberdeen. The beautiful French Procure was finally confiscated and the Fathers had to move ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 69 into a small flat. They, as well as the Dominicans, lost heavily in property and investments, and many wealthy Chinese families are practically penniless. The Sisters held on to the Holy Spirit School, Sister Paul fighting a great battle for it; but of course, they lost their Convent and School at Kowloon. The Canossian Hospital was hit by a bomb and burned to the ground. The Precious Blood Hospital in Kowloon was hit by a shell and destroyed. One of the churches in Kowloon City was confiscated and razed to make room for an extended airfield. All schools have been closed down, and the Italian and French Sisters, with their immense compounds, are suffering. The day after Bishop O'Gara and Fathers Norris and Benson went into Hong Kong, the Japanese issued notices to the effect that all enemy nationals should assemble on the Murray Parade ground, bringing with them only handbags and leaving their homes in the custody of caretakers. Not realizing exactly what was in the air, most of the inhabitants of Hong Kong did so, and after they had assembled, were promptly marched off to dingy Chinese hotels where they were interned. The quarters were naturally poor, ill-furnished, and crowded, and the food was meagre. They were allowed no intercourse with the outside world, and were kept in this durance vile for some two weeks, when they were transferred to the Civilian Internment Camp at Stanley. From the seventh to the fourteenth of January, we lived a life of expectancy. We finished cleaning up the premises, tried to carry on language classes, and read a good deal. One day during this time, some Japanese soldiers came up in a truck and borrowed fifteen of our dining-room chairs. They said the officers were having an important meeting nearby and would return the chairs later. We were mistrustful of them, but later the chairs came back, with thanks. One of the soldiers insisted on taking a group picture, and of course, we obliged him. A few days later, some of our tables were again borrowed, but this time, they did not reappear. “So sorry, our tables now!” For a time, there was a threatened water shortage, but the supply came on again. With no opportunity to buy food, our supply is gradually dwindling. On the thirteenth, we had no more prunes for breakfast. Just coffee and oatmeal, the hardtack biscuits also being used up. The last of these began to get a bit wormy, but hunger did not notice the worms. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 71 On the eighteenth, two Japanese officers called and we entertained them with tea. They were pleasant enough, but had little to say. Soldiers and officers have come almost every day, either for a courtesy call or out of mere curiosity. One officer especially has been very friendly with Father Toomey, and has brought him cigarettes and milk. Others seem rather arrogant and haughty. Of course, we in turn are mild and meek for we don't like bayonets. Today, finally, our Ford V-8 was towed away down the hill. Shortly after our return from the garage, we witnessed a rather sorrowful scene and one which will long remain in our memories. It was when, a few days after the signing of the armistice, the British and Indian soldiers marched out of the fort on the hill and took the winding road down through Stanley and to Hong Kong and to internment in Kowloon. There must have been at least a thousand, if not more men, disarmed and dejected, and passing just below our hill we watched them as they went by under the victorious Japanese flag hung across the road. As we stood on our hilltop and saw that mournful column passing along silently, we thought of the glories and peace of Hong Kong which had been and now everywhere is desolation and despair. The victors are despoiling the city; they have ruthlessly dethroned the foreigner and humiliated him in the eyes of the Chinese; they have destroyed overnight, as it were, the work of decades; they have completely disrupted the organization of a huge modern city, and starvation faces the populace. The Japanese have learned their lessons well from the West, and the West is now reaping the harvest of what it has sown. Poor Hong Kong! which had to be one of the first victims. After tiffin on the 20th, we received final word to leave Maryknoll House, now His Imperial Majesty's property, for our new home in the Prison Warders' Apartments attached to the Prison at Stanley. We are to be interned, not as the Italian Fathers were, in the Prison itself, but in modern apartments, these having been built only a few years ago. We hastily summoned our coolies, and the vanguard soon got under way. We walked in advance, each with a suitcase or bag in each hand and a bundle of bedding on his back, the coolies bringing up the rear with the heavier and more awkward bundles. Twenty-four priests and Brothers, and as many more coolies made quite a cavalcade, and looking back, it seems that we have been able to move all that Father Troesch and Father Meyer ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 77 5-We understand that Bishop Valtorta has tried to get permission to enter the Camp for a visit, but has been refused. Breakfast of fish paste and pancakes. We have been informed that there will be a "blackout" until the tenth, and we hurriedly get out our vigil candles and makeshift lights for the emergency. Brother William finishes his large kitchen stove and we now have better facilities for cooking our rice. Occasionally, it has been uncooked, or rather not thoroughly cooked. We are allowed to send three postcards out of the Camp. Since we arrived in Camp, a Red Cross truck has been coming in from town occasionally, and bringing odds and ends of goods and supplies for individuals and the American community. Today it was hijacked on the road. 6-First Friday. Father Downs gives Holy Hour at the Sisters' Chapel. One of our American policemen was detained today by the Japanese, but later released. Father Reardon goes to the Camp Hospital, an emergency affair in one of the Indian Quarters. In addition to our daily patrol, which means a two-hour shift during the day and night, we also have other activities. Some work a few hours at manual labor, helping in the kitchen, carrying cement blocks, cutting wood, getting the daily rations from "The Hill" and general cleaning up around the place. In addition to our kitchen in one of the garages, it is now planned to partition off a few more spaces for storerooms, etc., also a large dining room, if and how. At the present time when the clarion call for "chow" sounds, each one picks up what container he had managed to get and proceeds to the kitchen where he stands in line with about two hundred others and waits his turn until he reaches the table where the cooks dish out the rice, gravy, and vegetable. Each gets the equivalent of a bowl of rice, about a cupful of, or rather ladleful of, gravy and another large spoonful of vegetables. And this, twice a day. This he takes back to his room and sits on the edge of his camp cot, if he happens to have one, and with a spoon or his fingers, does justice to his meal. Today all the children gathered on the lawn for play. 7-It is estimated that now there are some 2,400 British, 325 Americans, and 42 Dutch in the Stanley Internment Camp. We also understand that there are quite a number of British and Americans still in Hong Kong, carrying on in banks and various departments of the city service. Also, a number of British nurses in hospitals. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 96 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS dried fruit and cream of wheat for Father Bauer from his personal supply. Efforts are also being made to have Fathers Bauer and Benson either repatriated or sent to Shanghai for better medical care, as the medicines and equipment here are wholly inadequate for proper treatment. Father Walter improved. 19-Due to our increased flour rations, we have two scones and coffee for breakfast (the coffee, of course, from our own private store). For tiffin, we had one WHOLE sweet potato, cooked lettuce, meat gravy, one small piece of bread, and, of course, rice! Sunday. Masses now at 8:15 and 9:30 and 10:00, with Father Haughey preacher at all three and the Bishop as usual in the afternoon. His Excellency is giving a very splendid course of scriptural sermons and they are being well received. An old man (British) died in Tweed Bay Hospital, of dysentery. 20-Another death, from tuberculosis, in the Hospital. At the monthly meeting of the American community, the question of the forthcoming credit of $105.00 was discussed; also the question of repatriation. The authorities are alleged to have dropped the remark that there are some now in the Camp who should not be here!!! A few Norwegians allowed to leave for Hong Kong; also the two American women previously mentioned. The Hong Kong News, our only English paper now, fails to arrive in Camp, which causes the usual rumors and speculation. Later, we learned that Tokyo was bombed today by American fliers. 21-About 9 o'clock today, the neutral Maryknoll Sisters, Sister Paul, with Sisters Famula, Marie Regis and Ann Mary, received word that they may leave for Hong Kong by 12 o'clock. At that time, they bade goodbye and got on the food truck returning to the city. Now that the ice has actually been broken, and people are being dis-interned, our hopes are high, as we think that perhaps we are the ones "who should not be in the Camp." Meals seem to be improving slightly, with a duck egg occasionally. Today we had two small pieces of bread, a little stew, spinach, which together with our side of alfalfa, made a fair meal. Canteen open again. 22-Mr. Albert Simmons, Catholic, and former resident of Erinvile near Stanley, died of heart failure, brought on, the doctors say, by malnutrition. Burial took place at 6 p.m. in the local cemetery, where the row of new graves is steadily lengthening. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 102 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS 8-Mr. Southare and Mr. Bourne, the former, American Consul General, the latter our Council Secretary, to go to Hong Kong, presumably on repatriation business and while in the city, they met Sister Paul by chance. We understand that we Maryknollers may have a choice of either repatriation or to go to Hong Kong but will not be allowed to proceed to our missions in the interior, at least directly, and this, on condition that we can support ourselves or that someone will vouch for us, and guarantee our support. Thereupon we considered the question: there were many minds on the subject. Some were for direct repatriation, others wanted to stay in Hong Kong; some wanted to stay in Camp. Finally a list was made up, or rather two lists: Fathers Bauer, Quinn, Walsh, Callan, Reardon and Allie, and Brothers Michael, Lawrence, Anselm and William to be repatriated, and Fathers Toomey, Troesch, Meyer, Downs, Keelan, Hessler and the nine new language school students to go to Hong Kong. Later we learned that there will be no choice: that is, if we are not repatriated, we must remain in Camp. Another hurried meeting was held at 9:30 in the evening and further steps taken. At this meeting, a vote was taken and the majority decided on repatriation. Some of the minority were willing to abide by any decision reached by Father Toomey, as Superior, while others wanted to remain in Camp if necessary. Fathers Troesch and Hessler would try to get to Hong Kong as third nationals if possible. Accordingly, a second list was made out and handed in to our Council officials, only to be informed that our first list had already been submitted to the Japanese and that we had to await further developments. During the day, Mr. Bourne succeeded in contacting Bishop Valtorta at our request, and we learn that the Bishop is opposed to the repatriation of all Maryknollers and he is willing to guarantee the support of 14 of us, that is the House staff and the language school men, until Bishop Paschang or Maryknoll can assume the burden. The Maryknoll Sisters still in Camp, in the absence of any further instructions from Sister Paul, contemplate remaining. Incidentally, we later understood that Maryknoll had cabled to the effect that we all should be repatriated, but this message did not reach us until too late. First Communion and Confirmation at 8:30 on the ninth, when some 21 persons, mostly children, received the Sacraments, the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 103 Canadian Sisters having prepared them. The entertainment sponsored by the British for tonight was called off by the authorities for no apparent reason. It does seem as if the Americans are favored just a bit in this Camp by the Japanese or at least the British get more knocks. Mr. Bennett, American, chosen to act as purchasing agent for our allotment of food, goes to Hong Kong and on his return announces that while in the city he got himself married. 10 Sunday. As usual. There was no fish for tiffin, it having been rejected as unfit for consumption. It is bruited abroad that non-American wives of repatriates will not be allowed to return to America because of lack of space on the vessels, but preferential treatment will be given to Chinese-Americans. A movie tonight at St. Stephen's, and quite a good one, with a few cartoons. 11— At an American communal meeting, Messrs. Bourne, Rankin and Stanton were elected Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Treasurer respectively, to take the place of those resigned. American patrol resumed, but entirely voluntary. 12— A Russian orchestra arrived in Camp today, and we thought for a while that we were going to have a concert, but it did not materialize. Father Meyer is still experimenting with his bread, and it is now much better. Canteen opens again. 13— Sister Paul advises that 16 of the Maryknoll Sisters now in Camp be repatriated; with 3, Sisters Clement, De Ricci and St. Dominic, as third nationals, to stay in Hong Kong. The rest will remain in Camp for the time being. 15— Ascension Day. Masses as on Sunday. Brother Anthony is indisposed again. Father Benson at length is able to leave the hospital. He had a very long stay within its confines. In the American Blocks we now have had, for some little time, a diet kitchen operating to take care of convalescents and children. This does not mean that the convalescents get any different or better food, but it is more carefully and tastily cooked. Many cannot stomach the ordinary white rice and in this kitchen it is browned first and then cooked. A Mr. Engdall, member of the American Consular staff, died suddenly in Camp, as a result of a fall. Only a very few from our Camp were allowed to accompany the body to the cemetery, Bishop O'Gara and Father Toomey being among the number, as Mr. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 104 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS Engdall was Catholic. They were also allowed to bless the body in the Consulate quarters for a few minutes only. 16-Father Toomey sings a Requiem Mass for Mr. Engdall at 8:30. The four recent escapees were brought back and placed in the Prison today. It is said that they look pretty well the worse for wear, having been treated pretty roughly, and on an almost starvation diet. Brother Anthony goes to the Hospital again. 17-Sunday. Father Toomey preached at all three Masses. Canteen opens in the afternoon, with a limited supply of Gruyere cheese selling at $3.00 a half pound, and soda crackers at 10¢ apiece. 18-Sister Paul gets word in that all Maryknoll Sisters may remain no repatriation. Bishop Valtorta suggests that if we get out of the Camp, we go to Macao and carry on our language school there. In the Camp there has been organized a sort of an international welfare society whose members are trying to get some needed supplies for the internees. Today, volunteers were called for to help out in its office and Father Madison got a job. 19-Father Allie starts a convert class, beginning with five adults. In response to our request that we be allowed to return to our House in order to get a few books, we are told that the place has been cleaned out and that there is nothing left. Father Gaiero has a slight touch of dysentery. 20-The International Welfare Association hands out khaki shirts, handkerchiefs, tennis shoes, soap, porcelain cups and toilet paper, in very limited quantities. Father Allie suddenly gets permission to go to St. Paul's Hospital in the city for an X-ray treatment. 21-Report that the Asama Maru will arrive here on June 15th and leave on the 16th, with the repatriates. Father Downs succumbs to an attack of dysentery, and goes to Tweed Bay Hospital. Father Quinn also comes down with the "flu" or something akin to it. 22-Father Allie returns from Hong Kong, with very disconcerting news of the conditions in the city, with the result that another meeting of the brethren was held, and five of the new men decide to return to America and hand in their names to the Council. Further report also has it that the 12 Maryknoll Sisters will go, the other four remaining in Camp. Father Gaiero better. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 110 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS 27-Medical inspection of repatriates at 2:00 p.m. and preliminary inspection of baggage in rooms at 11:00 a.m., so it is beginning to look as if the good ship Asama Maru does mean business, after all! 28-Sunday. There were no public Masses this morning in the Club Chapel, as that public room was reserved by the authorities for inspection of the baggage of the repatriates. Some baggage was also inspected at the same time just in front of our American Blocks. All bags and suitcases and bundles had to be put in a line and opened for the inspecting gendarmes as they passed along the line. After all, the inspection was not very strict. The baggage was then taken away in trucks to the small pier jutting out into Stanley Bay where, evidently, embarkation will take place. Since we could not have our regular public Masses in the main chapel, we had to be content with three Masses said in the Maryknoll Sisters, Canadian Sisters and in the Dutch apartments. In the afternoon as well we had to have Benediction in another garage just behind the American Club. At Stanley pier, we notice three small launches and some lighters, which are no doubt awaiting the arrival of the Asama Maru. All the Americans on the qui vive these days, and wondering when and if the good repatriation ship will put in an appearance. 29—Maryknoll Foundation Day for all and Departure Day for some. As we arose, we scanned the horizon for signs of the Asama Maru, but there was no sign of her. However, along towards noon, she hove in sight and proceeded to Stanley Bay, where she anchored off shore about a mile distant. It was a thrilling sight, especially for the departants, and they were all wondering what kind of accommodations they were going to get, and what kind of food. After the ship dropped anchor no time was lost, and early in the afternoon the repatriates, about three hundred from the Stanley Camp, and some sixty direct from the city, went aboard the ship by launch. These sixty Americans from the city were bankers and banks' other officials who were allowed to remain at their posts, but who were practically interned in their own quarters. Some forty Americans are remaining in Camp, some of whom, including us, hope to get out to Hong Kong one of these days. Of this number, half are Maryknollers, including 15 priests, one Brother and 4 Maryknoll Sisters. Since we again lose our cooking squad, Father Meyer jumps into the breach and takes over, preparing our supper, which ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 115 21-Report has it that some 52 internees may be allowed to go to Shanghai on Wednesday. No electricity due to overloading of circuits. As a result, we have to get our "chow" cooked in the British kitchen for a couple of meals. The Shanghai baggage goes to town in the food truck. 22--The Shanghai trip delayed and the baggage returns from the city. 23-We understood a few days ago that the Japanese had rounded up several hundred very destitute Chinese in the city with the intention of deporting them somewhere along the South China coast. They were first brought out to Stanley and placed in the Prison for a day or so. Next they were herded onto several large junks in Stanley Bay. The junks were towed out to sea but meeting heavy weather, the tugs had to put back into quieter waters and anchored again in Stanley Bay just off the western side of our Camp. As we walked along the top of St. Stephen's Hill, we could see the unfortunates very plainly crowded on the junks, and standing up, with no covering over their heads. Thus they remained for at least two days and nights, exposed to the sun and rain. No doubt their food was but a trifle, for while anchored off the Camp, a number of bodies were seen by the internees to be thrown overboard, and later these bodies were washed up on the beach, where they remained unburied. I believe the Camp officials requested permission to bury them but the beach being outside our barbed wire enclosure, the permission was refused. The junks finally sailed away with their human freight. Earlier in the Camp, a similar permission was asked to bury a few bodies of soldiers which had been washed up on the beaches, but again the permission was not granted. July so far has given us 22 days of rain which, like California, is most unusual for this month, and as a result the reservoirs are filled up and overflowing. 25-The Shanghai repatriates are told to be ready to leave at any time, but there is still a further delay. No doubt it is a question of shipping. Among them are two Dutch Salesian Fathers. The British put on a good show at 7 p.m., "The Optimists,” on the bowling green outside our former American Club A-4 Block. Swimming restrictions lightened; we may now go and return at any time within the prescribed hours. Mixed marriage in our private Maryknoll Chapel at 9 a.m. Father Hessler officiated. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 121 lyze our feelings. We regretted leaving our many friends in Camp, yet were glad to get out to freedom. What would we find in Hong Kong? Would we be allowed to go to the interior of China? Where are we going to stay in Hong Kong? There had been some talk of our staying with the Bishop in his "Little Seminary" and again some mention of Bethany at Pokfulam. So there was an element of mystery and of adventure in our trip that day. All went well until our truck reached the top of the Wongneichong Gap on the Happy Valley Road. Here there was a barrier and we were stopped by a gendarme, who demanded that we get out of the truck and have our baggage inspected and examined. We were preparing to do this, when Mr. Yamashita, the young Japanese gentleman in charge of Camp affairs, who was sitting with the driver, got down and tried to explain the situation. It seems that the gendarmes had not been informed by the Foreign Office that we were being released, and the officer in charge of this post gave Mr. Yamashita an unmerciful tongue lashing while he, Mr. Yamashita, being a civilian, stood at attention, bowed repeatedly and never answered back a word. At length, when the officer ran out of breath, we were allowed to proceed, without having our baggage examined. We then went into the city, stopping finally at the Queen's Road entrance to the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building, one of Hong Kong's newest and most imposing structures, and now occupied by the Japanese Foreign Office. Once inside, we saw Sister Paul and Sister Famula who had already very kindly arranged for our temporary passes. The Sisters were most helpful to us during our first free days in Hong Kong as we felt just like innocents abroad. After securing our passes and arranging for our baggage, Sister Paul told us that our new home is to be Bethany with the French Fathers, but that before going there we were to have tiffin at the Holy Spirit School. We walked up Queen's Road and then up onto Caine Road, feeling rather strange and out of place, but we reached our destination without any misadventure. At the Holy Spirit School we sat down to a real dining room table, with real dishes and knives and forks and most important of all, with some real food, for which we have to thank the Sisters and Mrs. Leong, the wife of our genial friend, the manager and owner of the Metropole ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 125 This literally took the wind out of our sails and we were in the doldrums. Bishop Valtorta also interviewed Mr. Oda on our behalf but received the same categorical answer. However, Sister Paul made application about this time for Sisters Marie Regis and Dorothy, the former having been released from the Camp on a third national status, but the latter with us. As a result, Sister Regis was allowed to board the boat but Sister Dorothy was turned back. So we returned to Bethany, sadder but wiser. Our status in Hong Kong now being determined for us, we began to think about resuming Language Classes, and looked around for some teachers. We found one for the Mandarin and one for the Cantonese, but could not easily get a suitable one for the Hakka-ites. From the 11th to the 15th of October we went on Retreat, it being conducted by Father McCarthy, S.J., from Wah Yan College. About this time, Father Knotek's electrical ability having been discovered, his services were much in demand, both at Carmel and at St. Paul's Hospital, Causeway Bay. It may be of interest here to describe briefly Hong Kong, as we saw it, some eight or nine months after its capitulation. The downtown section, at least along Queens Road Central, was fairly normal, and business seemed to be going on as usual, that is, on the surface, but actually business was pretty poor. All the stores had long since reopened; the larger foreign stores, of course, being taken over by the Japanese, and prices were on the military yen basis. The Chinese department stores were likewise open, but their stock seemed to be depleted, and not only were prices high, but it was difficult and even impossible to purchase many articles, especially of clothing. In many cases, about all that was left were extra large sizes of things. Along the streets in many places, and just outside of the department stores, sat vendors of various small articles. On the streets, the crowds seemed to mill about almost as in normal times, but little money changed hands. There were only the strictly necessary purchases made. Even for the Chinese populace, rice, oil, and firewood were rationed and on certain days, the purchasers had to line up and wait their turn at depots in various parts of the city. The Gloucester Hotel is now the Matsubara Hotel, and is open for business, but of course, mostly Japanese business. The Japanese Army and Navy have taken over almost ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 126 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS every foreign enemy building, whether public or private property, and those which have escaped confiscation have not escaped the looting by Chinese. Curiously enough, there was an almost total absence of English signs on streets and over buildings and stores, the Japanese having taken all these down, and in many instances, replacing them with Japanese signs. In the lobbies of office buildings all the tenants' names were in Chinese or Japanese, and it was often very difficult to find one's own family doctor, unless one happened to be familiar with his Chinese name. It seemed that everything reminiscent of the hated foreigner had to be effaced. Placarded all around the town, too, were flaming posters depicting the New Order in the Far East, showing smoking chimneys of busy factories, smiling Chinese gathering grain in the fields, and other indications of what Japan expected to do for the downtrodden Chinese. At various conspicuous places were also huge maps showing the conquests in East Asia of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. The streets were fairly clean, though here and there might be seen some piles of rubbish, and I understand that in the beginning, the Japanese kept in office some of the officials of the Sanitary Squad, that is, British officials. Just to show the effect of Japanese progress, now some of the streets in the downtown sector were actually being washed daily! However, along the side streets, one could find more sordid scenes--emaciated and dying beggars lying on the pavement, and others looking pretty thin and hungry. Before we left Hong Kong, most of these beggars had disappeared and I suppose it is not hard to imagine what became of them, for the Japanese are not very often moved to pity. There are many tales of cruelty inflicted on the Chinese, and one significant fact is that the huge Prison at Stanley is practically empty. It is said that often offenders against the laws were thrown off the bund into the sea; others were tied up and left standing in the broiling sun until they died, and some of us have seen the police dogs which the Japanese have trained to hunt down Chinese who cut wood on the mountain sides. A friend of mine was an actual eye-witness of a Chinese woman whose flesh was literally torn by these dogs and who ran screaming down the mountain. These brushwood gatherers are often shot at, too. The Japanese have retained both the Indian and the Chinese police and they patrol this city and the roads. The Indian police ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 127 have been uniformly courteous to us, except under the eyes of their masters and I think they realize that their position is a precarious one. They are, however, pretty cruel at times to the Chinese. Except army trucks, there is no transport in the city. On the Pokfulam Road, however, the Chinese have resurrected a few very small wooden carts with tiny iron wheels which they laboriously pull along up the grades of the winding Island Road. Only a few bus routes are in operation. The Aberdeen route is running; the University route via Caine Road is in operation, and the Stanley run, with a bus every two hours, completes the service. The trams, of course, are running and quite crowded. Ferry service has been resumed, but on a very limited scale. I speak only for Hong Kong, as I know little about conditions over in Kowloon. As for purely private cars, practically none are seen in the streets, all having been confiscated and shipped to Japan. A taxi service was attempted but the fares were prohibitive. The Dairy Farm is functioning under, of course, Japanese management and control. However, over half the dairy herd has been shipped out of the Colony to Formosa and Japan. A few British overseers have been retained. The milk is being sold for thirty yen a small bottle, but it is of very watery consistency. No butter is available. As for the once flourishing harbor, it is now bare of shipping, save for an occasional Japanese freighter. Occasionally, a destroyer or two or a small cruiser are seen in the harbor, but they come and go. As will be remembered, the regular east channel leading to the harbor has been blocked with scuttled and burned ships, so all vessels now enter Hong Kong by the west channel, which passes just beneath Bethany, so we have a splendid view of all incoming and outgoing ships. Now and then we will see a steamer limping into port, disabled and apparently sinking. Once a convoy of some seven or eight ships entered and left the harbor, and on two occasions we saw a very large trans-Pacific liner like the Asama or Chichibu Maru enter and leave. On another occasion, a small destroyer engaged in maneuvers ran aground just to the south of Bethany on a point near the Dairy Farm, but was later pulled off by tugs. Before the war, the British were assembling ten thousand ton fabricated ships in Kowloon, and apparently the Japanese found one of these under construction, as later on we saw it under- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 128 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS going its trial run. Quite a string of small landing barges were once seen leaving the harbor. At Aberdeen in the narrow channel there are a number of small river steamers sunk or scuttled, and the Japanese are attempting to salvage them. They have also succeeded in raising the river gunboat Moth, and its recommissioning was given quite some space in the local English paper. During our stay at Bethany we had a number of visitors: the Jesuits from Wah Yan College, as also from the Seminary at Aberdeen; Father Haughey from the Salesians, some Italian Fathers from the Cathedral and the French Fathers, as also a few laymen, friends of Camp days, among whom was our genial chef, Mr. Gingles, with his side-kick, Dr. Molthen. Across from Bethany is Nazareth, the polyglot printing press establishment, and there we found the Superior, Father Biotteau, still holding the fort, along with one companion, Father Morel. Needless to say, the Printing Press is not now in operation, and the other Fathers normally stationed here left some time previous to our arrival for Indo-China. Later on, also, a number of French Sisters left St. Paul's Hospital for Indo-China. Shortly after the occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese announced that they intended to build a large shrine just above the Botanical Gardens to commemorate the heroes of Hong Kong. They began surveying the site, beginning quite close to the Cathedral, and evidently it was to be a wonderful affair. Subscriptions were asked for from the local Chinese and everybody was expectant. However, as time wore on, the project seemed to have gotten out of the limelight, and now it seems it has been abandoned. However, a small monument was erected on one of the small hills facing the harbor. The 25th of October was the Feast of Christ the King. On that day, there is an outdoor procession at the Cathedral to which the faithful come from the various parishes both in the city and from Kowloon. As we had received an invitation to participate, we started out for the city. As we neared the city we noticed an unusual number of Japanese planes in the air. This was not out of the ordinary as planes were more or less constantly flying about for various purposes, and we did not attach any special significance to this increased number on this glorious afternoon. As the Holy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 129 Spirit School is on the way to the Cathedral; the writer stopped for a little chat with the Sisters and, while having tea with Sister Paul, we were suddenly startled by a series of explosions. We rushed to the window overlooking the harbor and Kowloon, and there, right in front of us along the Kowloon dock area, were a number of columns of smoke rising. Hong Kong had been bombed! American planes? Of course, we could not know, but it was not hard to conjecture. Yes, some eight or twelve American planes based in China had actually bombed Hong Kong. As they came over the city and dropped their deadly missiles, the numerous Japanese planes previously flying around were nowhere to be seen, but evidently the Japanese had wind of an approaching bombing. Later on, we heard varying and conflicting reports of dog-fights over the New Territories and of both Japanese and American planes being shot down, but we had no means of verifying them. In any event, we felt like hurrahing, though we were just a little frightened at renewed bombing. This took place around three o'clock, and after the hubbub had died down, we started for the Cathedral, meeting on the way some of our confreres from Bethany who had just arrived. Japanese soldiers were on the streets, and an occasional truckload, fully accoutred, passed by. The Procession was scheduled for five o'clock, but arriving there we learned that because of the disturbance it had been called off. Then we began to wonder if there would be martial law, and whether we, being enemy nationals and Americans, would be allowed to roam the streets back to our home. However, nothing untoward happened, and we got the bus as usual at the University for Pokfulam. During the actual bombing, the few people I noticed on the streets did not seem to be very much perturbed and walked along nonchalantly. No doubt, they were rejoicing inwardly. That night we felt pretty cheery at Bethany, and after discussing the incident and its possible effects, we retired as usual. At about half past one the next morning, we were awakened by another crash of bombs, though fainter. Hong Kong was getting it again in bright moonlight. The raiders dropped their load and immediately sped away. Well, things began to happen, and everybody was on the qui vive. The next day, Japanese planes were in the sky all day, looking for more visitors. On the following Wednesday, the American eagles swooped down again on Hong Kong with a few missiles of good will. At the moment, there were no Japanese planes in the air, and the American fliers raced away. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 130 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS In the first raid, bombs fell on the Kowloon dock area, on Whitfield Barracks, on a Japanese army canteen on Nathan Road and a few in the streets of Kowloon. The second and midnight raid was on the lighting plant at North Point, but the bombs, fortunately for us, missed their target. On the third visit, a few bombs fell near the Kowloon shipbuilding yards. One unexploded bomb was said to have been found near the lighting plant, and it was marked "Cleveland, Ohio." As a consequence of these raids, the whole city was blacked out at night, all Japanese flags which had been so gaily flying from many buildings were hauled down, and for a month after, there were from two to a dozen Japanese planes in the air all day, flying at a great height looking for more visitors, no doubt. With the advent of the month of November, we secured a Hakka teacher and our Language School was functioning, though not too briskly. Early in the month, Father Moore took to his bed with some ailment, which Dr. Samy diagnosed as a nervous stomach. Dr. Samy, by the way, is a neighbor of ours, and an Indian doctor, very prominent in Hong Kong. He has a very talented Chinese wife, and two daughters. He formerly lived near the Queen Mary Hospital, but the Japanese took over his home and, in exchange, gave him a house just below Bethany. Fathers Toomey and McKeirnan teach his children daily, and they often come to visit us. The doctor and his wife have been extremely kind to us and have offered to give us financial help if we find it necessary. We mustered up enough courage again to approach the Foreign Office about permission to go to Kwangchauwan, but again came back a final "NO!" Since their release from the Camp, the Maryknoll Sisters have been living in Holy Spirit School on Caine Road, but now they are threatened with eviction, as some branch of the government wants the house for some purpose or other. During the month, Father Troesch secured permission to visit our House at Stanley, on pretext of getting some church goods which we needed. All together, we made five trips, two or three Fathers going each time, and each time bringing back a few suitcases full of odds and ends which we managed to salvage in the attic. A few of the extern Carmelite Sisters accompanied us, and they saved quite a number of things for us, which the Mother Superior kindly consented to keep in Carmel for us. Among the salvaged goods were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 141 only a handful of British representatives, among them the Colonial Secretary who went out into the city from the Internment Camp, until the British Forces arrived to take over. "At Stanley a crowd of people were all set to loot the Maryknoll House of doors, windows, floors, sinks and so forth, but Bishop Valtorta came out as soon as the surrender became known and asked the Carmelite Sisters to send someone up to the house and remain there to protect our property. A couple of extern Sisters accordingly went up and took possession of the house. The Japanese had taken the hard wood flooring on the top floor and had carried it to the nearby valley north of the Stanley reservoir, in order to build a last stand field headquarters, which, however, they never did use. After we got to the house I gave some Stanley people work carrying the material back down again and Father Mark Tennien had the flooring relaid when he later on took over as Procurator. "Practically all the equipment and furniture that was not fastened down had disappeared, such as sinks and kitchen stove. The hardwood chapel pews apparently could not be used for anything, and were too hard to split, so they were found piled up intact in the sacristy. All the books in our library had either been burned or carried away and the furniture moved out for use elsewhere by the Japanese. "Upon arrival I at once wrote to Father George Daly and he sent out a full supply of china, cutlery, kitchenware and linens. Father Tennien had new furniture made after he took over. "Shortly after internment I went to live with Bishop Valtorta, while Father Hessler remained at Stanley where he acted as chaplain to the Carmelite Sisters, and also did some work among the Japanese interned at Stanley Fort. It was while in Hong Kong with the Bishop that Father Maestrini and I got some quarters, formerly leased to the Germans, in the King's Building, for the Catholic Center and St. Nicholas Catholic Club. We had to scrounge furniture for the latter and carry it up 5 flights of stairs, as the lifts were not yet in working order. Captain O'Connell of the British Navy and Father Chatterton, Navy Chaplain, arranged all the official details and permissions for the Club. Father Chatterton even went with us to scrounge furniture and the Captain provided a lorry for transportation. They also arranged for us to get from the Navy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 143 rice at a very low price in order to help the people and giving away bread and canned goods in order to insure that they would have enough to eat. On communications he noted that there were no buses in the city at all. The Japanese had sent them all to Japan early in the war. He got from Stanley to the city and back again by hitch-hiking in army jeeps and trucks. At the same time he applied to the military for a telephone and electricity connections. He noted that business was at a complete standstill. The two American banks had no business at all since they were not allowed to receive U.S. currency from the States. The exchange rate was 8 to 1 when he arrived but by the end of November it was down to HK$4.50. In December the railway between Canton and Hong Kong was reopened and people began flocking to Hong Kong; however, due to the poor condition of the track the trip was taking eight hours instead of the normal three. In normal times most people would have made the trip by boat, but in the course of the war more than half of the Canton boats had been sunk by mines, usually with the loss of all aboard. Nevertheless, as order was gradually restored in the Colony, more and more Chinese who had fled during the Japanese occupation returned and the Colony witnessed a spectacular recovery. People were returning at the rate of one hundred thousand a month, and the population, which had been reduced to about 600,000 in August 1945, rose by the end of 1947 to an estimated 1,800,000. When Father Meyer first returned to the Stanley House he was overjoyed to find that his priceless manuscript and 200 copies of the famous "Meyer-Wempe Cantonese-English Dictionary" had not been destroyed. In his correspondence to the Superior General about this he learned that the dictionary had been used by the U.S. Navy during the war years, and the Navy had given Maryknoll 50 copies of the printing they had made for the use of their personnel. In the same correspondence the Superior General announced that former South China missioners Fathers Keelan, Sprinkle, Youker, Weber, Cunneen, O'Neill, and Brother Michael Hogan were on the high seas returning to their mission posts. Just before Christmas Father Tennien hitched a plane ride from Hong Kong to Kunming in Yunnan Province, the city where every Maryknoller stayed before his thrilling flight "over the hump" into India during the war years. At one time there were so many ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 144 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS Maryknollers being driven West in the face of the Japanese advance that we had to secure a house to serve them until they got flights out over the Himalaya mountains into Burma or India. Father Frank Keelan received from the Bishop of Kunming a good-sized building, formerly a club for the French who maintained the railway between Kunming and Indo-China, and turned it into a hostel for travel-weary Maryknollers who had been walking, or riding trucks, for weeks in order to reach this city. Father Jim Smith, who had been assisting Father Tennien in Chungking, took Father Keelan's place in Kunming when the latter left for the States, and while there set up a branch of Father Tennien's continent-spanning financial operation to assure a steady supply of funds to the missioners not yet driven out of their posts by the Japanese armies. Father Tennien's mission at this time was to close out this operation; his travels brought him to Calcutta and Chungking, and in the latter place, now manned by Father Tom Brack, it was decided to move the base of operation to Shanghai since the Government was leaving this wartime capital for its former site, Nanking, while the many foreign aid organizations were leaving for Shanghai. Since it seemed that Shanghai would now become the financial center for overseas remittances, he worked out a plan with Father Brack to begin closing down the Chungking operation and move to Shanghai. Following this, he then flew to Shanghai to look things over, and reported to Maryknoll that a priest should be assigned to that city to take care of financial matters for the Society. On his return to Hong Kong, Father Tennien received the first copy of his latest book, "Chungking Listening Post," written while he was in that city during the war years. This copy he autographed and sent to General Wedemeyer, Chief of the American mission in China, and a personal friend. In response to Father Tennien's request to set up office in Shanghai, the Maryknoll General Council requested him to do this personally and to continue to manage financial affairs until the post-war situation settled down. 1946 At the beginning of the year, the Maryknoll Council decided to keep Father Tennien in Shanghai over his repeated requests to return to his mission in Wuchow where there was an unprecedented ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 145 interest in the Church on the part of the people. At the same time, Father Tom Brack was assigned to Hong Kong with the task of refurnishing the partially vandalized Stanley House. After four years in the hands of the Japanese Army, less than ten rooms could be adequately furnished. He flew to Canton from Chungking, via Shanghai, by U.S. Army planes and by the S.S. Fat Shaan, from Canton to Hong Kong. On his arrival, he reported that the Stanley House looked just the same as it did in pre-war days. There was no structural damage, and the only external signs of war were some chipped bricks caused by sporadic machine gun and rifle fire. The interior, of course, was quite different and needed a great deal of renovating, repairing, repainting, and restoration of the furniture and equipment which had practically all been burned or looted. Father Tennien, when he arrived shortly after the cessation of hostilities, had done a great job of repairing the floors and making some new furniture under no little difficulties, as materials were hard to come by at the time. However, there still was much to be done before the house could be considered as restored to its former self. This work comprised the making of all new altars, room furniture, repair of windows, doors, and floors, and, in other words, to restore all that had either been carried off or destroyed by invaders. The hardwood floors had also been badly scarred in many places, as the Japanese soldiers used to cook their food on small stoves placed directly on the wooden floors. At this time, there were as yet no transportation facilities in the Colony, except for the tramways in the city proper, and only a few buses in Kowloon. All the other buses had either been shipped away or destroyed. So, in order to get to town, one had perforce to thumb his way along the road. After a while, however, Father Brack got hold of a weapons-carrier which did yeoman service for quite a while. One of the earlier visitors to Stanley was Father John Joyce, who arrived from Kong Moon in a small motor launch, but because he had no passport, he had to stay overnight in the launch and talk his way through Immigration officials the next morning. Free to enter Hong Kong at last, he had to thumb his way to Stanley like everyone else. Had he come a bit later, some new jeeps bought by Father Tennien through the good offices of Father Sheridan in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Blessed Sacrament was reserved at Stanley House for the first time since the occupation. Our large wooden crucifix, which had been protected in Carmel during the occupation, was returned to its original site—we now have the most important Guest of all! Father Tennien sent a nice small harmonium from Shanghai to add another pleasant feature to the Chapel. On June 5th, Father Wygerte, Scheut Procurator in Shanghai, and genial host to many Maryknollers, set some kind of record as he made his first visit to the Maryknoll Fathers in Hong Kong, traversing the hilly ten miles from the city to Stanley by ricksha! His eyesight is almost entirely lost and he is returning to Europe. Bishop Valtorta and Father Meyer sailed today for San Francisco, the former for treatment and rest, the latter a Delegate to the 1946 General Chapter at Maryknoll. Ten minutes before the ship sailed, Father Meyer was still typing out his suggestions to the Colony for the proposed self-government of Hong Kong. The servicemen's restaurant and many other works he started in Hong Kong are evidence of his limitless zeal. A visit during the month of June to Kowloon gave a picture of the condition of our old Procure at 160 Austin Road, and of the former Maryknoll Sisters' Convent at 103 Austin Road. The Procure was badly in need of repair, and at the time was housing fifteen refugee families. The Convent escaped unscathed and the Government was conducting a bacteriological institute on the premises. Since the cessation of hostilities, ocean and air travel for civilians had been non-existent, but both army planes and naval vessels very kindly and generously transported many missioners back to their respective homelands. Due to the shortage of housing in the Colony, the Government began requisitioning many dwellings for this purpose. One day, a group of officials inspected our house with its 35 sleeping rooms and decided to take it over for some of their employees, who were soon to return to the Colony. However, upon returning to the city by way of Aberdeen, they saw the French Mission House at Bethany, much larger than Stanley House, and took possession of that instead, much to our relief. On the departure of Father Meyer for the States, Father Brack arranged to take over his room in the King's Building, where the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 148 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS Catholic Center is located. He planned to use the room as a baggage storage place where missioners coming to Hong Kong to shop could store their purchases temporarily. Transportation between the city and Stanley had not yet been established and so it was more convenient to leave purchases in the King's Building which was near the West River shipping wharves. With work piling up on him, Father Brack was happy to learn that Maryknoll had appointed Father William Downs as his bookkeeper and assistant. The Center at Maryknoll, after 5 years of hopeful wishing to get some official information on the disappearance of Father Sandy Cairns, finally decided to go on record as believing that Father Cairns met a violent death at the hands of the Japanese, and set July 31, the day before the new Chapter began, to have the Solemn Mass of Requiem for Father Sandy. From local sources, it seems that after Pearl Harbor, Father Sandy was taken from his mission and shot in a motor boat either by Japanese or Chinese puppets working for them. His body was then thrown overboard, but his sun helmet was later found floating near Sancian Island. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 NOTES AND QUERIES 197 Six old muzzle-loading cannons, each fixed to a cemented base, can be seen on the main wall; two on the west and four on the east. They were selected from elsewhere, and mounted there as a memorial.26 Outside the Walled City, there are several brick houses which had been used as a hospital for the garrison and as dwellings of the garrison families. There had been a cemetery. However, its site cannot be found, and the old brick houses are now used as stores and pig-sties. Several old brick houses can be found at the mouth of the Tung Chung stream. They are supposed to be the guard-houses and the ammunition store of the Shek She Fort.2 The position of the Fort has long been forgotten. Recently, rubble walls are found on a knoll near the Tung Chung Ferry Pier. The walls are now in ruins.28 This is likely to be one of the fortresses of the Shek She Fort.29 Hong Kong. March 1980. ANTHONY SIU Kwok-kin NOTES 1 It is called Fan Lau (separate the flow) because the promontory lies on a place which separates the waters of the Pearl River and the Pacific Ocean. * The promontory has the shape of a chicken-wing, thus gaining the name Kai Yik Kok. Kai Yik in Chinese means 'chicken-wing'. * The promontory is also called Yuen To Shan, because ships which came from the west to the Pearl River used it as a landmark. 'Yuen To' in Chinese means 'sailing from afar'. * There is a village called the Fan Lau Village situated by the Fan Lau Sai Wan, or West Bay. * The Fan Lau Tung Wan is also called the Miu Wan or Temple Bay because there is a Tin Hau Temple, rebuilt in the Hsien Fung reign (1851-1861). • It was called the Kai Yik Fort, as recorded in the San On Yuen Chi 1819 edition and the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 1822 edition. 1968. see Armando M. De Silva's "Fan Lau and its Fort", JHKBRAS 8; ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 198 NOTES AND QUERIES * The evacuation of the South-east coast of China was carried out from the 1st year to the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1662-1668). It was because of the disturbances of pirates and the followers of Koxinga (Cheng Shing-kung) along the coasts of Kwangtung and Fukien. The disturbances were so large that the Ch'ing Army could not stop them. The government evacuated fifty li from the coast. The lands were abandoned in order that the pirates and the followers of Koxinga could not obtain supplies from them. (see my article: "The Chow Wang Yi Kung Chi of Kam Tin", published in the Wah Kiu Man Fa of Wah Kiu Yat Po for 13th September 1976 綿田之周王二公祠,原载1976年9月13日華僑日報文化版) + * In the O Mun Kei Leuk ME 1800 edition, it was recorded, "During the 7th year of Yung Cheng reign, there were forts erected on the two hills. This strengthened the guards of the Tai Yue Shan Shuen”. The Tai Yue Shan Shuen was probably at the place of Tai O today. The forts on the "two hills" are most likely to be the Kai Yik Fort on its south-west and Tung Chung Fort on its east. This shows that the Fan Lau Fort was probably rebuilt and refortified in the 7th year of the Yung Ching reign. 19 See my article: "A Short History of the Pirates of Hong Kong before 1842", published in Volume 8, No. 4 of the Kwong Tung Man Hin 廣東文献(1979). 11 see Chapter 13 of San On Yuen Chi Chapter 81 of Kwong Chow Fu Chi A **** 1819 edition and 1879 edition. 12 Chapter 12 of San On Yuen Chi (1819) stated, "During the K'ang Hsi reign, it was because of robbery and piracy along the south-east coast that the Ch'ing government evacuated the coastal regions. Later, with the surrender of the pirates, the Ch'ing government extended the coastal boundary. More forts and guard-stations were set up. Those of outstanding importance were the Kai Yik Fort on Lantau Island, the Nam Tau Fort, and the Chik Wan Fort." The book was written in 1819, and the famous pirate Cheung Po-tsai had surrendered in 1810. This shows that the fort was again under the control of the Ch'ing government after 1810. 14 1a Chapter 130 of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 4 1822 edition recorded, "Tai U Shan, an island which lay in the midst of the sea, was a place where foreign ships anchored. There were only two inlets for the anchoring of these ships: they were at Tai O and Tung Chung. At that time, Tai O was guarded by a garrison of thirteen men. There was already the Kai Yik Fort under a Tsin Tsung (lieutenant) of the Tai Pang Battalion." The book was published in 1822. This proves that before 1822, there was the Kai Yik Fort guarding the south-west tip of Lantau Island. 14 see Armando M. De Silva's article, op. cit. 15 also called Tung Chung Hau in the past. 10 To the south-east of the valley is the Sunset Peak (Tai Tung Shan 大東山); the Lantau Peak (Fung Wang Shan 凤凰山) lies to the south-west. 17 Sheung Ling Pei Village is one of the largest villages in the Tung Chung Valley. It is situated to the east of the Tung Chung Walled City. 18 Ha Ling Pei Village, an adjacent village to Sheung Ling Pei Village, is situated to the west of the Tung Chung Walled City. 19 See my article: "Distribution of Forts and Guard-stations on Lantau Island during the Late Ch'ing period", JHKBRAS vol. 18: 1978. Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 NOTES AND QUERIES 221 Dr. Sun Yat-san. In front of the portrait, there was a long table, on which were installed a shrine of the deity ‘Cheung Wong Yeh' and a statue of Confucius. Each year in pre-war times there were two sacrifices, one dedicated to the 'Cheung Wong Yeh' deity in Spring and the other to Confucius in Autumn. When the sacrifices took place, the Strand was decorated with lanterns and colourful ribbons, with female singers performing in matshed, riddle-games being staged, or Cantonese operas being performed. However, the celebrations were suspended during the Japanese Occupation. They were resumed after the War and carried on until 1953 when the Association building was demolished for reconstruction. At present, our new, magnificent building standing in this busy city has been completed. When we look back to the past, could we not be moved by the old memories still lingering in our mind? In spite of business difficulties and a recession in the market, in which our trade bears the brunt, our predecessors have selflessly devoted much of their time and effort to the reconstruction of our Association building. With the completion of this new building, it is to be hoped that our members will work together for the advancement of the Association's functions, the economic recovery of our trade and the promotion of members' welfare. THE COMMERCIAL WORLD* The District is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, to develop in the history of the Colony. As far as more than a century ago its status was second to none; its town proper was a thriving entrepot, clustering around a few narrow streets in the famed Nam Pak Hong — a legendary name which had been handed down with pride even to the present day, pinpointing the area now occupied by the Bonham Strands East and West and the nearby Wing Lok Street. The title, literally translated as the "South and North Traders", was of great significance as it implies that the long arm of business stretched as far as Peking and Tientsin in North China to the distant countries in Southeast Asia. It was in this tiny plot of land that business tycoons of the last century were fostered, flourished and prospered. The ones in Bonham Strand were experts in Chinese herbs and other precious organic medicine as well as importers and exporters in other popular Chinese commodities, * Translation of an article in the Association's centenary bulletin, also by courtesy of the Director of Home Affairs. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 ORDINARY LOCAL MEMBERS MORGAN, Ms. V. Elaine, The Library, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. MORITZ, Mr. Frederick A., 4B, Sea and Sky Court, 92 Stanley Main Street, Stanley, HONG KONG. MORTON, Mr. R. J. McK., Legal Aid Department, 19/F Sincere Building, 173 Des Voeux Road C., HONG KONG. MOYLE, Mr. G. C., 64 Mile Taipo Road, NEW TERRITORIES. MULLOY, Mr. G. N., Flat C, 1 Homestead Road, The Peak, HONG KONG. NEWBIGGING, Mr. D. K., 35 Mount Kellett Road, The Peak, HONG KONG NG, Dr. Margaret N., Arts Mansion 5/F, Flat C, 43 Wongneichong Road, Happy Valley, HONG KONG NG, Miss Tonia, H.K. Tourist Association, Connaught Centre, 35/F, HONG KONG. NGUYET, Mrs. Tuyet, c/o Arts of Asia, 1309 Kowloon Centre, 29-43 Ashley Road, KOWLOON. O'HARA, Mr. Randolph, c/o The City Hall Library, Edinburgh Place, HONG KONG. OJEDA, Mr. J. de, Spanish Consul General, 1403 Melbourne Plaza, 33 Queen's Road Central, HONG KONG. ONG, Dr. Guan Bee, Dept. of Surgery, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. ORR, Mr. I. C., Room 506 Central Govt. Offices, Main Wing, Lower Albert Road, HONG KONG. OUTCH, Mr. W. T., c/o Essex Asia Ltd., 118 Austin Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, KOWLOON. OXLEY, Mr. C. W. B., District Office, Sai Kung, Sai Po Kong Govt. Offices, 792 Prince Edward Road, KOWLOON. PALMER, Mrs. R. M., 2 Old Peak Road, 2/F Front, HONG KONG. PARR, Mr. M. J., c/o Wardley Ltd, G.P.O. Box 8983, HONG KONG. PARRINGTON, Miss June, Arts Faculty Office, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. PARRY, Mr. Roger H., c/o The Marine Department, 102 Connaught Road C., HONG KONG. PAUL, Mrs. Anne Carse, 9 Jade House, 47C Stubbs Road, HONG KONG. PEACOCK, Mr. I. R., 5A Manhattan Tower, 63 Repulse Bay Road, HONG KONG. PERESYPKIN, Mr. Oleg P., P.O. Box 1382, HONG KONG. PICKARD, Mrs. Jane, Flat A6, 14 Shouson Hill Road, HONG KONG. 249 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 # CONTENTS Page viii President's Report x TREASURER'S REPORT xvi LIBRARIAN'S REPORT xviii ARTICLES : 1 Chinese monasteries, temples, shrines and altars in Hong Kong and Macau - KEITH G. STEVENS 34 Persistence and preservation of Hakka culture in an urban situation : a preliminary study of the voluntary association of the Waichow Hakka in Hong Kong - JIANN HSIEH 54 The Hong Kong riots of October 1884: evidence for Chinese nationalism? - Lewis M. CHERE 66 Silk and silver: Macau, Manila and Trade in the China seas in the sixteenth century - JOHN VILLIERS 81 Fung Shui, an intrinsic way of environmental design, illustrated by the case of Kat Hing Wai in the New Territories of Hong Kong - David Lung 93 Symbolism of the new light - JULIAN F. PAS 116 Rediscovering our social and cultural heritage in the New Territories - BARBARA E. Ward 125 NOTES AND QUERIES: A Hakka wedding in Hong Kong - VALERIE Garrett 129 China and the Beholder - HOLMES WELCH 133 Chinese religious involvement with Islam - KEITH STEVENS 134 More about the Tung Lung fort - ANTHONY SIU 136 Distribution of temples on Lantau Island - ANTHONY SIU 139 The Kowloon walled city - ANTHONY SIU 141 Tuen Mun from Chinese historical records - ANTHONY SIU 145 Is Chun Fa Lok the old name for Tsing Yi — ANTHONY SIU Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1979 (Covering the period March 27, 1979- March 23, 1980) I am pleased to report tonight on your Society's activities over the past year and on our ongoing projects. During the period we organized twelve lectures which, because so many members and most of your Council are away from Hong Kong in the high summer season, were arranged mainly for the Spring and Winter months. There were two overseas excursions and one local tour. Let me briefly review the lecture programme first of all: Talks to the Society In April 1979 two lectures were given. The first had Dr. Margaret Ng as our speaker: well-known in Hong Kong for her newspaper column, and also as a social philosopher concerned with different facets of the Chinese world-view. She spoke on "A Chinese theory of Discontent". The other speaker in April was Professor Rulan Chao Pian who talked to us once before, in 1975. She is presently visiting professor in Music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and her talk, entitled "A Musicological trip to China”, was related to a recent visit to China where she had lectured to the National Academy of Musicology at Peking. In May Mr. Leonard Rayner lectured on "Communism in the Association of South East Asian Nations”. Mr. Rayner who moved to Hong Kong from Singapore a few years ago is a journalist and perhaps best known to us for his regular column in the South China Morning Post. In June Professor D. W. Y. Kwok, who has been Director of the Asian Studies Programme at Hawaii for the past six years, spoke on "The New Culture Movement in China”. Also in June, Dr. John Young of the Extra-Mural Studies Department of Hong Kong University, lectured on "The Hong Kong-Canton Connection, 1905-1925”, at the same time sharing his experience with us of a research trip to Canton and pointing out the archival research opportunities which exist in that city. In October Rev. Carl Smith talked on "The Amateur Dramatic Club (founded 1860) and the early history of Dramatic arts in Hong Kong. Since the new year we have had a relatively full programme. In January there were two lectures: one by the Rev. Father Harold Naylor who spoke on "Wah Yan College; a case study of an Anglo-Chinese school directed by an Irish Jesuit". Father Naylor has X ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 KEITH G. STEVENS Temples and monasteries can be classified as follows:-- a. By religious belief-Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian and traditional folk religion,5 b. By the contents of the altars - deities, ancestral tablets or charms. c. By their typological features such as the size and shape of their plans (square or rectangular); by their elevation into floors; by divisions and sub-divisions; whether free-standing or not; and whether the courtyard is enclosed or in front of the main building. d. Whether residential or non-residential. e. Whether permanent or temporary. f. By ethnic grouping (regional traditional types),6 Within Hong Kong and Macau, there are about four hundred and fifty Buddhist, Daoist, and folk religion temples, Buddhist and Daoist monasteries and nunneries, and ancestral temples. A few pre-date the advent of the British and Portuguese whilst the majority, built since 1840, have been established as specialised temples with a specific deity on their altars well known for a unique function such as destroying demons, protecting seafarers, foretelling the future, protecting mothers during childbirth and children during childhood, and the like. It is unfortunate, out of interest in such historic places, that neither Hong Kong nor Macau have the large national temple or temples at which the official state religion was worshipped. This is due to the fact that before the arrival of the British and Portuguese, neither territory contained a county town and were primitive rural areas. Nor are there in Hong Kong or Macau the large City God temples which in Imperial China were to be found in all provincial and county capitals. Whereas the Chinese government in 1928 closed many temples throughout China during their campaign to suppress superstition,* the practices condemned by the Chinese authorities continued in Hong Kong and Macau where British and Portuguese administrators treated native susceptibilities with great caution. Hong Kong and Macau temples therefore, retained deities and practices which have probably long since disappeared on the Chinese mainland. * described in some detail by C. B. Day in his Chinese Peasant Cults (Nanking Theological Seminary English Publications, 1938), pp. 190-195. Page 30 Page 31 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS fortune slips and interpret the fortune slips. 5 th Competition between Buddhists and Daoists for the support of devotees led to grander and bigger temples. Small village shrines and temples, not in the same league, did not need to compete. Competition for devotees also led to the present circumstances in which rural shrines and temples are comparatively small and unkempt whereas their urban equivalents, though not much larger, have had to be made more attractive, usually by offering unique deities and services in order to wean devotees to their particular altars. In Hong Kong and Macau there are a number of temples patronised primarily by people of a particular class, sub-ethnic group or occupational calling. Devotees tend to patronise their local temple irrespective of who the deities are, though they may be attracted to a more distant temple by a particular deity famous for his specialised power and efficacy. The latter might be a god whose cult is long standing and whose characteristics are unique and pertinent to the devotee's requirements. He might however be a new star, rising suddenly amid great publicity, only to wane again but not necessarily to disappear completely. Location of temples Prior to the anti-superstition campaign in China in 1928, traditional temples were scattered across China in their tens of thousands. Not quite so abundant in Hong Kong, they are to be found squeezed in among high-rise buildings in the city and among houses in villages, and may be free-standing or joined to other structures. But apart from monasteries, rarely does one appear beyond the village bounds and when it does it is usually derelict or almost so. Buddhist, Daoist and popular religion temples do not usually materialize as full-blown two-court buildings with numerous images, large and small. Their development has been a natural progression from the small shrine on a hillside, probably beneath the overhang of or attached to a living rock, at the base of a large old tree, or in many cases inshore from a sandy beach of a bay with an easy landing for boat people. If the shrine is well attended, the protective construction around the small shrine will grow as years pass, until eventually it reaches the maximum size that devotees can afford to build and maintain. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS 17 The even larger Guan Yin temple, facing south west on the reverse of the same hill, has a similar layout, though in this complex the side halls are separated from the main hall by unroofed passageways. A third large temple, but not of traditional architectural style, the Lin Dai Temple off the Estrada do Repouso, has two separate secondary halls to the west but only one to the east. Each of the two western secondary halls are sub-divided into two altar halls, one to the front and one to the rear, making a total of seven separate altar halls. The nearest equivalent in Hong Kong to the two largest traditional temples in Macau, are the traditional temples in Hollywood Road in Central Victoria, Temple Street in Yaumati and Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai. Nowadays the traditional temple in Yaumati (Illustration 9) is in practice four individual temples under the management of the Tung Wah Hospital Group. Originally it was a single temple consisting of a large main hall with two side halls on either side, each hall separated from the next by an uncovered passageway. For at least thirty years, however, the complex has consisted of the main major temple, with the two secondary halls to the north being divorced from it and becoming individual temples with their own keepers, controlling committees and cults. The two secondary halls to the south have again been divorced from the main hall. One is an individual temple with its own cult etc and the other is a clinic and dispensary. The main cults in the four temples from north to south are Guan Yin, the City God, Tian Hou and again Guan Yin, though in addition the major deities worshipped in the second and fourth temples are the Ten Judges of the Underworld and She Ji (**) the Spirit of the Harvest and Crops. The carved titles of the main deities over the four temples' entrances, are interesting. The first is Fu De (**), the Earth God (and not Guan Yin as one would expect), the second has the title of the City God Temple above its entrance, the third has Tian Hou and the fourth has She Tan (***) (again not Guan Yin as one would expect). The last entrance, the clinic, has the characters for the Library over it.20 The traditional temple in Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai is comparatively larger than other similar temples in the colony and is made up of four individual halls. The main hall, roughly 40 feet wide by 55 feet long, has three side-altars on each side of the Page 45 Page 46 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS 29 Zhi Gong and over Lunar New Year, and has a "red-pig" fund30 for the feast at each occasion. Certain lands in rural areas in Hong Kong are designated as 'temple property',() and the income from them is devoted to the upkeep of the temple and its deity as well as providing financial support for the temple keeper. In many cases the deed of ownership is made out in the name of the principle deity, whilst selected elders of the village act as trustees. A foreign missionary once described how funds were raised in China for religious purposes.31 An old Buddhist temple to the north of Tak Hing, west of Guangzhou which had been allowed to fall into ruin, was to be rebuilt in 1903 because a geomancer discovered that the floods and crop failures of 1902 were due to the neglect of the deity who formerly had occupied the temple. The deity had come back, according to the geomancer, and had been seen in the form of a woman. Villages and cities even as far distant as forty miles sent processions to help subscribe towards the rebuilding. The missionary described the local collections as "frequently barefaced extortion”. He explained that "women went round to collect the money and asked every man for a sum based on what they knew him to be worth. If their demand was not complied with, they would refuse to take anything at all and threatened to post the family name all over the city walls as niggards who refused to help towards the public weal". Perhaps too, in Hong Kong this may still go on to some extent. Statistics — Temples in Hong Kong and Macau Household altars and unmanned sea-side and streetside shrines have not been included in the statistics, except in the case of the streetside shrines which are roofed buildings large enough to entertain several humans standing up. These have been included under temples. The unmanned smaller public shrines run to about several hundred in Hong Kong with a further eighty in Macau. There are about three hundred and ninety-six temples and monasteries in Hong Kong. Of these as many as ninety-eight are (or were before reclamation projects were completed) coastal temples dedicated to gods or goddesses of the seas; one hundred and thirty-five are Buddhist monasteries or nunneries; two hundred and forty-six are folk religion temples and two dozen are Daoist temples ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS 31 rural areas, and the very ancient agrarian cult, the God of the Harvest, Soil and Grain, She Ji(4) whose shrines are found usually at the edge of villages and, like those of the Earth God, are too numerous to count. The only general conclusion to be drawn from all this suggests that the vitality of the cults of deities has in general declined, whereas a limited number, in squatter resettlement areas, continue to thrive by acting as a focus for the minority Chaozhou, Hakka and Minnan immigrants. NOTES AND REFERENCES This is Hong Kong: Temples. By Joyce Savidge, Hong Kong Government Printer, 1977. 2 Dong Fong Ri Bao. * In this article the English word "temple" is used to include uniquely Buddhist and uniquely Daoist temples and monasteries; popular or folk religion temples (which may or may not contain Buddhist and Daoist deities); community temples (both private and public), and ancestral or clan temples. A shrine is an open-fronted room or box-like construction, either at the wayside, under a tree, outside a temple or monastery or hanging on a wall. Outside permanent shrines are referred to in Hong Kong as "Exposed temples" (露天廟). They are by definition unmanned. A "community temple" is one built by funds raised within a limited community and administered by a committee, either of a city, village or suburb, or of an ethnic group of expatriates. Private temples are built by private bodies such as: (a) A family or clan. (b) An individual monk or nun who raises funds by subscription and who leaves the temple to an acolyte at his or her death. (c) A trade or profession. Private temples, despite being private and closed to outsiders, are also usually controlled by a committee. A few private temples continue to remain so but gradually most become public, particularly as the number of devotees and images of deities within the temple increase. Some Buddhist temples, privately owned with the affairs and finances in the hands of the owners, are usually also the home of the owners and the ancestral tablets of the owner's family appear on the altars with or beside the deities. Privately owned is not the same as being open or closed to the public. Some indeed may be closed, but the majority are open to the public. Only very occasionally are icons or images of deities to be found in clan temples, whereas ancestral tablets are frequently to be seen in community temples. Advantage is taken in the latter of the duties performed by the temple keeper (which clan temples do not have) which ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 32 KEITH G. STEVENS include the burning of incense every day. This amongst other things saves the individual having to perform the rite before his ancestral tablets daily. 4 There are no Confucian temples in either Hong Kong or Macau. 5 Although there are obvious and major differences between Daoism, Buddhism and Folk religion, their beliefs and practices are so interwoven and syncretized beyond description, that in practice there is almost a single religious scheme of things. A handful of folk religion temples, mostly in Chaozhou and Min An community resettlement areas, are also centres for spirit medium activity. Chaozhou and Min An people customarily communicate with the major gods through minor gods and spirit mediums, Folk religion is very occasionally referred to as "Spirit worship” (Shen jiao), albeit more by foreigners than by Chinese. Chaozhou and Min An spirit mediums are usually males who speak with the more junior gods, whilst Cantonese spirit mediums are normally female and speak with the spirits of the dead. * The natives in both Hong Kong and Macau are Cantonese. Immigrants over the centuries who brought their own cultural heritage with them are the Hakka, Min An, Hoklo, and Chaozhou. The Chaozhou are speakers of the Chaozhou (sometimes called Swatow) whose native area is eastern Guangdong province. In folk religion the Chaozhou have more in common with their immediate neighbours to the north, the Min An and other Fukienese rather than with their Cantonese neighbours. The total of 450 temples reflects the number found and visited by the author. The total given by the Hong Kong Government Temples Committee of the Home Affairs Department of over 500 private temples registered in Hong Kong is misleading in that their total includes to the author's knowledge quite a number of small temples which have been destroyed, removed or closed down. The author's number of 450 is also inaccurate as there are bound to be a number of very small temples hidden away in residential blocks of flats which would defy discovery without a visit to every floor of every apartment building. * County towns were the centres for official, commercial and religious activities. Villages within present day Hong Kong before the arrival of the British came under the jurisdiction of the mandarin at the county town of Hsin An (present day Pao An), north of the Sino-Hong Kong border. * However, an engraved title can easily be superseded when a more popular deity has been promoted to the main altar, without the title over the entrance being changed. 10 Images on, beside, before and under altars can be categorised into the deities themselves, and their disciples, guardians and attendants. There are also two other categories of figures, seen only on separate altars in some Buddhist temples. These are the likenesses of the founding Abbot and of major donors and their wives. 11 Urban and rural are terms used for the areas where the temples were established, and many a rural temple is now lost in the centre of a vast modern housing estate. Urban temples do not include village temples, they do however include the temples of the market towns such as Taipo and Yuen Long. 12 These "pensioners" are normally the most needy and worthy elderly males or females of the community, voted or appointed into the post and supported there by subscription. 13 See Hong Kong 100 Years Ago (Hong Kong City Hall, 1970) on the sixth page of photographs, though under another titling. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 56 LEWIS M. CHERE events of 1884. In this category would be Chinese language newspapers, the records of the court proceedings against the native newspapers and rioters, and whatever private records, diaries or papers which might have survived from that time. Because these materials are not available outside Hong Kong it is the purpose of this article to raise the question of what did happen in the Colony in 1884 in the hopes that those scholars who do have access to the winds of materials necessary to answer the question will be made aware of the importance of having those answers. Because a study of the question cannot help but advance understanding of Chinese history in the 1880's—not to mention the illumination it could provide for the history of Hong Kong itself—I have attempted to provide an outline here of what the question entails, and what little is known about it. Hong Kong occupied a position in the events of the Sino-French War which was unique even for the ports of the China Coast. Unlike Treaty Ports such as Canton or Shanghai, Hong Kong was not even technically Chinese territory. Though Shanghai may have been effectively controlled by the representatives of the foreign community sitting on the city council, the city was still Chinese territory and the problems it experienced during the Sino-French War were largely due to that fact. Hong Kong was formally a possession of a neutral power. As such, most of its problems arising from the war were those which resulted from differing French, Chinese and British positions on the obligations of a neutral in an undeclared war. However, Hong Kong's overwhelming majority of Chinese residents, most of them adult male workers whose families were still living in their home villages in the Southern Provinces of China, presented a problem even more complex than those arising from the city's neutrality. The reactions of those Chinese residents to the Sino-French conflict could be vital to an understanding of the development of nationalism in China. In Hong Kong the legendary influence of anti-foreign mandarins, which was so frequently blamed for anti-foreign feeling among the Chinese populations in the Treaty Ports, could only be indirectly applied—if at all. Even then many of the European accounts of what happened in the Colony in 1884 attempted to find outside influences, meaning the mandarins, to hold responsible for Hong Kong's troubles. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 HONG KONG RIOTS OF OCTOBER 1884 59 Naturally the British Government protested this incitement to murder in its territories most strenuously. At British insistence an Imperial Decree was issued disavowing the proclamation and censuring the responsible officials for an excess of zeal. The censure did no damage to any of their later careers and amounted to barely concealed backhanded praise. When the British later asked for a re-publication of the decree of censure by Chang Chih-tung in the belief that it would calm Hong Kong, Chang refused. He justified his refusal, and the initial proclamation itself, on the grounds that he had merely been trying to encourage overseas Chinese to go to the areas of combat and help China in her struggle.10 That had, of course, been part of the original proclamation, but his explanation was no more convincing then than it is now. Interestingly, the Daily Press of October 1 pointed out that Commissioner Lin had issued a similar appeal in 1840 during the First Opium War. Several of the Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong published Chang's original proclamation when it was issued. The colonial authorities were so concerned about the potential effect of the proclamation that they brought charges against the newspapers for incitement to murder. Eventually the prosecutions failed in court, but the days following the publication of the proclamation were filled with incidents of Chinese refusing to provide services to the French, either to the ships of the Messageries Maritimes or to French naval vessels calling at Hong Kong for repairs and supplies after the battles with the Min forts. There were also incidents involving clashes between French naval personnel and local Chinese reported from Singapore.11 There is no question that the reported incidents were not simply anti-foreign, though later that would enter into them. Unlike incidents in other areas of China, only the French were affected. Even in Canton the incidents nearly ceased when it was announced that there were no more French in the city.12 On September 7 when Admiral Lespés, who had bombarded Keelung before the Foochow attack, was ashore in Hong Kong the local authorities were so concerned that some of the large numbers of Cantonese in the city might try to collect the rewards offered for the deaths of French officers that they assigned the admiral an escort of Sikhs.13 When the cargo-boatmen were fined for refusing to work the French ships the action triggered a strike against all ships of what- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 HONG KONG RIOTS OF OCTOBER 1884 63 major factor in the affair. On October 24 the Hong Kong Chinese population was reported to have been very agitated by the appearance in the city of a man who claimed to have captured a French standard and was on his way to Canton to collect the reward being offered there for such items. The description of the stir he caused among the local population cannot but lead one to believe that a great deal of national pride was involved in the demonstration. National pride is one of the first signs of true nationalism. One other piece of evidence may be cited along the same lines as the above incident. On August 29 the North China Herald reported great excitement among the Chinese population of Shanghai at the news of the battles at Foochow. The editor felt it necessary in commenting to state that he should withdraw everything he had ever said about the lack of public opinion or interest in political events among the Chinese. He, like his colleague in Hong Kong two months later, was trying to come to grips with the realization that the old ideas about the lack of national feeling among the Chinese were no longer valid. How much of what happened in Hong Kong during September and October of 1884 can be traced to influences from the mainland, and how much was due to genuine national feeling among the Chinese population? We do know that one of the small number of Chinese banished under the Peace Preservation Ordinance was accused of being a paid agitator from Canton, but how many others like him were there and how much influence did they have? We also know that many of the strikers during the troubles claimed coercion from Canton in defense of their action, but in the general strike that followed they claimed to be striking for the right to boycott the French. Were they claiming coercion because they believed that that was what the Europeans wanted to believe? Another aspect of this problem is the fact that we have here a very early example of the labor boycott and strike among a local Chinese population. Thus, in addition to the question of how much nationalism was involved in these events, we also have the question of how modern a labor movement was it? The demand for the right to boycott the French would seem to indicate some kind of developing labor consciousness which would gladden the heart of a Marxist historian if it could be proven true. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 SILK & SILVER: MACAU, MANILA TRADE 69 the imprisonment of Tomé Pires, whom they had sent as ambassador to the Emperor, and to the closure of Canton until 1530 to all foreign commerce. Henceforth the Portuguese had to trade clandestinely around the Bay of Amoy and at Ningpo in Fukien in the various goods, notably pepper and sandalwood, for which no amount of imperial prohibitions could lessen the demand in China. The commercial losses suffered by the Chinese as a result of their isolationism and the prohibition of their own navigation were gains for the Portuguese. As the American scholar George D. Winius has aptly put it, "in the Atlantic the Portuguese were explorers; in the Indian Ocean they were conquerors and in the Far East they were businessmen". Before long their trading activities in the China Sea had developed sufficiently to make inadequate the temporary shacks and tents in which they stored and displayed their wares in such places as Shang-ch'uan (Portuguese Sanchao or São João, where St. Francis Xavier died of fever in 1552), and they began to press the Chinese authorities for a trading centre of their own. In 1555 the Jesuit Father Belchior Nunes Barreto described Shang-ch'uan as a centre for trade with the Chinese where "silk, porcelain, camphor, copper, alum and China-wood are bartered for many kinds of merchandise from this land" (i.e. Japan).7 In the previous year Leonel de Sousa had secured permission for regular trade with China on payment of customs dues and in 1557 the Portuguese were allowed to establish themselves at Ao-men (Gate of the Bay), otherwise known as Amacon, Macau or the City of the Name of God in China.8 There was no written agreement with the Chinese for the establishment of Macau as a Portuguese enclave in China and, though the Portuguese continued to pay rent to the Chinese government till 1849, their sovereign rights in Macau were not fully conceded till 1887. But from the outset, Macau's extra-territoriality was admitted in practice because it suited both parties to the agreement - the Portuguese because it gave them a secure place in a highly profitable commercial network and the Chinese because, as later with Hong Kong, they could now enjoy most of the benefit of foreign trade without having to abandon their restrictions on foreigners entering or Chinese leaving China. A gate was erected across the isthmus joining Macau with the mainland - the Porta do Cêrco - upon which the Portuguese placed a grandiloquent inscription: "Dread our greatness and respect..." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 FUNG SHUI, AN INTRINSIC WAY TO ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN WITH ILLUSTRATION OF KAT HING WAI IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG DAVID LUNG* In modern society where our environment is largely dictated by economy and technology, much of the deep meaning in places and placemaking has been lost. Scientists, psychologists, sociologists and environmentalists have repeatedly warned us of the danger of alienation from nature, from other men, and more drastically, from our inner self. What Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock, published in 1970 is no longer shocking to us; instead, the symptoms have become real societal sickness. Rapid industrial developments and acceleration of social changes have created what Toffler calls a ‘new throw-away culture': our relationship with things is more temporary; with human beings, more transient; with our environment, ‘nomadic.’ Too much is happening too fast. In expressing his strong anguish that human value is being eliminated by technology, Rene Dubos, a distinguished microbiologist, pathologist and Pulitzer Prize winner, protests by saying that "[s]cientific technology is presently taking modern civilisation on a course that will be suicidal if it is not reversed in time." He finds no excuses in affluent societies where, although resources are ample, human values are still neglected by establishments concerned with self-interests only. "[The institutions base their] choices and decisions on technological means rather than on human ends; [their] criteria are power, efficiency of production, and quantity of consumption, rather than the quality of human life." "Yet... productivity and efficiency have no value in themselves; they have merit only as means to ends.” Therefore, in viewing modern architecture, he deplores that "apartment and office buildings [in particular] have nothing to communicate beyond efficiency and conspicuous wealth, hence their architectural triviality." Indeed our buildings today are so utilitarian that human * Mr. Lung is a practising architect in Hong Kong. This article is excerpted from his M.Arch. thesis Heaven, Earth and Man: Concepts and Processes of Chinese Architecture and City Planning. Oregon: Centre for Environmental Research, 1978. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 82 DAVID LUNG desires and aspirations are no longer a priority in design. The trend toward brutalism in architectural design has urged theoreticians in the field like Robert Vickery and Christopher Alexander to advocate a return to basic principles, to refathom the timeless way of building and to rediscover the fundamental 'pattern language' in environmental design. In the long search for meaning in Chinese architecture, I have come to the conclusion that buildings should reflect the characteristics, the values and the sensitivities of a culture so that people who live in them can sense their archetypal foundations and, in turn, heighten their awareness of their own culture and values. Hence, architecture is didactic, a device for expression. Architecture becomes a life-sustaining process, and not an end object itself. Chinese architecture, like its civilisation, is an accumulation of a continuous, monolithic tradition. Unlike its European counterpart where building types of certain periods characterise certain architectural styles, Chinese architecture basically carries one archetype throughout the ages. Be it a commoner's house, or a palace, or a temple, they share a common set of design principles and methods. From the founding of an imperial city in Peking to the building of a farm village, the same tradition is followed. Chinese farm villages do not just 'grow in a haphazard fashion' as a number of scholars have suggested. Rather, they follow the same set of values as city building of the Chou Dynasty (1122-256 B.C.). I have chosen Kat Hing Wai, a farm village in the New Territories in Hong Kong, to demonstrate one significant theory that "vernacular architecture and the monumental buildings of the grand design tradition have a common root and serve the same symbolic function, both express the meaning, values and needs inherent in public form of life." This village was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368—1644) and is the best surviving example of Cantonese farm architecture remaining in the Colony. It still serves as a viable living habitat for the original Tang clan who migrated to this region during the tenth century. I want to document and preserve this 'vanishing' farm village in drawings, photographs and writing, as well as to examine the reasons why this architecture, and the life it supports, have survived into the twentieth century. What lessons can we learn from the village built forms that can significantly contribute to the making of future environments? ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 90 DAVID LUNG 'just growed,' how, or why, no one knows or cares. At some remote and generally unascertainable time in the dim past some families arrived from somewhere else, camped down, made themselves a 'local habitation.' ... and that was the village. It has a street, and perhaps a network of them, but no two are parallel, except by accident, and no one of them is straight. . ."22 There is little doubt that fung-shui has played an important role in the planning of Kam Tin village. The reluctance of Smith and other Western observers alike to accept geomancy as a viable scientific planning principle has rendered their statements inaccurate. The manifestation of the innermost layer of the Chinese mandala in built forms is the private home. In the farmsteads of Kat Hing Wai, the longitudinal axis penetrates through the enclosed space and open space recapturing the rhythm of light and shadow, gradient intimacy, and fusion of space, time and motion. The private dwelling, resembling the cosmic diagram of the walled city and the walled empire, focuses inwards. The central courtyard in the house, just as the term t'ien-ching, well of Heaven, implies, is the ceremonial centre for worship vis-à-vis the two roofed areas housing mundane activities of men. The exceedingly narrow lanes and the windowless rear walls reiterate this idiom of privacy. No one from the outside world can tell what goes on behind the blank facades of the row houses, since rich men and poor men live side-by-side. Only the telltale granite slabs in the exterior walls show unostentatiously which house was once occupied by a scholar. Inside the house, the back room is generally more private and is, therefore, used as sleeping area and storage for more personal belongings, while the front room is an undesignated space in which various activities take place according to the purpose and the time of the day. In a way, Kat Hing Wai is more like a large house inside which there are many rooms. The clustering of several walled hamlets together resembles a residential neighbourhood. As Wong Chung-hong points out in "Walled and Moated a Hong Kong Village", the Chinese regard a village, a town or even a nation as just an enlarged family... all were to be built with the same principles in mind."23 Such a strong desire to attain an intimate relationship between man and nature in Chinese cities and villages ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 NOTES AND QUIRIES 139 Fuk Tak Temple ** Tai O Market- No information. The number of temples found in each area is as follows 1. Mui Wo-2 6. Tsin Yu Wan-1 11. Sha Lo Wan-1 2. Pui O-4 7. Yi O-1 12. Tung Chung 3 3. Tong Fuk-2 8. Tai O-7 13. Tai Pak - 1 4. Shek Pik-3 9. Keung Shan- 1 14. Nim Shue Wan-1 5. Fan Lau-2 10. San Shek Wan-1 15. Chak Lap Kok-1 Hong Kong, March 1980 ANTHONY K.K. SIU THE KOWLOON WALLED CITY The Kowloon Walled City was situated to the north of the present Kai Tak Airport. It had been the most important military base in Hong Kong during the later Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1911). At the beginning of the Ch'ing period, there was no walled city. In the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1668), there was only a watchpost, called the 6, recorded as having thirty guards. Fourteen years later, in the 21st year of Kang Hsi (1682), the number of guards was reduced to only ten, and the post was turned into the Kowloon guard-station. This Kowloon guard-station, with only ten soldiers, was still in existence up to the 16th year of the Chia Ch'ing reign (1811) 1 During the 15th year of the Chia Ch'ing reign (1810), the Fat Tong Mun Fort # was evacuated, and a new fort was built on the coast of Kowloon. This was the Kowloon Fort #. Its garrison was forty-eight men, under one pa-tsung and one ngai-wai. After the 22nd year of the Tao Kuang reign (1843), Hong Kong Island was under British rule. In order to strengthen the fortification of Kowloon, a walled city was built in the 27th year of Tao Kuang (1847). This was the Kowloon Walled City * See JHKBRAS 19 (1979)· 209-210. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 140 NOTES AND QUERIES The Walled City had an area of about 70 mou. It had a length of about 130 yards and its breadth was about 240 yards. The walls were about 20 feet high and five to ten feet thick. There were four main gates. The gateways were about ten feet high and eight feet wide, and they could be shut with iron gates. The main entrance was the South Gate PT. Outside the main gate, there was the Lung Chun River. A stone bridge called the Lung Chun Bridge crossed the river. Soldiers could land at a pier and march directly into the Walled City. The Walled City's garrison was 150 soldiers under one fu-cheung or brigadier. In addition, fifteen soldiers and one ngai-wai-tsin-tsung or sub-lieutenant guarded the Kowloon Coastal Guard Station 九龍海口汎 whilst the Kowloon Fort 九龍砲台 was guarded by one tsin-tsung or lieutenant with 75 men. The number of men remained the same until the early Kuang Hsü Reign. Then in the 24th year of the Kuang Hsü Reign (1898), the New Territories was leased to the British. The Walled City at first remained under the rule of the Ch'ing Government. However in 1899 the garrisons in that area were evacuated, and the Walled City was abandoned. Nowadays, nothing of the Walled City remains, except two old cannons of the Chia Ch'ing Period and the old yamen which can still be found in Lung Chun Road inside the old Kowloon Walled City. Hong Kong, November 1980 ANTHONY K. K. SIU NOTES 1 Chapter 8 of the San On Yuen Chi, K'ang Hsi edition states, "During the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi Reign (1667), the Kowloon watch-post, guarded by thirty men, was established. Then, in the 21st year of the K'ang Hsi Reign (1682), the Kowloon watch-post was turned into the Kowloon guard-station and the number of guards was reduced to ten only.” 2 See Chapter 11 of the San On Yuen Chi, Chia Ch'ing edition 新安縣志卷十一 3 Chapter 125 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, Tao Kuang edition records, “In the 15th year of the Chia Ch'ing Reign ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 NOTES AND QUERIES 141 (1810), General Chin Mun-fu ***** suggested that the Fat Tong Mun Fort be abandoned and be rebuilt near the Kowloon guard-station ✯ ✯ A Viceroy Pak Ling T✯ ordered the Magistrate of the San On County 觚 ***◊ to carry out the suggestion. Chapter 175 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, Tao Kuang edition KKAR £&4-4*+ states, "The Kowloon Fort Aate lies 290 # E west of the Tai Pang Battalion 4. It was guarded by one pa-tsung and one ngai-wai with 48 guards." 5 After the Opium War, the Chinese were defeated, and Hong Kong was ceded to the British. In the 23rd year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1843) Ke Ying was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces **** and Wong Yan-tung & was Governor of the Liang Kwang-tung ✯✯✯. They proposed building the Kowloon Walled City. The work was completed in the 27th year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1847). * See Chapter 13 of the Kwangtung Tao Shuet, Tung Chih edition ŁATÁRUK+ which records. "The Kowloon Walled City was under the command of a fu-cheung ## or brigadier of the Naval Forces of the Tai Pang Battalion. Under him was an extra ngar-wai who guarded the Walled City with 150 men. There were 75 men under one tsin-tsune for lieutenant guarding the Kowloon Fort; and one ngai-wai-tsin-tsung ††or sub-lieutenant leading 15 men guarding the Kowloon Coastal Guard Station ALDA. * See Chapter 73 of the Kwangchow Fu Chi, Kuang Hsü edition ANA££*TE and Kwong Tung Hoi Tao Shuet, Kuang Hsü edition 張之洞廣東海圆說. * See my article 'The Old Cannons found in Hong Kong' in Volume 8, Part 2 of Kwangtung Man Hin REÆ : RKARXUŁ^ËZI * The Old Yamen is now occupied by the CNEC Grace Light School. TUEN MUN FROM CHINESE HISTORICAL RECORDS 2 Tuen Mun1 lies in the western part of the New Territories. The highest mountain in this area is the Tuen Mun Shan ₺F2 which reaches a height of 582.9 metres. To the east of the mountain is the Tuen Mun Bay, also called the Castle Peak Bay lying to its east, and the Lantau with Kau King Shan A Island lying to its south. Tuen Mun Bay is surrounded by mountains on three sides, thus forming a good typhoon shelter from the strong easterlies. It is also the waterway for entering the Chu Kiang i or Pearl River estuary of the Kwangtung Province. The Bay had been an important harbour for the Persians, the Arabs and the people from India, Indo-china and the East Indies. Their trading fleets had to anchor and gather at Tuen Mun before entering the Chu Kiang. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 142 NOTES AND QUERIES During the early Tang Dynasty, the importance of Tuen Mun increased. Thus a garrison of two thousand men was posted1, and Tuen Mun became known as the Tuen Mun Military Zone19 5. The garrison was led by a commander known as Sau-Chuk-Si 守捉使 belonging to the Annam Military Zone 安南都護府. Its headquarters were at Nam Tau, later the district city of San On. The area of present day Hong Kong, including the islands, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories, was under the protection of this garrison. In the Sung Dynasty, the Tuen Mun Military Zone was turned into the Tuen Mun Ngam19. However, the number of soldiers and the rank of the officer in charge are not certain. During the early Ming Dynasty, the Tuen Mun Ngam was turned into the Nam Tau Walled City, and the garrison was commanded by a Cham-Cheung or Brigadier. Later, in the 17th year of the Hung Wu Reign (1384), Fa Mau✯✯, Commander of the Nam Tau Walled City, asked the Imperial Court to strengthen the garrison of the coastal area. Tuen Mun lay between the areas protected by the Tung Kwun Battalion and the Tai Pang Battalion. Thus, a watch-post was built, and a guard-station under a Pa-Tsung(4) was established. In the 9th year of the Chia Ching reign (1514), the Portuguese entered the Tuen Mun Bay. They took over the adjacent lands and built forts. They even established a monument. However, in the 16th year of Chia Ching, Wong Wang, Commander-in-chief of the Kwangtung naval forces, defeated the Portuguese at Sai Tso Wan8. After that, no Portuguese was found in the Tuen Mun area.9 At that time, there were villages like Lung Kwu Tsuen, Lang Shui Tsuen✯k††, Tuen Mun Tsuen19#, So Kwun Wat Tsuen 掃桿笏村, and Siu Lam Chung Tsuen 小欖涌村.10 During the early Ch'ing Dynasty, the Coastal Evacuation✯✯ caused the abandonment of the area close to the sea. Tuen Mun thus lay barren until, in the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1668), people were permitted to return to the coastal strip. The Tuen Mun Watch-post was re-established with a garrison of fifty men under a Tsin-Tsung. In the 21st year of K'ang Hsi (1682), the Tuen Mun Watch-post was turned into the Tuen Mun Walled City19 with a garrison of thirty men under a Tsin-tsung11. During ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 NOTES AND QUERIES 163 and again in 1921, to share its territory with the Maryknollers. It was to do so yet again when, in 1931, a large part of scenic north central Kwangsi centered on the capital city, Kweilin, was transferred to them. The three books make fascinating reading, partly because these were not ordinary men, and because they worked in China at a time of change, but also because the scene is set in South China among the Hakka and Cantonese of the districts adjacent to Hong Kong where, too, the Order established its mission house and language school in 1934. Indeed, Monsignor Bernard F. Meyer was, with Father Theodore F. Wempe, the author of The Student's Cantonese-English Dictionary, first published in 1935 and still going strong. To end this note of appreciation, I shall quote from a letter sent by one of our members, Mr. W. J. Howard, following publication of the account of Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong, 1941-1946 in the last Journal. Hong Kong, May 1982 JAMES HAYES MR. W. J. HOWARD'S LETTER TO THE HON. LIBRARIAN, dated 18 January 1982 Dear Sir, JOURNAL OF THE HK BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY VOL. 19, 1979 (published 1981) Please send me five (5) copies of the above Journal addressed to me at Causeway Bay PO Box 30704. I will remit the total cost together with postal charge as soon as I receive your debit advice. I require so many extra copies of this particular Journal because I wish to send them to my friends. I consider the articles on the Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-1946 by Rev. James Smith and Rev. William Downs, M.M., shed about the most accurate and unbiased record of Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation. Some of my relatives were interned in Stanley during the war and I was interned in Shamshuipo P.O.W. camp and later in Japan. I Page 195 Page 196 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 BOOK LISTS 167 For these reasons the work is thoroughly recommended. It is to be hoped that, when he finds time, Dr. Baker will produce similar work on the city, which is just as fascinating as the countryside. A last word of thanks goes to Mr. Robin Hutcheon, Editor of the South China Morning Post, who saw a good thing and made it all possible. One regret perhaps? Each volume cites its own guide to reference books and the third has a useful index to the whole, but I'm lazy and would have liked page references to help me track down the originals of quoted passages. Hong Kong, 1981. JAMES HAYES CHINESE WALLED CITIES: A COLLECTION OF MAPS FROM SHINA JŌKAKU NO GAIYŌ, Benjamin E. Wallacker, Ronald G. Knapp, Arthur J. Van Alstyne, Richard J. Smith, eds. (1979, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press). 266 pp. The reader who wants one hundred sketch maps of traditional Chinese walled cities—as they stood in the 1930's—will find them in this book. Lest this brief statement seems to do less than justice to a volume of 266 pages, let me quote from the description of Chinhsiang (page 130) in Shantung: "The city is 45 kilometers southwest of Chi-ning. Population is given as 3,000 households and 15,000 individuals." On the right-hand side of the page, there is also a drawing of the city wall, noting that it is 8.0 m. high, 3.0 m. wide at the top, and 10.0 m. at the bottom. On the map of Chin-hsiang, you can also see that there is a north gate, an east gate, a south gate, and a west gate. The Introduction notes that these maps were made by Major Ishiwari Heizō of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in China, and were originally published by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1940 under the title Shina Jōkaku no Gaiyō (General outline of the walled cities of China). The editors added a few photographs to break up the monotony, but no extra research. Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1980. DAVID FAURE ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 BOOK LISTS 169 ference on Records, Salt Lake City, Utah, 12-15 August 1980 "Chinese Clan Genealogies and Family Histories: Chinese Genealogies as Local and Family Histories", published in Volume 11 of its Proceedings, "Asian and African Family and Local History". These are from the Tsuen Wan sub-district of the N.T., mostly in manuscript. I have also collected on Lantau Island. In all cases a xerox copy has been taken and the original has been returned to its owner. (b) Handbooks of family and social practice These are available in printed and manuscript form. Those purchased and included in this list are a sample of the types that come onto the local book market. (c) Almanacs I have collected modern editions of various Hong Kong publishers from 1949 on, by the following firms: 聚寶樓, 廣經堂, 永經堂, 福安堂 and 明記. Besides these, I have also purchased the listed earlier works, variously from Hong Kong, Canton-Fatshan, and Shanghai. (d) Collections of couplets for every occasion This was a popular field, judged by the numbers seen.* The attached list shows how Shanghai publishers took over collections earlier published in Canton. (dd) Riddles and Proverbs I attach a few titles from this interesting sub-group. "Proverbs are not devoid of attractiveness and charm, especially as they often appear as couplets, sometimes rhymed", writes Patrick Pichi Sun in his foreword to Seven Hundred Chinese Proverbs translated by Henry H. Hart (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1937). Riddles were * They abounded in the towns and countryside. An interesting collection of couplets from buildings of the Ch'ing period in the Sha Tou Chen sub-district of Nan Hai county of Kwangtung is given at pp. 101-110 of the 36th anniversary bulletin of the Nam Hoi Sha Tau Association, Hong Kong, published by the Association in 1964. Couplets by famous Cantonese are featured in two articles by Chin Yung (A) entitled TSLA LO in Vol. 12, Nos. 1 and 2 of a Taiwan publication ✯✯ A, 71st Year of Chinese Republic, 31st March and 30th June (1982). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 172 BOOK LISTS Mr. Leung's book lists those produced mainly in Canton and Fatshan (Fo-shan), but I have recently purchased another type of wood-block mu yu shue published in the Chiu-chau prefectural city, seemingly in late Ch'ing times and after. The covers give place of publication as Chiu-shing (M) by the 王生記, 財利堂, 吳瑞文堂 and 李萬利 publishing firms. Perhaps these were the ones referred to by D. H. Kulp, Country Life in China: The Sociology of Familism; Volume I, Phenix Village Kwangtung, China (New York, Columbia Teachers' College, Columbia University, 1925): Judging by my local collecting, they are rarely found in Hong Kong. (j) Popular poetry I have not collected old editions from Ch'ing and Republican times, but have seen many, even from the former period, usually with a Canton or Fatshan imprint. They were frequently "borrowings" of compilations made by scholars from the Yangtse area and North China, for such works were seemingly universally in demand. No list. (k) Novels and stories This was not a main area for collecting, and the few works listed here are mainly for the purpose of illustrating the genre than for serious bibliographic attention. I have, in truth, seen many more titles. (l) Morality books Here again, I have not really attempted to collect such material, but only to provide a few titles on temple deities to accompany the text in Section A. But I can state that there is a great deal of it around, and that some can usually be found whenever a merchant's business and miscellaneous papers come onto the market, along with the account books and correspondence relating to his shop or firm. (m) Newspapers I have only mentioned them in the text because they seem to have been part of the stock of written materials available in rural areas of the Hong Kong Region before 1911, even if only casually and occasionally, which was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m convey his apologies for the delay in getting the 1980 issue out, which has been due to considerable pressure of work in his public life and a recent transfer to a new job. Dr. Hayes worked as our editor for over fourteen years and this is an appropriate point, perhaps, for me to pause for a presentation we wish to make to him on behalf of the Society for his many efforts on our behalf. Dr. Hayes, who is an historian of Hong Kong Chinese society, is also a keen follower of archeological progress in the China field. We thought therefore it would be appropriate to present him with this illustrated account of The Great Bronze Age of China, which was based on an exhibition from the People's Republic held in the U.S.A. in 1980-81. The 1980 Journal will probably be the last to be printed under the personal supervision of Mr. Y.F. Lam of Ye Olde Printerie. Mr. Lam has been a member of the Society for many years also. I would like to take this opportunity of extending our warmest thanks to Mr. Lam, who is now semi-retired, for his patience and kind advice in all matters of printing. They have contributed so much to the smooth production of the Journal and our other occasional publications. Photographic Survey I turn now to the photographic survey. The Council is again calling for volunteers to continue the work connected with this survey which began in the early 'seventies and has been mainly in the competent hands of Messrs. Tony Rydings and Ian Diamond. The object of the survey has been to compile a photographic record of Hong Kong's street scenes - with its people and variety of occupations -- and Hong Kong buildings. The local scene is changing so rapidly that we felt we should try to capture a visual impression of the city and rural areas, in their older more traditional aspects particularly, before all is swept away. The object is not just to take numerous photographs but to compile a fully documented visual record in which every photograph is dated, each photographer's name noted, and every building, architectural feature and so forth recorded, is identified. Briefly this has meant the compiling of schedules of sites to be photographed, followed by expeditions to carry out the work, and finally the identification and cataloguing of the results. Our appeal is now urgent. Tony Rydings and Ian Diamond have carried the main burden for many years and now feel, I think quite justifiably, that it is time others came forward to do the main work. If you want this work to continue, it is up to you to come forward and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m ANOTHER LOOK AT LAND AND LINEAGE IN THE N.T. c. 1900 33 migrating for a time. What makes this picture plausible is that it accords well with the findings of C. K. Yang for a village located near to the city of Canton. The Pat Heung region did not have the population pressure upon arable land that helped shape the tenure system of Yang's village; but there was a common factor of clan ownership which immediately removed a large proportion of the land from the possibility of private ownership and also made tenancy, at a substantial rate, inevitable. My findings so far are also generally consistent with John Brim's reconstruction of the tenure system in the Yuen Long region as a whole. I have identified 44 persons or households as non-corporate owners of lands amounting to over 3 acres each. The largest of these large owners owned over 50 acres, quite sizeable by New Territories standards. Another held 25 acres. All others owned less than 20 acres, the usual amounts being between 3 and 10 acres each. Parenthetically, let me say that I am well aware of the limitations of the Block Crown Lease Schedules as a research tool, including their possible inaccuracies in owner registration, and I have, I hope, maintained an open mind to the possibility that the picture may have been somewhat different from what I now see. Although some of these large owners might be classed as absentee owners for some of their lands were quite distant from their homes, there was very little absentee-owned land of this kind. And there was no urban Hong Kong or even market town (that is, Yuen Long) ownership registered for lands in this region. A small proportion of the lands of the region were subject to mortgages. Most often these were of the customary type referred to above, in which the lender takes over the land and its income throughout the life of the loan, acquiring his compensation for the loan from the land proceeds rather than from interest, which is not paid. There were, however, some interest loans, although I could not discern any patterns in the use of one type of mortgage or the other. Those lending and those borrowing were in all kinds of relationship to each other. That is, they might or might not be of the same village and surname; they might often be major owners lending to individuals or else to their own clans (in which case the major owner in question might also be a trustee of that clan); they might be clans lending to persons of the same surname or a different surname; or one clan might mortgage its property to another clan. In some cases, major landowners, some of whose lands were distant from their homes, were registered as mortgage holders on other lands away from their home territories. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m JUAN YÜAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 163 commercial vessels. Still, the legacy of the Chia-ch'ing Emperor in offering kindness to foreigners was continued even at this time. In the midst of the Topaze crisis, there was the famous fire of Canton. On 1 November, the fire began in a cake shop outside the city wall, when the baker was careless with the pieces of brushwood he was using as fuel for melting sugar. "The streets were narrow and the houses crowded together", wrote Juan Yuan to the Emperor. "Fanned by strong north winds, despite concerted efforts by soldiers and civilians, the fire could not be contained." It burned through the night and all of the next day, destroying "more than 2,423 shops and extended to the foreign factories."64 A number of warehouses belonging to the hong merchants were destroyed. Puiqua and Mowqua especially suffered great losses. Sailors from the foreign ships managed to salvage some of the cargo in storage at the factories, but the factory buildings were burned. In the stampede of refugees from the fire and the looters, twenty-two people died. Puiqua petitioned to Juan Yüan on behalf of the hong merchants and foreign traders for remission of taxes owed. 140,243 taels of taxes due to the Canton Customs by the foreign traders were completely remitted. The hong merchants were excused from half of their taxes of 524,156 taels. They did not have to pay anything in 1823. In 1824, however, the other half of the taxes owed had to be paid, with each hong merchant's burden in proportion to the damages he had sustained. Chinese local shopkeepers who considered themselves well-to-do refused compensation from the government, but small shopkeepers as well as the Tanka boat people accepted money from welfare funds released by the province. The foreigners considered these measures fair play indeed. 65 With the removal of British naval vessels from Chinese waters, threats to the Canton system were relaxed. Opium smuggling remained a major problem, but by 1823 the network of smugglers was well established, trans-shipping the contraband from foreign ships onto small local crafts outside the Bogue, so it was no longer a source of conflict between the foreign traders and Chinese authorities at Canton. Illegal payment in silver to the suppliers meant its exportation, which was forbidden by imperial decree. By the time Juan Yüan left Canton in the summer of 1826, the shortage of silver was already becoming evident. His successor became a part of the opium smuggling network as each patrol boat was paid a bribe of 36,000 taels a month to overlook the illicit trade.97 64 In the summer of 1826 Juan Yüan was transferred to the post of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 208 BOOK REVIEWS These and other difficulties in realizing this project seem to have deterred the present compilers. The result, I am afraid, is far from satisfactory. Although the book is set out in several sensible sections, focusing on the harbour, China Town (Western), the strategic areas of Central, the Peak, Mid-levels, several suburbs such as Happy Valley, the vast area of change in Kowloon and the New Territories is condensed into one chapter. However, there are chapters devoted to People (a few random pictures of groups of Chinese people), Buildings of Note, Early Hotels and the Beaches (Repulse Bay). But in design and execution scrappy unrelated text set to grey, dull pictures (even a couple of crudely coloured pictures advertised as the highlights of this collection stand out like sore thumbs) — this book will not satisfy anyone coming to consult it to see how Hong Kong has changed. Eric Cumine, Hong Kong: Ways & Byways: A Miscellany of Trivia. (Hong Kong, 1981). Given the rich varied cornucopia so generously offered to the reader by a man who is so evidently in love with Hong Kong, it seems the best idea is to adopt his own menu arrangement to give some idea of this book. There is some significance in the letters and entries chosen here as examples of 'Cuminology.' Records A measured sense of pride informs this book; so it is no surprise that Eric Cumine says "we have a few records to gloat over". Some, we might agree with e.g. "Hong Kong is the noisiest place in the world, according to a H.K.U. lecturer" (Reviewer's note: not me!) I do not agree that we have the best lawn bowls players in the world. Architecture This is a category not included here: but it should be. In fact, there is a goodly sprinkling of drawings by Eric and his P.W.D. friends. Reflecting the author's modesty, he does not include any mention of his own architectural contributions to Hong Kong's Ways & Byways. Of course, Hong Kong's architecture (apart from the house where the author lives) is a mediocre mass of box-like uniformity. Glamorous City Cumine quotes Fodor to the effect that Hong Kong is the fifth most glamorous city in the world. A captivating but elusive concept. It would ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p ritual and social life, again with the boat people as her base group. More recently she was visiting Reader in Sociology at the Chinese University and full of enthusiasm for further projects and publications in the future, which, alas, are now not to be. Like Holmes Welch, her energetic and enthusiastic approach to Chinese studies will be sadly missed. Both would have appeared to have had many valuable working years ahead, This year will mean new changes in the composition of the council. I would like to record our deepest appreciation to Mr. Tony Rydings who has been our very hardworking and competent librarian for seventeen years. We wish him well in his retirement. Mr. Rydings has kindly consented to stay on to advise and smooth the take over operations until he departs. I also must say goodbye to you. Having helped to found, or rather resuscitate, the Society in 1960 and been on the council in one capacity or another ever since, it will be strange to be no longer actively associated with it. But as we are finally leaving Hong Kong in the autumn, it will also feel strange to be no longer a part of the life of this city. I will, of course, continue to follow the progress of the Society with much interest and will stay in touch through the Journal — perhaps even find time to write for it! xiii MARJORIE TOPLEY ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN AN URBAN ORGANIZATION: THE MUTUAL AID COMMITTEES JANET LEE SCOTT* The Mutual Aid Committees (MACs), or as they are more commonly known in Hong Kong, were first established in June of 1973. They are organizations composed of residents of a building, or more rarely, a group of buildings, and have the dual aims of promoting a sense of friendship and mutual reliance among all authorized tenants and of cooperating to promote better security, a better environment and more effective management generally (City and New Territories Administration 1982:1). Why are Mutual Aid Committees established? Investigations and interviews with government officials carried out during 1976-1978 suggested the following reasons. The first was the desire of the Hong Kong Government to improve communication with the people of Hong Kong. The MACs were originally created under directives from the Home Affairs Department, and came under the jurisdiction of the City District Offices, themselves set up under the City District Officers Scheme of 1968. As one writer described this Scheme: The CDO Scheme was announced at the beginning of 1968, but the first CDOs were appointed in the middle of that year. The Scheme divides the urban areas into ten districts: four on Hong Kong Island and six in Kowloon. A City District Commissioner on each side of the harbor coordinates the work of the CDOs, each of whom has liaison and other duties. * Dr. Janet Lee Scott is a member of the Department of Anthropology, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research on the Mutual Aid Committees was supported by a grant from the Institute of Social Studies of the Chinese University. Doctoral dissertation research carried out during 1976-1978 was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant, an N.D.F.L. fellowship awarded through Cornell University, and a grant from the Cornell Center for International Studies. The author wishes to express her appreciation for such generous financial support. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 2 JANET LEE SCOTT staff amounting to around a dozen in all. The SCA [Secretary for Chinese Affairs: this title was later changed to Secretary for Home Affairs] is put in overall responsibility for the working of the Scheme. The CDOs are specifically enjoined to a) assess the overall impact of government policies, to explain these policies as well as the difficulties and the achievements of the Government to ordinary people, b) to initiate proposals for the new policies or new procedure when the need for these becomes apparent from the feeling of the public, and c) to become aware of problems and conflicts and trends of public thinking before attitudes have been struck. In short, the new CDO Scheme is a response of Government to the public's by-now-hackneyed outcry for 'closing the gap between the Government and the people' (Wong 1972:223). An official source from 1975 gave a similar description: This [Home Affairs] department runs the City District Office Scheme, which was introduced in 1968 to improve communication between the government and people. There are 10 City District Offices and 12 sub-offices in the most crowded urban areas of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Throughout the urban areas, these offices provide a point of contact with the government where even the humblest citizen can go for help in the knowledge that he will be courteously treated, patiently heard and helpfully advised (Government Information Services 1975:211). The Mutual Aid Committees, it was felt, would help the District Offices achieve this aim of improved communication, as they would offer their members opportunities to participate in local affairs, and to express their opinions to the Government. A second reason for establishing Mutual Aid Committees was to aid the authorities in the promotion of various social campaigns. As described in 1980: In 1973 the Hong Kong government decided to take action against two major city problems: a rising crime rate and an accelerating deterioration of the living and working conditions in a number of residential and business units. The plan of action included the launching of two campaigns, the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 4 JANET LEE SCOTT neighbourliness is already developing in some multi-storey blocks where mutual aid committees have been set up, and people are now getting to know their neighbours in a way which seemed impossible before (Government Information Services 1974:9). That the Mutual Aid Committees were believed to be succeeding in these endeavours, and for that reason were being promoted by the Hong Kong government, is suggested by evaluations made of the Scheme early in its history. Apparently, public opinion towards the committees was so favourable during the first years that an early decision was made to continue the formation of the MACs.1 In 1974, it was stated that "Mutual Aid Committees should be regarded as a permanent requirement in helping to ensure a stable society and that the legal requirement for registration, i.e. exemption from registration as societies under the Societies Ordinance provided they were approved by the Director of Home Affairs (or the Secretary for the New Territories, outside the urban area), would be continued" (Director of Home Affairs 1974:5). Such official support was to continue. During interviews conducted in 1976 and again in 1978, liaison officers of the City District Offices of the Wong Tai Sin and Mong Kok Districts were still expressing their satisfaction with committee operation. Further confirmation of committee success, in terms of organization, can be seen in the increased number of committees formed. At the end of their first year, 1973, a total of 1,214 MACs were formed (Government Information Services 1974:9), but by the end of 1981, this figure had risen to 3,573 (Government Information Services 1982:248). At present (to the end of February, 1983) the figure has risen to 3,752. If the Mutual Aid Committees have been considered as valuable organizations by the City District Offices, they have been equally valued by others. Since their inception, the Mutual Aid Committees have proved themselves useful settings in which to investigate such diverse topics as the adjustments of the elderly (Ikels 1983), the delivery of community health services (Grandpierre 1978), and the dimensions of women's participation in urban organizations (Scott 1980). Other scholars have chosen to study the Mutual Aid Committees because they are neighbourhood associations, and thus can be used to explore the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 7 Tions living in many public housing estate blocks. As observed in 1980: One of the largest estates where I interviewed, Tze Wan Shan Estate, is the largest in Hong Kong, housing well over 150,000 people. One of its blocks, Block #66, houses approximately 8,400 people. But it is not the largest. Across the street, Block #61, on the outer edge of the estate, houses nearly 9,900 people (Scott 1980:33). Blocks of this size, with such enormous resident populations, would make the standard arrangement not only impractical, but ridiculous. Yet, there have been some standard committees created under such situations. For example, in 1978 Blocks #62, #64, and #65 of Tze Wan Shan Estate, with a combined population of 11,000 inhabitants, were operating with one committee. Some blocks solve the population problem by dividing into floors; for example, one committee could be formed for, say, every three floors. In 1977, the Mutual Aid Committees of Block #23 of Tung Tau Estate, Wong Tai Sin District, were arranged in this way. It is also possible, if the block has wings, for each wing to have its own committee. Even with all these alternatives, there is probably no one perfect solution to the problem of committee allocation in public housing (Scott 1980:33). 11 “A Mutual Aid Committee must be approved by the District Officer/Assistant District Officer under delegated authority from the Secretary for District Administration on a biennial basis for the purpose of exemption from the Societies Ordinance (Cap. 151)” (City and New Territories Administration 1982:1).10 Each Mutual Aid Committee in Lok Fu Estate follows this rule and is registered for a period of two years. However, before October of 1981, the committees were registered for only one year. The lengthening of the registration period was felt to have a beneficial effect, as it would enable the committees to complete projects planned and generally function more efficiently. At the end of this time, each committee is reviewed by the District Officer or City District Officer and if found to be functioning without serious problems, its certificate is renewed. Each committee has its own biennial cycle, however, based on the time at ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 26 JANET LEE SCOTT NOTES It might be mentioned that the adult population of Hong Kong was, at the time of Mutual Aid Committee formation, already well acquainted with the idea and work of urban organizations. While the Mutual Aid Committees had (and still retain) their own unique design, their structure (and their functions) were not unfamiliar and they were not viewed as mysterious committees having no resemblances to other, more traditional, Chinese organizations. * The other five subdivisions are: Kam Kwok Mansion, Luen Hop Building, Mei Tung Estate, Pui Man Tsuen Cottage Area, and Pok Oi Village (Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982:271). * The exact total, provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate, was 21,221 at the end of February, 1983. • At the end of 1982, the exact figure was 523,927. * The Mark I blocks include Blocks #1-5, #9, #10, and #12, and the Mark II group is made up of Blocks #13-20 and Blocks #22 and #23. The remaining blocks (#6-8, #11, and #21), already rebuilt, are now referred to as Converted Buildings (Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982:272). • This information was provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate. * At the end of February, 1983, there were 26 Mutual Aid Committees in the Lok Fu Area and 286 Mutual Aid Committees for the entire Wong Tai Sin District. * The selection of male members is because all but one of the chairmen of the Lok Fu Estate Mutual Aid Committees interviewed were male. In addition, the opinions of female members towards participation were investigated during the research period of 1976-1978. * Block #23 of Tung Tau Estate is still divided into floors for the purpose of MAC formation. In early 1983, it had five MACs, one for each three floors. 10 In 1982 the old titles of City District Commissioner and City District Officer were changed to District Officer and Assistant District Officer respectively. At the same time the old Home Affairs Department and New Territories Administration were amalgamated into a new department known as the City and New Territories Administration. 11 The official certificates of registration are framed and prominently displayed in the committee's office, or if the committee lacks an office, are kept by an officer, most often the chairman. 19 However, given the apathy of many residents and the low attendance at many MAC meetings, one might wonder if any committee has been dissolved by popular action, the second alternative. 10 This is the schedule as described by the Wong Tai Sin District Office, Tung Tau Sub-office. The office of the Housing Manager, Lok Fu Estate, explained that the conversion has already been completed and that 114 families (the figure as of March, 1983) had already moved in. "These figures have been provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate, and are accurate as to the end of March, 1983. 16 The C.C.C. number is a code number found on the Hong Kong Identification Card and is written under the Chinese characters of the individual's name. 10 According to the Tung Tau Sub-office of the Wong Tai Sin District Office, there are no instances of the mishandling of MAC funds known in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 29 Dwyer, D. J. 1971 BIBLIOGRAPHY "Introduction." In Asian Urbanization: A Hong Kong Casebook. D. J. Dwyer, ed. pp. 1-10. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press. Grandpierre, Kathleen 1978 Personal Communication. Hong Kong Government. Census and Statistics Department. 1977 Hong Kong By-Census 1976. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1978 Hong Kong By-Census 1976. Basic Tables. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1978 Hong Kong By-Census 1976. Tertiary Planning Unit Tabulations, Vol. 1: Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1978 Hong Kong By-Census 1976. Tertiary Planning Unit Tabulations. Vol. 2: Kowloon and New Territories. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1978 Hong Kong Population. A 20-Year Projection. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. Hong Kong Government. City and New Territories Administration. 1982 Model Rules for a Mutual Aid Committee in a Public Housing Estate. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hong Kong Government. Government Information Services. 1974 Hong Kong 1974. Report for the Year 1973. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1975 Hong Kong 1975. Report for the Year 1974. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1976 Hong Kong 1976. Report for the Year 1975. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1977 Hong Kong 1977. Report for the Year 1976. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1978 Hong Kong 1978. A Review of 1977. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1979 Hong Kong 1979. A Review of 1978. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1980 Hong Kong 1980. A Review of 1979. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. 1982 Hong Kong 1982. A Review of 1981. Hong Kong: D. R. Rick, Government Printer. Hong Kong Government. Home Affairs Department. 1974 Annual Departmental Report, Director of Home Affairs. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. Hong Kong Government. Wong Tai Sin District Office. 1982 Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT J. H. HAAN* In this article I shall examine the special governmental structure which came into being in the Shanghai International Settlement,1 and which was virtually unique among colonial or semi-colonial territories. Put succinctly, the Settlement had the following characteristics: 1. It was a territory which had explicitly been set aside by the Chinese authorities (in 1845 on the basis of the 1842 Nanking Treaty) in order that foreigners might live in it and conduct their trade from it. For the rest it was surrounded by Chinese territory, different from, say, Calcutta, Bombay, Colombo or Batavia, which all lay in foreign-dominated areas, if not originally then eventually. 2. It was never the possession of any one single Western power. In this it was distinct from, e.g., Hong Kong, Singapore or Macau. In practice, this meant that no single foreign country was ever able to convert the city into a colony of that country, or to claim sovereignty over it. In the crown colonies, government was conducted by a Governor who was appointed by the home country, and he was assisted by an Executive Council, equally appointed by the authorities; furthermore, there was a Legislative Council which consisted partly of official, ex officio, members and partly of non-official * Mr. Haan is a student of the University of Amsterdam. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 74 ELIZABETH SINN The meeting not appearing to have achieved any great breakthrough, the Government and the Chinese merchants went their separate ways to try to resolve the situation. Later that same afternoon, the 4th, Marsh himself met some of the sureties of the boatmen and assured them of police protection if the boatmen returned to work. They told him they feared violence despite this, but Marsh got the impression that this was merely an excuse to avoid returning to work. He came away with a feeling that they were waiting for some secret order on whether to resume work or not. He also sent word around through Stewart Lockhart that if the people would resume work, the Government would consider as an act of grace any appeal which might be made for a remittance of the fines. No appeals, however, came forward.88 The Chinese merchants, too, continued for the rest of the day exerting themselves in an effort to end the strike. There is no documentary evidence recording specifically what they did, but we shall return later to discuss what had probably been done. Early the next morning, placards signed "All the kaifongs of the Colony" were posted all along the Praya. They claimed that a meeting of those pursuing various trades in the Colony had been held, and the resolution was that all the cargo boats and coolies should resume work on the morning of the 5th October.30 At about 10 o'clock on the 5th, cargo boats started coming over from the Chinese side of the harbour. A crowd gathered on shore and, to forestall violence, a picket of soldiers was moved from the Tung Wah Hospital to the Harbour Master's office. The police read a proclamation calling upon the people to disperse and they did so. Though there were a few isolated cases of attempted interference with those resuming work, the general strike may be said to have ended.10 In fact, there was no serious disturbance after the 3rd. Yet despite this and the resumption of work on the 5th, the Acting Governor remained anxious about the angry and excited feeling among the lower classes of coolies and the large number of triad members he believed to have assembled in Hong Kong. The city was rife with rumours about imminent troubles, and a large ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 91 better social and political deal from the British rulers. The racial feelings whipped up by the press in 1884 are reminiscent of the hysteria created in 1878 by the City Hall meeting to discuss Governor John Pope Hennessy's "misgovernment".98 One cannot deny that racial tensions existed in 19th Century Hong Kong, and it is clear that the English newspapers played a critical role in maximising that tension. In turn this racial animosity drove the Chinese to look inward for mutual protection and leadership. The 1884 events reflect the genuine, positive national feelings, as opposed to narrow anti-foreignism, of the Chinese. Governor Bowen observed that unlike the Arrow War when the Chinese coolie corps freely helped the British and French to attack Chinese positions, in 1884, Chinese artisans, coolies and boatmen in Hong Kong refused all offers of pay to do any work whatsoever for French ships. He attributed this to the awakening of a "common national spirit", something which had developed over the preceding twenty-five years and which was, he felt, a factor likely to prove the turning point of the modern history of China. It is no coincidence that several figures closely associated with modern Chinese nationalism had lived for some time in Hong Kong including Wang TaoE, Ho Kai and Sun Yat-sen.95 There they acquired national identity through living side by side with foreigners. There, they could observe China as outsiders, and in relation to other nations. They could conceive of China as more than a village or province, as one sovereign nation among many sovereign nations. Although in 1884, Chinese intellectuals had not begun to question the sanctity of absolutism in the Chinese Imperial system, there was a slow groping toward something other than the court as the object of allegiance, viz. the vague, incipient concept of "nation". The Sino-French war became a focal point upon which these vague ideas coalesced. Sun Yat-sen himself is reported to have confessed that the courage of the Hong Kong dock workers who refused to work for the French inspired him to embark upon a career of revolution.96 In Hong Kong, Chinese could feel an affiliation with Chinese culture, and yet, through their contact with foreign cultures, they could distinguish what was of value, and perhaps, more importantly... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p TWO CHINESE DOMESTIC MURDERS H. J. LETHBRIDGE* Boswell. "You 'Johnson called the East-Indians barbarians. will except the Chinese, Sir?" Johnson. "No, Sir". Boswell, "Have they not arts?" Johnson. "They have pottery". Boswell. "What do you say to the written characters of their language?". Johnson. "Sir, they have not an alphabet, They have not been able to form what all other nations have formed". Boswell's Life of Johnson 1 George Orwell wrote a celebrated short essay on murder in which he argued that the great classic English murders were mostly domestic and concerned ordinary people. He went on to argue that the violence of external events, such as World War II, had made conventional murder seem unimportant.2 Orwell's essay was published in 1946. A latter-day criminologist is likely to argue that the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 has 'demeaned' murder as a fine art. Before 1965, a murder trial was often an awesome contest - the issue was a matter of life and death. Today a convicted murderer in Britain, or Hong Kong, is likely to experience, on the average, between 7 to 10 years of incarceration. The two cases discussed below, in which both principals were Chinese, raise a number of interesting legal and sociological questions, together with problems of cultural 'confusion'. In each case, the judge and jury had great difficulties in interpreting Chinese behaviour and in understanding the motivation for the crime. Lock Ah Tam: the man who ran ‘amok'? Lock Ah Tam was born in 1872 in Canton, the capital city of Kwangtung province. Kwangtung was then one of the major areas for Chinese emigration and a territory from which over half of China's seamen hailed. As a young man, he went to sea as a ship's steward. In 1895 he settled in Liverpool and stayed there for the rest of his life, marrying a Welsh girl. Before 1914, *Prof. Lethbridge is Professor of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p H. J. LETHBRIDGE she opened a shop in Hong Kong, selling curios and objets-d'art. In 1927 she took a consignment of Chinese antiques, many from her late father's collection, to New York to sell. On October 10, 1927, she met her future husband in that city. Sir Travers Humphreys avers she was not, to English eyes, good-looking; others claimed she was attractive.20 But all agree she was charming and good-natured, much involved in charitable work. Less is known about Dr. Miao. Wai-sheung's relatives and friends never met him. He was a year younger than his wife. He was born in Chekiang (Chiang Kai-shek's native province) and, at the time of his trial, had a mother and sister living in Shanghai in the Chinese city. He claimed his father was a member of the Chinese Legislative Council (sic) and a Justice of the Peace. Miao studied law in China and later at Loyola University, Chicago. He was described as being extremely tall and slim, fluent in inaccurate English. His wife, a Cantonese, was petite, under five feet tall; so they were a noticeable couple together. They were married according to the rites of the American Episcopal Church. Siu was a devout Christian. Miao was probably a Christian, for Christianity was a sign of modernism in the early 1920s among the westernised, educated elite in Shanghai (later Marxism or Nationalism was to largely supplant all forms of religion and YMCA fraternalism among Chinese students and intellectuals). A newspaper report stated, in any case, that Miao 'professed Christianity before he died' (i.e., was hanged).91 After marrying in New York, they honeymooned in Buffalo, then Albany where the bride had a minor operation to facilitate sexual relations (probably dilation of the hymen). About four or five weeks after their wedding, they left for a two-months' vacation in Europe before returning to China. They landed at Glasgow, stayed in Edinburgh a day or two, and on June 17, 1928, stopped at Grange-in-Borrowdale, a Cumberland village, close to Derwentwater. On the next day, January 18, they went for a walk in the morning, returned for lunch, and left for another walk, hand-in-hand, at two o'clock. Miao returned home at about 4 p.m. and said his wife had gone to Keswick, about four miles away, to buy some warmer underwear. She did not return Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 139 10 The Homicide Act of 1957 extended to the English courts the Scottish doctrine of Diminished Responsibility, S. 2 of the Homicide Act, 1957, reads that the accused can be found guilty not of murder but manslaughter, if he was suffering from such abnormality of the mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing'. 11 Marjoribanks, op cit, 388. The police stated in evidence that Lock was drinking one-and-a-half to two bottles of whisky a day. 12 Op cit, 389. **There is an excellent discussion of 'running amok' in Isabella Bird, The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither (London: John Murray, 1883) 355-357.** **Sir Ellis Griffith (1896-1934). Called to the Bar, 1925.** **Sir Frank MacKinnon (1871-1946), afterwards Lord Justice MacKinnon, 1937, MacKinnon had little or no experience of the criminal courts before his appointment to the Bench.** **Sir Travers Humphreys, A Book of Trials (London: Heinemann, 1953) 162.** 17 F. Tennyson Jesse, Murder and Its Motives (London: Harrap, 1924) 11. 1 In R.D. Laing and A. Esterton, Sanity, Madness and the Family (London: Tavistock, 1964), the authors attempt to discover meaning in madness. They argue that schizophrenia, for example, is not something that comes out of the blue but is a product of family interaction: the sources of schizophrenia are to be found in the family environment, family life. 10 See, for example, the tragic 1938 case of Sidney Paul in E. Spencer Shew, A Second Companion to Murder (London: Cassell, 1961) 168-170. Paul killed his wife because he had lately lost his job. This he had concealed from his wife to save her anxiety, and day after day he had left home as if to go to work as a salesman in the city. At last, in desperation, he killed his wife to save her from destitution. * This celebrated and unique series was founded in 1905 by Harry Hodge (1872-1947), the Glasgow Publisher. #1 Homicide and suicide are both forms of aggression: one turned outside, the other inside. Loss of standing or position, related to feelings of shame or injured pride often motivate suicide. **See William Bolitho, Murder for Profit (London: Jonathan Cape, 1926).** 29 See The Times for September 8, October 23, and December 4, 1919. Also E. Spencer Shew, A Second Companion to Murder. (London: Cassell, 1961) 221. "A good account of this development, especially of Man-owned restaurants, is given in James L. Watson, Emigration and the Chinese Lineage: The Mans in Hong Kong and London (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1975). 20 Montagu Williams, Q.C., Round London: Down East and Up West (London: Macmillan, 1893) 76-78. It is possible that Williams mistook a party of Malays or Lascars for Chinese. It is also not likely that a group of Chinese would charge into the street shouting "Amok!". Williams' account is retrospective and written many years after the events were witnessed by him. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 219 by their spotless virtues". A claim that must have raised a few eyebrows. While the actresses were available, there seemed some doubt about the actors. Lord Saltoun, Commander of the Forces, noted on the 25 November 1842 that the Theatre was to open on Wednesday, "But who are to be the actors, I have no idea. I believe some amateurs from the navy”. Once opened, the life of the Theatre was short. Mr. Dutronquoy departed from Hong Kong quite suddenly on the 17th of December. It was alleged that he had to close his Hotel and Theatre under orders from the authorities and pay a fine of $500. This was denied by his agent who stated that the reason for the closure was because Mr. Dutronquoy had “received personal violence added to insult and abuse the preceding evening". One wonders if the "spotless virtues" of the actresses may have been the cause of his troubles. The next notice of dramatics is in December 1844 when a proposal to form a company of amateurs under the patronage of the Governor was announced. It was expressly stated that the authorities regarded the project as a "protection against vice”. Little action took place, however, until the winter of 1845-46 when a group had been organized, a venue secured, and five bills put on between December and June at Aqui's Theatre in the Lower Bazaar. This theatre had been erected some few months previous to the amateurs' first performance there. It was intended for Chinese entertainment, but, being available, it was used by the Hong Kong Amateurs even though it was in the heart of the Chinese section of the city, an area which was usually avoided by the European population of the day. Loo Aqui, the owner of the Theatre, was a leader of the Chinese community. It was alleged that he was allied with pirates but during the recent British-Chinese hostilities he had been very useful in securing provisions for the British forces. As a reward for these services he had been permitted to take up a number of lots in the Lower Bazaar, the area which was allotted to Chinese who had aided the British. On his property, Loo Aqui ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 222 CARL T. SMITH acceptable to the better parts of the community. There were those who looked with disfavour on the theatre. The behaviour of the habitues of the pit, as well as vulgarities in some of the productions of the day, brought the stage into disrepute among the strait-laced. Attitudes were beginning to change, however; in part this was due to attendance at the theatre of that most moral Queen, Victoria. As for the quality of the inaugural performance at the Victoria Theatre in Hong Kong, a reviewer said of the actors, "though somewhat behind the great houses, yet they were such as to give hope of good things ere long. It must be borne in mind, that with several of the performers it was their first appearance on any stage". On the other hand, so few were interested in appearing on the stage, it was a matter for concern as "the corps dramatique consists of only eight members it does not auger well for the general diffusion of dramatic talent among the 'aspiring youth' of the colony". At the next performance, the reviewer faced the dilemma of how to criticize amateurs and still not discourage them. He gently suggests that "we may perhaps be allowed to hint, that a little more time and attention would not be ill-bestowed by the performers in studying the characters they assume as some are considerably over-acted. But our wish is not to be censorious". After this initial burst, amateur dramatics limped for three seasons and then faced death. In 1852 under a heading "The expiring drama" amateurs were invited to attend a meeting at the City Hotel "to plan for a series of productions for the season in order to prevent the demolition of the Victoria Theatre". There was a revival of interest and the season opened in January. It was noted that the new group, which called itself the Victoria Amateurs, was received "with unmingled applause by the fullest and most fashionable audience we ever witnessed in the Theatre or anywhere else in Hong Kong”. Revived interest in amateur dramatics was necessary if the Theatre was not to be converted to other uses for it was not a paying venture for its proprietor, George Duddell. The Anglican Bishop had offered to lease it from him for conversion into a Sailors Home. Duddell, however, had interests of his own in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 224 CARL T. SMITH With children performing there was no question of respectability. It was announced some weeks after the first performance that "several ladies having expressed regret at not witnessing the late performance of the Portuguese children, Mr. Souza, with the consent of the parents, and at the request of the Committee, has consented to repeat the performance at an early date". In 1866 the Portuguese community built a club house at Shelley and Elgin Streets. Attached to it was a small theatre. It was used not only by Portuguese amateurs but, before the opening of the Theatre Royal in the City Hall in 1869, it was the venue for the productions of the Amateur Dramatic Club. The Theatre portion of Club Lusitano was demolished in 1873, The Germans built a club house on Wyndham Street in 1872. It contained a small auditorium. German amateur groups used it for plays and operettas. More appreciated by the non-German speaking community were the concerts and the appearance of Liedertafel singing groups. THE A.D.C—BORN IN A MATSHED An Amateur Theatrical Society was formed in 1860. Its membership was made up of both civilians and military officers. For the 1860-61 season they erected a new matshed. It was said that in its internal arrangements there was "no lack of comfort, indeed elegance has received its share of attention". It included a continental innovation the prompter's box was placed in the centre in front of the curtain "according to the French custom”. The Committee of the Society came under attack for alleged misuse of funds. At the second performance of the 1861 season it was deemed necessary to make a public statement refuting accusations which had appeared in the local press. The Committee had been charged "with spending the profits in cold fowl and sherry behind the scenes." Two professional ladies of the stage also figured in the accusations. The newspaper account of the public explanation concluded with the sentiment that "Hong Kong thanks the Amateurs and has fullest confidence in the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 225 management. We hope they may not be out of pocket as the Garrison Company was last year. After the initial ballyhoo about the Committee, described as a "scolding given in true washer-woman style", which only amused the town, the season was a great success. A slightly sour note was injected into the 1862-63 season because only four performances were given, while it had been announced when advertising for subscriptions that there would be six. Complaints compounded in 1863-64 when prices were advanced to a sum which was thought to be "just beyond the limit to which a class were prepared to pay for entertainment". Consequently, the theatre for the first performance was only half filled. The 1865-66 season also began inauspiciously. At a meeting in November to arrange for the coming season, there was such poor attendance that it was feared the Amateurs might have to give up. When the Amateur Dramatic Corps looked back on its history, it gave its founding date as 1860, however, in the announcements of the group in the 1860s it is called the Hong Kong Amateur Theatrical Society. THE THEATRE ROYAL Amateur dramatics took on a new vigour with the organisation or reorganisation of the theatrical group in 1860. Revived interest emphasised the need of a suitable theatre. Until the opening of the Theatre Royal in the City Hall in 1869, various makeshift arrangements had to be made after the Victoria Theatre was closed in the 1850s. In 1861, the China Mail looked toward the future: We hope the time is not distant when a neat permanent building constructed on the best known principles of acoustics will take the place of the temporary mat sheds, which need so much exertion on the performers' part, and indulgence on that of the audience. The acoustics are bad. Now that the capability of having these entertainments annually is beginning to be procured, it would be well to take measures soon, to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 226 CARL T. SMITH see what should be done toward erecting a permanent theatre". The year following, 1862, plans for a Theatre and Assembly Room were on view at the Hong Kong Club. They were estimated to cost $34,000, but a newspaper reporter was more realistic. In his opinion "a glance shows it would cost $60,000 at least". Something as ambitious as this had to wait some years. It was finally realized with the opening of the City Hall in 1869. In the meantime, mat sheds, a large room in St. Andrew's School and the Club Lusitano were used. A public meeting in 1864 resolved that the Amateur Theatrical Matshed should be kept and a committee appointed to see to its preservation. One happy feature was the debt-free state of the theatre following a successful season. During the 60s there were notices of the Queen's Theatre on Queen's Road East. It was probably the adapted godown mentioned in the columns of Jarrett in his series "Old Hongkong" in the South China Morning Post. A Theatre Royal was on military ground, used not only for performances by the Garrison but also by visiting professional dramatic companies. In 1865 it was announced it was to be pulled down "for much needed barrack improvements". After its demolition, the Garrison amateurs used the Murray Barracks Canteen. The general public expressed its appreciation to the military for permitting the theatre to occupy their ground. It had, however, been a hot, stuffy place, poorly ventilated. TYPES OF DRAMA All the early productions of the amateurs were described variously as farce, burlesque, comic drama, facetious tragedy, vaudeville comedy or burlesque extravaganza. Perhaps the first play of a mere serious tone was given in 1875, when "Plot and Passion" by Thomas Taylor and J. Lang was presented. It was noted, however, that a drawback to such a play was its love scenes, as these were difficult when played by males only companies. The reviewer thought that while it ! ! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 227 was commendable that the A.D.C. had departed from farce and burlesque, its venture into something more serious was not altogether successful; but the fault may have been not in the type of drama but in the type of characters of the particular play. It was the opinion of the reviewer that "In selecting plays they should have no out-of-the-way characters. A success at home may not be suited to Amateurs, such as these in Hong Kong. Some dramas are written for special actors". He suggested that "perhaps the amateurs could give a selection, perhaps one or two scenes, or an act from a standard play, for example, the scene between Wolsey and Cromwell in Henry VIII." This had been done by the Hon. Mr. York at the inauguration of the City Hall's Theatre Royal in 1869 during the visit of His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh. The suggestion was not taken up, and the Company attempted another serious piece, the popular play "The Caste". In this, the amateurs had to compete against the standard set by performances given a short time before by two different travelling professional companies in which actresses played the female parts. The comparison was not kind to the amateurs. As usual, the reviewer was reluctant to criticize, but he did venture to say that the performance might tend to lessen subscriptions for the next season. He thought too much had been spent on the costumes, when, in fact, in his view, "people go to see acting, not wardrobe". The A.D.C. returned to something lighter, and in 1876 put on a very successful burlesque, "The Field of the Cloth of Gold," by William Brough. The opening scene in the London production had been the harbour of Calais; in Hong Kong, it was the Praya between City Hall and the Bath House of the Victoria Recreation Club. The field of the cloth of gold was East Point. Though it was agreed that there was not much scope for dramatic talent in the piece, it was pronounced "an undoubted success, and far surpasses, in splendour of the get-up, number of performers, and brilliancy of the scenes, anything hitherto placed on the boards of this colony". Unfortunately, its lavishness had to be paid for, and it took several seasons before the A.D.C. had a balance. One of the perennial favourites was the burlesque "Aladdin the Wonderful Scamp". It was given in 1863, 1867, 1875 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 236 CARL T. SMITH After nine years a lying-underground That wants unveiling; is it the Duke of Connaught? I fear we cannot hold him tho' we ought, Has Chater found his long-last C.M.G. Or is the new club† opened by the sea? Even the Kowloon-Canton Railway is referred to a dozen or so years before it became a fact.†† Fra Diavolo comments on reading a newspaper: Next comes the news China is awaking Railways in all directions she is making. Fancy from Kowloon city setting forth, 'Change here for Shanghai, Peking, and the North". One of the lyrics gave tips for cutting a figure during the pre-race season: If you want to know the way to be a genuine Hong Kong sport, Listen to me. A griffin* you must have of course, no matter of what sort. At five o'clock in the morning you must trudge to the course; A stop watch in your pocket is the game; And though you need not know a job about a horse They may think you Morny Cannon all the same. Come along with me, come along with me. With boots and breeches spick and span, The latest pattern from Ah Man.** † Sir Paul Chater, Hong Kong merchant and philanthropist. Made Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George 1897. The Hong Kong Club moved from Queen's Road and Wyndham Street to its new building on the Praya (now Connaught Road) 26 July 1897. ††† William Danby, Civil Engineer, was requested by Chinese authorities to make a survey of a railway line from Canton to Kowloon (Daily Press 30 Aug. 1884). In 1888 a group of Chinese capitalists in Hong Kong revived a scheme to build the railroad. They received permission to proceed from the Peking Government in 1890, A survey team began work in July 1890 (Daily Press 12, 18 June, 17 July 1890). The project fell through. One of its promoters, Lo Hok-pang, formed another syndicate at Canton in 1892, but again the proposal had to be dropped. (Hong Kong Telegraph 28 Oct. 1892). * One of the China ponies sent from North China to Shanghai and then to Hong Kong. ** A Chinese tailor. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 239 The Sailor Prince, of course, I mean; To welcome him, may he always be Found playing on the side of the Royal Navy. The military groups were at times strengthened by the addition of actresses. Until the time when Hong Kong resident ladies appeared on the stage, the actresses were from visiting professional companies. Actresses not only provided beauty but at times a necessary gentle touch. The 20th Regiment was performing the farce "Turn Him Out" in 1867, all was progressing well when suddenly one of the players became temperamental and refused to proceed. To soothe the anger of the audience, which was becoming boisterous, the guest actress, Miss Annie Hill, was prevailed upon to announce the suspension of the performance. While a male would have been greeted with hoots and catcalls, the gallantry of the audience gave Miss Hill hearty applause. Some felt, however, that the incident might be a serious threat to the reputation of all garrison performances. In spite of such fears, the Band Company disregarded adverse publicity and presented themselves to the public. According to a report, there was in attendance "a gay concourse of people, with many ladies and their friends". At times rowdy behavior discouraged respectable patronage. At a performance at the Garrison Theatre in 1867 it was said that "some behaved in a style savoring more of a 'penny show' than a respectable theatre, where ladies form a portion of the audience". Performances put on and patronized by the military were more subject to the plague of rowdyism than those produced by the A.D.C. in the dignified setting of the Theatre Royal at City Hall. Another hindrance to military performances was the ruling by the military authorities that no placards could be posted announcing productions. In retaliation, some pranksters put up posters over town announcing a forthcoming play by an officer's dramatic group, though no such production was ever intended. Despite such difficulties, Hong Kong has had a long history of performances by the Garrison. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 241 # APPENDIX ## THE HONG KONG AMATEUR DRAMATIC CLUB AND ITS PREDECESSORS Significant Dates and Performances. (Authors and dates of first publication or production from A. Nicoll, A History of English Drama, "Handlist of Plays".) (Note: only ADC productions are noted here: professional performances, and performances by Garrison groups or other amateur groups not detailed here). ### 1844/45 18 Dec. 1844 proposed to form a dramatic company of amateurs under patronage of H. E. Governor Davis. ### 1845/46 3 Jan. 1846 Tues. last performance given by "Corps Dramatique" at Aqui's Theatre in the Lower Bazaar. 27 Jan. 1846 party of Amateur Performers presented "The Lady and the Devil" followed by "Fortune's Frolic" Aqui's Theatre. 24 Mar. 1846 Amateur Performers Wed. last, "The Midnight Hour" and "The Sleep Walkers" Theatre. 28 Apr. 1846 Amateur performance Mon. evening at Aqui's. 27 June 1846 - Amateur Performers fifth and last performance at Aqui's Theatre. 8 Jan. 1846 at length a fair prospect of a Theatre being erected in Hong Kong. Idea suggested last year. Half of funds needed already subscribed. 9 Feb. 1846 Meeting of shareholders of proposed Theatre at house of Mr. Just, corner Queen's Road and Pottinger Street. ### 1848/49 1 Nov. 1848 first public performance by amateurs in new theatre (the Victoria) erected by Mr. Duddell. "The Weathercock” (J. T. Allingham, 1805) followed by a comic song, concluded with farce "Rival Valets" (J. Ebsworth, 1805). 1 Dec. 1848 - Amateurs second performance. "Fortune's Frolic" farce (J. T. Allingham, 1799) "Bambastes Furioso" burlesque tragic operetta (W. B. Rhodes, 1810) "The Weathered" farce ### 1852/53 8 Nov. 1852 meeting at City Hall of persons interested in the revival of drama in Hong Kong. To take measures for preserving the Victoria Theatre to the community for purpose it was originally erected. Committee of four to organize Theatrical Company. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 244 1870/71 P 1871/72 1872/73 1873/74 — 1874/75 — CARL T. SMITH 25 Nov. 1867 first performance of season at Club Lusitano Theatre: "All that Glitters is not Gold" comedy (J. M. Morton, 1851) "Cox and Box, married and settled" farce (F. C. Burnard and J. M. Morton, 1867) 19 Dec. 1867 Hong Kong Amateur Theatrical Society second performance: "Romeo and Juliet" burlesque "Little Toddlekins" farce (J. Mathews, 1852) 4 Nov. 1870 Amateur Dramatic Club first performance of season at Theatre Royal, City Hall. "Diamond Cut Diamond" farce (W. H. Murray, 1838) "Orpheus and Eurydice" burlesque (H. J. Bryon, 1863) 20 Apr. 1871 "I've Written to Brown" farce (T. J. Williams, 1859) burlesque by Francis Talfourd. 28 Apr. 1871 "Ici, en Parlais Francais" (T. J. Williams, 1859) "Shylock, or the Merchant of Venice Preserved" burlesque (F. Talfourd, 1853) also given in 1867. - 26 Jan. 1872 - "The Two Bonnycastles" farce (J. M. Morton, 1851) "Masanielle" burlesque (R. B. Brough, 1857) 21 Feb. 1872 - "The Rifle and how to use it" farce (J. V. Bridgeman, 1859) 11 Apr. 1872 "Castles in the Air" comedy (T. W. Robertson, 1854) Instead of "Castles", the production may have been "Caste" by T. W. Robertson (1867) 3 Jan. 1873 - "Locked In" farce (J. P. Wooler, 1870) "The Cricket on the Hearth" 13 Feb. 1873 "Kenilworth, or Ye Queen, Ye Earl and Ye Maiden", burlesque 13 Apr. 1873 "The Blighted Being" farce (T. Taylor, 1854) "Checkmate" comedy (Andrew Halliday, 1869) 30 Oct. 1873 1853) "Plot and Passion" (T. Taylor and J. Lang, 1853) 15 Nov. 1873 "The Spitalfield Hospital" farcical comedy "Not such a Fool as she Looks" (H. J. Bryon, 1868) 2 Mar. 1874 —— "A Romantic Idea" (J. R. Planche, 1849) "The Steeple Chase" (J. M. Morton, 1865) 5 Apr. 1875 - "Ticket of Leave Man" (T. Taylor, 1863) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 264 Sham Chun and Canton. But they were those, according to the New Territories Inspectors of Schools, who had lost their jobs because of educational reforms in China and whose training and attitude were too antiquated to be tolerated.”29. 80 The following table, which summarises the types of schooling and careers of twenty-two people of the village, born between 1895-1915, who attended schools in the 1910's and 1920's, helps to show that changed situations had brought new aspirations and demands. The cases are enough to tell that 1) experienced teachers were giving up their jobs for better paid work as shopowners, clerks and even grocers; 2) even 5-8 years of schooling at the traditional village schools turned out people capable of becoming shop-assistants, farmers, labourers or herbalists only and 3) an Anglo-Chinese education could equip people to take up much better-paid jobs such as clerks, registered teachers in the city and eventually headmasters. Year of birth Years in school Type of School Subject Occupations 1895 10 2, over 10 3, 6, 3.1, 1.3 Subsidized village school teacher, shopowner at Shek Wu Hui! 1900 10 1901 5, 8 L, 4, 3, 3 Subsidized village school teacher, clerk at a private firm in Hong Kong 1905 7, 6 Clerk at private firm, businessman, Landowner, farmer, hawker, Interpreter/clerk in Police Department and Medical Department, Subsidized school teacher at Kowloon, headmaster, Businessman at Kowloon, government clerk 1. 12 i ; + TABLE II :: выпитьной سیما ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 269 [Liu Yun Sham] Shang Shui [Sheung Shui] Hsiang Hsiang-kung-so kai-mu te-k'an 1:03, Hong Kong, 1981, pp. 31-32, 51. * The estimated population was given in "Report by Mr. Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong", Sessional Papers, 1899, p. 204. * The figure is worked out on the estimate that about half of the population were males, and 20% of them were within the age group 7-14, Hugh Baker op. cit. p. 73. Hsin-an Hsien-chih, pp. 100, 156-157. G. P. Late, "Report on the Survey of the New Territories, 1900-1901" Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1902, p. 708. The description was given by a late Ch'ing sit-tsai, Liao Chun-nan in a poem (undated) found in a hand-written collection of poems and verses kept by a retired school master in the village. *G. N. Orme, "Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912”, Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1912, p. 56. 14 Ibid., p. 59. 15 "Report of the Director of Education for the year 1912", Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1912, p. N 14. G. N. Orme, op. cit., p. 57. 17 Ibid. "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911" p. 103(26) and "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921", p. 173. Table XVIII of the 1911 Census gives 94,246 as the total population including the N.T., Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po. From this, we have to subtract the numbers for the last two districts, which were placed administratively under New Kowloon. Hence population figure of what we now call the N.T. in 1911 was 80,622. "Report of the Director of Education for the year 1913”, Administrative Reports, 1913, pp. N16-N17. * "Report of the Education Department", Administrative Reports, 1926, p. O5. * Annual Report of the Hong Kong and New Territory Evangelization Society, Hong Kong, 1912, p. 6, ** Annual Report of the Hong Kong and New Territory Evangelization Society, 1918, p. 4. * "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1921", Hong Kong, p. 189. "Report on the Census of the Colony for 1931", Hong Kong, pp. 138-139. "Dr. David Faure and Dr. Patrick Hase discovered last year at the home of a former village school teacher (born about 1875), a villager of Hoi Ha and resident at Pak Sha O Ha Yeung some 365 books of immense interest for the study of traditional village life and scholarship in the area of the New Territories. Amongst these books are a substantial number of textbooks used in the village from about 1875 to the eve of World War II. The books include the standard primers and their revised editions with additional commentaries, a set of three-four-five character primers composed in the late Ch'ing designed for women and children, simple readers, semi-modern texts on history, geography and hygiene, etc. The collection is of great value for further research. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 280 NOTES AND QUERIES potential dangers to the colony argued the need for a governor with an intimate knowledge of the territory and the reputation of being a strong disciplinarian. The situation to which May returned was very different from that which he had left seventeen months previously. The early part of the year 1911 was fairly peaceful2 in spite of the abortive uprising in Canton in April and the assassination of the Manchu general there in August. But the outbreak of the revolution in central China in October soon spread to Canton and the Manchu governor was forced to flee to Hong Kong in early November. These successes were wildly celebrated by the Hong Kong population with demonstrations and firecrackers. But rejoicing soon gave way to hooliganism and violence as the feeling grew that the overthrow of the foreign Manchu government in China ought soon to be followed by the ousting of the British from Hong Kong. Shops were looted in broad daylight, the police were stoned, Europeans were threatened and attacked on the streets, bomb-making factories were discovered, and laws were openly defied. When police made arrests they were liable to be attacked by mobs attempting to release the prisoner. There was a rush by Europeans to buy firearms for self-defence.3 Lugard took strong measures to deal with this situation. There were daily route marches through the streets of the city by soldiers with fixed bayonets. On 30th November emergency powers under the Peace Preservation Ordinance were invoked by proclamation, giving the police wide powers to disperse crowds, enter houses and make arrests, and the same day an amending bill was rushed through the Legislative Council in one meeting to give magistrates the power to impose the penalty of up to 24 lashes with a cat o' nine tails for a wide range of offences, in addition to any other penalty prescribed by law. In the three months from December 1911 to February 1912 fifty-one prisoners were flogged with the cat o' nine tails for such offences as theft, assaults on the police and resisting arrest. At the same time the garrison was reinforced with two battalions of infantry and a battery of artillery sent from India, These strong measures had their effect and before Lugard departed in March 1912 he felt sufficiently confident that the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p NOTES AND QUERIES 281 disturbances were under control to rescind the proclamation invoking emergency powers as soon as the Chinese New Year celebrations were over. But conditions in the colony had not yet fully returned to normal and various wild rumours continued to be put into circulation, including the story that when May arrived the enlarged garrison would make an attack on China and annex further areas of Guangdong north of the New Territories. However, no-one was expecting any serious trouble on the morning of 4th July when the elite of the colony turned out to welcome the new governor. The ship bringing Sir Henry May from Fiji arrived off Kowloon point early in the morning and at 10 a.m. Sir Henry crossed the harbour in the government launch to Blake Pier where he was greeted with a salute of 17 guns. He inspected the guard of honour and met the members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, all of whom were well-known to him. Among them was Sir Kai Ho Kai, the senior member of the Legislative Council, who had just received his knighthood, the first ever given to a Chinese in Hong Kong. Sir Kai had strong connections with the reform movement in China, but he had loyally supported the British administration in the measures taken to deal with violence in the colony, and the knighthood was his reward for this as well as for his long career of public service. The next part of the ceremonial was the procession to the City Hall. Sir Henry and Lady May took their seats side by side in two sedan chairs, each carried by eight coolies. The chairs were escorted by eight Indian constables, four on the right of Sir Henry's chair marching two paces apart, and four on the left of Lady May's chair. Behind them was a European police sergeant, and he was followed by four more chairs carrying the four daughters of the new governor. The route to the City Hall was lined by soldiers stationed at intervals of three paces on either side of the road. As the procession left Blake Pier and passed along Pedder Street towards Des Voeux Road a Chinese dressed in European clothes was seen to push his way through the crowd around the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 310 BOOK REVIEWS "Behind Barbed Wire" is a very self-centred account. With Leiper, one senses a greater compassion and a more generous nature. He is unstinting in his praise of the junior bank staff for their courage and determination, right down to the Number One Coolie's ability at organising refugee accommodation. There is the extraordinary loyalty of his domestic servants, one of whom died of starvation, and there is the unhappiness of the Japanese bankers with the brutal treatment meted out by the military. Not all is black or white. Also, where Jean Gittens merely notes the internees' ability to laugh at themselves, Leiper leavens the whole of his account with delightfully humorous anecdotes, which bring the story vividly alive. Above all, it is in Leiper's account that the plight of the local population is given due recognition. Perhaps it is because of the greater variety of his experiences and the period spent outside the camp, but the broader impression of conditions in the rest of the colony and the sufferings of the ordinary people of Hong Kong lend to the book a greater balance and perspective: "Even more distressing than these scenes of brutality was the unforgettable sight which we witnessed daily, of Chinese men, women and children lying on the pavement or huddled in doorways dying gradually of starvation, and looking at passers-by, who were powerless to assist, out of eyes from which all expression had already gone." Of the 2,300 interned at Stanley, 130 did not survive, but of Leiper's one hundred Chinese bank staff, fully one fifth could not be accounted for after the war. In the absence of a first-hand account from Chinese sources, Leiper has done much to improve our perspective. J. A. MILLER Pan Ling, In Search of Old Shanghai, Joint Publishing Company, Hong Kong, 1982, n.p. I wish I had known about this admirable historical guide to Shanghai when I made a research trip there last year. (In fact, I am led to believe that the present issue is an English translation of an earlier Chinese edition, although clearly, the author, whilst having the familiarity with the city which can only come through having lived there, is now a British resident.) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 311 from 5 million Shanghai, despite its recent prolific growth to 1 million in recent years straddling along the banks of the Huangpu river is, for the visitor, the oldest Treaty Port of China. The tourist does not see and probably is not particularly interested in seeing the ring of satellite suburbs around the commercial city of the 1930's. Shanghai is, for the traveller, the mile long Bund with the famous landmark of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Building, the former Cathay Hotel (now the Peace Hotel), the British consular gardens and the famous Shanghai Club (now the Dong Feng Hotel whose notorious long bar room is now used for wedding receptions). And, even though the Nanking Road does not exactly convey the excitement of the heady decadent atmosphere of the night club haunts of the champagne-swilling, déraciné White Russian dance hostesses of the Bubbling Well Road of the 1930s; nevertheless, even today, one can still buy the cream cakes and coffee in the cafés and cake shops of the area houses of consumerism among the deserts of the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 departmental stores of the socialist regime. The outstanding merit of this book is that it is much more than a guide to the tourist wishing to find the whereabouts of the old landmarks of Shanghai. In fact, it is a very attractive presentation of the well-known (e.g. the life of luxury) and of the lesser-known (e.g. the intellectual and political life) aspects of Shanghai's social history in the modern period. The style is simple and clear and the balance of the treatment of subjects is perfect. (Consider for instance, the account of Shanghai's contributors to the Chinese film industry. This gives an extra dimension to Laida's history of the Chinese cinema and its thesis of the silver screen as the projection of Chinese politics.) Finally, reading this nostalgic and informative re-creation of Old Shanghai makes me, at least, wish that the same kind of thing could be done for Hong Kong. But, probably, we shall have to wait till after 1997 for that suitable opportunity to recapture the essence of a city, when progress and change comes ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 335 thing rarely if ever seen in books on landscape architecture, a guide to the plants used. Since every kind of climate and ecological environment is included in this book covering all of China, it would be of great interest to know how botanical variety is adopted in different kinds of gardens. H. Y. SHIH Over Hong Kong Lew Roberts, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong 1982, 97 Colour Plates. Over the last few years the South China Morning Post has published a number of volumes of photographs of the highest quality, both having regard to the photography and to the printing. This volume is almost certainly the best of these, since it is simply by far the best photographic record of Hong Kong yet published. The 97 plates of this volume are all aerial photographs, and give a very wide ranging view of Hong Kong, with 28 plates of Hong Kong Island, 17 of Kowloon, and 49 of the New Territories, and of subjects ranging from Government House to squatter areas, duck farms, and junk heaps. Obviously, any volume of aerial photographs is bound to be short on reflections of the human element: a particular problem in a city such as Hong Kong where the vitality, colour, and bustle of the street-level community is so important in the creation of the spirit of the city. By photographing from the air, even though from a low flying aircraft and with razor sharp reproduction, almost all of this street-level vigour is lost. It is very much to Mr. Roberts' credit that, despite this huge disadvantage, he manages to suggest a substantial amount of the human element in his pictures, and in many of them actually manages to provide a new perspective on human activity. Thus, his photographs of the Aberdeen Junk Yards (No. 36) conveys the chaotic, busy nature of those yards perhaps better than any other type of photograph could. His photographs of Ocean Park (No. 39), the Shaw Brothers Studio (Nos. 88 and 89) and a Mai Po marshes village ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p BOOK REVIEWS 337 according to the social groups supporting them, into the following types: (I) Theatre organized by territorial groups (IA) The theatre of market based village unions (IB) The theatre of agriculturally based village unions (IC) Village community theatre (II) Theatre conducted by kin groups (IIA) Theatre jointly organized by clan communities (IIB) Theatre separately organized by 'branch groups' of clans (IIC) Theatre organized by family groups' (III) New theatre developed in the emerging towns (IIIA) Theatre conducted by merchants (Expansion of 1A) (IIIB) New theatre conducted by small and medium landowners instead of big landlords (Expansion of IB and IC) (IIIC) New family theatre conducted by the small and medium landowner classes in town (Expansion of IIC) Looking at ritual theatre in Hong Kong, the author suggests that the early ritual settlers, whether Hakka, Cantonese or Hoklo, appear to develop theatre of the community type (IC + IIA), while the Cantonese living in the city develop the town type (IIIA + IIIB). As to the theatre developed by the Ch'au-chou people in Hong Kong, this, generally speaking, is similar to the clan type (IIB + IIC). The third aspect of the book is a discussion of the problem of the diffusion of ritual theatre. The author condenses the diffusion routes of ritual theatre under (1) diffusion through the clan or bureaucratic network, (2) diffusion through the commercial marketing network, and (3) diffusion through peasants' migration. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 346 BOOK REVIEWS anything else known to me. This book is a real mine of information for all interested in traditional China. The second value of Things Chinese is the short bibliography attached to each major article: this makes the book an indispensable index to all other early European books on China a feature of great value. The Hong Kong Guide 1893 and Kwang Tung, or Five Years in South China are much slighter, although both contain a wealth of comment on Hong Kong and its surrounding countryside at the turn of the century. The most interesting point from these books to me is not the “quaintness" of the picture given of Hong Kong a century ago, but its pride in itself, in its commercial drive and success, and in its modern and metropolitan facilities. It is obvious that much of modern Hong Kong's self-image is very deep-rooted in the city! The only criticism of these volumes (with the exception of The Hong Kong Guide 1893 and Kwang Tung, or Five Years in South China) is their unwieldy and bulky format. The works are all long anyway, but become impossibly thick when printed on heavy paper and bound in boards. Things Chinese in this reprint is a good 3 inches thick - a full half inch thicker than the Concise Oxford Dictionary and awkward and cumbersome to use in consequence. Thinner paper and a less bulky book would surely be more desirable, even if this would result in a somewhat less "turn-of-the-century" feel. - These volumes are strongly recommended to all students of traditional China, they are still today of very great practical value, as well as being of unfailing interest. I for one await the next volumes in the series with eager anticipation. P. H. HASE Peter Y. L. Ng and Hugh D. R. Baker, New Peace Country: A Chinese Gazetteer of The Hong Kong Region, Hong Kong University Press, 1983 It has taken a long time to produce a work on the historical background to Hong Kong. Nearly 90 years ago, E. J. Eitel published his Europe in China. This was in fact a detailed history of British Hong Kong which gave scant notice to the ! i ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v FIELD TRIP TO MARYKNOLL HOUSE, STANLEY BY THE HONG KONG ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY DEC. 8, 1984 Notes on the Visit by Fr. M. McKiernan M.M. I wish to extend a warm welcome to all the members of the Royal Asiatic Society gathered here today. First of all, I should like to mention that I have been a member of this society since 1959, and have enjoyed many happy field trips organized by the society. Now to get on with the subject of today's field trip, Maryknoll House, Stanley. I should like to tell you something about the house which one sees on this knoll when one comes down the mountain side from Repulse Bay into Stanley. With its red brick walls, green tile roof and a touch of Chinese architecture the house looks a bit mysterious. So, first I should like to tell you the 'why' of the house, then the 'when', and 'how', and finally its present status. The house was built for three reasons. First of all, it was to be the headquarters of the Maryknoll Fathers in South China. Perhaps I should mention here that Maryknoll is the popular name of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America. This is an organization of priests and brothers founded under the auspices of the American Bishops to bring the good news of the gospel to those who have not yet had the opportunity to enjoy it. Maryknoll was founded in 1911. The first priests came out to China in 1918 to a district west of Macao called Kong Moon. Several years later another area was taken in Northern Kwangtung Province around the city of Kaying. The language there was Hakka. About 1928 another area in Kwangsi around the city of Wuchow was taken. Then about 1938 another area was taken around the city of Kweilin in Northern Kwangsi. The language there was Mandarin. So there were priests working in three different language areas. The second reason for building the house was to be a language school for the new priests coming out to China. They would spend the first year here studying ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v In fact a pair of monkeys liked the place and seemed to want to join up. They would scamper all around the house as if they owned it. However, as they were not housebroken they were a nuisance. One day a very religious monkey was found in the chapel. He ran into the sacristy and the door was slammed on him. Then the tennis net was brought up to capture him. The door was flung open, and in charged the priests with the net flying. The monkey was so frightened that he smashed right through the window and disappeared in the woods. Apparently he had decided he didn't want to be a monk after all. There were no great incidents at the house till the war came in 1941. Incidentally, I was ordained in 1941 and arrived in Hong Kong the night before Pearl Harbor on the last of the Pan Am Flying Clippers. And today happens to be the anniversary of the starting of the war! It was dusk on that Dec. 7th as we drove from the airfield out to Stanley, so we didn't see much of the city. Next morning when I was saying Mass in the lower chapel, there were big explosions and the altar jumping around. I thought this is probably the way they start every day in the East. Then when I came down to breakfast, the news had been received on the radio that the Japanese were attacking Hong Kong. We also got the first uncensored reports on Pearl Harbor. As the Japanese army gradually conquered Hong Kong Island, many refugees came to take shelter in the house. The Salesian Fathers had brought out a group of orphans and taken over a part of the house. Some military were also quartered in the house. With us nine new arrivals, the staff etc. there were some thirty people. The war started on Monday, so on Tuesday we as aliens had to go downtown to register. The bus went through Aberdeen, right past Mt. Davis, a big British military installation. The Japanese were bombing this all day, and so we spent practically all day jumping on and off buses, diving into the gutters along the roadside or darting into air raid shelters. We arrived in town just in time to catch the last bus home. However, after dark, the bus only went as far as Repulse Bay and we had to walk the rest of the way. With us were two Carmelite Sisters who had been to town to buy provisions for the siege. As we came down the road into Stanley ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 24 intellectual effort of redefining religious aims and methods and it is doubtful whether monks in Hong Kong have embarked on this soul-searching trip yet. This article is about how Hong Kong has provided a unique challenge to the Buddhist sangha and a report of its response to these challenges. Hong Kong is unique in the sense that it is a rare meeting point of Chinese and Western cultures and a highly developed city where technology and science have taken hold. One can imagine that because of this Buddhism would have had to make dramatic changes. However, the case is not so simple. The changes made to Buddhism in Hong Kong should be seen in context. Many of the temples in Hong Kong have long connections with those in China. The changes in the sangha are better seen as a continuation of the adjustments to modern life which have arisen in China generally since the latter half of the nineteenth century. Holmes Welch's observation a little over twenty years ago is still basically valid: We may say that Buddhism in Hong Kong fits into the pattern of Chinese Buddhism as a whole over the past hundred years: revitalization of faith and practice among laymen, sparked by a few really able monks, whose talents stand in all the greater contrast to those of most of their brethren.1 Of course, the march of time has forced what twenty years ago were recognized merely as tendencies to become vastly more powerful currents, some of which have reached critical proportions. The problems confronting the practical aspect of this research are many. The concept of 'self-perception' is not a frequent item within the monk's vocabulary. None of the monks I interviewed could give a satisfactory answer when the question was put to them directly. My conclusions are deductions based on the above interviews and on magazine articles. 11. General situation faced by Buddhism in Hong Kong We need a general description of the sangha in order to provide the context in which specific issues can be discussed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 26 the problem of space was solved and the ancestors acquired additional merit by sharing that gained by the monks' prayers. Thus, the ancestors' hall (1) has become a rich source of revenue in many Hong Kong monasteries. The affluence of the sangha is most easily seen in the many very spacious and ornate temples built or rebuilt in recent years. These magnificent buildings in turn become centres of attraction for devotees and tourists. As we shall see below, these temples do not really serve the direct needs of the sangha, which has diminished in number. (Very often, only a handful of monks live in a monastery which could accommodate hundreds.) The affluence of the monks is again seen in the proliferation of small temples and houses of cultivation (#4). There are altogether about 400 big and small temples and the significance of this large number is self-evident if we bear in mind that there are altogether only about 200 to 250 monks and about 1,000 nuns in Hong Kong. It is estimated that there are about a dozen big monasteries each of which holds in excess of ten monks, and a significantly larger number of nunneries containing about that number of nuns. It appears then that a small temple has on the average only one monk or two or three nuns. If a monk is wealthy enough, there is a great attraction for him to own a temple himself, for then he can avoid the difficulties of living in common with other monks or of subjecting himself to an abbot. The impact of this development on the monk's religious cultivation is yet to be investigated. 4. Another development during this period was the establishment of Buddhist centres within the urban areas. Many of the small temples mentioned above are situated within high-rise blocks of flats in the crowded areas of the city. Thus, the monks make themselves readily accessible to the populace whether for the purpose of spreading the Buddha's teaching, doing social work, administering to the schools or performing Buddhist ceremonies. The old centres in the New Territories were not given up. With the expansion of the population and the development of new towns, these old centres have in turn become readily accessible. Constant streams of devotees and tourists are a normal happening nowadays. The net effect has been that contact between monks and ordinary people has become very considerably increased. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v the city. Prayers and meditations have become simplified. At any rate, these were less understood and appreciated by ordinary people. The search for a new role is a search for an identity which can be understood and appreciated by an average person. For this reason, it is not a surprise to hear discussions about new prospects for monkhood and new Buddhist enterprises in welfare and education.18 Buddhist advances in welfare and education have been rapid and have paid off well in forging an identity which has gradually become recognisable. Buddhist success in this area is all the more remarkable when it is contrasted with the fact that hardly any of these social activities had any place in the traditional sangha. In the old days, any schooling given by a monastery was for the purpose of training monks and nuns. Nowadays, the Hong Kong Buddhist Association alone runs fifty educational institutions, ranging from primary to tertiary levels. While there was some caring for orphans in the old days, the running of hospitals, care and attention homes and homes for the aged on a large scale are a modern phenomenon. Buddhist involvement with youth work, another new venture, is in its initial stage of development. One of the more curious developments of this out-going trend of the sangha is the creation of the Buddhist marriage ceremony. Buddhist monks have always been present at rituals for the dead. The Buddhist doctrines of the insubstantiality of the world and the suffering inherent in it are appropriately associated with death in the mind of the average individual. But for one who holds a doctrine which has nothing positive to say about marriage and family life to be present at a marriage ceremony would be rather odd. Still more so, for a monk to preside at the marriage ritual is almost beyond comprehension. Yet this kind of ritual is how proposed and practised by monks in Hong Kong. Somehow, Hong Kong monks want others to know that Buddhism is relevant for ordinary life. They want to wash away the reputation of being uninterested in ways of the world. This reputation is synonymous with being outcastes from society; strange, unwanted rejects. No, Buddhism has something ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 69 A word needs to be said about the term 'Chinese'. Within China now live a number of ethnic groups. In addition to the Han majority, there are Manchus, Mongolians, Tibetans, and so on. Linguistically, the word 'Chinese' is usually made to refer to the language of the Han group. A number of dialects are found within the Han language, the ones of most interest to us in our study being Cantonese, Mandarin, and to a lesser extent, Amoy. The great majority of the loans described in our study have entered English from these three dialects. In a small number of cases, e.g. Lama, Manchu, Cathay, we have extended the word 'Chinese' to cover non-Han languages used in China. A few loans described in our work have entered English through another language, as in the case of tycoon ultimately from ta-ta or 'great Mandarin' and soya ultimately from shi-yu which were borrowed through Japanese. We have excluded from our list of loans those words which refer only to individual persons and specific geographical locations. Our selection is based on the meanings of the loan words in the borrowing language, and not on their originals, which may be the names of people or of places. For example, the source for Bohea Wu-i is the name of a mountain range transliterated 武夷 according to its Amoy pronunciation, and the name of a city Nanking has given rise to nankeen the name of a kind of cloth. In the case of Confucius and Mao, these combine readily with other elements to form words which refer to a philosophy, an ideology, or even a style of clothing, e.g. Confucianism, Mao jacket. We have taken care only to choose those words which are in general use, and have excluded the 'jargon' associated with various specialized fields, e.g. wu tsai or ‘five colours' connected with the study and appreciation of Chinese porcelain, or ping, shang, qu, ru used to refer to the tones in Chinese linguistics. The loan words chosen for discussion in our study have been selected according to the following criteria: (1) they occur in books and periodicals published in Hong Kong or abroad within the last three decades (up to 1983). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 82 at least for some sections of the language community, when it occurs in puns and other examples of wordplay. During a popular television show in the U.S. a chow dog which bites people but is quite timid is described as 'chicken chow mein'. The term wok has become so familiar that it has become a favourite item for puns. A fast food Chinese restaurant in Boston is called 'Wok In'. In San Francisco audiences watching a cooking programme are told to 'get wokking'. When someone had returned from a trip to Bangkok with some Thai silk ties, an expatriate colleague of ours was heard to make the following remark: 'Did the Thai tai tai tie your Thai tie? The noun lap sap from Cantonese laap saap ‘rubbish' is known to almost every English-speaker who has lived in Hong Kong for some time. Some people objected to the use of the word 'rubbish' as a verb in a slogan for the Clean Hong Kong Campaign launched by the Government recently: 'Don't rubbish your city' was felt to be bad English. The following letter to the editor of The South China Morning Post may be taken as evidence that lap sap and 'rubbish' are taken to be synonyms in the same language: 'To whoever gave us "Don't rubbish your city”, a piece of advice. Don't lap-sap your language.' (South China Morning Post, 7/12/82). NOTES 1 See M. Chan and H. Kwok, A Study of Lexical Borrowing from English in Hong Kong Chinese, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1982. + The study is in the form of a monograph entitled Chinese Loan Words in English with Special Reference to English in Hong Kong has been accepted for publication by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, and will appear by early 1985. The monograph will include an appendix giving a list of 105 loan words with notes on pronunciation, meaning and etymology. * Oxford, 1962, p. 143. * For example, A.J. Bliss, A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases, London, 1980, includes chopsticks, chopsuey, kowtow, kuomintang, sampan, tycoon. D. Carroll, Dictionary of Foreign Terms in the English Language, New York, 1973, has kowtow and sampan. A.H. Halt, Phrase and Word Origins, New York, revised 1961, has fairly lengthy explanations of pidgin terms and prevalent false etymologies, and includes references to chop chop, chow, kumquat, chau min. Б A.J. Bliss, op. cit. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v In fact it has almost as many people as Lamma, nine times its size and close to Hong Kong. Its average elevation is about 100 feet, and there are three villages. Many other islands lie outside the British boundary. Of them I can say practically nothing, as I have never visited them, and there are no large-scale maps of them. They remain a rich field for enquiry and research in every direction. In conclusion, I can only hope I have not bored you unduly; if I have, I can only say that having known and visited the islands for twenty years, I find them more interesting every year, and if I have interested some of you, I shall feel this afternoon has not been spent in vain. 9th August 1937 I NOTES See J. Dyer-Ball's Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China fifth edition, revised by E.T.C. Werner (1925), re-issued by OUP, Hong Kong, 1983, pp. 297-8. * Yuen Chau Tsai, ("Little Round Island"), where the residence of the District Officer was is now the home of the Secretary for District Administration. The adjacent anchorage was reclaimed a few years ago. * Naikwuchau is now called Hei Ling Chau ("Happy Island"). This followed its early postwar lease to the Leprosy Mission (Hong Kong Auxiliary) which resulted in the change of name, intended to reflect the "healing" nature of the work and the improvement in the patients' lives. * Now the Rural Committee Offices. * Tai Ho at present uses for its name characters meaning "Big Oyster". * The yamen is usually now called the Tung Chung Fort, or Tung Chung Walled City. * At Tei Tong Tsai ("Little Pits"). * Ngong Ping (“High Plain"). * Dedicated to Yeung Hau Wong. * Tsin Yue Wan at present uses for its name characters meaning "Fried Fish Bay". * Now usually called Fan Lau ("Divided Streams”). * This fort is known as Kai Yik Kok Fort (“Chicken's Wing Point"). On it, please see A.M. da Silva Fan Lau and its Fort, an Historical Perspective, in Vol. 8 (1968) of this Journal pages 82-95. * Tai Long Wan ("Big Wave Bay"). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v SECULAR NON-GENTRY LEADERSHIP OF TEMPLE AND SHRINE ORGANIZATIONS IN URBAN BRITISH HONG KONG JAMES HAYES There is now, in contrast to ten or twenty years ago, a sufficient body of research on Hong Kong's rural society to make possible some reliable conclusions on the nature of its institutions and their leadership at the local level, especially in the field of religion.* The place of the community temple in the rural setting, and the manner of its secular leadership, has been well-established by a number of studies, and comparisons with adjoining areas of Kwangtung enable one to state with confidence that communally organized non-gentry temple management bodies were normal and of crucial significance throughout traditional Hong Kong (and South-east China) society. This phenomenon mirrored the general capacity for self-management that characterized rural society as a whole, and its manifestation in the religious sector of village life was clearly only a part of a general competence that extended into social, economic and political aspects of the whole spectrum of rural activities. 1 The urban situation is less well researched, especially in its historical aspects. Hong Kong comprised a number of scattered villages and small fishing ports before the establishment of Victoria and its first urban suburbs in the 1840s, and whilst it is clear that, being without gentry, these were organized in the self-management pattern by peasants or shopkeepers that we have come to expect from studies of similar communities in the New Territories, it is not so certain whether this pattern was continued into the new city which was so quickly established on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island. Did the same pattern of leadership emerge at street and district level, associated with the new shrines and temples established by and for the new population; or did another pattern of temple organization involving overall leadership by merchant elites who were not identified with a particular * See plates 1-8. Page 135 Page 136 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 114 $ temple's immediate vicinity take their place? Practically from the start, for example, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, Tai Ping Shan, became identified with a city-wide group of merchant and trade guild elite figures that, by 1870, had been further elevated by its incorporation into the management of the newly established Tung Wah Hospital, an institution that could speak for all Chinese in Hong Kong. But was this to imply that all new urban and suburban temples and shrines were subject to merchant and trade guild elite control? Was a new, elite-leadership pattern imposed from the outset in all localities by the leaders of the merchant community in what, after all, was not a very large or widely dispersed population, given the tendency to congregate near the workplace in the central districts of Victoria? Or did any new urban and suburban village-type shrines and temples emerge according to the well-established self-managing patterns of the countryside from which most of the new population had come? And did the older, pre-British temples also fall under the sway of this merchant elite, or did they continue under their own local management? This article endeavours to answer these questions, being mostly concerned with the new communities of British Hong Kong, established after the island passed under British rule in 1842. The first of the communities studied was located on the small island of Ap Lei Chau, a coastal market centre and boat people's anchorage on the south side of Hong Kong Island and was centred on a long-established temple. Five others were geographically organized inter-dialect communities organized to arrange the worship of street shrines serving their localities. Three of these shrines were located in the older and well-populated western part of early urban Hong Kong; the others were in the Shau Kei Wan area on the eastern part of the island, in what were originally scattered small communities of vegetable farmers, stone cutters, boat builders and shopkeepers settled along the shore and on the hillsides, just outside the long-established fishing port. In every one of these cases the inspiration and continuance of these shrines was due to local initiatives and local management, perhaps because their universally desired end — namely, communal good fortune and prosperity under the protection of the gods was the concern of residents in each place. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 135 14.8.1897, all three Ap Lei Chau residents belonging to the old Luk Hing, Sau Hing, and Fuk Hing Tongs respectively. Their evidence enlarges and confirms the information obtained from the record of the Squatter Board's proceedings. "Hayes 1977, pp. 99-101. The Tai O information is more explicit on this point, but the Cheung Chau practice was the same. ** See E.G. Pryor, Housing in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983) pp. 15-17. These new urban districts were very susceptible to contagious disease. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote: "Going ashore our visitor would see in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world.. It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding 1⁄2 square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre." (Sessional Papers 1889, pp. 303-304). 15 ** Victoria had seven officially-approved sub-districts in 1857, as listed and described in the Hong Kong Government Gazette for 9 May 1857, GN No. 69. They included "No. 1, or SEI-YING-POON — From the small village westward, called Cowee-wan, to the end of Circular Buildings, including all the houses on Bonham Strand, west of No. 1 Police Boat Station. The historical development of this area is given by Revd. Carl T. Smith's note at pp. 211-218 of JHKBRAS 14(1974) in "Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas....) See also Chapter 3, Sheung Wan, of Frank Leeming's Street Studies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1977) pp. 45-66. 24 Sheung Fung Lane itself is situated between Second and Third Streets in that section bounded by Centre Street to the East and Western Street to the West. ** An account of pao wui at the Tam Kung festival in Shau Kei Wan from a Secretariat for Chinese Affairs' file of 1958 is typical: "There were about 15 Kaifong elders in the Tam Kung temple who were enrolling pao wui (K), there were about 18 pao wu's from the sea and about 10 from the land. The wul's who brought their own roast-pigs with them had to pay "oil money" and "worshipping fees" from $10 to $30 to the elders before entering the temple. It is learned that the worshippers have no objection to pay these fees. In addition the temple keeper also charged $5 or $10 for each roast-pig brought into the temple plus $5 to $10 "oil money". 20 A recent account of the proceedings at Sheung Fung Lane is given in the article "Everyone's festival" in The Asia Magazine issued weekly by Asia Magazines Ltd., Hong Kong, Vol. 21, Number V7, 4th January 1981, pp. 3-6. 3-6. For a very well illustrated account of a similar old neighbourhood in Singapore, and its community festivals, see "Singapore's Vanishing Chinatown" by Joan Ogden in The Asia Magazine 25th July 1976. * "No. 3, or TAI-PING-SHAN From the end of Hollywood Road near Circular Buildings, to Gough Street steps, including all the houses on the south side of the Queen's Road between these two points." See the plan opposite p. 124 of Marjorie Topley (ed) Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 1967). This was drawn in 1882 (ibid, pp. 123-124). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 136 Sources on population are given in Marjorie Topley and James Hayes, "Notes on Temples and Shrines of Tai Ping Shan Street Area" in Topley (ed), op cit, pp. 123-141, at p. 124. 20 Topley, op cit, p. 139. These and other details are given in Topley, op cit, pp. 123-125 and 136-139. * See note 5 above. Whilst the Kung sor is still in existence a school building (R) on the other side of the temple has been pulled down. See the photograph p. 72, 58 in the Urban Council's 1982 publication, The Hong Kong Album. For a historical account of this area see Revd. Carl T. Smith's note on "The Five Terraces" with Li Po Lung Path, in "Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas)," in JHKBRAS 14(1974) pp. 197-199. + + There is a possible confusion here. If the three powers of nature are intended it would be, without A. If truly 三聖公 it could refer to Yao, Shun and Yû or Yü, Chou Kung and Confucius (W.F. Mayers, The Chinese Reader's Manual, (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1874) pp. 301-302.) I am grateful to liaison staff of the City District Office, Western, who obtained the information on this shrine for me in 1974. The 1841 estimate comes from the first Hong Kong census of May 1841. The remaining figures, taken from later census returns and other sources, can conveniently be found in Hayes 1983, p. 253 note 21. 10 Tung Tai Kai and its eastern adjunct Ah Kung Ngam together had four temples. There were large Tin Hau and Tam Kung temples in the Street. To its front, built on rocks in the sea and therefore known as the Hoi Sum Temple (or temple in the sea), was another smaller, older Tin Hau temple which for long has been completely hemmed in by squatter boats. On the east was the fourth of these temples, dedicated to Yuk Kung (Jade King). Tablets and other dated material inside the temples, together with other information, show that they date as far back as the 1860s, 1905, the 1890s and the 1840s respectively, at the least. See my note "Visit to Old Shau Kei Wan --- 24th May 1969" in JHKBRAS 10(1970), pp. 183-88. * Sessional Papers 1901, No. 39/1901, p. 18, Table XII. Like most of the Shau Kei Wan villages, the residents were mainly stonecutters. For the quarries see JHKBRAS 10(1970) p. 186 in the Note cited above (note 36). * Information from Mr. Walter Schofield, Hong Kong Civil Service 1911-38. * Sessional Papers 1901, No. 39/1901, p. 18, Table XII. * See Endacott's History of Hong Kong. p. 293 and Edward Szczepanik The Economic Growth of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958) p. 114. It will be obvious that this article could not have been written without the assistance of many people. I gratefully acknowledge their assistance here. I also wish to thank Dr. Patrick Hase, editor of this Journal, for much encouragement and good advice in its presentation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 169 NOTES 1 The shortcoming of this approach is that it assumes the three statements in a particular area to be mutually exclusive and of roughly equal ideological distance to one another. It is better to ask the respondent to react to each statement and indicate his agreement or disagreement with it along a three-point or five-point scale. This can avoid the problem of unwarranted assumptions, and make possible the application of more sophisticated statistical techniques to extract information from the data. But for the sake of comparability, I follow Nichols' approach in the present study. Nichols' sample includes 65 directors and senior managers in 15 private companies employing over 500 workers in 'Northern City'. These companies were engaged in various lines of manufacture: chemicals, heavy engineering, light engineering, pharmaceutical, flour milling and animal foodstuffs, distribution and allied business, and packaging. See Nichols 1969: 247-248. * I use an alphabet and a number to denote the respondents. The former indicates whether the respondent is a chairman/managing-director (A) or just one of the directors (B). The latter stands for a particular spinning mill. A 'can-I-have-more' incident occurred during the 1973 annual general meeting of Mill 16 in which a share-holder protested, to no avail, against what he regarded as meagre dividends after successive profitable years for the company. See South China Morning Post, 31st August, 1973. List of References Bendix, Reinhard, 1954. "Industrial Authority and Its Supporting Value System". In Industrial Conflict, ed. by A. Kornhauser et al., New York, MacGraw-Hill, pp. 170-175. and Social 1956. Work and Authority in Industry. New York, Wiley. 1959. "Industrialization, Ideologies, Structure”, American Sociological Review 24, No. 6: 613–623. Bergere, Marie-Claire. 1968. "The Role of The Bourgeoisie". In China in Revolution: The First Phase 1900-1913, ed. by Mary Clabaugh Wright, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp. 229-295. Christ, Thomas. 1970. "A Thematic Analysis of The American Business Creed", Social Forces 49, No. 2: 239-245. Chu, T'ung-tsu. 1957. "Chinese Class Structure and Its Ideology". In Chinese Thought & Institutions, ed. by John K. Fairbank, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 235-250. England, Joe, and John Rear. 1975. Chinese Labour Under British Rule: A Critical Study of Labour Relations and Law in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. Espy, John L., 1974. "Hong Kong Textile Ltd.". In Managerial Policy, Strategy and Planning for Southeast Asia, ed. by L.C. Nehrt, G.S. Evans, and L. Li, Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, pp. 273-282. Fei, Hsiao-tung. 1946. "Peasantry and Gentry: An Interpretation of Chinese Social Structure and Its Changes", American Journal of Sociology LII, No. 1: 1-17. Fox, Alan. 1966. “Managerial Ideology and Labour Relations", British Journal of Industrial Relations 4, No. 3: 366-378, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 193 * Shi Boxuan (Yuan dynasty) is the compiler of two books: the Sishu Kuanku 190 and the Guankui Waipian 7 lumped together as Kuankui in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng. See Bu Liao Jin Yuan Yishu Wenzhi WIGxARK ed. Shangwu, Taipei, 1966, pp. 28, 56. 1차 * Jing Fang (77 to 37 B.C.) was a famous Han philosopher and presumed author of a number of oracular works. Most of these are still listed in the Jingji Zhi, Chapter, part 3, section zi of the Suishu. "The Liji refers to the ritual dismembering of a dog in connection with the annual Nuo exorcism. The animal's remains were then buried in front of the main gate of the capital. See S. Couvreur, Le Liji, Imprimerie de la mission catholique, Ho Kien Fu (1913), vol. I, p. 352. 12 The charm, faintly visible near the end of column 22, may represent a model of an "astronomical" charm. "Peach wood was thought to possess magical properties as early as 544 B.C. (D. Bodde, op.cit. pp. 128 ff.) while the wood of the tong tree was associated with the miraculous birth of the hero Yiying. See M. Granet, Danses et légendes de la Chine antique, Presses universitaires de France, reprint edition 1959, vol. II, p. 428. B. Laufer "Bird divination among the Tibetans", in Toung Pao, vol. XV (1914) p. 4, note 1. "The Study of Tibetan divination is as wide as it is ungrateful and unpleasant for research”. * The same omen is found in the Gujin tushu jicheng, vol. 26, j.174, p. 1b, column 7. "The prohibition against leaving the house for three years is mentioned three times in the Gujin tushu jicheng. It applies: when a pack of dogs howl in neighbourhood streets; when such a pack howls in city markets and, unless obeyed, portends death for a man who has (accidentally) been spattered with dog urine. Op.cit. pp. 1a,b. * The contradictory omens in brackets show that other dog divination systems were known at the time. 18 The Gujin tushu jicheng has "against a palace door" op.cit. p. 11b, column 11. ** "Dreadful disasters" instead of "of the inhabitants will be harmed” Ibid. "The last four characters of this column make no sense. "Mu is probably an error for the numerator mei. AN ODE ON HONG KONG COMPOSED BY THE MAYOR OF CANTON IN 1845 P. BRUCE A charming ode was published on December 13, 1845 by the Friend of China newspaper. It gives a rare Chinese view of the development of the young colony of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v The white dews drop down on the fragrant but leafless trees; the sombre vapours rise up from the enchanted hills and valleys; and the zephyrs soften with their sweet breath the gloom that overshadows the earth. It is now, while seated beneath the tented canopy of the proud ships provided for our reception, that I recall with tears the days that are past: I have left my very home; my heart grows cold; my robe flutters; I am as a man pierced with a dagger. I gaze upon yonder royal white city, on the high cliffs, while the shadows of evening gather round it. There it stands, lonely as a palace built upon a rock. The sun has disappeared beneath the waves, but lingering eyes still turn to it with straining fondness. The southern stars that gleam upon its snow-white walls look beautiful and bright as glittering flowers. And now I weep with bitterness, and as I sink upon my pillow, the splendid town is present to me still. I behold even in my sleep the fragrant incense urn dispensing its thousand gushing streams [a footnote explains that Hong Kong in Chinese signifies ‘Urn of Fragrant Streams'] over the mountains, while the city's white abodes seem glittering in the morning sun. It is thus I treasure in my sorrowing soul the loved remembrance; it is thus my mourning heart clings to departed happiness, as the tendrils twine themselves around you airy cliffs. The scene is changed. The bright moon issues from the parting clouds, and spangles with her light the feathery bamboo and the shrubby jessamine, that overarch the islet's thousand habitations; and soon the silent morning sun starts from his golden sleep, and sheds a liquid lustre on the rocky steeps that bear aloft a thousand glittering and spacious mansions. Yet on this spot erewhile were only to be seen the hovels of the roving fishermen. Where are they? gone like the swallows of departed autumn! Thus I record in the above lines my uncontrollable regret when leaving your Empire and returning to Canton, on board ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 214 and general merchant, who came to Hong Kong with his brothers when young. As the eldest, he controlled the family finances and the distribution of work. The second brother went on to Australia, and then returned to Hong Kong. The third brother was a small ship-builder, running his own sampan construction business near the old Kowloon City pier. The fourth brother was a policeman. The eldest Chan's son, my informant, succeeded him as manager of the temple on his death in 1925. During these years the temple's following had been steadily growing. It is reported that in the younger Chan's time, and before, over twenty villages of central and east Kowloon2 took a regular part in the religious celebrations conducted at the two temples. This represents a striking difference from the days, a century before, when the Goddess of Mercy shrine and temple were the private concerns of the small and unimportant Chu family of Tai Hom, 3 This statement of interest is substantiated by the practices described to me by elders of villages in the area. Two managers, styled chik li (1) were provided by each village. Each year, some weeks before the main Kwun Yam festival, the chief manager called them together for a discussion as to whether the usual arrangements would be made. These consisted of chantings by nam mo lo (), the staging of the customary puppet shows for the four days and five nights usual in this region, and a dinner held in front of the temple the day after the festival. Upon agreement to proceed as usual, each village was allocated one or more subscription books, and the chik li or their helpers collected funds from those among their fellow villagers who wished to take part in the dinner and the general celebrations. The chik li were not elected by the villagers: they seldom if ever were in the villages of this region. They came from among that body of working elders who managed the affairs of each village. They were either the elders themselves, or persons deputed by them. The Chairman of the body of chik li was selected through a procedure basically the same as that described for other temples and shrines in the Hong Kong region. All the village chik li gathered at the temple at a fixed day and hour. The divining blocks were cast an agreed number of times and the 3 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 217 was great and must have left them with little time or money to spare for their ruined temple. Finally, and almost certainly the most seriously, the influx of a new population, and immense schemes of redevelopment completely altered the generally rural background of village and market town life that still characterised pre-war East Kowloon. Thus, in the Tung Shan Temple we can see a temple, founded for purely rural reasons slowly growing until it became the predominant community temple of the whole of rural East Kowloon. During this period its management changed from a purely private, clan-based system to a typical community temple structure of committee members and chairman of a type typical not only of the rural community temples in the rest of the New Territories but also of those in urban Hong Kong at this date. Founded in a rural community this temple could, and did, develop both physically and in its management structure to reflect the needs of that community. It could not, however, survive the complete destruction of that community, and its ruination directly reflects the collapse of its founding community in the face of massive urbanisation, and the establishment of the new urban communities created by that urbanisation. The new urban communities have formed their own shrines, and their flourishing condition, alongside the continued ruin of the main temple of the defunct rural community, show more clearly than anything else can the essentially community basis of the temples of this area and their management groups. NOTES In the 1904 Block Crown Lease for Survey District No. 3, New Kowloon, the ownership is recorded in the monk's name Shing Kin (Hsing Star Bridge) and the property is listed under Lot 1101 as temple 0.7 acres, house 0.2 acres, and potato ground 0.33 acres. An entry "Kwun Yam Temple, Ngau Chi Wan" had been crossed out by the Assistant Land Officer who recommended that a lease for the temple buildings and site be given to the Registrar General, 28 April 1904. From south-east Kowloon, Ngau Tau Kok and Cha Kwo Ling; from east Kowloon, Ngau Chi Wan, Ping Shek, Sha Tei Yuen, Upper and Lower Yuen Ling and Chu Shi Liu; from central Kowloon, Tai Hom, Po Kong, Nga Tsin Wai, Upper and Lower Sha Po, Nga Tsin Long and Kak Hang; from Kowloon City, the commercial areas, Sai Tau, Tung Tau and Hoklo Village. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT viii HON. TREASURER'S REPORT xvi HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ARTICLES: Temple Oracles in a Chinese City - Julian Pas 1 Notes on the History of Tsuen Wan - David Faure 46 Hong Kong Island Before 1841 - James Hayes 105 State Regulation of Prostitution in Hong Kong, 1857 to 1941 - R.J. Miners 143 The Pearl River Estuary Oyster Industry in and around Deep Bay - R.A. Bowler, D.S.C. Yang and A.J.E. Smith 162 The Structure and Operation of Kei Wais (鄉 僻 ) — Y.H. Cheung, K.Y. Tai, S.W. Tsao and L.B. Thrower 182 The Shanghai Municipal Council, 1850-1865 - J.H. Haan 207 The Chinese "Yue Lan” Ghost Festival in Japan: A Kobe Case Study, Aug. 31 - Sept. 4, 1982 — Choi Chi-cheung 230 NOTES AND QUERIES: Traditional Tea Growing in the New Territories - P.H. Hase, J.W. Hayes and K.C. Iu 264 Cheung Ah-lum, a Biographical Note - Choi Chi-cheung 282 Julian Tenison Woods in Hong Kong - Roderick O'Brien S.J. 288 Lime-making on Tsing Yi - Wong Tak-yan 295 Wai Cheung (k), a Kind of Rural Leader in the 19th Century Hong Kong Region - James Hayes 307 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 118 JAMES HAYES interior; and it is considered a profitable trade, because stone blocks are constantly in demand, and will always fetch a good price in proportion as buildings are in course of erection." The clearest evidence of this trade in granite blocks comes from the Hoi Sam Temple in Shau Kei Wan. This temple was built in 1845, the year before Gutzlaff's report, and the tablet in the temple stresses that the construction was a community effort extending over some time. The tablet records 232 donors whose names can still be read, of whom no less than 48 were identified as quarries (E) who donated about 28% of the total sum raised. Of the 14 most generous donors to the temple construction project 5 were identified as quarries, with 6 out of the next 14, and 5 out of the next 17. Collinson's survey of 1843-45 shows the coast pock-marked with quarries all the way from Quarry Bay through Quarry Point (both so named by Collinson), to Ah Kung Nam, with each group of quarries with a few houses for the quarry workers and a landing place for boats. Some of the quarries contributing to the Hoi Sam Temple project may have been from the Kowloon side of the bay, where there were numerous quarries in the Kwun Tong area, but most undoubtedly came from the Shau Kei Wan area. 30 quarries donated to the restoration of the Hau Wong temple in Kowloon City in 1822, of which only 4 also donated in 1845, strongly suggesting this." There can be no doubt that quarrying was the dominant economic activity of the whole north-east coast of Hong Kong. The importance of long-distance trade in the blocks is, perhaps, shown in the eagerness of the quarry operators to contribute generously to the construction of a temple to the seaman's goddess. In the same report, Gutzlaff speaks of the fish trade: "The fisheries carried on from Aberdeen and Stanley are in a flourishing condition, and consequently, also the trade in salt fish, which the mass of the people use generally for seasoning their rice. How many smacks belong to these places has never been ascertained; but at New Year, when they make up the accounts with their partners and owners, the harbours are full of them." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 130 JAMES HAYES previously been located near Sham Chun, but, shortly after the cession of Hong Kong the sub-magistracy was moved to Kowloon, known as Kowloon City after a wall was built around it in 1847. A military garrison was transferred to Kowloon City from Tai Pang in north-east San On, at about the same time. 73 There had been a few small military posts on the island of Hong Kong established long before 1841. These were manned by soldiers and ratings of the Tai Pang battalion which served as a kind of military marine constabulary, sailing war junks and manning small posts scattered across this part of the district. However, they may have been discontinued before 1841 as there does not seem to have been any civil or military establishment on Hong Kong island when it was taken over. Johnston wrote in 1843 "no public buildings were found on any part of the Island of Hong Kong when it was first occupied by the English, except a small tumble-down Chinese house at Chek-choo (now Stanley) and another at Shek-pie-wan (now Aberdeen) where the petty mandarins stopped occasionally 76 +74 It seems, then, that the magistrate sent collectors and runners to the island in connection with the land tax and that a clerk was sent in a boat to issue licences to the boat people. There are reports of the district magistrate's officers still attempting to collect land taxes at Stanley as late as 1844 and the boat people may have been subject to the annual charge of 400 cash said to be levied on the 150 boats privileged to fish in local waters. The San On magistrate was still trying to collect this in 1844. Such visitations were being reported by the inhabitants in the few years following the British occupation of Hong Kong, and the British official correspondence gives the impression that this had been a regular practice in past days. However, it was not to be tolerated after the cession, and after representations by the Hong Kong Government, the provincial treasurer of the Canton province indicated that any claims to the former land tax would now be relinquished. 77 Otherwise, the inhabitants were left to their own devices. In common with other communities of the region, large and small ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 133 the Chik-sze were the larger and more prosperous commercial enterprises: three of the four Stanley shops whose scope of business and general prosperity were such that they felt inspired to donate to the restoration of the Hau Wong temple in Kowloon City in 1822 were included among the 1820 Chik-sze. These four Stanley shops were the only Hong Kong donors to this restoration.1 This kaifong continued to flourish: in 1847 it built, or rebuilt, an office for itself, a building which it still today used as the office of the local Kaifong.2 85 At Shau Kei Wan, the evidence for the existence of a kaifong is equally compelling. The foundation of the Hoi Sam Temple in 1845 is presented as a community action on the foundation tablet, which states "Therefore, the matter was discussed and a general agreement reached: everyone was happy to lend a hand to make a success of it. One man raised the suggestion, and it was unanimously acclaimed by the whole mass of the devout people." Moreover, the donors to the foundation are grouped into three groups: Managers (four in number) (3), "Ritual Leaders" (4), and "Devout People" (5). The mention of “Managers” makes it clear that, here again a management committee is in place, which, equally clearly, represents the community. As we have seen, quarry operators dominated the donors for the Hoi Sam temple, but there were other commercial groups there, too—only sixteen other commercial enterprises are identified as such, but others probably lie behind some of the 170 non-commercial donors listed. The management committee was here, too, therefore, probably dominated by the quarrymen, shopkeepers and other commercial men. This kaifong remained dominant in Shau Kei Wan affairs up to the last War, and it was the kaifong which founded the other Shau Kei Wan temples later in the nineteenth century.6 The Stanley Kaifong still retains control of the Stanley temples, but the Shau Kei Wan Kaifong lost control of the temples it had founded in 1928, when the Chinese Temples Ordinance was passed. 87 There is no evidence for early kaifong groups in Aberdeen, but ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 145 free of disease. Thus the control system achieved its main objective, which was not the protection of women from exploitation, but, as it was commonly expressed in Hong Kong, 'the provision of clean Chinese women for the use of the British soldiers and the sailors of the Royal Navy'. In Britain during the 1870s and 1880s the system set up by the Contagious Diseases Act came under attack by various moral reformers who considered that the licensing of brothels by the state implied official condonation of immoral behaviour. They also objected to the discrimination by which the women were compelled to submit to a demeaning medical examination. As a result of a long campaign the system was brought to an end and the Contagious Diseases Act was repealed by Parliament in 1886. In itself this had no effect on the colonial ordinances, but colonial governments were then instructed by the Secretary of State to follow the British example. The Governor of Hong Kong protested vigorously to London, claiming that the repeal of the local Contagious Diseases Ordinance would be unanimously opposed by the Executive and Legislative Councils, by the naval and military authorities and by all classes in the community, since it was the only means of controlling the spread of venereal disease, of preventing the proliferation of brothels in respectable areas of the city and of protecting young girls from being forced into brothel slavery. But the Secretary of State was adamant that the law imposing the compulsory inspection of women must be repealed, though he was prepared to allow the registration of brothels to continue solely for the purpose of providing a means to check against the possible enslavement of their inmates. The Hong Kong government continued to prevaricate, forwarding petitions to London from the keepers of 42 brothels reserved for Europeans and from 23 European prostitutes begging that weekly examinations and the issuing of health certificates might be allowed to continue. These pleas had no effect and the Secretary of State sent Hong Kong a copy of an ordinance which had already been passed in the Straits Settlements with instructions to introduce a similar bill as soon as possible. He also ordered that the issuing of certificates should cease forthwith. Finally in 1889, two years after the original directive from London, a bill entitled the Women and Girls' Protection Ordinance was introduced into the Legis- 10 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 147 The continued existence of a system of licensed prostitution in Hong Kong soon came to the notice of the moral reform societies in Britain which had succeeded in abolishing such houses at home and were determined to end the system overseas as well. Pressure was brought to bear upon the Colonial Office by written appeals from the societies and by questions and speeches in parliament. So in 1893 a new Secretary of State, Lord Ripon, sent instructions to Hong Kong that the registration of brothels and the periodic examination of their inmates, whether nominally voluntary or not, must cease forthwith. Once again the Governor expostulated, forwarding a petition from the leading Chinese who objected that with the abolition of registration prostitutes would have no opportunity to complain about ill-treatment and that brothels would proliferate in respectable residential areas. The Colonial Surgeon also added his views, claiming that it would be cruel to forbid the women to attend for regular examinations; they were well aware of the need for early diagnosis of venereal disease and came of their own free will. But the Secretary of State, under pressure from moral reformers in Britain, was obdurate, and a bill to repeal the 1890 ordinance and abolish the whole system of control was introduced into the Legislative Council in 1894 and passed by the official majority against the unanimous opposition of the unofficials. Hong Kong's long delaying action to avoid reform was apparently at an end. The results of this measure were soon evident: prostitutes ceased to attend for their weekly examinations; a large number of new brothels were opened in areas of the city which had formerly been free of them; and the incidence of venereal disease in the garrison soared. In 1897 half the soldiers in Hong Kong were under treatment for venereal diseases, compared to 15 per cent ten years earlier. In Singapore, which had been given the same directive to abolish registered brothels as Hong Kong, the incidence of venereal disease among troops reached 60 per cent. Faced with this situation the governors of the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong submitted a succession of reports to London and proposed draft legislation which would broadly have had the effect of reintroducing the legal system of control that had existed before 1889. The China Association in London and its branches in Hong Kong and Singapore strongly supported the Governors' views and se- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 148 R.J. MINERS nior officials at the Colonial Office, including the Permanent Under-Secretary, favoured a return to the old system of control.20 But because of the pressure of public opinion in Britain and the attitude of the House of Commons the Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, decided that it was politically impossible to sanction the re-enactment of the contagious diseases legislation in any form. He was, however, prepared to allow the introduction of amending legislation which would make it an offence for the keeper of a brothel to permit any woman suffering from venereal disease to remain on the premises; and also an amendment empowering a magistrate to close down any brothel if an application was made by the Captain Superintendent of Police or the Registrar General.21 This change was designed to meet the complaints voiced by the Chinese unofficials about the number of brothels being opened in hitherto respectable areas of the city. The minutes written on the Colonial Office file make it clear that it was foreseen in London that this discretionary power to close down any brothel would in effect allow the Hong Kong government to reintroduce the zoning of certain parts of the city as areas where brothels were tolerated, but this implication was not spelled out in the despatch since it was later to be published in a paper laid before the House of Commons.22 The Governor accepted these proposals with alacrity and informed the Colonial Office that they ought to give the government complete power to deal with the question. This was a remarkable statement in view of the Governor's previous contention that a full return to regulation and compulsory inspection was necessary. Even more surprisingly the subject of brothels and venereal disease then disappeared completely from the correspondence between Hong Kong and London for the next twenty years. The Colonial Office made no attempt to enquire exactly what the Hong Kong government was doing; ministers and officials were evidently only too glad that this politically embarrassing issue had disappeared from view and had also ceased to be raised in the House of Commons. But someone in the Hong Kong administration had realised that the discretionary power at the disposal of the government to order the closure of a brothel or to tolerate its continued existence could be used to reintroduce extra-legally the whole system of statutory control which had been dismantled by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 150 R.J. MINERS ed to attend for a hospital examination; if found to be diseased her card was taken from her and her record was removed from the house book until she had received hospital treatment and was considered to be cured. There was never any difficulty in compelling the girl to receive treatment since the mistress of the brothel knew that her house would be liable to closure if she was found to be employing a girl without a card and she was also herself liable to be fined if she allowed a diseased prostitute to work in the premises under her control. Stricter controls were enforced by the police on prostitutes catering for Europeans. Their brothels were confined to a particular area in the east end of the city and the girls were expected to attend for a weekly examination by a firm of private medical practitioners in the area. In addition to the sanctions imposed by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, brothels could be put out of bounds to servicemen by the naval and military authorities if a soldier or sailor suffering from venereal disease identified the girl he had patronised; each girl was required to keep a book in which every client was supposed to enter his name and address and the time of his visit, and these books were open to inspection by the police and military authorities whenever a complaint was made. This system was generally approved by the Chinese and European unofficial members, and also by the military authorities. The government claimed that as a result the streets of Hong Kong were kept free of streetwalkers who might pester passers-by, and the navy and army garrison were kept free of disease. In 1922 only 7 per cent of the soldiers were under treatment for venereal disease, which was only slightly higher than the proportion infected in Britain. The system was much less effective in controlling the spread of venereal disease in the Chinese population. On the basis of examinations of patients admitted to the government hospital for other complaints it was estimated that at least 27 per cent of the Chinese male population were infected with syphilis, and possibly, if doubtful cases were included, the rate of infection could be as high as 40 per cent. It was believed that the registered brothels used by Chinese in the West Point area were often the source of infection since their inmates were not subjected to periodic examination as were those catering for the European population. The 26 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 151 Hong Kong authorities saw no need to take active steps to improve the situation. Parliamentary pressure over social hygiene in Hong Kong largely lapsed after 1894 once the legal framework for the licensing of prostitutes and the registration of brothels had been repealed by the Legislative Council and thereafter Hong Kong was left free to set up its new extra-legal system of control without further interference from London. But after the end of the First World War agitation on the subject revived. The League of Nations appointed an Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children which published reports highlighting the connections between state regulation of prostitution and the procurement of women. The first warning to Hong Kong of the revival of concern in Britain was the arrival in the colony in 1921 of a Commission from the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease which had been sent out to report on conditions in the Far Eastern Colonies. The Governor, Sir Edward Stubbs, had objected to any such visit and forbade government officials to give the commissioners any assistance; he also informed them when they arrived that they were not to hold any public meetings or advertise their presence in the press. In spite of this studied discourtesy the commissioners, Mrs. Neville-Rolfe and Dr. Hallam, set out upon a thorough exploration of the seedier areas of the city and various medical institutions, and were able to make contact with some business and religious groups and with some of the leading Chinese. On their return to London they submitted a scathing report to the Colonial Office on medical and social conditions. According to the commissioners, no serious attempt had been made by the government to improve the standard of health of the native population in 85 years of British rule; the infant mortality figures were disgraceful; the Tung Wah hospital was very dirty and badly equipped; the Po Leung Kuk, a place of refuge for Chinese girls, was largely used as a recruiting ground for cheap supplementary wives by members of the committee. The Colonial Office was given its first description of the working of the system of tolerated brothels, which Mrs. Neville-Rolfe dismissed as ineffective in preventing the kidnapping of girls into brothel slavery; on the contrary it was alleged that the artificial value put on the Chinese girl by the system of recognised brothels is the main inducement to the kidnappers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 164 R.A. BOWLER, D.S.C. YANG AND A.J.E. SMITH to cover the period 1952 to 1977, but from about 1957 those beds closest to the Chinese coast were not re-leased. Since 1977 no leases have been granted and the present claim to "ownership" between China-based farmers and Hong Kong-based farmers divides the bay almost centrally. However, this simplistic division belies the close ties that still exist between oyster farmers. Figure 1 Location Plan Nor Ni 2 Am Scal Pearl Estury Shappe Fuyurg Tungtian Xiaochan PEARL ESTUARY Deep Bay. Nei Ling Ting! People's Republic China (Guangdong Province) South China Sea + Kildmavat A Duchan SHENZHEN CITY Baoan County Xixiang Manion Houhai Shakou DEEP BAY DRUN UDISWM? Black Polo Special Economic Zone Shehe Cucall I'm Shul Wai Law Fau Shan New Territories Lantau Island Legend PRC Oyster beds HONG KONG Oyster beds ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 167 directly employed. Figure 3 shows a basic structure of the Chinese oyster exporting network to Hong Kong in terms of the geographical and administrative divisions of the producing areas. Shenzhen City is divided into two major administrative districts, Baoan County and the Special Economic Zone. Two Chinese government bodies, the Baoan Aquaproduct Bureau and the Nantou (Luohu) Aquaproduct Bureau, work in parallel to deal with technical matters such as oyster bed boundaries and production, and a third (the Shenzhen Aquaproduct Import/Export Company) is in charge of the overall import/export trading of oysters. Figure 3 Structure of PRC Oyster Exporting Network Geeliseling Provenge Domaljko Pron Dapper Romany the Pian AN I LIPLINE.........-- ---- -- JIMI JEdugly very spl kad saved From Campylon Lisommalle day. Ingiger) apni Long antes per Jimmie der rack pekonis | Dada MAJ Taghan, Yanjung, 4mm alle dis dalyjbm120 a pose tempiame aps laining miraçlı kılarının | די עי חוף Shenzhen C (Maga Lam • Special Demelle Zuk↑ կոոր Kylling Headgleda The Van Spellen In Basso Autospraylu | Majorqu VIDOL Dompodbell by Shyachçe dgorjebakyti fungert spoken Vompany J importante villic Nurlan HAN I senculled by Myletop Aplanka Qureau Sliche uffic I do dr.II. The PRC pakking Kun = Every year, oyster farmers are required to sell part of their product at a relatively low official price to the Chinese Government to meet a certain quota before they can sell the rest on the open market. The quota was reduced from a few thousand dan (1 dan = 50 kg) to only five hundred dan (350 from Baoan County and 150 from the Special Economic Zone) since 1979, when about 90% of the Deep Bay oysters died from a mass mortality the cause of which could not be identified with any certainty. The reduced ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 243 The content of the invitation card is: "The overseas Chinese in Japan will hold a 3-days-4-nights Pu Tu, for the sake of establishing luck by offering and helping all the imprisoned spirits of the water and the earth. The meeting will take place at the Kwan T'i Temple in Kobe city. Please come to the "Tan" (altar) to present incense sticks during the 14th, 15th, and 16th of the 7th moon. (1st, 2nd and 3rd of September 1982).” The card was red in colour. 9 The 13th day and the 17th day of the 7th moon were not mentioned in the invitation card. 10 The Lantern Floating ritual in Japanese is "To Ro Nagashi', which means to float lanterns(s) (to the sea). During the Japanese Obon, lanterns are sent off on the last day of the festival. Through this, the ghosts and the ancestors are all sent back. During the Kobe festival, the ritual, according to the committee members, was to send off the "wandering ghosts or those who are not worshipped by anyone (= Mu Zhi Kuai)". However it seems confusing because after the floating ritual, they continued to give offering to the hungry ghosts as well as to the ancestors for two more nights, and the tablets of the wandering spirits were still inside the Tao Ch'ang. A similar ritual practised in Hong Kong during the Chiao festival is called 'Fong Shui Dang' (t, sending off the water lanterns), which is parallel with the 'Fong Luk Dang" (PW10, put on the street lights) ritual. The rituals are to invite all the water and earth spirits to attend the offering during the Pu Tu or 'Sai Tai Yau* (*9A, to worship the numerous spirits) of the Chiao festival). The prayer book the Obaku Buddhists used for their morning and night rituals is "Obaku Zenlin Choobo Kashoo" (R). The priests called this daily work "Zenlin Kashoo" (M). See below. 12 Plate 21. 13 Plates 22, 23. 14 The "Pang' was a book-form name-list in yellow. It had 8 pages with an introduction explaining the reason for holding a Pu Tu. (The introduction is printed in the Appendix). 15 See the introduction to the Pang printed in the Appendix. 16 The beach is at the western end of the Prefecture. 17 Plate 24. 18 See footnote 10. 19 20 Plate 25. The book used for the ritual was "Yoga Enkoo Kahan" (1⁄2μÅμ) which is similar to that used in Hong Kong during the 'Sai Tai Yau' ritual. According to an old taoist in Hong Kong, Mr. Lam Pui ( ), the gesture is called "Poh Yuk” (Z, to break Hell), and through this the ghosts are released and able to come for reincarnation and cross over. 21 Plates 26, 27, 28. 22 No meat was allowed in the festival area. However, meat was presented at the Ming-che VII. One informant explained that it was because the dead like meat, and one committee member sighed and told me that "We have no way, because they are from the other Provinces (of China) (##A)". 20 The sect started from Monk Yin Yuan (C) of Fu-ch'in (Mili), Hokkien. He was invited by the General of the Tokugawa Bankufu (UK) in 1654, In the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 272 P.H. HASE, J.W. HAYES AND K.C. IU Ngam village is situated and that tea growing there had come to the attention of the Botanical Department soon after the lease of the New Territories in 1898. It is, however, of interest to note that contemporary villagers in the areas of these terraces state that their ancestors, as far as they know, had no interest in these terraces, and no-one claims any ownership of them today. Tea was also being cultivated in some localities in San On County in the 1850s. Writing on the county in 1858, Revd. R. Krone stated "Tea is also cultivated in several places and is generally called "Shan-cha” (mountain tea). It has a rather strong astringent taste, but is much liked by the natives, and particularly by those who are of advanced age, who consider that it promotes digestion and cools the system. Many drink only this indigenous tea" 16 To summarize, it is possible that tea cultivation was at one time flourishing in the region. If the terraces I have mentioned were truly tea terraces, it must have been a commercial venture on a large scale. However, since no memory of commercial tea cultivation remains in village tradition, at least in those places where I have made enquiry, final proof is unlikely to be available. On the other hand, the cultivation of tea for local consumption appears to have been practised in many villages in the 19th century and after, and perhaps earlier. The Mau Tso Ngam experience is simply one of many, though it is one of the few in which the practice is still carried out. Finally, may I enter a plea for research on another aspect of village activity, the collection and preparation of medical herbs? Coincidentally, my information also comes mainly from Mau Tso Ngam. When interviewing an old village lady born there in 1884, but married to Hok Tsui village at Cape D'Aguilar on Hong Kong island, I was told about the tea bushes but did not follow it up and, instead, heard more about medicinal herbs. Her information was that her family and those of the main clan in the village, the Chengs, collected and prepared herbs on the hillside for sale in Kowloon City market. They did this all year round when they were not busy in the fields. The herbs had to be washed, dried and chopped or sliced. They were taken for sale four or five times a year. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 275 A large clump of such "public" trees (HAB) exists, for instance, on the north-east slope of Kowloon Peak. 10 See, however, section 2 of this Note. The late Mr. T. S. Woo, MBE (formerly of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department and the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association) stated that local “Hill Tea” was once dealt in by Gibb, Livingston, but that this later died away, probably as a consequence of the great growth in Indian and Ceylonese tea exports in the late nineteenth century (Note by K. C. Iu). Plate 39. 12 Elsewhere in this journal, D. Faure in "Notes on the History of Tsuen Wan" mentions tea growing on Tsing Yi and at Chuen Lung in the earlier part of this century. 11 Section 3 of this Note discusses this "tea" more fully. 14 Plate 40. 15 Sessional Papers 1907, p. 221. 16 "A Notice of the Sanon District" reprinted JHKRRAS, Vol. 7, 1967, p. 122. 17 The Mau Tso Ngam Village Representative, Mr. Cheng Kau-hung, has also spoken to me (PHH) about herb collection. He stressed that knowledge of herb collection was kept as a secret and handed down from father to son, the father going to remote spots on the hillside to point out herbs to his son where prying eyes could not see what was done. Only some of the Mau Tso Ngam village families knew how to collect herbs, and this information was kept even more carefully from villagers from other villages. The prepared herbs were sold to shops in Kowloon City, a few cents being paid before the War for a well-prepared catty of the less frequently found herbs. The herbs were usually not those found in the Standard Pharmacoepia but "Mountain Drugs" (山藥), representing local folk remedies. Sellers of “Mountain Drugs" can still be found in the New Territories Market towns. Mr. Cheng stressed the difference between medicinal herbs the identification and preparation of which was kept secret, and those herbs usable as food in famines, which it was the duty of the elders to ensure every villager could recognise, and know how to prepare, in case the need ever arose (Note PHH). Dr. Chong Siu-cheung, with a group of local herbalists, has prepared a 5 volume book in English and Chinese “Chinese Medicinal Herbs of Hong Kong" (Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 1978-84) describing and discussing the uses of about 1,100 species of plant with medicinal properties found in Hong Kong. This book, however, does not cover the place collection or preparation played in the village society or economy (Note KCI). Plate 41. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 286 CHOI CHI CHEUNG The Cheung lineage was not prosperous until the Tao Kuang (*) period. Ancestor Yao-chih (2) of the 2nd sub-lineage became a successful merchant, and through his generous donation, an Ancestral Hall for the whole lineage was built. The Ancestral Hall of the Ya-kang segment was built in the middle of the Chia Ching period by the effort of ancestor I-pi ( ), brother of Ah-lum's grandfather (see clan record, Tz'u yu pu (3) section, Tz'u T'ang Chi (2) sub-section pp. 1-4). Though the lineage had several National School students (B), no one succeeded in the official examinations until the end of the Ch'ing dynasty when they had three chüren (A). Two of them were Ah-lum's sons. Ah-lum's father was also a National School Student who earned his living by teaching in the villages nearby (see the biography of Ah-lum's father in the Clan record, Chi-ching pu (it) section, Hang Chuang ((HA) sub-section p. 5). This man is not otherwise mentioned in the Clan record. According to Ah-lum's statement as given in court, "he first came to the colony at only 18 years of age. He was first employed by Mr. Bigham, who went to California; after that by Mr. Franklyn; then by Murrow, Stephenson & Co.; then by Mr. De Silver, for whom he made biscuits, as well as did other business see: British Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 24: Hong Kong, P. 183. (= BPP 24:183). The Russell was owned by Russell & Co., and the Shamrock by Mr. Xavier, c.f. BPP 24:170 and 173. See BPP 24:164–184. The bakery had three machines making bread to supply most of the foreigners in Hong Kong. See BPP 24:155-184, and Eitel op.cit. p. 311-313. 10 The Arrow War. The anti-foreigner movement was supported by Yeh Ming-shen (), the Imperial Commissioner for Kwangtung, in Canton. See Wakeman, F. Jr. Strangers at the Gate. 1966, pp. 109ff. Also Eitel op.cit. p. 305. 11 Eitel: op.cit. p. 312-313. 12 According to Chen Kuan-ying (###), Ah-lum was chief of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. (TERA) in Vietnam. He owned a shop Hung Tai Ch'ang() in Saigon, and his son Ti-fu (#) was chief manager (*) of the Cambodia Opium Co. (12). Chen Kuan-ying (E), Nan-yu Jih-chi (12), (Diary of a Journey to the South), reprinted 1967, Taiwan, p. 19ff, 81-89. According to the Clan Record Tsa Chi-pu() section, Pa-yu (if) sub-section, p. 1, Ah-lum had businesses in Saigon, Haiphong, Comuponton, and in Nha Trang in Kwangnam (ÂM NHIỀU). 13 According to the clan record, we know that one of Ah-lum's sons was buried in the free cemetery of Haiphong (), and another was buried in the free cemetery of the Canton City Association in Vung Tau, Vietnam (#). 14 In 1884, when Chen passed through Vietnam, Ah-lum was chief manager (*) of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. in Vietnam. See Chen: p. 19. 15 Chen: ibid. 16 Clan record, Chi-ching pu (###) section, Ch'i-shou (##) sub-section, pp. 1-4; has two essays presented on this occasion by the gentry of Heung Shan, and by the merchants of the Canton City Association in Vung Tau, Saigon (F#城會館). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 289 Here we have a practical proof that religion has no longer any fear of science. We see a Roman Catholic clergyman about to lecture on what was once considered the dangerous science of geology, and I am surprised we have not the Bishop ready to applaud him, but I am sure it must be owing to some accident that my friend Bishop Raimondi is not here today. (applause) In the sixteenth century, as we all know, the great astronomer Galileo was persecuted because he contended that the earth goes round the sun, and until quite lately geology was considered a more irreligious science than astronomy. This feeling was not confined to the Church of Rome. At the end of the last century an eminent Bishop of the Church of England ridiculed the pretensions of geologists — and we know that ridicule is often a more dangerous weapon than hatred; . . . by saying that for a man crawling on the face of the earth to pretend that he knew what was going on in the interior of our planet was like a gnat on the shoulder of an elephant pretending that it knew what was going on in the bowels of the huge animal. (laughter) But behold what progress! Here we have Mr. Woods, at the end of the nineteenth century, about to tell us living in Hong Kong what is going on in the bowels of the Malay Peninsula. (applause) During this visit, some time before 9 February, Woods managed to visit Canton for five days. There he met the British vice-Consul, Dr. H. F. Hance, with whom he shared an interest in botany, and membership of the Linnaean Society. He cited Hance's work in his own publications. When Woods returned to Hong Kong, he wrote to a friend in Australia: I had a little trouble in getting off to Canton. The war has upset everything, and the C. River is full of sunken ships and torpedoes, so that a special pilot is wanted to take one up, and he has to be obtained from the Chinese gunboats. However, I got up there and spent five days most pleasantly. I got all about the city without molestation except from the curiosity of the passers-by and the importunity of the beggars. My time went all the more pleasantly, as the Vice-consul is Dr. Hance F.L.S., the greatest authority we have on Chinese botany. He has a splendid herbarium and when tired of sightseeing in the city I ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 298 WONG TAK YAN Slaking The shell powder from the kiln is heaped up into a pile and water is mixed with it. Smoke appears and the shell powder is converted to lime. Sieving A further day after the addition of water, the by now already slaked lime is sieved with a copper mesh sieve. The lumps of waste residue after sieving are thrown into the sea to reclaim it. Bagging The finished lime is bagged in hemp or grass-cloth sacks of about 100 cattys weight, and is then shipped on small boats to the buyers. My family involvement in lime making The San Shing Lei (新盛利) lime kiln factory operated by the Wong (黃) family has enjoyed a relatively lengthy history and occupied a distinguished place in the local lime kiln industry. Five generations of the family were involved in it, for more than one hundred years. The Wong family came originally from Chung Shan (中山) county, and our ancestor first came to Hong Kong shortly after Hong Kong was established, to operate a lime kiln in the Western part of the city (西區). Later, at various times, the kiln moved. This was because, as the area became prosperous and developed, so the kiln had to move away to quiet and undeveloped areas near the sea to carry on business. Lime burning is an offensive trade because of the large quantity of lime dust emitted, and also because of the heavy pall of smoke blown about in the first hour after the kiln is lit, while the dry grass is burning. In fact, during lime-burning, local residents and passers-by would all run away to try to avoid this smoke. However, the kiln is not dangerous to health — in fact, kiln workers all enjoy excellent health. The Wong family factory moved to several places: from Western District to Tsimshatsui (near the present railway station area), then to Tai Kok Tsui (near Fuk Wing Street), then to Shamshuipo. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 336 This book contains several technical flaws. Many of the Chinese works and place names romanized in the text do not appear in the glossary and place name index. The first two chapters present differing numbers for the size of the Dutch military force found on Taiwan. Hsu (p. 15) using a Japanese translation of the Dagh-Register, Batavia and an article by Nakamura Takashi, states that the Dutch forces never exceeded 2000 while Wang (p. 36) gives no source but states that the Dutch troops numbered 2200. A similar figure to Wang's can be found in James W. Davidson's The Island of Formosa. There are also some technical mistakes such as no scale nor direction indicated on a map (p. 149) and lack of unified spelling for the city of Jilong (Keelung, p. xv; Chilung, p. 140). The map on page 40, presumably indicating migration routes in Taiwan during the late seventeenth century, shows Fort Zeelandia (near modern Tainan) on the mainland portion of Taiwan as it is today due to silting at the mouth of the Yanshui River. Other maps or pictures display the fort on a sandspit, in some cases connected to the main island (pp. 29 and 119) and in one case on a separate small island (p. 13). On the linguistic side, the character for a Chinese picul which is pronounced dan (tan) is romanized by its other pronunciation (shih) which means a rock or stone. More crucial is the lack of a central theme to the essays selected as a whole. This is perhaps an inescapable problem of a book in which several authors are presenting their findings on singular aspects of a vast and complex subject. The contribution of this book, therefore, lies in the collection, within one English volume, of articles on various aspects of Taiwan's historical geography. RICHARD LOUIS EDMONDS The University of Hong Kong The Birth of Vietnam, by Keith Weller Taylor, Berkeley, The University of California Press, 1983. xxi + 397pp, tables, maps. Keith Taylor has provided a much needed and detailed account of Vietnamese history during the first millennium — its formative ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 61 Still other movements for ritual, recreational, sociable or other purposes were fairly frequent. Some Kau Sai fishermen patronised festivals at other places in addition to the two already mentioned, or called at other temples for purposes of divination or healing; some might decide to visit kinsmen, affines or friends in neighbouring anchorages, or stop over from market one day for a cinema show or other entertainment in Hong Kong. It might become necessary to build a new boat, install an engine or even go to hospital, any one of which things could take a man, his junk and whole household away from Kau Sai for several weeks at a time. All these were matters for personal decision and depended upon one's tastes and above all upon whether one would gain, or at least not lose, in the economic sense, a notion which involved an evaluation not only of probable monetary return but also of the importance of time. Economic considerations governed the choice of transport too. For matters of the kind mentioned in the preceding paragraph a man did not always take his own boat. There was a great deal of mutual lift-giving and friendly transportation of each other's goods on the water, and once ashore the public bus services were cheap and reliable; often, however, it was more convenient to up-anchor and just go. Which one decided to do would depend mainly upon whether or not one thought the movement of one's own junk and household to be worthwhile. Was their journey really necessary for this instance, or would it be more profitable to let the women and crew get on with shore jobs in Kau Sai? What about saving fuel? Or time? Would a long stay of the whole family in, say, Shaukiwan be more or less expensive than leaving them behind at their home anchorage? And so on. The point here is that these were everyday considerations. Mobility was an accepted fact of life. The shift to shore living on the part of the elderly, the mothers and the children made little difference to the general rhythms of the movement of boats, but did mean that fewer people were involved. The Hakka landsmen who were present at the beginning of the period under review had quite different patterns of mobility. With the exception of one shopkeeper and his elder brother (the then 'headman') all the able-bodied men worked in the city and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 62 BARBARA E. WARD visited the village only at long intervals. Travelling to and fro they usually hitched a lift to Sai Kung from one of the fishermen, and then went by bus. Their wives, on the other hand, hardly ever left the village, except perhaps to see an opera performance at one of the neighbouring festivals listed above. The 'headman' and his brother normally followed a slightly different pattern. Their shop, a new departure opened shortly before the time of my arrival, required the permanent presence of one of them. The 'headman' had his fingers in a number of enterprises on the mainland, but returned frequently to Kau Sai to deal in pigs (his own and others') and to keep an eye on the illicit still which was his main source of income. He owned a small transport junk. (The other, and larger, shop was owned by an ex-fisherman, at that time permanently resident on shore but sharing fully in the fishermen's ritual and recreational movements). Hakka men being seldom present were not often included in fishermen's sociable gatherings; their social life was elsewhere. The ‘headman', and more especially his shopkeeper brother who was popular, who were present, were exceptions. An overview of the various patterns of movement yields two obvious inferences which are as significant as they are self-evident. First, although mobile the fishermen were far from footloose. Not only did many of them (particularly the purse-seiners) return constantly to one particular base, namely Kau Sai, but their movements away from there also took place within a definitely circumscribed area. This comprised, in effect, the waters of Port Shelter and Rocky Harbour as far as Basalt Island, Bluff Island and the Ninepins, with an outlying channel to Shaukiwan or Hong Kong island (from which it was only a 10¢ or 20¢ tram or bus ride to all the bright lights of the city). Only occasionally and for limited purposes did Kau Sai-based boats go beyond the boundaries of this area. It included two market towns, Sai Kung and Shaukiwan, and a number of fishing villages the main ones being at Yim Tin Tsai, Lung Shuen Wan, Kiu Tsui, Pak Sha Wan, Pu To Au). With the obvious difference that it contained more than one market and was within fairly easy reach of a great international centre of commerce and industry, this area was closely similar to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 63 what Skinner (1964) has called a standard market area. However, certain considerations both of fact and point of view make me hesitate to use this term here. First as to fact: the above are not the only differences that make it less than useful to regard this area as being centred upon a market town like a wheel upon its hub. As far as markets were concerned, it had, as we have just seen, two centres. As far as the Kau Sai fishermen recognized temple festivals, however, it had at least three, none of them lying in either market town. (This situation is further complicated by the fact that both the market towns and one other fishing village in the area also organised annual temple festivals, which some Kau Sai people did attend but irregularly and idiosyncratically). In the third place, both Sai Kung and Shaukiwan acted also as market centres and anchorages for large numbers of junks which ranged much further afield, either because they were deep-sea craft with a wider range of occupational movement than the inshore boats of Kau Sai and its neighbours, or seasonally. Both towns were also centres for quite large land populations; Shaukiwan being in fact a rapidly expanding industrial suburb of Victoria City on Hong Kong island. It is likely that most of the peculiarities of this kind of market situation are to be explained by the extreme mobility of the boat population and the proximity of the great conurbations of Victoria (Hong Kong) and Kowloon. (Regarded from the point of view of the local land dwellers Sai Kung does fall neatly into the standard market category and Shaukiwan drops out of the picture altogether). It remains true, however, that in this study I am not taking a "market centred" point of view. For the fishermen of Kau Sai, Kau Sai was the centre of the Universe. Markets at Sai Kung and Shaukiwan, temple festivals at Pak Sha Wan and Lung Shuen Wan, were important, but peripheral. Moreover, mobility was such that every part of the Port Shelter-Rocky Harbour area was freely accessible and frequently visited, And all parts of it contained fish. Borrowing a term from Zoology, the area is from this point of view perhaps more usefully thought of as a "territory" than as a market area. Like herds of impala the fishermen of Port Shelter and Rocky Harbour, including those domiciled in Kau Sai, roamed their territory and exploited their niche in it, regardless of the fact that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT HON. TREASURER'S REPORT HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ARTICLES: vii xiv xvi Immigrant and social ethos: Hong Kong in the nineteen-eighties Helen F. Siu.. 1 John Joseph Francis, citizen of Hong Kong, a biographical note-Walter Greenwood. 17 Henry Thomas Jackman (1874-1928), engineering, Public Works Department, Hong Kong — Stephen Selby The Hong Kong Botanical Gardens, a historical overview D.A. Griffiths and S.P. Lau 46 55 Observations at the Jiu festival of Shek O and Tai Long Wan, 1986 - Chan Wing-Hoi 78 The Minorities of southern China: a general view Nicholas Tapp 102 Hainan Island, a brief historical sketch D.L. Michalk. — 115 REPRINT: A sense of history (Part I) — Carl Smith. 144 NOTES AND QUERIES: More about the Kowloon Walled City — Anthony K.K. Siu 265 Lantern Festival, Cheung Chau, 10th February 1971 James Hayes.. 267 Visit to the Mitsukoshi Department Store, Muromachi, Tokyo, Japan, June 1986 — James Hayes. 270 V ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 20 December, 1986: Mai Po and Lau Fau Shan Dr. Richard 14 March, 1987: Irving Shing Mun Arboretum and Tai Po Kau Forest Reserve James Hayes Besides the local visits, there were two weekend tours to the city of Foshan in Guangdong organized and conducted by Dr. David Faure of our Council. The May 1986 visit was so popular that it was repeated in December. Arrangements were also made during the year for members to participate in a Bhutan tour for early 1987 arranged by Mrs. Peggy Craig, one of our members and a well-known travel specialist. The Council noted the high quality of the programmes and wishes to express its deep appreciation to the lecturers, visit and tour leaders. Special thanks go to Elizabeth Sinn, Chairman of the Programme Sub-committee, and her helpers for such a satisfactory outcome. The Council also wishes to thank the Curator, Hong Kong Museum of History, Kowloon Park, for the regular use of its well-equipped lecture hall, and the assistance of his staff there. The Council continue to discuss venues for lectures. Mindful of the fact that not everyone finds it easy or, dare I say natural to go to lectures at the Museum of History at Kowloon Park, Tsimshatsui, we try to find venues on Hong Kong Island. Some suitable places have been suggested, but in most cases require more advance booking than we are usually able to contrive. However, we will try to improve on the position. Administration During the year, we benefitted from the conscientious, thoughtful and strong support given by our new Assistant Secretary, Mrs. Rukhshana Daroowala who worked closely with the Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Robyn McLean. It was therefore a double blow when, unexpectedly, Mrs. Daroowala had to leave Hong Kong early in 1987 when her banker husband was posted to Canada, and at more or less the same time Robyn McLean left Hong Kong to return to Australia after fourteen years' residence, the last six of ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 them as Hon. Secretary to our Society. The departure of both ladies was suitably marked by a cocktail reception and presentations on behalf of our membership. I am relieved and thankful to report that both posts were immediately filled by two other ladies who are contributing in the same dedicated manner. Mrs. Anita Wilson, who with her husband John is a current member of the Society, took over from Mrs. McLean as Hon. Secretary, whilst Mrs. Sharon Bruce took up the Assistant Secretaryship. Both she and her husband Phillip are long standing members. Symposium on the Future of the Society In my past two annual reports I touched on the possibility of holding a seminar to discuss the present and future of the Society in Hong Kong. We, as well as other local groups, will be affected in one way or another by the Sino-British Agreement ratified in December 1984 which arranges for the return of Hong Kong in June 1997 and its establishment as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. It is, in any case, desirable to take stock of our position now, to ensure that we are organized to meet the needs of the present transitional period and the changes which are evolving in this vibrant and progressive city. The seminar has taken time to arrange because Councillors have been more than usually busy in the interim, but preparations are now well in hand, and it will now be held on Saturday 9th May, 1987. Our member, Mr. Ian Deane, with some assistance from myself and others, has nearly completed the arrangements for this important event. A special feature of the preparations has been a detailed questionnaire to which over 120 members responded, giving many valuable comments and suggestions. The Vice-Chancellor of Hong Kong University, Dr. Wang Gungwu, has kindly agreed to give the keynote address and other prominent speakers are likely to assist. Background papers will be distributed to members before the meeting in order to make the best use of the time available. They will cover such subjects as our organization, programmes and financing, the possibility of a bi-lingual operation, whether a change in the name of our Society is in order in preparation... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 IMMIGRANTS AND SOCIAL ETHOS: HONG KONG IN THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES HELEN F. SIU* Introduction Since the early 1980s, terms such as “mainland boy” (大陸仔), “green stamp alien” (綠印客), “Canton Boy” (廣東仔), “Ah Chan” (阿燦), have entered the daily vocabulary of the Hong Kong media.' These terms specifically address Chinese immigrants who came to Hong Kong in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Around 1949, 700,000 refugees fled to Hong Kong from China. Another wave came in the wake of the famine years in the late 1950s. A third group consisted of “sent-down” city youths who escaped the chaos of the Cultural Revolution from 1969 to 1974. The recent wave of immigrants was triggered by liberalization policies in China. In 1977, 31,000 arrived in Hong Kong legally and illegally. In 1978, another 95,000 came. Immigration reached its peak in 1979 when 178,000 crossed the border. Another 91,000 made their way into Hong Kong in 1980, not to count numerous others who would never be found in the crowd. By the time the Hong Kong Government passed emergency bills in 1980 to restrict the inflow of immigrants, one out of twelve Hong Kong residents had settled for fewer than three years. Considering that different waves of immigrants have made up the population of Hong Kong since the 1940s, and that their energies and resources are well recognized, it is intriguing to see recent immigrants being singled out as a distinct social category and heaped upon with negative images. According to a survey conducted by students in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, public sentiments towards recent immigrants were not couched in the most friendly terms. Eighty-five percent * Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Yale University. Author's note: I wrote this paper under very sad circumstances. Judy Strauch, a fellow student, colleague, friend, had organized a panel for the Regional China Seminar at UC Berkeley in 1985 on refugees in Hong Kong. Due to her untimely death, I was asked to present a paper in her place. I kept the topic Judy had chosen with the hope that this was what she would have liked written. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 ments best illuminate the unique social ethos of Hong Kong in the 1980s. 7 Hong Kong has gone a long way being a city of immigrants. It quietly absorbed uneven waves of refugees who have eventually become a cultural mainstream. If recent immigrants appear to display a socially disjointed character, those who fled China in the late 1940s were probably no different. In fact, descriptions of family migration in the post-war period show that "it was not well planned and it usually involved drastic interruptions of family relationships because of continuous and morally damaging uprootedness necessitated by events and dictated by risks of personal security."* Nevertheless, Lau (1982) argues that a fragmentary, attenuated, but utilitarian familial structure has arisen from the disorderly processes to absorb the immigrants without causing serious strain on public resources. The familial group is still valued across social classes as the basic unit for mutual help and affiliation. This gives social relations a characteristically "Chinese" flavour; but utilitarian motivations built into the familial group makes it less significant as a source of and target for its members' social status. Lau (1982: 67-78) also sees that major normative orientations have emerged among Hong Kong Chinese that display a high value for material advancement as much as for social stability, a very short-term time horizon revealed in the population's search for maximum gain in the shortest possible time, low social participation, and general political aloofness. Though these orientations differ from traditional familism only in degrees, it nevertheless has been a new adaptation to a laissez-faire colonial environment (Lau 1982: 82-85). The normative orientations were in varying degrees sustained by a social economic structure different from the pre-war era. Analyzing a household statistical report of 1976 (a time before the influx of recent immigrants), a sociologist listed three major social categories in Hong Kong whose attitudes he believed would exert considerable influence for the decade of the 1980s.* There was the capital-owning elite comprising 11 percent of the working population. They controlled large-scale native enterprises and maintained interests in foreign-owned enterprises as well. Through institutionalized channels of political consultation, charity, and 3 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 6 ON HELEN F. SIU wandering before he connected up with his maternal uncle in Kowloon. He was given the uncle's telephone number, but not knowing that dialing to Kowloon needed an area code, he could not put through the call. He did not dare to ask advice from the shopkeepers who let him use the phone for fear that naive questions would immediately reveal his alien identity. His fears were real. Though he was wearing what a Hong Kong youth would normally have, his rural accent and his unfamiliar gestures generated enough suspicious looks from people around him. At the time, the Hong Kong police had set up check points to stop illegal aliens from reaching the city proper. Coupled with police raids in resettlement areas and the constant official warnings to prosecute those who sheltered illegal aliens, the maneuvers created the atmosphere of a state of siege for Liang. He was lucky to have the connections of a maternal uncle, who quickly took him in as an apprentice in a Chinese restaurant. A labour certificate came with a legal status, the "green stamp," giving him temporary residence rights in Hong Kong. He felt secure enough to return to his home for a visit in 1982. It was a happy event, but the three years of sojourn left an unspeakable mark on Liang's life. The mark told the story of what it meant to be an immigrant from rural Guangdong to urban Hong Kong at the historical juncture when both societies were suspended in a state of uncertainty. The setting for emigration The year 1979-80 was disorienting for many youths in rural Guangdong. The Third Plenum of the Party Central Committee in late 1978 gave the go-ahead signal for political and economic reforms. In the commune where Liang was, cadres with due anxiety started to introduce the new production responsibility system. Even before the reforms became official, interest groups had pushed for relaxation in the local economy. The atmosphere triggered unexpected movements in the rural commune. Though the commune was not dismantled at the time, work responsibility was gradually allocated to households. Surplus labour emerged as a problem for the more efficiently managed household economies. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 Ignoring the anxiety of rural cadres, gangs of adventurous youths drifted into the county capital to work in the construction and transportation enterprises. Enterprise managers who sensed that they were soon to be responsible for their own profits and losses were quite willing to employ these youths because they were considered physically stronger, more compliant, and cheaper than city workers. Commune enterprises were swept by the winds of change that affected the entire Pearl River Delta. Revived market orientations caused less efficient small-scale rural enterprises to go under. Young workers who used to be envied for their choiced employment were left to fend for themselves. The commune factory where Liang had worked was facing grave economic troubles. The manager started to lend idle machinery to other enterprises while seeking various kinds of overseas contracts to keep his workers employed. As a model technician and a former Party Youth League member, respected by his peers and groomed by the commune cadres as the factory's future promise, Liang was particularly disturbed by the situation. Though political relaxation meant maneuverability for some, livelihood in general became more insecure. With the belief that the government was opening up in earnest, overseas entrepreneurs began to invest in the delta. County officials as well as cadres in Liang's commune were quite eager to seek overseas contracts to counter the negative effect of their declining control in the collective economy. Through the efforts of both sides, the images of Hong Kong and Macao changed from being corrupt capitalist havens to resource centres for China's modernization. Overseas connections were no longer stigmatised but sought after by foreign trade officials. One day in 1979, officials in the county capital unexpectedly gave out application forms at street corners; residents in the county who had relatives in Macao were allowed to apply for emigration. A semi-alien world suddenly opened up. Apprehensive but intensely curious, Liang took a form home to his parents. His application for emigration shocked the commune officials and his friends, though they understood why he wanted to leave. Page 7 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 8 HELEN F. SIU prolonged discussions, the commune officials decided to process the application with the expectation that Liang would help the commune establish overseas business connections. Impatient with the bureaucratic delays, he took his chances and smuggled himself into Hong Kong in late 1979. One of Liang's friends could not tell as successful a story. He took a land route to the coast to meet up with a gang ferrying illegal aliens directly to Hong Kong. Caught before he reached the coast, he was confined in a temporary prison. He and fellow prisoners were made to labour but were each given four ounces of rice a day. Isolated and totally at the mercy of the prison officials, they lived the agony of extreme anxiety for half a month. He was then returned to the commune. Though publicly reprimanded, he was allowed to retain his job in the commune factory. His peers actually sympathised with him. However, the weeks of captivity were so traumatic that he swore he could never try the adventure again. Adapting to the life of an immigrant Four months after Liang arrived in Hong Kong, he and I met on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He had managed to get in touch with two graduate students who had assisted me in fieldwork. We took a walk on the campus grounds after dinner. It was a clear night, and I remember he looked up and said, "How bright are the stars." He was thin and pale, wearing a leather jacket too big for his frame. He looked subdued. I could not believe that he was the young, motivated technician I had met in the commune a year before. I knew he was missing home, because I remembered the starry skies on the nights when we walked home after fieldwork. To his surprise, his uncle did not put him up at his home. Instead, Liang had moved to a hostel rented by the restaurant for single male employees. His work hours were harsh from 5 p.m. to early hours of the morning. City noise and congestion made him tense and restless. He was disgusted with his co-workers, who, according to him, gambled all day, swore, and squandered their pay on women, as if there was no future. He could not understand why they wasted the income which, compared to his commune ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 15 NOTES This idea was put forth to me by Professor Wang Sung-hsing of Chubu University. 1 See "Xianggang mianlin renkou baozha" (Hong Kong faces population explosion), by Zhou Yongxin, Qishi Niandai (November) 1980: 23-26. 2 See "The migration of Shanghainese entrepreneurs to Hong Kong" by Siu-lun Wong, in From Village to City, ed. by David Faure, James Hayes, Alan Birch, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1984: 206-227. 4 This perception is based on a survey of local newspapers such as Huaqiao Ribao, Ming Bao, Xingdao Ribao; public media such as programmes in the two Chinese television channels in Hong Kong; journals such as Qishi Niandai and Baisheng. “Xin Yimin” (Recent Immigrants) was conducted and published in 1982. They obtained valid responses from 510 Hong Kong citizens and 203 recent immigrants. The survey concluded that recent immigrants were subjected to prejudice. 6 See Li Ming-kun “Neidi laike de shehui gongneng" (The social functions of aliens from the mainland), Qishi Niandai 1980 (December): 59-60; He Li, “Luyinzhe chengle erdeng gongmin” (Green stamp aliens have become second-class citizens?) Qishi Niandai (March) 1983: 59-60; “Xin Yimin" (Recent Immigrants) is a survey conducted by the Student Association of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University Social Work Team, and the Social Service Group of the New Asia Students Association; Zhou Yongxin, op. cit. 7 See S.K. Lau, Society and Politics in Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1982: 176. 8 See Lau 1982: 175, who quoted from an article by William Liu, “Family interaction among local and refugee Chinese families in Hong Kong.” Journal of Marriage and the Family (1966) 28, 3 (August): 314-23. 9 See a speech by Li Ming-kun, “Jieji zhengzhi yu Xianggang qiantu” (Class politics and the future of Hong Kong) published in Qishi Niandai 1981 (November) 142: 70-71. 10 In a comment on the government budget of 1981-82, Gelin pointed out that the real wage of 900,000 manufacturing workers in Hong Kong did not increase for the previous two years. Instead of blaming the decline of wages on Chinese immigrants, he suggested that high rent, and high interests coupled with unsteady overseas market caused small-scale enterprises to go under at a high rate. He pointed to the polarizing trend as the real cause for alarm. See “Gongren gongzhi xiajiang yu caizheng yuxuanan” (The decrease in real wages and the government budget) by Gelin, Qishi Niandai (1981 (April) 135: 74-75. 11 See “Zhengfu jieru jingji de maodun” (The contradiction of government intervention in the economy) by Suqi, Qishi Niandai 1981 (April), 135: 71-72. It analyzes the budget plans of the Hong Kong government for the year 1981-82 to show its increased role in the economy. 12 See “Shehui fuwu kaizhi zugou liaoma?" (Are there adequate social service expenditures?) by Zhou Yongxin, Qishi Niandai 1981 (April), 135: 72-74. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 29 Governor, Francis said "Is that defamation? I thought it was a recommendation usually in Hong Kong”). Whilst Francis argued with the Europeans, Ng Choy mobilised the Chinese who first packed the City Hall so that the Europeans could not get in, and when the Europeans adjourned to the cricket field requested an interpreter so that they could follow the proceedings. Their request being ignored Ng Choy led them away. Francis, like Hennessy, seems to have had a genuine interest in the welfare of others and particularly of the Chinese and any section of the community that was at a disadvantage. One of the things that Hennessy did in 1878 was to revive the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps. There had been volunteers in 1854 and the Corps was founded in 1862 but was disbanded in 1866. It is not surprising that Francis, with his army background, should join. He was an active member until 1887 and maintained an interest until his death. In 1878 he was sworn in as an artillery member (there was also a rifle section) and in July he was elected a captain and received his commission. Another captain and three lieutenants were also elected. There was some criticism in the press of the elections it being suggested that Hennessy had influenced the results, and it was said that two of the appointments were positively distasteful. Francis took part in parades and exercises and rifle competitions, and in 1880 was gazetted an additional A.D.C. to the Governor. In June 1880 there was a meeting of the volunteers with the Governor to discuss the future of the Corps and Francis expressed interest in raising a company of Portuguese who formed a sizeable section of the European community. By 1882 the Corps was nearly defunct again and a public meeting was held to consider starting a new one. A committee of five, including Francis, was appointed to draw up rules and regulations. A constitution was approved and in January 1883 the new Corps, some fifty strong, paraded and made "a creditable show". In March there was an election of officers. Francis was defeated for Major but again elected a captain. In April when the drill season was wound up the Daily Press reported “the main burden of the drilling work has fallen upon Captain Francis and he has shewn qualifications for drilling men and getting them into an efficient condition such as are seldom seen in a volunteer officer". In replying to a toast to the Officers Francis said that perhaps an apology was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 46 HENRY THOMAS JACKMAN (1874-1928), ENGINEER, PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, HONG KONG STEPHEN SELBY* H. T. Jackman came to Hong Kong in July 1903 to take up the post of executive engineer in the Public Works Department. Born in England on 4 June 1874, Jackman attended the Crystal Palace Engineering School in London from 1890 to 1893. He left the engineering school to take up three years' practical work on drainage and waterworks engineering with the firm of McLandsborough and Preston, where he was pupil and then assistant engineer. During that period, he was in charge of a new sewage works in Ripon. Following his indenture, he was appointed in 1897 as Assistant District Engineer for Sheffield, where he was responsible for electric tramways, drainage and highways works. The early 1900's in Hong Kong were years of severe water shortage and sanitation problems. The total population of the territory stood at just over 300,000, about 94% of whom were Chinese. The first few years of the decade showed a particularly high death-rate from plague, although 1902 showed a slight drop. Severe damage was regularly caused by typhoons, particularly in 1900 and 1906: flash floods and strong winds brought down many of the poorly-constructed buildings in the “Chinese Quarter" of the city, frequently killing or injuring the occupants. Shipping and small sampans on which whole families lived suffered huge losses. A report had been undertaken in 1882 by Osbert Chadwick on the sanitary condition in the Colony. The report resulted in the establishment of the Sanitary Board in 1883 amid some controversy over how far some of the report's more draconian recommendations should be implemented. The report was elaborated upon by Chadwick over the period from 1883 to 1903, and further recommendations were developed that works on sewerage, water supply and drainage should be put in hand forthwith. *Stephen Selby is an Administrative Officer in the Hong Kong Government and a member of the Society. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 47 The intention to recruit engineers to undertake these works in Hong Kong was presumably advertised in the Home Civil Service and Borough Councils, where Jackman was employed from 1897. Given his training and experience in Sheffield, he was well qualified for the type of work needed in Hong Kong and he was recruited to the Colonial Service on 20 October 1902. The City of Hong Kong at the turn of the century was undoubtedly impressive: with most industry and wharfage on the eastern part of the Island and Kowloon, Central District had developed into a well laid-out commercial area with fine examples of architecture in a number of styles. The city was expanding rapidly, and 65 acres with two miles of sea-front were added with the completion of the Praya reclamation in 1903. Even back in the 1900's, the view of Victoria Harbour often prompted heady descriptions "Viewed from the Harbour, Hong Kong presents a very picturesque appearance, not unlike that of the north coast of Devon or the west coast of Scotland. At night, the scene resembles a city en fête. The riding lights of the shipping sparkling like gems on the bosom of the deep, the bright illuminations of the waterfront, the countless lamps that bespangle the hillsides and stretch along the terraces as though in festoons, furnish a sight that fascinates the eye and leaves an enduring impression of delight upon the mind." (H.A. Cartwright, in Twentieth Century Impressions etc. 1908) Jackman arrived in Hong Kong in 1903 and reported for duty in the P.W.D. on 15 July at an annual salary of $3,000. His rank was Executive Engineer, of which there was a single grade then (the rank was split into First and Second Grade Executive Engineer in 1911). The Director of Public Works at that time, as during much of Jackman's Civil Service career, was William Chatham. Soon after his arrival, the Government started payment of salaries to expatriate staff in Sterling, and Jackman's salary was fixed at £480 per year, with some allowances paid in local currency. During his early career in Hong Kong, Jackman was mainly involved in drainage and sewerage works. He was responsible for ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 55 THE HONG KONG BOTANICAL GARDENS, A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU The Victorian era in Europe was obsessed by the idea of cultivating exotic plants which had become more readily available as plant hunters explored more distant regions of the world. The culmination of this concept was the establishment of large botanic gardens where both local and exotic plants could be admired (often under unnatural conditions) by an incredulous populace eager to learn more of the distant parts of the Empire. In addition to this botanical zeal in Europe, the idea spread to various other areas of the British Commonwealth and botanical gardens soon sprang up in Rangoon, New Delhi, Madras, and Singapore, where for the first time local people were able to familiarize themselves with plants from their own as well as other regions of the world. In addition to this seemingly cosmetic role, botanical gardens also served other, more pragmatic, interests as the growth characteristics of more economically important plants could be examined for the first time under controlled conditions, enabling them to be exploited by commercial interests with an eye towards export trade. In Hong Kong, the idea of establishing a Public Garden was mentioned officially for the first time in 1848, but even prior to that date, on March 27th, 1844, a letter of thanks from the Governor of Hong Kong was sent to the Deputy Governor of Bengal thanking him for a copy of the printed report of the Honorable Company's Botanic Gardens, indicating that the idea of a similar garden in Hong Kong had already been mooted. The first indication that Hong Kong was to be blessed with such a garden was made by Charles Gutzlaff in a statement to the Hong Kong branch of the AUTHORS' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The authors wish to express their gratitude to the staff of the Library and Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, and the City Hall Public Library, Hong Kong, for their kind assistance. S.P. Lau wishes to acknowledge with thanks the permission given by the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries to pursue a Ph.D. project at the University of Hong Kong, this article being a section of the thesis under preparation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 76 D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU popular booklets on Hong Kong flora, fauna, and minerals. The Hong Kong Herbarium was transferred to the Agriculture and Fisheries Department in 1972. The Check List of Hong Kong Plants was updated and formally printed and published in 1974. It was again revised and published in 1978. In 1975 the Botanic Gardens were renamed the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, resulting from a significant expansion of the zoological work under the curatorship (in an honorary capacity) of Dr. K. Searle, in the early 1970s. The collection housed rare or endangered species of animals and birds for conservation and educational purposes. In 1983 the construction of a new large free-flight aviary and a new mammal complex were completed though the most prominent horticultural feature of the Gardens, the Fountain Terrace, had to be removed to allow for the reconstruction of the roof of the service reservoir over which it was built. Work was completed in 1987 with the provision of a larger fountain of attractive design, an expanded collection, enlarged catering facilities and a book shop. In 1984, a typhoon again caused serious and widespread damage throughout the Gardens. The Gardens had to be closed for a week to allow for the clearance of debris to proceed. The large greenhouse was damaged beyond repair and had to be rebuilt. Though the facilities of the Gardens have improved greatly over the years, steady urban encroachment has reduced its original size of about 7 hectares to the present 5.35 hectares. It is conveniently located at the centre of the city and is a popular outdoor recreational and educational facility in Hong Kong. It attracts 3 million visitors a year, including overseas visitors, and is looked after by a staff of 66, including a park keeper, a zoo keeper and numerous gardeners. SOURCES OF REFERENCE MATERIAL 1. The Bentham Correspondence a) Vol. 2 and Vol. 5 b) Chinese and Japan Letters ALC-HAN 1865-1900 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 84 CHAN WING HOI not give any figures for the ratio between indigenous residents and newcomers among the members, but he stressed that no distinction was made between the two groups (mou-san pei-chi). It seems, nonetheless, that the Hoklo, Wai Chau and Chiu Chau residents see themselves as distinctive groups in the settlement. There is probably a separate association for them, for many of the flags put on display in the entrance area were styled "to the Fuk-Wai-Chiu [a short term for Fuk Kin, Wai Chau and Chiu Chau] fellow townsmen" or their Association.' I found out less about Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. In these two settlements, too, the indigenous villagers had been Hakka and Punti people who practised paddy cultivation and fishing. Many of the men of more recent generations worked as seamen and their descendants were able to obtain jobs in the city. As in the case of Shek O, outside interest in their scenic surroundings has been a major factor in the changes in the last few decades. I talked with Mr. Yau Ho Sam, who moved to Tai Long Wan about 40 years ago. His native place was Zheng Cheng, but before he moved to Tai Long Wan, he had lived at Wong Chuk Hang. There were only some ten families at Tai Long Wan when he arrived. Now there are more than 100. The original inhabitants were mainly Hakka although some were Punti. According to Mr. Wong, Tai Long Wan is still a mainly Hakka village, although there are also some Punti, Chiu Chau and Hoklo people. Tourist facilities can be seen in the village, and there are some Westerners' residences. For Hok Tsui most of my information comes from the man who drove the Taoist priests to his village in his van for the daily haang-chiu procession in the festival. In the past the village had 40 indigenous households. Now there are fewer. The villagers were mainly Hakka. His family has been here for ten generations, counting to his grandsons. In the past many worked as seamen. They probably became wealthy in that occupation. There is a watch tower (diu-lau) in the main village (jing-chyn) for protection against bandits, said to be the only watch tower left on Hong Kong Island. I observed that many of the present houses were not in the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 265 NOTES AND QUERIES MORE ABOUT THE KOWLOON WALLED CITY The Kowloon Walled City, situated to the north of the present Kai Tak Airport, was the most important military base in the Hong Kong region during the later Ch'ing Dynasty. It was built in the 27th year of Tao Kuang (1847) to strengthen the fortification of Kowloon.1 The first invasion that it faced was not of British troops but of Chinese bandits. On the 26th day of the Seventh Moon in the 4th year of Hsien Feng (1854), bandits under Lo Ah-tim2 took possession of the Walled City. Seven days later, on the 4th day of the leap Seventh Moon of the same year, imperial forces under Cheung Yu-tang recaptured the Walled City. The fighting lasted for only one day, over thirty bandits were killed, and only two soldiers, Liu Tat-bong and Lam Yu-ping*T, died. Since then, the Walled City remained under the rule of the Ch'ing Government. 3 Then in the 24th year of Kuang Hsu (1898), the New Territories was leased to the British. The following terms were stipulated by treaty: "The Chinese officials stationed there (i.e. the Kowloon City) shall continue to exercise jurisdiction, except so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements for the defence of Hong Kong. Within the remainder of the newly-leased territory, Great Britain shall have sole jurisdiction. Chinese officials and people shall be allowed as heretofore to use the road from Kowloon to Hsinan. It is further agreed that the existing landing place near Kowloon City shall be reserved for the convenience of Chinese men-of-war, merchant and passenger vessels, which may come and go and lie there at their pleasure; and for the convenience of movement of the officials and people within the city.” However, in the 25th year of Kuang Hsu (1899), when the British encountered strong resistance to the occupation of the New Territories," according to Chinese sources, they asked for the help of the Ch'ing Government. Six hundred soldiers were then sent to assist the Brigadier of the Tai Pang Battalion to suppress the upris- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 266 ing in the New Territories. Unfortunately, the British misunderstood that the soldiers were sent there to assist the uprising. With this as an excuse, the British invaded the Walled City on the 8th day of the Fourth Moon (i.e. 19th May) and drove away the Imperial officials and the three hundred soldiers. This ended the Ch'ing rule over the Kowloon Walled City. Hong Kong, June 1987 Anthony K. K. SIU NOTES 2 See JHKBRAS 20(1980): 139-141. They were said to be Hakka stone workers and Triad members. Cheung Yu-tang E, a native of Wai Chau H, was a Fu-cheung #or Brigadier of the Tai Pang Battalion in 1854. He was stationed in the Walled City for thirteen years. Then he retired in the 5th year of Tung Chih (1866) and died four years later in the 9th year of Tung Chih (1870) at the age of 76. See Chapter 82 of the Kwangchow Fu Chi, Kuang Hsu edition 廣州府志卷八十二, 5 See the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong, 1898 (signed at Peking, 9th June, 1898): Treaties between China and Foreign States Vol. 1, P. 539-540. Shang-hai, 1917. 6 See Despatches and other Papers relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1899. See the Report of Viceroy Tam Chung-lun and Governor Luk Chuen-lam of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces to the Imperial Court on the Lease of Kowloon Customs and her territory on the 9th day of the 4th moon in the 25th year of the Kuang Hsu Reign (1899). See the Report of Viceroy Tam Chung-lun and Governor Luk Chuen-lam of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces to the Imperial Court on the British Occupation of the Kowloon City and the French Occupation of Ng Chuen and Shui Kai Prefectures 奧督撫譚鈺麟鹿傳霖泰英人佔據九龍城法人圖佔吳川遂溪兩縣請飭籌 on the 15th day of the 5th moon in the 25th year of Kuang Hsu (1899). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 269 tions, was the senior military official at Kowloon City. The scroll has been kept by a member of the Wong Wai Chak Tong (**) of Cheung Chau, who has looked after the shrine for the past twenty years or more. He had it from the previous keeper in return for keeping the scroll and other objects — there is a table inscribed lo tang pang and for erecting the matshed. He gets all the oil and incense money given by worshippers during the three days of the first month in the lunar year that the matshed is in position. It is not put up at any other time. A fuller account, with an illustration of the scroll, is at pp 311-318 of the RAS Journal, Vol 15 (1975). The street associations are interesting. The Pak She Association has office premises, from which it provides services and amenities for residents of the street. It takes part in the procession (chut wui i) for the Bun Festival, the major religious activity of the year in which all the leading associations take part. It also has a recognised annual part in the organisation of the festival. As stated above, the Chung Hing group has no premises, but uses the Tin Hau Temple (AGB) in that street for its meetings. It takes an annual part in the chut wui for the Bun Festival, and forms part of the organizing group like the Pak She Association. The Tai San Street people have no premises and take no part in the procession but have this curious connection with the lo tang pang. The Hing Lung Street people have association premises put up about 1960 when I was D.O. on a piece of vacant ground. They are connected with the procession for the Bun Festival but not the organisation of the festival itself. Some of the associations celebrate the lantern festival on other days during this period, probably because of the difficulties in securing accommodation in the few restaurants large enough to take the numbers of people involved. I was told that the dates do not vary and have been followed for many years. Hong Kong, 1987 NOTES James Hayes The day of my visit was also the 15th day of the lunar new year (hsin-hai year), the proper date for celebrating the Feast of Lanterns. For information on this festival see Juliet Bredon and Igor Mitrophanow's The Moon Year, A Record of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 270 Chinese Customs and Festivals, pp. 133-138, published by Kelly and Walsh, Shanghai in 1927 but reprinted recently by O.U.P. Hong Kong. 2 I did not have the characters for this term in 1971 and recent attempts to obtain them, and to get an explanation, were met with mystified looks from persons who came with me in the visits. Rather than delete, or guess, I leave as is. End note: This was the last but one occasion on which separate shows were held by associations. The present leaders have told me recently that, beginning in 1973, a centrally organized show, provided through the Rural Committee which is also responsible for fund-raising, has been presented instead. VISIT TO THE MITSUKOSHI DEPARTMENT STORE, MUROMACHI, TOKYO, JAPAN, JUNE 1986 The highlight of our recent four-day visit to Tokyo (seeing my daughter Suki and my wife Mabel's resounding success with buying clothes apart) was undoubtedly our morning walk from Marunouchi Hotel to Mitsukoshi Department Store and being there in time for the opening ceremony. Unlike the short walk to the old and rather grimy Tokyo (Central) Station, the walk to the Tokyu and Mitsukoshi department stores in the Nihombashi/Muromachi districts is mostly along the broad Eitai-dori Avenue which is lined with banks and business houses on either side. The buildings are large and impressive, and many have been planted out completely at front and side with trees and shrubs. At this time of year some azaleas are still in flower in Tokyo, and the bushes are pruned low and shaped in interesting ways. We arrived at Mitsukoshi before opening time at 10 a.m. We thought we were going to a branch of the main store, and therefore were not surprised to find a relatively small building. However, behind it, separated by a narrow street, was the main building, built in the 1920s or even before, and from its grandeur and solidity reminiscent of B. Altmann, Saks and similar large department stores on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The gold logo, a flower on which is superimposed the Yuet (@) character, was placed on the building and on the house flags, also in gold, that hung from it at intervals. As we waited at the main entrance, chauffeur-driven limousines arrived to line up beside the already parked vehicles of leading executives. Inside, two trim, smart-looking girls in stylish grey-white uniforms with elegant hats to match waited at a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT HON. TREASURER'S REPORT HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT OBITUARY: K. M. A. BARNETT TRANSACTIONS: Jean Chesneaux, China in the Eyes of the French Intellectuals Elizabeth Sinn, Kowloon Walled City: Its Origin and Early History ARTICLES: Anthony Sweeting, A Middleman for All Seasons: Snapshots of the Significance of Mok Man Cheung and His English Made Easy Lars Ragvald and Graeme Lang, Confused Gods: Huang Daxian (Wong Tai Sin) and Huang Yeren at Mt. Luofu Graeme Lang and Lars Ragvald, Official and Oral Traditions About Hong Kong's Newest God David W. Mahoney, The British (Protestant) Cemetery at San Pedro, Makati, Manila, Philippines Valery M. Garrett, A Hoklo Wedding Carl Smith, A Sense of History (Part II) The Hong Kong History Project NOTES AND QUERIES: Anthony K. K. Siu, Tam Kung: His Legend and Worship The Cannon in the Kowloon Walled City James Hayes, Hong Kong's Own Boat People Visit to the Iwataya Department Store, Fukuoka, Japan Notes on Temples and Shrines, Hong Kong Island BOOK REVIEWS vii xiii xv 1 11 30 46 74 93 101 112 117 254 278 279 280 283 285 292 Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 PRESIDENT'S REPORT 1987-88 The progress reported at the last Annual General Meeting has continued over 1987-88. The number of new members joining during the year has been, I imagine, the highest since the early years of re-establishing the Society in Hong Kong. Activities have been maintained at a satisfactory level and have been well attended. The current position of the Society and its administration have been subject to intensive scrutiny with members' help, and our proposed reorganisation for the coming year is the subject of a separate information paper. The 1984 and 1986 Journals are expected soon, and a new publication on Religion in China Today is in the press. The only area of concern is that of financing, but you will see that the increase in the annual membership charges approved at the last Annual General Meeting, taking effect from 1 January 1988, will help to restore the position, together with the income from new members and the energetic measures being taken to publicize and sell our publications. Finally, in this introductory statement I must not fail to record that soon after his appointment as Governor of Hong Kong, H.E. Sir David Wilson consented to follow the late Sir Edward Youde as our Patron. Programme I shall now review the year's activities. During the year there were 12 lectures and 5 local visits, plus three tours to China. The talks were as follows: March 31 Mr. Geoffrey Emerson "Yankee on the Yangtze" April 28 Ms. Diana Martin 'Ghost Marriages' May 12 Dr. Elizabeth Sinn June 2 'Kowloon Walled City: A Journey into the Past' Ms. Maja Boyd 'Père David's Deer Return Home' vii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 June 24 July 15 Prof. Alan Griffiths "Victorian Flower Power' Mr. Phillip Bruce "The Bogue Forts' September 29 Dr. Elizabeth Sinn 'Kowloon Walled City' (repeat) October 17 Rev. Carl Smith "History of the Wanchai District' October 28 Mr. Mitya New 'Expatriates in Pre-Revolutionary China' November 27 Dr. Betty Wei Peh-T'i 'Shanghai: Crucible of Modern China' February 8 Ms. Veronica Pearson 'Health and Welfare in Modern China' February 27 Prof. Jean Chesneaux 'China in the eyes of French intellectuals' Local tours were made to the following places of interest: Wanchai and the Ruttonjee Sanitorium (7 November, led by Rev. Carl Smith and Dr. Elizabeth Sinn), Stonecutters Island (3 December, led by Phillip Bruce), the Hong Kong Bank Picture Collection (18 December, led by Mrs. Anita Wilson), Tai Po and Island House (9 January, led by Dr. Patrick Hase) and Sam Tung Uk Museum and Tin Hau Temple in Tsuen Wan (10 February, led by Dr. James Hayes). Tours outside Hong Kong included two visits to Shekou, Humen and the Bogue Forts on 18/19 and 25/26 July organised and led by Phillip Bruce, and an eight-day visit to the Yangtse River Gorges starting 29 August led by Dr. Michael Lau. You will, I am sure, agree that these activities have given a great deal of pleasure to members of the Society. Our thanks and appre- viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 30 KOWLOON WALLED CITY: ITS ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY ELIZABETH SINN The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong is one of history's great anomalies. Until recently, it was a place over which two governments claimed jurisdiction but with neither actively administering it; anarchy reigned while secret societies presided. Above the maze of dark filthy narrow alleys with open drains hovered high-rise apartment buildings, constructed with neither respect nor reference to Hong Kong's building ordinances. Drug pedlars, addicts, pimps and prostitutes operated openly in this favoured hideout for criminals. Small factories, some supplying food for the rest of the territory, proliferated beyond the prying eye of factory and sanitary inspectors. For many years it did not have any water supply. Dentists and doctors unable to register with the Hong Kong government served the poor while lining their own pockets and upholding their professional dignity. Outsiders were immediately recognized and suspiciously watched. The Kowloon Walled City, in fact, was a world unto its own. It has always aroused curiosity, and fear, and few dared venture inside. Since the announcement in January, 1987 of its demolition under the auspices of both the British and Chinese governments, interest has multiplied. Hardly a day passes now without some group of visitors trooping down the alleys hoping to see this unique physical, legal, historical and social edifice before it is gone forever. But, in a way, the City remains an enigma. This paper attempts to unveil some of the mystery by tracing the origin of the historical anomaly and revealing its pre-War development and the unusual role it played in the history of the region. The City's site at the northeastern corner of Kowloon peninsula was first fortified in 1668 when a signal station was established. About 1810, a small — and according to one account, “miserable” Dr. Sinn is Resources Officer at the History Department, University of Hong Kong. Her book on the history of the Tung Wah Hospital will appear shortly. Author's note: I am grateful to Mrs. Eunice Price, Mr. Liang Tao and Dr. James Hayes for drawing my attention to many interesting sources. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 31 - fort was built at the head of the beach.' Its strategic, administrative and economic position remained relatively insignificant until the British occupied Hong Kong Island in 1841. In 1843, after the ratification of the Treaty of Nanking, the hsün-chien (Assistant Magistrate) of the Hsin-an county, with administrative responsibilities for 491 villages, was transferred there.2 Also transferred there was the Commodore of Ta-p'eng, the chief military officer of the county, and the garrison was increased to 150.3 It soon became apparent that these measures were not enough. In 1846, Ch'i-ying, the Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, further memorialized the imperial court pointing out the exposed position of the site, and suggested constructing a “walled-city” (tsai-ch'eng) mounted with cannon. He also proposed building offices and barracks, not only to provide accommodations for the civil and military personnel who had hitherto been billeted in private homes, but also facilities for drilling. Such measures, he felt, would have a “constraining effect” on the barbarian base in Hong Kong, and would greatly strengthen the coastal defence of the area. The wall was completed in 1847, and the “Kowloon Walled City" came into being. Reports on the dimensions of the wall varied. As described by James Stewart Lockhart, who reconnoitred the newly leased territory in 1898, it formed a rough parallelogram measuring 700 ft. by 400 ft., enclosing an area of 6.5 acres. It was built of granite ashlar facing, 15 ft. in width at the top, and averaged 13 ft. in height. There were six watch towers and four gateways, with doors of wood lined with iron sheeting. Officially the main gate was the South Gate over which the four characters “Chiu-lung tsai-ch'eng” (Kowloon Walled City) were engraved, but it seems that the East Gate, which opened onto the market place, saw the most traffic. The parapet had 119 embrasures and an unknown number of cannon were mounted. At a later date, the wall was extended from the northern corners up the hill behind, forming the apex of a triangle at the top. The knoll, known both as White Crane Hill and Twin Phoenix Hill, had a number of romantic legends associated with it.4 With large boulders perched precariously on its slopes, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 32 looking as though they would roll down any moment, it formed a dramatic and distinctive backdrop to the Walled City. The City was primarily a garrison town. In 1898, the garrison numbered 544, with a civilian population of only 200, largely dependents of the military. By then the watch towers were being used as family dwellings. Besides the several official buildings there was also the Lung-chin i-hsüeh ## (Lung-chin Communal School), named after the small Lung-chin river nearby. The school's raison d'etre is significant. Just as the British presence in Hong Kong had necessitated strengthening the civil and military establishment at Kowloon, so had it highlighted the need to strengthen the inhabitants' moral fibres against Western decadence and materialism. The Hsin-an Magistrate, commenting on the founding of the school in 1847, declared that since Kowloon had become a point of interaction with barbarians, the inhabitants needed to be fortified morally, thus making a school necessary, and he even hoped that they might exert a civilizing influence on the intruders. 10 Built of blue baked bricks on a granite foundation, with granite lintels and frames to the entrance, the school was an imposing building with two main halls and two courtyards, much like the grander ancestral halls of the New Territories. Local literati were elected to the school board each year. The source of fund was irregular. A generous official occasionally made a donation; in the 1880s, a special rate was levied on the sale of suckling pig meat to subsidize the school expenses. Characteristically, public meetings, often attended by officials, were also held there. Its reflecting wall bore the characters "Hai-pin Tsou Lu" to denote a place of high moral and academic excellence by the sea, emphasizing how strongly Confucian orthodoxy still prevailed in this outpost of Empire. In 1897, an annex, a fine two-storeyed building called the K'uei-hsing ke (Kuei-hsing pavilion) was added, K'uei-hsing being the god who protected the literati. This shows that fifty years after its foundation, the school was still a going concern. 14 A small paper-burning pavilion stood near the East Gate. Traditionally, the Chinese literati revered the written word and, to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 33 save it from defilement, they often built incinerators to burn paper with words written on it. In 1859, the Commodore, Chang Yu-tang ski, erected a fine pavilion over an incinerator and old men were hired to gather abandoned paper for burning. On the plaque over the entrance were engraved the characters “Ching-hsi tzu-chih-ch'u”**(A pavilion for revering word-bearing paper) in Chang's calligraphy. Though a military man, Chang had pretensions to being a scholar and calligrapher, and his inscriptions found in the pavilion were reportedly much copied in the region.' 16 Up to 1898 there were no shops of any kind within the City.1 In fact, the word "ch’eng” is rather arbitrarily translated as "city", which to a modern person, immediately conjures up visions of shops and other commercial facilities. This is misleading since traditionally, a Chinese ch'eng was simply an area enclosed for defence, and where officials resided. However, a cluster of shops lined the street Kowloon Street — which stretched for about a quarter of a mile from the East Gate to the water front. This became an increasingly prosperous market town, serving not only the Walled City but more distant areas such as Saikung and Shatin. From a fairly early date, a kaifong (chieh-fang i.e. neighbourhood) association, which organized such public functions as health, safety and good order, had existed.ii By 1880, the Lok Sin Tong (Luo-shan-t'ang; lit. Hall of Willing Charity) was founded. Like many Chinese "charitable societies”, it exercised great social and economic influence, and its contribution was most strongly manifested in providing free education and free medicine in the area. 18 As trade grew in the area, a Kwangtung Provincial Customs station was set up in 1871 to prevent smuggling, especially opium from Hong Kong. In 1886, it was replaced by a Chinese Maritime Customs station.iii A pier, the Lung-chin jetty, completed in 1875 after two years of construction, extended some 700 ft. into the sea. As the beach silted up and the jetty became worse for wear, it was repaired in 1892 and extended for another 260 ft. with a subscription of $1,700 raised by more than a hundred shops and individuals, 20 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 34 At the head of the pier was the Lung-chin Pavilion which provided shelter for travellers. It was also known as the “Mandarin-Greeting Pavilion” (ying-kuan t’ing), for it was presumably here that officials landing at Kowloon were officially greeted before they proceeded to the Walled City.21 Ironically, the first invaders of the Walled City were not British, but Chinese. In 1854, certain anti-Dynastic elements in Hong Kong, taking advantage of the general disturbance caused by the T'ai-p'ing uprising, attacked the Walled City across the harbour and occupied it. According to British officials, they were mainly Hakka stone workers and Triad members. Though the rebels had promised the inhabitants protection if they withdrew their support from the Imperial forces, as soon as they took possession of the City, they ransacked the houses and seized pigs, poultry and dogs for food. The Kowloon officials fled to Hong Kong Island. At one point, nine war junks carrying 2,000 Imperial soldiers were ready to confront an equal number of rebel naval forces. The British in fact held the ring by ordering all warships to leave Hong Kong waters and so averted a major naval battle. The Imperial troops finally prevailed.22 However, the hsun-chien's official residence in the Walled City was so damaged by fire that for a while, he was obliged to move to Ch'ih-wei on the Shumchun river.23 Chinese officials at Kowloon and British officials in Hong Kong kept in close touch and generally co-operated in maintaining law and order in the vicinity. In 1867 for instance, when conflict broke out between villagers from either side of the border, Governor Macdonnell made a special trip to Kowloon, met the Chinese official on his steamer and agreed to co-operate in keeping peace.24 In 1884, Kowloon officials warned the Hong Kong authorities of a possible rising of the Triad Society.25 24 26 Under Ordinance 2 of 1850, Chinese fugitives in Hong Kong were handed over to Kowloon officials, but the provision was not reciprocal — China had no obligation to extradite criminals to Hong Kong. Chinese authorities, however, did arrest and convict them. The Namoa case was the most dramatic example. In 1890, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 35 pirates carried out a vicious attack on the s.s. Namoa. Some suspects were arrested in Hong Kong and two of them were committed for trial, but they were released for lack of evidence. Those arrested in Kowloon were less fortunate, for they were convicted and beheaded on the beach in front of the City, with British officials invited to witness the execution." The Chinese were of course also interested in keeping Chinese waters free of pirates and joint efforts were made to this end. 18 Officials at Kowloon performed more than their strictly official duties. Numerous temple inscriptions testify to their active involvement with the community activities of the territory, on both sides of the border." The stone tablet over the entrance of the Pei-ti Temple at Wanchai, with the temple's name inscribed in Chang Yu-t'ang's calligraphy is particularly significant. 29 30 The Chinese community in British Hong Kong were obviously very aware of the Chinese official presence across the harbour. Sometimes they looked to it for protection. For instance in 1886 when it was rumoured that 500 children would be required to consecrate the Tytam Water Works, children were sent to Kowloon City for protection, to the extent that hardly any child was to be seen anywhere for two days." 31 The Chinese in Hong Kong also looked to Kowloon as a source of authority and patronage, and this was most clearly seen in 1896 when the first Chinese Chamber of Commerce opened in Hong Kong. As was customary, rites were performed before the Kuan-ti M, or martial god. The Kowloon Commodore, Ch’en Kun-shan 120!!, officiated, as the dragon flag of Ch’ing China fluttered above,32 as if to establish the Chineseness of the occasion. Not surprisingly this display of loyalty to Chinese officialdom incurred the resentment of the local English press. The Daily Press leader lamented that the Hong Kong Governor had not been invited to officiate instead, and saw this as a move "to insult the established order of the colony"." This, in fact, suggests that to some of the foreign community at least, Kowloon, as a Chinese base, was too close for comfort. There were other problems. Gambling, prohibited in Hong Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 35 Kong except for a short interval between 1867 and 1871, was a major attraction of Kowloon City.” Gambling houses fronting the beach offered free launch services and carried on a thriving business. This caused so much consternation in Hong Kong that, after a series of stunning embezzlement cases and a connection with the gambling "hells” of Kowloon had been established, the Hong Kong government passed an ordinance making it an offence for civil servants to visit Kowloon for the purpose of gambling. Under pressure from the Hong Kong government in the late 1890s, Chinese officials actually suppressed gambling. Ironically, it was under “British rule” in the twentieth century that gambling was re-introduced. But it was only after the Second World War, when Hong Kong prohibited brothels and opium that the Walled City was transformed into the squalid enclave of vice for which it later became notorious. 36 The City had other attractions. Both the Walled City and the fort had been frequently visited by foreigners since the 1850s. It was the terminal point of several interesting walks on the mainland popular with European residents. They were not required to produce passes or go through other kinds of formalities normally required in a garrison town. Often at the end of an excursion, visitors took a quick walk around the wall, snapped a few pictures of "this curious and particularly dirty town", and left for the Island by launch from the Lung-chin jetty. The great change came in 1899. In the previous year, the Convention of Peking had been signed between China and Britain leasing territory south of the Shumchun river to Britain. However, in face of strong Chinese insistence on retaining jurisdiction in the Kowloon Walled City, the British agreed to include a clause that "within the city of Kowloon the Chinese officials now stationed there shall continue to exercise jurisdiction except so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirement to the defence of Hong Kong." This reservation of Chinese jurisdiction upset many sectors of British interest, not least of all, foreign residents in Hong Kong, all seeing this Chinese enclave in the midst of a British administered territory a security risk. The matter came to a head in 1899. The Hong Kong govern- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 37 ment, when attempting in April to occupy the New Territory (as the New Territories were then called), encountered much more ferocious resistance than anticipated. At this juncture, 600 men were sent into the Kowloon Walled City by the Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and the British authorities, convinced that they were there to support the resistance, demanded their withdrawal. The Colonial Office went so far as to threaten starving out the garrison at the City until troops were removed.41 The Chinese, however, claimed that the troops had been sent by special request of the Hong Kong government to preserve order, and though some of the men were withdrawn, by 4th May, 200 were still stationed in the City.42 This prompted the British to take action to attack Shumchun and Kowloon City as punishment for the Governor-General's duplicity in abetting the local resistance. On 16th May, at 3:00 p.m., a force of 300 men consisting of Royal Welsh Fusiliers and 100 Hong Kong Volunteers proceeded to Kowloon and occupied it, apparently meeting little resistance.43 All Chinese civil and military officials were ordered to depart as the British claimed that their continued presence and the retention of Kowloon Walled City in Chinese hands had proven inconsistent to British military requirement. To “legalize” the situation, an Order-in-Council was issued in December, announcing British jurisdiction over the Walled City which was to be administered in the same manner as the rest of the Colony.44 Yet this remained a unilateral revision of the Convention which the Chinese government never recognized. 44 45 46 The Chinese naturally responded bitterly to the development. T'an Chung-lin, the Governor-General, protested vehemently to the court of the undignified manner in which the military officers and soldiers were cast out.45 At Peking, the Tsungli Yamen complained to the British Minister.46 Chinese eagerness to recover jurisdiction at Kowloon is best revealed in the letters from Lo Feng-lu****, Chinese Minister at St. James, to the Foreign Office.Yet, paradoxically, this eagerness was not accompanied by action; no attempt was made by the Chinese to reinstate an administration in the Walled City. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 38 With two governments claiming jurisdiction over it, the Walled City fell between two stools, as one undertook minimal administrative responsibility to avoid diplomatic embarrassment, the other none at all. The result was a near vacuum of administrative function and authority. After Chinese officials departed in 1899, the City's population was much depleted. Some of the original inhabitants stayed on. Their landownership was terminated by the Hong Kong government, which, in turn, granted them 5-year leases. The leases were necessarily short because of the awkward political circumstances. The government was in fact reluctant to grant land leases for any but public purposes and the Protestant Church became a major beneficiary of the situation, receiving several short-term leases to operate schools and charities in the City. In 1906, the Anglican Holy Trinity Church converted the former San-sheng (Three Saints) Temple into a chapel, the T'ien-kuo chiu-tao t'ang (Heavenly Kingdom Chapel). Sermons given every Wednesday and Sunday evening seem to have attracted many women and children from the neighbourhood, who might have attended as much for reasons of faith as for the entertainment. The Church also obtained the lease of an official building to operate an old people's home, called the Kuang-yin yuan, and an alms house. Later, these were turned over to the Chinese Christian Churches Union which also ran a home for widows and orphans, known as Eyre's Refuge, in the large compound. In 1908, the Holy Trinity Church converted the former hsun-chien's office into a primary school, the T'ien-kuo A (Heavenly Kingdom) School, operating it until 1936. For some time around 1931, the Church's youth groups also held their activities there. 52 The former Lung-chin Communal School was also put to good use. Between 1900 and 1905, it was the Land Court's office. Then the Secretary for Chinese Affairs took it over to run a free secondary school for over 300 students with funds from the Hou-wang Temple nearby. At one time, a public dispensary shared the premises. In this way, the schools and other charities, besides meeting the spiritual and material needs of the City's inhabitants, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 39 also created an atmosphere of vitality and purpose in an otherwise rather sleepy and desolate place. Meanwhile, parts of the Walled City fell into decay. The south wall soon began crumbling, and by the mid-20s, the Commodore's office, once the grandest building there and used for a time in the early twentieth century as a plague hospital, was in complete ruins. By the '30s, the sixty or so domestic dwellings were mostly in poor repair. Its vegetable gardens, pig farms and traditional crafts gave the "City" a rural flavour. 57 Until the outbreak of war in 1941, it remained a tourist attraction. Foreigners came to seek “a little bit of Old China”. Invariably, Chinese guide books to Hong Kong recommended it for nostalgic, historical sightseeing. Local residents also found it worthwhile photographic material. It must have been rather pleasant to stroll in the shade of ancient trees, take photographs before the cannon and historical buildings, and admire the many inscriptions in them. One inhabitant even made a living by selling copies of the City's inscriptions to visitors. The rapid development outside the wall from the 1910s onwards - the Kowloon Bay reclamation, the construction of tenement houses, shops and factories, and eventually the airport - passed the City by. Reclamation left it further and further inland. For a while after 1899, the customs station was used as a police station, but in the late 1920s, it had to be abandoned in favour of a site by the new waterfront. The Lung-chin jetty fell into disuse, and only the end portion could be used to serve a ferry running between Hong Kong Island, Hunghom and Kowloon City. After the War, the Yaumati Ferry Company built its Kowloon City Pier near the site. The Kowloon fort was in decay. The cannon suffered various fates. The British had dismantled them, presumably out of distrust of the Chinese. Some were reportedly sold to old metal dealers. Two were displayed outside the Water Police Station, and four outside the new Kowloon City Police Station. Two more, one weighing 4,000 catties, the other 5,000 catties, were abandoned near the South Gate and much photographed. Apparently these ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 40 are the ones to be found remounted in the City today. Inscriptions on them indicate that they had been cast in 1802 and apparently transferred to Kowloon from the Tung-lung Forts in 1811. We do not know the origins of the other cannon, and since the War, there has been no trace of them. And so the City languished. Although squatters had filtered in after 1899, in the 1930s, the population was still less than 500. Conditions there were insanitary but at least it escaped the horrific over-crowding of some other parts of the Colony. In 1933, however, the government announced plans to demolish the houses, ostensibly for sanitary reasons, sparing only those used for public purposes, and to make the area into “a place of popular resort and antiquarian interest". There was some resistance from the residents; the Chinese authorities protested on their behalf while objecting to British disregard for the Convention. After several years' hesitation, the Hong Kong government finally took steps, despite Chinese objections, to evict all residents. By 1940, all buildings, except the old people's home, the former Lung-chin Communal School and the private home of a native resident, had been demolished. The dismantling continued under the Japanese: the wall was completely torn down to provide material to extend Kai Tak Airport. The "Walled City" was no more. After the War, as refugees fled to Hong Kong, a number of them settled in the "Walled City”; by 1947, its population had risen to about 2,000. Once more, the Hong Kong government's attempt to expel them provoked diplomatic conflict. But this time, no eviction took place. Instead, the City was left to its own devices, and to develop, as Governor Sir Alexander Grantham described it, into “a cesspool of iniquity, with heroin divans, brothels and everything unsavoury. From the early '60s, squatter huts gave way to high-rise buildings, which seem designed to break every conceivable construction regulation. Built with no open space between them, but with passages connecting each other like rabbit warrens, they are fire and health hazards and perfect criminal hide-outs. The old people's centre, formerly the Kuang-yin yuan, provides the only open area, and the mass of concrete around this +65 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 42 NOTES Anthony K.K. Siu, "The Kowloon Walled City”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, (hereafter, JHKBRAS) vol 20 (1980) 139-140; his Chiu-lung ch'eng shih lun-chi ” (“Studies on the Kowloon Walled City") (Hong Kong: Hin Chiu Institute, 1987) p. 27. It was called miserable by the Rev. Krone in his “A Notice of the Sanon District” China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Transactions 6 (1859) 71-105, reprinted in the JHKBRAS 7 (1967) 104-137, 132. 2 Chou-pan i-wu shih-mo (The complete account of the management of barbarian affairs) 260 ch'uan (Photographic copy of original compilation, Hong Kong, 1964), ch'uan 70: 18b-19b. The hsun-chien originally administered 496 villages in the county; with the cession of Hong Kong Island, 5 were taken out of his hands, and in 1860, another 12 were lost with the cession of the Kowloon Peninsula. Thus by 1898, he was only responsible for 479. See Siu, Chiu-lung ch'eng, pp. 16-20. 3 ibid., p. 28. 4 Chou-pan i-wu shih-mo, ch'uan 76: 3a-4a. 5 J.H.S. Lockhart, [Report on the New Territory], enclosed in Lockhart to Chamberlain, October 8, 1898 in Great Britain. Colonial Office. Original Correspondence (Series 129) (hereafter CO129)/289; p. 74. According to a later account, however, the wall was about 23 English feet high, and the width at the top between approximately 5.8 feet and 11.75 feet. See Chiang-shan ku-jen LA, “Hsiang-kang hsin-chieh feng-t'u ming-sheng ta-kuan" (A panorama of local customs and famous places in Hong Kong and the New Territories) part 104. These articles appeared in the Hua-chiao jih-pao between 1935-36, and are collected in an album deposited at the University of Hong Kong Library. Based on observations, these articles are an important source of geographical and historical information of places in the territory. However, it seems that Lockhart, who had been commissioned to reconnoitre the newly leased territory, might have gone to greater lengths to obtain accurate measurements. 6 Another detailed observation of the wall and guard houses was made by Walter Schofield in 1928, and his notes are reproduced in JHKBRAS 9 (1969) 154–156. 7 Chiang-shan ku-jen, “feng-t'u”, part 104. 8 Lockhart, p. 75. 9 Lockhart, p. 75. 10 Chiang-shan ku-jen, “feng-t'u”, parts 109-110. 11 See the inscription recorded in David Faure, Bernard Luk and Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha ed. Hsiang-kang pei-ming hui-pien (Historical inscriptions of Hong Kong) 3 volumes. (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1986) vol. 1, p. 101, James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1977 (Hamden, Connecticut, 1977) pp. 167-168. The building was partially demolished in the early 1980s, and a high-rise apartment building was built over it. At the moment (1988), the frame of the entrance with the original couplet is still in place, and an altar, said to be from the school, still stands on the ground floor. 12 Hsun-huan jih-pao June 13, 1883. 13 Hayes, p. 168; Chiang-shan ku-jen, "feng-t'u”, part 107. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 14 Ibid., part 106. 15 Ibid., part 105. 43 16 Lockhart, p. 77; Hayes, p. 164. 17 13 For the Kowloon Street and its kaifong, see ibid., pp. 171-173. 18 See ibid., pp. 168-171; also Chiu-lung Luo-shan-t’ang pai-nien shih-shih HACKETT (One hundred years of the Lok Sin Tong) (Hong Kong, the lang, [1980]). 19 Peter Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty 1898-1997 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1980) pp. 19-20; Stanley F. Wright, Hong Kong and the Chinese Customs. China. The Maritime Customs. VI Inspector Series: no. 7 (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspector-General of the Customs 1930), pp. 9-10. “Native” customs offices were handed over to the Inspector-General of Maritime Customs after the signing of the Hong Kong Opium Agreement in 1886. 20 See Faure et. al., vol. 1, p. 166, p. 251. 21 Siu, Chiu-lung ch'eng, p. 37. #1 23 24 25 Bowring to Grey, August 21, 1854, despatch 61: CO129/47. Krone, p. 116. Macdonnell to Buckingham, August 27, 1867, despatch #358: CO129/124. Jarrett, Vincent H.G. "Old Hong Kong”, vol. 2, p. 613. This is a series of articles on the history of Hong Kong taken from the South China Morning Post from June 17, 1933 to April 13, 1935, and re-arranged alphabetically by subject. A Xerox copy of copies typed from the original articles is deposited in four volumes at the University of Hong Kong Library. 26 Bowring to Grey, August 21, 1854, despatch 61. 27 W.J. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, 2 volumes (Hong Kong: Vetch & Lee, 1971; 1st published 1898) vol. 2, 423–429. Another case occurred in 1896 when a Chinese policeman was shot in Hong Kong. His murderer was arrested in Canton and brought to Kowloon City where he was beheaded. (John Luff, “The Hong Kong Police", China Mail, February 24, 1960). Macdonnell to Kimberley, April 3, 1872, despatch #976: CO129/157. 29 See Faure et. al., vol. 1, pp. 103, 114, 133. 30 The tablet is dated the first year of the Tung-chih reign, i.e. 1862. It is still in very good condition. 31 Newspaper cutting dated May 27, 1886, enclosed in Marsh to Granville, May 31, 1886, despatch #183: CO129/226. 32 3 Hua-tzu jih-pao #711, January 17 and 18, 1896. Daily Press, January 20, 1896. 34 Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, p. 17; The open nature of the gambling was also decried by the Hsun-huan jih-pao, December 17, 1885. 35 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 423. 36 In fact gambling houses were re-opened as soon as Chinese officials departed from Kowloon, Blake to Chamberlain, August 18, 1899, in Great Britain, Colonial Office. Confidential Prints Eastern (Series 882) (hereafter CO882)/5, no. 66, p. 340. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 45 dencies (Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, 1920) p. 130; S.H. Peplow and M. Barker, Around and About Hong Kong (2nd revised and enlarged edition, 1931), p. 10. 59 For example, Chao Chun-hao, Yueh-Kang-Ao tao-yu #5 (A guide to Canton, Hong Kong and Macao) (Shanghai: China Travel Agency, 1938) p. 58; Wen Te-chang. ii) Kuang-Chiu t'ieh-lu lu-hsing chih-nan Rířili (A guide to travel on the Canton-Kowloon Railway) (1922) p. 139; T'u yun-fuzli Hsiang-kang tao-yu fi (A guide to Hong Kong) (Shanghai: China Travel Agency, 1940) p. 15. 60 Chiang-shan ku-jen, “Feng-kuang”, part 163. This was a Mr. Liu T'ao §‡ who had descended from one of the original inhabitants of the City. In 1931, he was living in the K'uei-hsing ke. He had copied every inscription there was in the City for sale to visitors. 61 Jarrett, vol. 3, p. 611; "Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912”, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912, pp. 43-63, p. 47. 62 Hsing-che 1, "Lung-chin shih-ch'iao” ¡¡¡ (The Lung-chin bridge [jetty]) in Li Chin-wei $ (ed) Hsiang-kang pai-nien shih dred years of Hong Kong history) (Hong Kong, 1948) p. 93. #2(One hun- 63 John Stuart Thomson, The Chinese (London: T. Werner Laurie, Clifford's Inn, n.d.) p. 62; Jarrett, vol. 3, p. 611. Siu, Chiu-lung ch'eng, p. 38. Quoted by Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, p. 127; an interesting account of the City in the 1930s-50s is provided in Chapter 7. The Colonial Office file dealing with the removal problem in 1933-4 is CO129/546; for the Chinese side of the story, see Wu Pa-ning "Chiu-lung ch'eng chu-min san-t'u pei pi-ch’ien ching-kuo" JuffDWIDE-LOK MESA (An account of the three occasions on which residents of the Kowloon City were forcibly evicted) in Li Chin-wei, p. 89 and Chih-che IL “Chiu-lung ch'eng shih-chien ti chiao-she" ** (Negotiation over the Kowloon City incident) in ibid., pp. 98–101. ז' 1 Other secondary works on the subject include N.J. Miners, "A Tale of Two Walled Cities", Hong Kong Law Journal vol, 12; no. 2 (1982); Peter Wesley-Smith, "Forlorn, Forbidden and Forgotten: Kowloon's Walled City" Kaleidoscope vol. I: no. 3 (February, 1973) 26-33; Mike Davis, “Inside the Walled City” ibid., vol. IV; no. 6 (August, 1976) 5-11; Michael Chiang, "The Development of the Kowloon Walled City" (Student's thesis, School of Architecture, University of Hong Kong. 1979-80). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 60 the pupil-teacher system as the most efficient and economic remedy for the lack of trained teachers in the two colonies and the first training colleges for English-medium teachers were not established until the twentieth century. 33 34 The fact that Mok's name appears as an assistant Chinese master from 1884 to 1887 at a salary initially of $240 per year and later of $300 a year (i.e. $25 per month) shows that he accepted employment at the Central School only for a very short period,” and that he, then, like the students who had been the despair of Frederick Stewart, proceeded to exploit his own marketability by obtaining a transfer to the more lucrative translation service of the Hong Kong Government. In this respect, Mok Man Cheung was a person who took some actions which enhanced his eligibility as an open collaborator of colonialism. At a time which witnessed attempts to ensure "separate treatment” of the Chinese and Caucasian races as far as the admission hours to the old City Hall's museum were concerned and efforts to secure separate schools for the different races," Mok Man Cheung outwardly valued his connections with the European establishment. It is possible that he signed a bond committing himself to teaching in a Government school for a period of five years at a relatively low salary. Like certain Whig politicians of the eighteenth century in England, he might well have been prepared to "sell spot to buy futures”. Snapshot 3: Mok Man Cheung in late 1917 On his deathbed in late December, Mok Man Cheung might have had time to consider whether his career decisions had been wise ones. In their favour he could point to more than respectable worldly wealth and a respected social position. He had written two successful books and had been engaged in numerous property and other commercial deals. In the last few weeks of his life, he witnessed the will of Mok Tso Chuen, a relative and benefactor. In the last few days, he made his own will, disposing his worldly possessions in the proportion of 2:1 between his wife and his concubine. Perhaps, at some time, Mok Man Cheung cast his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 70 32 For further details and comments about the establishment and failure of the 1881-1883 Normal School, see CO129/197, p. 326f. In this file, Colonial Office minutes are critical of Hennessy's extravagance, note that "the scheme is evidently Dr. Eitel's with Governor Hennessy's fiat" and other correspondence (e.g., Eitel first report on the Normal School, in Eitel to M.S. Tonnochy, Acting Colonial Secretary, 19th January, 1882, and his second report enclosed in his letter to Tonnochy of 19th January, 1882) shows that Eitel, the Inspector of Schools, felt that there would be very unfortunate repercussions if the school were to be closed and that the headmaster, A.J. May was even prepared to take a salary reduction (from the original proposal of $2,400 a year to $1,600) rather than see the Normal School break up. In later reports (contained in CO129/202 p. 532f.), Eitel compared the Normal School, with its "special private tuition and instruction" in pedagogy, to the pupil-teacher scheme at the Central School to the disadvantage of the latter, and May, in his letter to Frederick Stewart of 19th July, 1883, mentioned the virtues of being able to utilize simulation techniques for the preparation of teachers at the Normal School. The actual end of the Normal School, which had been dismissed as unnecessary in the Education Commission Report of September 1882, was precipitated by A.J. May's insistence, in September 1883, that the students agreed to a bond to teach for five years at a salary rate of $25 per month on their completion of the course. The immediate result was that four of the ten students left for the Medical College at Tientsin, three joined commercial firms, and one became a government interpreter, leaving only two of the original intake, as mentioned above, to become teachers. 33 In Singapore, a central training college for men teachers using English as the medium of instruction was proposed in 1904 and again in 1910, but the scheme was aborted because of the lack of applications. In Kuala Lumpur, an experimental teacher training course began in 1905, proved successful, and was followed by a two-year course in Penang in 1907. See Wong Hoy Kee, Francis, and Gwee Yee Hean, Perspectives: The Development of Education in Malaysia and Singapore (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd., 1972), pp. 12-14. 34 What is certain is that his name does not appear in the Blue Book as one of the Pupil Teachers at the Central School at any time between 1880 and 1885. As noted above, Mok Man Cheung won the Class 1 Mathematics prize in January 1884. He was employed as "Fourth Chinese Assistant" at the Central School from September 1884. He did not, therefore, have the time to be enrolled in a pupil teacher's course, which customarily lasted for three years, but he might have taken an examination in "Pupil-Teacher's Theory" while studying in Class 1. 35 The dispute over the opening hours at the City Hall Museum had come to a head in 1880 when the Executive Committee of the City Hall Museum, led by its chairman, William Keswick, attempted to restrict the entry of Chinese to the afternoons. They were opposed by the first Chinese member of the Legislative Council, Ng Choy, and by the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy. See CO129/189 p. 476-614 for correspondence, largely unsympathetic to the Committee's discriminatory proposal and including an extract from the Hong Kong Hansard for 1880 reporting a speech by Ng Choy, and CO129/192 p. 438-446 for correspondence which includes Keswick's opinion that racial distinctions should not be abolished with regard to admission to the Museum of the City Hall. The call for separate schools for the different races had been made on a number of occasions in the past, most notably in 1845, 1856, and 1870-1872, but the most recent resurgence of interest and argument about the issue had been provoked by a speech made by the Anglican Bishop Hoare at the Prize Distribution of the Diocesan Boys' School in January ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 76 with records of the "autobiography” of the Taoist saint Huang Chuping, the figure worshipped by many thousands of devotees in Hong Kong as "Wong Tai Sin." This autobiography has been reprinted in official publications of the Sese Yuan, and reads as follows (using the Sese Yuan's translation): As a young shepherd boy, I spent my early childhood at Kim Hwa [Jinhua] Mountain located at the north of Kim Hwa City in Chekiang [Zhejiang] Province. The mountain was said to have derived its name from Venus and Mou Nui Constellation (Wunüxing) both of which were directly overhead. Orientated at the north of Kim Hwa Mountain was the Hill of Red Pines where I took abode. This hill, densely forested and often hidden in clouds and fog, was seldom frequented by outsiders. Among thick natural vegetations and interlocking peaks there was a deep ravine named Kim Hwa, one of the thirty-six caves of the similar geological structures in the neighbouring district. My childhood was marred by poverty and hunger, compelling me to start earning my daily bread as a shepherd boy at the age of eight. At fifteen I was fortunate enough to have been blessed by a fairy who led me to a stone cave where I learned the art of refining cinnabar nine times into an immortal drug. For forty years in succession, I lived in this seclusion from the rest of the world until my brother broke this isolation. His early efforts were at first futile. However, through the guidance of a Taoist fortune-teller, he located me. My brother queried me of the whereabouts of the sheep under my custody. To this I replied that they could be traced in the east of the Kim Hwa Mountain. He was surprised, on arrival, to find nothing but heaps of white boulders which quickly transformed into sheep at my call. Fascinated by this impressive show of mine, my brother also took steps to learn to become an immortal. Originally, I was named Wong Cho-ping (Huang Chuping), a subject of the Tsun [Jin] Dynasty and a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 87 NOTES “Wong Tai Sin” is the most common transliteration in Hong Kong of the god's name. The pinyin transliteration is Huang Daxian. For Chinese names with a conventional Hong Kong transliteration which differs from the pinyin form, we will begin with the pinyin forms followed by the Hong Kong forms within brackets. For names and places in China, and for subsequent references to Chinese names and terms used in Hong Kong (except for place names such as Hong Kong and Kowloon), only pinyin system will be used. On the reasons for the growth in popularity of Huang Daxian in Hong Kong, especially since the late 1940's, see Graeme Lang, and Lars Ragvald, “Upward mobility of a refugee god: Hong Kong's Huang Daxian," The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol, 1, 1988. We have called Huang Daxian the “refugee god” both because his cult was imported into Hong Kong early in this century during a period of persecution of traditional religion in China, and also because the god's success can be attributed in part to the refugees who flooded into the area around the temple in the late 1940's. Key decisions made by the management of the temple were also very important. Our discoveries regarding the ruined temples to Huang Daxian in Guangdong, and a second visit to these sites in 1987, will be reported in a forthcoming article. There are undoubtedly many intriguing stories about Huang Daxian which could be collected by researchers in Guangdong province. For instance, one story connecting Huang Daxian to legends about the founding of Guangzhou was related to the first author by the manager of a local company near Guangzhou, who as a child had played in an old Huang Daxian temple in the Fangcun area (on which, see the first author's forthcoming paper). According to this story, Huang Chuping of the Jin dynasty had found the way (Tao) and become a saint at Mt. Luofu. He then, it is said, shouted at five pieces of hard rock turning them into five fairy-sheep and also ordered five fairies dressed in red, yellow, blue, white and black respectively to drive the sheep. This unlikely flock descended in the midst of Guangzhou. Huang Daxian then chanted, "I wish that Guangzhou from now on shall enjoy bumper harvests, timely wind and rain, be prosperous and at peace, and never suffer famine or disaster”. This tale was related as explaining the origin of the old names Wuyang Cheng (City of the five sheep) and Suicheng (Ear of grain city). The story is clearly modeled on the old (documented) tales of the five saints on ram-back who brought the five ears of grain to Guangzhou. It is not clear where the manager got his story, but it may have been stimulated by an obscure phrase on one of the pillars of the main gate of the old Fangcun Huang Daxian temple. In any case, we expect that there are many such tales which remain to be uncovered. The versatile Huang Daxian, with his several incarnations and his ability to absorb stories from other traditions, may continue to surprise students of his cult for years to come. In the present paper, however, we focus only on his merger with another Taoist figure at Mt. Luofu. 5 Several cases of apparently similar confusion or merging of legendary Taoist figures on the basis of similar surnames have been documented in S.H. Wong. “A study of Huang Ta-hsien [Daxian].” The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, XVI, 1985, pp. 223-239. Mt. Luofu, some 100 kilometres northeast of Guangzhou, is historically the most important site in the history of Taoist worship and practice in Guangdong province. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 88 Our principal concern has been to document and explain the rapid growth in popularity in Hong Kong since the 1940's of the cult of Huang Daxian (on which, see Lang and Ragvald, "Upward mobility of a refugee god"). However, we have also been trying to trace the origins of the cult in Guangdong province, hence the research trip to the village. A report on this visit, and on the first author's initial visit to the village in 1985, has also been prepared. We are now working on a book on the history of the cult in Guangdong and Hong Kong. Probable cases of the mergings of deities include, from ancient Greece, the merging of two incarnations of Zeus (Gilbert, Murray, Five stages of Greek Religion, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday Anchor Books, 1951, p. 48; H.J. Rose, Religion in Greece and Rome, N.Y., Harper and Row, 1959, pp. 48-49), and of various female deities in Aphrodite (Paul Friedrich, The Meaning of Aphrodite, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1978, ch. 2); from Rome, the blending of Roman with Greek deities, and the subsequent apparent merging of some Roman deities with Celtic deities (John Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1970, pp. 211-220); from the early Christian era, the probable absorption of elements of the cult of Diana into the cult of Mary (Herbert Muller, The Loom of History, N.Y. New American Library, 1958 p. 173; Durant, 1939: 183); from Mexico, the absorption of elements of the Indian goddess Tonantsi into the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe (Ena Campbell, “The Virgin of Guadalupe and the female self-image: a Mexican case history", in Mother Worship: Themes and Variations, ed. by Richard Preston, University of North Carolina Press, 1982). 9 This translation strangely enough contains one serious (the failure to recognize Dongtian Fudi [Cavern-heavens and blessed spots] as a general Taoist concept) and a few smaller mistakes. These, however, do not affect the arguments made in this paper. 10 This probable origin of the autobiography was pointed out to us by Dr. S.H. Wong of the Department of Chinese, Hong Kong University (see Wong, "A study of Huang Ta-hsien"). There are several slightly different versions of Shenxian Zhuan. For this translation we have used the relatively early (Song dynasty) version in Biji Xiaoshuo Daguan (A Parade of Note-form Fiction), Taibei, Xinxing Shuju, volume 4. 12 Essentially the same story is related in Huitu Liexian Quanzhuan, compiled in the 16th century by Wang Shizhen (reprinted by Zhongwen Chubanshe in 1971 on Taiwan). This is one of the major reference works on Taoist saints, with capsule biographies on some 500 of them, and covers the entire period from the beginning of Taoism until the last year of the reign of Hongzhi (1506 A.D.). This source adds only the information that during the Song and Yuan dynasties, both Huang Chuping and his brother were awarded honorary titles by the state. The story of Huang Chuping also appears in Jinhua Fuzhi (the prefectural gazetteer of Jinhua), volume no. 22 in the subsection "xian shi" (on fairies). 13 Ge Hong was a native of Jurong in Danyang (present day Jiangsu province). His career included service as assistant to prime minister Sima Rui, and as counsellor and military staff officer. He was honoured by the state for his services in the suppression of the peasant revolt led by Shi Bing. However, he was also very interested in Taoist alchemy. He was a grandson, on the fraternal line, of the famous necromancer and alchemist Ge Xuan (164-244), and from a disciple of Ge Xuan's, he learned the art of refining cinnabar. When word spread that cinnabar sand had been found in Jiaozhi (the ancient name for part of Guangdong and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 194 Responsibility for the general welfare of the Chinese in Hong Kong was assumed by the hospital directors past and present. Their espousal of Chinese causes led them into conflict with certain European interests. It was felt they wielded too much influence over the Chinese. Their connections with Chinese authorities also caused alarm. Many aspects of life and business of the Chinese in Hong Kong were connected with China, hence, there were many occasions when it was necessary to correspond and negotiate with Chinese officials. There was sharp criticism in the English language press against the committee for taking upon itself matters which were considered to be the proper concern of the Hong Kong Government. Because of this, a public meeting was held at the hospital in 1875 to discuss whether it was “advisable to have a Kung Soh or Town Hall built so as to separate the functions of the committee from that of the general community in order to avoid further criticism." There was no consensus of opinion on the matter. Two years earlier, the Registrar General, who was responsible for relations between the Government and the Chinese, had asked the Tung Wah Hospital Committee to select two men from each district of the city to serve as headmen of the district watchmen. The Committee had demurred stating it would like to see a separation of their duties as the committee of the hospital and as leaders of the kaifong. The Governor agreed that a separation was desirable. One of the difficulties was that if the functions of the two groups were to be separated, as most felt should be done, the kaifong needed a proper meeting place. At the time of the discussion concerning the desirability of separating hospital matters from general community affairs in 1875, the Chinese submitted a petition to the Government asking ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 276 A lot of work on local history is being done in Taiwan, and the only thing that I can say about it is that the local life they describe is exceedingly peculiar compared with the New Territories. What's coming out from Taiwan does not represent the same society at all; and I'm sure that the researchers in Taiwan are as eminently honest as we are. It seems you've got a divergence, but then we all know (for instance) that local Cantonese think that Chiuchaus are “barbarians” anyway, and the same goes for the Taiwanese. So almost certainly, there is a substantial cultural 'divide' between this part of Canton and Taiwan. Next speaker — Who wrote these classic works, and when? PH— Some of the classic works were written in the 20's, many of them are dated in the 30's, and some are as late as the 1940's. They were almost all by anthropologists, who were also people with a major political connection. In other words, they were senior figures in the KMT or they were people connected with the Communist party at the time; and their books were almost written in major cities of China like Shanghai, Nanking or Peking with a few in Canton. The villages that were being studied were close to, sometimes within walking distance of, those cities which themselves are situated in the most fertile parts of China. Hong Kong, as you know, is only a city by pure chance, being very mountainous and a poor and remote area. My own guess is that what you see in Hong Kong is probably more likely to be closer to the truth; in that two thirds of rural China is mountainous, poor, and far from the major cities. But whilst I wouldn't like to put my hand on my heart and say that it was true for the major areas at the doorsteps of the big cities, I think it is worth stressing that the work we are doing shows that one shouldn't try to say that all Chinese village life was this or that, because it almost certainly was not. DF— But the unity of China was not skin-deep. PH— The unity of China was not skin-deep, no, but some of the cultural and managerial practices were. At least, they differ from district to district. JH The impression we get, if we in Hong Kong now have to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 278 NOTES AND QUERIES TAM KUNG: HIS LEGEND AND WORSHIP Occasionally, one hears of the deity Tam Kung #2 as having originated in Kowloon. That mistake arises from confusing Kowloon (Chiu-lung 九龍) with Chiu-lung shan in Lin Kuei-shan 歸 county. Tam Kung, named Tao, was a native of Kuei-shan (present Hui-tung) in the Yuan Dynasty. He cultivated his moral conduct at Chiu-lung shan. He was often seen in the mountains with a tiger carrying his things. He cured the sick when they approached him. He died and was revered as a deity. When drought came, people went to him to ask for rain, and often they were satisfied. In the 6th year of Hsien-feng (1856), he was granted the title ‘Hsiang-chi 祥濟’ (“Assistance and Aid”) by the emperor. In Hui-chou, two temples were erected to offer sacrifice to Tam Kung; one on Chiu-lung shan in Kuei-shan and the other in Hui-chou City. A pavilion was built at the place where he cultivated his moral conduct. On my visit to the Chiu-lung shan in 1986, I saw both the temple, the Lung-feng tsu-miao 龍峰祖廟, and the pavilion, the T'an-kung te-tao-t'ing 譚公德道亭. A stone tablet now kept in the Hui-tung county museum, given the title, "The repair of the T'an-kung Temple of Chiu-lung shan" dated 4th year of Tao-kuang (1824), records that the original temple was built thousands of years ago, was repaired in the 40th year of Ch'ien-lung (1775), and then rebuilt and enlarged in the 4th year of Tao-Kuang (1824). The pavilion that I saw was rebuilt quite recently. In Hong Kong, there are two Tam Kung temples. They were built in the late Ch'ing by people from Hui-chou. The Tam Kung Temple at Wongneichung was built in 1901. It was originally built on the hill slope near the present Hong Kong Sanatorium. A bell ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 280 two of those that were placed in this region for defence purposes, and installed at Kowloon Walled City when that was built in 1847. ANTHONY K.K. SIU 1 Wu T'u-li #, White Banner Manchu, Acting Governor of Kwangtung from the 5th year to the 7th year of Chia Ch'ing (1800-1802). 1 Chüeh-lo-chi Ch'ing, White Banner Manchu, Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi from the 1st year to the 7th year of Chia-ch'ing (1796-1802). } Sun Ch'uan-mou, native of Fukien Province, Commander-in-chief of the Kwangtung (Marine) Forces from the 1st year to the 9th year of Chia-ch'ing (1796-1804). 4 From the inscription, the name of the Commissioner of Salt Transport of Kwangtung and Kwangsi is illegible. However, from historical record, the one who was in that post was Zhang Ch'uan, native of Chekiang Province. HONG KONG'S OWN BOAT PEOPLE In April 1970, I went with one of my friends to visit his mother who lived on a boat in the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter. The friend was a boatman who crewed and looked after a pleasure boat for a European firm. He lived in a squatter hut in Chai Wan Cottage Resettlement Area. The old lady belonged to the indigenous boat population of Hong Kong Island. She had been born on a boat moored off the old Dairy Farm pier inside the present typhoon shelter. This was in 1890. Her father had also been born there in a boat, and she thought this had been so for several generations: at least, this was the family's received information. Her husband had also been born on a boat in the area, and his father before him, and with the same family tradition of local identity. This evidence is not conclusive, being based only on word of mouth within these two families of boat people. The grandparents might have come into the area upon the opening of the port in the 1840s. On the other hand, a pre-British origin would accord with many other cases known to me, in which Tanka boat people had attached themselves to small bays and local anchorages: by all accounts and certainly by their own traditions for generations, and perhaps even for centuries. T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 Plate 1. The Walled City at the turn of the century, just after the British took over the territories surrounding it. (Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History) Plate 2. The Lung-chin jetty with the Lung-chin pavilion at the head. To the left is the fort and to right is the gambling ball. 1898. (Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History) Page 330 Page 331 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 Plate 3. One of the gambling balls outside the Walled City, 1898. (Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History) Plate 4. Children playing in front of the Lung-chin Communal School, late 1930s. (Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q PRESIDENT'S REPORT, 17 March 1989 The year has seen a continued great increase in membership, a fuller and more varied programme of activities, more sales of our stock of publications, an improved (but still not satisfactory) financial situation, and a start to the work of the several new committees set up following acceptance at last year's AGM of recommendations stemming from the Symposium Report on the Future of the Society. Thanks to Phillip Bruce, I am also happy to table the Society's new brochure. I have fought unsuccessfully my tendency to be long-winded: but truly there is much to report, and I believe it will be of interest to those present tonight and to the wider audience reached through the Journal. Membership Our Assistant Secretary, Mrs. Bruce, reports that there are currently around 700 Local Members, plus 116 Overseas Members and 5 Institutional Members. There has thus been another big increase in the past year, with 41 since 1st January 1989 alone. The gains obviously greatly offset the losses, but there have been about 50-60 deletions owing to departures and longstanding non-payment of annual fees. The local "Ordinary" membership includes 129 Joint Members (258 persons), as well as 104 Life Members and 10 Student Members. Approximately three-quarters of the local membership lives on Hong Kong Island. Programme During the year, the Activities Committee, continuing under Dr. Elizabeth Sinn's energetic and imaginative leadership gave us a record-breaking 11 talks, 8 local visits, one outside tour to Foshan, Guangdong, and a Chinese Dinner at City Hall and a Cocktail Party besides the Annual Dinner after the AGM. A full list of these events follows: Programme Events April 9 16 Tour of St. John's Cathedral (organiser: Mrs. Doreen King) Discovery Central (tour: organiser Phillip Bruce) Page vii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 27 May 9 30 June 10-13 27 July 11 August 1 October 1 17 November 1 26 December 1 10 January 6 21 February 24 25 March 4 10 17 "Women in China" (lecture: Dr. Maria Jaschok) Cocktail Party for New Members "Britain and Vietnam, 1948-1955" (lecture: Prof. Mary Turnbull) Visit to Foshan (organiser: Dr. Michael Lau) "Fortune & Safe Passage: Chinese Paper Folk Art (Kam Fa)" (lecture: Dr. Janet Lee Scott) 1 "Ancestors" (lecture: Mr. Frank Ching) "Pirates in the Pearl River Delta" (lecture: Prof. Dian Murray) Visit to Fung Ping Shan Museum, Hong Kong University (organiser: Dr. Michael Lau) **Introduction to Chinese Musical Instruments" (lecture: Prof. Tong Kin-woon) Chinese Dinner for Members Tour of Central Police Station and Royal Hong Kong Police Museum (organiser: Mr. Geoffrey Roper) "Jade Carving" and "Chinese Costume" (joint lecture: Mrs. Sydney Fung and Mrs. Valery Garrett) Walk around Western District (organiser: Dr. James Hayes and others) "Influenza: the Asian Connection" (lecture: Prof. K. F. Shortridge) Introduction to New Territories Villages (tour: organiser Dr. Patrick Hase) **Shanghai Entrepreneurs in Hong Kong" (lecture: Prof. Wong Siu-lun) Tour of Kowloon Walled City (organiser: Dr. James Hayes) Tour of Country Parks (organisers: Dr. James Hayes and Mr. K. C. Iu) "The Tale of the Norma Bell" (lecture: Mr. John Chetwynd-Chatwin) Annual General Meeting and Dinner We are grateful to all speakers and organisers, and following last year's innovation have continued the practice of inviting them to attend the Annual Dinner as guests of the Society. It is gratifying to report that eleven of them have accepted our invitation this year. In addition, we vili ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q have invited the Chairman of two sister societies, the Hong Kong Anthropological Society and the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, to join us, and I am glad to report that both Mrs. Martin and Mr. Meacham will be present. In addition, Professor Harry Simon, Professor Emeritus of the University of Melbourne and Head of the Department of Linguistics at Lingnan College, who invited our Society to co-sponsor the interesting talk by Garry Woodard last November, will also attend as our guest. We both intend that this will be the first of many such joint events with and at Lingnan, During the year, in accordance with the reorganization that followed the last AGM, the Activities Committee comprised Councillors and Members alike, which strengthened it and enabled more activities to be mounted. It is now usual for there to be a leader and an organiser for outdoor activities; the one responsible for the details of the visit and leading it, the other for dealing with the paperwork arising from members' replies, accounting, and handling telephone enquiries. However, as often happens, these improvements have brought other problems. Whilst it is gratifying to have a good response to activities, we are often swamped by applications! We do our best to maximize the number of places available, but even this is not enough. In an extreme case like the visit to the Kowloon Walled City, we took 135 members on the first visit, 102 on the next, and we are having to run a third! The Country Park visit was advertised for 80 places, but we took 100, and there were still disappointed members. I mention these facts to show that there is often a problem, and that whilst we do our best to take as many people as we can, the nature of the visit, accessibility, the wishes of the authorities concerned and other relevant factors often dictate maximum numbers. The manageability of large groups is yet another factor. Where possible, we will repeat a popular visit, as we have done and will do again in the case of the Kowloon City one. In these circumstances, may we ask that, whenever possible, you will please telephone the organiser if you or a member of your party are unable to go? We can then inform someone on the waiting list. This is particularly important where the trip is by bus, so that places are not ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q left vacant on a popular visit. Venues With a predominantly Hong Kong Island based membership, some of you have rightly said that it would be more convenient to have our lecture meetings in Hong Kong rather than in Kowloon. We have borne this point in mind, and through Dr. Patrick Hase, and by making joint presentations with the Urban Council, have been able to use the Extension Activities room on the 2nd Floor of the City Hall High Block for 7 of our talks this year. We are grateful to the Chief Librarian, Urban Council Libraries, for use of this amenity with its excellent location and facilities, and courteous and helpful staff, and look forward to continued programmes there. At the same time, we express our thanks and appreciation to the Chief Curator, Hong Kong Museum of History, for the continuing use of his well-equipped lecture hall in Kowloon Park from time to time. Without permanent premises of our own, we are doubly grateful. This closer connection with the Urban Council's Museum and Public Library Service has, I feel, been mutually beneficial. Publications The Journal is our main publication. It has been running behind, and I am glad to report the completion and issue of two numbers during the year, those for 1984 and 1986. The 1987 Journal is with the press. I wish to thank Dr. Patrick Hase and Dr. David Faure for editing them, and Dr. Faure again for his work on the 1987 number. Looking through these and past issues, one becomes strongly aware of the Journal's permanent contribution to Hong Kong Studies. It's almost as if anyone interested in the subject can't afford to be without a set! And indeed we have sold nearly 30 sets in the past year. With more attention being paid to Hong Kong Studies — especially in China, where I hear there are some 20-30 centres established for this purpose — the value of the material stored in the Journal has become apparent to many. No other academic publication has for so long concentrated on Hong Kong, and our contributors have surely aided its readers towards a better understanding of the place. To give but one example, Hong Kong's commercial development and interaction with China come vividly to life! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q in Rev. Carl Smith's articles reprinted in the 1986 Journal. His accounts of 19th century Cantonese entrepreneurs like Ho A-mei show that Chinese energy and enterprise was fuelled and sustained by the opportunities opened by colonial Hong Kong, and remind us that what we see and marvel at today has also happened yesterday. We have another publication nearing completion. This is the book entitled The Turning of the Tide, Religion in China Today which is a collection of papers by authors with first-hand knowledge of the subject and edited by one of our members, Professor Julian Pas of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Library Members will have noted the greater expenditure on our library in the year's accounts. We are continuing the RAS tradition of building up a fine reference library of books on China. At a time when such books are in increasingly short supply, as reflected in booksellers' rising prices, the financial value of our collection grows from year to year. Since 1985, the Library has been kept at the Kowloon Central Library, as part of the reference collection there. The advantage of housing it in a public library is that more people can use it, but the disadvantage from our members' viewpoint is that most of them live on Hong Kong Island. Their use of the RAS Collection is undoubtedly limited thereby, especially as the Kowloon Central Library is not located on or near an MTR station. I have therefore discussed with the Chief Librarian, Urban Council Libraries, the possibility of moving it back to the Island when an opportunity occurs. Mrs. Luk tells me that this can be done when the City Hall's Hong Kong Central Library is replaced on the same or another site in the 1990s, and that she is willing to do so at that time. I have written to her subsequently to formalize this request. An allied problem is the availability of the collection. Under normal library policies, access to the stacks (the shelves where the books are kept) is very limited. This is the case at Kowloon Central Library, where books other than ours are kept in the same section. On the other hand, the books are ours, and our members should have better access to them, instead of being confined to the catalogue and making a requisition. Mrs. Xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 77 of the castle a Po To Hai (江湖海) or “arrest bandit station". No trace is left of either of these buildings, but undoubtedly this is the origin of the English name of Castle Peak. The history of the monk Pooi To is a curious one, and the stories of the miracles he did are very numerous. It is not known what his real name was. Pooi To being his Buddhist name. He is supposed to have lived in the K'ei Chau (兒洲) district at first, which is between Shantung (山东) and Chili (直雩) provinces. He was an uncultivated man, without family, wandering from place to place, and asking shelter from house to house. Once when he went to the then capital city of China (Sung dynasty) Kin Hong (交宝) he was described as looking about forty years old. He used a rope instead of a belt, his coat was all torn. He was easily pleased, but quickly angered. Sometimes he talked a lot, at other times he remained silent for whole days, and when it was very cold he would often roll in the snow. He would climb the hills in rough wooden clogs or walk about the town barefoot. He was not a vegetarian like other Buddhist monks, but ate and drank as an ordinary man. His only possessions were a rice basket and a wooden cup. The cup plays an important part in the various stories about him, and is the origin of his name. Once he went to live at a monastery called Yin Yin T'z (蕁限壮) where the abbot Faat Yee To Yan (发自美壮) allowed him to occupy the spare room. After staying there a while he wished to go across the Kwa Po river (過波添) but the ferry man seeing his ragged condition and doubting probably his ability to pay refused to take him. So Pooi To tossed his cup into the water, put his legs in it, and singing merrily he floated across to the northern shore. Another story, and one rather to his discredit, tells how he stole a Buddhist idol of gold from a house where he had been entertained. The owner gave chase, but even though he ran and Pooi To appeared to be walking slowly ahead of him, he could not catch him up. Then a man on a horse joined in the chase, but even he fared no better. At last the river, Maang Tsun (獱村) was reached and the owner felt certain of being able to get his idol back, but Pooi To, a little ahead of him, calmly threw his cup in the river, and sitting in it ferried across. From these stories his name of Pooi To “cup across” was derived. Once Pooi To went to a small district called Kwong Ling (广凌) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 88 panic; many of the people abandoned their homes without taking food or money, and with their wives and children were driven towards the boundary. Destitute, many of them died on the road, while a few managed to escape to Kwai Shin district and other places as far away as they could. A year later the boundary was moved a further 30 Chinese miles inland. The new boundary ended to the west at Taai Ch'ung Hau and Sha T'ong Fong and to the east at Taai Shaan Ha and Paak T'au Shaan, a flag being put up at each of these places. Almost immediately the district magistrate of Tung Kwun made a personal inspection of the places where the flags were erected and he reported that the people in Taai Chung Hau had not moved so the flag was taken from Sha Tong Fong and hoisted on top of Shek Shaan. Thus the six villages Ch'ung Hau, Lau Ka Haang, Chaak Mei, K'iu T'au and Tau Ch'ung all had to be moved, but at Kiu T'au a rope was put between it and the boundary and half only of the village was shifted. The Viceroy Lo Shung Tsun quite sympathized with the people, and joined with other high officials in sending a memorial to the throne, stating how miserable the people were, and begging that fewer villages should be caused to move. In the 10th month of the same year (1663) two head boatmen, Chau Yuk and Lei Wing revolted against the Ts'ing Government in Kwangtung. These two men were the owners of fleets of several hundreds of junks that usually fished in the rivers of Poon Yue district. All the junks had long oars as well as three sails so they were very fast. In addition they stored a lot of arms on board. Both Lei and Chau had a military title of Yau Kik bestowed on them by the P'ing Naam Wong, as their sailors had proved themselves of great assistance in fighting sea-battles against the Ming soldiers. When, however, the order was issued preventing boats from putting out to sea the junks of Chau and Lei were detained in the rivers and their families forced to live in Canton city. Chau and Lei pretended to get leave to go home and bury the bones of their ancestors. Secretly they took their families away from Canton, and collecting all the boatmen they put out to sea. Then openly they attacked the Ts'ing forces, capturing many of their ships and burning the guard stations along the coast. They never ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 89 touched anything belonging to the people, however. They then ventured up the Canton river, burning ships and attacking Canton itself. At last Chau was captured by the Ts'ing general, Cheung (), and Lei put out to sea again and kept his junks near Taai P'aang (A) now Kowloon city. In the 3rd year of Hong Hei, 1664, a battle was fought off Kowloon city between Cheung and Lei. The latter was beaten, and was forced to take refuge at Tung Ch'ung (Hafi) on Taai Ue Shaan (AMBULI), Lantau Island. There now followed a time of great distress for the unhappy country people. More villages were forced to move, and the people treated with great harshness. Many of them who refused to go or even hesitated were killed by the soldiers. At the beginning of the Ts'in Fuk the people imagined that it was only a temporary measure and they managed to keep together with their wives and children. But after three years had passed they found themselves without means of livelihood. So the husbands left their wives, the fathers left their children, and the elder brothers younger brothers, each pushing north in the hope of finding work, leaving behind them the sound of crying and sorrow. In the 8th month of the 3rd year of Hong Hei a man named Yuen Sze To (AP48), a Foo Muk (11) (an official title meaning "Head of relief and soothing of the people") disobeyed the order to move over the boundary, and collecting a crowd of discontented country people, he made a stronghold in Lik Yuen (HM) a village near Sha Tin. He had other quarters in Kwun Foo (1fif), now Kowloon city and his followers acted as bandits robbing and killing as they pleased. They gave much trouble to the Ts'ing government, as when the soldiers were sent out to search the solitary parts for people hiding in order to avoid being moved, they were often set on by Yuen's band and either robbed or killed by them. Eventually they were exterminated after a long time by an officer named Tseung Wang Yun (1479) who was sent with a large company of soldiers to Sha Tin for that purpose. The following year a system of beacons was started along the coast to be used as signals in case of attack. In the same year the retiring Viceroy Lei Sut T'aai (4) in his Wai Soh (6) a valedictory address to Emperor Hong Hei, asked him not to press too firmly the question of removing the people over the boundary. "When I was in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 90 Kwangtung province formerly, I found the people could earn their living. Latterly since the people have been moved inside the boundary, they have gradually died off. Out of every ten of them about eight or nine have been killed by the removal. The best thing that can be done at present, as we cannot allow them to return to their homes, is to allow the boundary limit to be made larger so that the farmers may find a place to farm and the fishermen room for fishing." Nothing came of the position, but the Viceroy's interest in their plight was remembered by the people and they were grateful to him. In the 5th year of Hong Hei there was a bad drought in Kwangtung and the Emperor gave order that the rice kept in the Government granaries should be given to the people. It was during that year the San On district was abolished, all government appointments there were cancelled, and what was originally San On was added to Tung Kwun (東莞). During this time the Governor Wong Loi Yam (黃律琰) wrote a report to the throne suggesting that six principal causes of growing discontent should be removed. At first no notice was taken of this effort but in the 6th year of Hong Hei, when things were getting worse, the Emperor allowed Governor Wong's suggestions to be carved on stone tablets, and each city gate had one of the tablets displayed there. Beyond that, the Emperor did nothing, but the fact that someone was interesting himself on their behalf helped to soothe the increasing resentment of the people. The Governor Wong was a very good man and he made great improvements in a lot of government affairs. It is said that he dressed as a common man during his leisure and spent much time talking to the simple farming people. In this way he learnt much about his subordinates, which were good and which were bad, and he really benefited his people. But he was unable to get on with the ministers in Peking and in the following year he was dismissed by the Emperor and ordered to return to Peking. When Wong received the message of his dismissal he wrote his valedictory address and in it he mentioned five important steps which should be taken to ease the burden on his people. Two of these were that the numbers of troops should be reduced in Kwangtung, and the boundary be removed, the people being allowed to return to their homes. He then started off for Peking, but a Lei P’aai (里排) (chief of the village elders) named Poon Shai Ts'eung (潘世璋) heard about this, and went to beg the Emperor to allow Wong to retain his post. Wong died, whether... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 103 later. He had always been concerned about the future of his sons, sending the two older boys to California to seek their fortune, nurturing the two younger ones with schooling in Mills School and Punahou Preparatory School, and giving them constant counsel, as evidenced by the many letters he sent to Father in Hilo. Grandfather finally decided to go back to his native land, still depressed over the loss of his youngest child. His sight was already failing because of cataracts. In 1907 or 1908, he departed for his home village, accompanied by Aunt Yim and her family, but he stopped over in Shanghai to visit with Second Paternal Uncle and his family. After about four years, he proceeded to Hong Kong, on his way back to the village. He was met in Hong Kong by his nephew, Gut Kau, and taken to a hotel. One morning as he was reaching for a towel, he collapsed and passed away, no doubt from a heart attack, without seeing his native home again. The date of his death is recorded as 14 May 1911. Grandfather had always maintained that a nephew was like a son, and coincidentally, it was a nephew who was with him at the end and who took care of his interment. I was told that he was 63 years of age when he left Honolulu and 67 when he died. Although I have no recollection of Grandfather, I do have a mental image of a fine-looking, elderly gentleman in a Chinese cap and gown from a large photograph which graced our parlour wall for many years, and I feel a sense of pride and love for him from whom I am descended. First Paternal Uncle First Paternal Uncle was born on 3 January 1868. His 'milk name' was Ping Wing, his name upon marriage, Hee Kau, and his business name, Shing Min. He was a distinguished-looking man, tall and handsome, with nicely-formed features. He held himself erect and kept a trim figure even in his later years when I came to know him well. My father told me that his two older brothers were considered the two handsomest young men in their village. After studying English in Hong Kong and getting married, he emigrated to the United States in 1886 as a carpenter's apprentice. He eventually became connected with the Bank of Canton in San Francisco and was rumoured to be the idol of women entertainers in that city. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 105 Because of conflict between the Heong Shan and the Toy Shan cl stockholders of the bank, and depressed over the loss of Me Yuk, uncle returned to China in 1910. I remember them when they stopped over in Honolulu and the trip we took with him by taxi to the Pali. He presented Mother with a pair of etched California gold bracelets, one of which I now own. On my first visit to China in 1919, Uncle was working for the Sun Company Ltd., a large department store in Hong Kong, but he later returned to banking as the Branch Manager of the Bank of East Asia in Canton until his death during World War II. one at 96 Kennedy Road, Hong Kong, M, Canton, on the bank of a small He established two homes and the other in Lai Chee Wan river. The former was a sturdy concrete building of British design and character, while the latter was Chinese, with an enclosed courtyard and garden. Since he had accumulated a comfortable fortune, he acquired an estate in Deep Water Bay near Aberdeen, Hong Kong, where he would retreat from time to time to enjoy the beautiful flowers which his gardeners cultivated. His Kennedy Road home was like a hotel, open to relatives from the village and to other visitors as well. He found jobs for male relatives from the village who wanted to work in the city; he contributed to the support of needy kinsmen; and he paid a percentage of the debt owed to creditors of the family pawn shop which had failed during Grandfather's tenure. He was a true head of the house, assuming responsibilities for the care and support of many. 1 Sometime before 1919 when Uncle got settled again, he brought into the household his "Third Concubine", a native of Sun Yup. Born on 12 December 1897, she was considerably younger than Uncle. Uncle seemed quite fond of her. This was probably threatening to both First Aunt and Small Aunt, for the former then adopted a son, Po Nin, who was born on 17 February 1908, but he died from tuberculosis when he was in his teens. Small Aunt tried very hard to conceive by frequently going to the temple to pray for a son and miraculously became pregnant and bore a son, Po Ling, on 10 May 1915. A great deal of rivalry existed between the two concubines that resulted in intrigues and accusations until eventually Uncle reluctantly had to send Third Concubine out of his household, reportedly because there was proof of her infidelity. However, he gave her a sum of money in order that she could learn to be a midwife and become self-supporting. It is reported ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 109 following summer, on 25 July 1896, he wrote that he was working in Chicago because he now had to support not only himself but also a wife. On 23 April 1897, he announced that he had graduated the day before, and he felt it was a great honour. He liked medicine and hoped to pursue post-graduate studies in New York. Instead we find him practising in San Francisco by 24 December 1897, but because he was not doing well, he thought he might leave for Hawaii or Shanghai after the Chinese New Year. Uncle decided to go to Shanghai and on the way there he stopped in Honolulu to visit with the family. He wrote on 15 June 1898 from China that he had been thinking of Father and Ping Lim ever since he left them. He enjoyed Shanghai, which he described as a beautiful and luxurious city where inhabitants were either very rich or very poor. He was paying 25 dollars a month for a pleasant office on the corner of Ningpo and Szechuan Roads, with living quarters in the back for himself, Aunt and their two servants. Although his income of 60 dollars a month was quite adequate, he wished that he had taken up dentistry as it would have brought an income of 1,000 dollars a month, or mining which was then gaining importance in official circles. He advised his two brothers to consider these professions even though job opportunities might be limited, or they would have to serve under someone. In response, Father indicated he would like to take up one of the careers suggested and asked for financial help, but Uncle wrote back on 29 August 1898 that although his practice was improving, he could not save anything; nor could he assist Father at that time, but perhaps he could the following year. After a few slow months, Uncle decided to teach an evening class to meet expenses, and by March 1899, he had six students paying him each two dollars a month. Two months later, he had 18 students in three classes. In July 1899, Uncle noted that Father was not going to school but was working as a newspaper reporter and commended him on choosing a good subject to deliver at his graduation exercises. Uncle found the winters in Shanghai very cold and the summers very hot. There were many deaths from the extreme heat and the plague, which was raging in Hong Kong, Canton and Heong Shan. Uncle still wanted to go back to America as he felt there was no place like 'Blessed America'. In December he wrote that he was grieved over the news of the death of their mother (Grandfather's second wife), and that he would wear ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 124 Table 2: Genealogy of the Jong Family Jong Sun Lup m. (1) Chang (Violet's grandparents) (2) widow Tin Yau (Uncle) m. Wong (Aunt) *Annie, *Mary, *Helen, *Alice, Reuben, Aaron, *Esther, *Amy, *Ella, Raymond *Jong Hung (Violet's mother) m. Chan Tin Suk (son, Ging Heen) *Ah Fook *Ah Look (Chun Moy) m. Heu (bond servant) (step-daughter) m. Pong (4 daughters, 4 sons) Sister (Seventh Paternal Aunt) -Sister m. Chang Chang Gum Chin m. Chew L-Sunny Hung Sun Chang -(son) three-year contract with a sugar plantation on Maui and was assigned the task of chopping down ironwood trees. He was born in the ancestral home at the South Gate of the City of Shekki, District of Heong Shan, in Kwangtung Province. Because there is no certificate giving his birth date, there is some question as to whether he was born in 1847 or 1854. There were four brothers sharing the family home, but one of them had already died by the time Grandfather emigrated to Hawaii. Mother could not recall how many sisters he had. One of them was known as Seventh Paternal Aunt, who had a fondness for gossip. Another sister was married to a native of How Tow, surnamed Chang, by whom she had two sons. One of the sons, Chang Gum Chin, married the sister of Leong Chew, and came to Hawaii without his family. He went into the dry goods business with Chang Yee, Chang Kwai, Leong Chew, Chun Kam Chow, and others. He was very close to my grandparents, who would often turn to him for assistance. After he returned to China, he sent one of his sons, Sunny Hung Sun Chang, to Honolulu under the guardianship of Leong Chew. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 136 enticing, wholesome meals to nurture Father back to health. Communication with her was interrupted by the Second World War and after 1949, and it was during these intervening years that she died, followed later by the death of Uncle Tin Suk, from injuries he had suffered falling down a well. Ging Heen, the only offspring of Uncle Tin Suk, is also now deceased. The details regarding his wife and children are not known to us. Uncle Pong sent for Aunt Pong and their first child in 1922, and they lived with us temporarily until they bought a home on Lusitana Street. They sold this home in 1932, during the Depression, in order that Aunt Pong and the eight children could manage life easier in Shekki. They left the same time Mother, Dora and I did, on the Empress of Japan. Later, before the Second World War began, Aunt Pong sent the children back to Honolulu, two by two. Left with two of them, she was not able to return until the end of the war. The family settled in the neighbourhood store operated by Uncle Pong at the corner of Kaukini and Fort Streets, on property owned by us. This property was later condemned by the city to enlarge Kawananakoa School. Uncle Pong died from diabetes and Aunt Pong from cancer. The Pong children are: Helen Wai Hing married Long Wa Lui Violet Wai Lin married Mun Git Chan Ella Wai King married Joseph Loui Ernest Dung Sun married Wai Quon Yee Herbert Cheong Fat married Dimmie Kam Lily Wai Chiu married Stanley Chang Claron Ah Hoon married Pacita Tan Richard Kwock Hung married Kwei Fong Miu My Jong grandparents and their children are all gone now. My Mother's health began to deteriorate following a bout of shingles and she passed away on 20 November 1974, after being incapacitated for about a month as a result of a stroke. Although I still feel the loss of those I love, I am comforted by, and hold on to, the many memories that are intertwined with their caring, nurturing, and warmth. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 142 The plague continued in the city and the Board of Health was advised by the medical profession to burn all buildings that might harbour plague-carrying rats, a measure Hong Kong had successfully taken to prevent its spread. C. K. Ai gives the following account of what happened in his autobiography. On 20 January 1900, the Board of Health ordered the Fire Department to burn a building on Beretania Street between Nuuanu and Maunakea Streets, with two engines on guard to contain the fire. Unfortunately the wind direction shifted, sending sparks onto two wooden stables belonging to the Kaumakapili Church which was located on Beretania near Maunakea, spreading the fire through Chinatown in spite of help from volunteers to douse the fire. The police drove the residents out of the danger zone, down Kekaulike Street, along Queen Street, to Kakaako where emergency camps were set up. By two o'clock that afternoon, all Chinatown was in flames. Fortunately no lives were lost, but it was a pitiful sight. Father learned from Grandfather that 300 stores, both wooden and brick, were destroyed. Luckily, the conflagration just missed Wong On Tai, Yuen Chong and Kwong Li Yuan, but they were forced to relocate nevertheless. Father, Aunt Yim and her husband were sent away to a camp in Kalihi, where my Mother and her family were also confined. In his letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim gave graphic description of the insensitive way in which the Chinese were evacuated and of their strong feelings of degradation. Further news to Father came from Yim Goon Siu who voiced his resentment against the 'white bandits' who 'chased' all 'foreigners', Japanese and natives, young and old, male and female, to the camps in Kalihi and Kakaako. When the block in which Mills School was located was quarantined following the death of several Chinese working for the Pantheon Stables nearby, the Rev. Damon had already moved his students to an island owned by Samuel Damon near the 3-mile pumping station in Moanalua. Ping Lim was thus free to visit and take food to the family when they were first interned in Kawaiahao Church in Kakaako, and to send mail to them when they were moved to Kalihi. During this period, according to First Uncle, the 'white bandits' took similar action in San Francisco by sending the Chinese away from Chinatown, and he was not permitted to send to Hawaii medical supplies which Father had ordered for a friend, although the supplies had been purchased from 'white' people. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 177 of the most tragic periods of my life. The students were bright and eager to learn. They were tolerant of my inadequate command of Chinese and were helpful in teaching me a more refined use of the language. Among them was Sally Sun, the adopted daughter of Sun Yat-sen. She followed me to Honolulu and lived with us while she attended the University of Hawaii until she left after her freshman year for Pomona College. To this day I am in touch with many of my former students. I was glad for the opportunity to meet many relatives, some for the second time, and to know them better. I felt welcomed in the homes of First Paternal Uncle and Cousin Toby. The former lived in a traditional compound on the bank of a small river in the Lai Chee Wan district in Canton, an area where the elite of the old regime resided. He also maintained a home on Kennedy Road, in Wanchai, Hong Kong, a sturdy building of British design. About once a month, on pay day, I would invite Bertha Young, Sarah Mao, and Miriam Simpson, teachers at True Light, to spend a weekend at Uncle's Kennedy Road home. This gave us a chance to savour foreign food, perhaps to see an American film, or to attend a tea-dance at the Hong Kong Hotel. Cousin Toby and his wife Louise lived in the Tung Shan I section of Canton where many westernized Chinese congregated. Staying with them on occasions was a pleasant change. Sometimes I would go with them to the Euro-American Club for a night of dancing. Because my salary was only 120 Mex. dollars a month (about 20 U.S. dollars), I could not see as much of China as I would have liked. I was able to visit Father's birthplace and our Chan relatives a second time, and to pay respects to the graves of my grandparents and great grandparents during the Ching Ming Festival. I also paid a short visit to the home of my maternal grandmother in Shekki where we had lived in 1919, and to the new home of Aunt Pong nearby. In the summer of 1934, with Bertha Pang, Tiu Kei and Suk Kei Chan, and Ethel Au, I set out to see Peking by rail from Shanghai. I found Peking a charming old city and was thrilled to visit the Great Wall and the Imperial City and other attractions, so rich in history. People here seemed more refined, more cultivated; even the salesmen were very polite. On the way back, we stopped at several well-known places. We met and were joined at times by Daniel Yee, William Leong, Deborah Kau and Elizabeth Ching. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 182 a year at Tulane University, came for a visit with his family, as did my mother from home. From New England came Effie Huchmore and Beverly King. A word about Effie. I had met her while we were both staying at the Franklin Square House near the Boston City Hospital when I was studying at Simmons College and she, at Boston University. We became fast friends. She had me as her guest in her home in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, where she lived with her parents and maternal grandmother, and showed me the beautiful scenic spots of the White Mountains. This visit gave me an insight into the activities and character of a typical New England town and the enjoyment of the simple unpretentious hospitality of an old Yankee family. A rare experience indeed! Before I left New York the summer of 1948, I was a bridesmaid to Betty Lee upon her marriage to Paul Gee on June 7, 1948. She was formerly a teacher of religion at True Light and its principal during the Second World War. I had also promised to return to marry John Shue Fong Lew, a widower with two younger daughters in Canton. I had met him casually in Boston in 1947 through a mutual friend, Grace Chin, and had become better acquainted with him when he came to see me in New York, often accompanied by his good friend, Lew Orne. We were both mature and ready to settle down by this time, and fortunately felt drawn to each other. On the way back to Honolulu, I stopped over in Chicago where Mother had taken Edmund to join his mother and where she was waiting for me to accompany her home. As soon as I had fulfilled my commitment, I left Honolulu in October 1950 for Chicago, where John and I were married from Helen's home on 4 November 1950, in a simple ceremony at a local church rectory. After living in an apartment near Harvard Square for a few months, we bought a duplex on 12 Littell Road, Brookline, in order to be near John's business, "The Ming Restaurant”, at 1022 Beacon Street. By 1952, the business had deteriorated so much that it was not feasible to continue it and we turned it over to S. Y. Lew, one of the partners who wanted it. In the meantime we sent for our daughters, Gar Shuey and Gar Ling, and they arrived in Boston in August 1951 by way of Europe. Both attended Lawrence School and Brookline High School, working as waitresses during the summer in our seasonal restaurant in Bar Harbor, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 204 Canton three days later. Rev. Mr. Kollecker informed the German Consul. After investigation no evidence was found to confirm the report. "The Christians in Canton were to celebrate the wedding of one of the most respected Christians of Canton. Deacon Wong* of the Barmen Mission in Tung Kun was also there. There appeared the Christian Dr. Sun, recently of the College of Medicine. He was very excited and told the Christians they would not be able to celebrate the wedding that day. The surprised questions of the guests caused him gradually to convey the news that in the evening a revolution was planned and he was one of the leaders. The revolutionaries planned to overwhelm Canton and make it a stronghold. Later they would march to the north and overthrow the ruling dynasty. After that Sun left the wedding party. The guests had not caught their breath before a court servant appeared and asked for Dr. Sun. Some four hundred vagabonds had arrived from Hong Kong who would be the core of the army of the Reform party. On the same boat were weapons and gunpowder packed in boxes. The government received news of it and immediately made enquiries. After a short while they found traces of the revolutionaries. They rounded up those they could get hold of. After a few days the authorities discovered hidden weapons of the Reform party. These were found in a house where a German and an Englishman had lived recently. Nothing could be found out about the German, but the Englishman, known as Mr. Quick, had been involved in a recent revolution in Honolulu and had to leave there for that reason. Both foreigners were able to escape. The enquiry which followed uncovered several Christian members of the American Mission who were implicated in the plot. Sixty involved persons were beheaded, among them were two Christians. The American Consul intervened on behalf of a third Christian because a missionary had pledged himself for his good conduct, but he was quite embarrassed by it, because the suspect escaped and could not be found. Governor Ma, one of the highest officials of Canton, died. It was suggested that he himself had been one * Deacon Wong must have been Wong Him-ue:1(1847-1907), who after establishing and serving a congregation at Tung Kun City, came to Hong Kong in 1898 and established the Rhenish Mission congregation (Lai Yuen Ui) now located on Bonham Road. He was the son of Wong Yun (1817-1914) a member of Gutzlaff's Chinese Union and later assistant in the Rhenish (Barmen) Mission, Wong Him-ue was the younger brother of the Rev. Wong Yuk-cho (1843-1903), pastor of the To Tsai congregation, Hong Kong. He was well-acquainted with Sun Yat-sen and a supporter of the revolutionary cause. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 212 agricultural calendar, this falls in September rather than July as in Yunnan. Needham was able to find no references from the north of China to hot air balloons, and this local custom in the New Territories may well be yet one more case of the New Territories villagers sharing with the South Chinese minority tribes a traditional practice not known to the Chinese north of the Kwangtung-Fukien mountains. P. H. Hase + NOTES J. Needham Science and Civilization in China Vol. 4 Part 2, 1965, pp. 595-599 I have not been able to spot any references to hot air balloons in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which contains most of what is told about Chuko Liang. The germ of the connection may be the night signal of seven lamps" which Chuko Liang used at Ch'ishan (Chapter 103, Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Detail in this Note is taken from interviews with Mr. CHÔI Kam-chuen, retired village representative of Tai Wai, Sha Tin, and other Sha Tin and Tuen Mun villagers, and particularly with Mr. LEE, village representative of Wo Hang, Sha Tau Kok, and other Wo Hang villagers. My particular thanks are due to Mr. LEE Man-yip of Wo Hang. + On the importance of those practices, which required the co-operation of village youths, see the author's "Observations at a Village Funeral" in From Village to City ed D. Faure, J. Hayes, A. Birch, Hong Kong 1984, pp. 129-163, espec. pp. 129-137, and also D. Faure The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, Hong Kong, p. 96. Needham op. cit. The Yunnan hot air balloons are quoted by Needham from J. Goullart, The Forgotten Kingdom 1955, p. 178. The Yunnan balloons were fired by bundles of splintered pine twigs, and were able to fly for only a few minutes. The Yunnan balloons. like those in the New Territories, were made of paper pasted over hoops of split bamboo: presumably the hoop was a rim-hoop. A SILVER BRACELET WITH AN ANCIENT GREEK COIN FOUND IN WEWAK, EAST SEPIK PROVINCE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA A silver bracelet was found in the sand on a raised beach in Wewak, at a depth of approximately 0.5 m in disturbed ground. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT HON. TREASURER'S REPORT HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ARTICLES: Dan Waters LIBRARIES 138 1937. vii AR In the Steps of Lu Pan: Reminiscences of Building in Hong Kong K.J.P. Lowe Hong Kong, 26 January 1841: Hoisting the Flag Revisited Keith Stevens The Jade Emperor and his Family, Yu Huang Ta Ti Keith Stevens - Fukienese Wang Yeh (Ong Ya [Hokkien]) P.H. Munro-Faure The Kiukiang Incident of 1927 A.D. Blackburn Hong Kong, December 1941 July 1942 Chan Ka-yan Joss Stick Manufacturing: A Study of a Traditional Industry in Hong Kong P.H. Hase Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories and its Place in Local Society J.H. Haan Thalia and Terpsichore on The Yangtze, Survey of Foreign Theatre and Music in Shanghai 1850-1865 Fred Dagenais John Fryer's Early Years in China: I. Diary of His Voyage to Hong Kong Chan Wing-hoi The Dangs of Kam Tin and Their Jiu Festival xxi xxiii 8 18 34 61 77 94 121 158 252 302 NOTES AND QUERIES: E. Sinn Notes on the Robert Hart Papers at the University of Hong Kong Library 376 P.H. Hase A Song from Sha Tau Kok on the 1911 Revolution 382 P.H. Hase The Mutual Defence Alliance (Yeuk) of the New Territories 384 P.H. Hase - More on The Man the Emperor Decapitated 388 Issei Tanaka The White Tiger 389 Keith Stevens - British Chinese Labour Corps Labourers Buried in England 390 Anthony Siu Kwok-kin The History of Hong Kong: From A Village to A City 391 Anthony Siu Kwok-kin Historical Records Anthony Siu Kwok-kin BOOK REVIEWS Tai Yu Shan from Chinese 394 A Tung Lo Wan 399 400 V ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h AGM for an approach for financial assistance to those leading “Hongs" which support the parent body in London with its publishing expenses, a letter has now been sent to them to this end. We waited for publication of the new book and the latest Journal before taking action, so that they could see the results of our labours and (hopefully) feel more encouraged to help thereby. There is no doubt that the time has come to seek their assistance, given the difficulty in making ends meet and yet pursuing an energetic and rounded programme of activities in line with our remit. The Programme The past twelve months saw 9 lectures, 10 visits and one Chinese dinner, besides the usual dinner following the AGM. The visits were the largest number on record. This was due to a greater sharing of the load by members of the Activities Committee, which now includes Members of the Society as well as Councillors. Details are as follows: Dr. Maria Jaschok “Concubines and Bond Servants" 18 April Dr. Tom Stanley **Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War' 12 May Professor Tong Kin-woon “Oracle Bones, the Key to Shang China" 9 June Stephen and Anne Selby "Pukka Pidgin" 14 July Dr. Dea Birkett "Women Travellers in Asia' 28 July Chinese Dinner in the City Hall Restaurant 25 September Dr. Lauren Pfister "Clues to the Life and Academic Achievement of James Legge, 1815-1897” 20 October Professor John Hodgkiss **The Biology of Mangroves and the Role They Play in Hong Kong" | December Professor Graham Johnson "The Hong Kong Chinese in Canada: an Updating" 5 January Rev. Carl Smith (with Elizabeth Sinn, Susanna Hoe, Maria Jaschok, Patrick Hase and James Hayes) "The Ladies of Lyndhurst Terrace" 23 February Dr. Mimi Chan "Images of Chinese Women in Anglo-American Literature" ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 23 March Dr. Elizabeth Sinn "Management of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong and the Role of the Tung Wah Hospital” The following Visits were made: 29 April 6 May 24 June 1 July Anita Wilson and Dr. James Hayes Visit to the Pottery Kiln at Tuen Mun, Ha Tsuen Tang Ancestral Hall and Old Market, Ling Wan Monastery (with vegetarian lunch), Lai Family Study Hall and Mansion at Sheung Tsuen, Hakka Mansion at Sham Ka Wai, and Yuen Long Old Market Dr. James Hayes and Ted Brown Visit to Kowloon Walled City, Again! Phillip Bruce Visit to Old Marine Police Headquarters at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Phillip Bruce Repeat of the Visit of 24 June 14 September Dr. Patrick Hase and Lee Man-yip Visit to Wo Hang for the Hot Air Balloon release at Mid Autumn Festival 25 November Dr. James Hayes 9 December Visit to places of interest on Hong Kong Island, including Waterfall Bay, the Aberdeen Country Park Management Centre, Chung Hom Kok, Shek O Village and Lei Yu Mun Barracks and Leisure Centre Rosemary Lee and Richard Gee Repeat of the N.T. Visit of 29 April 13-14 January Anita Wilson, Dr. Dan Waters, Rev. Carl Smith and Dr. Joseph Ting 22 January 18 February Week End Visit to Macao Phillip Bruce Visit to some interesting Naval and Military Graves in the Colonial Cemetery Phillip Bruce and Dr. Anthony Siu Visit to the Tung Chung Area, the site of Hong Kong's Future Replacement Airport This varied and interesting programme has again been due to the Activities Committee, which has worked hard under Dr. Elizabeth Sinn's ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h The Library's value to members of our Society, as well as to the general public, lies in the fact that the only other collections of such books in Hong Kong are held by the Universities and are not accessible to the public at large. The RAS Collection is available to Members and, for reference only, to the general public, and since 1985 has been located in the new 12 storey, custom-built Kowloon Central library, opened in that year. However, this location is not convenient for most RAS members, the majority of whom reside on Hong Kong Island. Also, the stacks where our books are held are not directly accessible for free consultation and browsing, because other private collections of books are held in this section of the Library. In response to our expressions of concern, the Chief Librarian, Urban Council Libraries has promised that our Collection will return to the Island in the early 1990s, when the present City Hall Library will be expanded or replaced. The books are then expected to be housed in a new reference library where most of them will be kept on open shelves. In this joyful expectation, the Council continues to expand the Collection, and has earmarked $10,000 for expenditure in 1990-91. Publications As mentioned in the opening Summary, this year has seen the publication of two items, the 1987 Journal and the book of papers on China and Hong Kong, The Turning of the Tide, Religion in China Today. I wish to thank the Chinese Temples Committees for a generous grant of half the publication costs from the Chinese General Charities Fund, and Oxford University Press for agreeing to publish in association with the Society and for all help rendered in the final stages of production. Professor David Faure had to relinquish the editorship of the Journal when he left Hong Kong to take up a post at the University of Indiana. He had contributed much to the Council and the Society, not only through his impeccable scholarship and hard work, but also through his sterling personal qualities which we all grew to appreciate. Dr. Patrick Hase has taken over the half-completed 1988 Journal which we hope can be published by the Summer, and is putting material together for 1989. We xii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h medical care not available in many mission countries, the Superiors of the Paris Foreign Mission Society decided to put up a house in the Far East for sick and old missionaries. Hong Kong was chosen for this purpose on account of its climate and medical facilities available. It must be added that at that time few places in the Far East offered the political stability and religious tolerance of the Colony". Those words have long rung in my ears. I doubt if there could be a finer unsolicited tribute to British Hong Kong. I must confess, too, against that stirring background of service, and recalling the over 100 priests and high dignitaries of the Mission who were buried in the private cemetery then within the grounds, that I was moved by the inscription that can still be found over the entrance. Father Caminondo had continued, "The name of Bethanie was chosen after "Bethany village" of the Holy Scripture, and the inscription above the main entrance "Lord he whom thou lovest lies sick" is part of the message sent to Jesus by Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus became sick”. Truly memorable, at least for me. But enough of the past: though it enriches the present. We are a strong Society in both numbers and spirit. We aim to continue in the service of scholarship and mutual understanding in this great City for as long as may be possible. Judging by the record of the last 30 years, there will never be a shortage of willing workers and contributors, whether British, Chinese or others. With Sir David's consent, I shall now ask him to propose a toast to the Hong Kong Branch of the RAS. xix JAMES HAYES ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h HONG KONG BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1989-1990 As usual, the Society Library has purchased many out-of-print items through Dr. J. Hayes' effort this year. Altogether 215 titles in 251 volumes were processed and are available in the Kowloon Central Library. Among 121 gift titles, 119 titles were donated by Dr. J. Hayes. Other donors were Mr. Phillip Bruce and Mrs. Eveline Caldwell. New additions will be made known to members through the RAS Journal. Arrangement has been made that members may also borrow books from the City Hall Library. From the report by the Urban Council Public Libraries Office, the usage of the Library covering the period from 1.3.89 to 9.3.90 is noted as follows: 1. No. of requests for information 2. No. of books consulted 3. No. of borrowers 4. No. of books checked out : 90 : 112 : 14 : 21 Mr. Wan Yiu Chuen will stand for the election for the Hon. Librarian this year. He is now working in the Special Collections, University of Hong Kong Libraries and has ample experience both in public and academic libraries. 22nd March 1990 xxiii PETER YEUO Hon. Librarian ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h Cinema, at North Point (constructed in the early 1950s), is suspended; or the English style, Kentish-Rag, stone retaining wall on the south side of Battery Path in Central. One wonders if the latter was commissioned by some homesick Englishman. And, while parts of the Territory have been disparagingly called "concrete jungle”, there are modern structures of merit. Depending on your taste, the St. John's Building (Lower Peak-Tram Station), Admiralty Centre; and the Macau Ferry Terminal spring to mind. The foyer at the Landmark, and the high-rise, high-tech Exchange Square, with its "electronic plumbing" so tenants can plug in for centralised computer services, are also of merit. Other recently completed buildings show an impressive degree of distinction and aesthetic sensitivity. In an article written by Doctor Alan Birch in 1978, previously Reader in History at Hong Kong University, he stated that 95 per cent of the Territory's buildings had been erected from 1946 onwards (even if the deterioration of some belies their age). Although that was probably a very approximate estimate, since then many more old buildings have been torn down. Hong Kong is a city-state where, with the exception of the plot on which Saint John's Cathedral stands (which is freehold), all land is leasehold held from the Crown: this demands that landholders maximise their income from the land in as short a time as possible. To give some idea how dramatically the skyline has changed: until World War II the seven-storey Peninsula Hotel, on the Kowloon waterfront, which served as the Japanese army headquarters during the occupation, was considered tall. Since then, the skyline has changed dramatically every decade. Catherine II (Catherine the Great) (1729-96), Empress of Russia, who together with her many architects erected royal palaces and public buildings, said that building was a disease, like alcoholism. Not too dissimilarly, in Hong Kong, Aw Boon Haw, the son of a Chinese herbalist, who together with his brother, Boon Par, produced the famous "cure-all", Tiger Balm, was told by a sooth-sayer that he would lose his fortune and die if he stopped building. When he eventually departed he had erected 26 castles around Asia, as well as the well-known Tiger Balm Gardens in both Singapore and Hong Kong. These, which contain figures depicting stories in Chinese history or mythology, were built to promote Aw's well-known pharmaceutical products. Page 30 Page 31 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 7 1966. One of the few changes that have taken place over the centuries in methods of scaffolding was that, until the 1970s, bamboo poles were lashed together with “slivers” from the sheath of bamboo, each about one metre long. Since the 1970s, plastic binding has been employed. V Hong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria, Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society (1980); and Tom Briggs and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: The Vanishing City (1977); and Tom Briggs and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong, The Vanishing City, vol. II (1978); and Hong Kong, Then and Now, South China Morning Post (1982). 10 Solomon Bard, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988). Saul Lockhart, "How Long Can Hong Kong's Heritage Last? What Goes Up... Must Come Down", The Asia Magazine (26 April 1981), pp. 3 to 8. 12 "Landmarks safe from demolition”, South China Morning Post (9 June 1990). **Stanley's historical landmark** South China Morning Post (1 October 1983). 13 14 Alice Greenway, "Post Office wins reprieve”, South China Morning Post (11 October 1986). 15 "Landmarks safe from demolition" loc. cit. 16 Michael Chugani, "Hope fades for Murray House rebuilding plan" South China Morning Post (1 July 1985). Paul Gillingham, At the Peak, Hong Kong Between the Wars (1983), pp. 162 to 166. Malcolm Purvis, Tall Storeys, Palmer and Turner Architects & Engineers: The First 100 Years (1985), passim. 19 Lockhart, op. cit., p. 5. 20 Harold Ingrams, Hong Kong (1952), p. 42. 21 Helen Sam, "The Architect and his dream", Property Review Hong Kong Standard (25 September 1986), p. 3. 22 Alan Birch, "The Problems of Progress", Hong Kong Standard Anniversary Magazine (1 March 1978), p. 1. 23 Vaudine England, "The Awnings: Remnants of an empire”, Asia Magazine (28 July 1975), pp. 14 to 16. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 24 and not even a tablet is permitted. Images of the Jade Emperor seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and in South-East Asia are all very similar, portraying him as a bearded, usually gilded, image of an official seated on a throne, with a jade tablet clasped in both hands before his chest (see Plates 2 and 3). His head-dress is not a crown in the western sense, but a classic hat, the mien (mian) the rectangular mortar board cap from which is suspended, front and back, thirteen red cords bearing green, red and blue beads and descending almost to the level of his eyes. Thirteen indicates his supreme rank. This, it should be noted, is the typical standard image of a great number of official deities other than the Jade Emperor, and the only way one can categorically identify his image is to see it on his altar, or to find that it bears an original inscription describing it as the image of the Jade Emperor. His image is placed as high on the altar as possible, even to the extent of placing it on as many as three to four tiers; his image, even more than most, must never permit his feet to be touching the ground. In a number of places he is considered to be too holy and too powerful to be portrayed by an image; his title only being recorded on a tablet which occupies the centre of his altar. Images of the Jade Emperor are to be seen not only on the main altars of temples dedicated to him but also, in a small number of instances, on secondary altars in temples dedicated to lesser deities. In Suifu in Szechuan, Graham in 1928 counted nineteen images of the Jade Emperor on altars in the town. The images were placed on the first floor of the temples whereas other gods were normally on the ground floor. 7 Grootaers noted that the cult of Yuh Huang was well represented in the sanctuaries built in high spots in the city of Hsuan Hua (south of Chang Chia Kou [Kalgan] and northwest of Peking). The earliest was dated 1535 AD. Yuh Huang was better known there as Hao T'ien Shang Ti and his image portrayed him as a bearded scholar with a mortar board cap. In many folk religion temples in Ch'aochou (Teochew) communities his tablet stands in the front centre of the altar table nearest the main entrance, and in front of the main altar, with only an image of the Third Prince on his altar table standing between the Jade Emperor's tablet and the entrance. The altar of the Jade Emperor is referred to as the T'ien Kung T'an (Tiangong Tan). On his birthday, the 9th of the first lunar month, large sacrificial offerings to T'ien Kung are placed on this special altar ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 113 Factory Location 40 The location of the joss stick industry has experienced a lot of changes throughout its history. In the early days when incense trees were grown, the industry was strongly affected by physical factors. As the incense trees require a balance between sand and alluvium for successful growth, the joss stick industry, so dependent on local supply of incense wood, evolved around Lik Yuen and Sha Lo Wan where soils were well aerated. However, after Hong Kong began to process these incense woods before they were exported, the location pattern of the industry became more widespread. From 1911 onwards, incense wood milling was concentrated in Taikoktsui and particularly in Tsuen Wan, making use of the presence of a large, fast flowing river to power the wheels used to pound the incense powder. Other concentrations were found in Victoria, Yaumati, Mongkok and Sham Shui Po. Nevertheless, nowhere was able to assume a higher importance than Taikoktsui in the joss stick industry, especially in the period immediately after 1945. Indeed, Taikoktsui immediately after 1945 had a unique concentration of joss stick manufacturers unequalled by any other location. Because of its industrial peripheral situation, “for over a century or more, Taikoktsui had a sort of fringe status in Kowloon, and much of it was rather isolated”, the area was considered to be an ideal place for the business of the joss stick industry. According to local manufacturers, post-war concentration in Taikoktsui was prominent because the acquisition of factory buildings was so easy as 60% of them had been left empty since the War. These factory buildings were only tenements, one- or two-storey workshop or storage buildings, and some of them were no more than sheds.43 Despite the importance of Taikoktsui in the period immediately after the War, the industry began to disperse after about 1950. The trend became especially marked as Hong Kong became more and more urbanized. The industry was pushed further northward into the New Territories as the city sprawled, using large pieces of unoccupied land. By the 1960s, the industry clustered in Yau Yat Tsuen; slightly later it was further pushed into Sha Tin, Fanling and Yuen Long. Location of the industry today is closely tied to the needs of the manufacturing method. Generally speaking, the location of joss stick fabrication is more economically determined than physically determined. Indeed, the only physical factor considered essential is the availability ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 116 Number 60 50 40 30 20 10 Appendix I Spatial Distribution of Joss Stick Factories (1902-1930) 1902 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 BOERK 0000 Yek Source: Hong Kong Blue Book 1902-1930. Note: Data for 1907 are missing. New Territories Manufacturers only intermittently recorded. Au Tau Shaukiwan Aberdeen Treen Was Cheung Chau Mongkok Hung Hom Shum Shui Po Kowloon City Yaumati Victoria However, to follow the exact format required by the prompt, here is the revised response in HTML format directly as requested: 116 Number 60 50 40 30 20 10 Appendix I Spatial Distribution of Joss Stick Factories (1902-1930) 1902 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 BOERK 0000 Yek Source: Hong Kong Blue Book 1902-1930. Note: Data for 1907 are missing. New Territories Manufacturers only intermittently recorded. Au Tau Shaukiwan Aberdeen Treen Was Cheung Chau Mongkok Hung Hom Shum Shui Po Kowloon City Yaumati Victoria However, the best representation is achieved with the table format as initially shown. To strictly follow the format and rules, the most accurate representation is: 116 Number 60 50 40 30 20 10 Appendix I Spatial Distribution of Joss Stick Factories (1902-1930) 1902 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 BOERK 0000 Yek Source: Hong Kong Blue Book 1902-1930. Note: Data for 1907 are missing. New Territories Manufacturers only intermittently recorded. Au Tau Shaukiwan Aberdeen Treen Was Cheung Chau Mongkok Hung Hom Shum Shui Po Kowloon City Yaumati Victoria Let's correct and simplify to fit the exact HTML format required without using tables directly in HTML as the prompt suggests using for paragraphs. The final answer is: 116 Number 60 50 40 30 20 10 Appendix I Spatial Distribution of Joss Stick Factories (1902-1930) 1902 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 BOERK 0000 Yek Source: Hong Kong Blue Book 1902-1930. Note: Data for 1907 are missing. New Territories Manufacturers only intermittently recorded. Au Tau Shaukiwan Aberdeen Treen Was Cheung Chau Mongkok Hung Hom Shum Shui Po Kowloon City Yaumati Victoria ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 119 NOTES 1 Ch'ü, Ta-chün, Kuang-tang hsin-yü [New Tales from Kuang-tung], Hong Kong: Chung-hua ch'u-pan-shê, 1974, reprinted from 1700 edition, p. 677. 2 ibid, pp. 674-676. 3 Yung-yen, “Hong Kong ti ming k'ao” [The Origin of Place Names in Hong Kong], in: Li Chun-wei (ed.) Hong Kong pai nien [Centenary History of Hong Kong], (Hong Kong: Nan chung pien yi ch'u-pan-shê, 1948), p. 68. 4 Hong Kong Daily Press, February 5, 1873. 5 Siu, A.K.K., “The Hong Kong Region Before and After the Coastal Evacuation in the Early Ch'ing Dynasty”, in: Faure, David, James Hayes and Birch (eds.), From Village to City, (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1984), p. 2; Fêng K'ê-pin (ed.), Hsiang chien [Notes on Incense], in: Kuang pai ch'uan hsüeh hai (1), 1998. (Taipei: Hsin-hsing shu-chü, reprinted in 1970). 6 Balfour, S.F., “Hong Kong Before the British”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 10, 1979, p. 176. 7 Ch'ü, p. 677. 8 Chang, Y.N., "Hong Kong Ts'un (Hong Kong Village) and the Cultivation and Exportation of Incense from Kowloon and the New Territories”, in: Lo, Hsiang Lin (ed.), Hong Kong and Its External Communications Before 1842, (Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963), p. 114. 9 Tung-kuan Hsien-chih [Tung-kuan Gazetteer], compiled by Ch'ên Pai-tao, (Tung-kuan yang-hêng yin-wu-chü, 1910), Section 14, p. 13; Dunn, Stephen Troyte and William James Tutcher, Flora of Kwangtung and Hong Kong, (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1912), p. 9. 10 Iu, K.C., "The Cultivation of the Incense Tree (Aquilaria sinensis)”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 23, 1983, pp. 247-249. 11 “Imports for the Year 1846”, Hong Kong Blue Book 1846, p. 200, 204, 207. 12 “Imports for the Year 1847”, Hong Kong Blue Book 1847, pp. 200-212. 13 “Imports for the Year 1848”, Hong Kong Blue Book 1848, pp. 251-254. 14 Hsü, Kuang-ch'i (ed.), Nung chêng ch'üan shu [Encyclopedia on Agricultural Techniques], (1847), Section 18, pp. 13-15. 15 Yung-yen, p. 68. 16 Lockhart, S. "Extracts from A Report by Mr Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong on October 8, 1898”, Sessional Papers concerning the Acquisition of the New Territories 1899, p. 190. 17 Nathan, cited by J.W. Hayes. "Notes and Queries: Sandalwood Mills at Tsun Wan". Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16, 1976, pp. 282-283. 18 'Report on the New Territories for the year 1925; B. Southern District", Hong Kong Administrative Reports 1925, p. J13. 19 'Report on the New Territories for the Year 1931; B. Southern District" Hong Kong Administrative Reports 1931, p. J18. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 120 77 *Reports on the New Territories for the Year 1932; B. Southern District”, Hong Kong Administrative Reports 1932, p. J22. # Nathan, p. 282-283. "Imports for the Year 1855", Hong Kong Blue Book 1855, p. 323, "Imports for the Year 1857". Hong Kong Blue Book 1857, p. 183. 26 Hennessy, J.P., "Address of Governor Sir John Pope Hennessy, KCMG, on the Census Returns and the Progress of Hong Kong", Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1880-1881. די Hong Kong Annual Report 1946, p. 42. + Hong Kong Chinese Chamber of Commerce +*** "Business Conditions", in: Report for the Year 1949 Hong Kong Chinese Chamber of Commerce). E‡‡ƒ), (Hong Kong: 29 Ingrams, H., "Industry”, in: Hong Kong, (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1952), p. 139. Fieldwork, 1987. 31 Registrar of Trade Unions, Annual Departmental Reports, 1960-1969. +2 Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Trade Statistics. 1968-1978. See Plate 15. See Plate 16. 15 See Plate 17. See Plates 18 and 19. 17 Osgood. Cornelius, The Chinese, a Study of a Hong Kong Community, Volume 2. (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1975), p. 769. 18 **Returns of the Manufactures, Mines and Fisheries", Hong Kong Blue Book 1911. P. V3. 39 Returns of the Manufactures, Mines and Fisheries", Hong Kong Blue Book 1903-1906, p. V4. 40 "Returns of the Manufactures, Mines and Fisheries", Hong Kong Blue Book 1946, p. V3. "Returns of the Manufactures, Mines and Fisheries", Hong Kong Blue Book 1920-1925, p. VI. See Appendix 1 for a table of Locations of Joss Stick Factories, 1902-1930. + Leeming, Frank, Streets Studies in Hong Kong: Localities in a Chinese City. (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 105. 4.1 + ibid, p. 109. See Appendix II for plans of a Number of Factories. See Appendix III for a Map showing the 1987 distribution of Joss Stick Factories. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 130 ―T towards the end of the century. The original market for the Sha Tau Kok area was Sham Tsun; it was only from about 1825 that the population of the Sha Tau Kok area rose to the point where it could sustain a market of its own, at Sha Tau Kok. The main impetus to the foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, apart from the purely religious one, and the political one to be discussed below, was to provide a resting-place for travellers on the road to Sham Tsun. This road was long, and the two-mile-long deserted section through the mountains was without shelter, either from the elements or from wild animals (tigers were a serious problem in the area, as village tales and placenames demonstrate). The nunnery was founded, in part, to provide services to wayfarers; in particular, according to elderly villagers, free tea was given to anyone stopping to rest there. Traffic on this road was heavy. At its peak, between 1900 and 1915, about 20,000 people a month passed by, carrying up to 400 tons of goods, according to surveys conducted in 1904 and 1910 by the Hong Kong Government to assess likely traffic on railway lines in the area. 10 The road from Sham Tsun to Sha Tau Kok was important not only because of its local significance to the two market towns, but to a wider area as well. It was part of the main road from the county city of Nam Tau (Nantou) to the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng), which was the most important east-west route in the county. The main north-south routes in the county were those which linked Kowloon with Sham Tsun, and then on from Sham Tsun with the towns further north, and, eventually, with Canton. There were three main crossings of the Sham Tsun river between the New Territories area and Sham Tsun: the Liu Pok ferry to the southwest of Sham Tsun, which carried the traffic on the Yuen Long-Sham Tsun road, and the Lo Wu ferry and the Law Fong bridge, which between them carried the Kowloon-Sham Tsun traffic. The most direct route from Kowloon to the north was the road from Tai Po to Sheung Shui, and thence over the Lo Wu ferry. This ferry, however, was expensive, and could only be bypassed by using a waist-deep ford, which was difficult and dangerous, and impossible after rain. Many travellers, therefore, preferred the slightly longer, but cheap and safe Law Fong bridge crossing. There were two routes from Kowloon to the Law Fong bridge. One crossed the mountains north of Tai Po by the Kat Tsai Au pass, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 216 R: Nearly five years after his last recital in Shanghai, Martin SIMONSEN returned to the port, this time as a member of "Mr. Smythe's troupe". There was also the novelty of a lady singer, Miss Amelia BAILEY, who "could not fail to render the entertainment attractive even had her voice been less excellent than it is". This was the last night of a series for which public interest had not been particularly large; only on July 31st had there been an "excellent house" and in a reproaching comment, the Herald trusted that the company would "meet with more uniform support at Hong Kong, the residents of which are reputed more willing to put up with a little heat for the sake of an evening's amusement". (NCH 1,8,1863). October 1863 On October 24, the North China Herald informed its readers that "the Circus Company announced more than a year ago as upon its way to Shanghai has at length arrived and promises to be a valuable means of dispelling the ennui inseparable from winter in China". 17.10.-23.10.1863 A series of promenade concerts by Miss Amelia Bailey (singing) and Marquis Chisholm (piano), as well as the Rhenish Band. TH: N.N. (H) 7.11.-13.11.1863 A continuation of the concerts mentioned above. R: In spite of the meagre support met in Shanghai, the Smythe troupe ventured to return in October after a visit to Nagasaki. This time the concerts were more rewarding - financially, for in November it was noticed that “Miss BAILEY has continued to draw crowded houses" and that she has no reason to complain of the reception she has met in Shanghai". (NCH 17.10, 24.10, 14.11.1863). 10.2.1864 (Wedn) E.B. LYTTON: "The Lady of Lyons" (1838) T: Romantic comedy (5 acts) C: C.R. Faylor's travelling company Th: Olympic Theatre (H) R: The port was honoured by a visit of Mr. FAYLOR's theatrical company in February and May. This was after it had toured Macao (in December 1863; see BGM 14.12.1863) and Hong Kong. There it was highly successful, but the first performance in the Yangtze city was unfortunately a failure in consequence of the ludicrous incompetence of that portion of the company which had been collected in Shanghai and pressed into service. The audience, moreover, was riotous in the extreme and displayed the worst possible taste in exciting themselves to increase the confusion on the stage" (see also Survey, p. 22). (N.C.H. 13.2.1864). 13.2.1864 (Sat) C. DANCE: "Delicate Ground" (1849) T: Comic drama (1 act) C. SELBY: "A Lady and a Gentleman in a Peculiarly Perplexing Predicament" (1841) T: Burletta (1 act) C: C.R. Faylor's travelling company Th: Olympic Theatre (H) R: It is not quite clear how many nights were given by the FAYLOR company. The Herald of February 27 states that **it still continues its performances", but, in view of what had happened earlier, "naturally enough has not been patronised by any of the ladies resident in the Settlement". In May, it turns up again in the pages of the paper. (NCH 27.2.1864). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h # BIBLIOGRAPHY 245 1. Archives: "London Missionary Society": Incoming Letters, Central China. 2. Newspapers and Periodicals: **Boletim do Governo de Macao**, Macao, 1855-1865. "China Mail", Hong Kong, 1845-1860. "North China Herald", Shanghai, 1850-1867. "Puck, or the Shanghai Charivari", Shanghai, 1871-1873. *Shanghai Commercial Record*, Shanghai, 1865. 3. Books and Articles: Adams, W. Davenport: "A Dictionary of the Drama. A Guide to the Plays, Playwrights, Players and Playhouses of the United Kingdom and America from the earliest times to the present", Vol. I (A-G) (no more published). Philadelphia, 1904. Appleton, William W.: "Madame Vestris and the London Stage", New York - London, 1974. Barr, Pat: "The Deer Cry Pavillion. A Story of Westerners in Japan 1868-1905", London, 1968. Black, J.R.: "Young Japan. Yokohama and Yedo. A Narrative of the Settlement and the city from the signing of the treaties in 1858 to the close of the year 1879", Tokyo-London, 1968 (reprint of 1880-1881 edition). Boase, Frederic: "Modern English Biography", London, 1965 (reprint of the 1891-1921 edition). Booth, Michael (Ed): "English Plays of the 19th century", Volumes I and IV, Oxford, 1969-1973. British Museum General Catalogue of Books. Brown, T. Allston: "A History of the New York Stage from the first performance in 1732 to 1901, 3 vols.; New York 1964 (reprint of 1903 ed.). Buckley, C.B.: "An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867, Singapore, 1902. Carse, A.: "The Life of Jullien", Cambridge, 1951. Chesterfield, Lord: "Advice to his son on Men & Manners in which the principles of politeness and the art of acquiring a knowledge of the world are laid down in an easy and familiar manner", Chiswick, 1826. Conolly, L.W. and J.P. Wearing: "English Drama and Theatre 1800-1900. A Guide to information sources", Detroit, 1978. Cordier, Henri: "Bibliotheca Sinica", second edition; 5 vols.; Paris 1904ff. Davis, Jim (Ed.): "Plays of H.J. Byron", Cambridge, 1984. 'Dictionary of National Biography". Dyce, C.M.: "Personal Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in the Model Settlement. Shanghai 1870-1900", London, 1906. Engle, Gary D.: "This Grotesque Essence. Plays from the American Minstrel Stage". Baton Rouge, 1978. Fétis, F.J.: "Biographic Universelle de Musiciens", Paris, 1864; Supplement by Arthur Pougin, 1880. Fitzgerald, Percy: "Principles of Comedy and Dramatic Effect", London, 1870. "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", London, 1980. Haan, J.H.: "Origin and Development of the Political System in the Shanghai International Settlement" in: "Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of Royal Asiatic Society", Vol. 22 (1982), p. 31-64. Haan, J.H.: "The Shanghai Library: A history of the first foreign library in Shanghai" in: "Journal of the Hong Kong Library Association", 1987. Hartnoll, Phyllis: "The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre", London, 1972. Howard, Diana: "London Theatres and Music Halls, 1850-1950", London, 1970. Page 270 Page 271 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 316 G. Gwok-Yin jou A segment of the Ching Lok Tong worth mentioning is the Gwok-Yin jou, which has a small ancestral hall in Wing Lung Wai. It has ancestral tablets for Lam-Mau (one of the great grandsons of Fong in the 20th generation), two of his sons, neither of whom had had any descendants, and Gwok-Yin his third son (with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai), and Lam-Mau's grandsons Chiu-Yip, Chiu-Yung, Gwan-Leung (also with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai) and Gwan-Haak. Dang Ying-Yun, a grandson of Gwan-Leung, is represented by a horizontal inscribed board to congratulate his mou-geui-yan degree award in 1789. In all likelihood, the titles of Gwok-Yin and Gwan-Leung were conferred in consideration of the imperial degree of this descendant of theirs. 13 Sung (1974:173-174) provides some information about Dang Ying-Yun. He wrote the calligraphy for many inscriptions, including those for the repair of the Jau and Wong Temple in 1824 and the rebuilding of the Ling-Wan Monastery in 1821. His involvement in public affairs was not limited to calligraphy. Sung recorded the oral tradition that he was instrumental in the construction of a fortress in the present Kowloon City and a county school in its capital town. H. Ji-Ga Tong 14 According to his descendants and other informants, Ji-Ga Tong prospered after the marriage of Dang Kyun-Hin (1755-1822), its founder. He was a member of the Fourth Branch, the descendants of Gyun, and was originally poor. He had worked when he was young for a Gwok-Yin jou person known as Haan sau-choi who had a peanut oil factory. His wife was a servant girl of the sau-choi's. The family prospered afterwards. The good fortune was partly attributed to the wife. The family was very large and wealthy. According to oral tradition recorded by Sung (1974:175-176), Dang Kyun-Hin "had four sons and twenty-four grandsons and the number of his family and servants together are said to have totalled two hundred.” He built a hall called Sou-Lau Yun, better known to local villages as Ji-Ga Tong, which term is also used for the lineage segment consisting of his descendants. Chung-Shaan, one of his sons, built a hall called Cheung-Cheun Yun which had two side rooms, one for a school and one for martial arts. When he died, a banquet was held in Ji-Ga Tong for seven days. The guests included some people from Yuen Long and Pat Heung. The youngest of Kyun-Hin's sons, Yu- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 329 Loi Tung, among other places, including some to Dongguan and Xiangshan counties. The cousins of Hung-Yi moved away to nearby Ha Tsuen and Xiangshan county, among other places. Hung-Yi's brother Hung-Ji moved to Ha Tsuen. Thereafter, all the remaining Dangs of Kam Tin were descendants of Hung-Yi. Casually asking the Dang elders about the relationship between lineage segmentation and settlement, one is given both concrete examples that suggest a correspondence as well as general observations that there is no correspondence. For example, one would be told that the descendants of the third branch (Yeui), which are very few in number, all live in Wing Lung Wai, and that all the others of that village were descendants of the first fong. Unless one asks about a particular segment, the answers would be in terms of the four branches of the lineage, and the conclusion will be that no single segment lives in a village of its own except in the case of Tai Hong Wai where all the villagers are descendants of Man-Wai and his brothers. Going down the level of segmentation, to the lineage divisions focussed upon ancestors of the 17th to 19th centuries, there is correspondence in the sense that members of these segments all live in the same village. As already mentioned, all the members of the third branch live in Wing Lung Wai. Similarly, all the Ji-Ga Tong people live in Shui Tau, all the descendants of Wan-Yu live in Wing Lung Wai, and all the descendants of Gwong Yu Tong and Lei Ging Tong live in Tai Hong Wai. Another example is the descendants of Wan-Gaan, who, according to one account, had three sons: Fau-Ng, Jan-Ting and Gai-Jau. Gai-Jau's segment live in Kat Hing Wai. Fau-Ng's descendants are divided into three sub-segments. One of the three lived in Ko Po, another in Kat Hing Wai, and the other in Kam Hing Wai. Some segments of the lineage settled elsewhere. The descendants of Hung-Yi's second son Jan had moved to Ying Lung Wai near the Yuen Long Old Market at a very early date. I was told by its head of branch that many more lived in Zhongshan county. Some of the descendants of San-Fung, a son of Wan-Guk, also had settled elsewhere. I was told that most of them live in Kat Hing Wai, but some had moved to Tong Fong near Ping Shan. The ritual handbook for Ching-Lok's ancestral hall had a special provision for the descendants of San-Fung, which said that they had moved to Naam Tau, in a street outside the city wall. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 361 Back at the ritual site, the ritual representatives installed the image of Gwun-Yam in the temporary altar dedicated to her, and the spirit tablets for the others in the san-paang altar for general gods. These, with the spirit tablets for the gods from the villages, gradually filled up the three levels of the temporary altar. Two ritual representatives fetched the tablet of Hung-Yi from the Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall to his altar on the stage. The portrait of the Heavenly Master was fetched from the village gate of Tai Hong Wai, and installed at a temporary altar set up for him in the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall. There were also a few deities to be invited from the sky. They included Tin-Dei-Sheui-Yeung, the gods of the realms of Heaven, Earth (the Underworld), Water, and the human world; Gods of the Naam-Dau ("North Dipper") and Bak-Dau ("South Dipper"), both for blessings to men; the City God and the Lei-Wik (who supervises the local Gods of Earth and Grain and the Earth Gods); Tin-Chyun San-Gwan (two common titles of the highest deities); and the Dragon King. In the last stage of the Opening Rite there were complaints that those gods were omitted. But later on that day temporary spirit tablets for them were seen in the san-paang. D. Procession of incense I The first Procession of Incense took place on the main day of the ritual, to the participating villages of the Kam Tin heung. It was to visit all the temples, shrines, and major ancestral halls to worship the gods and higher-level ancestors. There did not seem to have been a clearcut rule about the lower-level ancestral halls. When I mentioned to an elder that the procession had stopped and worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, his first response was that the procession should not have worshipped there. But he changed his mind later: the worship in the rite was indiscriminative, it went to every ancestral hall if the doors were open. A very large number of villagers participated. Priests took part in the procession as well, but their part was limited to a brief invocation. Most of the villagers wore hats with special ornaments indicating their villages. The procession was accompanied by the sound of large gongs, a flag saying jeun-heung ("to offer incense"), and the priests' musician playing sona. There was one lion dance group, and Luk Gwok flags and percussion teams playing drum and gong on lo-gu ga frames representing each of the five main villages. There were also flags ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 367 The villagers had already gathered at the festival site when I arrived at half past nine in the morning. The red slips of paper etc., were carried by the people responsible on a tray, and, in some cases, a "pavilion", back to where they had been fetched from. In all cases, I believe, the person who carried the divinities was preceded by one of his companions who beat a gong. In some cases the procession included the "Keep quiet!" and "Keep clear!" banners. I witnessed the case of the Hung-Fan Taam gods. On their arrival the villagers set up the temporary spirit tablets of the divinities at the site, and made offerings of tea, sweets, yun-bou and paper clothing to them. Then they burnt the spirit tablets as well as the paper offerings. Ahern, Emily Martin Brim, John A. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1981 Chinese Rituals and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1974 "Village alliance temples in Hong Kong", in Wolf (1974: 93-104). Cheng, Sui Kwan Faure, David n.d. "Yuanlang Xinx", unpublished manuscript. 1984 "The Tangs of Kam Tin - A hypothesis on the rise of a gentry family", in Faure et. al (1984). Faure, David et. al (eds.) 1984 From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots Hayes, James W. Kamm, John of Hong Kong Society, Centre of Asian Studies. University of Hong Kong. 1983 The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. 1977 "Field notes on the social history and fungshui of Kam Tin”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JHKBRAS) xvii, pp. 202-216. Law, Suk-Ching and Lam Siu-Fung 1985 **Jintian Dengshi shixi bogian shi'', in Renleixie Zhou Tekan, pp. 2-14. The Anthropology Society, Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1984 "Village education in the New Territories region under the Ch'ing", in Faure et. al. (1984). 1983 New Peace County: A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, Ng Lun, Alice Ngai Ha Ng, Peter Y.L.. Ofuchi, Ninji 1983 Chugokujin no Shukyo Girei, Tokyo, Saso, Michael R. Schipper, K.W. 1972 Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, Washington. 1974 "The written memorial in Taoist Ceremonies", in Wolf (1974:309-324). Siu, Augustus K.K. and Anthony K.K. Siu, Anthony K.K. 1982 Studies on Chinese Genealogies and the History of the Hong Kong Region, Hong Kong: Hin Chiu Institute. 1982 "Zupu zhong suojian zhí shishi shili”, in Siu and Siu (1982), pp. 21-29. 1984 **The Hong Kong Region before and after the Coastal Evacuation in the Early Ch'ing Dynasty', in Faure ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h THE HISTORY OF HONG KONG: FROM A VILLAGE TO A CITY 391 Introduction Hong Kong, which lies at the mouth of the Pearl River, has an area of 398 square miles. It lies between 113°52′E and 114°30′E, and 22°9′N and 22°37′N. It is 83 miles south of Guangzhou and 39 miles east of Macau. It consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula (the land which lies to the south of Boundary Street), and the New Territories (including Tai Yue Shan and 235 adjacent islands). The name 'Hong Kong' does not appear in any Chinese historical records before the Ming Dynasty. It was the name of a small village on the south coast of Hong Kong Island.1 The village lies to the north-east of Shek Pai Wan Zi, nowadays known as Aberdeen Harbour. How Hong Kong got its name The village of Hong Kong (Heung Kong Tsai Tsuen) got its name from its export of incense products. Previously, Hong Kong and its surrounding areas were famous for the growing of incense trees which produced incense wood, known as Kwun Heung. During the Ming Dynasty, incense wood and incense products were assembled at the north-east of Shek Pai Wan before being shipped to Canton.3 Thus, the bay which lies to the north-east of Shek Pai Wan was named Hong Kong (Heung Kong), i.e. Fragrant Harbour, and the village which lay near the coast was called Heung Kong Tsuen. Hong Kong Island before the Ming Dynasty Before the Han Dynasty, Hong Kong Island and its neighbouring areas were occupied by the Si, the Yao& and the Tan. Little is known about them. However, ancient rock carvings were found in Tai Long Wan and Wong Chuk Hang on Hong Kong Island recently. The carvings have approximately the same spiral appearance& as the carvings on the bronze drums of the ancient Yuet# people. These prove that there were people living on Hong Kong Island in very ancient times. 4 During the Tang and the Sung Dynasties, most of the people lived on the south coast of the island. In recent years, lime kilns established ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 393 forces were defeated. In 1841, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British. According to the Census taken on 15th May, 1841, there were sixteen villages, with 7,450 people, on the island, At that time, pirates still caused great disturbance along the coast. Those of outstanding importance were Shap Ngai Tsai+ and Tsui Ah-po. In the 30th year of Tao Kuang (1850), piracy along the coast was suppressed by the combined force of the British and the Ch'ing navies.7 With this, the island gained its name 'Tai Ping Shan' which means 'the Mountain of Peace'. During the early years of British rule on the island, Chek Chu was considered as a suitable place for the capital city of the Colony.5 However, because it was subject to severe tropical disease, the British built the capital city between the Central and Upper Bays (Chung Wan and Sheung Wan :). It was named Victoria after the name of the British Queen at the time of the early colonization. From then on, development on the island continued. With political changes in mainland China,8 more people flocked to Hong Kong, and they helped to make the city famous in the world. Conclusion Hong Kong, an isolated island at the mouth of the Pearl River, was only sparsely populated with fishermen. During the Ming Dynasty, because of the cultivation of incense trees, which gave great profit, population increased rapidly. However, the Coastal Evacuation at the 1st year of the K'ang Hsi Reign obliged the people to retreat to the mainland. Fields were left barren, and houses were pulled down. When the Edict of the Coastal Evacuation was abandoned, people were encouraged to return to their old dwellings. Villages were rebuilt, people from the neighbouring counties came and settled in the Hong Kong region, too. With political changes in mainland China, more people came to Hong Kong. They helped to develop Hong Kong into a densely populated commercial city. ANTHONY SIU Kwok-Kin ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 417 interested in modern China or who are interested in the British in Asia. Dr. Atwell has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the British administered one small locality and coped with the demands of modern forces. Her work can be used as a guide or spring board for comparison of British colonial policy in other East Asian places, such as Brunei and the Straits Settlements, Hankow, Tientsin and Shanghai, say, with Hong Kong tossed in for good measure. WEI PEH T'I, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong Steven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China, Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, China Research Monograph 28, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985. Prosper Giquel, edited by Steven A. Leibo, A Journal of the Chinese Civil War 1864. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1985. These two works, one of compilation and assessment based on a doctoral dissertation, the other of translation (with the help of Debbie Weston) and annotation with a lengthy introduction, have a considerable intrinsic interest because they deal with a rather extraordinary man. They have also a degree of relevance, over a century later, for the West's involvement with present day China's modernizing programme. They are to be read in conjunction with other modern works on this period of China's self-strengthening efforts, including those listed in Dr. Leibo's introduction to Transferring Technology. Prosper Giquel, a French naval officer, came to China during the Second China War. After service with the Joint Commission that guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French "Ever Triumphant Army” to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 Hase, Chek Lap Kok organized by Philip and Sharon Bruce, Fung Ping Shan Museum (x2) organized by Michael Lau, Parsee Building and Parsee Temple organized by Geoff Roper, Lam Tsuen Ta-Chiu festival organized by Dr. Patrick Hase. Shataukok visit (x2) organized by Dr. Patrick Hase, and a visit to the Chinese University of Hong Kong with its Arts Gallery organized by myself. Without detracting from the other lectures I would like to mention that we were very privileged to have Dr. Wang Gangwu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, to speak on the occasion of our 30th Anniversary, followed by a Chinese dinner at the City Hall restaurant.* I must confess it came as a surprise to find that it was 30 years since our rebirth. I think that all those who heard Dr. Wang's lecture on this occasion would agree that his lecture was as stimulating and thought provoking as you would ever wish to hear. It will, incidentally, we hope, be published in a future edition of our Journal. Overseas Tours From time to time members have asked us to organise tours overseas, and in response to this we have recently circulated a proposal for a visit to South Korea, where we would hope to meet up with the Royal Asiatic Society there. Unfortunately although many members have expressed interest, the final numbers who have definitely said they will go are below what we think is financially viable, and unless there is a strong interest in this trip within the next day we will be cancelling it. I am grateful to Dan Waters for all the hard work he has put into this, and I think we have learnt by this experience. We will continue to consider overseas tours but I think it will be a question of something closer and for shorter periods. Members' advice on this would be very much appreciated. Membership At the end of last year my predecessor reported to you that there were 638 local members and 80 overseas members, making a total of 718 Members. Mrs. Bruce reports that at the last count there were 596 local members (492 living on Hong Kong Island, 65 in Kowloon, and 39 in the New Territories) and again around 80 overseas members, making a total of 676 members. This decline in the total membership * See Plate 16 ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 reference for those who wish to study this part of the world. For those who have not got the back issues I am sure you will find them of interest and you can obtain them by contacting the Assistant Secretary. In addition there may be some of you who have aspirations to publish their research work and if you think that it could be suitable for our Journal, I hope you will contact Dr. Hase. Long articles are of course welcome but even short notes about Hong Kong history or some other aspect which you think might be of interest are also very much appreciated. Finance The Treasurer, Mr. Robert Nield, will give a detailed report shortly. You will notice that the finances are in reasonable shape, but the overall situation does need to be watched. The new annual subscription from 1st January 1991 is $250, as agreed at the last annual general meeting and it is hoped to keep this rate for another year. The Library As you will see from the report of Mr. Y.C. Wan, our Hon. Librarian, our Library collection has continued to increase through donations and purchases, mainly through the efforts of Dr. James Hayes. The Library, as many know, is kept at the Kowloon Central Library, as part of the reference collection there. Recently I had a meeting with the Chief Librarian, Urban Council Libraries, Mrs. Barbara Luk, and I am pleased to report that subject to unforeseen circumstances it is anticipated that sometime in 1992-1993 it will be possible to move it to the City Hall Central Library into a special collection room, part of which will be specifically set aside for the Royal Asiatic Society. This is indeed good news and I hope that by this time next year I will be able to report further progress. The Library is becoming a fine reference source of books on China and I do strongly urge you to make use of it: clearly a move to the City Hall area will make it that much easier for members to gain access. Other Matters At the beginning of each Journal you will read these words "The Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was originally founded in 1847 but ceased to exist in 1859. It was revived in 1959 with the Page xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 # ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH # LIBRARY # REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1990/91 The stock of the Library grew considerably this year and there are 1,627 books in the collection. 131 new titles (in 148 volumes) were processed and added to our collection housed in the Urban Council Kowloon Central Reference Library. Among them, 90 titles were purchased through Dr. James Hayes from local bookstores, in Australia and Britain. Most of them are out-of-print, if not rare, items which cannot be found in local libraries. The remaining 41 titles were received as gifts. Dr. James Hayes again contributed 25 titles to the Library. Other donors included Dr. G.H. Choa, Mr. Eric Peter Ho, Dr. D.D. Waters and Mr. Ian Diamond. As reported by the Urban Council Public Libraries Office, the usage of the Library in the period from March 1990 to January 1991 is as follows: | Category | Number | | ------------------------------- | ------ | | 1. No. of requests for information | 84 | | 2. No. of books consulted | 136 | | 3. No. of borrowers | 16 | | 4. No. of books checked out | 20 | Members might like to know that they can also check out books from the City Hall Reference Library, though only 2 books were checked out in the same period. Following the up-grade of the City Hall Public Library into the central library in Hong Kong Island in, we hope, mid-1992, our library collection would probably move to the City Hall Library where our members would find the Library more accessible. 21st February 1991 Y. C. WAN Hon. Librarian XX ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 35 An analysis of the rituals performed. Segawa shows that observation of the Jiao festival reveals not only traditional territorial alliances, but also past rival relationships among communities. Looking at the case of Pat Heung as an example, he illustrated that the Jiao closely reflects the past feuds between a village alliance and its neighbouring landlord community, Kam Tin. He argues that, besides its ritual and symbolic meanings, the Jiao can be seen as a "rite of solidarity”. That is, the community maintains its unity through regular worship of the heroes and feud victims, at the Jiao festival.“ 45 Besides traditional alliance-rival relationships, a study of a Jiao festival also reveals a society's internal social conflicts. Group consciousness and inter-group competition, which are obscured by modern city life, can be observed from the Jiao's organizational and symbolic representation. The deliberate exclusion from the "Hang Fu” [a ritual to purify every household at the end of the Jiao festival] ritual of some households in Lung Yeuk Tau reminds one of the existence of "Hahu" or bondservants in the community in the past. In Cheung Chau, the Tanka boat people are denied participation in some rituals. The festival area that is to receive the purification, blessings and protection from the gods does not include the site of traditional Tanka settlement." 46 My paper in Bunka Jinrui Gaku (Cultural Anthropology) no. 5 shows the family structure and kin relationships of different communities through a study of name lists posted at Jiao festivals. Through a comparative analysis of the name lists of three communities, it was shown that the structure of a community is clearly reflected in their name lists. The names of members of a single lineage community are written according to the principle of lineage. In other words, members of a registered unit are linked by a focal ancestor. On the other hand, in a typical name list of a multi-lineage community, be they settled in one or more localities, names are listed in the structure of a family, extended or nuclear, whose members are related to a surviving parent." 47 Studies of Jiao festivals provide an excellent source of reference to the understanding of social and political changes. A Jiao festival shows not only the ritual and social lives of the villagers, it reveals also the community's internal and external relationships. As shown in Table 2, at least 28 communities in Hong Kong celebrated Jiao ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 208 provide the insight into the mysteries of life. This kind of Chinese person Legge could admire, for he was one ready for the truths of the Incarnation. Once again, even in his final years, James Legge was discovering spiritual and intellectual resources within China's own traditions to support his own positions and concerns. NOTES An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Hong Kong City Hall on October 20, 1989, in the lecture series supported by the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Hong Kong Urban Council. Research done was generously underwritten by the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. In the second Oxford edition of 1893-1895, the original eight volumes were reduced to five large volumes. They included the revised Four Books in two volumes along with the unrevised 1865-1872 editions of the Book of Documents, the Book of Odes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals. The 1985 printing is a copy of the 1960 Hong Kong edition, including a biographical essay by Lindsay Ride. I have recorded eleven independent copies of this edition of the Four Books as well as six other printings of the Analects (the name given to the Lunyu by Legge). This was sometimes done by simply copying the translation and making the Chinese text available without any of the extensive footnotes; at other times it was presented along with other translations (into Japanese and European languages). At least one was a late nineteenth-century pirated edition. Only four letters remain of an apparently large correspondence between Legge and Julien. [On a letter dated May 12, 1866, in a hand which is neither Legge's nor Julien's, there is the phrase "Received many letters from Stanislas Julien”. (original's emphasis)] These are kept in the Bodleian Library. Other letters by Legge can be found in the Library of L'Académie de France, but all are written by Legge late in his Oxford career, long after Julien had died. Those which remain are full of Julien's very precise and lengthy criticisms of Legge's translations, especially of the Book of Documents, which was first published in 1865. The background of the arrangements for Legge's chair at Oxford is briefly discussed in T. H. Barrett's Singular Listlessness: A Short History of Chinese Books and British Scholars (London: Wellsweep, 1989), pp. 75-76. Further discussion of this background and a general overview of Legge's life can be found in my article, "The 'Failures' of James Legge's Fruitful Life for China“. Ching Feng (BR) 31:4 (December 1983), pp. 246-271. An article written soon after Legge began his career at Oxford is "Principles of Composition in Chinese, as deduced from the Written Characters", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, NS 2 (April 1879), pp. 238-277. Later publications I have located are as follows: "Prof. Legge to the Editor of the Journal", contra Mr Giles on the Zuo Zhuan, (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch 20-21 (1886-1887), pp. 237-238; "The Late Appearance of Romances and Novels in the Literature of China; with the History of the Great Archer, Yang Yu-chi", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (October, 1893), pp. 799-822; Book Review on Society in China by Robert K. Douglas, in ibid, (October 1894), pp. 851-865. Three articles near the end of his life appeared as a series: "The Li Sao Poem and its Author: I. The Author", "The Li Sao Poem and its Author: II. The Poem", and "The Li Sao Poem and its Author: III. Chinese Text and Translation”. in ibid. (January 1895), pp. 77-92; (July 1895), pp. 571-599; and (October 1895), pp. 839-864. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 217 he testified that there was hardly a house in Victoria except the brothels - where he had not repeatedly been and where he was not known as a friend. See James Legge. "The Colony of Hong Kong", The China Review, op. cit., pp. 168-169. Unfortunately, these remarks were edited out of the reprint of this talk found in The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (1971), op. cit. See n. 26 M5 The impact and importance of Legge's life as a Non-Conformist academic has been summarized in my article in Ching Feng, “The 'Failures' of James Legge's Fruitful Life for China', op. cit. Another more general point about dissenting churches should be made: in late nineteenth century Great Britain, the academic circles of academics who were dissenters appear to have functioned as a contrapuntal voice in the mainstream of English society. The publication of The British Quarterly became an organ for dissenting viewpoints which illustrates this point. Another factor involved in the influence of dissenting believers was the fact that many of the children of these people married into major families within English society. A perfect example is one of Legge's daughters from his first marriage, Eliza, who married a gentleman who later became the first Inspector-General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, Horatio Nelson Lay. See Lindsay Ride, op. cit., p. 9. C See the case of Dr. Wong Foon, London Missionary Society Archives. Letters from South China, dated April 12, 1856. Further discussion occurs in letters of October 12, 1859, April 14, 1860, and November 28, 1860. 47 Legge's opposition to opium and coolie trades, among other problems, was stated publicly in his address at the Hong Kong City Hall in 1872. See "The Colony of Hong Kong", The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, op. cit., pp. 190-191. In 1870, Legge had joined his Chinese pastoral colleague Ho Jinshan in promoting a petition which opposed the newly legalized gambling opened by the Hong Kong government primarily for the sake of revenue. Over one thousand two hundred names, most of whom were Chinese, signed the petitions presented to the government on February 21st and March 6th, 1871. See Hong Kong Government Office, Colonial Office Records, CO129/149, 5, pp. 188-197 and 8, pp. 208-234. 100 See the letter addressed to James Legge by Sir W. G. Liddell, the appointed representative of Oxford University, dated February 27, 1875 (Bodleian Library archives). Liddell makes it clear to Legge in the letter that his Non-Conformist background should not be a source of turmoil if he were admitted to the University. Although the letter also includes the qualification that Legge's credentials indicate a person of high standing, the doubt in Liddell's mind about the character of anyone from a dissenting tradition is explicit. It may be the case, as Mary Dominica Legge claimed, that James Legge was the first non-Anglican professor admitted to Oxford after 1871, but I have not yet found a way to verify this. 69 R. F. Horton commented, however, that Prof. Legge's involvement with the Non-Conformist Union was minimal. See his comments in his text, An Autobiography (London: 1918). *0 Among those with whom Prof. Legge had some direct spiritual interaction was the famous Hegelian philosopher, T. H. Green. In a letter dated April 29 (no year, but probably 1879, when both men were on the provisional committee of Somerville College), Green responds to a lengthy rejoinder Prof. Legge had given to a book Green had written. Green had sent the letter because, apparently, the professor had treated him like an orthodox believer," and Green felt there was a sort of hypocrisy in allowing you to continue under that impression". The letter ends with Green politely defending his philosophical position, but also mirroring some sense of challenge to alter his views which must have been expressed by Prof. Legge. This letter is found 4 IL Page 240 Page 241 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 220 and business in Hong Kong has been neglected. Nonetheless, over the past decade some hongs have commissioned researchers and authors to compile company histories. A number of these are listed in the bibliography. Earlier Days Historically, overseas businessmen have been permitted only limited contact with locals in China. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Westerners were only authorised to reside in Canton during the trading season, from October to May. Emperors confined all foreign trade there, as far from Peking as possible, keeping 'unpleasant things at a distance.' Foreigners were forced to maintain their base in the Portuguese city of Macau (established 1557). These restrictions caused great inconvenience to merchants. Captain Charles Elliot wrote, on April 6th 1839: "There can be neither safety nor honour for either government until Her Majesty's flag flies on these coasts in a secure position." It was considered necessary to have a colony with a fine harbour, where Europeans could live, work and trade in peace and security. The Union Jack was raised at Possession Point, on Hong Kong Island, on January 26, 1841. Hong Kong was established specifically to facilitate trade. Not surprisingly, therefore, the authorities depended a great deal upon the support of business houses in the early days of the colony. Some of these early trading houses are still trading here today. By the end of 1843 there were 12 large British firms in Hong Kong, ten British merchants trading on a smaller scale, and about six Indian companies. The following year there were said to be about 100 foreign firms doing business, half of which were British and about one-quarter Indian or Parsee. Russells, an American firm, had six partners and eight griffins (assistants). Dent and Company (British) five partners and eight assistants, and D. and M. Rustomjee (Parsee) fifteen partners. Jardine Matheson employed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 247 ― and Godown Company. 'Monuments' still standing include the Helena May Institute (completed 1916), Saint Andrew's Church (foundation stone laid 1904) and Church Hall, and the Peninsula Hotel (official opening 1928) which — along with the Taj Mahal in Bombay, Raffles in Singapore and a few others was classified, before World War II, as one of the 'great hotels of the East'. Another of Leigh and Orange's edifices is the main, 'Renaissance' style, building at Hong Kong University which was completed in 1912 and extended in 1952. It has been gazetted as an historical monument. The now demolished Sir Paul Chater's 'Marble Hall', generally accepted as the most luxurious residence in Hong Kong before World War II, was another example. The Colony's first, full-time, chartered accountant was Arthur Lowe, who came to Hong Kong in 1902. Joseph Bingham became his partner in 1905, and Frederick Mathews (Lowe, Bingham and Mathews) in 1909. There were other accountants in the Territory before 1902, but few had professional qualifications and auditing was usually a subsidiary activity to their main lines of business. For instance, Linstead and Davis were mainly property agents, but they also sold bicycles, and, up to 1926, they had an agency for Manila cigars. The partners audited the accounts of various companies. The senior partner of Gibb Livingston was one of the two Hong Kong Bank auditors, and so on. Lowe Bingham (Lo Bing Ham in Chinese) became part of the international firm of Price Waterhouse in 1974, Hong Kong and China Gas Company William Glen, who had no knowledge of the gas industry in 1861, obtained from the then Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson (when the population was 123,281), a concession to supply gas to the city of Victoria. The company was incorporated on May 31st 1862: most of the shareholders lived in the United Kingdom, although 500 shares were offered locally. Then, on December 3rd 1864, Hong Kong was lit with gas for the first time by about 15 miles of mains and 500 lamps, in Queen's Road extending up the hill to Upper Albert Road. Previously, the only street lights had been installed voluntarily by residents, and burned peanut oil. The residents of Caine Road complained that they --- Page 270 Page 271 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 254 sons, John, Lancelot and Wilkinson, were running the firm from Canton and Macau, in the 1820s, it was very successful, and, later, it was Jardine's main rival. The company continued to do well for a number of years but it failed in 1867 at the time of an economic recession. Some believe that Swire's, with their ruthless trading tactics, helped to destroy Dent's although it is not known how much truth there is in this. Another firm that failed about the same time was the Agra and Masterman Bank. There are many other once successful organisations that fell by the wayside. Names like Burd; Holliday and Wise; Humphreys; Lyall and Still; Murrow; and Turner; are no longer with us. Bard, in his 1988 report, lists 37 enterprises with English sounding names (some could have been American) of which, although listed in directories between 1845 and 1900, little is known. BOOKS AND JOURNALS SOURCES Unless stated otherwise the following books, journals, brochures, leaflets, magazines, reports, newspapers, supplements, periodicals and letters were published or drafted in Hong Kong, Adventures and Perils, The First Hundred and Fifty Years of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd Bard, Solomon, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988) Boulnois, L., The Silk Road (London, 1966) Braga, J.M., Hong Kong Business Symposium (1957) Briggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City (1977) Briggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City, Vol. II (1978) Burgoyne, J., Far Eastern Commercial and Industrial Activities (1924) Cameron, Nigel, Power (1982) Cameron, Nigel, The Milky Way: The History of Dairy Farm (1986) Chambers, Gillian, Super Traders, The Story of Trade Development in Hong Kong (1989) Coates, Austin, A Mountain of Light (1977) Coates, Austin, Quick Tidings of Hong Kong (1990) Coates, Austin, Whampoa: Ships on the Shore (1980) Collis, Maurice, Wayfoong (London, 1965) Crisswell, Colin N., The Taipans, Hong Kong's Merchant Princes (1981). Endacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong (1958) Gillingham, Paul. At the Peak, Hong Kong between the Wars (1983) Graham, John, The Lowe Bingham Story (1920-1977) Historical and Statistical Abstracts of Hong Kong 1841-1940 Hong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria (Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) (1980) Hong Kong (Government year books, various) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 281 See P.H. Hase “The Cheung Shan Kwu Ts'un: an Ancient Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp. 121-157. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 104-137, reprinted from Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 6, 1859, pp. 71-105. Der Evangelische Heidenbote, Jan. 1862. See also P.H. Hase "Ta Kwu Ling, Wong Pui Ling, and the Kim Hau Bridges" elsewhere in this issue. Krone, loc. cit. says that missionaries were usually treated as neutral and ignored in fighting. Der Evangelische Heidenbote, Feb. 1906. SHA TAU KOK IN 1853 The Rev. Carl Smith drew my attention some time ago to the wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on Sha Tau Kok in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, photostats of a number of documents were received and studied. Among them was a most interesting general description of the District and Market at Sha Tau Kok dating from 1853. Given its general interest, a translation of this document is printed below. Comments in square brackets are editorial clarifications. "Tungfo. Tungfo* | Tung Wo, 41, the formal name of Sha Tau Kok Market station is situated in the Province of Quang-tung [Kwangtung], in the District of Sinon [San On #1. The southern border of this District is formed by the China Sea, whereas, to the east and west, the borders are formed by inlets of this sea. The western inlet is the larger, although it is too small to be called a gulf. The English call it the "Canton River". The city of Canton is situated on this estuary. Because of the Canton River, traffic between Canton and Hong Kong is very easy, and * All placenames in this document are given in the original Hakka transcription. Placenames in Hong Kong are also given in square brackets according to the Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories; placenames in China are also given in square brackets in Cantonese transcription and characters. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 309 SOJOURNERS IN XIAMEN: NOTES ON THE RAS VISIT It was up-up-and-away' on Friday March 6, 1992, as 18 stalwart RAS Members took a one-hour flight to Xiamen Island, in Fujian Province. Also known as Amoy, the town is similar, in some ways, to Hong Kong. Both are situated in the typhoon belt. Also, like Macau, there are isolated 'dip-nets' for coastal fishing, mournful water buffalo haul ploughs as in Guangdong and 'knife-bean' and flame trees adorn skylines as at Repulse Bay. As in most of China for the past decade, 'free markets' exist in Xiamen with intriguing street stall smells. But this city, where Chinese still stare at Europeans, is also different from Hong Kong. Limited English is spoken, and, when it is, people often have Japanese accents. Nor is there the same high-rise concrete jungle, sampans and junks have more pronounced curves, straining bare-footed labourers pull carts and street sweepers use brooms made from branches of trees. Although one of the People's Republic's Special Economic Zones, Xiamen cannot be compared to hectic Shenzhen. But if direct relations can be established across the shallow, 150 kilometre wide, Taiwan Straits, instead of routing transactions through Hong Kong, the volume of trade could increase rapidly. To make it easier for the Taiwanese, to attract business many of the street signs in Xiamen are in conventional Chinese characters, as in Hong Kong, rather than the simplified ideograms normally used in China. The Group's first stop on arrival in Xiamen, arranged by Member David Norris, was to 'Meixia Arts and Handicrafts' established and run by American Bill Job and wife Kitty. They manufacture and export stained art glass murals, windows and lampshades. The following day, the couple invited the Party to their spartan but adequate house, built in 1928, for which the present rent is US$120 a month. An open well and grapevines grace the forecourt. Their two young daughters attend the Chinese school and are fluent in both Putonghua and the local dialect. The latter sounds more nasal than Cantonese. When the Group arrived the two girls were playing ball with Chinese friends in the narrow street at the front of their home. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 327 Russian empires came into conflict culminating in the Crimean War of 1854. This focused Hong Kong's attention on matters of defence. This concern was already heightened by pirates and elements in the local population which led the administration to review the consequences should the navy and military leave the young Colony unprotected. A pirate attack near Macao in May of 1854 prompted the then Lieutenant-Governor, William Caine, to address the issue of the unsavoury locals, "The danger to be apprehended is that during an attack by an enemy or a gang of pirates, these vagabonds might form themselves into bands for the purpose of plunder, to be joined perhaps by others from this vicinity, and then immense loss of property and life might ensue through their progress; nor must it be forgotten with what facility the Chinese houses in some parts of the town may be fired by incendiaries to increase the confusion, and consequent facility to plunder. The existence of a reserve such as would be formed by a Colonial Volunteer Corps might stop such proceedings at the outset or prevent them altogether" (p. 10). This concern for internal security against the backdrop of patriotism led to the formation of the corps Caine advocated. The ability of the author to place the reader in the overall context of the times adequately is something often found lacking in history books. That Mr. Bruce has this talent is shown by the book's portrayal of the fears and aspirations surrounding each stage in the evolution of the Corps. His profile of certain of the original 99 volunteers is particularly intriguing with such asides as 'Dent was the great rival to Jardine and that is probably the reason that none of the 99 were connected with the latter firm' (p. 15). In this first chapter we meet many of the characters who were the first Volunteers. These individuals reflect the frontier town atmosphere of the embryo port-city. There was Thomas Lane, clerk and shopkeeper who is remembered today in the name of one of Hong Kong's leading retail stores 'Lane Crawford' (p. 15). There was George Cameron who ran the El Dorado Tavern and, when he died in 1859 left it jointly to a friend and to the Chinese woman with whom he had lived for the previous seven years' and schoolmaster Joseph Thornton who must have known his way around the town's pubs as he eventually had to be dismissed for what were described as 'irregular habits' (p. 17), or when Alexandre Grandpre caused a stir when his wish to marry in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 344 REVIEW NOTES The following books have been received by the Journal from the publishers and are briefly noted here. Titles of immediate interest to the region are in bold letters; others are in standard type. All the books noted here have been placed in the RAS Library. THE BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Balfour-Paul, Glen, THE END OF EMPIRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: BRITAIN'S RELINQUISHMENT OF POWER IN HER LAST THREE ARAB DEPENDENCIES, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991. xxiii + 279pp. Notes. Bibliography. Comparative chronology. Index. The three Arab dependencies from which the British withdrew after World War II were the Sudan in 1955, South West Arabia (Aden) in 1967, and the Gulf States in 1971. Bernstein. Gail Lee, JAPANESE MARXIST: A PORTRAIT OF KAWAKAMI HAJIME 1879-1946. Paperback. Cambridge (Mass); Harvard University Press, 1976. Second Printing 1990. xiv + 221 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. The subject, a professor at Kyoto Imperial University who embraced Marxism at the age of 40, is especially interesting in the context of his samurai family and early 20th century Japan. Blake, Stephen P., SHAHJAHANABAD: THE SOVEREIGN CITY OF MUGHAL INDIA. 1639-1739, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. xvi + 226 pp. Glossary. Bibliography Index. This is a study of the old capital city of Old Delhi as a symbol of the power and influence the Mughal rulers were extending over their states in Pre-modern India. Brodie, Patrick, CRESCENT OVER CATHAY: CHINA AND JCI, 1898-1956, Hong Kong, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Chan, Wing-tsit (editor), CHU HSI AND NEO-CONFUCIANISM, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1986. xii + 644 pp. Notes. Glossaries. Appendixes. Index. This is a comprehensive and extremely important publication on Neo-Confucianism, comprising more than 30 papers presented at an international conference on Chu Hsi (Zhu Xi; 1130-1200) at the University of Hawaii in the summer of 1982. The papers, by noted and respected contemporary scholars in the field in Chinese, English, and Japanese, are presented in English in this volume. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j Mr. David Sheil Mr. Michael Kirkbride Mr. Yip Cho-hong Mr. Philip Bruce (twice) and Mr. David Mahoney Dr. James Hayes Mr. K. Leung Mr. Tao Ho Mr. Charles Walker Tibetan Rugs Hong Kong: a Landscape History Preparing for the Future: Our First 15 years in the Antiquities Office Second to None: The Hong Kong Volunteers and the Battle of Hong Kong Tsuen Wan: 1887 to 1987 Civilians Under Japanese Occupation Western Market Eric Lidell There have also been the following trips/tours over the last year since I last reported. Dr. Patrick Hase and Dr. Graeme Lang organised a trip to Wong Tai Sin, and three visits have been organised by Mr. Philip Bruce namely the Bogue Forts in the Pearl river Delta, the Colonial Cemetery and Chek Lap Kok in conjunction with Mr. Bill Meacham (again and probably the last), Mr. John Wilson organised a trip to the Shing Mun Redoubt in keeping again with the Society's sights on the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong. Dr Patrick Hase and Mr. Philip Bruce did not also forget to look after our gastronomical and liquid desires since the former organised our annual Chinese dinner at the City Hall, and the latter our resuscitated Christmas cocktail party at the Volunteer Officer's mess at Beaconsfield house. Since the new year we have also been well taken care of by a visit to the South Side of Hong Kong Island organised jointly by Mrs. Rosemary Lee who took us to the war cemetery at Stanley, Mr. Michael Kirkbride who expanded on Keteleeria Trees, and Colonel Douglas Fox who showed us how the South side of the island and Stanley Fort in particular was fortified in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Colonel Douglas Fox also led a very successful trip to Stonecutters Island. This was followed in quick succession by a tour to more of the remote parts of Lamma Island led by our honourary secretary Mr. David St. Maur Sheil. And more recently we had a very successful if rather wet trip to Xiamen, organised by Mrs. Anita Wilson and Mrs. Rosemary Lee, and a very comprehensive tour of Tsuen Wan led by Dr. James Hayes. To all these organisers may I extend our thanks and sincere appreciation. Our local tours are very popular as many members, who were not able to get on some, found: the Council is very conscious of this problem, IX ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j demonstrated when we appealed for volunteers to help the Antiquities and Monuments Board to grade buildings in Hong Kong which may have some historical interest. Around 20 volunteers have so far come forward and they have already been put to work. We need to thank Dr. Dan Waters for co-ordinating this project and hope that those who carry out this task will find their visits interesting enough to the extent that they may like to lead a Society trip sometime or even publish some brief notes for the Journal. Last year I reported on our efforts to stimulate interest from corporations, and create a category of corporate membership. The idea was that for the comparatively small sum of $10,000 p.a. it was intended to give certain privileges to corporate sponsors particularly in the area of acknowledgement in our publications. Amongst the reasons for this move, apart from putting the Society on a firmer financial basis, was to bring to those corporations' attention the Society's achievements and interests. I regret to say that we have not made much progress on this, but the matter will be receiving the attention of the Council during next year. Our Treasurer, Mr. Robert Nield will give you a detailed report shortly on the state of our finances. We are indeed fortunate to have them so professionally managed, to the extent that the Council now has computer graphs of our financial progress since the resuscitation of the Society in 1960. He will inform you, I hope, that our finances are in a reasonable state but the overall situation does need to be watched. You will notice therefore that later on this meeting we will be asking for approval to raise the annual subscriptions from $250 p.a. which was last set in January 1991 to $300 p.a., with corresponding increases in other category of memberships with effect from January 1993: this works out at a 20% rise over the two years which is around the rate of inflation over this period. You will notice from the Librarian's report, by Mr. Y.C. Wan that the Library continues to be in a satisfactory state. However I regret to say that the books, although well kept, are still at the rather inaccessible Kowloon Central Library and not in the City Hall Central Library in a special collection room. It was hoped that by this time we would have knowledge of a definite move but in view of the possible re-development of the City Hall area it is not known whether the original plan will take place. It is intended to take this matter up further and I hope to be able to report on this more encouragingly next year. xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j # ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY # HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY ## REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1991/92 97 new titles, of which 78 titles in English and 19 titles in Chinese, were added to the library collection this year bringing the total number of titles available in the Urban Council Kowloon Central Reference Library to 1,724. All of them were received as gifts and donors included Dr. James Hayes, Rev. Carl Smith, Dr. Alan Birch and Mr. Nigel Cameron. It is urged that prospective donors among our members can take a more active role in contributing to the building of our library collection. An addition list is available from the Hon. Librarian upon request. As reported by the Urban Council Public Libraries Office, the usage of our library collection in the reporting year is as follows: 1. No. of requests for information 160 2. No. of books consulted 165 3. No. of borrowers 3 4. No. of books checked out I reported last year that our library collection would probably move to the City Hall Public Library following its up-grade to the central library in Hong Kong Island in mid-1992. Yet, I was later informed by the Chief Librarian that there were unexpected delays in the programme. It is highly likely that the anticipated move would not be able to take place in the near future. I will keep in touch with the Urban Council Public Libraries Office to monitor further development. March 1992 I xix Y. C. WAN Hon. Librarian ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 6 Cantonese Compradors Canton, the first Chinese city opened for foreign trade, has a long history of interacting with the West. The Co-hong which was set up by the Qing government, had created a system of hong merchants, linguists and compradors in response to the quest for foreign trade. As William Hunter mentions, the position of a comprador in a foreign mercantile house was important. Almost everything around the house, varying from examining silver, internal accounting, employing servants, cooks and coolies, to interpreting and even mediating with Chinese merchants were the responsibility of the comprador. Though the Co-hong system was terminated after the first Opium War, compradors still survived and started a new era of development. It was natural that Cantonese compradors formed a dominant group at the beginning of the Canton system, since most of the Chinese foreign trade was conducted in Canton. However, to account for the rise of Cantonese compradors in modern China, several factors should not be ignored. First, recruitment of new compradors by personal or regional ties, when compradors became private merchants. Before 1843, compradors had been licensed by the government and guaranteed under the officially dictated hong merchant hierarchy. Second, the disappearance of the limited trading system in Canton and opening of Hong Kong and other Chinese coastal cities accelerated the increase in the number of Western mercantile firms. Third, Western merchants, particularly the British, relied upon Chinese compradors in conducting business. Guarantorship How did a person qualify as a comprador? First, proficiency in English was preferred but business connection was considered more important by the Western merchants. Personal trust was usually critical. The Nanjing Treaty privatized Chinese foreign trade. Compradors replaced the hong merchants as agents for foreign firms and as guarantors for Chinese merchants doing business with foreign merchants. After 1842 with the abolition of the Co-hong system, some of the former hong merchants engaged in private tea or silk business, and compradors became private agents for foreign firms rather than government-mandated agents. Former linguists, after leaving the hong merchants, served mostly as clerks of the new maritime customs or as customs brokers. As scholars pointed out, more than a mere recommendation from a former hong merchant or another Cantonese known to the agency house, personal guarantee 1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j Cantonese, while only four out of 16 compradors from Russell & Co between the 1830s and 1870s were non-Cantonese. Jardine, Matheson & Co. employed 18 Cantonese from its total 32 Chinese compradors between the 1850s and the 1900s, however only three out of the rest were non-Cantonese and 11 were from uncertain native places. Dent & Co. totally had twenty-one compradors in the period of the 1830s to the 1860s. Non-Cantonese were not recorded but nine were reported as of uncertain native places. Moreover, as Hao pointed out, Cantonese had a supremacy amongst Chinese compradors not only in China but also in Southeast Asia and Japan. They were regarded to have talent in tea trade, whereas Zhejiang compradors were especially skilled in silk trade and banking business. Zhejiang compradors overshadowed their Cantonese counterparts in Shanghai by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It is of interest that Western merchants always went to explore business in Asia with their Cantonese compradors, particularly in Yokohama and Nagasaki. Perhaps this might be linked to the local influence of Cantonese merchants in the above places. The comprador system was soon imported to Hong Kong when British firms flocked to open their business there. It lasted until the Second World War; longer than at any other Chinese coastal city. During the growth of early colonial society in Hong Kong, by the 1850s the Chinese community was beginning to develop leaders and most of them were successful compradors, merchants, and contractors. Typical of this emerging Chinese middle class were Cantonese compradors like Wei Yuk (Wei Yu), Robert Ho Tung (He Dong), and Law Pak Sheung (Luo Bochang). They formed the core of leadership in the local Chinese community. Wei succeeded his father Wei Kwong who came from Choy Mei village near Macau as the comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China in Hong Kong in 1879. In 1896, he was appointed an unofficial member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, being the fourth Chinese to this post (the first was Ng Choy [Wu Tingfang]). Wei held a lot of appointments in public and private organizations and represented Chinese interests in the government. He Dong acted as Jardine's Hong Kong comprador from 1883 to 1900. He was among the richest of the Chinese compradors in the treaty ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 18 the old Co-hong system at Canton." The appointment of Wu indicates the power of Cantonese merchants which had gradually become the most predominant group. The Kiangnan Arsenal which opened in 1865, with additions of more industrial projects as dockyards and guandu shangban enterprises, attracted numbers of Cantonese working class to Shanghai. For instance, in Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Work, Cantonese workers constituted the dominant group. They were experienced and most of them had worked formerly in foreign dockyards at Hong Kong and Canton. Cantonese in the early development of Shanghai found themselves particularly at an advantage in foreign trade as against other groups of sojourners. First, they were more experienced and better connected. Canton had been opened to foreign trade for centuries, and Cantonese merchants were connected to foreign firms in Canton or Hong Kong, most foreign firms in Shanghai at that time were only branch offices. Second, Cantonese were linguistically better equipped to deal with foreigners. It is probable most, if not all, were able to speak English, at least Pidgin. Third, early compradors of major foreign firms at Shanghai as Jardine, Matheson & Co., Augustine Heard & Co., Dent & Co., and Russell & Co. were all recruited from either Canton or Hong Kong. Fourth, Cantonese were more skilled in western industries such as ship-building and ship-repairing since most of these modern industries started earlier in Canton and Hong Kong, 22 Because of the turmoil of the late nineteenth century, employers had to recruit workers on the basis of personal ties so as to prevent desertion or betrayal, thus conflicts between local ethnic groups were obvious. Cantonese in Shanghai did not meet with no competition. Sojourners came from other regions near Shanghai. The Ningbo group was regarded as a great rival. Ningbo people, for instance, concentrated in the French concession and in the northern part of the South City (nanshi) along the Huangpu River; Cantonese mainly settled in Hongkou or along Guangdong Road, near the large shipyards where many were employed. Ethnic groups in Shanghai, such as Cantonese versus Ningbo men, competed with each other not only in commercial interests but also in the local government. Ningbo merchants like Yang Fang challenged the Cantonese by connecting his business in the silk trade with Jardine, Matheson & Co. Since Zhejiang was an important silk producing region and Zhejiang merchants strictly controlled the regional marketing system in the Lower Yangzi. Zhejiang compradors rose to break up the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 37 history) Hong Kong, Xinya Yanjiusuo Rawski, Thomas G. 1970. Chinese Dominance of Treaty Port Commerce and its Implications, 1860-1875. In Explorations in Economic History 7/4, 451-73. Redding, Gordon S. 1991. Weak Organizations and Strong Linkages: Managerial Ideology and Chinese Family Business Networks. In Gary Hamilton (edited), 30-47. Rhoads, Edward J. 1975. China's Republican Revolution: the Case of Kwangtung. Cambridge and Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. 1977. Merchants Associations in Canton, 1895-1911. In William Skinner (edited), 97-117. Rowe, William T. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Sekkó Zaibatsu (The Zhejiang financial clique). Edited by Mantetsu Shanhai Jimusho. Shanhai, Mantetsu Jimusho, 1929. Shanghai duiwai maoyi (Shanghai foreign trade, 1840-1949). Compiled by Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo and Shanghai-shi Guoji Maoyi Xuehui Xueshu Waiyuanhui. Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1989. Shanghai Sojourners. Edited by Frederic Wakeman and Wen-hsin Yeh. Berkeley, Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992. Sinn, Elizabeth. 1989. Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Oxford University Press. Skinner, William G. 1974 (edited). The Chinese City: City Between Two Worlds. Stanford, Stanford University Press. 1976. Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China: A Regional-System Analysis. In Regional Analysis, Volume One: Economic Systems, 327-64. Edited by Carol A. Smith. New York, Academic Press. 1977 (edited). The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Smith, Carl T. 1983. Compradores of the Hongkong Bank. In Frank H. H. King (edited), 93-111. 1985. Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. 1993. Hong Kong Chinese Wills, 1850-1890. Unpublished paper presented at the International Conference on Folk Documents and Regional Society in South China, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Su, Waigong. 1933. Xianggang, Shanghai, Guangzhou shangye mingrenlu (Prominent business characters of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Canton). Shanghai, Shangye Bianshu Gongsi. Topley, Marjorie. 1964. Capital, Savings and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong's New Territories. In Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies: Studies from Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Middle America, 157-86. Edited by Raymond Firth and B. S. Yamey. London, George Allen & Unwin. 1968. The Role of Savings and Wealth among Hong Kong Chinese. In Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, 167-227. Edited by Ian C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi. New York, Frederick A. Prager. Toyama, Gunji. 1944. Shanhai Dota: Go Kensho (The Shanghai taotai Wu Jianzhang). In Gakkai 1/7, 45-54. 1945. Shanhai no shinsho: Yo Bo (A gentry-merchant in Shanghai: Yang Fang). In Toyoshi Kenkyu 1/4, 17-34. Tsai, Jung-fang. 1975. Comprador Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Chi, 1859-1914) and Hu Li-Yuan (1847-1916). PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 38 1981 The Predicament of the Comprador Ideologists. He Qia and Hu Liyuan In Modern China 7/2- 191-225 1993 Hong Kong in Chinese History A Study of Community and Social Unrest from 1842 to 1913 New York, Columbia University Press Wang, Gungwu 1990 The Culture of Chinese Merchants Working Paper Series No 57 Ontario: Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, University of Toronto-York University Also adopted in Wang (1991) 181-90 1991 China and the Chinese Overseas Singapore, Academic Press Wang, Jingyu 1965 Shijiu shiji waiguo qinhua qiye zhong de huashang fugu yundong (The activities of Chinese merchants to buy capital-shares from the foreign aggressive enterprises in China during the late nineteenth century) In Lishi Yanjiu 1965/4 1983a Tang Tingshu yanjiu (A study of Tang Tingshu) Beijing, Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe 1983b. Shijiu shiji xifang ziben zhuyi dui Zhongguo de jingji qinlue (The economic invasion of western capitalism on China in nineteenth century) Beijing, Renmin Chubanshe 1990 Shilun Jindai Zhongguo de maiban jieji (A preliminary discussion on modern Chinese compradors) In Lishi Yanjiu 1990/3, 89-108 Wang, Shui 1983. Qingdai maiban shouru de guji jiqi shiyong fangshi (An assessment of compradors' income and its spending ways in Qing dynasty). In Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo Jikan 5 298-324 1984. Maiban de jingji diwei he zhengzhi qingxiang (The economic achievement and political tendency of compradors) In Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo Jikan 7 255-93 Wilmott, William E 1966 The Chinese in Southeast Asia. In Australian Outlook 20. 252-62 1972 edited Economic Organization in Chinese Society Stanford. Stanford University Press Wong, Bernard 1988 Patronage, Brokerage, Entrepreneurship, and the Chinese Community of New York New York. AMS Press Wong, Siu-lun 1983 Business Ideology of Chinese Industrialists in Hong Kong In Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 23 137-71 1984 The Migration of Shanghainese Entrepreneurs to Hong Kong In From Village to City. Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society 206-27 Edited by David Faure, James Hayes and Alan Birch Hong Kong, Center of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong 1985 The Chinese Family Firm: A Model In British Journal of Sociology 36/1 58-72 1986 Modernization and Chinese Culture in Hong Kong. In China Quarterly. 106. 306-25 1988a Emigrant Entrepreneurs Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong Hong Kong, Oxford University Press 1988b The Applicability of Asian Family Values to Other Sociocultural Settings In In Search of an East Asian Development Model. 134-52 Edited by Peter Berger and Michael Hsiao New Brunswick and Oxford, Transaction Publishers 1990 Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Trust In University of Hong Kong Supplement to the Gazette 37/1 25-34 1991 Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Trust In Gary Hamilton (edited) 13-29 1993 Business Networks, Cultural Values and the State in Hong Kong and Singapore Unpublished paper presented at the Workshop on Chinese Business Houses in Southeast Asia since 1870 School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Woon, Yuen-fong 1984 Social Organization in South China, 1911-1949 the Case of... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 132 NOTES This paper is based largely on the author's own experiences while attending and being involved with Chinese funerals over a period of four decades. 2. B.D. Wilson, 'Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 1 (1960-1), pp. 115-123. Martin K. Whyte, 'Death in the People's Republic of China', Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, Eds. James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, University of California Press (1988), pp. 289-316, (p. 313); Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, An Introduction, Fourth Edition, The Religious Life of Man Series (1979), pp. 50-54. Patrick Hase, 'Traditional funerals', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 21 (1981), pp. 192-6; Patrick Hase, 'Observations at a Village Funeral', From Village in the City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society, Ed. Davis Faure et al., Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong (1984), pp. 129-163; Hugh Baker, 'Burial, Geomancy and Ancestor Worship', Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, Week-end Symposium, 9th-10th May 1964, pp. 36-39. 5. VR Burkhardt, 'Funerals, Requiem Masses and the Path to Purgatory', Chinese Creeds and Customs (1982), pp. 96-110. Evelyn S. Rawski, "The Imperial Way of Death: Ming and Ching Emperors and Death Ritual", Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, op. cit., pp. 228-253 (p. 238). 7. T.C. Lai, Husein Rofe, and Philip Mao, Things Chinese, ed. T.C. Lai (1971), p. 70. 9. Ibid., p. 71. John Z. Bowers, 'Surgery Past and Present', Medicine and Public Health in the People's Republic of China, ed. Joseph R. Quinn (1973), pp. 53-62. 10. Linda Chih-ling Koo, Nourishment of Life: Health in Chinese Society (1982), p. 7, and discussion between Dr. Koo and the author, 18 June 1992. 11. Hugh Baker, 'Soul', More Ancestral Images, A Second Hong Kong Album (1980), pp. 5-8. 12. Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital (1989). 13. James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911, Institutions and Leadership in Towns and Countryside (1977), pp. 67-8. 14. James Hayes, The Rural Committees of Hong Kong - Studies and Themes (1983), p. 45. 15. Frena Bloomfield, The Book of Chinese Beliefs (1983), pp. 100, 101, and 112. 16. The author has visited this 'Coffin Home' on various occasions. 18. Harold Ingrams, Hong Kong (1952), plate vi; James L. Watson, 'Funeral Specialists in Cantonese Society: Pollution, Performance and Social Hierarchy', Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, op. cit., p. 109. 19. James Hayes, 'Sandal Wood Mills at Tsun Wan', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16 (1976), pp. 283-3. 20. Gems of Langzhu Culture, exhibition at Hong Kong Museum of History, 11 April to 9 August 1992. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 202 disappear so quickly. Halsey would have no truck with the second-in-command who was then escorted back to the waiting plane. The Japanese commander eventually appeared whereupon the surrender was signed later in the presence of the British admiral aboard HMS King George V. At dawn the following day the whole fleet was placed in ‘line ahead' and we sailed up the Lei Yue Mun Channel, between Hong Kong and Kowloon. As we approached a gun emplacement set high in the rocks was spotted with the Japanese flag flying. The Japanese could be seen quite clearly on the ramparts of the fort. The order relayed to the King George V battleship was 'range broadside!' I never saw a flag come down so fast. We anchored in an orderly fashion off the City of Victoria and in no time at all found ourselves surrounded by sampans and all sorts of other small boats. Royal marines armed with machine guns were stationed round the sides of the ship. After all, we just didn't know what to expect. While preparations were being made for the first landing party to go ashore naval officers selected the men. They questioned ratings how they felt about the task. One or two were rather brash in their manner and replies. They were rejected. Asked if I felt afraid I answered that I was a bit scared. 'Good,' said one of the officers, ‘A frightened man is a careful man!' In the early afternoon I and nine other men, armed to the teeth, went ashore in a motorised cutter. The landing stage was free of booby traps and obstacles. We came ashore near the Star Ferry. All was very quiet. Even the sometimes boisterous Chinese were not self-evident. The Japanese had destroyed all the dwellings and buildings along the waterfront so they had an uninterrupted view of the sea lane. I was on shore patrol when we came across a mob of Chinese and, on investigation, we discovered a Japanese soldier had been strangled by a Chinese. I was told the Japanese had molested and raped the man's wife during the occupation. The man was later arrested, charged and, I believe, subsequently let off. On another occasion I noticed two bodies in the harbour being swept down the straits. Who they were or what was going on I didn't know. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x Chinese Painting & Caligraphy Armoured Cars in the Battle of Hong Kong TC Lại Arren Leung Inheritance and the Chinese Lineage Hugh Baker From the Common Por James Watson No Environmental Myopia at Mai Po Dick Irving & David Melville Feng Shut David Shru The Woman as a Symbol in Judaeo-Christian & Hindu Buddhist Traditions Caroline Muar & Rajeshwari Ghose Good lectures however can rarely be carried out unless there is a reasonable venue and the technical aspects are in place. Fortunately, as members will know we have an excellent relationship with the Urban Council which not only sponsors our talks, but provides us with a very well fitted out room, and I would like to record our sincere thanks for the council's unstinting co-operation. I would now like to turn to the second of our area of activities; the Journal and the Library. To produce an annual journal as we do is a very time-consuming business and throughout the history of the Society we have been particularly fortunate to have had a line of very distinguished editors, Professor Crammer-Byng, Professor James Lui, Dr. James Hayes, our immediate past president, Dr. David Faure, and one who has done it since 1982, Dr. Patrick Hase. We do owe a great deal to Patrick who assures me that the 1990 Journal will be out very shortly, (we are waiting for the final version of the 30th anniversary lecture given by Dr. Wang Gungwu) and the 1991 Journal will, it is hoped be out by the end of the year. Last year I reported to you that I hoped to be able to report more encouragingly on the move of the Library from its present location in the rather inaccessible Kowloon Central Library, to a special collection room in the reorganised City Hall Central Library. I am pleased to say that this is now likely to happen in the foreseeable future probably by the end of the year. This is something we have been working on for sometime and it is particularly gratifying that it is now becoming a reality: our thanks go to Mrs. Barbara Luk, Assistant Director Museums and X ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 9 any newly-opened port for them to be snatched up and at almost any price by Chinese merchants..... until the Chinese purchaser came to close quarters with the English importer, eliminating middlemen at small ports and to transferring operations chiefly to the great emporiums of Hong Kong and Shanghai.' Hankow was the other city in which, on and off, Mesny spent a dozen or so years and where eventually he died, a city on the north bank of the Yangtze, part of the three-city metropolis now known as Wuhan. It was the major commercial port in central China during the second half of the 19th century, containing British, German, Russian, Japanese and French settlements, known as Concessions. Hankow was opened as a treaty port in 1861, a year before Mesny arrived there and became famous abroad as the start of the annual tea-clipper race back to England. The province of Kueichou in south-west China, where Mesny also spent a number of years was one of the most backward areas of China. It had been under Chinese rule since the Han at about the time of Christ, but only became a separate province during the Ming, in AD 1413. Waves of Chinese immigration, mainly from neighbouring Szechuan and Hunan provinces, forced the non-Chinese minority tribesmen out of the fertile valleys leading eventually to discontent and finally rebellion. Mesny's story is illuminating in a number of respects. There were always foreigners who took up minor posts with the Chinese bureaucracy, particularly during the modernisation campaigns which took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Old photographs exist showing foreigners in, for example, a Chinese arsenal beside foreign machinery or weapons, both as advisers and trainers, but few ever wrote of their experiences. The most interesting part of Mesny's life, however, standing out as a unique experience, was the short period of some five to six years when he served with two provincial forces of the Chinese Imperial Army on active service helping suppress a rising of the Miao, a subjugated minority race in a remote part of southern China. [See Appendix C for a summary of the first campaign against the Miao in which Mesny took part]. Probably the most interesting part of these narratives is the reasonably detailed description of Chinese soldiering during this relatively minor campaign. It is full of anecdotal descriptions of campaigning in central south China against a redoubtable foe, the Miao people, though regrettably Mesny fails to go into detail about such interesting subjects as how he was paid, how patronage worked up to him personally, etc. He does, however, cover a number of themes in his Notes on the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x Jan. 9th, 1896. MESNY'S Chinese MISCELLANY. land and sea forces, and its head-quarters are on the coast of Hai-nan Island. It furnishes a marine battalion to the sea-coast naval force. The marine battalion is called Ai Chou Hsieh Shui Shih Yu Ying, or the Right Wing Marine Battalion of the Ai Chou Brigade. It is commanded by a Shou-pei, Second-Major, who is assisted by a Shui Shih Chien-tsung, Naval Captain, two Shui Shih Pa-tsung, First and Second Naval Lieutenants, besides the usual number of non-commissioned officers and men. The remainder of the brigade forms part of the land forces of the Hai-nan division Ch'ing Chou. 1437. KUANG-TUNG SHUI SHIH KE CHUN LUN CH'UAN 廣東水師各軍輪船 :-The Steam Naval Forces of Kuang-tung province, or the Canton Provincial Steam Fleet. In the year 1884 there were altogether fifty-six steam vessels of various sorts and sizes belonging to the provincial authorities of Kuang-tung. The best of the steamers, the Fei Chao Hai, Chên-jui and An Lan, are neither new, powerful nor fast, though serviceable craft for sea-going gun-boats. Some of the others are of the alphabetical class, but they have been so badly kept that they are far from reliable as to steam power. Some of the vessels are hardly fit to go to sea; though not old in point of age they are not sound, and never were very swift or powerful, even for their class. The rest are nothing better than pleasure boats or steam launches for riverine purposes. CANTON GUN-BOAT SQUADRON, Name Flug and Rig. Guns. Tons. H.P. Chee-hing cruiser 7 450 265 An-lan gun-boat 2 80 20 Chên-jui cruiser - - - Chên-to gun-boat 7 450 265 Chop-chung gun-boat 5 500 300 Chop-sai gun-boat 3 80 17 Hai-chong-ching gun-boat - 320 200 Hai-king-ching gun-boat 4 320 200 Hoi-tung-hung - 3 350 - Lien-chi gun-boat 3 200 - Peng-chao-hai cruiser 3 450 310 Quang-on gun-boat 3 155 100 San-hing gun-boat 3 150 100 Tching-on gun-boat 3 150 100 Tching-po gun-boat 3 150 100 Tchun-tung gun-boat 3 170 100 N.B. Some of these vessels have now been condemned. By order of the Viceroy of the Two Kuang Provinces (Chang Chih-tung) seventeen of the most serviceable war steamers have been formed into a fleet, called Shui Shih Chin Kor Naval Corps. Each of these ships is called a Shao or company. Four ships, Shao or companies, form a Ying, battalion, or squadron, and four Ying, or squadrons form the Chun, or Corps (may be fleet.) The odd ship is the Peng Chao Hai, and serves as flag ship for the commandant of the fleet, who is styled Tung-ling, and is also commander of his own flag-ship. His titular rank is Tu-ssü, or Major (just now), was, when appointed, Shou-pei, Second Major only. 1438. CHAO CH'ING SHUI SHIH YING -The Chao-ch'ing Naval or Marine Regiment. This regiment, although forming part of the Riverine Naval Force, is actually a part of the Governor-General's Staff Corps, and is usually styled the Tu Piao Shui Shih Ying on that account. The Governor-General of the Two Kuang Provinces was formerly stationed at Chao-ch'ing Fu, a prefectural city some hundred miles or so from Canton on the north bank of the West River, hence the reason why five of the six regiments forming his Staff Corps are stationed there to this day. The Chao-ch'ing Naval Regiment is commanded by a Tu Chiang, Colonel, whose Adjutant is a Shou-pei, Second-Major. The regiment is divided into two Shao or companies, each of which is commanded by a Chien-tsung, Captain, assisted by two Pa-tsung, Lieutenants, and the usual complement of Wai Wei, Sub-Lieutenants and non-commissioned officers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 149 A PEEK BACKWARDS INTO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF SHANGHAI* (This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Mr Hans Diestel) WEI PEH TI Introduction Jewish traders were among the first foreigners to come to work and live in Shanghai when the port was first opened to foreign trade in November 1843. Despite the important role a number of these Jewish residents played in Shanghai as well as in international commerce at that time and for a century to follow, scholars are just beginning to focus their attention on this community. David Kranzler's dissertation at Yeshiva University in New York on the Jewish refugees from Europe who arrived at Shanghai after 1938, Japanese, Nazis and Jews: the Jewish Refugee Community at Shanghai, is the only generally known work that has been published in English.1 Vilhelm Meyer was a Danish Jew who started a small trading house in Shanghai importing goods from his native Denmark at the beginning of the century, and who eventually sold the company, by then a commercial and industrial conglomerate of 1,800 employees, to General Electric in 1935. His life and work is being researched by his grandson, Christopher Bo Bramsen.2 Bramsen, however, is writing a personal biography of his grandfather, emphasizing his work in Shanghai as a Dane, not a treatise on a Jewish individual in Shanghai. On the other hand, two doctoral dissertations on the Sephardic community are being undertaken at this time, one at the London School of Economics, and one at the University of London. *The suggestion for a paper on the Jewish community in Shanghai was first made in 1987 by Dr Jewish Diestel and Mrs Paula Sandfelder when the Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Recreation Club of Hong Kong invited me to give the first Ezekiel Abraham Memorial Lecture. Subsequently, I have given similar talks to the student body of the Chapin School and at Temple Emmanuel in New York City, as well as to Jewish groups on Long Island. I am grateful to my many friends for showing interest in the subject, and am especially flattered to be consulted by otherwise intelligent scholars who wish to work on the subject of the Shanghai Jews seriously. I would like to thank the Jewish Library in Hong Kong for letting me consult their collections; my appreciation also goes to the Rev Carl Smith for generously sharing his numerous index cards and his encyclopaedic knowledge. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 212 miles of China coast to look for her. As time wore on, the distance she could travel extended until it could be anywhere from Tientsin to Hainan. The Royal Navy had an aircraft carrier in Hong Kong and this was drafted into the hunt. An aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes spotted a ship like the Tungchow anchored in Bias Bay (Days Bay) which was a well-known haunt of China coast pirates. It was indeed the Tungchow and the pirates, seeing the plane swoop over, realised that they had better decamp. Once they were away, the Captain sailed for Hong Kong where he arrived a few hours later. Although the pirates escaped, they had a frustrating piracy. They had got the wrong ship. The silver was on another ship which delivered its cargo safely. The Tungchow carried no silver but a cargo of oranges. The pirates broke open the crates in their hunt for the silver so that the ship was running with oranges which the boys gathered in quantities. The pirates did no harm to the children but at first kept them shut up in the passenger accommodation. You can imagine what tales the Shanghai party had to tell when we all got back to school. We Leave China In 1939 my father's tour was up and he decided, after twenty-five years, to retire from the mission field. He was in his mid-fifties and few stayed so long. Today this sounds an early retiring age, but today we have the untold advantage of constant air-conditioning to temper the severity of our summers and much greater control over diseases. The advance of the Japanese and the threatening war situation in Europe may well have influenced his decision too. In any event, my parents and our younger sister set off from Fatshan, while my brother, other sister, and I set off from Chefoo on the last of our journeys on a B. & S. coaster for Shanghai. My parents travelled up from Hong Kong on a Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Russia, which we joined in Shanghai. By this time, Shanghai had been occupied by the Japanese, though they were still at peace with Britain and America. In the occupied city, security was tight, especially round the docks, and we had to pass through several check points manned by pretty rough soldiers. Once at sea, those worries were left behind, but, as a postscript, when we sailed from Yokohama a few days later, we found ourselves in the midst of large-scale manoeuvres by the Japanese fleet and accompanying aircraft firing and bombing targets not far from us. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 CONTRIBUTORS Karina Lam Wai-Ling, M.A., is the Marketing Communications Manager SE Asia for Philips Semiconductors. The article is an edited version of her master's dissertation. Janet George, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at the Department of Social Work and Social Policy, University of Sydney. She has researched deeply into various aspects of Hong Kong's early maternity services. Keith Stevens, B.A., served with the British Army and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office before his retirement in 1991. He has an abiding interest in Chinese deities and temples and has written numerous articles for the Journal. Gerald Choa, M.D., was a former Director of Medical & Health Services of the Hong Kong Government and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written extensively about early Hong Kong medical figures and services. Patrick Hase, B.A., Ph.D., is a council member of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) and a former editor of the Journal. He has written extensively on early life in the New Territories. Mary Pang, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Business and Management at the City University of Hong Kong. Dan Waters, M.Phil., Ph.D., is a retired Assistant Director of Education of the Hong Kong Government and a council member of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch). He has written extensively on the history and culture of Hong Kong. Geoffrey Roper, is a retired Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. He chairs the Activities Committee of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch). vi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 in these issues has recently been sent on the above lines. Turning to other activities I would like to place again on record our thanks to all those volunteers who have assisted in grading ancient buildings in Hong Kong for the Antiquities and Monuments Office. This project has been going on for two years and I understand has made significant inroads and according to Mr. Peter Chan, Curator (Historical Buildings), their reports and work are very professional. Our thanks are also due to those members who sit on the Antiquities Advisory Board and particularly to Dr. Dan Waters who co-ordinates all these efforts. On the administration side all of us have a good deal to be grateful for; keeping a list of members, and ensuring that they pay their subscriptions are we know thankless tasks but without them a Society such as ours would soon die; Mrs. Sharon Bruce, our Assistant Secretary does a superb job here, and so does Mrs. Anita Wilson on the newsletter, without which nothing would happen; also our Secretary, Mr. David Sheil who somehow manages to produce coherent minutes of our Council meetings from his Lamma Island outpost. I will leave Mr. Robert Nield, our Treasurer to explain our finances to you; you will, I hope find them in good shape, and whilst a Society such as ours should not boast that it has made a profit on the Stock Exchange, the fact is we have. Two of the most important academic activities of the Society are the build up of the Library and the publication of the Journal. Last year I reported that the Library, under the capable direction of our Librarian, Mr. Y.C. Wan, would be moving from its location in the rather inaccessible Kowloon Central Library to a special collection room in the re-organised City Hall Central Library. Together with new acquisitions during the last year this is now likely to happen in the foreseeable future. Not only that, it is liable to be input into the Urban Council's data base, and therefore computerised. This is indeed very good news and I hope that when the Library does move it will be utilised more than it is now: it is a very fine collection. The publication of the Society's Journal is one of the most arduous tasks; editors of journals are a wonderful breed and our editor, Dr. Patrick Hase is no exception; indeed his patience with late contributions and sub-standard publishers is a model. It is therefore with some relief that I report that the 1990 Journal was finally published earlier this month and there is no doubt that it is fully up to the high academic standards of the ... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 142 importance of an unexampled calamity. However in spite of difficulties in balancing the budget, many public works projects were completed during his term. He governed with a liberal-mind for he increased the number of unofficial seats in both the Legislative and the Executive Councils in response to a demand for reforming the government. He also agreed to have an unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board. Generally regarded as an able administrator he stayed for fully six years as Governor, the longest tenure held by any governor thus far. In the history of modern China, he would be remembered as the Governor of Hong Kong who imposed a five-year ban on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who then went to London and was kidnapped but rescued by Sir James Cantlie but that is another story. Sir James Stewart Lockhart, the main target of Lowson's attack, was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary in 1894. There is a biography of him written by Shiona Airlie entitled 'The Thistle and the Bamboo.' He emerged from it as a capable but ambitious man who was eager to seek promotion ahead of his time, and in spite of what Lowson said of him, he got on well with the Chinese. The function of a Registrar General in the early years was to deal with Chinese affairs, not legal matters as at present, in fact, the initial title was Protector of the Chinese. In this office, Lockhart maintained good relations with the directors of Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk and the District Watch Committee, the three main representative bodies of the Chinese community. As to his character, he was said to possess 'humoured geniality which endeared him to his contemporaries' but 'occasionally his patience snapped and from a man considered in the main to be warm-hearted and genial, he became angry and stubborn.' He made at least one important contribution in connection with the Epidemic. After the Resumption of Tai Ping Shan Ordinance was passed, action had to be taken to demolish the old houses. Both landlords and tenants put up a spirited resistance as they both had to suffer financial loss, no rent to be collected by the landlords for sometime and no cheap lodgings for the tenants who were mostly coolies. The coolies threatened to go on strike which would paralyse the city in already very difficult circumstances. Lockhart, who was fluent in Chinese, having been a cadet in the Hong Kong Civil Service, was instrumental in solving the dispute which ended amicably. In 1895, at the age of thirty seven, he became Colonial Secretary when his acting appointment was substantiated. In addition, he was appointed as Special Commissioner for the New Territories in 1897 after the lease was settled. In 1902, he went to Weihaiwei as its first Civil Commissioner. On his departure the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 164 its foundation. There important roads used to meet near here. The most important was the main east-west road in the county, which connected the county city, Nam Tau (Nantou, ), with the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng, ), via the important market of Sham Chun. * Because of the greater desirability and comfort of water-borne traffic, the section of this road along the north shore of Mirs Bay was not much used. Instead, much of the traffic went by a ferry that ran parallel with the shore, from Sha Tau Kok to Sha Yue Chung. At Wo Hang Au, a few miles west of Sha Tau Kok, the road was joined by another important east-west route. This was the road from Yuen Long to Sha Tau Kok via Tai Po. The third route was the main road from Kowloon to the north-east. This road carried the traffic from Kowloon to Wai Chau. This road crossed Sha Tin Pass to reach the coast of Tolo Harbour at Yuen Chau Tsai. A ferry carried the traffic from Yuen Chau Tsai across Tolo Harbour to Ang Chung (Chung Mei, near Bride's Pool). From Ang Chung, the road climbed steeply past Bride's Pool and Ah Ma Wat, and then down to the shores of Starling Inlet at Kuk Po. Another ferry then took the traffic across Starling Inlet to Sha Tau Kok. There was also a road which ran from Ang Chung through Luk Keng and Nam Chung, to join the Nam Tau and Yuen Long roads at Shek Chung Au, thus avoiding the second ferry. From Sha Tau Kok the Wai Chau road crossed the shoulders of Ng Tung Shan, and so down to Wang Kong (Henggang, ), and thence to Wai Chau. A branch of this road ran from Sha Tau Kok to Po Kat (Buji, ). This Kowloon to Wai Chau road was more important than might be expected - the long ferry sectors made it more comfortable than the land-based alternatives. The Basel missionaries regularly used it when travelling between Hong Kong and Po Kat, for instance. 50 This system of roads and ferries was in existence from the Ming at the latest. It will be noticed that the roads do not cross at Sha Tau Kok. Sha Tau Kok stands, however, in the centre of the few miles of road where all the roads run together for a short distance. The site of the market, therefore, was a good one commercially. * See Map 3. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 No. Name of Shop 191 Address of Shop Name of Owner Village of Owner Source Comments Tobacco 67 Guesthouses 68-71. WIS C C '3 or 4" guesthouses See below under "Others" Basel missionaries. 1859 Opium Divan 72 WIS Lunie-burners 73-74 Yin Lou C C Ft.L Oilers 75 = } WH C groceries 76 77 仙 78 利 79 SE B 1 or 2 limekilns Lockhart's Report, 1899 sweets and small ) these may be two of B ) the guesthouses B J B ) HO ... B ) nothing is now 18 W B } remembered about 82 87 K 4 B > these shops B } #4 ¥ } Prostitutes 85-96 Row neat City C LS Saltworks 97-115 - Yon In EL C Hawken C WIS Punti girls from City Offered opium to clients HL workers from Swabue, sold salt retail Detail of works in Block Crown Lease Fish, meat, vegetables, cooked food (including noodles), handicrafts fuel. Also at Yim Liu Ha E NOTES See G A C Herklots, The Hong Kong Countryside, Hong Kong, 1951, pp 86-89 for tigers and leopard on Ng Tung Shan, and the Hsin An County Gazetteer (1819 Gazetteer, ch 3. Chung Lap Pao Edition, 1979, p. 45) for tiger, wild boar, and deer in the area 2 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer, ch 3, 127 A salt commission was established at Nam Tau (Nantou) just outside the present borders of Hong Kong, probably in the Nan Yueh period, in the second century BC This was later divided into 4 commissions, probably during the Nan Han period (tenth century A.D) Of the 4 Nan Han commissions, the Kwun Fu commission certainly covered the Mirs Bay area in the Sung; the headquarters of the commission were moved temporarily from Kowloon City to Tip Fuk (Deep Fuk) on the east coast of the Bay in 1163; and probably did so from the establishment of the commission The borders of Tung Kuan County and its predecessors bent round to include just the coastal strip of Mirs Bay. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 1850-1911, op cit 71 See P H Hase, "Sha Tau Kok in 1853”, op cit 72 The largest shops were Kwan Tau (144) the household goods shop (Nai Wai, Niwei, in Luk Heung) 2 Wang Hap (Z) the household goods shop (Yung Shue Au) 3 Kwong Yue (M) the grocery (Fung Hang) 4 Yuen Tai (54) the grocery (Tong To) 5 Sam Lung ( ) the grocery (Wo Hang) 6 Yan Hong (10) the grocery (Yim Tin) 7 8 Cheung Ding (FL) the fishmonger (Kwun Lo Ha, Guanlouxia, in Luk Heung) Wa Shong (4) the fishmonger ("Sha Tau Kok" probably Sha Lan Ha) 9 10 Tak Ding (120) the tobacconist (Luk Keng) 11 Tsui Cheung (4307) the silversmith (Tsai Muk Kiu) 12 I San Cheung (1) the tailor and cloth dealer (Yim Tin) 13 San Lung (954) the tailor and cloth dealer - the largest shop in the market - (Au Tau, Aotou, in Luk Heung) 14 Tung Yue ( ) the carpenter (Sau Hang, Xuokeng, in Luk Heung) 15 Jung Hing ([]) the carpenter (Sha Tseng Tau, Shajingtou, Luk Heung) 16 Cheung Sze (12) the boatbuilder (Sha Tau Kok Sha Lan Ha) 17 Sze Fong Ting (P44) the gambling house (Wo Hang) 18 Nung Sang Tong (WE7) the doctor (Yim Tin) 19 Wo Hing Tong (ABU) the pawnshop (Yim Tin) Thus, of the largest shops, five were owned by Luk Heung people, four by Yim Tin Yeuk people, two by Wo Hang Yeuk people, two by Sha Tau Kok (Sha Lan Ha) people, two by people from the Thi Tin Yeuk (the area south-west of Sha Tau Kok across the sea, around Luk Keng and Nam Chung), and one each by people from the Hing Chun Yeuk (around Lai Chi Wo), Kuk Po Yeuk, and Sam Heung. Thus, in 1925, not only were the largest shops all operated by people from the Shap Yeuk area, but ownership of these larger shops was spread around most of the Yeuk areas of the Shap Yeuk. The Basel missionaries make it clear that the shops in the market in 1853 were also all owned by people from the surrounding villages see P H Hase, “Sha Tau Kok in 1853", op cit 71 See J W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, op cit for the places of origin of shop-keepers at Tai O and Cheung Chau, and J W Hayes, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, op cit for those at Kowloon city. D Faure, loc cit gives details on those at Tsuen Wan and Sai Kung. The fisher ports in the Islands (Tai O, Cheung Chau), and, to some degree Sai Kung on the mainland, had the largest percentage of non-indigenous shopowners, but Sha Tau Kok had fewer "outsider" shopowners even than Tsuen Wan. 74. A contact from Tsat Muk Kiu village, for instance, said that she would go to the market with her wood, sell it, buy what she needed in the market, and return home, passing on her way home the women from Wang Shan Keuk still carrying their wood. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g and a platform for members to publish, and in this connection may I draw your attention to Vice-President, Reverend Carl Smith's book recently "Chinese Christmas" which can be bought at all leading book stores, and also at the back of this room. In addition one of Hong Kong's oldest members and of this Society, Dr. Dan Waters, has published his own memories entitled unashamedly "An Old Hand's Reflection" - again it can be bought at all leading bookstores and at the back of this room. In addition we have an excellent quality library with many interesting books and, not only is this steadily augmented by our past roving President, Dr. James Hayes, from Australia, but in this past year we have been given a magnificent collection of books on China and Hong Kong from Mr Archie Graham, who at the age of 91 has emigrated to New Zealand. All these books are now in a special room on the 3rd floor of the City Hall, High Block; and at this point I would like to give a sincere thanks to the Urban Services Department and their library staff in particular. In the past year not only have they moved the Society's library from the rather inaccessible Kowloon Public Library to the City Hall library in Central but they have computerised the collection and altogether made the whole collection far more accessible than it has been in the past. I really do urge you to visit this and see for yourself what is there, and of course members can borrow most of the books. For this improvement in our library facilities I must also thank our Librarian Mr. Y.C. Wan who has been very helpful in making all this possible. I said earlier that the Society makes its views known to the public: I should also add that public and Government organisations also seek the views of the Society, not only on an individual basis, but also on a collective one. I mentioned last year the assistance we gave to the Antiquities Advisory Board in helping them to grade some of Hong Kong's older buildings. At one time the Society had 20 members involved in this, but as I understand it since many of the eligible buildings have been graded then the members have declined: this project has been led by Dr. Dan Waters and we owe him and his team a vote of thanks for their hard work. On a collective front the Society has continued to be very active in monitoring the situation over the Public Records Office. Last year I reported to you that we thought we were making some progress and the position at the moment, whilst not completely satisfactory, is considerably better than we hoped for two years ago. The Public Records Office is XI ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 2 The name apparently derives from a city in Germany, but records indicated they had for a time lived in Egypt or Turkey before arriving at the China coast. This study is one-dimensional. I do not have sufficient knowledge nor have I undertaken the necessary research to put the story of the Germans in Hong Kong in a proper international setting or to relate it to the complexities of the internal and external developments of the German states and, subsequently, the German nation. This study is based on Hong Kong sources and hence is seen only from the Hong Kong view. The story could be greatly enlarged and enriched by a scholar with broader knowledge than the present author. Sources for the study Documentation of sources is usually of little interest to the average reader but they are important to the scholar who might want to check the facts or further develop aspects of the subject. I am not aware that there has yet been published so detailed a history of the German-speaking community in Hong Kong as the present study. Even so, I have not dealt with the subject in a thoroughly exhaustive way. I have confined myself to data found in Hong Kong and I have not included every detail or fact I have in my files. Readers who check the notes will find that most of my information is from a limited number of sources: Hong Kong newspapers; the Hong Kong section of directors for China and the Far East; the Hong Kong Government Gazette contains jury lists, annual probate calendars, the medical register, notices of changes in the partnership of firms and authorisation to sign; reports of the Spirit Licensing Board; the China Repository lists of residents on the China coast 1833-1851; Colonial Office records, especially for the World War I period; selected Series in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, especially those from wills, rates and valuations, and surrendered deeds; and the memorials in the Land Office. With so many references, there may have been some mistakes in transcribing dates and names. I hope these errors are at a minimum. I should like to express my appreciation to the staff of the Public Records Office, the Secretariat Library, the Special Collections Room at Hong Kong University Library, and to the Registrar General for permission ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g Colonel Mosby had been sent to Hong Kong by the United States State Department to investigate and eradicate reputed abuses that had arisen in the affairs of the Consulate. His report to Washington was published as a pamphlet. The report claimed that Mr Smith had been instrumental in the perpetration of great frauds on the United States Government. The court found Consul Mosby guilty of slander. Before sentence, Mosby spoke in his own defence. "It has been proved that when I came here Peter Smith was what was known as 'the shipping master' at the American Consulate. He had a desk and a clerk, and he had a monopoly of the shipping business. He was a powerful man at that time, so far as American shipmasters and sailors were concerned” (CM 10, 11 Jan. 1881). Upon losing the lucrative business of shipping master for the American Consulate, Peter Smith applied for a spirit licence for a house on Queen's Road West which he wished to name the City of Hamburg. The Superintendent of Police questioned whether a boarding house keeper should also operate a tavern. However, the licence was granted, but only for a year and with the caution that if there were any complaints regarding its conduct, the spirit licence would not be renewed (CM 4 Jan. 1881). Smith did not live long to enjoy his accumulated wealth. He died in December 1882, aged forty-seven. Other taverns which would have attracted the German sailor on shore were the City of Hamburg 1861 to 1976, Bremen Tavern 1866, City of Bremen 1866 to 1867 - when the name was changed to Scandinavian Tavern, the Prussian Eagle 1870, and the Hamburg Tavern 1861 to 1878. Several of the proprietors of these establishments followed a pattern set by Peter Smith in marrying women from Macao families. William Gardner, who was born at Strassburgh in 1834, married, in 1863, Cecilia Libina de Jesus Correa. Her sister Melena Rita Correa married William von den Busche in 1864. Both Gardner and von den Busche were associated with the Hamburg Tavern. John Juster took over the Hamburg Tavern from William Gardner in 1871. He had been born in Hanover in 1834 and married in Hong Kong, in 1875, Maria Antonia Botelho, a native of Macao. Louis Kuchmann held the licence for the Land We Live In for twenty years. In 1886 the licence was transferred to Tevel Silbermann, probably a German Jew. Kuchmann had one daughter, possibly by a Chinese wife. She married in 1885 Carl Holm, captain of a German schooner. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 25 erected on the lot was completed, he moved into temporary offices. Two marine lots were bought in 1858 in Sai Ying Pun on which extensive godowns (ware-houses) were built (Hong Kong Land Office, Memorial 1477, 21 Sept. 1858). He soon after left Hong Kong to assume management of the firm's affairs in Hamburg. There he married in 1859 a Miss Wagner (North China Herald 6 Aug. 1859). He continued to reside at Hamburg until his death on 24 November 1886 aged seventy-one (DP 6 Dec. 1886). When Mr. Siemssen left Hong Kong his partners were Ludwig Wiese and Woldemar Nissen (FC 31 Mar. 1855). Mr. Wiese was a Norwegian by birth but subsequently became a naturalized British citizen. From 1849 to 1855 he had been an assistant in the office of Carlowitz, Harkort and Co. at Canton. At various times he served as Consul for Hamburg, Lubeck, Sweden and Norway and was acting Consul for Prussia and Austria. His connection with Siemssen and Co. ended in 1863 (CM 5 Jan. 1865). He located in London, where in 1871 he joined the Board of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (CM 24 July 1871). Though no longer a partner he represented the interests of Siemssen and Co. in England. He died in England on 22 March 1887 (GG, Probate Calendar 4 July 1887). His widow Joanna died in the City of Westminster on 10 May 1904 (GG, Probate Calendar 25 Apr. 1906). Agathon Friedrich Woldemar Nissen — usually known as Woldemar — was a partner from 1855 until his death in Hamburg on 28 December 1896 (DP 7 June 1897). He was a member of the Provisional Committee for the organisation of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1864. He was Deputy Chairman of the Board in 1866 and Chairman in 1867. He left Hong Kong in October 1867 (CM 31 Oct. 1867). In Hong Kong he was Consul for the Hansa Towns of Bremen, Hamburg and Lubeck as well as for Sweden and Norway. The business of the firm increased rapidly. New branches were opened and new partners admitted. Rudolph Heinsen was transferred from the Canton office to Shanghai to open a new branch there in January 1856 (FC 1 Jan. 1856). He later became a partner and his interest in the company ended in 1868 (GG 9 Jan. 1869). George Wilhelm Schwemann was the managing partner at Foochow in 1861. Friedrich Adolph Joost was a partner from 1864 to 1873 (CM 1 Jan. 1864, Daily Press 28 Jan. 1874). When Messrs. Schwemann and Heinsen retired from the firm in 1868, they were replaced by Ferdinand Nissen and Heinrich Hoppius (GG 9 Jan. 1869). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 28 Alexander Cosman Levysohn, another founder of the firm is on the Hong Kong jury lists in 1864 and 1865. He then went to Canton to take charge of the Shameen office there. Lewis Mendel became a partner in 1875 (DP 3 Jan. 1874). He died at Hong Kong on 4 November 1895 aged fifty-one. He came to China to join the firm in 1867, retired in 1883 and returned home, but came back to Hong Kong later and established his own business as a share broker (DP 5 Nov. 1895). His will made in 1882 mentioned only his father, brothers and sisters as his heirs. His executors were Jacob Arnhold of London and Lorenz Poesnecker of Hong Kong. Mr. Mendel was a native of Altona, Germany (PRO will File No. 101 of 1896 [4/1105]). Lorenz Poesnecker was an assistant in Arnhold, Karberg and Co. in Hong Kong from 1870 to 1880. He was authorised to sign for the firm on 6 June 1874 (DP 7 June 1876) and became a partner in 1880/81. When he made his will in June 1896 he gave his address as 5 East India Avenue, City of London. He left his estate to his wife and after her death to his children. He named Caesar Erdmann of Hamburg and Richard Millitzer of Hof, Bavaria as his executors. He died in London on 9 July 1897 and the administration of his estate in Hong Kong was granted to Carl Beurmann and Max Carl Johann Grote as attorneys of the executors named in the will (PRO Will File No. 20 of 1898 [4/1162]). Julius Kramer was authorised to sign for the firm in June 1888 and was admitted a partner in 1892 (DP 13 June 1888, 18 Mar. 1892). During his first years with the company he was at its Canton office. At an auction for lots in the French Concession on Shameen in November 1889 he purchased Lots 1 and 7 for $2,610 (DP 8 Nov. 1889). After being admitted a partner he moved to Hong Kong. There his wife Bertha died on 14 February 1896 at “Luginsland” on the Peak Road (DP 15 Feb. 1896). Not long after he left Hong Kong and died on 11 November 1898 at Heidelberg. Administration of his estate in Hong Kong was granted to Ernest Goetz as the attorney of Philip Arnhold (GG Probate Calendar 7 June 1898). A former street in Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon, was named after Mr. Kramer. When the Royal Dutch Oil Co. began importing oil to China by tanker in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Arnhold, Karberg and Co. acted as its agent. Oil storage tanks were built at Tai Kok Tsui. The Royal Dutch is better known as the Shell Co. When Philip Arnhold died in 1910 Ernest Goetz became senior partner. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 31 Hermann Emil Hubener was admitted a partner in 1868. In 1861 Behre, Emil Hubener and A Booth were assistants in the firm. Frederick Clause, another assistant, subsequently became a partner but left the firm in 1871 (DP 2 Jan 1872). Gustav Adolph Wieler and his brother Oscar were assistants in 1866. Gustav became a partner in 1873. After the closure of Bouijau, Huberer and Co, the two brothers formed the firm of Wieler and Co. It subsequently merged with Sander and Co to become Sander, Wieler and Co. Meyer and Co = Sander, Wieler and Co Meyer, Schaeffer and Co. was established at Hong Kong in April 1851. The partners were Julius Meyer, F.A. Schaeffer and William Fiedler (FC 24 April 1851). In the notice the name is given as F.A Schaeffer. In the notice of Fiedler's retirement it appears as H.T.A. Schaeffer; in other documents it is Hermann Schaeffer. Mr Fiedler retired from the firm four months later (FC 25 July 1851). They were charterers of ships for the Chinese emigration to California during the 1850s. The firm also had business connections with the Chilean port city of Valparaíso, which suggests they were also active in shipping coolie labour to South America (FC 1 July 1852). Their office in Queen's Road Central was burnt out in December 1858 (FC 8 Dec 1858). The partnership between Schaeffer and Meyer had been dissolved in April 1855 and only Hermann Schaeffer was in charge of the business at the time of the fire (FC 18 Apr. 1855). Hermann's brother Walter, an unmarried twenty-year-old, died of consumption at Macao in July 1857 (FC 1 July 1857). After the fire H. Schaeffer and Co. found temporary quarters on Gough Street and then moved to Hollywood Road. They were agents for the Compagnies d'Assurance Maritimes de Paris and Marseilles (FC 6 Oct, 1860). The firm shut down in 1863. Fritz Sander, who had been an assistant in Schaeffer and Co., entered into partnership with Thomas Henry Elmenhorst in 1862 (CM 26 June 1862). The partnership was dissolved in January 1865 (GG 21 Jan. 1865). They executed a deed of assignment to Charles Henry Maurice Bosman and Adolph Meyer in December 1866 (GG 22 Dec. 1866). Bosman was interested in the shipment of Chinese labour overseas. The connection implies that the firm of Elmenhorst and Sander was connected with the same trade, as had been the firm of Meyer, Schaeffer and Co. with whom Sander had had a link in the past. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 73 One would expect in Japan, a country that has adopted so much of its culture from China, that people believe in fung shui. It was introduced there during the Tang Dynasty, and, in the 'Land of the Rising Sun', it is called in Japanese (using the Cantonese pronunciation) fong wai hok (the 'School of Direction'). But the art is not nearly so common as in Chinese communities, and, while it is sometimes used for designing commercial buildings, harmonious gardens and landscapes in Japan, it is not used for graves. The cities of Nara and Kyoto are said to have good fung shui and this was also supposed to have been a consideration when the Imperial Palace was planned. Fung shui, as practised in Vietnam, is closer to the Chinese doctrine than the Japanese version, and in Vietnam some cities, as in China, are said to have been planned according to geomantic principles and the power of nature. In China, both Peking and the Forbidden City were laid out on fung shui principles. The latter was planned as a cross superimposed on a square. The chessboard or grid pattern, and the north-south axis and gates at four quarters were considered important, as were the three encircling walls allowing for circulation. All these provide balance, harmony and protection against both the enemy and evil spirits. In the eyes of the Chinese, when the Forbidden City was planned the world was square, and, consequently, most walled villages are also square. The whole idea of considering balance and form, including a variety of shapes, sizes, together with 'open lungs', is not inconsistent with the ideas of modern planning. It has even been postulated that, in the 17th century, once the Jesuit missionaries had gained the confidence of the Emperor in China, they tried to have fung shui stamped out. Yet some Jesuits took fung shui ideas back to Europe, some claim, where the priests used the principles for laying out parks (Pennick; 1979). Korea has the 'symbol of creation' (yin and yang) on its national flag, and its version of fung shui is similar to the Chinese version (Yau, 1976-passim). To mention, briefly, additional examples. In Malaysia, a site that faces a river or a valley is considered good for building a house. In Africa, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 131 was intended to build up a library collection of books on Asia. It has been an abiding personal interest, for I have at all times been instrumental in adding to it. Although modest in size, it contains a good stock of works on Asian subjects in Western languages, with a major emphasis on China. Over the years, our books have been housed in various places: in the British Council; in the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wanchai after its completion in 1972; and for almost a decade from 1985, in the new Kowloon Central Library. They are now back again on Hong Kong Island, in the City Hall Main Library. Placing the collection in Kowloon turned out to be a big mistake. In the past, expatriates who lived on Hong Kong Island talked and thought of Kowloon almost as though it was on another planet.* One might have hoped that two harbour tunnels, cross-harbour buses and the Mass Transit Railway would have altered old perceptions and prejudices. However, during the ten years the Library collection was kept in Kowloon, few of our members found the way there, or made much use of the book retrieval service provided for them at the City Hall Library. As it turned out, after computerization of our membership records in the mid-1980s, most of our members did live on Hong Kong Island, and the old views of Kowloon had apparently persisted. Still being added to yearly, the Collection is now housed on the 9th floor of the re-modelled City Hall High Block and is under the care of the Urban Council Library staff there. Honorary Editor I was Honorary Editor of the RAS Journal between 1966 and 1980, responsible for producing fourteen annual issues for the years 1967-1980 inclusive, as well as a number of the Society's Symposia Brochures—the published papers of those presented at symposia devoted to special subjects. I much enjoyed editorial work, and benefited from the many friendships it brought with it. One among them was with the late Professor Luther Carrington Goodrich of Columbia University, whom I first came to know in 1967, after asking him for a note on Ming cannon found in Hong Kong and sending on details of newly discovered pieces. He forwarded other contributions to the Journal thereafter; and once, when lagging in my editorial work, he had sent a "chaser", urging me to put a bomb under our printer. Of course, I had to reply that the bomb needed to be placed under me, as the guilty party. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 136 District Regional Hospital, from which a good view was obtained of the reclamation for the Mass Transit Railway Extension to Chaiwan; then being constructed along a 12.5 kilometre route from the western side of the Central Business District at Sheung Wan. Completion of its 12 stations, plus additions and alterations to those at Central and Admiralty, was expected in 1985-86. 17 With both new transportation links in operation, the Eastern District would at last come into its own, increasing the value of existing land and buildings there, and enabling the construction of more public and private housing development. The coach then took us to Shaukerwan. Our purpose here was quite different: to visit a new temple complex and walk through one of the large old squatter areas on the hillside, then still so characteristic of Shaukerwan, ending the visit with tea at the City District Office premises on the main road. The main temple, the Fuk Tak Chi, had been a 1970 removal and reconstruction of an earlier shrine that had served the old villages in that part of Shaukerwan from the late 19th century onwards. The shrine had prospered in its new location, and two more temples had been added in the mid 1970s. Together, they made an attractive group on the hillside. We were entertained to tea there by friends among the local Kaifongs and the temple managers, managing to attract a group of excited children. We then walked up to the large and heavily populated Nam On Fong Squatter Area, built around the nucleus of an older settlement that had originated with the extensive quarrying of the Shaukerwan hillsides in the mid-19th century. Passing through we had vivid glimpses of how people in the older squatter areas lived in all kinds of structures - in some places abutting onto large rocks - some made of wood and others of tin, with a few older cottages of brick and stone. Livestock, mainly pigs and chickens, occupied other premises and some buildings served their inhabitants as both home and workshop. A few religious establishments were dotted here and there on the hillsides or among the huts. They included the large hundred year old Kik Lok Tung, which unfortunately for us was barred and shuttered, its owner being overseas. Moving along, we saw residents engaged in the various pursuits and occupations. This part of the tour provided the visitors with sights that very few European city residents would see in the normal way - and the local people likewise! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 137 Kowloon Walled City, February 1989 and After The Kowloon City tour was again very different. Some background is required. Excluded from the New Territories' lease in 1898, but in de facto British occupation since 1900, the "Walled City" had always presented problems for the Hong Kong Government, arising largely from its contentious legal status. No longer "walled" - its rectangular wall had been demolished by the Japanese during their wartime military occupation of the Colony - the enclave had soon after become a tightly-packed warren of unauthorized buildings without water supply, roads, or sewerage. In the 1970s - again without proper authorization - most of its four and five-storey structures had been replaced with high-rise buildings of twelve and fifteen storeys, greatly worsening its already unsatisfactory condition. The "Walled City" was notorious for drug-trafficking and other illegal or criminal activities. Most European residents of the Colony, and probably many middle-class Hong Kong Chinese too, kept well clear, and few of them had any real idea what it was like. 22 After signature of the Sino-British Joint Agreement in 1984, and with the agreement of the Mainland Chinese authorities, the Hong Kong Government had undertaken to remove, compensate, and re-house its population, and to demolish the buildings and replace them with a public park within the same boundaries. Here was a chance to show our members this rather infamous place that few had seen, and at the same time - as on the Chai Wan visit a few years before - let them know what was being done by the Government. By good fortune, one of my friends and former colleagues from the District Office, Tsuen Wan, was the officer in charge of the complicated negotiations with the City's business people and domestic residents, and he was very willing to make arrangements for a Royal Asiatic Society visit. In the end, the tour's extreme popularity with our members entailed three separate visits, each attended by well over 100 persons. On each visit, after a general briefing, the government officers who acted as our guides - they included two young police women inspectors - talked to us about their work as they led small groups through the twisting, narrow, and confusing thoroughfares to meet our own RAS tour speakers at a few places en route where points of interest were explained. In my case, I had stationed myself in the courtyard of the former military yamen (government office) whose pre-1898 buildings had survived many fires as well as the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 138 redevelopment, and spoke to each group in turn on their history and background. The first time around, a small donation had turned away the indignation of an old female resident, who had noisily enquired what we were up to. Also, we were entertained on each occasion by the Kowloon City Kaifong Association in its office inside the City, and given its side of the story. The opportunity would not recur. At the time of writing (June 1994), all the buildings within the Walled City boundary (less those of historic interest) have been demolished and their residents compensated and rehoused, and a four-week long archaeological investigation has been completed, uncovering the inscribed granite slab over the old South Gate.25 Other Aspects of the Society Two Letters The RAS has seldom been politically motivated. On the rare occasions that we have made representations to the authorities, this was done to support some worthy public cause, like the need for a proper Museum of History.26 The only occasion on which the Society has campaigned vigorously on a local issue has been in the past few years, against the government's intended removal of the Public Records of Hong Kong to Tuen Mun New Town, and to press in lieu for a more suitable premises in a convenient location.27 However, on two other occasions, in the exceptional circumstances of the time, special representations were made on behalf of the Society, because in both cases Hong Kong's future was seen to be involved. Following the Tiananmen Square incident in mid-1989, which threw Hong Kong into an emotional turmoil the like of which had never been seen, the RAS Council met to discuss the position. It was decided to send a letter to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, urging it to stand firm in its dealings with Beijing, in the interests of Hong Kong and its people. **Sad to say, there was no response; and despite sending a follow-up copy some weeks after, not even so much as an acknowledgment. In the second instance, again in 1989 and just before the period allowed for public comment on the draft Basic Law had elapsed, in my capacity as President of the Society, I sent a personal letter to the Chairman of the Consultative Committee for the Basic Law, Later reproduced in the RAS ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 140 being much lower. One reason for this may be connected with our public image. In the past, our leadership has been closely tied to the Hong Kong "establishment", and in tone and membership the Society itself was outwardly and distinctively British. We were probably more interested in learning and passing on information about China to other expatriates than in encouraging local Chinese membership. We could be snobbish and certainly inward-looking, and with very little difficulty could easily degenerate into a cosy little club of people who all knew each other and were mutually comfortable in the association of like with like. By degrees, as Hong Kong changed, and as the knowledge of English widened to include a very large school population being educated up to secondary level and above, the Council had become more concerned with encouraging Chinese membership, especially as the Shanghai Chinese element mentioned above had diminished with the passage of time. We had thought of going bilingual, as one or two other of the local cultural societies had done from time to time. We also wondered whether we should change the Society's name by dropping the "Royal" prefix; though this has never been a bar to the continued existence, and undoubted success, of the RAS Branches elsewhere in Asia.30 These and other topics were discussed at length during a well-attended Symposium on the present and future state of the Society held in 1987, carefully prepared and largely motivated by the coming reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.11 Following the Symposium, there was a gratifying and considerable increase in membership, perhaps due to the re-energizing of the Society that took place then, and the number and quality of its programmes. However, to this day, there has been no great interest among the English-speaking Chinese public in becoming members. The fault may of course lie in ourselves, through being too British. Yet we have usually prided ourselves on being friendly and outgoing, especially in the last decade; and our venues have been popular and easily accessible ones, like the Urban Council's lecture rooms in the High Block of the City Hall in the Central business district and the lecture room at the Hong Kong Museum of History in Kowloon Park. Partly offsetting this discouraging trend, it should be noted that the Council and its working sub-committees have always included keen Chinese members who contribute much to the Society and its work. T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 144 See Henry Lethbridge, Hong Kong Stability and Change (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978), p 200 144 With an Additional Note by Professor Lo Hsiang-lin, JHKBRAS 7 (1967), pp 152-7 See the introduction to Ray Huang's 1587, A Year of No Significance (New York, Columbia University, 1988) "Fu", meaning wealth, is a felicitous rendering of "Goodrich" He is mentioned in Robin Hutcheon's SCMP, The First Eighty Years (Hong Kong, SCMP, 1983) A photo showing him at ARP drill is at p 84 12 See JHKBRAS 29 (1989), pp xvii-xx 11 Ibid 14 Samuel Couling, Encyclopaedia Sinica (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1917), p 378 14 Ibid 16 I was to be constructed in three separate stages Work had begun on the main contracts in 1981 and 1982, with completion forecast in 1984 and 1985, at an estimated cost (end 1982 figure) with all ancillary related contracts of HKD16 millions Information provided by the Engineering Development Department, HKG 17 Same The likely cost at 1980 figures had been estimated at HKD7.3 billions 18 See JHKBRAS 23 (1983), p. 129. One was dedicated to the famous Kwan Tai, the God of War, and the other to Yo Fei, a celebrated general and statesman of the Sung dynasty 19 The 1872 Hong Kong Blue Book listed 72 stone quarries at Shaukeiwan See JHKBRAS 10 (1970), p 186 20 See P Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaties 1898-1997, China, Great Britain and Hong Kong's New Territories (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1980), especially chapters 7 and 10, and Elizabeth Sinn, "Kowloon Walled City: Its Origin and Early History", in JHKBRAS 27 (1987), pp 30-45 21 See Jackie Pullinger, Crack in the Wall, Life and Death in Kowloon Walled City (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1989) 22 for a progress report on the clearance project, see e.g. SCMP, 24 September 1987 23 Mr Lu Hau-Luen 24 Only two are listed in the annual reports printed in the 1988 and 1989 Journals, but three were made, as noted in Vol 28 (1988), p ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 158 On the one hand, government/semi-government institutions began to promote an awareness of local history and conservation of Hong Kong's heritage. We may see this as part of the government's 'community building' effort after the devastating riots of 1967. On the other hand, the demographics of Hong Kong have also changed. In the past, with their high mobility, people residing in Hong Kong had little sense of identity with the place. This led the Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, to compare Hong Kong in the 1960s to a railway station; as people came, made money and moved on, it was a place with no roots. By the 1970s, things were no longer so. The generation which has grown up in the Territory after the war were much more rooted in the place and in the 1970s, as they came of age, they grew more curious about the history of their home city. A few actively sought knowledge through study and research; most of the others became willing customers of anything that might tell them more about Hong Kong. Institutionally, one focus of growth in the study of local history is the museums, the other, the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO). ## Museums Hong Kong's museums are run by the two municipal councils, the Urban Council and the Regional Council, which, besides being responsible for sanitation services, liquor licences and so on, are also responsible for enriching the quality of life in Hong Kong through promoting and providing recreation, sports and the arts. To give local history greater prominence, the Museum of History was separated out from the Urban Council's City Hall Museum and Art Gallery in 1975. At first, it operated only on a small scale, using rented premises in a multi-storeyed commercial building. In 1983, it moved into its own building, and subsequent extensions enlarged its exhibition area to 1520 sq m. A permanent exhibition, called the Story of Hong Kong, outlining 6,000 years of development from the Stone Age to modern times, was installed. It also stages thematic exhibitions from time to time: last year (1995), two out of three exhibitions were about Hong Kong; Hong Kong's Traditional Trades and Crafts, and Life Under the Japanese Occupation, 1941-45. The Museum runs two branch museums, the Law Uk Folk Museum, which is restored from a 19th century Hakka house, and the Lei Cheng Uk Branch Museum, which is centred on an excavated Eastern Han ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 167 Kong, HIIKBRAS, vol. 14 (1974) pp 12-27 and his Facilities for Research on the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, in Alan Birch, Y C Jao and Elizabeth Sinn (eds) Research Materials for Hong Kong Studies, (Hong Kong Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1984) pp 153-192 16 In 1994, the Executive Council instructed that all records over thirty years old should be reviewed, this does not automatically mean opening the files to the public, and some materials are re-classified. Applications for use still have to go to the generating agent (department) for approval. But it is now much easier to get access to records over 30 years old. 17 Peter Young, The Hung On-Lo Memorial Library, the Hong Kong Collection, in Alan Birch, Y C Jao and Elizabeth Sinn (eds), pp. 137-152 IX The most current project is an index to CO129, the Colonial Office Original Correspondence series on Hong Kong, from 1841-1926, containing about 45,000 despatches. The index, put on CD-Rom, operates on the basis of search by keywords. The chief investigator of the project is Elizabeth Sinn who currently runs the Hong Kong History Workshop. Her major works include Power and Charity. The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989) and Growing with Hong Kong: The Bank of East Asia 1919-1994 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1994). 19 Peter Y L. Ng. The 1819 Edition of the Hsin-an Hsien-chih a critical examination with translation and notes. Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, 1644-1842 (Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1961). The work was published many years later as New Peace County: A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong region, prepared for press and with additional materials by Hugh D.R. Baker, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1983). 20 Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Interaction of East and West: Developments of Public Education in Early Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984). 21 Other scholars include L.Y. Chiu, K.C. Chan, K.C. Fok, Ming K. Chan, Elizabeth Sinn and Steve Tsang at the HKU, David Faure and Bernard Luk at the Chinese University, John Young, Fung Pui-wing and Chung Po Yin (much later) at the Baptist University, and later Choi Chi-cheong and Liu Dik Sang at the University of Science and Technology - although not all of them are, or would agree to being labelled as, practitioners of local history. 22 Patrick Hase, Research Materials for Village Studies, in Alan Birch, Y C Jao and Elizabeth Sinn (eds) Research Material for Hong Kong Studies (Ibid) pp. 31-46 23 David Faure, Bernard H.K. Luk and Alice Ngai-ha Lun Ng (comp.) Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, 3 volumes (Hong Kong Museum of History, 1986). 24 David Faure, Bernard H.K. Luk and Alice Ngan-ha Lun Ng, The Hong Kong Region According to Historical Inscriptions, in David Faure, James Hayes and Alan Birch (eds). From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society (Hong Kong Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1984) pp 43-54 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 176 In the 2nd year of the reign of Tung Chih (1863), he assisted in commanding the Hung-tan Fleet to defend Chin-kiang. Because of his bravery, he was granted the title of Tsung-bing. In the 5th moon of that year, he was transferred back to Kwangtung. In the 4th year of the reign of Tung Chih (1865), he was appointed to be the Deputy Fu-cheong of Lung Mun. Next year, he patrolled in the coastal waters near Tsui Mun, north of Hainan Island, and captured the pirates Mak Cheong-yau, Yeung Wong (楊旺), Fan Chau-bong (范周邦) and Szeto Shing (司徒成). In the 6th year of the reign of Tung Chih (1867), he was transferred to be the Ngai Chau Fu-cheong. In the 7th year of the reign of Tung Chih (1868), while patrolling along the coast of Hainan Island, he captured the pirates Chan Hay-fu, Kat Tang-kiu-yeung and Cheung Hoi-mo at Kwangchow Wan. In the 6th moon of that year, he got the pirate Lok Fuk-shing at An Po near Chao-tam-yeung#. After several years of patrolling and fighting, he brought peace to the coastal area of southern China. Then he was sent to Hainan Island where he took part in a successful campaign against the Lai. After that, he was transferred to be the Fu-cheong of the Tai Pang Brigade A, with his headquarters at the Kowloon Walled City. He stayed at this post for 16 years. 6 In the 9th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu (1883), he was promoted to be the King Chau Tsung-bing. In 1884, when the conflict between the French in Vietnam and the Ching Government aroused, he was transferred to be the Kit-shek Tsung-bing. In the 13th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu (1887), he was King Chau Tsung-bing again, until he died a year later, still in post. During his time in Kowloon, he heard of Choi Leung, a native of Tung Kwun, who was a local merchant on the island of Cheung Chau in the Hong Kong region. He was engaged in establishing a charitable hospital and a tomb. The hospital was only a dying house for the poor Chinese to be brought there and die in peace. It was not a hospital in the modern sense. The tomb was the burial place for unidentified persons whose bones were found along the shore of Cheung Chau Island. General Lai got involved with the scheme. He compiled a subscription book and urged contributions by officials, gentries, scholars and merchants to help. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 177 scheme a success. The hospital and the tomb established in 1878 are still in existence to this day, and a memorial tablet for the deed was mounted on the front wall of a shop near the hospital. It is still in existence, too. NOTES 1 Ch 2-7, A Brief Record of the Pacification of the Kwang-tung Rebels. A 1865 edition. 2 Ibid. Ch 8. 3 Ibid. Ch 9-10. 4 Thick, Ch 1-12. 7 Ch 72, Fung Kwan Gazetteer. 45, 46. By that time, Lai Chun-hot was the commander of the 'Shung' Naval Battalion stationed in Chikrang. In the 5th Moon of the 2nd year of Tung Chi reign (1863), he found that his Battalion had only a few sloops but too many officers. Thus, he transferred his brother Lai Chun-pin back to Kwang-tung. During his time in Kowloon, he had dedicated a memorial board to the Hau Wang Temple in the Kowloon City in the 6th year of the Kuang Hsu reign (1880). The board is still hanging inside the temple today. As per note 6. The charitable hospital was called the Fong Bin Hospital. The tomb was called Yee Chung Yuen, and was situated on the slope facing the sea at Tai Shek Flat, not far from the Tin Hau Temple of the region. To my knowledge, Jar O on Lantau Island had one, formed by charitable subscription, and indeed, there was one at Lai Chi Kok, Sai Ying Pun and at Lai Ping Shan Street on Hong Kong Island. It was known as Kong Fuk Yee Charity Hall but in 1851, also formed by charitable subscription. It was taken over and extended as the Tung Wah Hospital in 1870, after which it became a hospital in the western style. Detail of the story of the scheme can be seen on the memorial tablet established in the 4th year of the Kuang Hsu reign (1878). It is still in existence. Because of recent development on the island, the slope with the charitable tomb was levelled. The tomb has been moved to the cemetery which lies on the north of the island. The shop, with the one next to it, were purchased with the charity fund at the time of the establishing of the Fong Bin Hospital. They were rented, and the money so got was used as the expenses of the hospital. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g YET MORE ON THE MAN THE EMPEROR DECAPITATED WONG WING-HO 179 I was interested to read, in Volumes 28 and 29 of the Journal, material on folk-tales from the New Territories relating to Ho Chan, the late Yuan Guangdong Warlord, and early Ming Minister of the Left, collected by Dr. D. Faure, Dr. J.W. Hayes and Dr. P.H. Hase. In 1991, while working as a Research Assistant in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I collected a further folk-tale of a similar character, very similar, in fact, to the ones collected by Dr. D. Faure at Kat O and by Dr. J.W. Hayes at Kei Ling Ha. Because of the interest of these folk-tales, this version is printed here. Translation of Notes of an Interview with Mr. Yeung Fuk-sham (楊福杉) of Ha Ling Pei Village, Tung Chung, Lantau, 5th July, 1991. Fuk-sham is of the Yeung surname, of Ngau Hom Village in Tung Chung. She is now 65 years of age. At age 24, she married Lei Fuk-hei (李福喜), of Ha Ling Pei Village. Fuk-sham said that her husband's grandmother frequently told her this tale. The Ho family was originally very wealthy. When the old city was built (the fort at Tung Chung), the imperial court called on Ho, the Minister of the Left, to provide the funds. However, Ho was unwilling to provide them - if he had been willing, the old city would have been big enough to take in the sites of Upper and Lower Ling Pei Villages. It is because Ho, the Minister of the Left, was unwilling to provide the funds that the old city is its present size. It is also because of this that the Fung Shui and gravesites of the Hos lost their effectiveness, though the influence of the city. If the site of the city had been able to include Upper and Lower Ling Pei Villages, then the Fung Shui of the Hos would still be extremely good. Because the city is small, when the cannon fired, the explosive power was very great, and the ancestral tablets of Minister Ho were toppled over by the blast. Ho, the Minister of the Left, was executed by beheading at the orders of the Emperor. The Minister was accustomed to go each morning to Court, and to return home every evening. However, his mother was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 197 Clarke, Samuel R. Among the Fathers in South West China, London China Inland Mission, 1911 (Tarpett Reprint Cifeng-wen Publishing) Coates, Austin, China Races, Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 1983 Cochran, Sherman, Big Business in China. Sino-foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890-1940, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1980 Cochran, Sherman, and Winston Hsieh, eds. One Day in China, May 21, 1936, New Haven Yale University Press, 1983 Cohen, Paul, Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900, in Cambridge History of China 10, Part I, 543-90 — China and Christianity, the Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860-1870, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1963 Cohen, Warren I, The Chinese Connection. Roger S Greene, Thomas W Lamont, George E Sokolsky and American-East Asian Relations, New York Columbia University Press, 1978 Collins P M. Siberian Journey Down the Amur to the Pacific, 1856-1857, edited by Charles Vevier, Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 1962 Collis, Maurice, Foreign Mud, London Faber and Faber, 1946 Cooper, Thomas Thornville, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats, or An Overland Journey from China Towards India, London John Murray, 1871 Corbett, Charles Hodge, Shantung Christian University (Cheeloo), New York United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955 Cox, E H M, Plant-Hunting in China. A History of Botanical Exploration in China and the Tibetan Marches, London Collins, 1945 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Cravath, Paul Dreman, Letters Home from the South Sea Islands, China and Japan, 1934, Garden City printed at the Country Life Press, 1934 The Cree Journals, The Voyages of Edward H Cree. Surgeon RN as related in his private journals 1837-1856, Exeter English Webb and Bower, 1981 (published in the United States as Naval Surgeon) Cressy, C B, China's Geographic Foundations, New York McGraw Hill, 1934 Cressy-Marcks, Violet Olivia, Journey Into China. New York Dutton. 1942 (Feb/938C) Cronin, Vincent, The Wise Man from the West, London Hart Davis, 1955 Crow, Carl, Handbook for China, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh. 1933 (Hong Kong Reprint: Oxford University Press) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g Gordon-Cumming, Constance Frederica, Wanderings in China, Edinburgh Blackwood, 1888 Graham, Gerald S. The China Station Wan and Diplomacy 1830-1860, London Oxford University Press, 1978 Graham, Dorothy, Through The Moon Door the Experiences of an American Resident In Peking, New York JH Sears, 1926 (Bj19j/A2/926g) Gray, John Henry, Walks in the City of Canton, Hong Kong De Souza, 1875 Gray, Mrs John Henry, Fourteen Months in Canton, London Macmillan, 1880 Green, Owen Mortimer, The Foreigner in China, London Hutchison, 1942 Greenberg, Michael, British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-42, Cambridge the University Press, 1951 Griffith, Robert, China fu - China fydd, etc, London Gwasq Livingston, 1935 Gue, Caroline, China 13 (An Account of Travel to Treat Trachoma), London Faber and Faber, 1964 Gumpach, Johannes von, The Burlingame Mission, a Political Disclosure on the Position and Influence in China of Robert Hart As Confidential Advisor of the Tsungli Yamen, the Dispersion of the Lay-Osborn Flotilla, the Policy of the United States in China, Shanghai, London and New York, 1872 Gutzlaff, Charles (Gutzlaff, Karl Frederick), Journal of Three Voyages Along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832, and 1833, London Frederick Westley and A H Davies, 1834 China Opened, or a Display of the Topography, History, Customs, Manners, Arts, Manufactures, Commerce, Literature, Religion, Jurisprudence, etc of the Chinese Empire. London Smith Elder and Co. 1838 Hall, Josef Washington, In the Land of the Laughing Buddha, New York Putnam, 1924. Hao, Yen-p'ing, The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China Bridge Between East and West, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1970 Changing Chinese View of Western Relations 1840-95, Cambridge History of China, vol 11, 142-201 Harkness Ruth, The Baby Giant Panda, New York Garrick and Evans, 1938 (Yale copy entitled The Lady and the Panda, an Adventure) Harris, George L, The Mission of Matteo Ricci, SJ a Case Study of an Effort at Guided Cultural Change in China From Sixteenth Century, Monumenta Serica XXV 1-168 (1966) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 204 Hunter, Jane, The Gospel of Gentility, American Women Missionaries in Turn-of the Century China, New Haven Yale University Press, 1984 Hunter, W C. The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton, London Kegan Paul, 1882 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing) Hunter, William, Bits of Old China, London K Paul, French, 1885 Hutchison, James Lafayette, China Hand, Boston and New York Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1936 Hutchison, Paul, ed. A Guide to Important Missionary Stations in Eastern China Lying Along the Main Routes of Travel, Shanghai Mission Book Company, 1920 Hyatt, Irwin T, Jr, Our Ordered Lives Confess. Three 19th Century Missionaries in East Shantung, Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1976 Ichiko, Chuzo, Political and Institutional Reform, Cambridge History of China, vol II, 375-415 Inglis, Brian, The Opium War, London Hodder and Stoughton, 1976 International Mission Council, Christian Education in China, A Study Made by an Education Commission Representing the Mission Boards and Societies Conducting Work in China, New York, 1922 Isaacs, Harold Robert. Images of Asia, New York and London. Harper and Row, 1972 Jesuits, Letters from Missions, The Travels of Several Learned Missioners of the Society of Jesus translated from the French in 1713, London printed for R Gosling, 1714 1 Johnston, Alan James, The Footprints of the Pheasant in the Snow, Portland Me Johnston, 1976, 1978 Johnston, R. F, From Peking to Mandalay, London John Murray, 1903 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing) Twilight in the Forbidden City, London Victor Gollancz, 1934 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Jones, Francis Clifford, Shanghai and Tientsin, With Special Reference to Foreign interests, London Oxford University Press, 1940 Kemp, Emily Georgina (b 1860), The Face of China. Travels in Eastern, Northern, Central and Western China, with Some Accounts of New School, Universities, Missions, New York Duffield and Co. 1909 Chinese Mettle, London and New York Hodder and Stoughton, 1921 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 206 —, Intimate China, the Chinese As I have Seen Them, London Hutchison, 1899 Little, Archibald John, Through the Yang-tse Gorges, or, Trade and Travel in Western China, London Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1888 1 Mount Omer and Beyond, London Heinemann, 1901 Ljungstedt, Andrew, An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China, with Supplementary Chapter - Description of the City of Canton republished from the Chinese Repository, Boston James Munroe and co. 1836 Lo Hui-min, ed, The Correspondence of G E Morrison, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1976 Loch, Granville Gower (1813-1853), The Closing Events of the Campaign in China the Operations in the Yang Tze-Kiang, and the Treaty of Nanking, London J Murray, 1843 Lockwood, Stephen C. Augustine Heard and Company, 1858-1862, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1971 Lonsdale, Anne, Merchant Adventurers in the East, London Longman, 1980 Low, John, Into China, London John Murray, 1986 Lubbock, Alfred Basil, The Opium Clippers, Boston Lauriat Company, 1933 (New York Reprint. AMS) Lutz, Jesse Gregory, China and the Christian Colleges 1850-1950, Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1971 • - Christian Missionaries in China (19/20 Centuries), Boston DC Heath Problems in Asian Civilization series Lyster, Thomas (1840-1865), With Gordon in China, Letters from Thomas Lyster, Lieutenant Royal Engineers, London TF Unwin, 1891 Lyttelton, Edith Sophy (Balfour b1865), Travelling Days, London G Bles, 1933 Macartney, George, First Earl Macartney, Journal of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, London British Museum, 1897 (Microfilm copy at Hong Kong University Library) Macartney, Lady, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, London Ernest Benn. 1931 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Macfarlane, W, Sketches in the Foreign Settlements and Native City of Shanghai, reprinted from The Shanghai Mercury, Shanghai, 1881 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 208 Michie, Alexander, The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, Edinburgh, 1900 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing) Moges, Marquis de, Recollections of Baron Gros's Embassy to China and Japan in 1857-58, London: R Griffin, 1860 Morrison, G E, An Australian in China, London: Horace Cox, 1895 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press) Morse, Edward Sylvester, Glimpses of China and Chinese Homes, Boston: Little Brown, 1902 Morse, H B, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, London: Oxford University Press, 1925 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing) —, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 1910 (Taipei reprint: Ch'eng-wen Publishing, 1978) Mossman, Samuel (editor of North China Herald), General Gordon's Private Diary of His Exploits in China Amplified, London: Sampson et al., 1885 Mote, Frederick Wade, China in the Age of Columbus, in Art in the Age of Exploration edited by Jay A Levenson, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, 337-350 Moule, A C, Christians in China Before 1550, London and New York, 1930 + Moule, Arthur Evans, City, Hill and Plain, Stories of Missionary Work in Mid-China 1861-1916, Guilford: printed privately, 1917 Mullins, James of St Columban's Missionary Society, Cheerful China, 1925 Murphey, Rhoads, Shanghai, Key to Modern China, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press, 1953 The Outsiders: the Western Experience in India and China, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1976 Myrdal, Jan, Report from a Chinese Village, London: Heinemann, 1965 Nagel's Encyclopedia-Guide to China, Geneva: Nagel, Third Edition, 1973 Needham, Joseph, Chinese Astronomy and the Jesuit Mission: An Encounter of Cultures, London: The China Society, 1958 -, Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960+ Neil, Desmond, Elegant Flowers, First Steps in China, London: J Murray, 1956 4 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g municipal library. For some reason which I have not been able to fathom South Korea has a Royal Asiatic Society - founded about thirty years ago and very flourishing it is. The Hong Kong Branch however after its foundation in 1847 did not survive for very long and due to internal dissensions collapsed in 1859, not to be resuscitated until 1960 at the initiative of one of our past Presidents, Dr. J.R. Jones. It was resuscitated very much on the basis conceived by the founders, i.e. monthly lecture, an annual journal, the occasional symposium and publication. The one thing we do not have is our own building and permanent office, but to a certain extent we have overcome this since our library is very well housed in the Urban Council facilities on the 3rd floor of the High Block at the City Hall. In the past few years, however, the Society has added and expanded on the activities originally conceived by its founders, i.e. we have arranged a considerable outreach programme whereby we visit not only many places of historical interest, within Hong Kong, but travel to nearby places which has helped to put our perhaps rather narrow perspectives into a larger context. We have also arranged exhibitions, and we are now consulted on many aspects about Hong Kong, its history, the preservation of buildings, and other areas in which some expertise by our members is perceived to be important. In the last year for instance our members have been consulted by the Hong Kong Government, the Hong Kong Tourist Association, the British Broadcasting Corporation and an Australian Radio Station. We publish and provide a useful platform for our members to publish. In short we have expanded our activities and enlarged our fields of interest into wider fields than our founders originally conceived. These developments are I feel to the Society's advantage. They have kept the membership up to a reasonable level with a good cross-section of nationalities. They have enhanced the Society's public profile, and they have given a strong basis for the Society to move forward confidently through 1997. The above is of course a rather potted history of the Society but I think it is important to remind ourselves of the Society's background, because quite clearly we have entered changeable times and they are not likely to go away in the foreseeable future. Your Council has in the last year reviewed the society's activities and its objectives, in the viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g this Society's main objectives is to produce an annual journal. Contributions to the Journal from members are always very welcome and so please do contact our editor, Mr. Peter Halliday. Other Activities The Society is fortunate in having a very outward and enthusiastic Activities Committee. For the first half of the year until her departure from Hong Kong Mrs. Rosemary Lee was the Chairman, and for the last few months, Mrs Anita Wilson has taken on this mantle, and more recently Mr. Geoffrey Roper has done so, and will be doing so in future. To all of them I would like to offer our sincere thanks. The Committee's efforts are there for all to see We have had 12 lectures at the City Hall: Date Title Lecturer 28 Apr 95 A Fujian Hakka Village Temple Alliance Dr. John Lagerway 19 May 95 Reflexivity in Research and a Question of Culture Dr Mary Pang (A study of Chinese in Britain) 23 Jun 95 Contemporary Chinese Painting. Metamorphosis or Misrepresentation? Ms. Catherine Maudsley 7 Jul 95 Fung Shui Woods of Hong Kong Mr. Richard Webb 15 Aug 95 Liberation Evening (2 videos and brief talk) held at Royal HK Regiment Mess, Beaconsfield House Dr Elizabeth Sinn 29 Sep 95 Hong Kong 1931-1941 Ms. Mimi Chan 20 Oct 95 A Guide to Hong Kong Literature 17 Nov 95 Marine Bio-Diversity Protection in Hong Kong Prof. Brian Morton 15 Dec 95 Hong Kong's Wild Places Mr Edward Stokes 12 Jan 96 Hong Kong - A Woman's Place? Dr. Veronica Pearson xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 9 Feb 96 Locomotives of the Sugar Railways of Java Mr Brian Pearce 8 Mar 96 Paper Folkfore Dr Janet Scott In addition to these lectures we have had a series of 8 lectures given in association with the exhibition on buildings in Hong Kong presented jointly by the Society and the Antiquities and Monuments Office as follows: Title Lecturer Villages in the New Territories Dr. Patrick Hase Kowloon Walled City (in Cantonese) Dr. Elizabeth Sinn Approach to Conservation - Work on Historic Buildings in Hong Kong (in Cantonese) Mr S L. Lam The Space and Face of 19th Century Urban in Hong Kong The Rey Carl Smith The Military Installations in Guangdong Coastal Area during the Qing Dynasty (in Cantonese) Dr. Anthony Siu The Architecture of Necessity: On the inhabiting of City Form and Space in Hong Kong Mr. Desmond Hu Our Heritage: Hong Kong's Old Chinese and Colonial Buildings Dr. Daniel Waters The Three Hamlets of Mut Wo - Pak Mong, Tu Ho and Ngau Kwu Long Dr. Joseph Ting (in Cantonese) The response to these was excellent even though they were held on a Saturday afternoon. It was particularly gratifying to note that four were presented in Cantonese, Many of the lecturers are with us to-night and we welcome them as our guests. In addition to the above no less than 15 visits within Hong Kong and three visits outside Hong Kong have been organised as follows: Date Place 7 May 95 Tam Kung Festival, Shaukerwan 13 May 95 Maryknoll Fathers, Stanley 27 May 95 Balthus Exhibition, HK Museum of Art 15 Jun 95 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles, Malaysia Lines xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 57 19 on the stage and never mention the word "Meng" when back stage. What do you do when you have to use the forbidden words in a specific place? You simply substitute, as in the first place, the word “Geng” with the word “Jing”. So instead, the actor will sing, in one play "Ting qiao lou da chu jing," which means "When I heard the Drum Tower strike the first hour .." You will note that in the script the word "Geng" remains, but when the singer sings it, he immediately changed it to “Jing” in order to comply with the Taboo. There is no singing back stage, so when someone struck up a conversation with someone else and needed to use the word "Meng", you simply say “Da Huang Liang” instead. I have asked many people inside the profession, but no one can tell me why it is so and who started it. Final Word of Appraisal I have written so many paragraphs of anomalies in the setting and acting of the Peking Opera - the question arises as to why the Chinese people still flock to see it. The answer is that the Opera gives them "beauty" - beauty in singing, beauty in the acting, beauty in the story as written and acted upon. (Sometimes, though, the beauty is far fetched and subject to logical questioning.) This is why some of the audience will go back to see the play a hundred times and never get tired of it. Certainly, in their heart, they have some fondness toward the acting, the singing which they want to enjoy, which they could not do without, like drugs. In China, we have a word for this kind of mentality, we call it "itching". They go back to see the same play many, many times in order to “quench” their itching. Then what about the anomaly? In the psychology of the theatre goers, the whole play is a fake, not the real thing and if there is some small misinterpretation of the story, or the wrong costume the actor wears on the stage, why worry. As long as their "itching" is touched and satisfied, everything will be just fine. A Word of Thanks On June 16, 1991, the Shenyang Beijing Opera Troupe was in town for a nine-day performance at the City Hall in Hong Kong. My friend, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 60 The second hypothesis, on the other hand, is held by a few western historians. Writing in the 1930s, H.G. Jarrett claimed that: "The Army was hard put to it finding suitable quarters for some time after the occupation of Hong Kong and the move from West Point was not made until some three or four years after the founding of the Colony in 1841. As the arrival of large numbers of soldiers and their quartering in matshed barracks (which the chronicles tell us were erected in the western part of the town) would naturally impress the Chinese and we easily see the connection between this encampment and the vernacular name, which, if any indication were needed, definitely established the area where the first barracks went up." (Jarrett, 1933-5, P.23) G. R. Sayer also said that: "The latter (barrack) is known for obvious reasons as West Point and is destined to provide the name Sai Ying Pun, the Western Encampment to a large district of the town." (Sayer, 1937, P.99) One way or the other, one thing is sure that the place name Sai Ying Pun was not provided by the British when they first arrived at Hong Kong in 1841. The reasons are not difficult to furnish. First, when the British first came to Hong Kong, they were not accustomed to naming the places in Chinese terms. For example, the British gave out names like Queenstown, East Point, Belcher's Bay. The British even cared to rename places like Shek Pai Wan as Aberdeen and Chek Chu as Stanley. There was no reason why the British had to name an area with only a few establishments as Sai Ying Pun. As a matter of fact, the British named the place West Point Barrack since the place was situated at the western extreme point of the British occupation at that time. Secondly, there are too many variations in the name Sai Ying Pun used by the British themselves to make us believe that the place was named by the British. If Sai Ying Pun is an original English place name, variation in the spelling of the words would not have existed. In early Government Gazettes, the place was called Sy-ing-poon. In an early city plan of Victoria, the district was named Sei Ying Poon. In G. R. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 66 to a site in central waterfront for a naval yard and a central location in the area adjoining Queen's Road and next to the Victoria Barracks for naval stores. Sai Ying Pun was very much deserted when R. Fortune revisited Hong Kong in December 1845. He said: "Before leaving China, I had occasion to visit this spot of ground, the grave of many a brave soldier. A fine road leading round the island ...passed through the place where they had been buried. Many of their coffins were exposed to vulgar gaze, and the bones of the poor fellows lay scattered about on the public highway. (Fortune 1845, P. 22. footnote) The malaria fever of 1843 has a great effect on the urban development of Sai Ying Pun. If the military authorities did not move out in those early years due to the fever, many areas in Sai Ying Pun at present might still be in the hands of the military and excluded from the sprawl of urban structures. Sai Ying Pun During the Late Nineteenth Century Sai Ying Pun was only a tiny settlement in the 1850s. According to the Government Gazette of 1 April 1854, Sai Ying Pun was classified as a small village with some isolated squatter huts in those years. It had only 83 people (64 adults and 19 children) in 1853. The general occupations of the inhabitants were said to be fishing, trade and agriculture. However Sai Ying Pun experienced a rapid growth rate. For example, in 1854 the population rose rapidly to a total of 266 people (248 adults and 18 children), a 220% growth over the previous year. In 1860 together with Staunton Street and Tai Ping Shan Street, Sai Ying Pun was laid out. In 1866 under the Victoria Registration Ordinance, Sai Ying Pun became part of or one of the districts of the city of Victoria. The most interesting feature of the layout plan of Sai Ying Pun is that the road pattern in the First, Second, Third and High Street areas had been planned! (Talbot, 1971, P. 59) Though the road pattern had been influenced by the presence of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 138 - 128 Englishman very good talkee; all heart bad, no talkee true - too much a proudy 134 Ar-r-raha steeley, arh steely-instremy - O yet, ivorie handley, I sarva; no have got proper, can have two, three day more - no can do so litty time - s'pose you cum two, three day, can do 136 Docker Pau, s'pose you likey, litty cumshaw my? 205 Boy, go catchee that paper he make a-read-pigeon. Boy, go catchee my glashee water. 213 Foreign man no can go inside too muchy long time. Have got Cheena custom, no can do. English have got custom Hong Kong, Cheenaman no can do. 214 Englishman can do that fashion. - can burn city, - can kill fifty tousand man, - marsa que,. Cheenaman go in country; but foreign man NO CAN GO INSIDE. 220 More better, makee-pay my littee wagey. 295 Hai-yar! Hai-yar! how can so fashion, that Englishman he too muchy fraid; hai-yar, he come back-side, that no fair fightee! 376 I have got one good friend, he have catchee too muchy sick. I chin-chin you I go see. He make a die. I no sarvy; he have catchee sick long time before. I come back morning time Spose you likee I chin-chin you too muchy, I go make a see. 387 Sposy you wanchee buy any cooyous thing-Cheena New Year can sell moor chip litty. O, that very chip jus now! That I thinkee can do leben dollar tree quart. Can do fife dollar; spose you likey, can makee loose pigeon litty; by'm by you takee care my. 387 Misser Dokker: I have go makee look that fas bote! That fas bote no good ting; more better you catchee stim bote. Jus now have got plenty tief mann! Cheena New Year have got too muchee bad mann! My one friend have go that fas bote; he have all a munny five huntry T ! ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 149 mentioned that incense trees in fung shui woods were ever harvested. Iu (1983) claims that the misunderstanding may have been caused by the reference to another incense producing species Aquilaria agallocha which was commonly grown in north Vietnam. Another resource, long since exhausted, were the forest trees used for charcoal burning, once a flourishing local industry all over the New Territories. The memory of this occupation remains in one of the place names at Shing Mun, known as Tan Chong or "charcoal factory”, in which some houses were already abandoned by the early years of this century (Hayes, 1983). An account of the charcoal industry, which was carried out by outsiders for trade, is given by Shen (1971). The village hill areas were the main suppliers of fuel, usually in the form of grass cut in autumn, but also as pine and brushwood gathered to augment a villager's income. Firewood was taken to market as it was one of the three basic staples, including rice and vegetables, that was required by the rapidly growing urban population. Firewood from Shatin was brought on foot to Kowloon (Sessional Papers 1903, p209) which list 66,521 loads of firewood, each of 90lbs. The Kowloon Lok Sin Tong levied a small weighing charge on each load of firewood sold in Kowloon City market, for charitable works. The annual output of one acre (0.4ha) was 11 piculs (640kg), (Hong Kong Annual Report 1938 p59). Gathering firewood was the main occupation of the village women. A typical headload would be in region of 90-100lbs (45kg) and would be collected twice a week, (Hayes, 1983). Firewood was used in earthenware stoves, known as "feng-lu", for cooking family meals and special food at festival times. Grass gathered from the hill side in autumn and the stalks from the first crop of rice were the universal fuel used for heating water and pigswill. Firewood was still being used up until 1964 in the urban encroached village of So Uk in west Kowloon for cooking at Chinese New Year, as it was better for baking (Hayes, 1983). When a bride came to live in her husband's village, the older women would show her those areas from which fuel could be gathered and those areas, usually the fung shui woods, where it could not be gathered. This information was often learned by means of a 12 line poem or song to name those areas where the young wife should not gather fuel. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g The Sixth, Liu Tsu (NL) and last Patriarch of the Ch'an sect of Chinese Buddhism lived during the 7th century AD and is best known by his name in religion, Hui Neng (E). He is commonly called Ch'an-tsung Liu Tsu Hui Neng (AE). Hui Neng studied under the Fifth Patriarch, Hung Jen, in Hupei province, was chosen by him to be his successor and, as the Buddhist Law was by that time well established in China, Liu Tsu did not feel the need to proclaim his successor, in particular. He founded the “Sudden Enlightenment School". He was born into the Lu family in Hsin-hsing county in Kuangtung province in 637. Stories are told about his upbringing in the province by poverty-stricken parents and as an illiterate youth his employment as a common labourer in the kitchen of the Fifth Patriarch. Also, whilst still a youth he amazed monks and nuns with his miraculous ability to understand the chanted sutras. In 676 he took holy orders in the Kuang-hsiao Ssu in Canton, the temple where Ta Mo had stayed on his arrival from India some 150 years earlier, and insisted on working in the fields until old age prevented it. He was a great proponent of the saying he first created "One day no work, one day no food". A special pagoda was erected in the grounds of the temple and the hair shaved from the head of Hui Neng was stored there as a relic. He died in 713 in the Kuo-en Monastery in Kuangtung where his corpse, which proved to be incorruptible, was enshrined. It was lacquered and looked for all the world as it did whilst still living. His mummified body is still kept in the Nan-hua Monastery, built by Hui Neng on Nan-hua mountain, a prime site some twenty miles from Shaoguan, north of Canton. The Ch'an cult developed in the Nan-hua Monastery. Liu Tsu has been adopted by Buddhists as the protective genius of the province of Kuangtung and was, for example, successfully prayed to for rain in 1900 during a prolonged drought. His image still stands in the temple of the Six Banyans in Canton city, and has been seen on altars in Cantonese communities in SE Asia and in Hong Kong and Macau, and also in one of Hong Kong's clan associations as the patron of the Lu clan, with his image amidst slips and tablets dedicated to the departed Lu's. The standard image of Liu Tsu, in the likeness of the mummified body, portrays him as an elderly monk, sitting cross-legged, head bent forward with his hands resting palms upward on his lap. In one or two images he is portrayed wearing the bodhisattva's five-leaf crown. One of the best-known Shekwan potters, Ch'en Wei-yen [18th century] had been ill for some time. His mother prayed to Liu Tsu and promised that ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g 219 would have been rakish nonentities in their home country, and it is incontestable that there was an element of 'keeping the numbers up' in the recruitment of British expatriates by the Hong Kong Government. James, though, was never to give anything less than a hundred per cent effort to his work and to Hong Kong in general. After a year's language training, he was posted to the Southern District Office as District Officer. His first assignment was to co-ordinate the clearing of villages soon to be immersed under the new Shek Pik Reservoir on Lantau Island. Thereafter he served with the Resettlement Department, the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, and the Commerce and Industry Department, in addition to his posts within the City & New Territories Administration. A notable posting was as Deputy Commissioner for Labour from 1982 to 1985. The apogee of his career was as Regional Secretary, New Territories, an area and whose inhabitants he had come to know and love. His postings are remarkable in that he spent almost all of his career outside the Government Secretariat, in contrast to the norm which is generally a mixture of work in the policy branches of government and, in James' words, 'key' departments. Generally, postings to the departments, other than to the most senior positions, are not sought after. This book will make a good, informative read for people with little knowledge of Hong Kong and its government. It is written in an informal, pleasant style and there is no impaling of former colleagues or slagging of the system, although James does start drifting towards a characterisation of the political reforms of the eighties towards the end of the book, the impression being that he was not entirely enamoured of the new scheme of things. For 'insiders', there are few surprises and the book is not, therefore, riveting, although it will bring back memories for some, though. Well done, James, a good addition to the shelves from a former leading civil servant. PETER HALLIDAY ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 Any learned society depends on an impressive programme which provides a stamp of learning and authority. Details of our past year's programmes are as follows. 1996 12 April 10 May 14 June 19 July 6 September 4 October 18 October 1 November 15 November 6 December Title "The Forbidden City: the Great Within,” by May Holdsworth and Caroline Courtauld "What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans make Sense of their Worlds," by Dr Gordon Matthews "Fung Shui in the New Age," by David Yung. "Chinese Export Ware for the Dutch Market," by Dr Christian Jorg "An Introduction to Tam Kung: the Hakka Boy Deity," by Geoffrey Roper and Dr Anthony Siu Kwok-keung "Tsuen Wan: from Hakka Enclave to Post Industrial City," by Dr Graham Johnson. "Textiles and Traditions of Laos," by Mary Connors "Hong Kong Heritage Trails," by ST Chiu "Second Thoughts on a Memoir," by Dr James Hayes. "Dr Aurelius Harland: Prominent Hong Kong Doctor 1843—1858," by Professor Harland. 1997 17 January "Food Dynamics: Family, Class and Chineseness in Hong Kong," by Cheng Sea-ling. xiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 4 + particular was expected to make in increasing contact between the city and the eastern New Territories: "The railway will bring the Territory into closer contact with Hong Kong and western ideas ... Country folk who used to require a full day to reach Hongkong can now go in and out and do their shopping in the day." It is, however, clear that the district officer considered that this development had not yet begun in any significant way at the date when he was writing. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the district officer felt that the broader picture in 1912 was of a generally unchanged traditional life: "A visitor to the Territory of 1899, upon returning in 1912, would find changes to remark in the outward appearance of the country, but he would not find the life or character of its inhabitants greatly altered... The domestic life of the villager does not differ much from that of Chinese in other parts of China, nor has it altered much during the few years of British occupation: if anything, it falls rather behind the general standard of freedom and enlightenment in the Canton Province.. even now the customs and habits of the people are probably little changed from what they were a hundred years ago.” The district officer feared that modernisation, when it came, would cause the inhabitants "to lose their simple old-fashioned virtues," But clearly he felt that this unwelcome development had yet to begin. In summary, therefore, the district officer's view was that the New Territories in 1912 were ripe for modernisation, but that this process had only just begun." By 1921 it is interesting to note that another well-informed European - the Census Officer - could still make very similar remarks: "The opening of the railway seems, contrary to expectations, to have produced little change", and the effect of the Government schools “is just becoming apparent *12 Thus, by 1911, the village society of the New Territories, while more prosperous than a decade or two earlier, and aware of, and at least partially receptive to, modern ideas, was still (other than for New Kowloon, the southern strip immediately around Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po) almost entirely traditional. The 1911 Census, therefore, took place in one of the last years in which the old, traditional society survived more or less unchanged. By 1921 that society was beginning ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 10 - extreme north of the island, are omitted. It seems likely that the populations of these villages most of which are rather small were combined with the populations of the nearest market, port, or major village. In most cases the market, port, or major village was where the police post was from which the census was being conducted. Thus, the populations of the missing villages are probably buried in the figures recorded for Tai O, Sheung Ling Pei, Shap Long, Cheung Chau, and Ma Wan. This is certainly what happened at Tsuen Wan and Kowloon City. In Tsuen Wan, populations are recorded only for Tsing Yi, Tsuen Wan, Ma Wan, Chai Wan Kok, and Kwai Chung.1 Clearly, all the Tsing Yi villages are lumped together, as are all the Kwai Chung villages. Equally clearly, the Tsuen Wan villages - with the odd exception of Chai Wan Kok - are combined in a single entry with Tsuen Wan Market. In Kowloon City district, none of the central Kowloon villages (i.e. the very important villages of Nga Tsin Wai and Po Kong and the smaller villages such as Chuk Yuen) are entered separately - their populations are, clearly, subsumed under the entry for Kowloon City.1 In part, the lack of detail in the Kowloon City census may be due to the heavy rain which interfered with the first attempt to hold it. Thus, when conducting detailed analyses of the tables of statistics in the 1911 Census, it is necessary to bear in mind that the populations recorded for the towns and major villages in the south of the New Territories are inflated to some degree, and their social characteristics are likely to be obscured, at least in part. The villages still existing on Hong Kong Island and Old Kowloon in 1911 are separately recorded. Po Toi Island is included under the Hong Kong villages.1 The process of holding the house-to-house enumerator visits lasted “a few days” on Lamma, and three months in the bigger districts.3 Assuming Lamma was completed in five days, and the largest districts (Au Tau, Sha Tau Kok, Ping Shan, and Sai Kung) required 50-60 working days, the average population enumerated each day varied between 143 and 181, with between one and four villages being dealt with each day.1 This is clearly not excessive, and, again, suggests that the statistics produced should be treated as reasonably accurate. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 ## Step 1: Understand the task The task is to proofread the given OCR output of a historical record related to Hong Kong, following specific rules to correct errors and format the text in Markdown. ## Step 2: Identify the content The given text appears to be a table or graph related to the 1911 Census data for the City of Victoria and Old Kowloon, showing population figures. ## Step 3: Apply Rule 1 - Do not add or remove any words The original text must be preserved word-for-word and line-for-line, except for corrections. ## Step 4: Apply Rule 2 - Correct spelling errors The text contains "કહુંૐ", which seems to be a non-English word or character and is likely an error or unrelated to the context. However, according to the rules, we should not remove or alter it unless it's a clear OCR error. ## Step 5: Apply Rule 3 - Fix spacing issues There are several spacing issues, such as "Scale A", "Scale. B", and "8 8 8" that need correction to "ScaleA" is not needed, but removing extra spaces is, e.g., "8 8 8" to "888". ## Step 6: Apply Rule 4 - Rejoin broken sentences There are no clear sentences broken across lines or columns that need rejoining. ## Step 7: Apply Rule 5 - Restore paragraph breaks The text does not clearly indicate merged or split paragraphs that need restoration. ## Step 8: Apply Rule 6 - Indicate missing words There are no clear indications of missing words due to OCR damage. ## Step 9: Apply Rule 7 - Do not rephrase or rewrite The text should not be rephrased or rewritten. ## Step 10: Apply Rule 8 - Format in Markdown The text should be formatted using standard Markdown syntax. ## Step 11: Apply Rule 10 - Format of File Reference Not applicable as there's no file reference in the given text. ## Step 12: Apply Rule 12 - Explanation No explanation should be left in the return. ## Step 13: Analyze the content for table reconstruction The given text seems to represent data that could be part of a table or graph, specifically related to population data from the 1911 Census. ## Step 14: Reconstruct the table To reconstruct the table, we need to identify the headers and the corresponding data. The text mentions "City of Victoria, Old Kowloon", "Males (Scale A)", "Male (Scale B)", "Females (Scale A)", and "Old Kowloon, Females (Scale B)", indicating different categories. ## Step 15: Format the data into a table Let's first clean up and understand the given data: - The numbers and labels suggest a graphical or tabular representation of population data. - "Scale A" and "Scale B" are used for different categories (Males and Females) in "City of Victoria" and "Old Kowloon". Given the complexity and the specific numbers, let's directly format the given text into a more readable Markdown table or structure, correcting spacing and other issues as we go. ## Step 16: Correct and format the text The original text is: ``` Scale A Table 10 1911 Census City of Victoria, Old Kowloon Land Population 6100 4800 4500 4200 3000 - City of Victoria, Males (Scale A) 3000 3300 Old Kowloon. 3000 Male (Scale B) # 2700 2400 2100 1500 4 Scale. B કહુંૐ 1000 1100 700 500 1800 City of Victoria, Females (Scale A) 500 1200 8 8 8 600 000 6 10 Old Kowloon, Females (Scale B) 16 20 26 30 35 40 45 50 55 00 70 75 80 400 300 200 100 29 ``` Let's correct spacing and format: ```markdown ### Table 10 #### 1911 Census | Category | Values | |---------------------------------|-----------------------| | Land Population | 6100, 4800, 4500, 4200, 3000 | | City of Victoria, Males (Scale A)| 3000, 3300 | | Old Kowloon, Male (Scale B) | 3000, 2700, 2400, 2100, 1500 | | | 1000, 1100, 700, 500, 1800 | | City of Victoria, Females (Scale A)| 500, 1200, 888, 600, 000, 6, 10 | | Old Kowloon, Females (Scale B) | 16, 20, 26, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 00, 70, 75, 80, 400, 300, 200, 100, 29 | ### Notes - "Scale. B" and "કહુંૐ" appear to be anomalies or unrelated to the numerical data presented. ``` However, directly converting the given text into a proper table or maintaining its original structure while correcting errors is the goal. The best answer is Scale A Table 10 1911 Census City of Victoria, Old Kowloon Land Population 6100 4800 4500 4200 3000 - City of Victoria, Males (Scale A) 3000 3300 Old Kowloon. 3000 Male (Scale B) # 2700 2400 2100 1500 4 Scale B કહુંૐ 1000 1100 700 500 1800 City of Victoria, Females (Scale A) 500 1200 888 600 000 6 10 Old Kowloon, Females (Scale B) 16 20 26 30 35 40 45 50 55 00 70 75 80 400 300 200 100 29 . ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 36 In 1921, 1,528 (36%) of the male boat-people in the islands were recorded as born outside the New Territories, and 893 (26%) of the females.7 Of the 1,528 males and 893 females born outside the New Territories, 444 males and 279 females were born in Hong Kong or Macao, 956 and 578 respectively in the Delta, and 101 and 10 in the Hoi Fung/Chiu Chau area. From every area from where people born outside the New Territories came, the number of recorded males was far higher than the number of females: there were 95 New Territories-born floating population females recorded for every 100 males, but only 50 Macao born females for every 100 males, 41 for every 100 San On-born males, 31 for every 100 Tung Kun males, and so on. In the recorded populations from some areas unmarried people greatly outnumber the married (i.e., 72% of the 316 males, and 54% of the 199 females from San Ning District were unmarried, and 74% of the 195 males and 62% of the 175 females from Heung Shan District), again making it clear that we are dealing with temporarily resident populations. The extreme disparity of the male female figures from the Hoi Fung / Chiu Chau area also suggests this; in this case, however, the number of married persons (51% of males, and 50% of females) suggests that many of those recorded had families in their home districts. Many of the people from this area were in the Southern District as seamen on board coastal cargo and large fishing junks. Thus the 1921 Southern District floating population records support the 1911 Southern District land population statistics to confirm that the Islands had an essentially urban population structure, dominated by significant numbers of temporarily resident immigrant groups, mostly young adult males, and that therefore the Islands population had much in common with the City, and was sharply distinct from the settled, agricultural, population of the Northern District. This is a finding which is confirmed by analysis of many other parts of the records of the censuses. The Villager's World Since most trade in traditional South China was by family owned and operated sampans and junks, the places where people found resident in the New Territories were born gives an indication of the area the traditional New Territories villager was in contact with. Table 13 shows this area. It shows the places (other than the New Territories themselves, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 37 and Hong Kong) where males found resident in the New Territories were born." Females are recorded in addition as born at Lung Chuen, Lo Ting, Ko Chau, and Lei Chau, but in each case only in ones and twos. It will be seen that the world of the New Territories villager was effectively bounded by the coastal strip, and the central, Delta, area of Kwangtung Province. The Islands were in contact with other ports from Chiu Chau to Lim Chau, but not much further. Neither the 1911 nor the 1921 Censuses refers to anyone born in Fukien, and there is only a single reference in 1921 to a man born in Vietnam. The coastal trade must have been essentially kept within the bounds of the province, although oral evidence mentions also traders from the very southernmost part of Fukien. At the same time, contact seems to have been close and easy with the Pearl River Delta area within 100 miles of the New Territories, but beyond 100 miles contacts were slight. Only one man is recorded from Ho Yuen, Ying Tak, and Yeung Kong. The three recorded in 1911 from Kwangsi fall into the same pattern, as also the single male recorded from Kiangsi in both Censuses. Above 100 miles from the New Territories, the only place with which the New Territories villagers were in significant contact was the Ka Ying area in the upper Han River valley, where the stonecutters and itinerant weavers came from, although oral evidence suggests that the villagers knew the name of the area, but not much more. It will be clear from Table 13 that the New Territories was in particularly close contact with a zone no more than about 50 miles wide, i.e., the districts of Kwai Shin (Wai Chau), San On (Po On), Tung Kun, Nam Hoi and Pun Yue (the Canton City and suburban districts), Heung Shan (Chung Shan), Shun Tak, and San Wui (Kongmoon). The villagers' contacts with Central and North China was almost non-existent. Many villagers emigrated for part of their life, but almost always without their families, and the contacts of the New Territories villagers with the wider world outside China is, as a consequence, understated in Table 13. The 1911 Census, however, mentions males born in Honolulu, the Philippines, and Malaya, and the 1921 Census adds individuals born in Japan, Italy, and USA. Probably, by 1911, the New Territories villager was more in contact ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 65 burners, who oral evidence suggests were common, are noted in the 1921 Census16 in Northern and 183 in Southern District, as also are the brick and tile makers, with 83 male and five female workers noted in Northern District in that year. The other traditional trades noted by the 1921 Census as present in numbers (vegetable oil pressers, shipbuilders, blacksmiths, carpenters) were mostly working within the market towns. In some places the “industrial” villages can be traced in the 1911 Census, even though the residents in them do not appear specifically in the "Occupations" Table. Thus, there was an area where incense wood was pounded into dust for manufacture into joss-sticks at Pak Kiu Tsuen outside Tai Po Market, and another at Tso Kung Tam outside Tsuen Wan. At the first, the census records the village of Wong Ka Uk, with 10 males but no females, and, at the second, the villages of Tso Kung Tam and Pak Shek Kiu, with 36 males and only nine females between them. These imbalanced populations strongly suggest that the villages in question were essentially industrial. Shek Tsai Po, outside Tai O - a centre for the drying of fish and the manufacture of shrimp paste - had a similarly imbalanced population of 71 males to 47 females. Villages next to important ferries - Liu Pok, Lo Wu, Yuen Chau Kok, Sha Kong, Ha Mei, Mui Wo - also tend to have recorded populations with more males than females, reflecting the boatmen and similar traders living at the ferry pier. Suburban industrial trades are probably the reason also why many of the villages on Hong Kong Island and the rural parts of Kowloon (especially Ma Kong, Chung Hom Kok, Lan Nai Wan, To Tei Wan, Tai Tam Tuk, Tong Po, Deep Water Bay, and the Quarry Bay villages on Hong Kong Island, and Ma Tau Kok, San Shan, Shek Shan, Lo Lung Hang, Wong Nai Yue, Fo Pang, Tai Shek Kwu, and Ho Man Tin in Kowloon)* show a significant excess of males over females. Suburban villages with significant excesses of males are also to be seen immediately outside most of the New Territories market towns in 1911. These villages had commercial market-gardens, industrial premises which required large areas (dyers, joss-stick makers, sawyers, etc.), and offensive trades (tanners, lime-burners, brick and tile works, etc.), and should be considered as part of the market town complex. The ring of villages with high male-female ratios around the city in 1911 should be seen in the same way, as subordinate to the commercial life of the City. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 72 Of course, in some cases the emigration was over a short distance, to the nearest market town. It is likely, as noted above, that the absent males of the Yuen Long plain villages were working in the Yuen Long markets, and possible that some at least of the Lam Tsuen males were in the Tai Po Market. Some Lamma villagers were probably working in Aberdeen, and from all over the New Territories there were villagers working in the city - so many that their return to the villages for the Ching Ming Festival in 1921 could bias the census in that year, as noted above. But much of the emigration, as the Basel missionaries, the temple donation tablets at Shan Tsui and Tsuen Wan, and oral evidence, all make clear, was to overseas. The implications of villages with surplus males are less easy to identify (see Appendix II and Table 32; these identify villages with more than 56% recorded males in their populations: villages with fewer than 35 total population are excluded, except where the surplus of males is extreme). In many cases, just as the villages with low male female ratios identify villages with significant temporary male emigration, so villages with high male: female ratios identify places with temporary male immigration. One group already discussed which stands out is the market towns, almost all of which have high male: female ratios. Nearly 82% of the recorded population of Yuen Long market was male, and almost 80% of that of Tai Po new market (Tai Wo Shi). Even Shek Wu Hui, Ha Tsuen and Tuen Mun San Hui had over two-thirds of their tiny populations male (Table 28). These figures need to be put into perspective. In 1911, within the City of Victoria (i.e., omitting the Peak and the Hong Kong Island villages) there were 151,303 males out of a total Chinese population of 217,668. Males represented, therefore, 69.5% of the total Chinese population.1 Thus, the male domination of the larger New Territories market towns was significantly more substantial in 1911 than that of the city, and even the smaller New Territories markets had at least as high a level of male domination. The only exceptions to this are Cheung Chau, and Tai O, in Southern District. While these towns have more males than females, the imbalance is less than in the Northern District towns or the city: however, it seems likely that small rural populations are included with those towns, and that this causes distortion in these cases. Most of the New Territories towns also, as noted above, had suburban villages which shared the male domination of the town itself. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 73 The Basel missionaries make it clear that this feature of domination of the local market towns by males whose families remained resident in the village was normal in the mid-nineteenth century. In their description of Sha Tau Kok Market, from 1853, they say: The owners of these shops and stalls [in Sha Tau Kok Market] do not live in the town, but in neighbouring villages, and only come here for business and trade, or have it conducted by a substitute/manager. 102 Clearly, male-dominated towns, with shopkeepers living apart from their families in the village, are a long-standing feature of the region. The practice of young men leaving their villages for temporary residence in a town was, therefore, not a new one in the early twentieth century. The society, heavily dominated by temporarily resident young adult males, that sprang up in the city in the early decades after the foundation of Hong Kong as a port, was not either novel or a reaction to the foreign nature of the city, but was a practice with deep local roots. Obviously, the men in the market towns would often have their families within a half-day's walk away, while the city was, for most of them, more distant, but the essential factor in both cases is a widespread social acceptance of young villagers temporarily leaving home to seek fortunes away from their native village. The close link between market towns and high male:female ratios is sufficiently strong to allow this factor to be used to differentiate between towns in being, and towns not yet established. Tap Mun's 66.4% males, for instance, differentiates it from Kat O, with its 54.5%. Similarly, Ha Tsuen's 67.4% males differentiates it from Kam Tin, with no significant village higher than 55%. Kat O and Kam Tin may well have had small periodic markets in 1911, and perhaps one or two shops, but they were not yet towns. Hang Hau's 67.9% of males also marks it as a town in being in 1911. Another clearly differentiated group, again as noted above, was the specialist industrial villages, although in them, usually, the male-female ratio, while high, was less than that in the market towns (this does not hold true for the industrial villages ringing the City, as perhaps is not to be considered surprising, and also does not hold true for villages with quarries). Ferry villages, and suburban villages outside ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 85 X "J Administrative Reports for the Year 1913, pages N13-17, 1914, pages N12-N13, 1915, pages O18-O19, 1916, pages 15-06-1917 page 07-1918, page 09, 1919, page O10, 1920, pages O15, O21, O29-O30, 1927, pages O17-4, O16, O22-O23, O33-O34. Scholarships were offered from these aided village schools to the Government schools in the New Territories, and from the Government schools in the New Territories to those in the City, although very few were taken up in the first few years. See RJ Phillips, Kowloon-Canton Railway (British Section). A History, (Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1990), and Administrative Reports for the Year 1910, page R6, 1911, page R1. In 1911, the Sha Tau Kok light railway was opened only as far as Shek Chung Au. The extension of the light railway to Sha Tau Kok came in 1912. Administrative Reports for the Year 1910, pages P34-35, 1911, pages P40-41, 1912, page P51, 1913, pages 186-88, 1914, page P85-86, 1915, pages Q94-96, 1916, pages Q77-78, 1917, pages Q88-90, 1918, pages Q81-85, 1919, pages Q53-55, 1920, pages Q64-65, and 1927, pages Q77-78. A programme to build 6 to 8 feet wide footpaths/bridle paths had been begun in the New Territories in 1899. The footpath from Kowloon to Tai Po was completed in 1902, and that from Castle Peak Bay to Au Tau in 1911. The section from Au Tau to Fanling was completed (except for the bridge at Au Tau) by the end of 1914. No path was built between Castle Peak Bay and Sham Shui Po, or between Tai Po and Fanling in this period. This footpath construction programme does not seem to have affected traditional village life significantly, although the District Officer felt the new footpaths had made the work of patrolling and administering the New Territories easier. However, the only specific use the District Office noted for the new footpaths, other than by Government officials, was by cattle drivers sending animals to the City for slaughter. The footpaths were "justified by administrative and military needs” (the Orme Report, pages 30, 32-33, 36). The New Territories circular road was an upgrading of these earlier footpaths, where they existed, but included new construction where the earlier footpaths were lacking. Papers Land Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1899 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers), printed by Noronha and Co., Government Printers, Hong Kong, No. 9, "Extracts From Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong, Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor. Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong," p. 187, remarks that, in 1899, the steamers from Hong Kong to Macao called intermittently at Cheung Chau. The Orme Report, op. cit., mentions that steam ferries from Cheung Chau used to carry the fish catch to Hong Kong early in the morning (para 65). See also Administrative Reports for the Year 1913, page J12, 1915, page J9, 1916, page J12, 1919, page J12, 1922, page J12. 1 Including the choice of Cheung Chau as a place to spend weekends and the summer by numbers of European families, mostly missionaries from Canton. This began in a very small way in 1912, but only became a major feature from 1918. In 1919, a “European reservation” was formed, and a small year-round resident European community with an Assembly Hall and a 10-hole golf-course had become established by 1921. Administrative Reports for the Year 1912, page J13, 1914, page J11, 1915, page J10, 1917, page J11, 1918, page J11, 1920, page J12, 1921, page J13. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 126 47 form of incense ashes rather than tablets suggests that the ancestor halls did not use tablets to represent ancestors individually. It is also found in the Yingsheng ("Reception of the Holy") dedicated to the main honoured gods during the Jiao festivals, and the Yingshen Guiwei ("Escorting gods to their places") during the Hongchao festival of Fanling, both conducted by Cantonese Daoist priests in the New Territories. An elder of Kam Tin compared the Yingsheng ritual with the ancestral hall ritual found in the Qingle ancestral hall of Kam Tin, to which I shall refer below. I am not sure if a cloth “bridge” is used in this ancestral hall ceremony. Op cit pp 142-144. In a recent visit to Cheng Tau, a woman in her 60s referred to the ancestral hall as a-gong ha ("the Place of Ancestors"), which seems to have been the more usual expression for ancestral halls among the Hakka. Compare the expression with Bak-gong ha ('the Place of the Bak-gong earth god'). It is interesting that the title of this category of earth god, whose territory is more limited than the dawang, shares the expression for "elder brother of grandfather". ibid p. 224 » 10 174 ibid p 160 Discussion of this aspect of ancestral worship is summarized in C Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, The University Press of Hawaii, 1981, pp 92-93, 115 n 1, 116 n 2. A possible example is the case of Wo Hang, N. T. where an ancestral hall of the second fang houses the spirit tablets of the first and second generation. See Allen John Lueck, Lun Chun, Land is to live: A study of the concept of isu in a Hakka Chinese village, New Territories, Hong Kong, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985, p 273. Compare H G H Nelson, "Ancestor Worship and Burial Practices", in Arthur P. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 263-267, on the shen-ting which fulfilled the functions of domestic altars for the households in each area” in a Cantonese village in the New Territories. He observes that the shenting "occupy a place half way between [tang ancestral halls] and domestic altars”. Vol under Donga jie ("Winter festival") TON Op cit. pp 147-148 Op cit. p 12 Op cit. p 176 100 It is interesting to note the distribution and context of Mountain Songs. It is interesting to note that Mountain Songs were sung only by the male villagers (in some festivals with women hired from other villages) in the Cantonese villages whose dialect is known to others as daaih ga wo ("big family language"), and which correspond to the area of the five big clans. In some of the other Cantonese villages, e.g. in Shatin and Saikung, Mountain Songs were sung by the women on the eve before a wedding at the bride's home. Mountain Songs, and related pre-marital courtship, was more popular among some female Cantonese villagers in the Kowloon area who cut grasses for sale as fuel. The livelihood of these women, like that of the Hakka immigrants, depended more on the city. I know much less ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 181 per-muing hia-pren, diffighi Vol 2 (Hong Kong Urban Council. 1986), pp. 395-402 * Interview of Lo Ch`uan, op cat Jun 22 1991 46 Interviews La P'o † # (surname Ho, age 70+), Ma Wan Chung, Jun 30, 1991, Ch'en Kuang-sheng P4144 (age 63) Fishermen's Village. Jul 8,1991 & by telephone, Aug 1,1991, 20 Mall, op cit 1 Anthony KK Sau “Distribution of Temples on Lantan Island as Recorded in 1979.** JHKBRAS, Vol 20(1980), p 138 ** Ch^en Po-Cao BR1MB "Touwang ku-mao sheng-shih per-chu,” (Kowloon: n.p., 1917) the Flouwang Temple Kowloon City For different opinions on the Houwang's identity, see Hsiao Kuo-chuen "Hstang-kang Hou-lung so ssu-feng chih 'Yang-hou-ta-wang' k'ao,” in Hstang-kang ch'inh-tai-shih huu-chu (Taipei: Taiwan Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1985), pp 307, 313, Jao Tsung-yı "Yang-1'ai-hou chia-chih yu Chit-lung Yang-Houwang miao,' in Chu-hung vu Sung-chi shuh-hao (Hong Kong: Wan-yu t'u-shu kungssa, 1959), pp 84--92 * Ronald Ng. "Culture and Society of a Hakka Community on Lantau Island,” in I_C Jarvie, ed, A Society in Fransition. Contributions to the Study of Hong Kong Society (London: Butler & Tanmer Lid. 1969), pp. 55, 62 40 According to an interview at the Tung Chung Public School, Jun 24,1991, see also interviews. La P'o †% (age 63), upper Ling Per, Jun 15, 1991, Cheng Man-hung, op cit 1 5? Interview of 11 Chii-sheng PL/ (age_73), Lam Che. Jun 18,1991 * Interview of M. Huang (age 76), Wong Ka Wai, Jun 25, 1991 Brim, op eit, p. 100, N 10 ** Interview of Cheng Man-hung, op uit, upper Ling Per Aug. 11. 1991 Ho, op ett. p 13 Flayes, 1967, op eit, p 91 * Ho, op. cit, p9 5 lbid. p 13 * Brum op eit,p/103 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 216 If Generalissmo Sun can give us, the renmin [the people], supervisory power [over the government], we the people will maintain the situation. After all, all the generalissmo needs is just several millions. Anticipating Sun's return to power in 1923, the Siyi men from Hong Kong announced that they could raise several billion dollars for the new government if the following two conditions were granted: 1. Every one dollar lent to Sun should be paid back by two dollars. The financial departments of the Canton government were to be managed by the Siyi companies. 2. The Siyi men should have a say over the appointment of the future Provincial Governor of Guangdong. Desperate for money, Sun accepted these conditions. Having resumed his power in Canton, Sun fulfilled his promises by giving the important posts of Provincial Governor, Ministry of Finance, and Commissioner of Salt Transport to the Siyi men. Under these Siyi men, a Guangzhou Guanchan Gengjiju, literally, the Guangzhou Registration Bureau for Government Properties, was established for the registration of immovable properties in Canton City. Accordingly, all properties controlled by lineage, temple, and guild hall were declared public properties until "red deeds" (land deeds issued by the Qing government) were produced. Financial rewards were given to those who reported to the Office any unknown Guanchan (government property) or Gongchan (public property) kept in private hands. Under the pretext of land classification and deed examination, thousands of sites and buildings held by private hands were confiscated and sold under the office of Guangdongsheng Guanchan Qinglichu (**Guangdong Province Government Property Clearance Office**), literally, the Guangzhou Government Property Clearance Office under the control of a Siyi director. The major duty was to sell "public property" and "government property" in Canton to private owners. By subjecting everything to inspection and registration and requiring heavy fees on every act, at least $120,000,000 was collected by the Municipal Government. From 1923 to 1925, every tax rate in Guangdong was doubled and some quadrupled, besides already having the addition of hundreds of new imposts. The China ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 239 SUPPLICATING THE DEITIES IN MAINLAND CHINA'S TEMPLES KEITH STEVENS It was interesting to note that in recently rebuilt or refurbished Buddhist and Taoist temples in Shanghai city there was no evidence of fortune sticks and blocks or of any equipment such as sand tables used for spirit communication. Temple keepers when questioned about it were quite clear. It was forbidden as superstition [mi-hsin]. In retrospect I have now noted a similar absence of spirit communication paraphernalia on altars on photographs taken in other cities and even in the countryside which I had overlooked during my visits. It would appear that devotees in mainland China are permitted to offer incense and oil for the ever-burning lamp, and in some areas they also can burn charm papers before the images of the deities after which they can, orally, though virtually silently, put their pleas and offer prayers to the deity. However, in Shanghai at least, they were not, under any circumstances, able to obtain the immediate response which is the practice in Taiwan, Hong Kong, SE Asia and formerly, in China itself. They have to wait for their wishes to be responded to positively, or otherwise, by the deity. One of the temple keepers added that, as he understood it, 'this was the foreign method of worship'. It must be added that outside mainland China possibly the prime reason why many devotees ever visit a temple is to obtain an immediate assurance and response to a question or problem which is worrying them. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 241 DISTRIBUTION OF TEMPLES ON HONG KONG ISLAND AS RECORDED IN 1981 ANTHONY SIU KWOK KIN Hong Kong Island lies to the south of mainland China. It was not known until the later part of the Ming Dynasty, when the names of Heong Kong 香港, Tit Hang 鐡坑, Chung Hum 舂磴, Chek Chu 赤柱, Tai Tam, Shoo-ke-wan (Shau Kei Wan) and Wong Nei Chung were recorded in the book called Yuet Tai Kee. During the 1st year of the Kang Hsi reign of the Ching Dynasty (1661), the people living in the coastal area had to move back to the inland.2 Seven years later, in the 8th year of the Kang Hsi reign (1669), they were allowed to come back. At that time, only the villages of Heong Kong (Hong Kong village or Shek Pei Wan Village) and Wong Nei Chung were rebuilt. However, the other villages were abandoned during the Coastal Evacuation. Then in the Chia Ching reign (1796-1820), two more villages were founded: they were the Pok Fu Lam Village and the So Kon Po Village. From then on, the population increased rapidly, with people flocking to the area. In 1841, Hong Kong Island came under British rule. At that time, there were the villages of Chek Chu (Stanley), Heong Kong (Hong Kong Village), Wong Nei Chung, Kung Lam (A Kung Ngam), Shek Lup (Shek O), Shoo-ke-wan (Shau Kei Wan), Ta Shek-ha, Kwan-tai-loo (Victoria City, or Central), Soo-Kon-poo (So Kon Po), Hung-heong-loo (Causeway Bay), Sai Wan (Chai Wan), Tai Long, Too-te-wan (To Tei Wan), Tai Tam and Shek-tong-chui (Sai Ying Pun). Tseen Sui Wan (Repulse Bay), Sum Wan (Deep Water Bay) and Shek-pac (Shek Pei Wan) were deserted fishing hamlets. Since then many local temples were built and repaired. The temples listed below are in existence in 1981. Though some are ruined, we can still get information about their previous existence. Tin Hau Temple 1. Causeway Bay Built in the early Ching period, repaired in 1848, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 Publications Over the year Peter Halliday, our Honorary Editor, has continued to make progress. During 1997-8, volumes 34 (1994) and 35 (1995) of our Journals have been published. It means if two more Journals can be published over the coming year we have caught up with what was a sizeable backlog. In addition, after special software was prepared by staff at the City Hall Library, Dr Lauren Pfister and his assistants, at the Baptist University, have started work preparing a comprehensive index for all our journals. We are grateful to all of them. Meanwhile, Dr Patrick Hase has put in considerable time and effort editing chapters submitted by a small number of RAS members complemented by photographs taken by members of the Cathay Camera Club. After Brian Pierce left Hong Kong the leadership of the photographic team for our project was taken over by Charles Slater. The role has now been filled by Ian Masterton. Again we thank everyone for all they have done. Our new book, about Yau Ma Tei which should come out in mid 1998 will form a companion volume to Beyond the Metropolis: Villages in Hong Kong which we published in late 1995. Our Branch has a large collection of photographs and we are grateful to Tim Ko for working his way through these with the possibility of publishing a selection of them at some stage in the future. Efforts were made during the year to increase sales of our publications. We have already started targeting academic institutions in North America and community and school libraries in Hong Kong. Our Newsletter continues to be an important link between the Council and Branch members. We have to thank Claire Hockaday, Sarah Parnell and Geoffrey Roper for preparing this Newsletter, over the past year, which is gradually increasing in size. Our Branch has a number of members among its ranks who are authors and this year, again, some of them have published. Details of these publications have appeared in our Newsletter. We are now prepared to accept advertisements in our Newsletter from outsiders and a schedule of charges has been drawn up. xiv Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 Let me give you an idea of the amount of work involved. Over the past year we have corresponded or had links with something like 50 institutions in Hong Kong and around the world, in addition to writing or contacting countless individuals. In many cases institutions or people undertaking research write to our Branch for information about Hong Kong history or other aspects of Hong Kong life. Academics and students not infrequently contact the Branch seeking advice and information. Venues Our lectures are normally jointly organised by our Branch and the Urban Council. Such functions are usually held in the City Hall. We are grateful for this assistance. Similarly, our Council and committee meetings are usually held in the offices of Price Waterhouse and again a sincere 'thank you' is due. Overseas Our Branch has 110 members living overseas and, as one goes through name lists, one often recalls faces of old friends who were active with the RAS in the Hong Kong of days gone by. The older you get the more you like to 'tell it like it was' and it is not surprising many of those now retired overseas still think fondly of the years they spent in the Territory. Last August Keith Stevens came up with the idea of forming a 'Friends of the RASHKB in Britain' Group and for it to meet a couple of times a year, or so, over a Chinese meal, and to have a lecture about Hong Kong or some similar function. Arrangements have been made for the Group to meet possibly either at the RAS Headquarters in London or at Saint Anthony's College Oxford. Details are still being worked out. Similarly, Dr James Hayes and our Branch are now considering setting up a similar Group in Australia provided sufficient support is forthcoming. xix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT As of 15 March 1998, the library collection had increased to 3,429 volumes. A total of 240 volumes were added during the year. There was a reduction of books purchased by Dr. James Hayes from Australia. However, a large donation was received from the Command Library (British Armed Forces Library), amounting to around 60 books. Most of these books are about Hong Kong, China and Southeast Asia. Donations of books were also received from Dr. Gillian Bickley, Dr. James Hayes, Dr. Li Shu-fan, Mrs. Patricia Lim, Mr. Liang Xi-hua, Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, Dr. Anthony Siu, and The Hong Kong Archaeology Society. Members of the Royal Asiatic Society visited the Hong Kong Collection of the University of Hong Kong Libraries together with the Hong Kong University Museum on 22 November 1997. The comprehensive collection of books, records, newspapers, microfilms and other documents is renowned as the best collection relating to Hong Kong in the territory. The group was given a guided tour by the curator of the Special Collections, Mr Y.C. Wan. Mr. Wan also gave a brief history of the unique collections in the Rare Book Room. Members were particularly interested in the antique maps of Hong Kong and China. To help publicise and promote the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, as part of the University of Hong Kong Libraries' digital project, it was suggested that selected articles of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society could be mounted on the HKU Libraries web server for wider access. The proposal is still under consideration because of copyright concern. Consent of the authors is required to launch the project. As of November 1997, the RAS Collection is available for searching on the Internet (http://www.uc.gov.hk/ucpl) via the On-line Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) of the Provisional Urban Council Public Libraries. Users may search the catalogue by author, title, subject, and/or keywords. The RAS collection is one of the special collections in the City Hall Library. xxxiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 A Reference Collection of pre-1900 materials has been set up in the RAS Collection at the City Hall Public Library. For security of these rare and valuable items which might be difficult to replace, members are requested to use them inside the Library. For those who are concerned with space problems, there will be a delay in the opening of the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace, because of the controversial issue of architectural design. The building will still be ready in 1999 but will not be open for use until the middle of the year 2000. Usage of the RAS collection has increased substantially over the past year. As reported by the City Hall Library Office, usage of the RAS Library for the period from April 1997 to 15 March 1998 is as follows: No. of reference enquiries 182 No. of books consulted 385 No. of borrowers 183 No. of books loaned out 99 Julia Chan Hon. Librarian 15 March 1998 xxxiv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 4 aloof on his return. The present writer can vouch for his active approval of an African-inspired experiment whereby departmental administrative officers in the urban areas would collect and transmit upwards a monthly 'intelligence digest' of local opinion, morale and responses to government action or inaction, and of attitudes to prominent local figures and to Chinese or foreign affairs: this was meant to supplement what was collected in their own specialist manners by the HK Police Special Branch (SB), the New Territories Administration (NTA), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)'s Political Adviser (PA) and the Security Liaison Officer (SLO). Some of what was collected may have been too near the knuckle, some was rather too easily discounted as mere "gossip," important though that might be as a reflection of influential belief at the grass roots, and some may have hurt the dignity of those who had the existing duty of intelligence-gathering. The governor was persuaded to drop the experiment as proving trivial. But Trench also showed interest in another interloping proposal that, in the absence of any generalist government institutions to supplement the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (SCA)'s advisory staff (who liaised with the various kai fong (Neighbourhood) Welfare Associations, Clansmens' Associations and Residents' Associations, which were often self-perpetuating), District Officers (DOs) should be appointed in the urban areas; these should have certain executive functions, fewer than those of their colleagues in the New Territories so as not to encroach on the licensing prerogatives of the Urban Council, but sufficient to ensure that all should know of their existence and, above all, of where their offices were. Primarily they should oversee and co-ordinate the activities of the various professional and technical departments in their bailiwicks, but also, like paternalistic mandarins, inquire into, report upon and seek answers to the needs and concerns of the inhabitants. This suggestion was effectively smothered by a DCS who was unable to understand what such DOs might achieve in a city that existing institutions did not already adequately do: the concept of such junior, peripheral, government officers being responsive to people, as opposed to being mere executive agents responsible for essential infrastructural public services, was alien. Apart from the SCA's and District Commissioner New Territories (DCNT)'s contacts with often self-appointed élites, there was little by way of direct exchange with the man in the street: the same DCS once said, "Government must, of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 8 over on to Hong Kong's streets. It may be remembered that at this time the population was 3.85 millions, and was expected to reach 7 millions by 1986. The report opened with an assurance that examination of local government varieties elsewhere had produced no models to which Hong Kong might be expected closely to conform, but expressed an awareness that there was a local ignorance of the principles and practice of local administration, in any form. This they defined as embracing those services and that responsibility which met the needs of individual localities, as opposed to the population as a whole. They also differentiated between the formulation of policy on the one hand, 'national' responsibilities and services best undertaken on a colony-wide basis, and control and execution, where localised interests had special importance, on the other. They particularly emphasised the need for willing delegation by the existing Colonial Secretariat and Departments, and the subsequent treatment of delegates as full partners in joint ideals and purposes. This could not, they all knew, be taken for granted. After a tour d'horizon of centralised and decentralised forms of government around the world, including the CPR's party pyramid, and an examination of Hong Kong's statutory and traditional institutions, the report pointed to the disparities the working party had found in the latter; but also to the irrelevance of many of these to the New Towns which were just beginning to raise their skylines. It also quoted with modified respect some colourful extracts from the records of Mencius, Confucius and Moh Tze on the poetically ideal Chinese view of the relationship between government and people, which had been submitted by a future Chief Secretary who was serving as a DO in the NT; but it recognised that the world had changed since the time of the Classics, that the dominance of the English language presented problems, and that corruption was fertilised by inefficiency and distrust. The report concluded that, if the support of local residents was assured ('it is men, not buildings, which make a city'—persons of goodwill, common-sense and public spirit), a new system must achieve: (a) the provision of the greatest possible amount of popular participation; ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 the Social Welfare Department), co-ordinated by regional generalist officers comparable with NT DOs, leading to advisory Regional Councils which might eventually become the main report's Local Authorities. They pointed up more outspokenly than the emollient main report the shortcomings of an out-of-touch government administering a non-English-speaking population that was only too open to misunderstandings and misconceptions (such as that taxes levied were drained off to the UK Treasury.) Interim steps should concentrate strongly on building up public confidence in the unaccustomed principles and practice of popular elected representation (the ‘political education' mentioned above.) The provisional system of regional advisory councils, coupled with departmental decentralisation and administrative co-ordination, should then lead to full local authorities in about six years. Meanwhile Tsuen Wan was indeed a unique opportunity for immediate action (the new towns to come of Tuen Mun, Sha Tin, Tai Po et al had yet to be envisaged.) These three semi-dissenters did not co-ordinate their Note with the other. Dickinson has been described by one of his working party as “the least understood and worst treated member of the Cadet Service" (the original title of Hong Kong's Administrative Branch of the HMOCS, which survived in common parlance long after the absorption into the Colonial Service of the pre-war Eastern Cadetships.) He chose to retire early for personal reasons. It is ironic that in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution overspill, when special duties officers in the defence branch of the secretariat, the SCA and the Information Services Department became so active in devising new ways to win hearts and minds, to keep in touch with the people and to encourage the use of Chinese language, so much of what had been adumbrated in the Working Party Report re-appeared; but because the new ideas now came from well-established senior sources, they became respectable and it was to be long before they offered electoral participation in executive decisions. The SCA became the Secretariat for Home Affairs; City District Officers were created in ten urban districts, and found much to do that had not been done before; City District Committees were established in 1972; a Tsuen Wan District Advisory Board was at last set up in 1977, followed by others; in 1980 a new pattern for district administration was at last suggested, with direct elections to District Boards. But in all these and still later developments that affect present history, there was no official backward recognition that the ground ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 68 Pangs for achieving the common goals mentioned before. Their adaptation to spatial changes associated with the redefinition of the transfer practice of property delineates succinctly how traditional identity is strategically preserved and reinforced when the local society has been experiencing modernisation and industrialisation from the late 1970s on. A New Type of Village House Emerged: Ding Wu Since 1972, the government has introduced a new housing policy—the Small House Policy—which allows every New Territories indigenous inhabitant to build a village house of 700 square feet covered area and 25 feet in height. The timing of the introduction of this housing policy coincided with that of the ten-year housing program in Hong Kong, which the government anticipated would be able to provide accommodation for 1.8 million Hong Kong people within ten years, aiming at improving the overcrowded urban living conditions. Since this housing program mainly favoured the city dwellers, the Small House Policy was, as scholars argue, intended to improve the New Territories indigenous inhabitants' housing conditions. A male indigenous inhabitant aged over eighteen can apply for building a ding wu. They can build houses by converting their agricultural land into building land without premium or purchasing government land at a concessionary price. In 1978 the Pangs successfully built a total of fourteen ding wu. From 1979 to 1982, they built twelve more. All were built on the outskirts of the village territory, and the building lands included both private land and Crown land. The total construction costs of a house were around a hundred thousand dollars, and at that time only a limited number of the Pangs could afford the costs. 18 There has been no deadline to hand in an application, but the Pangs usually do it at the age of eighteen. Applications have been gradually increasing from the 1980s on, and it has to do with the government's resumption of their lands for development. In the late 1970s, the government started to develop Fanling and Sheung Shui into a new town, of about 780 hectares, to accommodate a population of 226,000; and On Lok Tsuen in Fanling (about ten minutes' walk away from Fanling Wai) was designated to be an industrial site. For this ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 82 two long roughly-hewn granite slabs. Near villages adjacent to the sea stone jetties were built, the largest almost certainly being that at Kowloon City with its 21 spans, each with five longitudinal slabs supported on granite piers, which was completed in 1875 with a wooden extension added in 1892, and connected to the older Walled City by a wide road. Reclamations were formed, for example, at Sha Tau Kok, Nam Chung and Luk Keng (near Starling Inlet), Shuen Wan and Yuen Long. These were sited on the tidal flats behind rock/mud/stick bunds located at low water level, and incorporated horizontal timber plank sluice gates. It took seven years for the salt to leach out of the sea bed with quarterly flushings before the land could be put to agricultural use. Irrigation schemes were constructed throughout the rural areas involving construction of temporary dams across streams, simple pedal-operated wooden paddle-belt machines for raising water (usually around a metre), small bunds, catchwater channels and even bamboo pipe-aqueducts to cross low-lying ground. To provide power for traditional village industries, wooden water-wheels were installed adjacent to streams. Harbour Works On the signing of the Convention of Chuen-pi in 1841, Captain Belcher of HMS Sulphur undertook a hydrographic survey of Hong Kong Island and the surrounding waters with separate scales indicating sea miles and cables, statute miles and furlongs, and yards. The chart's emphasis was on water depths in fathoms, rocks and coastlines with the general shape of the hills and prominent landmarks shown only for navigational purposes. As the years passed, the benefits of Hong Kong's natural deepwater harbour were exploited and, by the turn of the century, some 40% of China's foreign trade was passing through Hong Kong which had by this time become one of the world's principal ports with its fine dockyards and excellent workforce devoted to shipbuilding and repairing - indeed "a sort of Far Eastern Marine Clapham Junction”. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 86 Reclamation Victoria Harbour, the raison d'etre for Hong Kong's foundation, formed the focal point around which the new settlers clustered and around which the banks, business houses, the shipyards and, later, commercial factories were built. Hemmed in by hills both to the north and the south, the population around the harbour became concentrated on the limited flat or less steeply sloping land available along the coast. Expansion was only possible by reclamation into the sea (and later by higher buildings), spoil being obtained from nearby hills thus providing additional building land. Until the advent of motor vehicles, reclamations were unable to benefit from more remote fill sources, like the Peak where site development necessitated balanced cut and fill. In all several hundred hectares of land were reclaimed in the hundred years up to 1941 (compared with many thousands in the 50 years following). Some of the people who were lucky enough to lease the first lots of land fronting on the sea, which had been auctioned in 1841, extended their lots by illicit reclamation over the foreshore absorbing such land as could easily be reclaimed, a procedure which was soon forbidden. Quite early, probably in 1842-3, some valuable land was reclaimed in Victoria, part of which was subsequently occupied by the Hong Kong Cricket Club (now Chater Garden). The first formal praya (waterfront) reclamation scheme was partly carried out in 1851, by the filling of a small creek in the Bonham Strand area, but as might be expected it aroused stiff opposition from affected lessees who claimed marine rights. This, compounded by the destruction of part of the original praya wall by severe typhoons in 1867 and 1874, delayed matters but, despite these problems, by 1886 an 8km-long near-continuous strip of land (the major discontinuance being the section adjacent to the naval and military areas), perhaps broadly averaging around 100m wide was formed between Kennedy Town and North Point, the seawalls providing much needed access for handling marine cargo. In 1887 further reclamation was recommended to alleviate overcrowding in the city. As a result, the Praya Reclamation Ordinance was gazetted in 1890 and a year later Paul Chater (later Sir Paul) initiated a band of reclamation, totalling 26 hectares and extending three kilometres westward from Murray Road along the northern foreshore. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 90 water with a swinging or lifting central span. Nevertheless, the scheme was not proceeded with, and Hong Kong had to wait another 70 years before a fixed cross-harbour connection was constructed. The main road network in Kowloon continued to expand, with Sham Shui Po being linked to the then-existing road system in 1916 with a 6m-wide, 700m-long road, part of which was formed on a 3.4m-high embankment. The first section of Waterloo Road, Argyle Street, and much of Prince Edward Road were completed by 1924. At this time, Nathan Road had already been extended by Coronation Road (later also part of Nathan Road) nearly up to the old international boundary. By the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, part of Kowloon Tong, then a garden city, was developed to the west of Waterloo Road together with an adjoining section of Boundary Street, and extensive additions were made to the subsidiary road networks, in particular, in the Mong Kok, Sham Shui Po, and To Kwa Wan districts. When the New Territories was leased in 1898, it was a quiet rural area with a scattering of small market and fishing towns which depended on a network of footpaths and ferries for access. Shortly afterwards, a good deal of road construction was begun, partly for military and civil governmental purposes, and partly to enable farmers to bring their produce more easily to the urban areas. The first section of the New Territories ring road, that from Kowloon to the administrative centre Tai Po, comprised a 4.3m-wide carriageway following the zig-zag course of the old footpath and was completed in 1900. Au Tau creek was bridged in 1916 with an 11-span, 95m-long reinforced concrete structure supported on hollow 340mm concrete box piles, where previously a local punt service was available, to join the 6m-wide stretches of road from Fan Ling and Castle Peak (Tuen Mun). Two years later, the coastal road from Sham Shui Po to Castle Peak was started, which at the time was aptly considered to be Hong Kong's La corniche, and, in 1920, the whole of the 90km-long New Territories ring road was finally completed. About 1927, the Tai Po road bridge adjacent to the railway was reconstructed with a 7-span reinforced concrete structure. Improvements were carried out to the Fan Ling/Sha Tau Kok road in 1929, much of which had only been in service for two years, generally making use of the disused railway formation. Subsequently, a new road was built from Au Tau to Shek ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 91 Kong village in 1936, thus providing access to the proposed second airfield site at Pat Heung. In the following year the first roadworks on the outlying islands were undertaken at Muk Wo (Mui Wo) on Lantau, primarily to provide access to the ferry pier. Drainage In 1843, a particularly bad year for disease, some essential drainage was begun and, by 1847, 740 metres of city drains had been laid in Victoria. At Happy Valley the muddy waters discharging from the surrounding hills via Wong Nei Chong (literally yellow mud stream) created swamp and healthwise lethal conditions, in particular following heavy rain. By 1846 the rice and sweet potato farmers at Happy Valley were bought out and the flat land drained, thus making the area less unhealthy than before. In spite of drainage improvements in and around the city, the mortality rate amongst European troops remained exceptionally high, for instance in 1851 it reached 24% compared with 10% for the civilian population, this latter percentage being swollen by the deaths of seamen. In the early days, to avoid flooding in low-lying areas, main drainage nullahs (large open channels) were constructed, the earliest in the central district probably being the Murray Barracks Nullah, which ran through the naval dockyard area, and the winding Victoria Barracks Nullah. At East Point, an impressive 6m-wide and 3.6m-deep nullah, the Bowrington Canal (now decked and located under Canal Road) which carried the run-off from the Happy Valley catchment area was planned as early as 1842. In Wan Chai, Stone Nullah Lane was located above a stream which ran below Hospital Hill (to the east of Morrison Hill). The quality of design/workmanship in the original drainage system clearly left a lot to be desired as, in 1860, a very heavy rain storm is reported to have burst most of the drains and also caused the collapse of some houses in Canton Bazaar (off Queen's Road opposite to the naval dockyard). During the violent typhoon in 1874, mounds of soil were again thrown up by bursting drains. The sewers also had other uses, for instance in 1863 twenty-two prisoners were known to have escaped from the old gaol in Hollywood Road by way of the monsoon drains whilst, in the next two years, the ingenuity and engineering skill displayed by “drain gangs" was such that a godown, jewellery store and even the vaults of a bank were entered by using storm-water drains. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 92 from which tunnels were excavated to locations under the floors A lady, appalled by the primitive standards of hygiene in 1879, wrote ".....no sort of effective drains or sewers have been provided whatever; sewerage finds its way [into rain-water conduits] is simply deposited along the whole harbour front, thus poisoning what else might be a pleasant situation........the arrangements for the daily (or among the poorer classes only bi-weekly!) removal of nuisances from every house (for subsequent conveyance to the mainland as an article of agricultural commerce) form a very unpleasant page in the sanitary statistics........". Environmental concern clearly was not created in the late 20th century. Matters were not improved by Governor Hennessy (1877-82)'s deep conviction that for the local inhabitants their traditional earth system of sanitation was preferable to western flushing toilets. Even at the eve of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, the primitive system of collection and disposal of sewage was common, collection being based on an estimate of six taels (227 grammes) per person per day. In view of the above it is not surprising that a report recommended in 1882, amongst other things, that the city should be completely re-drained and a cholera outbreak in the following year gave timely impetus for new main drains and sewers to be laid. Nevertheless it was not until soon after the first serious outbreak of plague in 1894 that the main drainage system in the principal urban area had been practically completed. Legislation was then passed in 1896 making drainage for houses compulsory. Records indicate that the main storm-water drains around the turn of the century were formed with mass gravity retaining walls and incorporated a half-round dry-weather flow channel; where appropriate these drains were covered with simply-supported concrete or granite slabs. Subsequently more open nullahs were constructed, often running along the centre-lines of road reserves, for instance in Kowloon along Nam Cheong Street (Sham Shui Po) which was completed in 1912 and Waterloo Road (both of these now having been decked, mainly to effect much needed road improvements). As a result of continuing enhancements to the drainage system, in particular those relating to nullah and stream training works, plague was virtually eliminated by 1924 whilst deaths from malaria, although still numerous at the outbreak of the Pacific war, gradually declined. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 94 The tunnel was driven at a rate of about 18 metres/week through granite - surprisingly the most serious problems encountered appear to have concerned the labour, rather than the tunnelling itself, on account of fung shui difficulties and the prevalence of malaria. To finalise the KCR project, an 11.5km-long narrow-gauge (600mm) branch line was constructed in 1911-1912 from Fan Ling to Sha Tau Kok on the border, mainly using track and plant which had been utilized in connection with the building of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, and operated until 1928. The civil engineering work was relatively simple, the deepest cutting and embankments being about 5 metres. For most of the route the railway shared bridges with the adjacent road but beyond Wo Hang some six bridges and numerous culverts needed to be built. Water Supply The original inhabitants and new settlers in 1841 obtained their water supply from hillside streams. To augment these sources the first five wells for the city water supply were sunk in 1851. In 1859, the Government realised that the old haphazard supply system was totally inadequate and, following a prize competition for the best plan, implemented a small reservoir scheme in the Pok Fu Lam valley, the dam being little more than a stream intake, from which water was conveyed in 1863 through a 250mm cast-iron pipe to tanks above the city of Victoria. From that time the history of Hong Kong's waterworks was a continual struggle to catch up with the needs of an ever-increasing population and virtually never succeeded until recent years (when the Territory's water shortfall was imported from China). The original Pok Fu Lam scheme was soon scrapped and a new reservoir, with its 11m-high earth dam and a much greater capacity (300 million litres), was completed further upstream in 1871 when the population had risen to about 125,000. The reconstruction of the supply conduit, by means of a brick culvert along the 150m contour (Pok Fu Lam and Conduit Roads), became operational in 1877. The first stage of the Tai Tam scheme, the principal feature being a 40m-high masonry-faced rubble concrete dam, was completed in 1889 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 98 province. In 1941, construction of a 457m-long tarmac-surfaced runway at Kai Tak for military use on an approximate south-east/north-west orientation, which had already necessitated the dismantling of the RAF hangar, was due to start on 8th December 1941, the precise day on which the Japanese invaded the New Territories and attacked Kai Tak airport. Military/Defence Works Prior to the British administration, there were several forts in the New Territories going back to the early years (17th century) of the Ch'ing Dynasty, the oldest existing fort (1717) probably being that on Tung Lung Chau overlooking the narrow Fat Tong Mun passage in the eastern approaches to the harbour, and the largest still remaining at Tung Chung (60m by 80m) on the northern coast of Lantau, which was completed in 1832. Little remains of the old 4m-high walled Kowloon City, a garrison fort (120m by 230m) with its sturdy granite parapet wall complete with embrasures and watchtowers, which was finished in 1847 soon after the British established themselves on Hong Kong Island. Subsequently, the British military have been involved in a considerable amount of civil engineering. The Royal Engineers were first involved in 1841 in the early construction of Queen's Road in Victoria. Perhaps their most impressive roadworks over the years, constructed before the Pacific war, have been Jat's Incline, which provides access to the upper levels of the steep hills overlooking Kowloon. Nevertheless, the main military engineering effort was expended on providing defences and back-up facilities (for example, naval dockyards, aviation needs, storage depots, barracks, and hospitals), principally against possible seaborne attack by Russia last century and later against the increasingly land/sea invasion threat by Japan in the 1930s. Novel defence measures included excavation of a cavern at Lei Yue Mun towards the end of the nineteenth century to house the sophisticated Brennan torpedo, which, after launching down a ramp, was controlled from the shore with a wire attached to the rudder. Regarding defence facilities, at the outbreak of the Pacific war in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 137 NOTES AND QUERIES A BRIEF HISTORY OF RECLAMATION IN MACAU THOMAS KVAN AND JUSTYNA KARAKIEWICZ Introduction Macau today is a city of 500,000 people living on 22 sq. km. consisting of three main areas: the peninsula of Macau (with approximately 50% of the population) and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. Most of the population lives on the peninsula itself. Over 7 million visitors visit the enclave each year. Primary industries are tourism (driven in large part by the casinos), light manufacturing and some trans-shipment of goods from China. In common with Hong Kong, the territory has experienced considerable physical change due to reclamation. This paper traces the history of reclamation and considers some of the implications for the urban form of Macau over the past four centuries. The Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries Macau saw development until the Portuguese occupied the peninsula in the mid-sixteenth century. When they arrived, it was a peninsula of approximately 3 sq. km. connected to the China mainland by a very narrow neck of sand that could be flooded at high tides. There were a few temples (already a few centuries old) and farm houses already constructed but the population was sparse. Within ten years, the population had grown to “over 5000, not including Chinese or slaves” (Pires 1987). By 1583, a Municipal Senate was formed and in 1586 Macau was designated a City. Places of worship began to be erected almost immediately upon settlement, with significant churches appearing from 1590 onwards. A protective wall was built in 1606 around the Jesuit settlement with a second fortress in 1629 and several more by 1638 (Duncan 1987). The enclave had evolved rapidly, therefore, from a poorly defined settlement on Chinese agricultural patterns to one based on an Occidental urban architecture of churches, fortifications and civic buildings. The former probably consisting of isolated buildings, most ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 138 likely each walled, using courtyards to form internal spaces for living and congregating and no formal external spaces for public gatherings. The latter structures were erected by Portuguese engineers, naval officers and church officials according to the general principles of building of their culture and time. The city was immediately divided into two - a fortified western city and housing for the Chinese outside the walls. In the course of these first three centuries of occupation, we see a growing formalisation of the city. The earliest map we can find of the city is one published in 1796 by Sir George Staunton in his report on the Macartney embassy to China (Hong Kong Museum of Art 1996). Redrawn for clarity here as Figure 1, the original is annotated to identify six forts, three parishes, two colleges, four convents, four chapels and sixteen locations of note, including two Chinese temples. There are obvious mistakes in the overall shoreline when compared to more modern surveys but the form of the city can be seen. The inner and primary harbour is on the northwest shore which is more protected. The outer harbour on the southeast, the Praia Grande, is lined with buildings, Figure 1: 1796 including the governor's house, the houses of leading traders and significant ecclesiastical institutions. At the southern tip is a hill on which forts and churches stand, with temples as its base. The urban pattern is one that urban theorists in Europe such as Camillo Sitte would be familiar with and perhaps use as an exemplar. Organic growth between the Praia Grande and the harbour has led to narrow winding streets that open into wider intersections. Plazas are formed adjacent to the significant churches. A large market square is found in the middle of the city. The fabric of the city is woven from filaments of narrow lanes and nodes where people gather. Although we have no earlier maps of the city, the same pattern can be seen in the 1598 engraving of Macao (Amacao) by Theodore de Bry (Hong Kong Museum of Art 1996) with the Praia, the harbour, squares and churches. Looking at the 1898 map (Figure 2, from Hurley 1898), we see the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 139 same pattern, nothing has disturbed it in three hundred years. Reclamation can be observed. The harbour front has been increased, a natural act of a trading station investing in improved trans-shipment facilities. Quays have replaced shallow waterfront. This also opens up the northern edge of the city to fulfil a function similar to the Praia Grande, the place to stroll and be seen, the place to meet and conduct business and exchanges. Waterfront edges such as the Praia in Macau or Shanghai's Bund are important in coastal trading towns throughout the world and common in colonial developments in Asia. Figure 2: 1898 Although we are examining patterns of urban development, we should note that the houses along the Praia Grande are an ingenious and significant assimilation of two cultures, echoing the underlying dual nature of Macau. The facades are purely European reconstituted renaissance style using columns of the grand orders. These facades, however, hide buildings of purely Chinese plan internally, consisting of central courtyards flanked by buildings axially and symmetrically. The central position is occupied by the main hall, the parent's quarters and the elder son's quarters. As you penetrate further back, you reach lesser members of the family. To the sides lie the service spaces. The public face, however, reflects the European order - the organic walled city, not the highly ordered Chinese walled city. Twentieth Century It is in this century that significant and substantial changes begin to be made to Macau. By 1912 (Brito 1962), we see further expansion of the harbour. By this time, Hong Kong had been established and was a serious rival for the coastal trade in southern China. The harbour facilities in Hong Kong were better - a deeper draught, a more sheltered harbour. Major trading houses had started to establish their headquarters in Hong Kong and Macau was in need of better facilities to compete. Macau's first venture into heavy industry can be seen on Ilha Verde (Green Island) which was connected to the shore by a causeway and on which a cement production plant was established in 1889. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 142 For the first stage, the Macau Administration selected a team led by a Hong Kong-based planning practice, P&T Group, who teamed with Siza Vieira and Fernando Tavora of Portugal, to design the reclamation of the Porto Exterior, the outer harbour. This team submitted plans in 1984 consisting of a rectilinear urban grid of 144 m by 72 m, which can be seen, in the southeast portion of Figure 6. The plan consists of large blocks, four wide to the west and two wide to the east, six blocks deep on the north-south axis. A central reserve parts the east and west sections and is continued on to the shore to provide a visual connection. A park lies to the east, disconnected and inaccessible from the rest of Macau except through the new development. All this is placed on a podium created by separating the reclamation from the existing edge with a canal for surface water drainage. Thus, the result is distinct and different urban fabric from which has preceded it. The second stage was the reclamation of the outer harbour beside the Praia Grande. This was conceived initially as simply a reclamation of the bay resulting in a straightened waterfront and a semi-circular flat plate of land on which to develop. After a competition, the winning scheme (by Manuel Vicente) was revealed to propose not to reclaim straight across the bay but to create instead two large pools of water and an island. The area is defined by a causeway in an arc that inverts the broad Praia Grande of the past and a second causeway linking around the Barra at the southern tip. Twelve blocks are positioned on the north-east edge of the ponds to create a clear urban edge to the water. The Praia itself is to be widened by reclaiming some space along the water's edge, restoring the grandeur of the avenue that has been eroded by traffic, parking and development. In 1991, the "Reorganisation of the Praia Grande" was gazetted with the following aims (Prescott 1993): Figure 6: 1996 1. to reinforce the diverse economic base of Macau 2. to create an image of the city to attract investment and an environment attractive to scientific personnel, technicians and managers all of whom form an indispensable necessity for the coherent ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 144 collected history of the enclave. REFERENCES Brito, R. de S.: 1962, Imagens de Macau Agencia General do Ultramar, Lisboa Duncan, C.: 1987, "Development of Macau's City Landscape" in Macau, City of Commerce and Culture R.D. Cremer, ed. UEA Press, Hong Kong Hong Kong Museum of Art: 1996, Views of the Pearl River Delta Urban Council of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Hurley, R.C.: 1898, Tourist Guide to Canton and Macau Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei, reprinted 1973 Pires, B.V.: 1987, "Origins and Early History of Macau" in Macau, City of Commerce and Culture R. D. Cremer, ed. UEA Press, Hong Kong Prescott J.A.: 1993, editor Macaensis Momentum Hewell Publications, Macau Seurre, J.: 1996, “Macau 1996: the Die is Cast" China Perspectives No. 4, March/April Wang W.J.: 1997 “Is There a Plaza in Chinese Public Space" in Proceedings of The Second International Symposium on Asia Pacific Architecture: The Making of Public Places, Hawaii Woodward, C.: 1992, Barcelona Manchester University Press, Manchester ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 151 from the Colonial Office, in London, for the setting up of a Botanical Garden. This garden, which still flourishes today, finally came into being in 1862. But, skipping a hundred years to the Branch's second time around, quite a lot else has been achieved. For example, the RASHKB has built up a respectable library of books on Asia. This is on permanent loan to the Urban Council, at the City Hall, and members of the general public are welcome to refer to it. On the shelves of the RASHKB Collection one can find many old, valuable titles, such as: A Narrative of the British Embassy to China in the Years 1792, 1793 and 1794, by Aeneas Anderson (1795) (then in the service of Earl Macartney), and Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, by Captain Sir Edward Belcher RN (1843), in two volumes. Some books in the RAS Collection bear interesting chops (stamps), such as from the old Canton Reading Room and the South China Morning Post's pre-World War II Library. In addition RASHKB Archives, including files, photographs and papers, are deposited with the Government Public Records Office (PRO). Other Branch possessions are on long-term loan to the Hong Kong University. These include the F.A. Nixon, Buddhist, Tang Dynasty Scroll and the 38 M.A. McMullen Bills of Lading, relating to shipments in China from 1825-73. Also held by the University on behalf of the RASHKB are microfilms of 1847-59 Branch procedures and the Nixon Photographs of 991 bronze Nestorian crosses. Although the Society is basically apolitical, and occasionally thought of as being pro-establishment, it has not been afraid to take up cudgels when it felt there was a cause. As examples a letter was sent, in May 1995, to the Hong Kong Government pressing for the retention of the spirit hall and historical and architectural artefacts when the old Nga Tsin Wai Walled Village, in East Kowloon, is demolished. Also, because of some government intransigence at the time, a small group of RASHKB members appeared twice before a Legislative Council committee to press for a properly established Public Records Office. When a purpose-designed, reasonably accessible, PRO opened in June 1997 at Kwun Tong, many members liked to think the RAS played a part in this successful outcome. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 164 Michael Lau, was to see this problem had been solved, with the difficulty now being how to restrict the visit to a small number of galleries rather than to try and see too much in the limited time available. Accordingly, we visited the most renowned galleries only, those housing Ancient Chinese Bronzes and Ceramics. We were well rewarded by the quality and range of exhibits on display. Our enjoyment and understanding was greatly enhanced by explanations provided by the two senior staff members provided for us as gallery guides by Museum Director Ma Chengyuan. The next day, Saturday, we drove out north-west of Shanghai to the Jiading County Museum, in particular to see the exhibition on the former Jiading Imperial Examination Hall. RAS Council Member Joseph Ting, who also was our guide that day, had arranged this visit. (Prior to the visit, before leaving Hong Kong, Dr Betty Wei3 had given members a talk on the Hall and the imperial examination system, so important in China prior to 1905). Again we were given VIP treatment, with Director Zheng of the Jiading Cultural Bureau and Director Yang Chun of the Museum, addressing us upon arrival and providing us with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, Ms Liu Chuyong. Members were impressed by the graphic quality of the exhibits, especially those on examination cheating methods. The highlight of our Sunday programme was a tour of Old Shanghai, with our guide being Ms. Tess Johnston, author and raconteur extraordinaire, whose assistance had been obtained for us by Council Member Valery Garrett. After a bus tour of treaty port architecture, Tess led us on foot through the city's oldest area, Huangpu. There, one block west of the Friendship Store and two blocks south of the Wusong River (Suzhou Creek), on Huqiu (Museum) Road, near the junction with Dong Road, we found to our delight the old premises of the North China Branch. The building is now used as a bank and share-trading hall, but little has changed in its appearance and structure with RAS still to be seen on the pediment (see Illustration 1, a group photograph outside the building, and Illustration 2, plans of premises after the 1932-34 re-building; provided for us by Ms Johnston). On the Monday morning our exploration of both the past and present ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 170 located. The Seventh Day Adventist Church, which stands at numbers 6-8 on the tree-lined Sun Yat-sen Road (formerly part of Tung Sui Road), was on the site of a building used during the war years as an officers mess (see Plate III). The clinic, which now stands at No. 28 Shui Dong Kai (Water East Street), is on the site where a 'hospital' and the BAAG headquarters were situated during World War Two. Then, Huizhou stood in a kind of ‘no-man's-land'. It was not part of 'Free China' nor was it really in Japanese occupied territory. But the Japanese did make regular incursions into the city which was an undercover centre for Chinese guerillas and the British Army Aid Group. Members of the Allied Forces would occasionally escape from prisoner-of-war camps in Hong Kong and make their way, with the help of Chinese guerillas, to Sai Kung. From there they would sail over to the coast of China and proceed on up to Huizhou to link up with the 'East River Column' of guerillas. After rest and medical attention escapees would make their way to the hinterland and Free China proper. Huizhou was well positioned as an escape route which was provided by a road network, of sorts, and the East River which flows along to the Bocca Tigris in the Pearl River Delta. 5 Men who managed to escape included Colonel Anthony Hewitt (at the time Captain) of the ‘Die-Hards', the Middlesex Regiment, who gave a talk in November 1996, to the RASHKB entitled 'The Defence of Leighton Hill during the 1941 Battle for Hong Kong'. Colonel L.T. Ride also escaped to set up and head the British Army Aid Group. Sir Lindsay, who was Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1949 to 1964, was also a founder member of the RASHKB, in 1960, when it was reestablished. He was President of our Branch from 1969 to 1972. Although members of our RAS Group saw a considerable amount of new building as we drove from Shenzhen to Huizhou on that November day in 1997, one was struck by the number of walled villages and watch towers. This part of China was, obviously, a pretty lawless region at one time, and, to some extent, it still is. One occasionally sees cars plying the roads without number plates and right-hand drive vehicles which have probably been smuggled in, one assumes from Hong Kong. T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 177 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH POSSESSIONS ON PERMANENT LOAN TO OTHER INSTITUTIONS DAN WATERS In addition to our Branch's Library, which is on permanent loan to the Urban Council and is at present situated on the ninth floor at the City Hall, the following are in the safe custody of other institutions: (1) Held by Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Collection, Main Library (a) McMullen, M.A. Collection of 38 bills of lading relating to shipments to Canton, Macao, Lintin and Hong Kong during the period 1825-75. This collection, formed by Rear Admiral McMullen, was obtained through the kind offices of Past President Dr J.R. Jones. For full details see RASHKB Journal, volume 13 (1973), pages 154-162. (b) Royal Asiatic Society, China Branch Transactions [parts 1-6, 1847-1859] in Hong Kong, printed at the Office of the 'China Mail' from 1848-1859. Six volumes illustrated, 20 1/2 centimetres. Microfilm 1 reel, 35 millimetres. Originally in University Library, Cambridge, class-mark P624.c.21.1-2. A contents list of the Transactions is in Cordier, H. Bibliotheca Sinica second edition, Paris, 1904-24, volume 4, columns 2401-2. (c) It has not been possible to trace the microfilm extracted from the Journal of occurrences at Canton during the cessation of trade in 1839. This has, however, been published in volume 4 (1964) in the RASHKB Journal pages 9 to 41. This microfilm is listed on page 83 of... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 Keith Stevens - Another Dilemma for Today's Youth in China ... 369 Keith Stevens - An Irish Fantasy.. 372 Penny Robbins, Meredith Tong-Draper and Geoffrey Roper - Backstreets of Beijing: Notes on the RAS HK Easter, 1998 Visit to Beijing 375 Keith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - Monument to the Westmoreland Regiment The 55th Regiment of Foot in Dinghai City on Zhoushan Island...................... 383 Dan Waters - Tracing Graves in Hong Kong: Research Methodology 395 Keith Stevens - An Unusual and Extraordinary Ancestral Image 399 Photographs of the Function to Mark the Award of the Bronze Bauhinia Star to Dan Waters contributed by Phillip Bruce............. 403 Paul Bolding - Visit to the Aurel Stein Collection of the British Museum by the Friends of the RAS BOOK REVIEWS 404 Gerald Choa - The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, a Prominent Figure in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong....... 407 Gillian Bickley - The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart 411 ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 Sidney Cowell who, separately, and of their own volition, circulated details of the RASHKB by mail. As a result, more new members were recruited. Publications With the publishing of RASHKB Journal Volume 37 recently, we have now caught up after, not so long ago, being several volumes in arrears. Work continues on the new index. We are also grateful to Agnes Lee and Joseph Chan, at the City Hall, where our RAS Library is on permanent loan to the Urban Council, For an organisation like ours, communications are obviously important, and some members have informed us that they look forward regularly to the arrival of our bi-monthly Newsletter. For the drafting and circulation of this we are largely indebted to Sarah Parnell, our capable Assistant Secretary, who is also making noteworthy efforts to sell more of our Journals and other publications, both in Hong Kong and overseas. Meanwhile the publication of In the Heart of the Metropolis, about Yau Ma Tei, edited by Dr Patrick Hase, to which several of our Branch members have contributed, has been delayed by the publisher. We are hoping it will be out before too many months. We are grateful to Patrick and to everyone who has helped, and to members of the Cathay Camera Club, and especially to Ian Masterton the photography co-ordinator. While on the subject of publications a number of our members have published books, papers or articles, in their own capacity, during the past year on subjects related to the work of the RAS. We congratulate them all. They include Valery Garrett, Edward Stokes, Jason Wordie, May Holdsworth and Barbara Baker. There could be others. Activities During the year under review 14 lectures, 6 Hong Kong visits, and two excursions to the China Mainland and one to Macau were conducted. A wide range of topics was covered as may be seen from Appendices A and B of this Report. In it lecturers are named and I take this opportunity to thank them here, together with group leaders of XV. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1998/1999 As of 1 March 1999, the library collection had increased to 3,704 volumes. A total of 275 volumes were added during the year. Donations of books were received from Mrs. Barbara Baker, the estate of the late Mr. Christopher D'Almada, Mrs. Valery Garrett, Dr. James Hayes, Peter and Rosemary Lee, Mr. John MacKenzie, and Ms. Margaret Moore. The addition of several collections to the RAS Library is worth mentioning. Mrs. Valery Garrett managed to obtain some nineteen old and valuable books from the Hong Kong Club, with the help of Mr. John MacKenzie, for HK$20 each. Two big boxes of Arts of Asia magazines dating from 1972 - 1993 were donated from the estate of the late Mr. Christopher D'Almada. Mr. Geoffrey Roper recommended three fascinating books relating to the Ningbo visit: The Five Sacred Mountains and Sacred Buddhist Lands compiled by the Hong Kong China Tourism Press, and Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China edited by Susan Naquin and Chun-fang Yu. Peter and Rosemary Lee also donated four videos: Minorities of Guizhou and To the Roof of the World via the Backdoor, to the RAS Library. The digital project of mounting RAS journal content pages and full-text articles on the HKU Libraries Web server for wider access was discussed and decided not to be feasible. There was major concern on copyright. Consent of each author in writing is required prior to mounting his/her article on the Web and it is difficult to trace them all. Easy access to full-text articles on the Web may also result in the reduction of sales and a subsequent decrease in revenue from sales of the Journal. The latest news on the opening of the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay is that the City Hall Reference Library will be relocated to the Central Reference Library around the end of 2000. To provide more convenient access to the RAS Collection, there is consideration that the Collection, as with other special collections, will be searchable via the on-line catalogue as a separate subset. XXXV ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 15 ing is as good as a session of aerobics. Cousins' book has become a classic. It has been said that people laugh more in a warmer climate than they do in the cold north, which, up to a point, is understandable. Opening your mouth too wide lets in the cold! But certainly, as we have seen, senses of humour can differ from the north to the south of Europe, and from country to country. They can also change considerably across Asia. There are differences even among the population of China, from one region or one sub-ethnic group of people to another. Many of the latter have their own dialects which, many insist, may be classified as separate languages in their own right. In China, jokes about politics often go down better in Beijing, the capital city of the country and the heart of Government; whereas Shanghai is the major commercial centre in the People's Republic on the Mainland. The People's Daily is purported to have quoted the Chinese joke about an alien being captured in China (HK Standard, 1998). In Shanghai, so it was written, they would dissect it for medical research. Beijingers, conversely, would send it to a museum as an educational exhibit, while the Cantonese, who eat anything whose back faces the sky and has four legs, except a table, would ask, 'which part of the creature can be braised in brown sauce?' Part-time comedian Brent Ambacher, long-time resident in Hong Kong, told the author that he had been unable to think of any similar jokes about Hong Kong people. Quite rightly, making fun of people today because of their origins is usually frowned upon, as is the cracking of sexist and racist jokes. Many squirm at 'black humour' which is too close to the bone. Yet in Hong Kong the term gweilo (meaning 'ghost person' or 'foreign devil') may, or, as the term is so widely used, may not carry pejorative intentions. Certainly not everyone agrees with the latter, and Frank Ching, the well-known Hong Kong journalist, on more than one occasion has said he never uses the term and that to say it is not derogatory is to deny the obvious (Waters, 1995; 146). Nevertheless, a number of Westerners, especially British, use the term as a self-deprecating form of humour. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 17 Some Westerners and Hong Kong Chinese will tell you that Chinese humour on the circumscribed Mainland is not subtle. It is too ... and a great deal of it falls flat on the average European. Although 200 Cartoons from China (Xu, 1989) goes down quite well, in the series of four books Selected Jokes from Past Chinese Dynasties only about four per cent of the jokes appeal to the author's sense of humour. An exception is: A father and son were both fond of the bottle and one night they were both staggering back home. On entering the gate the father said: 'Strange! Why do you have three faces? You look neither like a ghost nor a man. I'll never leave my house to you.' The son replied, 'I don't want such a rickety, revolving house anyway' (1997; vol. 4, joke 86)! To give another example of the more simple humour on the Mainland. The sound 'wok', in Chinese, can mean either a Chinese round-bottom frying pan or 'trouble' or 'problem.' Thus a large trading company with a television 'dish' (wok) on the roof is known in Guangzhou as the ‘Trouble Company.' This more direct form of humour, common in Guangdong, contrasts with the complicated humour which requires a person to use his 'grey matter' more. For instance Nury Vittachi, Hong Kong journalist, author and part-time comedian, writes that he believes what he calls 'personality humour' works best with Westerners. In such cases the comic goes into his role and recreates a conversation with his mother-in-law, the taxi driver, or whoever. This does not always work, says Nury, with Asians who prefer more direct, straightforward, 'Man goes into a bar' approach. But Hong Kong, as opposed to China, is a relatively small place with western influences. As Harry Wong, the talk-show host and co-median of Metro Broadcasting said: 'In this city-state (Hong Kong) people are short of time. There is a ‘combat' situation and people have a better command of English. Western-style Rotary, Round Table clubs and the like, with their style of humour, are common. Put all this juxtaposition to Chinese humour, including films made in Hong Kong often consisting of vulgar, triad language, and obvious jokes with excessive action, and you have a peculiar mix' (Bolton, 1997; 300). Such exaggeration, found for instance in Chinese films, contrasts with much of the British humour which often relies on understatements. Some ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 18 people believe, and there appears to be truth in this (with greater use being made of the Chinese language since the Handover), that Hong Kong as a city-state is becoming more Chinese. Although this can affect the development of Hong Kong humour it is expected to be more than offset by globalisation and the world-wide effects of radio, television, the Internet and information technology. The late Lin Yutang postulated that a Chinese believes, while getting in a few puffs while standing in front of a no-smoking sign, that the world is a stage where drama and high comedy abound. Life is a huge farce and one must not take matters too seriously, whether they be government reforms or funerals (Lin, 1936:65). The latter have a certain amount of 'gaiety' about them. Sending a person on his or her last journey to confront the final mystery of life should, it is believed, be expensive. The Chinese consider only Europeans (Lin insists) take funerals seriously and try to make them solemn affairs. What is wrong at a funeral in getting a few words across to a pal, about horse racing or morning walks, when you have not seen him for a long time? The man who takes life too seriously and obeys all the rules (according to Lin), and keeps off the grass when nobody is looking, appears ridiculous. In addition Chinese humour often takes a tolerant view of vice and evil. Instead of condemning them outright why not make fun of them? Lin Yutang believed humour could transcend cynicism and be used for other and better purposes than reconciling oneself to one's down-trodden position. According to Lin Yutang (1936:64), first-class humour is to be found in the Confucian Analects. "After all, Confucius is quoted as having said, because Tsai Yu napped during the day: Rotten wood cannot be carved nor a wall of dried dung trowelled. How would I rebuke him? A saying like that is always good for a chuckle. Much humour is to be found in Ming dynasty novels, in Hong Kong's New Territories' folk songs (largely forgotten except among the elderly), and in the poetry of the drunkard, Li Po (alias Li T'ai-po), who lived in the eighth century. He made much of the solace and lib- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 35 nationalities which have been brought about as a result of linguistic differences. Nor is it possible to ascertain whether observed differences in behavior, belief and humour develop as a result of varied expressions of a universal human mind (Wu, undated; 265). Considerably more research is needed. Nevertheless, the findings of this paper do point to the following main, basic conclusions: (1) In the past, limited research has been undertaken comparing Chinese and Western humour. (2) Just as there are different kinds of Western humour (and even different kinds of English humour with cockney humour as but one example), so Chinese humour varies. For instance Guangzhou-Cantonese humour, which is more simple and straightforward, differs from that found in Hong Kong. The fact that the latter is a small city state, partly westernised, and people are short of time and life is frenetic, tends to bring about a so-called 'combat' situation. All this has a bearing on the development of the 'Hong Kong sense of humour.' (3) Certainly, jokes based on societal convention or wordplay only get their message across when language or society allows them to do so. Although there may be deeper differences, with humour linked to a large extent to culture and 'social conditioning,' it often means jokes cannot be understood fully or appreciated properly by peoples of different nationalities or regions. Thus an itinerant comedian staging shows around the world will have to vary his act to prevent jokes falling flat. (4) People often need not only to be able to comprehend the language but they also need to be able to visualise the situation before they can appreciate humour. Thus 'extending' (rather than changing) one's sense of humour, when living in a different culture, is an 'education process.' Some people 'learn' and extend their sense of humour faster than others. (5) Chinese humour, generally, is lowbrow, physical and not philosophical; but to the average Chinese it is fun. Often there is a liberal inclusion of 'adult jokes' and obscene language. Such humour ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 119 must have been dreadful. For whenever they were wounded and fell, the match-lock set fire to their cotton clothes, and I saw several instances of their being literally burnt alive. 33 C.Worswick & J.Spence. Imperial China, Photographs 1850-1912. London, 1979, p.36 shows a photograph by Felix Beato. Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 144 reports that "The Tartars and Chinese troops use bows of different sizes and strengths, the Tartars use a peculiar kind of cross-bow, throwing three arrows.." 35 John Henry Gray. Walks in the City of Canton. Hong Kong, 1875, p.527. 36 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 98 reporting the taking of the fort of Tycocktow says "More resistance, however, was offered here than at Chuenpee, for the Chinese were not forced from their ramparts until the boats' crews had gained the summit, and the bayonet and cutlass had clashed with the spear and the broadsword. Several of the assailants received wounds from the cold steel, a rare occurrence in the Chinese war." 37 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 151. 38 Lt. Colonel Fisher, C.B. Personal Narrative of Three Years' Service in China. London 1863. p.383. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 178 amends. King Wu also held an audience at which he announced that certain Daoists and generals who had bravely fought and died should be regarded as heroes and revered as such. At that point a number of Daoist mythological heroes stepped forward and declared that as they were uncultured, having lived in the mountains and countryside, they now wished to return to report to their masters. They added that they were unable to accept honours or rewards as they had simply followed the orders of their masters. All seven left the Court, and the following day after a feast, they were reluctantly permitted to leave by King Wu. My daughter, a friend and I during a visit to Song Shan in Henan province, one of the Daoist holy mountains, came across a large modern temple which, as we approached its entrance, looked real enough until we came to enter it. There were several young women in a uniform of sorts knocking a badminton cock around to while away the hours and, of all things, a turnstile. We then saw the name of the temple was Fengshen Gong, the Palace of the Investiture of the Gods, and entered wide-eyed wondering what could possibly be inside. Once inside we were taken by our guide down a short corridor and out into what proved to be a massive wax-works, images of scenes from the Fengshen Yanyi as well as images of the major local deity, the Lord of Zhong Yüeh, the Lord of the Central Peak [Song Shan]. The exhibition, we were informed, had been built by the Tourist Board of the local city, Deng Feng, for Chinese visitors. Well over 200 images, mostly static but with some dozen or so automatons, lined the winding path leading through the large exhibition hall. With a not too subtle gesture our guide switched each on and off until, apparently bored by her foreign guests who spent quite some time at each exhibit, she abandoned us and returned to her badminton. The place was deserted apart from four small boys who were delighted to be alone with us and took enormous pleasure in switching on and off the various exhibits for our benefit without any guide being there to chastise them. Scenes included the wicked Zhou Wang ascending his throne; Na Zha, the Third Prince, Causing Trouble with the Dragon King; Duke Fa [King Wu] subjugating Zhou Wang; the Terrace of the Investiture on which Jiang Ziya is reading out the decree canonising the heroes, and the Five Sacred Ones returning to Heaven. Several of the automated exhibits had the small boys in fits of giggles; one in particular ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 200 underwent many changes both in scope and organization. However, one thing which remained constant throughout its life was its racial composition. It was always a Chinese force. As such, in the context of the colony's private security heritage, it is an important organization even though its numbers never exceeded 160. Not surprisingly, because of its traditional origins, it was also a gendered 'Force' and no District Watchwomen were ever employed even when, in 1949, women were permitted to join the Hong Kong Police. Early Days There is little doubt that in the 1860s the growing number of wealthy Chinese merchants residing in Hong Kong required the services of a security force since this was not provided by the Hong Kong Police. Lethbridge claimed that by the mid-1860s there were 'numerous private watchmen and street guards already employed by merchants, shopkeepers, householders and Kaifong. The need for these private security personnel was distressingly obvious. Members of the regular police force, which was composed mostly of European and Indian policemen with a few Chinese, were more concerned with the safety of the European dominated central business district of the city than with the protection of the occupants of the Chinese quarter. Language was another barrier since most of the non-Chinese police were unable to speak Cantonese, a situation which made effective communication with the local population an impossibility. However, even if the Hong Kong Government had possessed the funds, manpower and inclination to provide the Chinese quarter with sufficient policemen, it is debatable whether the Hong Kong Chinese merchants of the 1860s would have welcomed the attention of members of the predominately foreign Hong Kong Police. It is more likely that they would have resented men of an alien culture intruding into their business and private lives even if this resulted in a decrease in crime. The ideal solution to this local security problem was a 'police force' made up of Chinese men whom the merchants knew and could trust. At the beginning of 1866 in the weeks before Chinese New Year, Hong Kong's English language newspapers reported rumours of unrest in Canton.3 There was also considerable alarm that an uprising would spread to the colony but this fear proved to be unfounded. Whether these rumours were 'massaged' to suggest a more serious state ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 230 HONG KON (from the notes of a Russian traveller) Of the many islands, scattered along the shores of the extensive Chinese empire, the English selected for themselves a small island not particularly distinguishable for its fertility, almost bare, of little use to China; but with a good harbour and lying on the route from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean - hence very useful to them - and founded a city here, a depot for trade not only with China but with neighbouring islands. The city, whose proper name of Victoria is hardly known even to its own inhabitants, looks over the strait separating the island from the mainland, and consists of one main street following the course of the shore; it's called Queen's Road, although neither the present, nor any future queens of Great Britain are likely to travel on it; a number of other smaller streets run parallel to this main street or cross it at right angles. The latter rise up the mountain so steeply, that the houses behind stand a whole storey above the ones in front and that is why all of them have a wonderful view of the harbour and the picturesque shores of China. Magnificent too is the view of the city from the harbour. The houses, arranged in the form of an amphitheatre at the foot of the hill, are shaded by groups of trees; the main street is interrupted in the middle by an avenue, from which a garden with convenient, winding paths, runs further up the mountain, so that the mountain itself, previously completely bare is now covered to a certain level by shady bamboo lanes or groves of various trees. People building houses here mainly tried to shield themselves from the burning rays of the tropical sun, which is why the houses all have something in common: each one has, without fail, a covered balcony, and has some semi-dark hall through which the breeze blows; also shutters are an essential accessory of windows. The best building, in my opinion, is where the beautiful is united with the useful, which is - the barracks of the regiment stationed here. The two-storeyed peristyle surrounding it gives it the appearance of a Roman temple and shields it on all sides from the sun's rays. The Governor's House built recently on an elevated site in the middle of a newly cultivated garden, would have been one of Hong Kong's best adornments, were it not obstructed by extensions which completely obscure it. Other magnificent buildings I must include are the hospital, the club and many private homes. The western part was the first to be settled and is now nothing very much: - narrow streets with small houses ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 231 mainly inhabited by Chinese, which circumstance already speaks sufficiently for itself, but eastwards the city is spreading rapidly, with magnificent houses being built; in the two years following my first visit marked progress has been made. Further towards the east a magnificent road leads to a beautiful valley, through which flows a small stream. They say this was the only place that was inhabited prior to the occupation of the island by the English. The Chinese (man) who had a farm here and who had cultivated the valley, called it Happy Valley, a name by which it is still known today. Nowadays alongside the excellently cultivated fields other fields are gradually being sown for great harvests in the future. We too planted a few seeds brought here from afar. The name of the valley accords with its choice as the site for the cemetery. What first particularly strikes one in Hong Kong and other trading towns of China is the almost total absence of horses; they are replaced by Chinese. It is too hot to walk on foot and hence improper for a decent gentleman, let alone a lady: on my walks I never met a lady on foot. Each household usually has one covered litter, like a carriage body without wheels, and several open ones, consisting of light bamboo armchairs with two poles attached: in the true sense - a portechaise. Two Chinese are harnessed to both the former and the latter, which obviously works out cheaper than horses, but from the moral point of view they are debased to the level of animals and are no better than any slave. On more than one occasion a poor coolie (porter) received a beating from a passing dandy for not moving out of the way in time or simply because the latter wanted to make use of his cane. It seems that crying out against slavery, or preaching equality, is much easier. During my stay here a small scene took place on 'Queen's Road.' The main role was played by a young officer of the frigate HM Nanking. It seems that the young man, being in high spirits, decided to eat some fruit from the basket of a hawker and the Chinese, not appreciating the joke, demanded payment and not receiving it grabbed the gentleman by the coat. Apparently, this insult to his attire was too much to take, even if the citizen of the Celestial Empire was right, and that is why HM Mr. Officer dealt the 'peasant' a mighty blow, which cut his face. Several peace-loving citizens, who didn't share the hero's warlike spirit, happened to be present and insisted that he be taken to the police, which was indeed done in spite of the loud protestations of his friends. The ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 236 and the children's school. I don't know what keeping the city's sick residents in hospital costs; but outsiders, for example sailors from visiting ships, are charged very high rates - a dollar and a half a day. On the other hand education is provided to those desirous of it for next to nothing: children of both sexes and of any social class coming to the school only pay a dollar a year. For the transference of commercial, political and other information within the colony, three papers are published here, coming out once or twice a week; and once a month the most important news is reprinted in a special publication (the Overland China Mail) for communication to other parts of the world. Commercial advertisements in these papers are published both in English and Chinese. Finally I consider it my duty to express my gratitude to the people of Hong Kong, for their hospitality and consideration, extended to us during our internment. I arrived in Hong Kong before my other comrades in internment, with only my midshipman Kovalevsky: this was on the 29th September. Released on our word of honour we had only just stepped ashore when we were met by Mr. Borrows, an American businessman, who having invited us to his home did indeed manage to make us feel at home. After that we received an invitation from the 59th Regiment stationed here, not only for lunch on a particular day but to be permanent guests at their table. It goes without saying that we declined the latter but during lunch the gentlemen officers were courteous to the degree of not a single word being said concerning military events or that could have been remotely connected to our situation. This circumstance might seem trivial to some; but we were in a particular frame of mind then, and till this day I remember it clearly. Soon after this the club, the reading library were open to us - and this without any hint on our part, but only through the attentiveness of our hosts. At first I didn't think of presenting myself to the governor, fearing a confrontation with the authorities; but I was soon convinced that Sir John Bowring was nothing like Admiral SIR JAMES STIRLING, who during the course of our internment did not even deign to glance at one of our officers. I won't list all our friends in Hong Kong, but will say, that all the inhabitants, it seemed to us, were inspired with the one desire: to make our involuntary stay with them, pleasant. Page 270 Page 271 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 237 HONG KONG View of the Harbour and City - Street with Palaces and Chinese Quarter - Chinese Men and Women - Club and Barracks - Visit to the Frigate by the Bishop and Governor-General - Jardine and Matheson Establishment. I didn't write to you from Hong Kong: there was no possibility of writing - it was so hot. I can't understand how people there sit in offices writing, counting, publishing journals! The sun was in its zenith, when we were there, the rays shone straight down; how could anyone possibly do anything! I am now writing at sea and don't know when and where I'll post this letter; perhaps in China; but we'll only be going to China after Japan. In any case, I just want to say a few words about Hong Kong, and that only because I promised to tell you about every place we visited; strictly speaking, there is nothing to tell about Hong Kong, unless one does it properly, in which case one would have to write a whole commercial or political treatise, which is not my aim: remember our agreement - about what to write! When one first anchors in Hong Kong harbour, one has the impression of having arrived at a reasonable place: wherever one looks, there are high green hills, treeless, it's true, but maritime areas just beyond the equator and the tropics are almost all devoid of vegetation. One expects that the trees are there somewhere, further in the valleys: but here one has to imagine them very much further, with no hope of reaching them by foot or otherwise. If you look right at the island of Hong Kong, your gaze will everywhere meet, as with a wall, with a reddish-yellow mountain, green in parts from grass. At its foot, along the shore, cluster houses, and peering out amongst them, as if for show, are bunches of banana leaves, splitting and yellowed from the sun's rays, and sometimes from behind a fence, one can see, looking like a wide broom, the top of a tree, killed by the sun. However, there is an inexhaustible abundance of sand and rocks. The English have managed to make use of this material too. At different points on the mountain side, you see either a solitary stone house or a clearing prepared for building: labour and skill have already even reached the rock face. Having seen the splendid houses of the embank- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 270 A new military hospital has now been built facing Jordan Road on the site of the old gun shed and the barrack buildings started a new stage in their history when the PLA moved in after the handover of sovereignty to China in 1997. REFERENCES NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS (PRO) "Horse Lines on the Kowloon Plains Over 100 Years Ago”, Hong Kong Then & Now series, Sept. 16, 1973. "Transformation of Sleepy Chatham Road”, Hong Kong Then & Now series, May 5, 1978. "Tsimshatsui's Little Portugal", Hong Kong Then & Now series, Nov. 26, 1978. "Healthy Military Sites" by Colin Crisswell, The Vanishing City series, South China Morning Post, Jan. 1, 1978. "An Army Home for Over a Century", by Neil Pereira, Hong Kong Then & Now series, July 29, 1979. "The Street Where You Live” Chatham Road - the End of an Era", by Kavita Daswani, Dimensions in Living, Nov. 1986. BOOKS "British & Indian Armies on the China Coast 1795 - 1985", by Alan Harfield, A & J Partnership, 1990 "The Guns & Gunners of Hong Kong”, by Denis Rollo, The Gunners Roll of Hong Kong, 1992. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 279 1970 1971 1973 1974 1977 1978 1986 1989 1994 1995 1997 1st Bttn. The Royal Welch Fusiliers at Gun Club. Death of "Billy" Regimental Goat on 8 June. Buried behind Church. (The "gravestone" was salvaged, prior to excavation work for the new PLA Hospital, & removed to ASD Property Services Branch Antiquities Store at APB Centre in Cheung Sha Wan. No remains of "Billy" were found.) 1st Bttn. The Black Watch at Gun Club. 1st Bttn. The Royal Hampshire Regt. at Gun Club, Alanbrooke Block (British MQs) & Infants' School (Block 27) demolished. New Gurkha MQs, Temple, Clinic & School build started. 10 Int & Sec Coy moved into Colony Club (Block 36) from Argyle Street Camp. Gurkha Transport Regt. & Gurkha Signals moved into Gun Club from Shamshuipo Camp. Victoria Junior School moved over from Victoria Barracks. New Classroom built at Gun Club Primary School. Skeleton said to date from Japanese occupation unearthed during excavations. Severe flooding on May 2 to MT compound causing considerable damage to vehicles, buildings and equipment. Compound again flooded on May 20 during Typhoon Brenda. Colony Club (Block 36), St. Eligius' Church, and the old gun shed (Block 29) demolished to make way for the new military hospital. Banyan trees transplanted to elsewhere in the barracks also to the new Kowloon Walled City Park. Barracks vacated by the British Army and handed over to Hong Kong Government. Barracks occupied by People's Liberation Army following handover of Hong Kong to China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 306 paper cutting recalling the story of his life. Many of the papers and photographs, which have been placed by the Royal Asiatic Society with the Government Public Records Office on permanent loan, could be of interest to RAS members who are undertaking research in relevant fields. Among the maps of the Pacific region are some of Japan and Shanghai, one dated 1919. There is also an unusual map (undated) of Shanghai (3 feet x 2 feet 3 inches) which has a 'border' consisting of a large number of small pictures. On the map is printed, 'In this map we have tried to depict for you the history, customs and points of interest in this cosmopolitan city of Shanghai.' Many of Mr Graham's photographs concern the Shanghai Gas Company. They include group pictures of the staff, both Chinese and Westerners, at farewell parties, group gatherings and the like. In all these pictures no women are present. Most images were taken in the early 1930s, when Arnold Graham, as a young man, was Assistant Secretary. There is one photograph of a smaller group, again of both Westerners and Chinese, where some Chinese men are wearing cheung saams. This is interesting because it was taken in October 1950, one year after the People's Republic Government came to power. There is just one photograph of a group which includes both men and women. This was taken in London in 1957. All are Europeans. It was probably a reunion. There is also an album containing a number of snaps of life in Shanghai and China, in the 1930s, and during the Sino-Japanese war. There are also a number of family photographs depicting the lifestyle of Europeans in the Far East between the two World Wars. What did Arnold Graham do in his spare time? He was a keen cricketer and a Shanghai Interporter. There are a number of photographs, of varying sizes, of cricket teams: such as Hong Kong versus Malaya, at Singapore in 1926. There is a picture of the teams, 'Hankow versus Shanghai circa 1930.' There are some pictures taken with people sitting in front of pavilions. Most of the photographs consist entirely of Europeans. In a few pictures, however, there are one or two Chinese who could have been groundsmen. The papers in the box include a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 308 of his time, during the War, he served as an interrogator of the Japanese having earlier undergone army language courses. Also included in Arnold Graham's material is a photocopy of the Extra to the Kobe Herald, in English, for Saturday January 3, 1914. This was seven months before the outbreak of World War I. The subscription rate for the newspaper at the time, incidentally, was two yen per month. There are also photocopies of various accounts of the Lisbon Maru, a Japanese ship which was sunk by a torpedo from an American submarine. This resulted in considerable loss of life among the Allied prisoners of war aboard. Also included among the items sent by Arnold Graham's daughter are two identification cards issued by the British Consulate in 1938 and 1939, during the Sino-Japanese War. Other interesting papers are the Surrender of Japanese and Japanese Controlled Armed Forces in Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies East and Exclusive Lombok to the Commander in Chief Australian Military Forces (September 1945). There is also a Chinese translation (interspersed with some Japanese characters) of this surrender document as well as a speech by Lieutenant-General Teshima, Commander Second Japanese Army which he delivered on that occasion. There is also a newspaper cutting about a letter written by a Japanese who, as a wounded soldier captured in 1943, was nursed back to health by a British nurse. Among the many items sent by Arnold Graham's daughter is a souvenir programme of the centenary dinner of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, held in April 1954, at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. On the back of the programme is printed the song "Maloo Memories". Arnold Graham composed the words; the first verse of which goes as follows: Let us sing of that old city in the North we knew so well Where to sing to love and laugh we used to dwell, From the Seven Seas foregathered to the Bund and Bubbling well ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 331 we had met Howard Song, the excellent local guide, and "Mr White' the bus driver, and had arrived at the hotel (The Qingdao Shangri-La), checked in and been allocated rooms, it was already dinnertime. No problem, as all that had been planned for that day was dinner - a Chinese banquet style dinner in the hotel. Mike, Sarah and I were able to brief the tour members on the story so far, how the trip had been planned and what we were going to see. I think that such a formal briefing had not been done on earlier trips but it seemed to have been well received. Following that, tour member Carol Tan, a Research Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, gave a talk on "British Jurisdiction on Chinese Soil" - an interesting and useful explanation of how the legally-minded British went about establishing the necessary legal framework in the many territories that came under their control. Particular reference was made to Hong Kong and Weihaiwei. Tsingtao - A German Home from Home Tsingtao is already well known for the remaining wealth of evidence of German influence, perhaps the most famous being the Tsingtao Brewery. The problem facing us in organising this leg of the trip was not so much what to include, but what to leave out. Arriving, as we did, on a Saturday ruled out the brewery. Visitors are normally welcome, but only during the hot summer months does beer production continue seven days a week, so as to satisfy the thirst of all who depend on the brewery's products. The port area would have been interesting, to see what is left of the original German plan for its mighty naval base. Chiao-chou Bay would also have been interesting, to go and imagine the sights that first faced the German fleet when it arrived in the area. For those with strong stomachs, I have heard that the sewer system is still a masterpiece and a tribute to German organisation and engineering. But all these had to be left out owing to time constraints. How the plan worked out was to split the city into two parts - the "downtown" area, with its official buildings; and the former military and residential area, with its remaining villas and barrack buildings. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 332 Downtown - the west of the city The first port of call in the morning was the former German governor's residence, used as such from 1903 to 1914. This was reached by driving down the newly named Xiang Gang Lu (Hong Kong Road) from the hotel and penetrating the centre of the city. Until recently the governor's residence had been a government-run guesthouse - The Qingdao Yingbin Hotel; it was such when I visited it in 1996, and at least in theory a possibility as a place to stay or at least have dinner in surroundings of baronial splendour. Now, however, it has become the much more humble No 26 Long Shan Road and is kept as a museum, with original furniture (including “German table", "German chair”, “German piano") and artifacts on display in the rooms, all of which are accessible. Also on display, although not officially, was the original German electric wiring system, complete with enormous switches, connection boxes and fuses. The main interest for most, however, was the outside of the building - which immediately impresses upon the onlooker the purpose for which it was built. Almost castle-like in its appearance, the governor's residence would have given the great man a clear view over most of the city over which he ruled to the south and west, and of the military establishments to the east. Having set the scene for the morning by visiting first the seat of power, next was a visit to the centre from which that power was exercised - the Town Hall. Still operating as such, the Town Hall, found in Yi Shui Road, is another commanding building whose intended purpose is clear at first glance. Access is denied, of course, but the outside of the building is worth a few moments contemplation. When first constructed, the Town Hall was the place from where a community of 30,000 was governed. The population of present day Qingdao is in the order of 20 times this figure, and so the original building has been long outgrown. However, interestingly enough, an extension was built in the early 1980s in exactly the same design. The result is most impressive in that it is very hard to differentiate the old from the new, even down to the fine architectural details such as the fine wrought iron work on the roof. Visitors should take a minute to walk down the small street to the left of the main building to see the new building through the gates, and see if they can spot the difference. Also worth a little inspection is the old Court House, just over the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 336 I do not know if a couple of bus-loads of "extras" were sent on in advance of our arrival at the beach, but we were greeted again by the sight of bridal couples - a beachful of them! I have a photograph that clearly shows more than 30 couples, the brides for the most part in western white gowns and the grooms in black suits. The heavily decorated taxis were present here too, but so was a totally different kind of conveyance, one that is rather hard to describe. Bright red in colour, it appeared to be the sort of car that might have been designed by Walt Disney - long and open with running boards and big frog-eye headlights. Our guide explained that the city had commissioned 20 of these wonderful creations. One of our number (the dashing and debonair Philip Bruce) found out that such cars were available for hire (with driver) during the evenings when not being used for weddings - and so off he went later that night for a very special city tour. At the eastern end of the beach is the commanding building that was once the governor's seaside retreat and hunting lodge. Fully open to the public, and containing a souvenir and trinkets shop, it affords a wonderful panorama back across the city and the beach full of brides. The day finished with dinner in a nearby restaurant, where our enthusiasm to support the local beer-making industry easily broke the budget of our unfortunate China Qingdao Overseas Tourist Company guide. Despite the preponderance of good beer in all the places we visited, some of our number preferred to sample the local wine. Chinese wine has been around for some time, during which it has steadily been getting better. A local find worth noting was the excellent Hua Dong, which really took by surprise those who sampled it. Comments were heard such as: "I have never tasted a good Chinese-made wine before." In fact the Hua Dong winery has been made famous by none other than the globe-trotting Michael Palin, who went there in his TV series as well as managing to stay at the German Governor's residence in Qingdao. Chefoo - The Brighton of China The road from Qingdao to Chefoo (or Yantai as it is now known) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 was by becoming one of the world's major economies. 341 Before moving to Liu Kung Island, I might explain what happened to one of the attractions that featured on the announcement of our trip - namely Eric Lidell's grave. Popular theory had it that the grave was situated in or near Weihaiwei. Accordingly I told the travel agent that we wanted to include a visit to this site in our itinerary. Enquiries were made to China Travel, but to no avail. Rather touchingly, and obviously trying to be helpful, they suggested that perhaps it had changed its name! We considered this - maybe it had mysteriously become Charlie Travers' grave, or Reginald Throgmorton's grave. However, we considered that the name had in fact stayed the same, and so more research was done at our end on the location. Was it in Weihai or was it Weymouth? Weybridge? We were sure it was Wey-something. We eventually tracked it down to Weihsien, not a place that was anywhere near where we were going - although another account placed it in Weifang. Oh well, perhaps next time - if only we can find the way. Liu Kung Tau Liu Kung Island was a treat, especially as none of our party had been there before. Not far offshore from the city of Weihai, the island is a popular destination for day trippers and there are many ferries taking people back and forth. In a way, the island is as much of a gem as is Stonecutters Island in Hong Kong. Before the ferry had berthed we could see an impressive line of seafront buildings - some military, some residential, some commercial, and all dating apparently from the early part of the 20th century. Right next to the ferry pier is an enormous new monstrosity being erected - mock this and mock that and all rather unpleasant. Ignoring this, however, (and ignoring the remarkable absence of British battleships) one can get a good impression of how the former British naval base must have looked in its heyday. Stepping off the ferry, and past the new monstrosity, the first building one sees is the former naval headquarters - a long two-storey beauty of a building, very commanding with verandahs on both floors. It is in an excellent state of repair and is clearly used now by the Chinese navy for the purpose originally intended. To the right of this, in among a line of little shops, is a small but impressive museum of the British ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 379 meeting place where candidates from the two provinces could stay while attending imperial examinations. An opera hall was added in 1830 and it became a centre for Beijing opera masters including Mei Lanfang. The hall was restored in 1992 and the site also houses a small opera museum. We watched a very lively performance of excerpts from famous Beijing Operas, the highlight of which was the Monkey King in Journey to the West defeating a rapid succession of opponents through brilliant acrobatics and martial arts. On Monday, our final day, we visited the former Legation Quarter, now called Dong Jiao Min Xiang. This quarter had long been the place where tributary visitors, such as Mongols, Tibetans and Vietnamese stayed, and during late Qing times became a virtual "state within a state". Dr Ting guided us on a walk which began at St Michael's Church, in Taijichang Street (formerly known as Rue Marco Polo) and built by French Vincentians in 1901. Inside the church is simple and modest with some of its services still conducted in Latin. We went on past the sites of the Russian Embassy and the former British Embassy, as well as the present Beijing Municipal Government offices, the Supreme People's Court and the Beijing Public Security Bureau. There still exists one interesting road sign, Rue Hart, named after the famous founder of the Imperial Maritime Customs, Sir Robert Hart. Our visit to Beijing ended with a brief look at the antique market Liulichang (Glazed Tile Factory) an area named after a pottery which, in Ming times, produced tiles for the roofs of the Forbidden City. It had been famous for centuries for its old book shops, pictures, rubbings, jewellery, bronzes and porcelain and for some years now it has been revived as an antique market, (but one has to bargain very hard to get a good price). We returned to Hong Kong on Easter Monday afternoon having visited a capital undergoing both revival and development, with room for both Matteo Ricci and Nina Ricci, for both the study of history and plans for a future based on past experience; and for both the tranquillity of the Fa Hai Temple and the boisterous artistry of the Monkey King. We look forward to further insights in Qingdao during Easter 1999. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 383 MONUMENT TO THE WESTMORELAND REGIMENT THE 55TH REGIMENT OF FOOT IN DINGHAI CITY ON ZHOUSHAN ISLAND KEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH In October 1998 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society organised a visit for members to Ningbo [Ningpo] and Zhoushan Island [Chusan Island] off the East coast of China in the archipelago of the same name. The object of the visit to Dinghai, the county capital of the archipelago, was to try and follow the course of the British military campaign there during the First and Second China Wars, the First being the so-called Opium War of 1840-1842 and the Second, the Arrow War of 1856-1860, and see if any monuments to the British victory and subsequent occupation remained. In particular we were looking for the military cemetery and tombstones. The Chinese guide who met us in Ningbo and who was to accompany us to Dinghai was most doubtful about our mission. We did not think she was even aware that the British Army had been on Zhoushan 150 years ago. However by the time our ferry docked at Dinghai, maps relating to the campaign, which had been brought along with us, had been studied in detail, together with an account by the Reverend Wright. In Dinghai our first call was at the local museum where we collected the Curator. We were most fortunate in that he was interested in the China Wars, and not only knew the accounts - albeit from the Chinese point of view - but was able to lead us to the sites of action, and to the one remaining monument to the British. During the two China Wars Zhoushan had its moments of glory in history after which both conflicts gradually faded from both British national and Chinese local memories. Between the 5th of July 1840 when the city of Dinghai fell before a British attack for the first time, and the 5th of June 1846 when the British restored Zhoushan to the Chinese, the island was ruled twice by the British with its claim to fame as the first Chinese territory ever to be occupied and controlled ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 384 by the British. By the turn of the century folk memory in Zhoushan itself of the battles and occupation by the British had disappeared much as it has today in Weihai in Shandong province, which had been a British naval base, with a colonial governor, leased at the same time as the New Territories of Hong Kong in 1898 and held until handed back to China in 1931, The British captured and occupied Zhoushan on two separate occasions during the First Opium War. The first occupation was short and brutal, ending with an agreement ceding Hong Kong to the British, the reopening of Guangzhou (Canton) to foreigners for trade and an indemnity in exchange for the restoration to the Chinese of Zhoushan. Both sides promptly repudiated the agreement but not before Zhoushan had been handed back. The Chinese commissioner, Qi Shan was recalled to Beijing (Peking) in chains and charged with treason having surrendered Chinese soil. The War restarted some six months after the first retrocession by the British and the city of Dinghai was once more taken. The second occupation of nearly four years was longer but much more amicable on both the British and Chinese sides. The British appear to have failed, intentionally or otherwise, to extend their control far beyond the city of Dinghai and were at the mercy of the local Chinese tradesmen who controlled the victuals required to maintain the British occupation forces. This, however, does not appear to have led to trouble as doubtless the local Chinese were comparatively well paid for their provisions. Once the third and final British occupation ended, that is after the Second China War in 1860, there would appear to have been neither routine British consular presence on Zhoushan nor representatives of the foreign-run Chinese Maritime Customs on Zhoushan. These were stationed in Ningbo, the city on the mainland a mere couple of hours sailing away. However, there was a lighthouse on Zhoushan run by westerners of the Chinese Maritime Customs though this would seem again to have been directed from Ningbo, and at one stage there was a small American Christian missionary presence contrary to official agreements between the Chinese and Western nations, as well as a Lazarus Mission of Roman Catholics; in practice no Christian missionary presence on the archipelago had been authorised by official agreements. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 392 for that area. Our local guide quite unabashed, led us straight into the main courtyard, where we took photographs before a polite message from the Admiral, relayed to us by a staff officer, advised us that he was shortly expecting visitors. i NOTES Zhoushan Island, as with many other cities and areas in China, is now rapidly undergoing industrialisation with plans for an airport, factories and container terminals. There has even been talk of building a bridge across to the mainland. Zhoushan is romanised using the current Chinese pinyin system. Formerly it was known as Chusan using the western system devised by British scholars during the late 19th century. i China was published in 1844, illustrated by Allom and referred to in general as Allom's China; however, a former missionary, the Reverend Wright, wrote the text. iii Folk memory can be short, especially when it suits the authorities, and in 1998 people in Wei-hai under the age of seventy either looked blank and disbelieving when we told them of the British lease, or corrected us saying that we were mistaken. They explained that it was the colony of Hong Kong which had been handed back in 1997 and that the British had never been near Weihai. iv Other pedants may wish to note that the word Tatar tends to be 'misspelled' as Tartar. The original word in Chinese is Dada'er in pinyin and Ta-ta-erh in Wade-Giles. My history professor used to bark that tartar is on teeth! A Chinese historian writing during the late 1950s described the progression of the British forces up the South-east coast of China in a very abbreviated history and mentioned in a few words that "the local people in Amoy [Xiamen] had dislodged the British occupationists and forced them to evacuate the port city. The Chinese defenders made a gallant stand at Tinghai [Dinghai]. Fierce fighting continued for six days and nights. The British suffered heavy casualties. Although General Ko Yun-fei [Ke Yunfei] was covered with more than forty wounds, he fought till he breathed his last. Hei Shui Tang [Black Waters], a people's armed unit, also inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy". [Tung Chi-ming: An Outline History of China: Foreign Languages Press: Peking: 1959; P 215]. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x SPECIAL FEATURE Papers on the Conference Held on 9 December, 2000 to Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Reconstitution of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (HKBRAS) - Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City NOTES AND QUERIES 235 James Hayes - Feng Shui and Roadworks at Tong Fuk Village, 1958 255 James Hayes - A Torn Scrap of Paper: Relating to a Money Loan Association, Small Loans, or What? 261 P.H. Hase - Further Tales of the Man the Emperor Decapitated 269 Photograph Taken on the Occasion of the HKBRAS Visit to the Public Records Office in January, 2000 ... 273 D.D. Waters - One of Hong Kong's Many Hillside Temples 275 Crystal Tang - The HKBRAS trip to Vietnam between 30 September and 6 October, 2000 283 James Hayes - Translations from the Russian, HKBRAS Journal. No 38 291 BOOK REVIEW Gillian Bickley - Hong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare 293 viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x And yet in spite of all the publicity, there are some who still inform us, to their regret, that they lived in Hong Kong for many years before they heard about the RAS. One newly joined member told me that she worked in academia, in the Territory for 10 years before she heard. This puts the onus firmly on all members to spread the word. Please tell others. In more recent years new organisations have been established in Hong Kong which provide a certain amount of 'competition' (if that is the correct word). For instance, many young Chinese scholars now prefer to join the South China Research Circle, where most functions are conducted in the medium of Chinese. This is understandable. However, in spite of a number of 'new' societies having sprung up in Hong Kong in recent years, we like to think that our RAS Branch is rather special. We also like to think that we complement (rather than compete with) our sister institutions with which, I hasten to add, we are on splendid terms. Indeed our Branch has invited members from other institutions to its functions as they have invited us to attend their functions. We have also, in the past, conducted joint seminars together with the South China Research Circle. There are many societies with which we have contacts all of which we value. In some cases such organisations are mainly concerned with staging social functions, although, within a local or expatriate environment, quanxi (networking) is accepted as being important. Social functions do have a part to play. Publications Volume 38 of our Journal will shortly be published and, as a special Millennium and 40th Anniversary edition, it will be fitting for the occasion. In addition, we extend a vote of thanks to Dr Lauren Pfister and Josephine Wong, as well as the City Hall Library staff, especially Agnes Lee and Joseph Chan, for their hard work in preparing an extended and consolidated index for our annual journals. After a slight delay we were pleased that our new book, In the Heart of the Metropolis: Yaumatei and its People, was launched successfully in December 1999. We owe a big vote of thanks to Dr Patrick Hase, the editor, for a job well done. We also thank the many contributors, photographers, Joint Publishing (HK) Company Ltd, as well as the Chairman, David Ensor, member Ulana Switucha and other xiv Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x May, 1999, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, after which he gave a talk entitled: 'Hong Kong: From Memory Lane to Post 1997 Handover' RASHKB Library and finance Both our Honorary Librarian, Julia Chan, and our Honorary Treasurer, Robert Nield, have prepared their own 1999/2000 reports which they will present at this Annual General Meeting. I thank them for their assistance and for the special expertise that they bring to our Council. Our RASHKB Library is on permanent loan to the City Hall Urban Council Library and we thank the City Hall and its staff for all their assistance during the past year. Accommodation We also owe a debt of gratitude to PricewaterhouseCooper, who have helped us in various ways. With their offices situated in the heart of Central District, for example, they have provided us with very convenient accommodation for our Council and committee meetings. Similarly, we are grateful to the Public Records Office, at Kwun Tong, for providing us with storage space for our publications and for other assistance rendered by them during the past year. We are also indebted to the Government Leisure and Cultural Services Department for permitting us to use the City Hall accommodation for lectures which are run as joint RASHKB/Leisure and Cultural Services functions. The Council Although a number of decisions have to be taken outside Council (because of the time factor) by individual office bearers or a few together, the majority of the important decisions are taken in Council. This meets every six weeks or so with a longer break over the summer. During the past year the Council has consisted of Doctors Elizabeth Sinn and Michael Lau, both Vice Presidents, Robert Nield, Peter Halliday, Julia Chan, Valery Garrett, Bob Horsnell, Tim Ko, and May Holdsworth. Doctors Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, Peter Barker, and Janet Lee Scott have also been members of Council while the Reverend Carl Smith, Honorary Vice President, and Sarah Parnell have been co-opted on to the Council. xviii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x and seminar about the old library of the Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch with the new Hong Kong Central Library at the beginning of 2001. Mr. Michael Lee (Chief Librarian of Provisional Urban Council Public Library) and Ms. Agnes Lee (Reference Librarian of City Hall Public Library) will be travelling to Shanghai and will take the opportunity to examine the conditions of the books before making any decision to set up the exhibition. Efforts have been made in planning the relocation of the RAS Collection to the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay around the end of 2000. Similar to existing arrangements, post-1900 materials will be located in the special collection, and pre-1900 materials (previously the RAS Reference Collection) will be housed in the new Rare Book Room for reference only. Mrs. Valery Garrett and Mrs. May Holdsworth have kindly spent some time in reviewing the existing RAS pre-1900 western language materials, and selecting/adding titles from the special collection to the rare book collection as appropriate. Ms. Julia Chan, Honorary Librarian, worked with Dr. Michael Lau in arranging the RAS rare book collection in Chinese language. Compact shelving will be provided to maximize storage capacity and a comfortable reading area will be available to users to consult the materials. The collection will also be open to the academic communities and general public for reference. Usage of the RAS collection for reference was similar to last year. But while the number of borrowers has dropped by 50%, the number of books loaned out has increased by 22%. As reported by the City Hall Library Office, usage of the RAS Library for the period from 1 March 1999 to 28 February 2000 is as follows: No. of reference enquiries No. of books consulted No. of borrowers No. of books loaned out 188 457 44 128 Julia Chan Hon. Librarian 1 March 2000 XXXV ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 2 of the lower Pearl River Estuary. By AD 331, when the County of Tung Kuan was established, the then Salt Intendant certainly had his yamen (official residence and office) at Nam Tau. Nam Tau became the new county seat in that year, and the then Salt Intendant was promoted to County Magistrate, and the old Salt Monopoly yamen was upgraded to become the new County Magistrate's yamen, with a new yamen thereafter built for the incoming Salt Intendant. These early references also do not speak of Kowloon City specifically, but it is very likely that, with the Salt Intendancy headquarters so close, the salt-fields at Kowloon City were already then in full operation, probably with a Sub-Intendant in charge there, and it is likely that this was so from Nanyueh times. At some date between 331 and 1163 the Tung Kuan Salt Intendancy at Nam Tau was split into four, with one of the new Salt Intendants stationed at Kowloon City (then called Kwun Fu Cheung, "Rich Official Salt-fields"). The most likely period for this development (which was associated with an attempt to increase revenue from the Salt Monopoly in Kwangtung) is the tenth century, when again Kwangtung formed a separate Empire, that of the Nanhan (907-979); considerable amounts of Nanhan pottery have been found in the general Kowloon City area, suggesting that this was a place of some significance then. By the date of this split of the Salt Intendancy there can be no doubt that Kowloon City was an important Salt Monopoly centre. In 1163 the Kwun Fu Cheung Salt Intendancy yamen was moved to Tip Fuk (Tiefu) on Mirs Bay, where it stayed for a few decades — perhaps a hundred years — before returning to Kowloon City. In or shortly before 1293, the Kwun Fu Salt Intendancy was amalgamated with the Salt Intendancy headquartered at Wong Tin outside Sai Heung (Xixiang), a little to the north of Nam Tau, and the old Kowloon City Salt Intendant's yamen (which was a walled compound) became the yamen for a new County Sub-Magistracy then formed. This Sub-Magistracy was upgraded in 1370, and moved to Chek Mei Village outside Sham Chun (Shenzhen) in that year; it was moved back to Kowloon City in 1841, together with the yamen of the local Military Commander, which had previously been at Tai Pang (Dapeng) on Mirs Bay, to bring the Sub-Magistrate and Commander closer to the anticipated problems arising from the British occupation of Hong Kong. The walls of Kowloon City, which ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 14 to Tip Fuk in 1163. The Ngs joined the Chans here about 1350: the foundation date for the temple of 1354 is probably connected with this. Possibly the Lis settled here at about this date as well. Chan Mung-lung, BH, was the first Chan to settle in the Nga Tsin Wai area, and Ng Chung-tak was the first of his clan. Chan Chiu-yin was not the first Chan to settle in the area, but he was the clan head when the village was walled about 1570. Ng Shing-tak was the second generation of his family to live in the area, about 1350: he lived two hundred years before Chan Chiu-yin, and two hundred years after Chan Mang-lung. The date of 1724 given by the villagers for the walling of the village must be a mistake. The village would have been in ruins after the Coastal Evacuation, and the 1724 date must represent the successful repair and rehabilitation of the village. The villagers on their return to the village after the Evacuation must have lived in temporary huts for some time before they could gather the funds needed for the repair of their walls, temple, and permanent houses. The Tsuk Po give a little information as to the settlement of those branches of the Ng and Chan clans to leave Nga Tsin Wai and settle elsewhere. The Chans of Nga Tsin Long settled there about 1550-1570 - the Founding Ancestor of Nga Tsin Long, Chan Kwok-yin, RTY, was the younger brother of Chan Chiu-yin. The Ngs of Siu Lek Yuen in Sha Tin split off from the Nga Tsin Wai stock in the generation immediately after the Coastal Evacuation - probably before 1680 (the Siu Lek Yuen Ngs comprise the third Fourth Fong descent line). Another branch of the Ngs moved to Pok Liu (Lamma Island) in about 1820-1850. A branch of the Ngs moved to Tseung Kwan O somewhen in the early eighteenth century, probably about 1720, at the same time as a branch of the Chan clan moved there as well. Probably most of the other branches which split off from the Nga Tsin Wai clans did so in this same period, i.e. the fifty years after the ending of the Coastal Evacuation - this was a period when clans tried to occupy as much space as possible, with a view to giving later generations plenty of living space. Some of the branches, however, may have moved out much earlier. Several Chan clans resident in the villages around Kowloon City claim a relationship with the Chans of Nga Tsin Wai, but do not descend from Chan Chiu-yin or Chan Kwok-yin. These may well be groups already distinct before Chan Chiu-yin moved within the new walls at Nga Tsin Wai. There are such Chan clans at Ta Kwu ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 20 and the upper end of the Market (the Ng clan Ancestral Hall stood next to this road): this path went through the scattered houses of Tung Tau Village. To the south went a path which led to Sha Po Village, the lower end of the Market (where most of the shops owned by Nga Tsin Wai people were), and on to the pier. Of these, the path from the South-East Gate and on to Sha Tin Pass and the pier at Yuen Chau Kok was of major importance. The Hong Kong Government did a traffic survey at Sha Tin Pass in late 1904, in an attempt to consider the profitability of the Railway then under planning20, 600 persons a day were recorded as crossing this pass, 280 of them "carrying goods" (a good deal of this trade was of fresh fish from Tolo Harbour being carried for sale at Kowloon City Market, and through the Market on to Hong Kong). This was a very summary and unsophisticated survey, and probably under-estimates the traffic (it took no account of the higher numbers passing on Kowloon City market days, and it is unlikely to have been undertaken from dawn to dusk), but still suggests very heavy traffic (even as it stands, it implies someone crossing the pass every daylight minute). The "goods carried” would have been carried in the standard loads of 75 catties (100 pounds), and hence at least 12½ tons of goods were being man-handled over the pass every day at that date. Before the opening of the Railway in 1912, wealthy men would hire sedan chairs and coolies to carry them over the passes. Sha Tin village elders remember the Tai Wai man who was, before 1898, a clerk in the Sub-Magistracy at Kowloon City, and who travelled to and fro by sedan chair, and remember also that, if a villager called a doctor from Kowloon City to visit them, and then the doctor would insist on being carried over the mountains in a chair. All these would have passed under the walls of Nga Tsin Wai. This constant heavy traffic along the paths around the village brought business to Nga Tsin Wai. Cakes (Cha Kwo), and tea could be sold to passers-by, and also fruit and so forth. It is not known if any of the Nga Tsin Wai villagers worked as chair-coolies - it is perhaps more likely that the chair-coolies mostly lived in the Market - but there can be no doubt that all this traffic brought a lot of business the way of the village. J ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 24 eighteenth century. The Fungs () came there much later, at the end of the nineteenth century: they had fled from the Tai Ping rebels to Shek Lung Tsai in Sha Tin, and from there moved to Ngau Chi Wan. Very little is known of the Six Villages Alliance, and it is likely that it was more loosely structured than the League of Seven. It will be noted that Tai Hom, of the League of Seven, is completely surrounded by land that formed part of the Six Villages Alliance. Tai Hom, which is a single-surname village of the Chu (*) clan, is the only village of the League of Seven with no genealogical connections with Nga Tsin Wai. That it formed part of the League of Seven, rather than the Po Kong Six Villages Alliance is probably due to the circumstances of Tai Hom's foundation. The Founding Ancestor of the Chus, Chu kui-yuen, was a Hakka from Ng Wah District far to the northeast of Hong Kong22. He was a stone-cutter. He came to Hong Kong in 1762, to look for work in the quarries which were at that date starting up in the eastern part of what is today Victoria Harbour. He prospered, and established a quarry at Shek Tong Tsui in 1771. Later, he found Shek Tong Tsui rather remote, and exposed to pirate attack, and moved to Sha Po near Kowloon City. Later still, he bought quarry-land at the tip of Cape d'Aguilar Peninsula, and founded nearby the village of Hok Tsui. He had eight sons. His eldest son died unmarried, and Hok Tsui is today lived in by the descendants of his second, third and fourth sons. The fifth and sixth sons died unmarried or disappeared later. Chu kui-yuen bought more land, at Tai Hom, for his seventh son, Yan-fung, leaving his youngest son, Cheung-fung, , the land at Sha Po. After Kui-yuen's death, his widow lived at Tai Hom with her seventh son, who acquired a minor official post at Kowloon City, presumably after the re-establishment of the yamen there in 1841. Yan-fung was born in 1781, and died in 1857. Tai Hom was, therefore, a late settlement. It is unlikely to have been founded earlier than 1800. The land at Tai Hom was not fertile, and was steep and rocky (the Chus ran a quarry there, which supplied poor quality stone used for laying foundations in the Kowloon City area). Until 1992 a few remnants of Tai Hom, including the Chu clan Ancestral Hall, remained, buried within the Diamond Hill Squatter Area. It is likely that Po Kong refused to guarantee the good behaviour of these incoming Hakka (some already settled family was always required to guarantee incomers under the Pao-chia rules), while Nga Tsin Wai was willing, and that it was this which brought Tai Hom into the League of Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 33 artisans. In many of the uncle-and-nephew joint ownerships, the older man would work the farm, while the younger went off as a seaman - when the older man died or got too old to work the land, the younger would return to work the farm and marry, while the uncle's son in turn would go off as a seaman. In others, one of the owners would work a shop in the Market, with his brother or cousin working the farm. In all these cases the subsistence income from the farm, and the cash income from the shop or ship were regarded as the joint property of the whole family. These joint ownerships, therefore, tended to allow more flexibility in management of the economic opportunities available than the single-ownership properties. Of course, where, as at Nga Tsin Wai after the foundation of the City at Hong Kong in 1841, a good deal of the land was devoted to market gardening, then a household could subsist on less land than was needed for rice subsistence, so long as the village had good access to a vigorous market. Market gardening, however, required considerably more labour than a rice farm, perhaps three or four adults to the acre. Nga Tsin Wai was, therefore, not seriously short of arable land. The villagers could, in normal years, feed themselves, especially since a good deal of the land was devoted to market gardening, even in the nineteenth century. Indeed, even as late as the Japanese Occupation, the village could subsist on its own land: Nga Tsin Wai is one of the few New Territories villages where no-one died of starvation under the Japanese - the village fields (by then entirely given over to market gardening) could still feed the village, even when a third or more had been confiscated by the Japanese for the construction of the Airport Extension and the new nullah. very The Ng clan comprised 58.8% of the recorded 1902 Nga Tsin Wai house-owning households (including those households only owning land in Sha Po or Kowloon City), but owned 68.59% of the arable land (including land held by Ng clan trusts). If the Chan and Yung households who held only houses are ignored, then the Ngs represent 63.09% of the recorded house-owning households. At the same time, the Ngs owned 20 of the 30 premises owned by villagers within the Market at Kowloon, (66%), and their premises were equivalent to 73 standard shop-sites (76.84%). The Ng clan was thus a little wealthier than the rest of the village. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 41 part of it was being used for market gardening. The villagers in the Ng and Li clans had enough trust land to provide a fallback for poorer clan-brothers, although the Lease shows us the Chan clan already almost gone from the village. The Ng clan are shown as taking an aggressive part in the lending of money on mortgage, and thus increasing the clan land-holdings by foreclosure: the Lis, however, may not have had enough spare cash to do this. The village elders, Ng Kam-tong and Li Lai-ting in particular, stand out. Nga Tsin Wai does not show anything very different from other New Territories villages of this period, albeit it was more prosperous than most, but the Lease does bring the then village community to life. Traditional Lifestyles It is likely that the Nga Tsin Wai area was never a standard rice subsistence area. The proximity of the Market at Kowloon must have encouraged a measure of market gardening here from an early date. If the Lams settled at Po Kong because it was convenient for their trading business, it would seem likely that growing vegetables and cutting fuel for ships was always part of the Po Kong lifestyle. Nga Tsin Wai was doubtless also involved in this sort of business from the beginning. Nonetheless, at the end of the nineteenth century, a good deal of the land of Nga Tsin Wai was still used for growing rice. The land here was extremely fertile: rich, deep soil with few stones, and well watered: eminently suitable for rice growing. The present village elders remember hearing about rice-cultivation in the village from their grandparents, although pig-rearing and vegetable growing for the market was already very important in the late nineteenth century when those grandparents were active. According to the memories of the village elders of today, it is likely that the percentage of the land devoted to vegetables and livestock for the market grew steadily from 1841 onwards, until rice was, by the late nineteenth century, being grown only to meet the subsistence needs of a minority of villagers, who were otherwise living on the cash income from market gardening. Buyers from the new city of Hong Kong came to Kowloon City and Shamshuipo and Tsuen Wan from 1841 on looking for vegetables and meat animals to meet this new, and insatiable, demand. Market gardeners in the Kowloon City ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 42 area faced in consequence a sellers' market, and doubtless the result was a steady increase in the number of fields under vegetables, and in the number of village households rearing pigs and other livestock for the market. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, buyers from Hong Kong could only buy from villages on the mainland sea-coast opposite the City, since there then were no roads to bring in produce from further afield, and no vehicles to carry anything either. However, even though market gardening must have increased in importance throughout the later nineteenth century, it is likely that demand from Kowloon City and the ships calling there was enough to make market gardening a significant feature of local life even before 1841. The Nga Tsin Wai villagers say that rice cultivation stopped in the village well before the last War. Most of the elders cannot remember seeing any rice cultivation there in their youth in the 1930s. By then, the area was entirely devoted to producing food for the market. One contact said his mother and grandmother ran a pig-farm in the 1930s with 40 head of pigs - a very large farm for the New Territories at that date. That farm operated out of sheds built on the family fields, but a lot of villagers kept pigs and cattle actually within the walls of the village. The elders say that a lot of houses within the walls were empty in the 1930s. Many of the villagers had moved to the larger and airier homes outside the walls leaving empty premises behind (twelve villagers in 1902 owned houses both within the walls and outside, and a further nine had houses only outside the walls then). These empty houses within the walls were mostly used as pigsties and cattle sheds in this period: indeed, it is doubtful if there had ever been enough resident population at Nga Tsin Wai to fill all the village houses within the walls. A Sha Tin villager, Hui Wing-hing, F, of Shek Kwu Lung Village, wrote a series of poems about villages in Sha Tin and adjacent areas, mostly in the period 1890-1905, i.e. at approximately the same time as the Block Crown Lease Survey. For each village, he wrote about what caught his eye as important and special in that village. Market gardening was what he found most significant about the Kowloon City villages, and, in particular, the growing of fruit for the market. He has this to say of the League of Seven and Six Villages areas in his poem on the villages of Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Tsuen Wan: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 44 The lychees at Po Kong are really abundant. Of these verses, the reference in line 169 is to a temple near Ma Thu Wai. The reference in lines 170-172 is probably to the ejection of the Ch'ing officials from the Kowloon Walled City. In line 174 the reference may be to the prostitutes' quarter in the Market. The "hospital" in line 175 is the Lok Sin Tong. For three villages - Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, and Yuen Ling - the poet singles out the orchards and vegetable fields he saw there as particularly significant and worth comment, and at Ngau Chi Wan it was "herding" - presumably of meat animals for the market - which he noted as interesting and special. The vast majority of villages visited by Hui Wing-hing were rice-subsistence villages, with almost every inch of arable land used for rice, and the Kowloon villages clearly looked very different. While Hui Wing-hing's attention at Nga Tsin Wai was taken up by the British takeover of the New Territories, there can be no doubt that Nga Tsin Wai, too, was to a large degree a market-gardening area in his time. Almost all the coastal villages in the New Territories area had sampans, and added inshore fishing to their subsistence. It is a measure of Nga Tsin Wai's general prosperity that the Nga Tsin Wai village elders believe that their ancestors did not do this: the village had no sampans, and bought its fish - probably mostly from the coolies carrying fish from Tolo Harbour past the village to Kowloon Market. The Nga Tsin Wai villagers did, however, dig clams from the mud flats offshore, together with the villagers of all the other villages in the Kowloon Bay area. They also reared carp in the village moat, and possibly in other fishponds, for sale in the Market. Nga Tsin Wai was never a poor village, but it prospered noticeably during the later nineteenth century. 1902, the date of the Block Crown lease must have been about the most prosperous period of this village community. The village fields were fast being converted to market gardens as the village faced their sellers' market in the growing City. The village had developed good contacts with shipping companies, so that many of the men were able to get good jobs as seamen. Many villagers were also getting good jobs in the Whampoa Docks, where, again, the village developed good contacts in this period. As the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 45 Market at Kowloon City grew, so, too, did the numbers of villagers able to get work there as shop-keepers, shop-assistants, or general coolies. It is, again, a mark of the prosperity and local importance of Nga Tsin Wai that villagers from the village were very important in the foundation (1880) and early history of the Lok Sin Tong. This important charitable organisation was founded with the encouragement of the Sub-Magistrate and local Military Commander, with enthusiastic input from merchants in the Market, and local village leaders. The Ng clan of Nga Tsin Wai donated the land on which the Tong stood at its foundation. Prominent among the Tong's early Directors were Ng Shue-fan, RM, (1848-1906) and his first cousin Ng Shue-tong (44) from Nga Tsin Wai. Ng Shue-tong had been the leader of the villagers in the 1854 fight against the Taiping bandits, and must have been in his 60s when the Lok Sin Tong was founded. Ng Shue-fan was a scholarly man. He acted as the accountant of the Ng clan. He bought himself a degree somewhere in the late nineteenth century. The Chans and Lis were also closely involved as early Lok Sin Tong Directors. Chan Tak-hang (1828-1892, also known as Chan Jit-ming) was a Founding Director. He came from the Tseung Kwan O branch of the clan, but was resident in Kowloon Market, where he ran a general store, the Yi Hing Store (H). Since he was living nearby, he was probably regarded by the Nga Tsin Wai community as being "one of their own people". He was a prominent leader of the Kowloon City Kaifong. He also owned a shop in Fatshan, and four shops and a house in Hang Hau Market. He had a cargo junk which was busy in the stone trade, carrying cargo from the Kowloon area, especially stone from the "Four Stone Hills" in the Kwun Tong area, to Fatshan. He prospered greatly, and bought himself a degree in the late nineteenth century. He was a man of great charity, and built a guest-house and school for his clan at Tseung Kwan O, and a number of bridges and piers at various places, especially the great stone pier at Hang Hau Market, and paved the footpaths from Hang Hau to the summit of the pass to Sai Kung above Tseng Lan Shue (these paths and pier were critical to the prosperity of Hang Hau, much of whose trade consisted in handling fish carried from Sai Kung, and then sent on to Hong Kong by Hang Hau merchants). He amassed a large area of agricultural land near Tseung Kwan O (2.3 acres), and was the trustee of a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 54 City itself began at about the same time. The land south of the City Wall was cleared, and the land between today's Carpenter Road and Prince Edward Road, Grampian Road and Sa Po Road was developed. All this area was developed before the mid 1930s. Nga Tsin Long village disappeared at this date (it lay close to today's Nga Tsin Long Road). The old Market disappeared, too: it was cleared along with the villages nearby. By the middle 1930s, nothing at all was left of the old villages south of Kowloon City, with the exception of a few houses of Sai Tau near the Hau Wong Temple, and about a third of Sha Po, which remained, rather forlornly, on the eastern edge of this development area until the 1960s. For the Nga Tsin Wai villagers, the problems this development caused were very great. For half-a-dozen years there was no Market at Kowloon City, effectively, at all. Half the League of Seven had disappeared within a couple of years. The economy and society of the area had thus been very seriously damaged. The shops and workshops owned by the villagers had to close: rental income was cut off. In the later 1930s there was no further development in this area, because of fears caused by the steady growth of Japanese influence across the Border. However, these years saw a huge number of refugees fleeing from the Japanese into Hong Kong. Squatter huts were thrown up in the area around Kowloon City, both over the strip of land between the Walled City and Carpenter Road (this had been cleared for development in the mid 1930s, but left empty when development slowed down), and to the east of the City, around Tung Tau, and Nga Tsin Wai. The area north of Nga Tsin Wai village became full of squatter huts in this period. Squatters occupied many of the village fields, and the villagers were not usually able to get rent for them. All these problems were shared with Po Kong. The Po Kong people, unable to understand why their comfortable life had suddenly shattered, put the blame on their Goddess. They took their Tin Hau and cast the image into a great fire. This sacrilege shocked the Nga Tsin Wai villagers greatly: not only was the Goddess thus dishonoured, but also the Po Kong people were the Goddess' own relatives (the Po Kong Lams come from the same village and clan as the Lady Lam who was later deified as the Goddess Tin Hau). The Nga Tsin Wai people retained their faith in the Goddess. The disasters which befell Po Kong over the next few Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 57 and patchings. It was at this date that the village started to look generally run-down. Despite the obvious problems, the displaced villagers who took up the empty premises inside the walls managed to survive the War. Although the village had lost many fields to the new Airport and the new nullah, nonetheless, what was left enabled the village to survive - just by growing vegetables for the market at Yaumatei. The villagers all starved, but not quite to the point of death. This is unusual - very few villages in the New Territories were able to survive the War without even one person dying of hunger. Many of the villagers, in their blazing hatred of the Japanese, however, joined the guerrillas who were active in the hills behind Kowloon. As a result, there were several raids by the Japanese on the village. Several villagers were taken and executed (by beheading, usually in front of the village) for assisting the guerrillas. The villagers say that between a minimum of three and perhaps as many as seven village men were executed in this way. The present Temple Keeper of the Tin Hau Temple had her husband of less than a year beheaded in this way. By the end of the War, the village was on its last legs. "If the War had gone on another year, we would all have died": this statement is heard from all over the New Territories, including very definitely Nga Tsin Wai. At the end of the War, the village looked to an improvement. The returning British felt they had to keep the Airfield as extended by the Japanese, but they paid solid compensation in cash to all the villagers whose land or houses had been taken by the Japanese. Some years later the "Model Village" was closed down, but compensation was, again, paid to those living there. New work opportunities began to open up. The village was able to find funds for a full-scale restoration of their Tin Hau Temple, in thanksgiving for the favours shown them by the goddess during the years of hardship (1948). Before these improvements could bring about any major changes, however, the Revolution in China sent another wave of refugees into Hong Kong. As in the late 1930s, many of these settled around Nga Tsin Wai, on what was left of the villagers' fields. From Diamond Hill to Kowloon City, there was, by the middle 1950s, a solid mass of squatter housing interspersed with ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 61 See) Hong Kong 1987, WW#ENS "明 (*1##AB) (Forts and Batteries Coastal Defence in Quangdong during the Ming and Qing Dynasties), Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1997, A Lui Yuen ching Forts and Pirates A History of Hong Kong, Hong Kong History Society, Hong Kong, 1990, p 29 5 On the foundation of Po Kong, see Jen Yu wen, "The Southern Sung Stone-Engraving at North Fu Tamg" Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol 5, 1965, pp 65-68 The founder was the great grandfather of a significant local leader in the Kowloon area in 1274, the man responsible for managing the rebuilding of the Tin Hau Temple in Joss House Bay in that year Given his local standing, it is likely that this man was in his 50s or 60s in 1274 This being so, his great-grandfather was probably born in the period 1120-1140, and a foundation date for Po Kong in the 1160s would therefore seem very likely E 6 On this incident see Jen Yu wen, "The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung in Kowloon" Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol 7, 1967 pp 21-38, Jen Yu-wen, ed , Hong Kong, 1960, , Hong Kong, 1959, #M, (R), op cit, Chapter 4, 蕭國健,“香港王廟奉[楊大王]”in <香港前代史論集> ed 國健 and 大厅, Taipei, 1985 7 Jen Yu wen, "The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung", op cit p 33 8 * The young princess was drowned at sea, and the body was lost the grave had buried in it, to represent the deceased, a golden figurine the grave was known locally as the 'Grave of the Golden Maiden' ፡፡ "Some scholars doubt this ascription (for instance, in his "FAI PREFLEX", op cit) but the identification seems certain to me The identification was first made by the eminent late Ching scholar, Chan Pak-to (B) in a tablet he placed in the Hau Wong Temple, Kowloon City, in 1917 (the text is to be found in 科大,陸鴻基,吳倫霞<香港碑銘彙編> (D Faure, B Luk, A Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong), Hong Kong, Urban Council, 1986, Vol 2, pp 446-449) I find the reasons given by Chan Pak-to and Jen Yu wen (loc cit) on this very compelling 10 In 1846, as shown by the drawing of that date by Lt Collinson, the market comprised just the one main street, and the pier had not yet then been built The ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 62 market clearly grew in the later nineteenth century, but it was already large and prosperous by 1846. "The map is the Coastal Map of Kwangtung of 1553 of Ying Ka (MW l), reproduced in Hal Empson, Mapping Hong Kong: A Historical Atlas, Hong Kong, Government Information Services, 1992, Plate 1-2. Kowloon is not included in the list of Markets in the 1688 San On County Gazetteer (at least, not under an easily recognisable name), but both a "Kwun Fu Village" (九龍墟) and a “Kowloon Village" (九龍村) are, as well as Nga Tsin Wai, Po Kong, and Ma Tau Wai Villages. Despite this, however, it seems likely that a market was in existence at Kowloon City from well before the late seventeenth century. The Kowloon City Market is equally not included in the 1819 County Gazetteer, by which date there can be no shadow of a doubt that the market was very well, and very long, established. The earliest surviving land-deeds for the market date from 1751 and 1755, by when, clearly, the market was well-established: see J. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside, Hamden, Connecticut, 1977, p. 235, n. 14. In 1822, when the Hau Wong Temple near the market was restored, 85 shops from Kowloon City Market donated to the restoration, together with 5 (probably apothecaries), 31 quarries (石場), presumably from the surrounding hills, 4 ferryboats and 29 fishing-boats, as well as 8 shops from other markets. Clearly, the market was, in 1822, a vital and very well established place. See D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit. Vol. 1, pp. 75-78. WE The dates of 1354 and 1724 are included on a tablet giving the history of the village placed by the villagers in the Tin Hau Temple in the village. The details of the three founders' connections with the late Sung court are from statements made by village elders to Dr Hayes, and again to me, at various dates. 14 I have used a copy of one of the Nga Tsin Wai hand-written versions (kindly given to me by Mr Ng Hung-on, 吳雄安), the (privately printed) Nga Tsin Wai Wai Clan Genealogy (寶安縣衙前圍吳氏族譜), and the hand-written version from Siu Lek Yuen, a copy of which may be found in the “Historical Literature of Sha Tin" series in the library of United College, Chinese University of Hong Kong. 15 A copy was kindly given me by Mr Chan Wai-hong (陳偉康). This Tsuk Po was produced some years ago, from genealogical information written on the back of the clan Ancestral Tablets. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 64 27 See P.H. Hase "Bandits in the Siu Lek Yuen Yeuk", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 32, 1992, pp. 214-216. 29 I am indebted to the interview notes of Dr James Hayes for this incident. 29 The traditional land-law of the New Territories divided the land-ownership rights into subsoil rights and topsoil rights. The topsoil landowner had the right to till the land, or to sell or mortgage that right. The subsoil landowner had the right to take a rent-charge from the topsoil landowner, and he resumed the topsoil rights should the topsoil owner fail. It was the subsoil owner who was responsible for paying the land-tax, if any. The British declared the system inappropriate, and declared the topsoil owners the sole owner, and personally responsible for the Crown Rent. For the Nga Tsin Wai sub-soil rights in Kowloon City, see J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op.cit. pp. 167-168. 30 See J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, op. cit, pp. 168-171. 31 The information in this section is taken from the Chan clan Tsuk Po, and from information given me by the Chan clan elders. See also B. Williams, "The Chan Family of Tseung Kwan O", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 158-160, which gives additional material taken from the information given by the elders in the 1960s. 32 See J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. p. 171. 33 See J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, op. cit. pp. 167-168. 34 For these inscriptions, see D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit, Vol. 1, pp. 75-78, 114-116, 184-188. 35 Information from the recently revised Tsuk Po. 36 Information in this paragraph is taken from the Census of 1911, and from information given by elders of a number of villages. See P.H. Hase, “Traditional Life in the New Territories: The Evidence of the 1911 and 1921 Censuses", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 36, 1996, pp. 1-92. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x Live A Drawing of the Nga Tsin Wai Area From Sha Tin Pass, 1846 Lt W. Collinson : Ma Tau Kok The Po Kong Feng Shui HIA " (The Village is out of sight on the steward side) Fort of 1811 Kowloon Market Sha Po The Sacred Hill!!! (Sung Wong To) Kowloon City (The Wall were – built in 1847) Kak Hang Village Fung Shai Trees Nga Tsin Wai and its Mont Tsim Sha Tsui Ma Tau Wai Village Ta Kwa Leng Village Fung Shui Trees The Kwun Yam Temple, Tin Wan Shan Footpath to Sha Tin 79 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 08 MAP 1 The Kowloon City Area about 1905 Tai Wai Chok Yoen Siu Lek Yuen Tai Po Diamond Hill Hau Wong Ta Kwa Leng (Nga Yau Tau) Hau Wong Temple Kowloon City Sai Tau Tsuen Nga Trin Long Kai Kwy Lung Pa Kong Kak Hang Nga Trin Wai Kowloon Market Kan Pui Shek Tung Tau Tsuen Sheung Hok Lo Tsuen Pier Waste Land Tai Hom Yuen Ling Wai Ping Yi Tsai Tau Sha Tei Yuen Kowloon Bay Customs Pier Sai Kung Ngee Chi Wan Pak Uk Tsuen (Ping Shek) Lei Yue Mun Shau Kei Wan Tau Ngan Kok Hill Sham Shui Po Tsuen Wan Yau Ma Tei Ma Tau Wai Hau Pui Long Yi Wong Tin Tsim Sha Tsui Sacred Hill (Sung Wong Toi) Kilometres Ma Tau Kok Coastline in 1905 Buildings 1905 Footpaths Edge of Hill Marshes Kowloon Market ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x Kak Hang Po Kong, Sha Tin Pass, Yaen Chru Kok, Tai Po Sha Tei Yoen Flekkda Tiu Sam and Tai Wai Fields CL Courtyard Latrines Metres Fluids River Moat SEBO SERIA The Has Terapie Entrance Causeway, and Gate, with Guard Chamber Over Mont Wall 日 Wall MAP 2 Nga Tsin Wai in 1902 Flekk South-East Gate of Walled City 100 Lower Sha Po and Pier Fielde Upper Sha Po Ng Clan Ancestral Hall (Village School) +7 CL D 81 24- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 132 Lai, S.S. The Surrender of Japan: Before and After, Hong Kong, Ming Pao Publishing, 1995. (Chinese publications) Leason, J. Singapore: the Battle that Changed the World, Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1968. Liddell Hart, B.H. History of the Second World War, New York, Da Capo Press, 1999. Liddell Hart, B.H. Strategy, second revised edition, New York, Meridian, 1991. Lindsay, O. The Lasting Honour: the Fall of Hong Kong 1941, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1978. Lindsay, O. At The Going Down of the Sun: Hong Kong and South East Asia 1941-45, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1981. London Gazette: Supplement, 29 January 1948. “Operations in Hong Kong from 8th to 25th December, 1941” Morris, J. Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1997. Muir, A. The First of Foot: the History of the Royal Scots, the Royal Regiment, Edinburgh, Royal Scots Historical Society, 1961. Neillands, R. A Fighting Retreat: the British Empire 1947 - 1997, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1996. Orwell, G. The War Commentaries, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1987. Oxley, D.H. Victoria Barracks, 1842-1979, Hong Kong, British Forces Hong Kong, 1979, Ponting, C. Armageddon: the Second World War, 1995, Chinese translation by Rye Field Publishing, Taipei, 1997. (Chinese publication) Priestwood, G. Through Japanese Barbed Wire, New York, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 183 Friedman, Jonathan 1999 'The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush', Spaces of Culture: City - Nation - World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash. Sage Publications. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi. Guldin, Gregory E 1997 'Hong Kong Ethnicity: Of Folk Models and Change', Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis, ed. Grant Evans and Maria Tam. Richmond; Curzon Press. 1977a 'Little Fujian ('Fukien'): Sub-neighbourhood and community in North Point, Hong Kong', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (112-119). 1977b Overseas at Home: the Fujianese of Hong Kong. Unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hamilton, Gary 1999 'Hong Kong and the Rise of Capitalism in Asia' in Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the end of the Twentieth Century, ed. Gary Hamilton. Seattle. University of Washington Press. Harvey, David 1989 The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge (US), Oxford. Basil Blackwell. Hobsbawm, Eric 1983 'Introduction: Inventing Traditions', The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terry Ranger. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Hughes, Christopher 2000 'Nationalism in Chinese Cyberspace' Cambridge Review of International Affairs Spring-Summer Vol XII no. 2 195-209 Johnson, Graham 'Links to and through South China: Local, Regional, and Global Connections', Hong Kong's Reunion with China: the Global Dimensions. Ed. Gerard Postiglione and James Tang. New York. M.E. Sharpe. Jolly, Margaret 1992 'Specters of Inauthenticity', The Contemporary Pacific 4;1, Spring (49-72) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 186 Nadia Lovell. London and New York; Routledge. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald 1940 ‘On Social Structure', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. LXX. 1957 A Natural Science of Society. Glencoe. Chicago. Said, Edward 1978 Orientalism. New York; Vintage Books. Salaff, Janet and Wong Siu-lun 1997 'Globalization of Hong Kong's People: International Migration and the Family', Hong Kong's Reunion with China: the Global Dimensions, ed. Gerard Postiglione and James Tang, New York. M.E.Sharpe. Sassen, Saskia 1999 Guests and Aliens. New York; The New Press. 1999 'Digital Networks and Power', Spaces of Culture: City - Nation World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash. Sage Publications. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi. 1997 'Immigration Policy in a Global Economy', SIAS Review, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C. 17:2 (1-19), Scott, James C 1998 Seeing like a State : how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven. Yale University Press. Schein, Louisa 2000 Minority Rules: the Miao and the Feminine in China's Cultural Politics. Durham and London. Duke University Press. 1998 'Importing Hmong Brethren to Hmong America : A Not-So-Stateless Transnationalism', Cosmopolitics : Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation, ed. Pheng Cheah, Bruce Robbins. Minneapolis and London; University of Minnesota Press. Sennett, Richard 1999 'Growth and Failure: the new political economy and its culture', Spaces of Culture: City - Nation - World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash. Sage Publications. London, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 202 To this day, services for the departed, whether as newly-deceased souls or as wandering spirits, command the greater part of the time of practitioners from the two religions. Apart from the varied religious services carried out in the homes of the deceased, or in the temples and monasteries where similar rites were held for the departed, both Buddhists and Taoists are prominent in the rituals carried out in public places at the Hungry Ghost Festival.23 This, the most important ritualistic pacification of wandering souls and spirits during the lunar year, is still performed throughout Hong Kong on behalf of the general public by priests of the two religions, hired by local committees and associations. What People Want: Individual Expectations from Acts of Worship In approaching the gods, whether in the temples and monasteries, or at the earth god shrines on the street or in the fields, the worshippers had specific requirements in view. Then as now, worshipping itself was principally devoted to obtaining divine assistance in time of trouble or to attain the object of one's desire or supplication. These usually concerned health and wealth, as well as general preservation from all ills, for oneself and for family members, deceased as well as living. There was also the need to obtain protection (because of their great potential for harm) from the general body of those many departed souls without living male descendants to care for them. Unlike the ritual services, worshipping was not carried out with the help of intermediaries from the two religions. It is a personal act, usually conducted by the individual before the altars in temples, monasteries or nunneries, or at the tombs of deceased family members and ancestors at certain fixed times of the lunar year. As Archdeacon Moule says - and it bears repeating because it is so basic to an understanding of how Chinese people think and act - the prayers of the worshippers one sees in the temples are being "addressed to images representing deities of living and present power. 24 In Hong Kong, a visit to a large city temple like the Wong Tai Sin Temple in New Kowloon at a major festival leaves one in no doubt that the people believe in the ability of the god to grant their requests. Nor is satisfaction kept to oneself. The word soon gets around, and since the worship ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (HONG KONG BRANCH) ONE-DAY CONFERENCE Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City Saturday 9 December 2000 OPENING ADDRESS DR DAN WATERS ISO BBS, PRESIDENT 235 (This Conference was organised jointly by the RASHKB and the Hong Kong Museum of History to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the reconstitution of the Hong Kong Branch. The Conference was held at the Museum of History.) I am highly honoured to address you all today as we near the close of our 40th anniversary year. As you must know our Branch was re-formed in 1960, after a hiatus of a century. A very warm welcome to everyone. I have received messages from Dr Marjorie Topley, Dr James Hayes and Mr David Gilkes, all past presidents. They sent their best wishes for a successful conference. The RASHKB Group of ‘Friends’ in Britain, has sent us a congratulatory Card. If I had been born in the computer age the chances are I would be reading this address from a portable electric brain, as a computer is termed in Cantonese. But several of us taking part in this conference were born many years earlier. Indeed some of us have lived in Hong Kong for longer than the 40-year period (1960 to 2000), which we are reviewing here today. But continuing with my introduction: may I say that some of the most successful events our Branch has organised, especially in the 1960s and early '70s, were our one day and weekend symposia (see Appendix). A previous Honorary Secretary, R E Lawry, first proposed them when a small group of RAS members, in October 1963, was walking back to Silvermine Bay. Of course it was on a hill path as the first road on Lantao, or rather track, had only been constructed a few years earlier in order to build Shek Pik Reservoir. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x # ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY # HONG KONG BRANCH ## 243 ## Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City ### Jointly Organised by ### The Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch and The Hong Kong Museum of History, Leisure and Cultural Services Department ### To Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of The Reconstituting of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ### Saturday 9 December 2000 ### Venue: The Hong Kong Museum of History ### 100 Chatham Road South ### Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon ## ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Elizabeth Sinn (Convenor) Patrick Hase Tim Ko Joseph Ting Rap Waters ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x PROGRAMME Morning Session (9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) Opening address by Dr. Dan Waters Lecture: Sha Tin: From Village to City by Dr. Patrick Hase Documentary Film: Report on Hong Kong (c 1959) Afternoon Session (2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Lecture: Forty Years of Research on Hong Kong by the Reverend Carl T. Smith Slide Presentation: Living in Hong Kong 1960 to 1980 by Mr. Tim Ko Documentary Film: Western District (Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1975) Vote of Thanks by Dr. Dan Waters 247 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x Telemetry to Aten powerbaty Hồng h Enng Forty Years of a Growing Sha Tin: From Village to City: Dr Patrick Hase in great form(photograph courtesy Hong Kong Museum of History). 251 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 283 THE HKBRAS TRIP TO VIETNAM BETWEEN 30 SEPTEMBER AND 6 OCTOBER 2000 CRYSTAL TANG To take advantage of the two holidays, the Royal Asiatic Society's all overseas visit took place from September 30 to October 6, 2000 to Central Vietnam. Under the leadership of Dr. Patrick Hase, there were 20 of us in total; we started off our trip in the cosmopolitan south - Ho Chi Minh City. Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam until 1975, when it collapsed along with the anti-communist resistance struggle, now bears the name of Ho Chi Minh City, We stayed overnight at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel facing the beautiful Saigon River. Everyone in the group had a superb view from their rooms. Ho Chi Minh City is definitely a city on the move with its throngs of scooters, cycles, bicycles and cars running endlessly on the streets even at midnight. What an experience to cross the street there - you take your life into your own hands, it's entirely up to the pedestrian to avoid the traffic, not the other way round. According to the vice chairman of the Road Transport Administration of Vietnam, Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, "traffic accidents are a bigger threat in Vietnam than the AIDS virus". I'm glad I came back to Hong Kong alive. After dinner, I strolled along the streets near our Hotel. In a sense the French presence remains, lingering not only in the minds of the older generation but physically in the legacy of the colonial architecture and the long tree-lined avenues, streets and highways they left behind. The next day we arrived in Hue. Hue is one of the few ancient capital cities of the world that maintains today a cultural heritage of national and international importance. On making Hue the capital of Vietnam early in the 19th century, the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945) constructed here a complete urban complex in which the Perfume River played a vital role. Fortifications and palaces, where the Court held office and the Royal family lived, are built on the north bank of the river. Here exist three walled enclosures and hundreds of palaces and buildings. UNESCO declared these monuments in Hue World Cultural Heritage sites in 1993. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 284 Our guide, Cong, took us to visit the Citadel and explained that it was planned and constructed on traditional principles of intermingling Occidental and Oriental architecture as a result of the appropriate use of local geographical features. The Citadel of Hue was once a masterpiece of the Vietnamese people. The Imperial City, the second wall, is dotted with offices where the monarch and high-ranking mandarins came daily to work. The Forbidden Purple City, the third wall, was the private quarters of the Emperor and his family, which included hundreds of palace maidservants and dozens of eunuchs. It was fascinating to see that the walls and Royal Palaces of Hue were built on the principles of Chinese geomancy. The whole complex faces southeast, taking the Royal Screen Mount as a natural screen. Two islets in the Perfume River play the roles of "left dragon" and "right dragon", thus guarding the city. In general, the monuments of Hue are made chiefly of ironwood and other Vietnamese traditional materials. They are constructed, however, on a specific "module" and largely to suit the climate and environment of the region. After the Citadel, we visited the Tu Duc Tomb built between 1864 and 1867. Emperor Tu Duc was crowned King during this period of Vietnam's history when capitalism was developing in the West. He was an expert in philosophy, oriental history, as well as literature, yet he failed to rule the country successfully. Having no son to succeed him aggravated the situation. To seclude himself, he ordered the construction of his tomb as a fairyland with poetical features, making it a lifetime recreation ground and a special world for his eternal life after death. With several palaces and a specific man-made landscape, the tomb itself is a second ‘Imperial City', an ideal and heavenly world. That night we had an imperial banquet where we were all required to dress up as mandarins and someone needed to be King and Queen. There was no one better than Dr. Dan Waters, RAS President, to be the Emperor, and Pru, an RAS member, took the part of the Empress. With their costumes and majestic headwear, it was strange to see Dan and Pru looking so noble. We were all perspiring, and Dan and Pru were being fanned by waitresses, turned court servants, during the whole meal. The weather was so hot that once we had taken our group picture in which we were wearing costumes, the first thing we did was to get rid of the heavy mandarin dresses before we ate. But Dan and Pru took it so seriously that they wore their imperial gowns till the end. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 286 Our fourth day started at 8.00 a.m. as we headed off to Danang via Hai Van Pass. The scenic ride took us up the mountains, travelling from north to south through Cloudy Pass (Hai Van). This pass was established under the Minh Mang dynasty and the fortresses here were strategic points during the war for the defence by the French and Vietnamese soldiers. But all these monuments were badly damaged during the American War. En route, we also saw the beautiful Lang Co Beach, a resort area, as well as the "Reunification Express" train passing through one of the level crossings. Our coach stopped to enable us to obtain a picture of this historic train, which is still powered by steam! Finally, we arrive at Danang for a quick lunch followed by a tour of the Cham Museum. Danang, the provincial capital, has grown from a small fishing village into an important port and the country's fourth-largest city with 400,000 inhabitants. It is the port where 3,500 American marines first set foot in South Vietnam, on 8th March 1965. In the 17th and 18th centuries the first Spanish and French landings were also made here. Subsequently, Danang became the scene of battles between the Vietnamese, who fought first the Spanish and later the French. In the course of the 19th century Danang superseded Hoi An as the most important port and commercial centre in the central region of the country. The Danang area was the centre of the Cham civilization, from the fourth to the eighth centuries. The Cham museum was set up in 1936 by the Ecole Francaise D'Extreme Orient. Its extensive collection is displayed in four rooms featuring the following four periods according to their origins: My Son, Tra Kieu, Dong Duong and Thap Mam. The different influences, which shaped the culture and history of the Cham people, are revealed through their sculpture and carvings. The Cham Museum provides an insight into the fascinating culture and history of the Cham people. Many statues and bas reliefs attest to the rich culture of the kingdom which once flourished there and one realizes the worship of Buddhism and Hinduism was prevalent at that time. After the Cham Museum off we went to Marble Mountain. Five miles south of Danang towards the coast stand five large hills known as the Marble Mountains or Mountains of the Five Elements (gold, metal, wood, fire and earth). These mountains were once a group of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n to escape the madness, the melancholia and, yes, the panic, which sometimes surrounds the human situation. Activities Another of the fields where our Branch has made significant contributions over many decades has obviously been with our lecture and visit programme. These may be described as the backbone of our Society. Over the past year these have consisted of lectures, averaging about one a month, mainly at and jointly with the Hong Kong City Hall. These sessions are open to the general public free of charge. This is a form of community service. At the Chi Lin Nunnery talk well over 90 people attended. Over the past year we have in addition mounted visits locally and two visits outside the Hong Kong SAR. All these had leaders - sometimes more than one working as a team - who had a thorough understanding of their subjects (see Appendices One and Two). In some cases, because some of our members have good connections, it has also been possible to call upon the assistance of knowledgeable local people: for example in the case of Dr Ting who was able to invite people to assist with our visits to the China Mainland. Records show that, in the 1980s and the early 1990s for example, our visits outside Hong Kong were not well supported. Planned trips sometimes had to be cancelled. In the 1960s and '70s, it was not easy for various reasons (for government servants for example) to visit China. Over the past few years this situation has changed. More recently, on our tours outside Hong Kong it has not been possible, sometimes, to enroll everyone who wanted to join. It is interesting to mention here that our first overseas tour was to Thailand back in 1973. Although full day or weekend seminars, especially during the 1960s and the early '70s, were a fairly regular feature of Branch activities, they have not played such an important part in recent years. This was partly why our conference, titled Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City, held during our 40th anniversary year as a joint function with the Museum of History, was so welcome. It consisted largely of our own members as speakers, persons on whom we rely so much. They included the Reverend Carl T. Smith, Dr Patrick Hase and Mr Tim Ko. Tim's family has lived in Kowloon for five generations, since the 1850s. These three speakers are outstanding examples of members who have put, Page xviii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n Thank you must go to Chartered Surveyors Bill Greaves and Bob Horsnell, both long-time residents on whom our Volunteers depend for leadership. Historian Tim Ko has also helped in various ways. We are grateful to all concerned. Friends of the HKBRAS Our group of "Friends" in Britain, who held their first meeting in July 1998, consisting largely of HKBRAS members who lived in Hong Kong for many years, has had another active year. Their activities are detailed in a separate report written by HKBRAS Immediate Past-President, David Gilkes, who is now Chairman of the Friends in Britain. I will shortly present his report at this AGM. Of course, our Branch keeps in close contact with the Friends. Past President James Hayes wrote '[The standing of HKBRAS] is mirrored by the success of the Friends in UK and is very gratifying.' The Friends deserve our congratulations on their achievements. The setting up of this overseas group has been one of the most important events that have happened in recent years. It allows our members who return to Britain to live, to maintain links with the Territory and our Hong Kong Branch. In an effort to strengthen contacts among our overseas members who are not members of the 'Friends', we circulated a letter together with the 1999/2000 President's Report. In return, we received replies from Messrs Roderick MacLean MBE and B C Fawcett, who both now live in Britain. The latter is researching the Chinese Labour Corps that served with the Allies in France during World War One. It is good to hear from old friends. HKBRAS Library and finance Both our Honorary Librarian, Julia Chan, and our Honorary Treasurer, Robert Nield, who have contributed so much to our Branch, have prepared their own reports. These they will present at this AGM. I wish to make it clear that we depend on the professional experience of Julia and Robert a great deal. We are grateful for their assistance over many years. We are also grateful to the staff at the City Hall, and the staff of PricewaterhouseCoopers for their unfailing assistance and support. We are especially grateful to Mr Christian Stewart and to Ms Ada Loi, and of course to Robert for doing most of the work for our xxi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n Activities - Talks Date 2000 Appendix One Friday 28 April: Chinese Children's Books, by Don Cohn Friday 5 May: Recollections of a District Officer in the NT in the 1950s, by Denis Bray Friday 16 June: Pre-British Kowloon, by Dr Patrick Hase Friday 25 August: Lantau Mountain Camp, by Geoff Lovegrove Friday 22 September: The Architecture of the Chi Lin Nunnery at Diamond Hill, by Professor Puay Peng Ho Friday 27 October: Awards to Britons in the Service of China, by David Mahoney Friday 10 November: George Smith, Iconoclastic Bishop (1813-1871), by Dr Gillian Bickley and Dr Verner Bickley Friday 24 November: The Life of Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor, Commissioner of Customs 1857-1938, by Dr Cyril Cannon Saturday 9 December: Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City. One-day Conference jointly held with HK Museum of History to mark the Society's 40th Anniversary. Speakers: Reverend Carl Smith, Dr Patrick Hase and Tim Ko. 2001 Friday 9 February: Salt Production in the New Territories, by Dr Patrick Hase XXV ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n * 23 June 2000. Visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum to hear Mrs. Valerie Garrett on her collection of Chinese costumes. A real lifetime's work in Hong Kong went into this collection and members were treated to a masterly exposition by Valerie on how she succeeded in acquiring the costumes and their origins. * 17 July 2000. Visit to Oxford. This was a fascinating day to see many aspects of Oxford that one does not normally visit. We started at the Pitt Rivers museum to look at the Sir Aurel Stein collection and the conservation laboratory housing the textiles brought back by him. In the afternoon, a visit to the Ashmolean Museum was made featuring the Shaw collection (not Sir Run Run) and a collection of mid-nineteenth-century Yarkand and Kashgaria costumes once belonging to Robert Shaw, British Commissioner in Ladakh, who was an intelligence gatherer within the machinations of the Great Game. In the late afternoon, we invaded David Paskett's house to view his own paintings focusing on "Glimpses of everyday Chinese life." David has made frequent visits to China and is well known for the reproductions appearing on the cards of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Art museum. The day ended with a congenial Chinese dinner. For this very successful day, we need to thank Mrs. Rosemary Lee, whose organisational ability was up to its usual high standards. * 28 October 2000. Lecture by Mrs. Janice Thorpe. "Hong Kong Revisited." Janice had recently returned from Hong Kong where she was one of the R.A.S. volunteers who worked with the Antiquities and Monuments Office, surveying heritage sites. This was a wonderfully all-embracing lecture which brought home not only the places which many of us had not seen but should have seen, and were still there, but also the very rapid changes and, in some cases, demolition of many well-known heritage sites. * 27 January 2001. Chinese New Year Lunch at the China City Restaurant, Soho, London. This was attended by 51 members and friends, including one who travelled up from Cornwall and one from Belgium. XXVIII ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2000/2001 As of 1 March 2001, the library collection had increased to 4,133 volumes. A total of 148 volumes were added during the year. Donations of books were received from Mr. Anthony Chung, Ms. Launa Christofis, Mr. Peter Crush, Mr. Bob Horsnell, Dr. James Hayes, Dr. Dan Waters, Hong Kong Museum of History, and Friends of the Art Museum at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The relocation of the RAS Collection to the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay has again been delayed. It is now planned to move in April 2001 to take advantage of the Easter holidays so that it will cause less disruption to service. There will be two RAS Collections in the new Library: the Main Collection of post-1900 materials shelved in the Special Collections area, and the Rare Book Collection of pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) housed in the Central Library Rare Book Room. Both collections will be on the 7/F of the Library. The Rare Book Collection is for reference only and will be under close supervision. Some Council members have expressed concern about the deteriorated condition of some books in the RAS Collection. City Hall Public Library has kindly agreed that their Conservation Unit will help to restore these books through binding and repair after they have settled down in the new location. They will also cooperate with the Hon. Librarian to catalogue and process the Arnold Graham Collection which was donated by the late Mr. Arnold Graham in 1995 but sent directly to the City Hall Public Library without being catalogued. These books will then be able to be accessed from the Online Catalogue. In light of the move to the new location, the Library Regulations for usage and borrowing have been revised and accepted by the Council members. The regulations became effective July 2000 irrespective of the Collection's location. Copies of the Library Regulations have been distributed for information. The new Library Regulations demand stricter borrowing xlii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n procedures and closer monitoring of overdue items. In August 2000, we were informed by City Hall Public Library that there were 26 long overdue books. Some of these outstanding items were borrowed as long ago as 1985. This raised the question of why we were not notified sooner so that prompt action could have been taken. It has been difficult to trace the missing items since some of the borrowers had already left Hong Kong and some could not be found. One member had shipped some borrowed books to England but promised to bring them back on his next trip to Hong Kong. City Hall Public Library has agreed to tighten up their loan system. Council members have also put great effort into contacting delinquent borrowers. To date, there are still 11 books outstanding. We will continue effort to trace them. The proposal to set up an exhibition and seminar on the old library of the Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch with the new Hong Kong Central Library to coincide with its opening was postponed. Ms. Julia Chan (Hon. Librarian), Mr. Michael Mak (Assistant Director, Libraries & Development, Leisure & Cultural Services Department) and Ms. Alima Tuet (Chief Librarian, Hong Kong Central Library & Hong Kong) visited the Shanghai Library in May 2000 and found that books of the old library were still packed in boxes. These books cannot be inspected until the Shanghai building where they are housed is renovated in a year's time. As part of the digital initiative, HKU Libraries will be creating a database of scholarly journals published in Hong Kong. When accomplished, the database will be open to public access on the World Wide Web to provide convenient access to resources on Hong Kong and facilitate research on Hong Kong and China studies. RAS was approached in respect of this project. Since there is copyright concern, the Council agreed that all the tables of contents but only selected articles with copyright clearance from their authors would be digitised for the database. The HKBRAS Journal was the first journal to be digitised. The scanning process has been completed and the contents have been posted on the Web. There are still some technicalities to be resolved. This database allows browsing of the table of contents and keyword searching of the articles. Full text of the articles will be displayed clearance has been obtained. Since this database can be accessed worldwide, it will greatly help to publicise the Society and its Journal. xliii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 51 young for demobilisation, he volunteered to join the HQ of the CLC instead of serving with the Army of Occupation of the Rhine, and served with them until being demobilised. In February 1920 he volunteered for repatriation duty and from Le Havre assisted to escort 1000 labourers on the S.S. Melita to St John's, Newfoundland, a voyage lasting five days. Seven days journey by Canadian Pacific Railways took them to Vancouver City and then by ferry to the quarantine station at William Head on Vancouver Island, where they were joined by another 5000 coolies who were also awaiting repatriation. After quarantine, with 12 British officers and other ranks, 4730 coolies sailed on the M. S. Dollar to Qingdao, a crossing of twenty-one days, where the coolies were demobilised. Mellor then sailed via Shanghai, Hong Kong [staying two months], the Suez Canal to London, where he was demobilised in late 1921. Again, a further confusion in these figures of those who died arises, as, according to a list of names provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of those labourers who have graves, world-wide, the number buried is 1952. Their list also includes, separately, names and graves of non-nationals [i.e. Brits, etc.] who were either serving with or were attached to the CLC from other regiments and these totalled 58. A total of 191 Chinese from the Corps served later with the Slavo-British Legion in Northern Russia in 1920. Between March and December 1919, 50,861 labourers were repatriated with shipments continuing for several more years. About 60 men remained behind in France to carve inscriptions on the tombstones of their dead fellow workers, and this may explain why some of the characters on the stones are unusual, if not incorrect. We understand that headstones are today replaced at fairly frequent intervals providing an enduring picture of well-cared for military cemeteries. The stones are produced nowadays in France by a team working for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission [CWGC] using automatic laser guided tools. This means that the Chinese characters are taken from identical templates which may explain why the character that we saw for the surname Liu has two different forms, each of which is identically turned out on headstones but without any apparent reason for the use of the popular version on some and the obscure version on many more. According to the CWGC a typical headstone would bear one of five phrases engraved both in Chinese and English, the name of the corps, number and date of death in English and the name and province of the casualty in Chinese. We only ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 118 and the ten celestial trunks." These indicate the cardinal points and all other directions, as well as calculating various phenomena according to Chinese beliefs, by which the specialist can work out the geographical position of Taisui and the times and places threatened by his presence. To find where Taisui will be during the forthcoming year, and he is believed to move annually, the compass is used by a fengshui expert, a geomancer; or for every day general use prognostications are simply looked up in the Farmer's Almanac. Nowadays, the birth hour and date of an individual are matched to the movements of Taisui given in the Almanac thereby obtaining the auspicious and inauspicious dates for most social functions such as weddings, travel, starting a business or journey, launching a ship or burying the dead. Individuals whose future has been identified as clashing with the particular cycle through which Taisui [or his planet Jupiter] is passing must avoid major events such as travel, moves, marriage or house construction. Although he is greatly feared as he can not only protect and provide happiness he can also invoke disease misfortune, calamity and must be placated especially before embarking on any new major project. Despite the importance of this deity he is worshipped on as few occasions as possible as he is so alarmingly unpredictable. He is, however, prayed to when a child is born for a long, comfortable and happy life. Taisui is also prayed to in Fukienese temples, especially in Malaysia, for good luck at the races. As an agricultural deity, one of the most important rôles of Taisui, was to control rainfall, and to provide sufficient and no more for a good harvest. In Fujian and other eastern Chinese provinces Taisui was also known as Mang Shen or Gou Mang, "the youth with the Spring Ox." A colourful and symbolic ritual, not observed in Hong Kong or Macau but still to be seen in Taiwan, was the beating of the Ox at the beginning of Spring. The ox, fashioned from mud or coloured papers, was based on the Farmer's Almanac, with its size and colouring determined by the portents for general well being and weather for the coming year. The ceremony consisted of a float bearing the mud images of the ox and Taisui, followed by city officials bringing up the rear. It ended with the ox being beaten by the local mandarin outside his yamen and broken up, followed by devotees scrambling for parts which they either fed to their pigs for fertility, buried them in the fields for abundant crops, or kept them in their homes for good fortune. The first illustration ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 123 scroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity. A six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere. Only in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces. In several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as: Li Bing 李丙 Huang Chengyi 黃丞乙 Zhou Deng 周登 Liu Hong 劉洪 In a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 124 Hong, was a special deity said to save people from the 'fifteen bad deaths.' Images of both Yin Hong and Yin Jiao flanked that of the Jade Emperor on the latter's altar. The brothers were portrayed, rather surprisingly, sitting naked and with claws, beaks and wings. Grootaers writing about the Kalgan district of northern China, said that Yin Jiao was never seen on altars except as an attendant of the Jade Emperor. In a small folk religion temple at the roadside in Kuala Selangor an image of Taisui has a tiger sitting beside him and when asked the reason for this the temple custodian explained that Taisui keeps a tight control over the tiger who would otherwise eat people's luck. A similar image, holding a bell in his right hand and with a pair of tigers, stands on the Taisui altar in a temple in Cholon [Saigon]. In Ningbo in the 1890s the Gods of Time, of the year, months, days and hours were, according to one missionary, all represented with long black moustaches, and with the central one seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella richly embroidered in gold representing the highest emblem of authority. Sixty images [presumably Taisui, though the observer did not actually spell it out] ranged down the side walls of the Temple of the Three Emperors in the Native City in Shanghai in 1906, with twenty-six on one side and thirty-four on the other. Paper 'shoes' representing silver sycee [money] were burnt as offerings. Other images of Taisui have been referred to in all parts of China by western travellers in groups of sixty. One traveller, Grainger, noted all sixty in one temple in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in 1921, were worshipped for rain and called 'The Spirits of the Rain Dragon of the Year' [Dangnian Xingyu Longshen]. The Legend of Taisui 19 18 The story of Yin Jiao begins with him being born a lump of formless flesh which so horrified his father, King Zhou E, that he ordered it to be abandoned outside the city walls. The lump was recognised as an immortal, the caul split open and the child removed. Cared for by a hermit he was brought up and nursed by one of the Eight Immortals, He Xiangu. When he came of age he was told about his birth and about ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 135 Celestial Stems, in the form of the Five Planetary deities, and the other five their counterparts according to the Five Elements. As an example we shall look at just one of the Five Planetary deities, the first stem, Jia, together with its counterpart humanised form the element Wood. The individual Planetary deity portrayed, Jia, is carrying a dish of peaches and is identified as Jupiter. This is the same deity as the one seen elsewhere with the small arms and hands emerging from the eye-sockets. A second wall dedicated to the Lord of the Southern Dipper, Nan Dou Xingjun, depicts the other Five Planetary deities and their counterparts. Reverence of, and Ritual and Sacrifice to Taisui Each of the sixty Taisui is a guardian of the individual year, and is regarded as the deity in charge of his particular year responsible for the happiness of mankind, and for births and deaths during that year. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before or under the image of Taisui bearing their cyclic year-date of their birth. When such cyclical characters are used they are interpreted from a chart held by the temple keeper who is able to read off the year. In the City God temple in Yau Ma Ti in Jiulong, each of the sixty images which stand in serried rows down a side wall, is an identifiable deity but without its individual name or title being displayed. In Chinese folk religion temples in both Cambodia and Thailand, Taisui is presented with offerings 30 days after the safe birth of a child to ensure that a full life span is pre-ordained. In several of the Macau temples, slips of red paper have been pasted above each of the sixty images identifying the year and title of each of the Taisui. In other places, a number of characters on the front face of the base of each image identify which year of the sixty-year cycle the particular image represents, and in two temples at least, presumably for simplicity's sake, the number of the year is clearly written in ordinary characters. In Hong Kong and South-east Asia, devotees place placatory offerings of spirit money under the image which bears the two characters for their year of birth of the sixty in the cycle, together with an oral request for a good year. Such piles of paper spirit money are a sure identification of the Taisui cult. These wads of "hell" paper money, either printed notes on the Bank of Hell25 or gold paper "ingots"26 [sheets representing offerings of precious metal], are placed beneath ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 169 the hills. In temples in and around Hsintien and Mucha Wang Gong is revered as the protective deity (with the pair being revered in a few places but still known as Wang Gong) with his [their] annual festival celebrated on the 10th day of the fourth lunar month, but largely without the great majority of devotees realizing the original identity of the deities. Wang Gong A is also referred to as Weng Gong and Huang Gong A, both of which are almost certainly erroneous titles due to mistaken homophones. In and around Hangzhou they are known together as Er Da Ming Huang [The Two (Generals) of Tang emperor Ming Huang]. A fierce image of Zhang, with his mouth wide open used to stand on a minor altar in a small temple near Donghu, a city some sixty miles upstream from Hangzhou. Devotees there believed that pain could be cured merely by touching the abdomen of the image whilst throwing a few coppers into its mouth. Two large images of Zhang and Xu in an old temple some fifteen miles east of Hangzhou, destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, have been replaced with modern images with the image makers being guided by the elderly from memory. This temple stands out in the countryside with the nearest village some half a mile away and with the catchment area for contributions for the rebuilding extending some ten miles in all directions. The refurbished temple has yet [early 1994] to have the two dozen aides flanking the side of the main hall completed, though the images of their main deities and their consorts have been finished. They are regarded as the local protective deities. In 1963 in Hong Kong, in a Chaozhou community squatter-shack temple on Lion Rock hillside above Kowloon [now long demolished], the two deities, represented on a framed paper icon on the main altar as two relaxed, seated mandarins in floral robes, were first identified as "The Two Loyal Dukes" or "the Two Loyal Saintly Lords". The two deities were later identified by several devotees as Wang Zhang Ek and Wang Xu Elf. The two mandarins, with long black beards, were identical and were prayed to as the patron deities and protectors of Chaozhou people. In 1927 Goodrich in Beijing recorded seeing images of “two famous generals of the Tang dynasty, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan” in the Dongyue Temple to the east of the city.13 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 186 five sections. When I visited the higher of the two Obelisks, in 1994, it had what appeared to be a plastic anchor, about seven inches long, wired to the eastern side, about half way up the Obelisk. It seemed to have been added as an afterthought. On my visit in May 2000 the anchor was no longer there. There are no permanent inscriptions or markings on either of the beacons and they are not lighted. I understand however, from long-time RAS member Arthur Hacker, that at one stage some wag had painted on the upper Obelisk the words. TO MY BELOVED DOG FIDO RIP When Hacker saw the words, around 1980, they were faint, flaking and hardly legible. The lettering was, however, professionally done (Hacker, 2000). History tells us that, before the British took possession of Hong Kong Island in 1841, passing ships replenished their water supplies not only at Waterfall Bay, near what is now Wah Fu Estate at the western end of Hong Kong Island, but also at Tai Tam (Empson, 1992:19). There must have been a pretty sizeable waterfall fed from the Tai Tam Valley, from which relatively pure water was obtained before the Tai Tam Reservoirs as we know them now were constructed. A tunnel was constructed first, from 1883 to 1888, to bring water into the City of Victoria. From then on, off and on over the years, various reservoirs were constructed. They included the Bye-wash, the Intermediate and the Tai Tam Tuk Reservoirs. The commemorative stone to denote the completion of this complex water supply scheme was laid, adjacent to the main road, by the then Governor Sir Henry May, on 2 February 1918. When considerable amounts of building materials were being shipped through Tai Tam Bay, and then on into Tai Tam Harbour for the construction of these reservoirs, the two Obelisks would no doubt have been useful as markers. The construction of these reservoirs ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 211 A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong But let's start at the beginning. How did it all commence? First, though it is interesting to recall that that great man, Henry Ford, once said: "History is bunk. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, And the only history that is worth a tinker's damn Is the history that we make today." Those words of Henry Ford contrast markedly with those of Winston Churchill, who is purported to have told an American boy entering a British public school: "Young man, study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statehood." Early days So, as a great admirer of Sir Winston Churchill, I accept his words rather than those of Henry Ford. And if we delve deeply, history tells us that in Hong Kong, as early as 1863, vocational training in carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, printing, bookbinding, and gardening was being provided for 12 boys. Numbers later reached 30. These classes were held in a Chinese building under a Father Raimondi, not far from the Roman Catholic Mission House, which then stood in Wellington Street, in what used to be called the City of Victoria. You can almost picture the carpentry classes using the same kind of Chinese tools and labour-saving stools cum-benches which we still employ today. With the latter, one can hold a piece of timber being worked with one's foot and plane downhill, which makes good "work-study" sense. As a footnote, I recall one of our carpentry instructors at the old Technical College always using a Chinese plane when he wanted to get an especially good finish on a piece of timber. There is a lot to be said for Chinese tools. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 259 After the Japanese invasion of Malaya on December 8, 1941 he accepted an invitation by The Times to become its war correspondent. His wife, Maria, and other expatriates were evacuated to Batavia (Jakarta) in January 1942. Mr. Morrison covered the Malayan campaign through to the surrender of Singapore on February 15, 1942, leaving the city for Batavia on February 10, where he rejoined his wife. He was in Melbourne by May of 1942, and appears to have spent the rest of the war in Australia as a war correspondent, although there is some evidence that he was in New Guinea for a period. After the war he and his wife returned to Singapore where he continued as a correspondent for The Times. He met Han Suyin in Hong Kong in June 1949. He went to Korea in July, 1950 to cover the Korean War and was killed on August 12, near Taegu, when the jeep in which he was travelling was blown up by a land mine. He had a brother, Alastair, in the Diplomatic Service and another brother, Colin, in the colonial service in Hong Kong. Cloud service in And now I've seen the pavilion where Ian and Suyin sat together under the stars, and the tree, and the steps that Mark ran down (in the motion picture) after saying his final goodbye to Suyin, on his way to the airport (the book is much less romantic — they say goodbye on the street and Mark boards a 'bus for the airport). What an incredibly poignant experience! Pavilion behind Realty Gardens I made my visit to the pavilion with my two young children (my wife was otherwise engaged) and understand, perhaps for the first time, that passage in Han Suyin's book where she quotes Mark as saying that life's greatest tragedy is not to be loved, which he promptly amends to not to love. And then, of course, there is the passage central to the book's theme and from which the title is taken: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 267 AMENDMENTS ON THE ARTICLE "YAUMATEI AND THE YU LAN FESTIVAL” AS IN "IN THE HEART OF THE METROPOLIS: YAUMATEI AND ITS PEOPLE" CHIU HANG-SHI I believe it would be desirable to amend some of the information, mainly about translation, in the article mentioned above through this Journal. 1. 2nd paragraph, pg.151 (as in the book mentioned above) The "Shing" in "Yu Lan Shing Wui" is, "" and not “” (as shown in the Glossary, pg. 181). 2. 6th paragraph, pg. 151 "Upper Original Festival” should be held on the fifteenth day of the first moon, not of the fifth moon. Another (ancient) version of the dates of the Upper, Middle and Lower Original Festivals are the seventh day of the first moon, the seventh day of the seventh moon and the fifth day of the tenth moon. 3. 4th paragraph, pg.155 The "King" in "Nim King Fat She" is, "" and not “" (as shown in the Glossary, pg. 181). The English translation would be "The Buddhist Society for Reciting with Respect" 4. 3rd paragraph, pg. 157 The title of the Announcement ("Pong") should be "The Golden Piece of the Bestowal Bliss" and not "The Golden Seal of the Bestowal Bliss". I was confused by the character "" for it means both "seal” and “piece”. 5. 6th paragraph, pg. 158 Mung Shan Offering Ceremony: This ceremony is held every day since it has been incorporated into the Evening Recitation in Chinese Buddhism. For those who would like to read the whole text of it in English, please refer to the “Sagely City of 10,000 Buddhas Daily Recitation Handbook” (1991) published by the Dharma Realm Buddhist University, Buddhist Text Translation Society. The founder ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 270 connection, as my mother was a Yip from Chan Uk Village, also at Nam Tau. There were over ten families of Ng in Kowloon Tsai, but we had no ancestral hall there. There were two parts to the village, an upper and lower part - Sheung and Ha Wai. We lived in the Ha Wai. There was a Tin Hau temple at the village, and we had puppet shows on the goddess' birthday every year when I was young. We also had a Ta Chiu in the village every ten years. 'I was married to a Li of Sheung Sha Po Village when I was 18. My husband was a revenue officer in the Customs service. We had three houses in the village, but they were all demolished for the airfield extension. We were sent first to a vacant tenement house in Cheung On Street [not identified in a modern street guide, but very likely to have been in nearby suburban Kowloon] whose owner had left. We were there for 4-6 months, before moving to Model Village. 'I am Shing Sung, now 55, a Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau and came to Kowloon when I was 18 to join my uncle who owned a wooden house at Tsat Kan Uk [The Seven Houses], a place north of old Kowloon Tsai Village. I later built a wooden hut there for myself. I came to Model Village after the war. I remember that there were private fields in the general area, as well as government land. People named Fung, Hui and Tsang owned fields there before the war. 'I am Madam Law Mui, aged 57, also Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau, and came to Kowloon when I was 20, to marry Shing Sung's elder brother - also to The Seven Houses. We farmed government land there, for which we had a permit and paid fees, both before and after the war. There were many people at Ap Tsai Wu (Duckling Pond), the name of the general area where we lived and farmed. They were scattered here and there, because we were all vegetable farmers and you built your own house beside your own plot of land. Like Shing Sung, we moved to Model Village after the war. 'I am Madam Kwai-fung, aged 64. I am a Hakka, born at Sha Po Tsai, Kowloon, where my family had lived for several generations. My father kept a store in Lower Sha Po, near Blacksmiths' Street in the Kowloon City suburb. When I was 22, I was married to Ng Sam-hong, a Punti, of Old Kak Hang Village, next to Nga Tsin Wai, when we had gone to live in a newly repaired house. We had two houses of our own at the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g It is likely that before the next AGM a full-scale donation drive will have been begun: members will, of course, be kept fully in the picture. In the meantime, preliminary discussions with the University of Hong Kong Press on the possibilities of establishing a series of monographs, funded by the Fund, and possibly to be called the "Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong, Local History Series" have shown considerable promise. Even though the Fund is not yet formally in being, donations of a little under $2,000 have already been made to it, which is a hopeful sign. Please watch this space for further details! Library Our Hon. Librarian will shortly give a Report on the work of the Library of the Society for the year, and I do not wish to anticipate what is in that Report. However, I must mention the move of the Library from its previous crowded location in the City Hall to far more spacious and satisfactory premises at the new Central Library in Causeway Bay, since this is one of the most important achievements of the Society during the last year. The Society has been looking forward to this move for several years. Now our books are housed in a fine space. They have all been treated with appropriate preservation measures. Our rare and valuable books are housed separately in a secure room. Now the Library is kept in a way appropriate to its status as one of the most important research libraries in Hong Kong. I am glad that so many members of the Society took advantage of the two visits the Society arranged to see the Library in its new setting. As you no doubt are aware, the books in the Society's Library are on permanent loan to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. They remain ours, however. They are available to any member of the public to read, but only in the Reference Library of the Central Library. Members of the Society, however, who present their Membership Cards, can borrow our books (other than the rare and valuable ones). Furthermore, members may go into the stacks and work there (a small desk for the use of members has been provided). The Library is an important asset, and I am particularly glad to be able to report on its present flourishing and satisfactory situation. Council is anxious to continue to expand the Library, and thus to continue its development as a major research source for the study of Page XX ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 1 March 2002 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY ADDITIONS LIST 2001/2002 Adams, Edward Ben, 1934- Palaces of Seoul: Yi dynasty palaces in Korea's capital city; foreword by Hwang Su-Young. Seoul, Korea: Taewon Pub. Co., c1972. Belden, Jack, 1910- China shakes the world. New York: Harper & brothers, c1949. Bodde, Derk, 1909- Law in imperial China: exemplified by 190 Ch'ing dynasty cases (translated from the Hsing-an hui-lan) with historical, social, and juridical commentaries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c1967. Boulger, Demetrius Charles de Kavanagh, 1853-1928 The life of Sir Halliday Macartney, K.C.M.G., commander of Li Hung Chang's trained force in the Taeping rebellion, founder of the first Chinese arsenals, for thirty years councillor and secretary to the Chinese legation in London. London, New York: J. Lane company, 1908. Carney, Dora Sanders, 1903- Foreign devils had light eyes: a memoir of Shanghai 1933-1939. Toronto: Dorset Pub., 1980. Copper, John Franklin Words across the Taiwan Strait: a critique of Beijing's "White paper" on China's reunification. Lanham: University Press of America, c1995. Croft, Michael Red carpet to China. London: Longmans, c1958. Cronin, Vincent, 1924- The wise man from the West. London: R. Hart-Davis, c1955. xlv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 46 muddy plats, eventually reached the first "gun-house," as the crumbling fort was known to the Chinese. Finally, the passengers reached the Custom House and on to whatever accommodation they had reserved or could find in this very primitive European backwater. Chinese immigrants from Hainan, along with those from Fujian, Guangxi, and Guangdong, flocked down to the foreign colonies of south-east Asia. Though integrated into the greater Han Chinese population of Singapore and Penang, as well as within towns and cities in North Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, even today Hainanese have remained in one or two linguistic pockets, such as is to be found in the area of Rengam and Kluang in southern Malaysia. Only a few of all the Chinese temples visited in South-east Asia have been categorically identified as exclusively founded by Hainanese immigrants. Others, predominantly Hokkien, have a Hainanese altar stuck away in one corner, erected by the few local Hainanese, though two temples stood out, both in southern Malaysia, in which the images of the deities were predominantly uniquely Hainanese, though the temple custodians, the devotees, and the other images were all Hokkien. The picture gained from Hainanese staff and devotees in temples containing uniquely Hainanese images revealed the following minimum of temples being predominantly, if not entirely, Hainanese - six in Singapore, two in Penang, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Seremban, and two in or near Kluang in southern Malaysia; on Sumatra, one in Medan and two in Palembang; on Java, one in Jakarta, one in Cirebon, and one in Semarang. There are several in Ha Tien in southern Cambodia and others scattered across southern Thailand. The strangest of all was the lone, small Hainanese temple on Bali. Hainanese temple altars bear the usual accoutrements and have the same layout as altars in other Chinese communities, though, to generalise, with less clutter, particularly on altars in Hainanese Huiguan [community club houses]. Major China-wide deities, such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, Hua Guang, City Gods, Earth Gods, and the Wealth Gods, are the same as in every Chinese community. There are also a number of predominantly Cantonese, Chaozhou, and even Minnan deities in many of the Hainanese temples both in Hainan and in South-east Asia, adopted from other immigrant ethnic groups, including Jinhua Niangniang, Caibo Xingjun, Fazhu Gong, Qi Tian Da Sheng, Longwei. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 48 between Han ethnic groups but also both inter-ethnic fratricide and distrust, prevented legends of one ethnic group about their deities being passed to another. The stories of the minority Hainanese are therefore known to few non-Hainanese Chinese. Folk Religion Deities on Altars in Hainanese Community Temples Deities worshipped by Hainanese, both in their temples and on their household altars, can be categorised into eight groups: The first are the deities revered China-wide such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, the City God, the Earth God, the Gods and Goddesses of Climate and Time and the patrons of trades and professions. As these are not uniquely Hainanese deities I will not refer to them again. There are two exceptions: the first is a deity identified as either the popular and frequently noted deity, the Thunder God, Lei Gong, or Lei Zu, the President of the Ministry of Thunder. He has been noted on two Singaporean Hainanese temple altars where he was only known as the Chief Leader of All the Heavens, Wantian Zhushi, His title was displayed on the temple list in two other Hainanese temples, one in Pontian in southern Malaysia, and the other near Kranji in northern Singapore. His image depicted him with his usual attributes a bird's beak, an axe or hammer held aloft and a chisel in his left hand. In one of the two temples, in Paya Lebar Crescent, he was riding either a tiger or a Qilin a mythical beast, and according to the temple custodian he is the only deity permitted to do so. He was identified by temple keepers as Lei Gong and his image co-located with that of Doutian Fushuai, said to be Lei Zu. However, in the other temple, at Rumba Bomba Circus, he was also portrayed astride what looks like an unusual tiger and here he was identified as Lei Zu. The second is Ma Zu Qiong, the Respected Mother of the Hainanese3. Although Tian Hou, the patron goddess of seafarers along the entire coast of China, is revered throughout Hainanese communities, she is also known in a number of Hainanese temples by this unique title. The usual title by which Tian Hou is known in most Hainanese temples is Nantian Shengniang Tian Hou, The Saintly Lady of the Southern Heavens, 南天聖娘天后. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 67 have been unable to explain his origins, history or any other details. In Malaysia we were told that he had been a hero, killed in the Leizhou peninsular immediately to the north of Hainan [or 'in Leizhou city (nowadays Leicheng) in western Guangdong province'], and that he had been a general, the eldest of three brothers, who had long ago earned great merit working for the common good and was deified. In Singapore, where again he is depicted as one image in the centre of a comparatively crowded secondary altar, it was claimed that he had been a general, killed several centuries ago saving a major unidentified town from invaders. His festivals are celebrated on the 17th of both the first and third lunar months. One of the two temples in Malaysia contained three images on the main altar, the usual image of Baima Laoshi Gong together with two standard seated images of mandarins. These were identified as the First, Second and Third Laoshi Gong and were understood to have been brought to Malaysia by immigrants from Hainan some forty years ago. The temple keepers and devotees of both these temples were predominantly Chaozhou Chinese. Nowadays devotees of this cult in Singapore, however, are predominantly Hengwa (Xinghua) from Fujian province. Lapshi Gong is prayed to for 'household affairs' in one of the two temples in central Malaysia, whilst in the other, run by a popular medium who spoke with the voice of Laoshi Gong and is claimed to be extremely gifted, the deity is believed to be able to cure most illnesses. The deity was being treated with exceptional reverence during the latest visit by the author, when a ritual was being performed before the altar requesting a cure for a very sickly looking infant held by its anxious mother. Among the Hengwa Hokkiens in Singapore he is rarely revered as a separate deity. He is prayed to and offered incense and oil as one of the collection of deities on the altar, though the temple keeper added that a number of gamblers specifically pray to him. The temple keeper also said that he had not been aware that the deity had any such speciality when first he had taken over the temple in the early sixties. The custom of gamblers seeking divine help was fairly recent and had, he presumed, developed after someone had had a win following a petition to the deity. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 80 21 This is present day Maoming in western Guangdong province, not too far from the Liaozhou peninsula leading down to Hainan. 22 A city in south eastern Guangdong province, half way between the Liaozhou peninsula and the Pearl River. 23 Note that there are two different deities, Longwei Shenggong worshipped by the Hainanese and Longwei Shengwang worshipped by the Chaozhou people. The latter is, to all intents and purposes, a local Earth God. 24 25 Laomu, Old Mother [or Elderly Matron], is a title often mentioned in popular stories. In Xue Dingshan's Campaign to the West Laomu was Fan Lihua's teacher who, in eight years, taught her the art of moving mountains and raising armies from a handful of beans. An elderly Chaozhou man in a Kowloon temple confided that Lishan [‘Fan Lihua' he called her] is a fictional character to support the story of the two generals Xue, and that much of their legends have little or no historical basis. 26 Xue Dingshan's father, Xue Rengui, also a general, was an early Tang hero who not only also led an expedition to the west, he also served in the Korean campaign of Tang Tai Cong. Xue Dingshan, otherwise known as Xue Gang, is claimed to have saved the life of his emperor and is now a Fukienese cult deity, the face of whose image is characterised by extraordinary and colourful decorations. 27 William Mesny relates that recumbent iron images of oxen were believed to be a protection from floods when these images were placed along the banks of river courses and lakes likely to overflow. He noticed several along the banks of the Grand Canal in 1874 and was told that they had been placed there by Liu Bowen Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Vol. IV: Shanghai: 11 February 1905. 28 As in Taipan, the Senior Boss. 29 The shrine and its images disappeared, doubtless into a high rise flat, though it could have gone the way of so many minor cults and disappeared due, perhaps, to the aged temple keeper's demise. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 199 snoozed for a lot of the way. Happily, I was awake when we arrived at the Riverview Hotel because there was a large banner on the front of the building, welcoming us to Bhutan and to the hotel. Mobile 'phones have not yet arrived in Bhutan, and not everywhere has an international dialling service. Thimpu, however, being the country's capital, offers this service at its major hotels. So I made a quick two-minute call to Hong Kong to report in. Two minutes after that there was a knock on my door. A member of the hotel staff was asking if I would like to pay for my phone call now - US$51! A big chunk of my spending money went, just like that - but what a worthy cause! Dinner that night was rather special, preceded by a cocktail reception hosted by our local tour company, Etho Metho. There was Bhutanese music, singing and dancing. Like many similar experiences, appreciation of Bhutanese music is an acquired art. It really did seem to me that the musicians misinterpreted our applause, for each time we clapped they appeared to play the same piece again. But I guess that is just my ignorance showing through. I had a long and interesting conversation with Aum Dago Beda, a most impressive lady and the company's urbane managing director. After dinner there was a thorough and rather complex (for my IQ) briefing from Brian who promised us 'a full day' for the morrow. He was not wrong. A peer through the gate Day 3, the eve of Losar (the Bhutanese New Year) started with a fairly leisurely 7:00 a.m. breakfast and 8:00 a.m. departure for the Queen Mother's formal residence. This is set in a very secluded spot up the valley from the capital city. Her estate has a lot of trees in the grounds and a very impressive entrance gate - and that is all we were allowed to see. Usually, tourists were not even able to get as far as the gate, so I suppose we were privileged. Perhaps one of the most photographed buildings in Bhutan is the Tashichho Dzong, our next destination. This is the seat of government and houses the offices of the majority of government departments. As the King is the head of the government, a role he plays similar to that of the chief executive of a large corporation, a great deal of respect has ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 250 burial ground. Inland Lot 899, on the east by the Pokfulam Road, and West by Cliff facing the Sea, measuring on the North, 4,800 feet, South-West, 3,500 feet, West, 5,100 feet. 69 CAROLINE HILL. Situated on the South side of the Caroline Hill Road and to the South of Caroline Hill, bordered on the North by a Public Road, 400 feet, South, 612 feet, East, 1,275 feet, West, 1,100 feet. In the 1890s, a Eurasian cemetery, generally known as Ho Tung Cemetery before the Second World War and later renamed 'Chiu Yuen Cemetery,' was erected in Mount Davis, with the first grave dated to December 1892.70 The Plague Cemeteries and Trenches The first outbreak of bubonic plague in Hong Kong occurred in May 1894. In less than a month, more than two thousand persons had died. On 6 June, Father Piazzoli, the pro-vicar, wrote: The plague is spreading rapidly with 100 dead each day, though only a section of the Chinese city is infected. The tragedy is terrible. There are streets completely empty: it is estimated that about 40 thousand Chinese have left the island. The harbour too is deserted, the large ships sail at large; the trade is dead and the most horrible misery is growing..." From 1896 on, the plague became almost an annual recurrence. Over the period 1894-1901, about 8,600 people succumbed to the disease.72 Two plague cemeteries were designated at Kennedy Town and Cheung Sha Wan in 1901.74 In addition, a section of ‘Kau Pui Loong Cemetery' (see below) was also referred to as 'Plague Trench'75 (疫症); which was also the case of 'Kai Lung Wan East Cemetery' (also see below).76 Indian / Hindu Cemeteries in Kowloon In 1900, a Hindu Cemetery was authorized in Kowloon, this might have been the result of the plague, as many Indian troops were among the victims of this epidemic disease. This Hindu Cemetery was described as: Page 300 Page 301 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 251 Situated on the South slope of Danger Flag Hill, Kowloon, on Military Reserve Land, midway between the Military and Association Rifle Rangers and about thirty yards to the North of the line joining the butts. The Cemetery measures fifty-feet square and its limits have been defined by wooden pickets.77 There was another Indian cemetery at Tai Shek Ku78 recorded in a government notice, which was ordered to be closed in 1927;79 however, the origin of this cemetery is not known. Cemeteries in the Early 20th Century The first two decades of the 20th century was a period of steady economic and administrative development in Hong Kong, in spite of the influx of Chinese as a result of unsettled condition following the 1911 Revolution in China. A long list of cemeteries was added during this period. In 1903, the 'Sai Yu Shek Cemetery'80 (晒魚石墳場) was appointed 'to the North of Kowloon City and West of Nga Tsin, as a sufficient and proper place for a burial ground for Chinese living in the vicinity of Kowloon City.'81 In addition, there was also a Sai Yu Shek (Christian) Cemetery.82 In the same year (1903), it was also announced that the 'Po Kong Po Cemetery' (), 'situated to the North-east of Kowloon City and West of the Village of Sha Ti Un'83 () was to be closed. Again, no information examined has revealed the origin of this cemetery, although the cemetery is mentioned in a privately published memoir regarding the burial of a woman in 1896.84 As this burial predated the lease of the New Territories in 1898 and the fact that the cemetery was adjacent to several villages in the Kowloon City area, Po Kong Po Cemetery might have been an extension of some villagers' burial ground,85 A year later, another Chinese Christian Cemetery was authorized ‘on the hillside about 200 feet to the North of Kowloon Walled City, measuring, on the North 208'9,' on the East 208'9' and on the West 208'9,' and defined by boundary stones.' This cemetery still exists today as the oldest surviving cemetery on the Kowloon Peninsula. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 261 Chinese Christian Cemetery Pokfulam 1882 Kaulung Cemetery Ma Tau Wai 1885 Later renamed Ma Tau Wai Cemetery, removal of graves ordered 1925. Shaukiwan Cemetery Chai Wan 1885 Sheko Cemetery Shek O 1885 Closed 1926. Stanley Cemetery Stanley 1885 Removal of graves ordered 1933. Aberdeen Cemetery Hindu Cemetery Aberdeen 1885 Happy Valley First graves: 1888 Mount Davis Chinese Cemetery Mount Davis 1891 Removal of all graves and urns ordered 1949. Caroline Hill Cemetery *Chiu Yuen Cemetery Caroline Hill 1891 Pokfulam Earliest graves: 1892. Plague Cemetery Town 1901 Plague Cemetery Cheung Sha Wan 1901 Hindu Cemetery King's Park 1900 Indian Cemetery Ho Man Tin Closed 1927. Details not known. Sai Yu Shek Cemetery Lo Fu Ngam 1903 Renamed New Kowloon Sai Yu Shek (Christian) Cemetery Po Kong Po Cemetery Lo Fu Ngam Po Kong *Chinese Christian Cemetery (New Kowloon Cemetery No.1) Sham Shui Po Cemetery Kowloon City 1904 Cemetery No.4 1930. Details not known. Closed in 1903. Details not known. Sham Shui Po 1904 Kowloon Tong Cemetery Tai Hang Tung Christian Chinese Cemetery, Kowloon Tong Tai Hang Tung Kai Lung Wan Cemetery Pokfulam 1907 Tseung Loong Tin Removal of graves ordered 1923. In existence 1920. Removal of graves and urns ordered 1949. Early history not known. Removal of graves and urns ordered 1950. Early history not known. A plot of land had been in use as cemetery prior to 1907. Kai Lung Wan East Cemetery Fukienese Cemetery Cha Kwo Ling 1907 Pokfulam 1907 Removal of all urns was ordered 1949. Lo Fu Ngam 1912 Adjacent to Sai Yu Shek ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 282 Egypt, which was built in the 3rd century B.C. - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was an eight-sided tower on top of which was a cylinder that extended up to an open cupola where the fire that provided the light burned. On the roof of the cupola was a large statue of Poseidon (the Greek God of the Sea and Earthquakes) facing the sea, northward. It was said ships could detect the light from the tower at night or the smoke from the fire during the day up to 100 miles away. The lighthouse collapsed in the 14th century, probably as the result of an earthquake. The remains of Pharos are now at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Its name, however, has become the root of the word "lighthouse" in the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian languages.2 Modern navigation aids By the 21st century traditional aids to navigation have already gradually taken over. These include satellite navigation systems in order to cope with the needs of high speed and the huge volume of modern sea transportation. Even more recent inventions like the Radio Beacon and the Decca Navigator System are now almost obsolete. The Global Positioning System (GPS), provided by satellites, is now the primary position fixing system for marine navigation. A public Differential GPS service is able to enhance the accuracy of GPS signals to within 10 metres up to 50 nautical miles around the coasts off the United Kingdom and Ireland. This system assists the safe passage of all classes of vessels from cargo ships, cruise liners and fishing vessels to small yachts. As a back-up system to the GPS, chains of Loran C on land are also adopted.3 Nineteenth century Hong Kong In Hong Kong, things were quite different. There was not much sea traffic going to China before the first Opium War (1839-42) because of the Chinese policy of keeping its doors closed to foreign trade. Canton (Guangzhou), in the Pearl River Delta, was the city where limited foreign trade was permitted under stringent conditions. Macao under Portuguese administration served well as a buffer for foreign merchants waiting for the start of the trading season. Only after the Treaties of Nanking, Peking and Tientsin (1842-1860) was China forced to open up more and more ports for trade. Hong Kong's Victoria harbour became ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 304 charge of the government gunpowder depot), coupled with community service, Thirlwell was awarded an MBE in 1971 by Her Majesty the Queen. Towards the end of his government service he was awarded a merit trip to England. But, Louis Thomas recalled, after about five days he requested permission to return to Hong Kong. We are talking of a Hong Kong before the MTR and the like and Thirlwell was having difficulty in adjusting. Britain was quite different then to Hong Kong and especially to being stationed out at Waglan. But although lighthouse keepers during most of British colonial times by tradition were mainly Hong Kong Eurasians, in November 1956 three Chinese joined the lighthouse service as keepers at Waglan. In the run up to automation and as localisation took effect, by the 1980s all such posts were filled by Chinese. How does Lai Tak-wah, who still serves in the Marine Department, who had been at sea as a radio operator before joining the civil service, look back on his ten years spent at Waglan? 146 'It was all right for someone who enjoyed a peaceful existence. But separated from one's family out at Waglan, life was boring,' Lai told the author. 'A week at a stretch was too long.' How would he have felt pre-World War Two, when keepers did a one-month tour of duty in one stretch, one wonders? But he said that for three to four years of his time spent on Waglan he studied for his City and Guilds of London Institute telecommunications examinations.47 These sentiments, regarding boredom, were echoed by Lai Kwok-keung, another Chinese employed at Waglan. On being interviewed by a reporter when the island's lighthouse was changing over to automation, he said, as he lowered the Union Jack for the last time: 'I'm not sad to leave' (Hong Kong Standard; 1989). Superintendent of Aids to Navigation Tam Cheong-wai (now retired), a Chinese (previously this post, as mentioned before, was held by a European and later by a Eurasian), who spent one week's induction training at Waglan when he first joined the Marine Department, agreed. 'It was boring,' he said. Not everyone shared his views. There are ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 338 interpreter, a Hong Kong Baptist University doctoral graduate, Professor Zhang Meifang, without whose help I wouldn't have got very far. After lengthy negotiation with the bureaucratic hierarchy, officials in the Guangdong Provincial Government were most generous, both in offering me a lengthy interview and also a guided tour of important sites, including the new Funeral Centre, then just approaching completion. Lots of additional fieldwork was necessary too, of course, by bus, taxi and on foot in that dusty, confusing, reconstructing and ancient city. Teather, E.K. (2001). Seoul's deathscapes: incorporating tradition into modern time-space. Environment and Planning A 33: 1489-1506. In order to accomplish this piece of work, conceived of as another element in the pattern of deathspace in societies with a Confucian heritage, I asked Professor Hae Un Rii, Head of the Department of Geography at Dongguk University, Seoul, if she would like to collaborate. Her personal contacts and organisational skills were invaluable. I had hit on a hot topical issue, because a big public debate had just emerged in South Korea, reflecting concern in some government quarters about land lost to graves each year in this, the second most densely populated country in the world. Cremation is being strongly promoted but, unlike in Hong Kong in the 1970s, the public is strongly resisting official urges to consider cremation. We found that the grass dome design of the ancient royal graves was influential on architectural responses to the need for columbaria. A small, space-saving family tomb has been devised to hold the ashes of up to twenty-four family members within a small, grass-covered dome. Although we came across several architect-designed columbaria, we were most impressed with an unusual and extraordinarily beautiful, newly opened, series of open-air niche walls winding gently down a wooded hillside. This serene site reduced my two young research assistants/interpreters to tears. The public cemeteries that I visited are utterly different from those in Hong Kong. They were spacious and green, and some were incorporated into the system of walking trails around Seoul without, apparently, any fears relating to the spirit world. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 425 papers and only uses part of the available space. There is the matter of romanization itself. Authors of books of this sort in the English language find themselves having to use a mix of Cantonese names, comprising old renderings of both Cantonese and Mandarin, the frequently encountered various misspellings by Western writers, and now with pinyin street and place names into the bargain. Like many more of us, Mrs. Garrett has also had to mix her romanizations here and there. Having myself been hauled over the coals for perpetuating just such a "mish-mash" in one of my books, by my former boss and mentor, the late K.M.A. Barnett (Journal, Vol 24, 1984, pp.329-330), I can greatly sympathize with a dilemma not of her making. The disadvantages for author and reader alike come out particularly in Chapter 6, devoted to the local temples, where we encounter the confusions inseparable from using different systems of romanization within paragraphs devoted to the same institution - and compounded where a street named after the temple in question is (and has to be) rendered in pinyin (as at pages 64-65 on the Kwong Hau/Guangxiao Buddhist Temple). Mrs. Garrett has done her best to reduce problems of identification with her useful 'English/Pinyin and Cantonese/Pinyin Glossary' at pp.184-6, but this in itself cannot remove all the puzzles inherent in the mix. In a book which is so full of facts, the attempt to write a review tests the reviewer's knowledge as much as the author's, and in truth often beyond it. However, "history" itself can sometimes be uncertain, as in the case of Macau's origins. It is widely believed that the Portuguese were permitted to settle there because of their help with the suppression of pirates (pp. 10, 73), but this is still not certain. Also, Macau was not "granted" (p.73) to the Portuguese, in the sense of bestowing possession or legal right, their occupation being made subject to various payments, that included customs dues and taxes and (later) payment of an annual ground rent, whilst Chinese were excluded from their jurisdiction, being placed under their own official. (For a useful, fairly recent, compendium, see R.D. Cremer (editor), Macau, City of Commerce and Culture, 2nd Edition: Continuity and Change (Hong Kong, API Press, Ltd., 1991).) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 參觀活動 除講座外,本會舉辦之本地及海外參觀活動,亦備受大眾讚賞。此等由專家策劃之遊訪,行程與一般旅遊大不相同。近期由本會安排之海外旅遊,包括不丹、西安、吳哥窟及胡志明市等。本地之參觀活動,多具民間色彩,如橫瀾島燈塔、廈村市、后海灣及粵劇後台風光等。此外,香港之戰時遺蹟、舊區遺痕、新界古物,以至博物館之展覽等,均在遊訪之列。此等活動,多由資深學者或導賞人士帶領講解。欲知最新參觀活動,請參閱本會網址www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk. Visits In addition to frequent talks, the RAS is famous for its carefully researched visits to places off the beaten track. Recent overseas trips around the region were to Bhutan, Xian and Angkor Wat and Saigon. Closer to home, members enjoyed visits to Waglan Lighthouse, Ha Tsuen market town, Deep Bay and backstage at a Cantonese Opera. Several visits to the remains of war time batteries and forts in Hong Kong have been arranged, as well as walks around the villages and city back-streets of Hong Kong and guided tours of interesting museum exhibitions. These visits are all led by experts who have made a special study of the subject matter. Details of upcoming visits can be found on our web-site www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 CONTRIBUTORS Andrew Abraham, is a noted Singaporean academic. Paul Bolding, works as a financial journalist at the news and information organisation Reuters in London. He has been with Reuters since 1974. He lived in Hong Kong from 1993 to 1997 and has travelled widely in Asia. Mr Bolding has previously worked in Europe and the Middle East including Brussels, Berlin and Nicosia. He is a co-author of the Insight Guide to Turkey (pbolding@onetel.net.uk) Julia Chan, is the Hon Librarian of HKBRAS and a member of Council (jlychan@hkucc.hku.hk). Chohong Choi, obtained a B.A. in History from Queens College of the City University of New York, and an M.Phil. in History from the University of Hong Kong. He is currently a research assistant in the Department of Real Estate & Construction at HKU. The late Arnold Graham, was an old China hand. He was well known for his steady stream of Letters to the Editor in Hong Kong under the pseudonym Ancient Gweilo (a play on his initials). He donated a large number of books to the Library of HKBRAS in 1994. He ultimately relocated to New Zealand where he passed away in 1996. Peter Halliday, was formerly an assistant commissioner with the Hong Kong Police Force and its chief information officer for over six years. He now heads his own information technology consulting and training company, Elite IT Services Ltd. He is the Hon Editor of HKBRAS and a member of Council (Peter.Halliday@e-liteitservices.com). Peter Hansell, is an active member of the Friends of HKBRAS in Great Britain. Paul Harrison, started his conservation career as a volunteer at Leicester Museum, U.K., in his school holidays. He has a B.Sc. in Archaeological Conservation and a M.Sc. in Archaeometallurgy from the Institute of Archaeology, now part of University College London. He has also worked for the Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust, the British School at Athens in Crete, studying an ancient Minoan City - Palaikastro - and Bradford University's Department of Archaeological Sciences. He was formally with the Central Conservation Division (Metals), Museum of History, Leisure and Cultural Services Department. He now heads his own conservation company, Phoenix Conservation Ltd., (paulehar@netvigator.com). xvi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 each case this has been followed by sending a complete set of our Journals to the institution in question. As a result of this initiative, the number of Institutional Members of the Society has increased during the year from 9 to 21. We are continuing to keep this development in the front of our minds, and more new Honorary Institutional Members are likely to be approved during this next year. We hope in particular to agree arrangements which will allow us to get sets of our Journal into libraries in Peking and Canton. We are also currently looking into ways to increase the number of University Libraries with sets of the Journal, in Europe, America, and East Asia, and I hope to be able to give a full report on this next year. We have also agreed with the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Hong Kong Government to improve the holdings of the Journal in the Public Library Service of Hong Kong. We found when we investigated the issue, that there were eight sets of the Journal in the Public Library Service in Hong Kong, but that not even one of the sets was complete, and several were missing up to half the volumes. All the missing volumes have now been replaced at the Society's expense, and agreement with the Libraries Service reached so that every major public library now has a complete set. There are two sets in our library within the Central Library at Causeway Bay, and a third set in the public Reference Library of the Central Library, and sets in all the Regional Libraries (City Hall, Kowloon, Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan and Tuen Mun). The daughter of one of our Members who died recently has returned his set of the Journals to us as a donation, together with a large number of the Hong Kong Government Annual Reports. This very welcome and generous donation has allowed us to prepare another set of Journals which will, in due course, be donated to another library in Hong Kong. We are currently looking at possible sites for this set, in the context of an investigation into the holdings of the Journal in the libraries of Hong Kong's tertiary institutions, and in other scholarly libraries here. I hope to be able to make a further report on this issue next year. Structured Membership Drive Last year I also announced an initiative to seek to encourage Membership among selected target groups, particularly students of our xxvii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2002/2003 As of 1 March 2003, the Library collection had increased to 4,856 volumes. A total of 476 volumes were added during the year. The number of additions this year is double that of last year, which was 247 volumes. Donations of books were received from Mrs Anna Baker, Mrs Lorna Christofis, Mrs Valery Garrett, Mr Michael Guilford, Mrs Patricia Lim, Mrs Ann Marden, and Dr Dan Waters. We would like to thank all our donors and welcome future contributions of old and rare books or journals. The new additions are treasures for our Library. Our Library has also been enriched by some very valuable and interesting gifts from a number of societies and institutions. Dr Patrick Hase brought back, from his visit to Shanghai Library, a superb copy of a two-volume reproduction of a series of nineteenth century Chinese woodcuts from Shanghai; the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong sent us a beautiful booklet on The Lugard Tribute; the Siam Society contributed 34 issues of the National History Bulletin: the Cultural Institute of the Macao SAR Government contributed 91 issues of the Review of Culture; and the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities sent us their Bulletin as part of the newly established exchange programme. With assistance from the Hong Kong Central Library, processing of the Arnold Graham Collection was finally completed. The Collection was donated by the late Arnold Graham in 1995 and sent to the City Hall Public Library directly without being catalogued. To facilitate access to this collection, efforts were made to process these materials soon after the move to the Central Library in 2001. About 77% of the records were successfully matched against University of Hong Kong Libraries' records and the Hon. Librarian searched or did original cataloguing for the remaining titles. The Collection comprises a total of 423 volumes, with 361 volumes in English and 62 in Chinese. These are shelved as a separate section in the Rare Book Room and can now be searched through the online catalogue of the Hong Kong Central Library, RAS Collection. A survey conducted last year on the Journal of the Hong Kong xlix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society reviewed that all the major public libraries which include Hong Kong Central Library, libraries at City Hall, Kowloon, Shatin, Tuen Mun, Tsuen Wan and even the RAS Collection have incomplete holdings of the Journal. Since it is important to keep the Journal up-to-date, copies of all missing volumes, including the Indexes and Seminars, were provided to all the public libraries at the Society's expense. While Hong Kong Central Library will continue to receive one free copy that comes with the Library's institutional membership, payment will be made for renewals for the Journal for the other five branches. It has been the normal practice of the Hong Kong Public Libraries to record subject talks conducted at their venues. Prior consent is sought from the speakers to do this. For legal protection, Council Members agreed that RAS speakers will also be requested to sign the same form for RAS lectures. In order to better preserve the content, it was decided that tapes of RAS speakers will be digitized if permission is granted. The Hong Kong Central Library has kindly offered, free of charge, to digitize these tapes since they are produced by the Library. The digitized version will be stored in the Multimedia Information System, available for convenient access in the larger Public Libraries via the System. The RAS Library will also be given one audio CD for each of the tape digitized for borrowing or archival purpose. Hong Kong Central Library has also sent us a list of past recordings of all the RAS lectures held at City Hall Library, 78 in total dating back to 1988. Since none of the speakers had given consent to record their talks before and it would not be feasible to seek retroactive consent, it was agreed that while these tapes will be digitized for preservation purpose, the CDs will be placed in the RAS Collection in Rare Book Room, available for use in the Library but not for loan. The audio tapes will also be stored in the Rare Book Room, serving as back-ups. Another digitization project that will be undertaken by RAS is a collection of old RTHK radio programmes related to the history of Asia and Hong Kong. Due to limited resources, these tapes probably will not be digitized by RTHK. In order to preserve the culture and heritage of Asia, Council members expressed interest and investigations will be conducted into the feasibility of digitization and projected demand for the finished project. 1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 London: George G. Harrap, 1945. Ritchie, Edmee Alice My memoirs or good of its kind. [s.l.: s.n., n.d.]. Secret notes on Japanese army North Melbourne: Victorian Railways Printing Works, 1942. The Shanghai directory 1941: City supplementary edition to The China Hong List. Shanghai: The Office of the North-China Daily News & Herald, Ltd. Shneider, Vladimir Traces of the ten. Beer-Sheva: V. Shneider, 2002. Smith, Arthur Henderson, 1845-1932. Village life in China: a study in sociology. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1900. Ticozzi, Sergio Historical document of the Hong Kong Catholic Church. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives, 1997 Vocational Training Council (Hong Kong) The Morrison Hill story [videorecording]. [Hong Kong: s.n., 199-. Waters, Dan. Lunch beat [2 sound cassettes]. (Dr Dan Waters shares his in-depth knowledge and stories about Hong Kong's past in two episodes of radio programme The Lunch Beat. [Hong Kong: RTHK, 1998 - 2001]. Way, Denis M. and Nield, Robert Counting house: the history of PricewaterhouseCoopers on the China Coast. Hong Kong: PricewaterhouseCoopers, c2002. Wu, You-ru Shen-jiang sheng jing tu. Shanghai: Hua bao zhai shu she, 1999. Zhang, Yingjin lvii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 39 part of the year (May to August). In fact, it rained about two out of every three days during the months of June and July, with June having a better than 40 per cent chance of experiencing three or more consecutive days, and even a 25 per cent chance of having at least an entire week, of rain. In a largely undeveloped place like Hong Kong during the war, heavy rains falling on land usually translated into mud. Thus far in the war, both sides had already experienced the difficulty of moving across mud in various theatres. In Hong Kong, only the urban areas had all-weather roads, so its roads and terrain outside of the urban areas were trafficable only during periods of dry weather.10 Then one must remember that 75 per cent of Hong Kong was mountain. By the nature of their sloped sides and rocky terrain, mountains are already difficult to traverse in good weather. In times of bad weather, mountains are even harder to negotiate, especially if they have been stripped of vegetation. This was the case with Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation. As the war dragged on, supply shortages of everything became acute. Whereas coal was the preferred fuel for industrial and residential use, the increasing difficulty of importing this item into Hong Kong forced people to switch to firewood. This resulted in the felling of trees throughout the territory, thus depriving the mountains of the foliage that anchored their soil, and increasing the chances of erosion and landslides. Machinery was the epitome of the Allied arsenal, and embodied from its factories, to its logistical functions, and finally to the fighting machines on the frontline. But machinery was also very susceptible to the weather. In Hong Kong, with its high rainfall and lack of all-weather roads outside of the city, construction activities would be needed to improve its roads for the vehicle-oriented Allies. But construction would be curtailed during periods of heavy rainfall. Without a suitable system of roads, the Allies would be unable to take full advantage of their superior mechanised transport in Hong Kong. The necessity of supporting China with a strong LoC inland from Hong Kong would have taxed its inadequate roads past their limit. Estimates for the portion of supplies landed each day that could be transported inland to support the Chinese amounted to no more than 25 per cent, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 Plate 13. Rosettes. Christine Chow and Mabel Hayes (City District Commissioner, Hong Kong, and City District Officer, Eastern respectively) at a function, mid 1970s. 田三十年慶建 蕙 啟壇 Plate 14. Scissors and rosettes. Opening ceremony for the Kam Tin Ten Yearly Ta Chiu, 1985. 93 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 1864 The terra "Kowloon Battery" appears right to the north of the expression "Lei Yue Mun" in the Sun On Gazetteer, referred to as the "Sun On District Gazetteer Map." Empson, 1992, p.113 (Plate 1-25) 1876 The name Devil's Peak appears in a sea defences map of 1876. 1888 1895 27 May 1898 The name Devil's Peak appears in Stanford's Map of Hong Kong and Kowloon. The Chinese translation "Kwei Shan," literally "devil hill," appears alongside Devil's Peak in the revised Collinson Map. The Committee on Armament on Certain Stations at Home and Abroad decided on 27 May 1898 that two 9.2-inch Bl. Mark X and two 6-inch QF guns were to be mounted on Devil's Peak at sites to be called Pottinger Battery and Gough Battery, respectively, to strengthen Eastern defences. Empson, 1992, p.134 (Plate 2-3) (Plate 2-4) Empson, 1992, p.135 Empson, 1992, pp.136-137 Rollo, 1992, p.70 The Kowloon Battery is universally associated with the fort outside the south gate of the Kowloon Walled City. See p. 187 Rollo, 1992 for a drawing of a 9.2-inch BL Mark X on a Mark V mounting June 1898 January 1899 The leasing of the New Territories for 100 years by the British with effect from 1 July 1898, Devil's Peak became part of British Hong Kong. Conference on Armaments regarded Hong Kong as a dockyard, port, and naval base of great importance. The 6-inch guns proposed by the 1898 Committee took shape in the form of BL guns on Centre Pivot Mark II mountings instead of QF guns, Three batteries proposed for Devil's Peak. Rollo, 1992, p.72 128 Page 195 Page 196 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 137 NOTES Now described as "Pau Toi San" in both English and Chinese in government correspondence and plans, literally Battery Hill, probably to get rid of the stigma with the expression "Devil" and to indicate the presence of defence structures on the hill. We use the old place name here in this paper for easy cross-reference to archive materials. 2 The English version of the film was presented to HKBRAS at City Hall on 24 January 2003. 'Only three of the loopholes have survived. * See Kwun Tong District Board (1999) and Kwun Tong District Office (2002). See Lands Department aerial photographs No. 1940 (1972); 6660 (1973); 10113 (1974); 12581 (1979); 19317 (1977); 23912 (1978); 32269 (1980). 'CO129/305. *Our estimation is based on the number of loopholes (one hundred), machine gun emplacements (three with 11 loopholes) and the number of shelters (five) shelters therein, not to mention the pillboxes to its east and south (the 196m site). Ko (2000, p.16) reported that the British Army in 1949 and 1950 blew up pre-war pillboxes and bunkers in Kowloon and the New Territories (presumably other than those in retained military lands) to prevent them from falling into hands of those committed to sabotaging Hong Kong. From aerial photos taken in 1949, we could see the outcome of such exercises. The typical outcome is that the building structure thus affected has become devoid of its roof but the vertical walls remained almost intact. See provisional Kwun Tong District Board (1998), which documents the history of the pennant stands. Erected on government land by private individuals, these stands are unauthorised building works under the Buildings Ordinance. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 139 THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (HONG KONG BRANCH): THE FACES, THE STORIES AND THE MEMORIES Eve Lam The hall in the Hong Kong Museum of History, is dark. The room seats about 200, but it's not even half full. Those in attendance are mostly gweilos and gweipos, and with his silver-blond hair and fair skin that looks a bit flushed under the spotlight, the man giving the opening remarks on stage is indeed a gweilo. But this foreigner knows more about the place than most born and bred Hong Kongers. His name is Dan Waters; he's president of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) — and he's giving the opening address at the Society's 40th anniversary conference, "Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City.” "If I had been born in the computer age, the chances are I would be reading this address from a portable ‘electric brain,' as a computer is termed in Cantonese," Waters said. "But several of us taking part in this conference were born many years earlier. Indeed some of us have lived in Hong Kong for longer than the 40-year period (1960 to 2000) which we are reviewing here today..." The conference is free for all RAS members. They are a dedicated lot who have come in early on a Saturday morning to listen to these scholars and celebrate the accomplishments of the society to which they proudly belong. A glance around the hall and everyone is concentrating their attention on Waters, the longest active member of the Society. "...An RAS member who lived in Hong Kong for approaching 30 years wrote a couple of years or so ago from his home in England: 'No, I do not miss the present-day Hong Kong one little bit. But I do miss the Hong Kong of the 1950s and '60s.' To what degree does nostalgia creep in? Let us take a wander down memory lane. What was the Colony really like when our Branch was re-constituted in 1960?..." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 140 Seated in the front row are the other guest speakers for the day: Dr. Patrick Hase, a member of the conference organising committee and RAS Council member, who will talk about Shatin and its development from a village to a city; Reverend Carl Smith, the honorary vice-president, who will talk about his 40 years of research in Hong Kong, and Mr. Tim Ko, an organising committee member and Council member, who has prepared a slide presentation about living in Hong Kong from 1960 to 1980. Also listening attentively is Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, vice-president of the RAS, convenor of the conference and mistress of ceremonies for the day. I sit near the front to get better video of the proceedings, but it's dark in the hall and other than Dr. Waters, I realise I won't be able to capture any of the audience's faces. I direct my camera in their direction anyway, just in case, or maybe just to let them know they'd be wise not to doze off. This was in December 2000, when the one-day conference was presented jointly with the Hong Kong Museum of History. Waters has since stepped down from the presidency he held for four and a half years, during which Hong Kong was handed back to the motherland. An old hand's reflection... I met Waters for the first time a month before the conference at his home on Conduit Road. He greeted me at the door and he was just as I had imagined from our telephone conversations. He is a tall man with a strong presence. He has perfect posture and his movements are quick. Waters holds the 800m and 1500m local running records in the over 70 category. He has a full head of hair although the colour has changed from when he was a young man; the only other hint of his advanced years is that he's a bit hard of hearing. He takes me to the study and has had his maid prepare a glass of orange drink for me. I haven't had orange drink from powder something like Tang since early childhood, - What do I want to know? he asks. What do I want to know? I ask myself. I really want to find out if the Royal Asiatic Society is as snobby as it sounds, maybe. But no, I don't ask that... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 150 "The public image [of the Society], first of all there's the name Royal. I was a true American," said Smith. “I was an advocate for dropping the Royal in recent years but most of the others didn't agree with me, so that's all right. And the other is that yes, we are, we do have a lot of western people because we're English-speaking and our programme, I'm talking for myself now...is to help people appreciate and understand Asia.' Smith asks me what I think of the "Royal" and I tell him that it is a bit off-putting because it can be perceived that the RAS is a rather exclusive and maybe even stuffy organisation. "This is personal, one thing I did not like about the RAS is they met, when I first joined, at the Hong Kong Club. At that time, there weren't too many Chinese members at the Hong Kong Club and I thought, I really don't like this, that we're meeting at a place that had a history, up until then, of being the centre for the western big people, and it wasn't a place that some Chinese would feel very comfortable going into." Talks are now held once a month, on average, at City Hall and anyone can walk in and listen. The RAS also holds visits to local and overseas historical sites about once a month. Smith had been vice-president from 1976 until 1997, but because he knew he would not want to take up the presidency in the future, but wanted to continue to be active on the Council, he took up his current title, honorary vice-president. Smith's first article for the journal appeared in Vol. 11, 1971. "I would say my present contribution is as the oldest serving Council member, and the person that has been on the Council the longest time, that I would present some historical continuity...I can say we did that in such and such a year, and this and that. Smith is a very entertaining interviewee. The American comes up with the funniest things. He is easy to talk to and very helpful, and wonderful at volunteering information. "The British just think we Americans are rather crude, outspoken, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 151 and too friendly, and the Americans think the British are stuffy and class conscious," said Smith, chuckling. "But I don't think there was any conflict [before]... Some of the members would say, 'Oh, Smith is at it again, but that's Smith...'(chuckles). I don't make a big point out of it, but I do speak my mind and say what I think. - "A member made a statement at the AGM - I won't go into detail 'cause that will go into personalities anyway, saying the society is sort of fading away and ten years from now there would be only a few old people sitting here at the meeting...and I said (using an old man's voice), 'Yes, and I'm going to be one of them.'” Smith bursts into laughter. He's more endearing than ever. "I don't think that's true. When a society is no longer fulfilling a function, well, societies die as they have in many parts of Asia, so we need to keep abreast of changes, we need to keep looking at our programs." In the Heart of the Metropolis... Earlier, a group of us made the trek to lunch for dim sum. Tim Ko sat next to me talking a bit about himself, but more about the food. He is fluent in English, but slightly accented, and is very much at home among mostly native English speakers. Today, however, he is a bit nervous because he has to give a slide presentation soon and lunch is taking an awfully long time. He begins wondering if he'll have enough time to prepare. Finally, he leaves, before dessert red bean soup... For his slide presentation, Tim Ko has changed into a beige shirt and rust coloured tie. His "Living in Hong Kong, 1960-1980” focuses on the city's diverse housing estates and features more than 100 photos, including some that have never been publicly shown before. The crowd seems to appreciate them. Ko is a semi-professional photographer who has been snapping Hong Kong history for the past 20 years. He "accidentally" discovered many of his presentation slides while doing research at the Housing Authority office. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 152 The agency had asked him to help with its 45th anniversary publication. He agreed, and asked the agency if it possessed photos of its first resettlement blocks. He wanted them for the publication. Someone said no. Later, at the agency's office, he was researching in a back room and came across more than 20,000 negatives dating to 1962. "These would be the most important visual record about public housing, not only in Hong Kong but the world, because public housing would not be developed on the same scale [anywhere else] as in Hong Kong," said Ko. When Ko offered to catalogue the entire collection, he met with disappointment. He ended up printing about 3,000 of the photos and labelling them, but is concerned that the rest of the 20-odd thousand others may just be discarded and lost forever. "I was very disappointed because these would be very important in the future for researchers and their own use,” said Ko. “I think these people are very short-sighted. I don't think any other department would be much better. Even the Government Information Service has its photo library, but I was told by a staff member that a lot of [photos] have been discarded in the past 10 years, because the less they possess, the less they will need to do." Ko moves to the edge of his chair; he seems agitated by the current situation. We are at the City University in Kowloon Tong, sitting facing each other on one of the open floors of the school. It's early on a Saturday morning, but Ko is wide-awake. No late nights for the 37-year-old, except in the dark room. most Ko says he has a collection of more than 100,000 photos he's taken but also including many contact sheets that haven't been sorted out. Among his collection are some that appear in the RAS publication on Yau Ma Tei. The Hong Kong native has published many books, including one co-authored in English on Hong Kong battlefields, but Ko prefers to write in Chinese. His first book, more photos than text, was a history book on Hong Kong for secondary students. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 153 "I would like to do more for students...In our time at school, even in the university, no one really cared about Hong Kong history and at secondary school, we never had a chance to study Hong Kong history, so no one knew about what happened in Hong Kong." Ko has also published a battlefield guide and a bilingual publication for the Country Parks Authority. His next book, a resource guide for teachers and students on Kowloon City, should be out in May. Ko has not published in the RAS Journal, and has no plans to. “Not as many people are writing in Chinese,” said Ko. "There are a lot of many very good scholars writing very good things like Patrick Hase, James Hayes, but all these, they only write in English." Ko is a fifth-generation Hong Konger. He is Hakka and his ancestors were stonecutters. He has traced his family back to the 1850's, before the British came. Ko studied Japanese at the Hong Kong Polytechnic and worked for the HKTA (Hong Kong Tourist Association, now the Tourism Board) for six years before quitting to do more of what he does today record Hong Kong history, including what life was like in the early resettlement blocks. "It's quite unimaginable for young people now, the communal toilets, communal bathrooms, no tap water in a small flat," said Ko. "You remember I emphasised during the talk, 24 square feet for each adult, a 100-square foot room would take at least four adults or six, if there are children. You could imagine how the situation could be. All the male members would need to sleep in the public corridor. "I always dream of, even till now, I dream of life in the housing blocks. I don't know why, many times a year, even till now, because actually I spent 22 years there...[They] could not be regarded as fond memories because we lived on the top floor and there were a lot of problems then with the ceiling leaking.” The 37-year-old has supported himself for the last 10 years through freelance jobs -- acting as co-ordinator and translator for the visiting Japanese media book royalties, and other odd projects. Ko has been a member of the RAS since 1990 and on the Council ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 156 : Sinn has written extensively on the history of modern China and Hong Kong, in both English and Chinese, and was awarded a Bronze Bauhinia Star in the SAR's 2000 Honours' List for her work in the field of heritage. She has edited many books and with Dr. Hase was co-editor of the RAS publication to mark the 35th anniversary of Hong Kong branch, "Beyond the Metropolis: Villages in Hong Kong." She is proud of her introduction to the book. 1 "It's hard to remember which of my articles I enjoyed writing most. I guess I rather enjoyed writing 'Kowloon Walled City.' [But] '1884 riots' was much too serious, and if I were to be writing it again today, I would take a very different approach—a more relaxed approach. The 'Study of Local History' is very informative, but I don't think it's particularly exciting! In the long run, I think the last one will probably have the greatest impact." Sinn joined the Council in 1982, and is currently serving as vice-president and has been for the last 10 years. "I was invited to join the Council—I don't remember by whom, but it is most likely to have been James [Hayes]. I joined because I thought the RAS did interesting things. Before I joined the Council, I had attended some of the lectures and seminars and also read the journal. I felt I was learning a lot from it. According to Hase, Sinn was the number one choice for the presidency two years ago, when Waters first wanted to retire, and again this year. "I'm still very doubtful as to whether I was the best choice [for president]. Elizabeth Sinn would have been the best choice. We asked Elizabeth to be president, but she said no,” said Hase. "My ambition in life is to be a really good historian and write a few great books," said Sinn. "And I wouldn't be able to do that if I tried to do too many things. A good president really needs to invest a lot of time in the job—like Dr. Waters. I respect him so much because he really gives it his all. Since I know I won't be able to spare the time, it's best that I don't take up the presidency." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 157 In Hase's opinion, it would be great to have Sinn as president - the first Chinese president and perhaps help in attracting more Chinese members. "I am not sure if a Chinese president would attract more Chinese members. In any case, for me, it doesn't make that much difference whether our members are Chinese or not," said Sinn. "We have four Chinese on the Council. It's hard to find Chinese to serve on the Council. In Hong Kong, getting people to do things that don't pay is very difficult. It takes a lot of dedication." The RAS is now on-line - www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk thanks to one of the new young Chinese recruits, Moody Tang, a student in applied Chinese studies majoring in Chinese for mass media at the City University of Hong Kong. You can read about the history of the RAS, get information on upcoming events and read the latest President's Report on-line. Discussions are in place about putting the journals on-line. In the next few months, selected articles will be published on-line as part of a joint project with the University of Hong Kong Libraries. A list of all the volumes of the Journal and their contents will also be available. Unlike Smith and Hase, Sinn does not feel there is any problem with having the Royal in the name. It is part of the tradition. Sinn says the Royal doesn't mean an allegiance to the crown, as the Hong Kong branch is independent of the mother society in England. "We are not a snobbish society, so people don't have to join 'to be seen' as members. The intellectual curiosity of members is a great attraction for me. Some of the Council members have become best friends. "Dan Waters is really more of a Hong Kong person than lots of local people. I think this is where the word 'expatriate' gets ambiguous. The average RAS member knows more about Hong Kong than other Hong Kong people." I reflect on this for a moment, and realise I have to agree. Much to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 159 REFERENCES 2000/2001 RAS president's report. . Hase, Patrick H. 1998. The Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong branch) and its Journal. The Journal of Resources for Hong Kong Studies, first issue, 17-43. 2001. Interview by Eve Lam. Tai Po, New Territories, 3 April. Hong Kong: Forty years of a growing city. 2000. Royal Asiatic Society 40th Anniversary Conference. 9 December, Ko, Tim. 2001. Interview by Eve Lam. City Polytechnic University, 7 April. Sinn, Elizabeth. 2001a. Interview by Eve Lam. HKU Centre of Asian Studies office, 23 November 2000. 2001b. email correspondence with the author, 12 April. Smith, Carl T. 1985. Chinese Christians: elites, middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. 2001. Interview by Eve Lam. Mei Foo Sun Chuen, 7 April. Waters, Dan. 1995. Faces of Hong Kong: an old hand's reflections. Singapore: Prentice-Hall. 2000. Laughter across the Great Wall: A comparison of Chinese and western humour. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38: 1-50. and 6 April. 2001. Interviews by Eve Lam. Conduit Road, 10 November Hyperlink to Literary Journalism class, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong. URL:http://jmsc.hku.hk/jmsc2002/literaryjournalism/ Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 161 THE MYTH OF UNPREPAREDNESS: THE ORIGINS OF ANTI-JAPANESE RESISTANCE IN PREWAR HONG KONG ANNE OZORIO [Hon. Ed. - I was initially hesitant to sanction this article because it seemed to me to be significantly under-referenced, even to the extent of "personal communications." It draws significantly upon Hong Kong Eclipse (Endacott and Birch, 1978), which is not acknowledged. Ms Ozorio contends that the referencing is adequate and assures me that, to the best of her knowledge and belief, the article is an accurate resumé of events. In accordance with the general principles of free expression I have left untouched Ms Ozorio's editorial comments on 'colonials,' 'the British,' colonial administration and society, and (Sir) Lindsay Ride.] Hong Kong fell to the Japanese in eighteen days: the wonder was that it took so long. [Hon. Ed. - The doggedness of the resistance and the bravery of the defenders, perhaps? See Lawrence Lai's article in Vol. 39 of the Journal, pp.115-136.] In the cosy, cocooned world of colonial society, the invincibility of Empire was taken for granted. Despite all that was happening in China, many Europeans in Hong Kong just couldn't conceive that any Asiatic might challenge their superiority. There were anecdotes that the Japanese planes bombing China were secretly manned by Germans, since Japanese were night blind. As the colonials sat comfortably mocking them, Japanese waiters, barbers, and menials were listening. Many would appear later, no longer servile, in full dress uniform, revealing their true status as high-ranking intelligence agents. The overwhelming Japanese victory was a shock to those who believed that Empire was unassailable. They assumed automatically, that if they had been caught off balance, then the authorities too must have been unprepared. This, however, is a myth. i In January, 1941, General Ismay declared that there was 'not the slightest chance of holding Hong Kong or relieving it. It is most unwise to increase the loss we shall suffer there. Instead of augmenting the garrison it should be reduced to a symbolic scale.' Defending a city crowded with a million civilians, little air cover, long supply lines and nowhere to retreat but the sea was a logistics nightmare. What may have been unimaginable for the average colonial civilian was clear ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 191 11 12 capable apprentice Hóng Réngan (1828-1864) who later died as the Shield King among the Taiping insurgents, and Legge's co-pastor of the Chinese congregation at Union Chapel (later Union Church) for twenty-five years, the first modern Chinese theologian, Ho Tsun-sheen (P. Hé Jinshan, known in the 20th century by his sobriquet among Chinese Christians, "Ho Fuk-tong," 1817-1871). Among the many forgotten persons whom Legge knew in his role as a missionary-pastor is a Cantonese resident more than 20 years Legge's elder, Ch'ëa Kam-Kwong (P. Che Jinguang, c. 1800-1861). In the Hong Kong newspapers of the early 1860s it was Ch'ea's life and fate which catapulted Legge into the status of a folk hero among the expatriate and Chinese Christian communities. Yet Ch'ëa's own unusual conversion, his subsequent career as a self-determined missionary, and his tragic murder years later by a local Chinese vigilante squad have been almost completely overlooked in English and Chinese sources. To Legge's credit Ch'ea was the subject of many letters and reflections in various places, so that it became one of three post-mortem memorials for notable Christians associated with his missionary career. Consequently, it is largely on account of the Scottish missionary's writings that Ch'ëa's name and story can be rescued from the dustbins of forgotten Chinese history. 14 13 ## PART TWO: Walking through shadowlands: Ch’ea's transition across major traditions The town of Poklo (P. Bóluó) was the leading city in a district of the same name, about 40 miles east of the capital city of Canton (Guǎngzhōu) and about 20 miles southeast of the impressive mountains of Lo-fow (or Laufu, P. Liúfú or Luófú) range. Those mountains were already made famous after the end of the Han dynasty (4th century A.D.) by Gé Hóng (283-363), a famous Daoist priest who made his retreat on the slopes of Mount Lo-fow when in search of special materials for an immortality elixir. Four or five temples of both Daoist and Buddhist traditions were well established on its slopes in the 19th century, and were visited by Legge and his younger Scottish colleague, John ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 193 ruling authorities, including the emperor in the temples of the imperial college. Then very solemn ceremonies of reverence and adoration were performed, marking the Sage as the ultimate exemplar for all who aspired to any level of leadership within Chinese society.1 18 The Poklo temple to Master Kong was, indeed, more impressive than those in nearby villages, such as the one at Lung Ch'un (literally, the "River of the Dragon," M. Lóngchuān) also visited by Legge and others in 1861. There the temple had no images at all, but only the spirit tablet (shénpái) of the Sage along with a large plaque citing the sixteen maxims of the Sacred Edict (Shèngyù) of the Kangxi emperor (ruling from 1662-1722).19 Both temples at Poklo and Lung Ch'un were dwarfed by the massive grounds set aside to honour the sage in the capital city of Canton. There the image of the Sage was in a hall elevated from the grounds six to eight feet above the preceding courtyards, the roof made of "those splendid burnished tiles" constituting imperially-sponsored buildings, garnished with mystical beasts balancing on the upper beams. Seated on a large rock dais, the thick paper-maché-like image of Master Kong was taller and larger than life. Postured as if leaning over a tablet in his hands, the Sage appeared immersed in the study of the text before him.20 How Ch'ea came to take his place in this Confucian institutional and ritual system is never explained. Whether he had been a student at one time or not is also not made explicit, but he was able to read, and so had probably spent at least part of his youth as a student, one of large majority who had obviously not been elevated by successful results in the examination system. When the two colporteurs from Hong Kong met him, Ch'ea was already in his fifties, had been married, and had at least one son.21 Because no direct mention is made of Ch'ea's wife in any of the documentation after his conversion, there is the possibility that Ch'ea had become a widower even before the pair of colporteurs met him in Poklo. If conversion is a multiform and processural event,22 then all of the above cultural, social, personal and religious factors have a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 203 propagating the Christian message. Later in May, 1861, Legge joined Chalmers and six others, including two Chinese evangelists, meeting Ch'ea and then touring the area. During this period they examined and accepted 101 applicants for baptism, performing the rites oftentimes in the vicinity of the local temples where they also preached.56 What deserves further attention, however, is the ways in which Ch'ea himself pursued these kind of "Christian duties" when left to work on his own during this period of Sino-British conflict. 57 Already by the time he returned to Hong Kong in May 1857, Ch'ea had developed his own pattern of a Christian form of life. This was largely based on his own feel for how to proceed, even though he had previously been instructed for six weeks in Hong Kong (during the period from May to June, 1856). Consequently, he did choose not to respond to his Catholic maternal uncle who "advised me to worship my ancestors," choosing instead to face "men's reproach or persecution" rather than follow "the doctrines of the Papists." Here it is evident that the Scottish Dissenter Protestant leanings of Legge and Ho, who had adopted them, had influenced Ch'ea. Also, when some educated men, possibly other local gentry not in the civil service, urged Ch'ea to "be revenged for [the] hostility on the part of the officials," Ch'ea refused, saying that "the disciples of Jesus do not strive with men." Clearly this emanated from his reading of the Shengjing and the Dissenter attitudes Legge and Ho had taught him, but stood in stark contrast to the military intrusions of the British in the area of Canton. As might be expected, images of the early Christian apostles in the New Testament and probably stories from the colporteurs and missionaries who passed through Poklo moved Ch'ea to itinerate outside the Poklo city walls. As he described his tours in 1857, he first headed west, then north, and finally east, preaching the message of the Christian religion he had learned to anyone willing to hear.58 Under these situations Ch'ea seemed to move largely out of a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 208 — foreign military strength prevailing against the Qing regime, calculated by the British and French to force compliance with the new treaty conditions, also actually caused greater threat to those foreign travellers who moved outside the provincial capital. Still, all this being recognized by Legge and his travelling companions, including Ch'ea, they pursued their missionary goals and tested the reliability of the Qing forces to uphold the treaty conditions. In the end it was clear that local Qing authorities could only be partially successful in maintaining public order during their travels. This fact was highlighted during the missionary tour. Legge explicitly mentions in his journal published in Hong Kong in June 1861 - issues almost always deleted from the edited versions published in the missionary journal accounts produced for English audiences - the troubles they faced at certain places where crowds had stones and bricks nearby and available to attack their party. One of the harshest responses came in the district city of Wye-chow, a large walled city not very distant from Poklo. Stonings there caused noticeable damage to the main boat rented for the trip. In another district town up the river by the name of Hé Yuán, the "rain of stones" became "exceedingly unpleasant.” In order to avoid further physical threat on their return through the alleys of the walled city, Legge and Chalmers with their attendant soldiers finally climbed up on the city walls where the attackers had their point of advantage. By this means they surprised the stone slinging "rabble" so that they quickly dispersed without presenting any further threats until the group had entered their boats.70 Legge was nonplussed: "I did not think that we should have experienced such treatment so far away from Canton." The political reality that antiforeigner feelings were running high and spread broadly throughout the region could not be denied. 69 Added to this was a deeper, more persistent strain of demonology which continued to erupt in the curses yelled at the missionaries in any place that was "inhospitable." One single record in Legge's journal illustrates the visceral level at which this demonology worked. At one point northeast of Poklo as they were travelling up the East River, the boat passed through a herd of water buffalo “luxuriating” 71 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 230 Chinese Son, pp. 115-116). For a fuller account of Taiping demonology, see the article on “Taiping Tiânguó de 'móguï'” (“The ‘Devil' in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom") by Wang Qingchéng in his book, Taiping Tianguó de lìshí hé sixiang (The History and Ideology of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) (Běijing: Zhōnghuá Book Co., 1985), pp. 328 ff. From another perspective it must be remembered that Christian missionaries in the 19th century also regularly employed demonology to express their frustations with obstructive Qing officials, Chinese cultural attitudes, and opposing religious alternatives. 46. Quoted in David Johnson, “Communication, Class and Consciousness in Late Imperial China,” p. 47, 47. A helpful biographical account of Burns' career is written by I. Hamilton, "Burns, William Chalmers" in Nigel M. de S. Cameron, et. al., eds., Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 114-115. 48. First published in Amoy (now Xiàmén) in 1853 and repeatedly published in various revisions in Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai for many years, the copy of this work I have seen is entitled Tianlu lichéng túhuà (Pilgrim's Progress in the Local Language [Cantonese]) (City of Sheep [i.e. Canton]: Huishi litang, tenth year of the Tongzhi reign [i.e. 1871]). 49. This Chinese conception of conversion has also been discussed in Lauren Pfister's "A Transmitter but not a Creator." 53 50. According to Paul Reuter, international standards and institutions for settling treaty disputes were first put into place in Europe in the 1870s, and so the only formal way of advancing political agendas at this time was through war. This single and often overlooked historical fact manifestly shaped the whole situation, so that local Chinese residents could only consider the foreign military presence as a preamble to a full invasion by an even "more foreign" power—the Manchurian elite. Consult the initial pages of Paul Reuter, Introduction to the Law of Treaties, trns. José Miro and Peter Haggenmacher (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1995). than 51. EMMC/MM (September 1857), p. 207, the quotations coming from the translation of a dictated document prepared by Ch'ea for Legge and Ho in May 1857. 52. Legge himself had vomited twice from consuming some of the bread, one of the first to feel its effects because it was his habit to rise early and work on his project related to the Chinese Classics. See reports of the trial against Cheong Alum in the China Mail, a three-page "Extra Edition," dated February 7, 1857, and Legge's own recollections in his public lecture (presented on November 5, 1872) entitled "The Colony of Hong Kong." Legge's lecture was later published in the China Review 1:3 (1872-1873), pp. 163-176. An edited version of this essay was published as a centennial recollection in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (1971), pp. 172-193. A helpful article revealing details about this event is "Cheung Ah-lum: A Biographical Note”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (1984), pp. and 53. The last phrase is quoted in Helen Legge, James Legge: Missionary Scholar, p. 103, from an unknown letter she claims came from a missionary in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 235 Edith Legge, James Legge: Missionary and Scholar, p. 120. 89. Legge's letter to Arthur Tidman, Secretary of the London Missionary Society, dated October 31, 1861, also printed in the EMMC/MM 26 (1862), pp. 18-19. 90. The first and second volumes comprising Legge's translations and commentaries to the Four Books had been completed in February and November that year, 91. The essay, Che'a Kin Kwáng, must be a pastiche prepared by Helen Edith Legge in preparation for her larger book on her father, James Legge: Missionary and Scholar. It is particularly evident in the last few pages, when letters from Chalmers and others are quoted (without notes or details, typical of her style in the book as well). A comparison of the typescript and the chapter in Helen Edith Legge's book on "Che'a" (notice the same error in transmitting the name of the martyr, pp.102-121) show that she was using the typescript liberally, the last pages of both documents being exactly the same except in one final addition within the book. That addition is a final, short paragraph, hagiographic to the extreme, summarizing how Ch'ea had received the "salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ" so that he "loved not his life unto the death". Though its sentiment could be shared by all sympathetic Christians, Helen Legge's writing also had other purposes in mind. A careful reading of the chapter in her book on Ch'ea reveals numerous factual errors -- wrong timing, mixing up place and person names, confusing original situations -- but also contains some new material from her mother's letters (Hannah Mary) received from her father that provide little cameos of other dimensions of the situation. Unfortunately, she used these sources only selectively, and then apparently destroyed the originals. It is quite significant, therefore, that it is only in the typescript mentioned above and in her chapter in the book that a defence of her father's leaving Poklo in the early morning before the vigilantes attacked the city is presented. (She may, however, be referring to the content of a letter by her father to her mother, or to the later portions of the Reminiscences which I could not check.) 92. See a historical description of the development of this very important institution, one which continued on for forty years as the major bureau for foreign affairs in China, provided by Masataka Banno, China and the West, 1858-1861: The Origins of the Tsungli Yamen (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964). 93. See his Appendix I, “Incidents Mentioned in Text, 1861-1870" in Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity, pp. 275-276. In spite of the title of the table, it seems that the summary is supposed to include all major incidents among the religious affairs documents within the files of the Zongli yámén. Another important gap in the record is the burning of the newly built chapel in Buddha Hill City (Fat-shan, M. Fóshan) in September 1870, a malevolent act perpetrated by crowds who opposed the erection of the building and threatened all those who were there with severe bruisings. Ho Tsun-sheen was one of the Christian officials present at the meeting, escaping through a rear window and finding his way back to Hong Kong independently. The event was so traumatic for him, that within six ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 262 War in 218 AD between two of the Three Kingdoms [San Guo], between Sun Quan of Wu and Liu Bei of Shu, led amongst other things to the capture of the city of Qingzhou. One of Liu Bei's generals, Guan Yu, hurried south to defend the city but was ambushed, captured and decapitated by Sun Quan after he refused to change sides. Guan was later deified as is now the immensely popular deity, the Patron of Uniformed Bodies and is known as the God of Loyalty, Guan Di. Thus, the founder of Zhenjiang had the distinction of slaying the consequent Patron deity of Soldiers, Firemen and Detectives and the second most popular god on Chinese popular religion altars. In the first years of the 6th century AD the first emperor of the Liang dynasty, Wu Di, who was renowned for his support of Buddhism and the Buddhist clergy, visited Zhenjiang. He had been visited by a divine monk in a dream who urged Wu Di to institute a great fast in order to rescue all sentient beings from the miseries of their existence. The Emperor ordered a new monastery to be built at Tse Hsin [Zexin], known today as Jin Shan to accommodate the Congress held in AD 507, and for centuries within the monastery there was a building known as the Hall of Liang Wang. This tradition is at odds with the date usually given for the founding of the monastery - AD 317. Our next story involves a deified hero who had nothing to do with Zhenjiang in life but, for some unknown reason, his cult would appear to have become centralised along the Grand Canal and especially at Zhenjiang. He is a canonised hero of the Tang dynasty, but one of a pair whose images elsewhere appear together on popular religion temple altars. These two euhemerised heroes, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, ***, have been seen on altars in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia. These two protective deities are known individually as the Venerable King of Peaceful Pacification, Wen'an Zunwang ✰✰ E [Zhang Xun] and the Venerable King of Military Pacification, Wu'an Zunwang ✯✯ [Xu Yuan] though they will + be referred to hereafter simply as Zhang and Xu. The most common history of the two heroes as related by a great number of temple keepers describes how Zhang and Xu, loyalists during the reign of Tang Ming Huang, opposed the rebellion led by An Lushan. They died heroically in AD 757 during the civil war defending the provincial city of Suiyang in Henan province which fell to the enemy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 269 the time ripe for an insurrection.. The rebellion began among the Hakka people in the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong and by 1853 was spreading north and west, led by Hong Xiuquan, a schoolmaster who had picked up a smattering of Christianity. Whilst suffering from an illness he experienced severe hallucinations and saw that his mission was to free the Chinese from Manchu rule. He also convinced himself and others that he was the younger brother of Christ and a son of God sent to save mankind. The Taiping rebels were known colloquially by the Chinese peasants as the Long-haired Rebels, Chang Mao, as they refused to shave the front of their head. [China's Manchu conquerors had ordered that all Chinese males would shave the front half of their head and wear the rest tied into a lengthy queue or 'pigtail'.] Hong Xiuquan's liberated territory was known as the Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Tianguo and by 1860 he had more than a quarter of China under his control. Much of the fighting between the Manchu Imperial forces and the Taiping rebel armies took place across Zhejiang province and down the Yangzi, especially around the Taiping capital at Nanjing. With Zhenjiang captured by the Taiping in April 1853 [a mere eleven years after the British had taken the city], their control of the southern bank of the Yangzi was virtually complete. Zhenjiang lay deserted during the Taiping era, being no more than a fort occupied by the Taiping rebels. The pagodas and temples were all destroyed with the usual Taiping iconoclastic fervour, and in many places their stones used as fortifications. The city, surrounded on three sides by a remarkable line of Taiping trenches some ten to eleven miles in length, was besieged several times by the Imperial forces. Each time they were driven off, with the city remaining in Taiping hands until compelled by a failure of supplies the rebels were forced to evacuate it early in 1857. Zhenjiang never fully recovered. The Taiping were finally defeated in 1864 when their capital at Nanjing finally fell to the Imperial forces - assisted by several foreign-led armies of Chinese and western mercenaries, one of which was the Ever-Victorious Army under General Gordon. Rasmussen in 1905 refers to the decayed trench system as 'Gordon's trenches', with some of his guns still to be found sunk deep into the soil of their old embrasures. He added that 'the only reminder now [1905] of the Taiping Rebellion was the thousands of graves covering the countryside, and the ghost-ridden walled city where the whole population had been put to the sword'. Thomas Adkins, the British Consul in Zhenjiang, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 303 up to Zhenjiang where he was stopped, searched and arrested for carrying arms. He was returned to Shanghai where he was tried and gaoled for nine months. The Chinese were furious having wanted his head'. Mason's own version described his life in some detail and, in particular, his escapade in Zhenjiang and Shanghai in 1891. He began his book with a lengthy piece about him charting his aims and future some year or so after he had arrived and settled in China as a member of the Chinese Imperial Customs. He had decided to make himself king of a great country, first by forming a band of robbers to attract more desperate men and expand the band until he was strong enough to seize a city and plunder its public treasuries and arsenals. From there on he foresaw that things would move rapidly. As he wrote many years later, describing in a summary of his aims and objectives, he had decided to make himself the King of China because, he reasoned, he was in China, was popular with the Chinese, spoke their language and the Imperial Government was weak. He decided to use the Gelao Hui to further his aims. He planned it for some two years, so he wrote, and then in 1891, at the age of 25, he embarked upon his scheme. The plan was to bring a cargo of arms from Hong Kong and distribute them to Sha's [a Gelao Hui chief] five hundred men in Zhenjiang, and they would then rise and attack the authorities. Having purchased the rifles, he had them shipped by coastal steamer to Shanghai where, following an informer's tip, Customs men were waiting. Mason, confronted by a Shanghai-based Customs officer, declared that he had been keeping the shipment under observation of his own volition all the way from Hong Kong. He was at first believed or at least given the benefit of the doubt, and was taken off to lunch by the Shanghai Customs Commissioner, Bredon. Mason, hating himself for being a turncoat, fled Shanghai to Zhenjiang where he was promptly arrested, and interrogated at the Customs headquarters in Shanghai by the local Chinese Imperial Daotai. Having confessed all to him but having also refused to name names, even after having been shown photographs of his mangled, tortured and decapitated Chinese friends, he was put before the British Supreme Court in Shanghai where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year or so in gaol followed by deportation. He never mentions Mesny, nor any aspect of the case as described by Mesny. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 362 May 1859 after the departure of Sir John Bowring, but was revived with the approval of the parent Society in London and reconstituted as the Hong Kong Branch in December 1959 under the active patronage of the Governor, Sir Robert Black. It is currently very active and is in a sound financial position. The Library Similar to other branches, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society set up a collection of books within its field of interest, relating to Asia and its culture. As a result of the merger with the Medico-Chirurgical Society, it had the benefit of inheriting all the books from this Society. The Society in Hong Kong was not as fortunate as its Shanghai counterpart where the Government, in 1868, provided a site for its building at a nominal rent and later granted it in perpetuity to the Society.2 For many years, the Hong Kong Branch did not have any permanent site, and thus its collection moved from place to place. In the early days, in 1849, as allowed by the then governor Sir S. G. Bonham, the collection was housed in a room at the Supreme Court building where the Society had its meetings. In 1859, when the Society ran into difficulties, the, by now, valuable collection of 400 books was placed in trust with the Morrison Education Society (formed in Canton in 1835) which, from 1855, had also kept its library in the Supreme Court house. In November 1869, when the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Colony to open the first City Hall, the Morrison Education Society presented its own library as well as that of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society to the first City Hall Public Library to serve as the reference collection. This laid the corner stone for the future relationship of the Society with the Hong Kong Public Libraries which eventually would become the permanent home for the Society's collection. In fact, following the resuscitation of the Hong Kong Branch in 1959, the President's first annual report stressed the need for ‘a meeting place of our own where we can build our Oriental library which should fill a special need'3 and expressed the hope that some accommodation could be made available in the City Hall. However, this was not realized until after several movements of both the Society and the collection. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 363 In 1957, with the generous support of Mr. R.E. Lawry (Honorary Secretary), the British Council in Gloucester Building became the home of the Society where it held its meetings and lectures to members. The Library's collection was accordingly kept in the British Council's Library. But shortage of space soon became a problem which necessitated the splitting of the collection. Mr. H.A. Ryding, the then Hong Kong University Librarian as well as the Society's Honorary Librarian, extended an offer to house some of the rarer volumes and the growing stock of exchange periodicals. This unsatisfactory division of the Library persisted after the closure of the British Council Library in 1975 when all the books were moved to the Public Records Office Library with the kind permission of the Government Archivist, while the periodicals (current and bound volumes) and pamphlets were sent to the Hong Kong University Library. In 1977, when the Society joined the newly built Hong Kong Arts Centre as a constituent member, it was able to rent a small room for use of members and place its growing collection in the Kotewall Library within the Centre. The Hong Kong Arts Centre is a privately funded body dedicated to the promotion of culture and performing arts. Its focal position for the arts in Hong Kong together with the great efforts of the Honorary Librarian, Mr. Ryding, resulted in a spectacular increase in the use of the Library. The collection also grew rapidly through enthusiastic contributions from members. Unfortunately, in 1985, prompted by financial considerations, the Arts Centre reorganised and the Society had to move. With the help of the Hong Kong Library Association, the Society's Library found a new home in 1985, on permanent loan to the Urban Council's Kowloon Central Library, the newest and largest addition to the Urban Council's Public Library Service at that time. The event was marked with an exhibition, in November 1987, of the Society's collection of books on China and Hong Kong with a supporting series of talks to publicise the valuable collection. A catalogue of the exhibited collection was also compiled and published for the occasion.4 In 1994, recognising the need for a central location for members to use the books effectively, the Chief Librarian of the Urban Council, Mr. Michael Mak, agreed to members' petition to relocate the books to the Reference Library at the Hong Kong City Hall, when the High 363 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 364 Block was expanded and renovated. The Society's collection was housed in a Special Collection room in the City Hall Library. Collection expansion with a resulting shortage of accommodation is a common problem amongst all libraries. While members appreciated the convenient location and ease of access with the City Hall Library, some members lamented that the room was becoming very crowded, making it very difficult to browse the collection. Although the Chief Librarian, Mr. Mak, acknowledged their concern, not much could be done since the City Hall Library was experiencing similar space problems for its entire collection. The situation was ultimately relieved with the building of the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay. This was officially opened on 16 May 2001, and comes with well-equipped modern facilities, and a spacious and pleasant environment. The Society's collection, as part of the Reference collection, was relocated to the new Central Reference Section. The Main Collection of post-1900 materials is shelved in the Special Collections area while pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) are housed in the new Rare Book Room. Compact shelving is provided to maximize storage capacity with adequate room for expansion. A comfortable reading area is also available for users to consult the materials. The Collection Since the acquisition, through inheritance, of the Medico-Chirurgical Society's collection, the Library continues to expand through donations, purchases and international exchanges. Periodic appeals are made by presidents of the Society for gifts of books. While many members generously send donations to the Library, Dr. James Hayes has to be acknowledged for his relentless contribution to the building up of the Society's substantial and valuable collection. Dr Hayes (HKBRAS President from 1983-1989) has been largely responsible for book purchases, especially during his presidency, augmenting the Library's size to around 3,000. Subsequent to retirement in Australia, he still actively searches for modestly-priced, hard-to-find books in second-hand bookstores, for the Society. The Society now possesses an excellent quality Library. The collection consists of books, periodicals, pamphlets, photo albums, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 366 and keyword searching of author, title and journal. The full text of the articles will be displayed if copyright clearance has been obtained. Together with the printed indexes, the database, which provides greater coverage, and fast and convenient searching capabilities, will greatly assist scholars in locating information in the Journal for their research on Hong Kong and the Far East. Automation With computerisation of the collection at the City Hall Library, the Society's collection has become far more accessible than it was in the past. The Dynix Library System makes available bilingual access to the Society's records of both western and East Asian materials. Books, journals and other materials can be more efficiently retrieved by searching the automated catalogue, by author, title, subject, and/or keywords. The old printed card catalogues are no longer used and have been discarded. In November 1997, the system was further enhanced to allow remote access to the collection via the Hong Kong Public Libraries online catalogue. Users who are connected to the network may access the catalogue in offices or at home, and no longer have to take special trips to the Library for required information. In support of the Hong Kong Government's Digital 21 initiative, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society created an Internet website in 2001. This was done by Ms. Moody Tang and the website provides information on the Society, its history, activities, and publications on the Internet. Also, with the establishment of a hyperlink to the Hong Kong Public Libraries' online catalogue, the website offers an alternative gateway to the Society's collection. It also serves as a powerful vehicle in promoting the Society and its collection to scholars, libraries, institutions, and the world at large. Conclusion Founded in 1847, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, through the dedication and support of its members, will continue to strive to provide a forum for the sharing of knowledge and experience, and discussion of common interests. The Library, moved to the new Hong Kong Central Library in May 2001, has finally found a home with modern well-equipped facilities where its excellent and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 370 1 1 L Hong Kong City Hall ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 472 lacking in balance and discrimination: luckily, this is not true of the vital central three-quarters of the book. But readers should beware of the lack of balance in these two sections. There are a few other minor flaws as well. Thus, while, of the two main Hong Kong Chinese-language newspapers, one is spoken of as the Wah Kiu Yat Po, the other is spoken of as the Xing Dao Ribao (Star Isle Daily), thus disguising (very effectively) the Sing Tao. It is difficult to discern any pattern here. There are also a few errors of fact, particularly in the first and last chapters. Thus, inter alia, nowhere near 20,000 villagers were displaced for the Japanese extension of the Airport - there were no more than a tenth of that number living in Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, and Kak Hang. The demolished tenements in the Kowloon City area in the 1930s were not inside the Walled City, but outside, in the Kowloon Market area. Sir Thomas Jackson was not the founder of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (1864): he was its General Manager from 1876-1902. These flaws, however, are minor, in comparison with the immense value and interest of the bulk of the book. It is, despite the flaws, confidently and wholeheartedly recommended to anyone interested in the history of Hong Kong. PATRICK H. HASE Jane Hutcheon, From Rice to Riches, A personal journey through a changing China Sydney, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2003. This book delivers. Its coverage is broad but deep, it has the right mix of passion and detachment, with impish but biting humour, and is quietly but cleverly constructed by the author who, for five years from 1995, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's correspondent in China. The author is well-suited to her task. A “China-coast" background on both sides of her family over several generations, her Hong Kong birth and upbringing, her family's devotion to journalism, plus a genuine interest in China and its people, combine with her own independent and questing spirit to make this a memorable account of their recent and current history. It is, indeed, a tale of 'China's wrestle with ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 CORRIGENDA Page 93, Plate 13, caption should read: 'Rosettes. Mabel Hayes and Christine Chow (City District Commissioner, Hong Kong, and City District Officer, Eastern respectively) at a function, mid 1970s. Pages xiv and 373: ‘1905' should read ‘1990.' [The card was sent by Arnold Graham to James Hayes in 1990. The reference to 1905 comes, inadvertently, from the photograph of the famous bubbling well taken in 1905, on page 374.] Page 44: Caption should read 'Steps leading to statue of St. Francis Xavier, St. John's Island' 111 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 We have asked all our new Members where they heard about the Society, and it would seem that they came to us through many different ways. Several joined after checking out our Website. Others came to a Lecture after reading about us in an article in a local newspaper or magazine. Quite a number were inspired by the recent very successful exhibition of our photographs at the Hong Kong University Library. Yet others heard about us by word-of-mouth from existing Members, or from our regular advertisement in Dollarsaver, or dropped in on one of Lectures having seen our poster at the City Hall or in one of the Universities. Since all these ways of attracting new Members are working well, we will continue using these methods of attracting potential new Members during this year. Our Honorary Treasurer and Vice-President will shortly be reporting on the state of our finances, and I do not want to steal his thunder here, and wish only to say that, as of today, the Society's finances are in a generally satisfactory state, and disclose no cause for undue alarm. We did, however, make a loss over the year. Last year I warned that, since our routine expenses were not covering our routine expenditure, an increase in the Subscription Fee was inevitable. It is, to repeat what I said last year, the Subscription Fee income on which we depend to provide for the routine expenditure of the Society. This year the Subscription Fee income level was well below the routine expenditure figure. Council has not agreed to any increase in the Subscription Fee to take effect from 1 April 2005. I feel, however, that I must warn you that there will, almost certainly, be a recommendation to increase the Subscription Fee at next year's Annual General Meeting, to take effect from 1st April 2006, since, clearly, we cannot allow this constant drain on our reserves because of weak levels of routine income. Another point I would like to make is that at the last Annual General Meeting a Resolution was passed which stated that those Annual Members not paying by Autopay would be charged an additional $50 a year handling charge to take account of the much higher costs these Members cause to the Society in the handling of their annual subscriptions. I must now say that only 130 Annual Members are paying by Autopay as of today (27%). With great regret, therefore, I must inform you that, over the next few weeks those Annual Members who xxi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 from last year and the year before. The SARS outbreak was to blame for some of this, since, in the early part of last year we were a little careful about putting events into the programme. Recently, we thought we were going to have to give up our lecture venue at the City Hall for some months, and so slowed the programme down, only to find that the long-awaited renovation and refitting of the Extension Activities Room had been put off, perhaps to the autumn, perhaps indefinitely, because of financial restraints. To put this into perspective, last year we had 17 lectures (2 more than this year), 9 local visits (5 more than this year), and 3 visits to places outside Hong Kong as against 4 this year. Last year the programme thus had 29 items on it, and this year only 23. In 2001-2002 there were 24. We will endeavour to do better during this up-coming year! The Council would welcome Members suggesting items for inclusion in the programme. Members willing to lead visits are particularly urged to put themselves forward! Improved Relationships with other Branches, and Extended Availability of the Journal in Libraries around the World Council has continued to take action to improve relations with our sister societies around the world, and has also taken action to ensure that full sets of the Journal are to be found in more Libraries, both academic and public. I am glad to repeat what I said last year, that full sets of the Journal are now to be found in all five of the Regional Libraries of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (in the City Hall, and in the Kowloon, Sha Tin, Tuen Mun and Tsuen Wan Regional Libraries), with three sets in the Causeway Bay Central Library. Sets are also available in the Public Library Service in Macau, and in Shenzhen, as well as in Shanghai. Negotiations are in hand to get sets into the library services at Canton and Peking as well. All the tertiary academic libraries in Hong Kong also now have full sets (two sets at Hong Kong University), as do the libraries of the Museums of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. We are in process of ensuring that the other Museum libraries in Hong Kong also get sets. During this upcoming year, Council will continue to try to increase the number of libraries around the world which have the Journal. xxiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2003/2004 As of 1 March 2004, the library collection had increased to 5,081 volumes. A total of 225 volumes were added during the year. Donations of books were received from Dr Patrick Hase, Dr James Hayes, Mr L. J. M. Litmaath, Mrs Mary Painter, Mr Andrew Tse, Mr Mynak R. Tulku (Director of National Library of Bhutan), and Dr Dan Waters. Gifts of books were also received from Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Foundation of Islamic Cultural Propagation in the World, Hong Kong Museum of History, The Siam Society, Sweden Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. The Journal of the Siam Society and the National History Bulletin donated by the Siam Society were personally brought back by our Council members, Mr Peter Stuckey and Mr Jason Wordie when they stopped by Bangkok. We would like to thank all our donors and welcome future contributions of old and rare books or journals. Following the journal replacement exercise with the Public Libraries last year, great effort was also made to identify missing volumes of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in academic and museum libraries in Hong Kong. To keep HKBRAS journals up to date so that users will be able to have access to the complete set, Council members agreed to send missing copies to these Libraries on the condition that they will take out a subscription for future issues. All the ten academic institutions including University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Lingnan University, and Open University of Hong Kong; as well as three museums, namely Antiquities & Monuments Office, Hong Kong Heritage Museum and Hong Kong Museum of History now have a complete set of the Society Journal. We will be sending Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences a set of the Society Journals soon and are in the process of granting them Honorary Institutional membership with the understanding that they would assist and encourage scholars in using their Museum to write articles on incidents xxxix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 10 Pak Lap is a single (Lau) surname Hakka village in which 17 houses built in two rows. In the past, Pak Lap's villagers depended on both farming and fishing; however, beginning in the early 1980s, farmland was taken out of agricultural production and most villagers moved away either working overseas or in the city. In 1993, a total amount of 300,000 square feet farm land belonged to Pak Lap villagers was all sold to a local developer; however, house land was still kept by the villagers. In addition, I was told that a condition of the transaction required by the villagers was that the developer had to rebuild the two rows of village houses (which they called Hakka pai house), even though the developer could have the rights of using them on a long-term basis to rent out for outsiders/visitors. Until 1999, Hong Kong's economy was still on the downside, the developer was no more able to fulfil the previous contract made in 1993. With the mutual understanding between Pak Lap villagers and developer, restoration instead of rebuilding was agreed; moreover, the rights of using were passed on to the constructor, Mr. Wong, because of the incomplete payment owed by the developer. Starting from that moment, the Wong family was in charge of managing the 17 houses in Pak Lap; two for their own use and 15 for renting out. When I visited them in early 2002, I found the rebuilding of the Lau Ancestral Hall was complete and some abandoned farmland was cultivated to grow different kinds of vegetables for the meals provided to visitors and customers staying overnight in the Hakka houses. Chek Keng The third village that I would like to introduce is Chek Keng. Unlike Tai Long Wan and Pak Lap, most buildings in Chek Keng can still be seen as they used to be, even though some of the houses had collapsed. Chek Keng is a traditional settlement consisting of five different lineage groups living together, and it was probably founded more than 200 years ago. Regarding the history of lineages in this Hakka village, I was told that there were five different lineages with surnames Fan, Chiu, Lee, Wong and Cheng living in the village. I got a chance to contact the village representative, Mr. Fan, who spent most of his time between UK and Hong Kong. The situation of Chek Keng was reported on by an English-language daily regarding lives of elderly New Territories villagers. Based on the only one Chek Keng resident ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 34 the City, it had long been associated with the Old China Trade. It was one of the places approved for recreational visits by the foreign merchants in the Factories, under long-standing regulations imposed by the Chinese authorities which had otherwise confined them to their own residences save on certain days of the month and to certain places 20 R These locations included the famous Honam Temple, the Sea Banner Monastery, which dated from around 1600 and was one of the most celebrated temples of Canton. There was also a suburb named Fa Tei (Flower Ground), where several of the Co-hong merchants had homes and extensive gardens.21 The people in contact with foreigners These comprised a wide range, from Manchu and Chinese high officials and their entourages, to the Canton-domiciled merchants of the Co-hong through whom the foreign merchants had to transact their business, and the many minor functionaries and underlings of civil office who were mostly locals, as well as the boat people, a race apart, who supplied essential transportation services and pilots. Most of the naval and military forces also comprised natives of the province. I shall first say something in general about the Cantonese, and then the boat people, who, between them, constituted the great majority of the persons with whom the foreigners came into contact, in the course of time spent in Canton and the Delta. The Cantonese The Cantonese were the principal inhabitants of Canton and indeed the province. They are to be distinguished from the Hakka and other long-established residents. They style themselves "men of Tang," as opposed to "men of Han" on account of their having come into the South during that dynasty.22 This self-identification brings out the differences between the local inhabitants of north and south China, reminding us, also, of the well-known antipathies between the two groups and of the disparaging ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 The Hoppo lived in the City, along with the Viceroy, the Governor of Guangdong, and other high provincial officials. Their relations had for long crystallised into an arrangement that ensured access to private gain from the trade as parts of one administration, in contrast to the competing rivalries of earlier times. This was in part to provide for mutual protection against interference and accusation from Beijing officials. The Hoppo's and other officials' treatment of foreign merchants The language used by these officials in their communications with the traders and the EIC's Select Committee - as instanced by Dr. Gutzlaff, a most useful contemporary source of information on the times - was invariably haughty and patronising, in keeping with the accepted modes of address towards inferiors of all kinds, and did nothing to ease relationships. Gutzlaff also mentions the 'governmental proclamations, detailing the infamous conduct of barbarians, [which] have been repeatedly posted up at Canton,' imbuing the minds of the people with strong antipathy against such worthless barbarians, and discouraging them from having anything to do with foreigners. "The writer has often heard the natives rehearse these accusations with self-congratulation at their own superiority." This sort of thing was an irritant, as were the restrictions on the movement of foreign merchants whilst in residence at the Factories, mentioned above. Far more vexing were their other complaints against the Canton System, which were listed by Morse as including the heavy taxation/impositions levied on the trade; the monopoly system of the Co-hong; the uncertainty of recovery of debts due from Chinese merchants; the diversion of the Consoo Fund (provided from the trade to cover such debts) to government use and presents to officials; and the prohibition on their making representations to any official save through the Co-hong. To all such complaints must be added the descriptions of the general venality of the administration, the Hoppo and other senior officials included, and indeed of the whole Canton System, as described in this paper. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 45 which is actually levied,' and since the dealers believed the authorities to have been personally interested in these illegal transactions, they believed it would be useless to look to them for protection or redress'. 63 Whilst these passages are taken from early Treaty Port days, two decades after the Canton System had been replaced, they describe a world which had otherwise scarcely changed. It was still, in its essentials, the working milieu in which the Co-hong, the officials and their minions, both civil and military alike, and the people at large, on land and sea, had been obliged to exist; and with which, and with whom, the Western traders had to contend, Rough treatment by the mandarins It was also a milieu in which criminals, and anyone falling foul of officials would have a very bad time. The Chinese personnel of the Old China trade were no exceptions to the general rule, and could be very roughly treated by the mandarins when they chose to enforce the minute and graduated regulations that governed all and sundry throughout the Empire.“ 64 A compradore was severely beaten and tortured and thrown into prison in 1816, because the EIC's ships' captains had presented a petition at a city gate over difficulties with obtaining a permit to load, with more beatings ordered for another compradore and two linguists, whilst the Company's head compradore had to leave hurriedly because police runners were looking for him. 65 In 1831, during the Canton Prefect's unannounced visit to the EIC's hall, a linguist was put in chains, taken away, and threatened with decapitation. 66 The officials, their courts and prisons were justly to be feared. Just how bad they could be was experienced at first hand by Captain Denham, shipwrecked on Formosa with his mixed crew of 55 Europeans, Chinese and Indians, and 2 passengers, in 1842. Perhaps because their brig, the Ann, had been an opium runner, they were treated like Chinese criminals, subject to the practices and procedures usual when men were imprisoned, tried, and condemned to execution, as indeed nearly all of them were. 67 The truth is, that the Chinese government was very severe with its ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 49 NOTES Romanization is always a problem with historical names, places and sources. For the two former, I have usually stuck with historical usage in English, whilst the sources are cited as in the originals. It should always be borne in mind that the predominant speech in and around the city of Canton was Cantonese. I am grateful to the Hong Kong Museum of History for help with illustrations, and to my friend R. Ian Dunn of Sydney for assistance in preparing them for reproduction here. The map used to indicate places comes from Peter Ward Fay's excellent book on the Opium War, published in 1975, and reissued in 1997 with a new Preface. 1 This was replaced by the Treaty System introduced under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking [Nanjing] 1842, which ended the 'Opium War'. 1 4 5 Ljungstedt, Anders (1836). An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China. Viking Hong Kong Publications, 1992, p.61. The full text of the revised edition of 1836. For a good modern account, see Porter, Jonathan (1996). Macau, The Imaginary City, Culture and Society, 1557 to the Present. Westview Press. Davis, John Francis. The Chinese, A General Description of China and its Inhabitants. New Edition in 3 vols (first edition 1836), London, C. Cox, 1851. Vol. I, p. 18. Parkinson, C. Northcote, Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793-1813. London, Frank Cass, 1966 (first edition, 1937), p.57. The Missionary Guide Book: or A Key to the Protestant Missionary Map of the World. London, MDCCCXLVI (1846), p.206. These were large and impressive documents. One in the British Museum dated in 1836 measures 26.25 by 19.5 inches, as recorded by Chang, Hsin-pao (1964) in Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, p.7. I saw another in the Guernsey Museum in 1974. Collis, Maurice (first published 1946), Foreign Mud, The Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830's and the Anglo-Chinese War (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1968, pp.45-62 for the official and unofficial systems of trading to China in the 1830s, at pp.58-60 especially for comparative figures. See in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 222 and (from Needham) a “Summary on the Transmission of Mechanical and other techniques from China to the West'. There is an index, and an extensive bibliography. Tucker acknowledges the assistance of experts in many cities along the Silk Road, and also his wife, Antonia Tozer, who accompanied him on several of the journeys that he undertook while writing the book and whose photographs comprise the majority of those included. Other sources of photographs include the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, Tucker's alma mater. No book is perfect, and although my background does not qualify me to comment on the content and arguments of this one, I have one major reservation about the way Tucker argues his thesis, and several reservations about the book's presentation. My first point relates to Tucker's failure to compare the relative significance of the overland Silk Road with that of the maritime Silk Road. An excellent, though very different and far briefer, companion to Tucker's book is a volume produced in 1996 by the Hong Kong Museum of History, edited by Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong) member Dr. Joseph Ting.2 Contributors to this edited volume make it clear that the cultural exchange between China and countries to the west was just as significant by sea as by land. Admittedly, Tucker notes a contemporary account in around 800 that describes Chinese junks in Baghdad, and several maps indicate the maritime routes, but his single-minded focus on the overland route detracts from a more balanced picture of the relative significance of the two routes. In fact, Patricia Ebrey comments that the trade along the sea routes in the Tang Dynasty was higher in volume than that by land. Tucker's concluding chapter implies that it was European voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century that led to the development of the sea routes between China and the west. His emphasis on Chang'an, which is appropriate as it was a major destination for travellers along the overland Silk Road, might lead readers to overlook the significance of Guangzhou, a city which dominated the maritime Silk Road for centuries, and in which the cultural mix in the Tang dynasty was as great as in Chang'an. This leads me to wonder whether the extant art and history of the Chinese influence in the ports used by Chinese vessels on route for India, the Middle East and East Africa have been investigated, and whether this would be a worthy subject for a book. I note a tantalising Page 270 Page 271 ================================================================================