RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 48 BEK-TO CHIU RHODOLEIA CHAMPIONI, HOOK # 吊鐘花 Family: Hamamelidaceae ### 金縷梅科 Common name: King of Hanging Bells Hooker, who described Rhodoleia from Hong Kong named it championi to commemorate Col. J. G. Champion who was the first to collect this plant while stationed here 1847-1850, as an ensign in the 95th Regiment. Champion wrote on his record “the handsomest of Hong Kong's flowering plants". Hance in 1870 described the flowers as "of extreme beauty and rarity". Justifiable statements to all who are acquainted with the flowers of this plant. Indeed the colour combination of the flowers is uniquely striking and perhaps breathtakingly oriental. The involucre of bracts is of a pale yellow, gold, pink and russet brown; the petals of rose-carmine and the stamens, black. Besides its beauty, the fact that the plant is indigenous and only found on Hong Kong island, is worthy of note. Bentham described the flowers as having "the appearance of a semi-double Camellia". This is so and they particularly resemble Camellia hongkongensis. The apparent flowers are each composed of a cluster of five flowers, aggregated compactly on a recurved peduncle (and hence "hanging" or pendulous) at the axil of the upper leaves of the branches, with the petals of the flowers arranged at the circumference, held at the base by an involucre of overlapping bracts. This unit is in fact an inflorescence of the capitulum type, comparable with that of a chrysanthemum, The shrubs or small trees, reaching up to 20 feet high, are evergreens, bearing coriaceous dark green leaves with a bluish bloom on the upper surfaces. The flowers start to bloom from January to March, being at their best in February, the Chinese New Year time. The fruits are woody composite capsules, maturing at the end of six months, when each dehisces both loculicidally and septicidally, setting free many small winged seeds. Trees of Rhodoleia championi that bloom regularly, are to be found in the New Botanical Gardens, near the Pavilion and in a sheltered valley in Little Hong Kong, off Shouson Hill. The genus Rhodoleia has two other species: one from China and the other from Java and Sumatra. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r BOOK REVIEWS 141 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES. The Bulletin of the Far Eastern Prehistory Association, Edited by Wilhelm G. Solheim II. Volume VI, Nos. 1 & 2, 1962. Hong Kong University Press, 1962. Illustrated. HK$25 per number. This issue of Asian Perspectives contains much of value for all students of Far-Eastern Prehistory—for the interested layman no less than for the expert. The journal is divided under three main headings: Regional Reports, Topical Report and Notes, and Original Articles. The regional reports cover the following areas: Eastern Asia and Oceania, Northeast Asia, Mainland China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Polynesia, New Zealand and Australia. All the reports have detailed bibliographies, invaluable for further reading and for the comparison and co-relation of work in the various fields of research. Especially interesting are the full note on A. P. Okladnikov's report on important archaeological discoveries in Mongolia in the Northeast Asia report, the notes in the Southeast Asia section which include P. I. Borikovsky's report on recent work in Vietnam and the inclusion, for the first time, of a regional report from Madagascar. The author of the report from Mainland China feels that the volume of work being done there and the problem of obtaining published results, make complete coverage difficult at the moment; but to have such a report at all, with a comprehensive list of references is useful. The Indonesian report is detailed and well-illustrated and covers field work and research in Java, Bali and Flores, Sumba and Timor. Those who have seen some of the Neolithic material discovered in Hong Kong will find the illustrations in this section particularly interesting. The topical report is on the linguistic sessions of the 10th Pacific Science Congress held in Honolulu in 1961; again the bibliography is extensive. The range of subject of the articles in the third section, Notes and Original Articles, is wide, but in this issue of the journal, predominantly archaeological. They include articles on the problems of archaeology in Madagascar, on the work of French prehistorians in Vietnam, on archaeology in North Borneo, Easter Island and in India. A. P. Khatri writes on A century of Prehistoric Research in India, paying tribute to the "father" of... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 32 SIR JOHN BOWRING race is thus augmenting, the causes which lead to the destruction of food, — such as the overflow of rivers, fires, ravages of locusts, bad seasons, and other calamities, — are to a great extent beyond the control of human prudence or human exertion. It would be difficult to show what new element could be introduced which would raise up the native supply of food beyond its present productiveness, considering that hand husbandry has given to cultivation more of a horticultural than an agricultural character. The constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the complete absence of emigration into China, is striking evidence of the redundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly confined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookien, representing together a population of probably from 34,000,000 to 35,000,000, I am disposed to think that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from these provinces alone are located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of Siam, it is estimated that there are at least a Million and a Half of Chinese, of which 200,000 are in the capital (Bangkok). They crowd all the islands of the Indian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census there are 136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom without one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California and other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the Sandwich Islands, to the western coast of Central and Southern America: some have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British West Indies has been considerable; to the Havana greater still. The annual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and 2,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China.* There is not only this enormous maritime emigration, but a considerable inland efflux of Chinese towards Manchuria and Tibet; and it may be added, that the large and fertile islands of Formosa and Hainan have been to a great extent won from the aborigines by successive inroads of Chinese settlers. Now these are all males — there is not a woman to 10,000 men: hence perhaps the small social value of the female infant. Yet this perpetual out-flowing of people seems in no respect to diminish the number of those who are left behind. Few Chinamen leave * Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii, p. 286, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g NOTES AND QUERIES 153 Long before the arrival of the Europeans in south China (1514) the Chinese were manufacturing cannon. Examples of them, some bearing fourteenth century dates, may be seen in museums in north China. The earliest one known, bearing a date equivalent to 1332, is housed in the Historical Museum in Peking. For an illustration see my short article in ISIS55(no.180), June 1964, pp. 193-4. At the beginning of the sixteenth century a new type appears, apparently introduced from Java or Cochin-China. It is known in Chinese literature as fo-lang-chi (or Farangi-Franks), the name applied slightly later to the Portuguese. This type is remarked as early as 1510. (Cf. Pelliot in T'oung Pao, 1948, pp. 199-207.) In the struggles against the Japanese and other pirates who infested the coast during the Chia-ching reign (1522-66) these cannon were frequently put to use not only on land but also at sea. (See Chao Shih-chen, Shen-ch'i p'u i, published 1598. Chao knew what he was writing about, as he was a drafter in the Grand Secretariat at the court in Peking, concerned with military defense, and is said to have manufactured some firearms himself.) Ming dynasty illustrations of war vessels sometimes show cannon mounted on deck. (See Mao Yüan-i, Wu-pei chih, published 1621, chüan 117. Mao was an expert on military affairs, and saw service both in Liao-ning and Fukien.) In the effort to repel the Manchu invaders in the north the Ming court sought the aid of both the Spanish and the Portuguese. Huang K'o-tsuan, for example, reports that when he was serving in the ministry of war (up to 1619) he recruited people from Luzon who could manufacture cannon; they made twenty-eight pieces, which he sent up to the northeast frontier in Manchuria. These must have been formidable (or Huang was trying to impress his superiors) for one cannon is said to have weighed over three thousand catties, and a shot could dispose of some seven hundred barbarians! (Ming shih-lu, Hsi-tsung, 4/29b. I owe this reference to Dr. Ray Huang, visiting professor at Columbia University.)5 * The importation of cannon and cannoneers from Macao about this same time is well known. In 1621 the well-known Christian convert and high official Hsü Kuang-ch'i ordered a shipment sent up to Peking, and a year later he recommended that the Jesuit fathers, Nicolo Longobardi and Manuel Diaz, proceed to Macao to purchase ten cannon and a few soldiers to operate them. In ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 48 T. J. LINDSAY One point that shows up in the accounts is the speed of coaling at Singapore. In 1880 Glencoe loaded 1,130 tons in 103 hours, in 1882 Sterling Castle 1,600 tons in 10 hours, in 1884 Glenogle 1,500 tons in 62 hours. Moyune 700 tons in 5 hours in 1887 as against Glenogle 1,200 tons in 5 hours in the same year. The “Glen" figures of 220 tons an hour in 1884 and 240 tons in 1887 are remarkable. What of the conditions in these ships racing home? The stoke-hold must have been almost unbearable, so it is no wonder that difficulties with the stokers were reported. In 1882 there was trouble culminating in Singapore when a stoker of Glenogle struck the Chief Engineer. When a European shore policeman came on board the 31 stokers threatened but the policeman "took his stand in the most daring manner and fairly cowed the men by his determined demeanour". At Hankow, too, there was trouble in 1883 when some of Glenogle's crew were reported to have mutinied and the Navy had to be called in to deal with the situation. Passengers, too, had something to complain of. On one occasion in Singapore when two or three passengers had been granted conditional passages they found the saloon and every state-cabin crammed with tea. Conditions in the China tea trade were about to change. In 1881 the North China Daily News wrote: “It is not so many years since China was the only tea producing country. It was sufficient then for the buyer to watch the deliveries at home and the export from China, to be guided, with little chance of error, in his operations. But the fatal energy of our race has reared up in British India a frightful rival to the Flowery Land, and India not only demoralises China by sending opium here, but demoralises our tea markets by sending tea in increasingly enormous quantities to London. There are no squeezing Mandarins in India, there is European supervision in packing and the firing of the leaf, and the plantations are connected with civilization by the railway and the telegraph. Everything is done to give India an unfair advantage over China. Java is competing too, and Ceylon is threatening. As yet Indian tea is hardly taken on the continent of Europe at all, but here too it will penetrate sooner or later, as it is doing into America and Australia, and then there will be no corner of the earth where the sway of China tea will be undisputed.” ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 84 R. BRUCE lost Java and gained Singapore for a reluctant Company, and Malacca followed. Siam was eventually drawn into the picture not for her trade or her position on the way to China a little off the route -- but, in fact, because of Kedah and the other northern Malay States. By 1818 the Chakri dynasty had gained sufficient strength to instigate her vassal Kedah to attack the neighbouring Malay State of Perak. The Siamese army then entered Kedah itself and the Sultan fled to Penang. British merchants there were indignant and called on the Company to intervene, but the Supreme Council in Calcutta considered that "a war with Siam would be an evil of very serious magnitude". Their policy was one of conciliation. "All extension of our territorial possessions and political relations on the side of the Indo-Chinese nations" the Company declared, "... is earnestly to be deprecated and declined as far as the course of events and the force of circumstances permit". As well as the Malay States there was the Burma question. The restive Burmese had extended their power to Arakan, thus making them neighbours of the British in India. By the eighteen-twenties Britain became involved in war with Burma in the southern part of the country. With the extension of the East India Company's interests to Siam's western and southern borders it became desirable that relations between the Company and Bangkok should be regulated on a peaceful basis. At the same time trading relations should be improved. The bad conditions of trade were described by Raffles as "slavish and humiliating” for English merchants. He gave this account of the trade: “On arrival in port the most valuable part of the cargo is immediately presented to the King who takes as much as he pleases; the remaining part is chiefly consumed in presents to the courtiers and other great men, while the refuse of the cargo is then permitted to be exposed to sale. The part which is consumed in presents to the great men is entire loss; for that which the King receives he generally returns a present which is seldom adequate to the value of the goods which he has received; but by dint of begging and repeated solicitation this is sometimes increased a little." To remedy the situation John Crawford was sent to Bangkok by the Governor General of India in 1822. Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 148 S. F. BALFOUR they made the primitive links in the chain of commerce before the foreign traders from India and Persia arrived about the 4th century A.D. In the present state of archaeological knowledge we do not know how far east this early trade route spread. It may have linked up Japan and Korea for instance. It seems certain that it spread to the Tonkin delta, down the coast of Annam and possibly to Malaya, Java and Sumatra. Very likely, also, is the existence of the trade routes inland by the great rivers throughout South China and Tonkin. There is unfortunately no Chinese historical record of this trade. The Chinese accounts of aboriginal life in South China are very indefinite and unsatisfactory. In very early times (in the book of Chuang Tzŭ and the Book of Rites) the South of China was called Nan Yüeh or South of the Mountain Barrier. Texts of the Han dynasty give in greater detail the geographical divisions of the coast. The South of Fukien was called Ou, Fukien Min Yüeh, Kwangtung and Kwangsi South Yüeh and the western part of Kwangsi with the Tonkin delta Lo Yüeh or Ou Lo. These divisions cannot be taken as based on any real knowledge of racial distinctions. A few texts give us a meagre description of the natives. The Han history describes the inhabitants of Min Yüeh as "cutting the hair short, tattooing the body, possessing neither towns nor villages but living in valleys of bamboo, expert at fighting on the water but of no use on land, having neither chariots nor horses nor bows and arrows." We also know that in 180 B.C. Chinese traders were forbidden to sell iron to the natives of South Yüeh which indicates that they were using stone weapons. Another text of the Han history connects the people of South Yüeh with those of Lo Yüeh or Tonkin by saying that "they are both of the Mi tribe". It is tantalising that in spite of much account of battles and biographies of chieftains the Chinese historians have left no real description of aboriginal life. Such was their dislike of barbarians that they either ignored them completely or wrote about them as if they were pure Chinese. According to the San On topography the tribe of Yao, a people of Sino-Tibetan stock affiliated to the Miao, existed to the north of our region some 200 years ago. They live now in Kwangtung and Kwangsi besides other places such as Hainan Island. They tattoo their bodies and use stone implements. They ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 152 S. F. BALFOUR Their presence in Tongkin and Annam attracted traders from the South Seas and from India. The later Han history mentions that in A.D. 132 the towns of Jih Nan farthest south in Annam, Chiu Chên and Chiao Chih were focal points of navigators. "Cattigara" was mentioned by Ptolemy about this time as the port of the Chinese; it has been identified with Chiao Chih or Hanoi. Traders came to it from India and from Yeh T'iao or Java. During the 3rd or 4th century these foreign traders penetrated as far as Canton. But the Chinese did not do more than encourage the foreign traders to come. What coastal trade existed must have been carried on by the aborigines, who were practically unaffected by the Chinese conquest. These aborigines, particularly in the seas between Annam and Canton, turned themselves into pirates and harassed the early western traders to an enormous extent. An independent centre of trade remained in Min Yüeh which was practically untouched by the Chinese until the T'ang dynasty. This centre must have been in touch with the civilised region of Wu, at the Yangtze mouth, and no doubt had contacts further with Japan. Little is known about it, but its importance must have been very great and it was lasting. Even in the Middle Ages Marco Polo referred to South China as Manzi or the Land of the Man-Tzů. In one or two ways the modern Fukienese show traces of contact with Japanese culture in their use of wooden utensils for instance. It is quite likely that the porcelain, especially the glazed type, found in our region was imported from the North East. When the Han dynasty broke up in A.D. 220 the empire they had founded from Canton to Indo-China was disrupted. The garrisoned towns were emptied of troops during the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms period, and right up to the T'ang dynasty the Chinese never regained their imperial hold over the South coast. The region was therefore left to the semi-tutored aborigines and to the foreign traders. There is no evidence at all of any settlement of peasants. The Cantonese language is not an archaic form of Chinese, and some of the eldest sub-dialects, for instance that of T'oi Shan district, do not point to a pre-Tang population. We must therefore recognise a break between the Han and Tang dynasties when the aborigines continued their tribal life and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 154 S. F. BALFOUR population who took on Chinese surnames and customs. The town of Canton itself, although parts were surrounded by walls, continued to be inhabited by a large matshed population. It was full of Arabs, Indians and Persians who were allowed to have their own administration and laws and to settle in the place without hindrance. Here is a quotation from the famous Arab book known as the Chain of Chronicles which is an account of the trade with China in the ninth century compiled by the Zaid Hassan of Siraf in Arabia. The merchant Soleyman states: "The reason why Chinese merchandise in Baghdad is at present rare is because fires are so common in Khanfu (Canton). This town is the principal port for ships and is the entrepôt for all trade between Arabia and China. The fires which consume the merchandise break out because the houses are built of bamboo and reed. Another cause of the paucity of merchandise (in Baghdad) is the large number of shipwrecks and the fact that the ships are so often raided by pirates or are forced to remain in port for long periods during their journeys." Another merchant states in the same book: "In 878 the rebel Ban Shua (Huang Chao) besieged Khanfu (Canton). After many days the town was taken. On this occasion 120,000 Mussulmans, Jews and Christians who were established in the city perished by the sword." Since this event preceded a decline in the trade with the west from Canton it is as well to try and form a picture of it up to this period. The boats used were larger than any of the native craft that are now seen on the Chinese coast. As early as 413 Fa Hsien the Buddhist pilgrim returned from Java on a boat which carried over 200 people. It drifted, he says, at the mercy of the wind without taking any particular course and "only by observing the sun, moon and stars was it possible to go forward." Fa Hsien's ship was set for Canton but was blown out of its course as far as Shantung where they landed without knowing in the least where they were. In spite of the difficulty of steering without a compass the trade route was very much helped, as it has always been, by the monsoons which blow from the north in winter and from the south in summer. There is some evidence that tacking was ================================================================================ 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-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 30 LEIGH R. WRIGHT entered the Borneo scene in 1839 very much the idealist-humani-tarian, nineteenth century liberal, gentleman adventurer, in the colonial tradition of such forerunners as Francis Light of Penang and Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and sometime British governor of Java. Even much of the colour and romance painted by the early travellers and story writers bears up under the careful scrutiny of the historian. James Brooke came from stock which had produced a seven-teenth century lord mayor of London. His father and uncle were civil servants in the East India Company, and James lived until aged 12 near Benares on the Ganges in British India where he was born in 1803. Brooke himself entered the military service of the Company after a somewhat indifferent education which involved only two years of formal schooling in the Norwich Grammar School. He was severely wounded in a campaign of the first Anglo-Burma war in 1825, and after a prolonged convalescence resigned from the Company, largely, we are led to believe, because of disenchantment with its conduct of eastern affairs and because of widespread corruption among Company servants. When in 1835 Brooke's father, then a retired nabob living in Bath, died leaving him a comfortable fortune of £30,000, James bought a schooner and fitted out an expedition to Borneo and the Celebes Islands, an area in the East Indies with which he was familiar from earlier voyages and from exhaustive reading of the accounts of George Windsor Earl and Stamford Raffles. Brooke's schooner sailed in December 1838 under the colours of the Royal Yacht Club. He looked forward to satisfying his adventurous curiosity about Borneo and perhaps doing some trading. He particularly wanted to penetrate to the interior of Borneo, and had in mind exploring up the rivers which flowed into Marudu Bay, on the northern end of the island. He was a private voyager, but the colours of the Royal Yacht Club commanded respect in naval and colonial circles and he was well received in Singapore where he arrived in May 1839. I There he was given a pseudo-official mission to perform in Borneo. Several Singapore-based vessels had recently been ship-wrecked or plundered by Bornean pirates and their crews sold into ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 36 LEIGH R. WRIGHT Sarawak. Was Brooke an independent sovereign prince, or was Sarawak a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Brunei? And if a vassal, was it quite proper for a subject of the Queen to occupy such a position? The Raja was anxious to make Sarawak over to Britain as a colony or a protectorate and so ensure the continued political stability of his state and the progress of his people. Very much in the tradition of Raffles in his Java period from 1811 to 1816, Brooke sought the extension of British interests in Southeast Asia, not merely for the sake of commerce and trade, but for the civilizing effect that the presence of British rule of law entailed. Like Raffles he found little to admire in Dutch colonial rule either in Java or Borneo. He wrote,10 If the British public be indifferent to the sufferings of this unhappy race, now for the first time made known to them they are not what I believe them to be, and what they profess themselves. It was necessary to establish "a proper British influence" in Borneo. I conceive that policy dictates these measures at the present time, because in case of any delay it will no longer be in our power. From the distractions of Borneo, some European state must very shortly interfere in their concerns, and the supremacy of the Dutch government would be the knell of the British trade which now is carried on, and effectually stop all measures of improvement. And later, to tempt British strategists, he added, We shall have a post in time of war highly advantageous as commanding a favourable position relative to China—we shall extend our commerce—suppress piracy and prevent the present and prospective advantages falling into other hands—and we shall do this at a small expense. When ministers in London answered with a cold "no" to all of Brooke's requests for a colony or a protectorate the Raja became angry and bitter. He threatened to sell Sarawak to Belgium or 10 James Brooke, A Letter from Borneo, (pamphlet published by L. and S. Sealy, London, 1842), copy in FO12/1. 11 James Brooke, Memorandum on piracy, 31 March 1845, FO12/3. ================================================================================ 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 193 from the Imperial Palace. These Chinese expeditions sailed as far afield as the coast of East Africa, the Maldive Islands, Mogadishu, the Persian Gulf, Aden and Mecca, Siam, Champa, Java, Sumatra and Malacca, visiting more than thirty countries in South East Asia, the Indian Archipelago and the Indian Ocean. Cheng Ho The most famous of the admirals to command these expeditions was Ma Cheng-ho, a eunuch from the Imperial Palace and the son of a Chinese Moslem Hadji from Yunnan. The Admiral is remembered either as Cheng Ho or by his title, San Po Kung (2) and not by his family name which was the common Chinese Moslem name Ma ( ). The full title by which he was known after his death was San Pao T'ai Chien (2), the Three Jewelled Eunuch, but this in South East Asia has been shortened to San Pao Kung (ET). Cheng Ho's last expedition in 1430 visited seventeen countries from which tribute had ceased to be received, but after he died in about 1431 all official intercourse between these countries and China ceased.* Where or when he was deified is not known. However, amongst the overseas Chinese communities which are mentioned below Cheng Ho is still prayed to for protection, both in everyday life and on short journeys. In the earlier days of the Chinese migrations to South East Asia, he was prayed to by the junk crews of the southern maritime provinces of China and the South Seas. Cheng Ho himself on his voyages is said to have prayed to Tien Fei, the Heavenly Consort (kt), the Chinese seafarers' goddess, who is now normally called Ma Tsu or Tien Hou. What a good example of Chinese toleration Cheng Ho was: or perhaps a good example of the prudent Chinese who takes the opportunity not to offend, and also backs all horses. Here he is, a Mohamedan who prays to Tien Fei for protection and who during one of his voyages erects a tablet in honour of the local Buddha. Images of Cheng Ho Statues of Cheng Ho are to be seen in temples in Singapore; in Malaysia in Muar and Malacca; in Sarawak; in Semarang in Java, See J. V. G. Mills' edited translation of Ma Huan's Ying-yai Sheng-lan. The overall survey of the Ocean's Shores, Cambridge University Press for The Hakluyt Society, 1970. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 194 KEITH STEVENS in Thailand and at Nakorn Sri Thammarat. The few observed examples of his statue have all been in temples run by Fukienese emigrants, and probably the most famous statue is to be seen in Malacca in a temple run by Fukienese emigrants from An Chi county. (Plate 28) There does not appear to be a standard identification characteristic for images of Cheng Ho. The Malacca statue is of sandal wood, carved some 8" high, in Amoy style, depicting a Mandarin seated on a throne with his right hand clutching his girdle, his left palm cradling a flat elongated plaque of office or sceptre, which rests in the crook of his left arm. He is beardless and has the raised eyebrows so often seen on Chinese opera generals; he is wearing a military hat with one pompom on top, and a tassel hanging from each side of it over his shoulders. He is accompanied by two standing attendants; the one on his left a military attendant is carrying his sheathed sword, and the one on the right a civil attendant is carrying his seal of office wrapped in a red cloth. Alongside, on the same altar, is Kuan Kung, the Chinese god of loyalty and patron of soldiers, who is also the patron of Chinese businessmen. In the temples listed above, Cheng Ho has several birthdays and feast days, the most common of which is the 30th day of the sixth lunar month. One of the many images on sale in a Singapore godshop, was another Amoy style carving of Cheng Ho, some 10″ high in wood, now in the possession of an English news correspondent. This image of the Admiral depicts him as an elderly benign man without a beard, dressed in gilt dragon robes, and standing with a fly whisk in his right hand and a scroll in his left. (Plate 29) Cheng Ho in Java and the Philippines The Admiral is held in the highest esteem in Semarang in Java as the Chinese patron deity of the town. It is said that he left behind in Java some ten men under his sick navigator, Ong King-hong, who founded the town of Semarang. Before 1724 a statue of Cheng Ho together with four carved wooden attendants was brought from China, and these stand in a cave near the town. During the British occupation of Java in 1945 the commander of the British forces recommended the Chinese of Semarang to evacuate the town for their own safety. After consultation with Cheng Ho, they decided 11 Willmott, D. E., The Chinese of Semarang, (Cornell U. P., 1960). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r On the gains side, during the year we had seven new life members, three members transferred from ordinary membership to life membership, and one honorary life member was added: a total of eleven new life members in all. A total of sixty-one new ordinary members joined during the year, and thus our total membership gains over losses was thirty. Present membership stands at 555. Programme of Events Some new members join when they attend one or other of our activities as guests of members. Altogether, during the calendar year, we have had eight lectures, two film shows, two tours, and an Extraordinary Meeting to discuss a proposal for joining the Hong Kong Arts Centre. Our last Annual General meeting took place on March 27, 1972, accompanied by a dinner which has now become one of our annual events. As always, your Council has tried to arrange a varied programme to suit the many interests of members. May I say here that any suggestions from members as to topics they would like to see introduced or discussed are most welcome, as is also any information as to specialists passing through Hong Kong whom we might capture for an evening to talk to us, or talks you might be able to give us yourselves. Our programme for the calendar year covered many topics related to our general sphere of interest. Several lectures dealt with historical subjects currently being investigated by scholars. They related to such places as Sarawak, Hong Kong, Japan, and Mongolia. Other subjects were related to the arts, sociology, geography, and natural sciences. Several lectures, I am pleased to relate, were in fact given by our own members. One film show consisted of two films presented by their producer and filmer, Mr. Hugh Gibb. One was on Chinese religion and the other on Chinese opera, both in Hong Kong. Mr. Gibb, a member of our Society, is well known for his cultural and ethnographic films and we are grateful to him for making these films available to us. The other film shown was Mr. Brian Brake's documentary on Borobudur in Java. We are similarly grateful to him for lending it to us. The Java film was shown at the end of the Extraordinary Meeting and this brings me back to the Hong Kong Arts Centre. During the resuscitated existence of our Society, we have not been able, despite all our efforts, to raise enough funds from firms, individuals, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 46 A. D. BLUE steamships in India operated on the Hoogly in the early 1820s, mainly as tug boats. The first steamship in the Dutch East Indies was the Van der Capellen, a paddle steamer of 230 tons, designed to operate a coastal service in Java. The Van der Capellen was built by a consortium of British merchants in Sourabaya in 1825, and equipped with engines built by Fawcett and Company of Birmingham. Due to the close association between British India and Canton through the East India Company, it was not long before steamships were introduced on the Canton River. Although he did not live to see his scheme carried through, a Mr. T. J. Robarts of the Company's Canton staff is the pioneer of steam navigation in China. When on leave in London in 1821, just nine years after the Comet was launched on the Clyde, he suggested to the Court of Directors that a steam tug could be usefully employed on the Canton River. Because it was thought that the Chinese might object, his scheme was turned down, but Mr. Robarts decided to go ahead on his own. He ordered two 16 horse-power engines and a copper boiler from Henry Maudslay and Company of London, and a hull of oak frames; all of which arrived at Canton in 1822 and aroused great curiosity and admiration. Unfortunately, bad health caused Mr. Robarts to retire prematurely, and there was no one at Canton able, or willing to continue with his scheme. Everything was therefore sent to Calcutta, and arrived there in June 1822. The parts were assembled at Kyd and Company's yard at Kidderpore, and the vessel, known as the Diana, was launched on 12th July 1823. However, the original oak hull was discarded in favour of a new hull built locally of teak. The name Diana was taken from the figurehead which had accompanied the original hull. The total cost of the Diana was 70,000 rupees, and the government declining to take any part in the enterprise--this was financed by a group of Indian agency houses. The Diana ran successfully, but not profitably, on the Hoogly for a year, and was then sold to the government for use in the Burma War, 1824-1826. It was Captain Marryat, then the senior naval officer in India, who recommended her purchase to the government. The Diana took part in the first expedition to Rangoon, and proved so useful that she was retained on the Irawaddy for the whole of the war. She suffered at times from overloading, as not ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS 81 drama. This is a process which reminds of Java where the drama performed by actors Wayang Orang mimics the much earlier leather-shadow-play Wayang Kulit. Hsiao Nan-ying a famous hua-tan of Ch'aochow opera, who came to Hong Kong a year ago, complains that the Ch'aochow opera here is still using the stiff movements which were influenced by the shadow-puppet movements. She also tells of a typical Ch'aochow opera in which the peculiarities of the shadow-puppet-theatre are used to great effect. A movement can suddenly stop and the moment can be endlessly prolonged. For example: a boy and a girl move independently in a festival-crowd and when they by chance look at each other, they instantly fall in love and remain motionless in the position in which they caught each other's eye. And the Old Man of the Moon appears, takes imaginary strings from their eyes and binds them together. They remain like statues looking at each other until somebody cuts the imaginary strings, the spell is broken and they regain their liveliness. This technique is believed to be derived from the shadow-play. The Wang Family The most important puppeteer-family in Hong Kong is the family Wang who have been puppeteers for at least three generations. At the end of the Imperial era the grandfather Wang Pao-yuan was active as a puppeteer and opera-actor, and his son who accompanied him became the famous Wang Chiao-tsou, also called Wang Chiao Y. The name Chiao-tsou meaning “itinerant teacher" was given to him, because he was a well-known itinerant teacher and opera-actor and also a puppeteer. Weary of the Sino-Japanese war he took his family to Hong Kong in 1938, together with a trunk of puppets. He immediately started to teach Ch'aochow opera and founded the Hsin-shun-hsiang puppet-troupe (The title means 'to prosper anew in Hong Kong'). His own family being very large, it was easy for him to give puppet-performances. Having for long performed himself in the leading role of hua-tan (character of a high-class beauty) he was a major force in the upsurge of Ch'aochow opera in Hong Kong in the last thirty years. When Wang Chiao-tsou arrived here he found three established Ch'aochow puppet-groups. Hsin-t'ien-ts'ai gave up its puppets to become an opera troupe in 1962. Lao-yuan-cheng ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r BOOK REVIEWS YING-YAI SHENG-LAN "THE OVERALL SURVEY OF THE OCEAN'S SHORES' [1433] Translated from the Chinese text; with introduction, notes and appendices by J. V. G. Mills. The Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, No. 42, pp. xix, 391. Cambridge University Press, 1970. £11.50 U.K. When the Emperor Yung-lo died in 1424, the Ming dynasty had reached the height of its power. Chinese fleets commanded the eastern seas, and foreign potentates as far west as Egypt acknowledged the suzerainty of the Emperor. Between 1405 and 1433 a remarkable eunuch, Cheng Ho, as outstanding a seaman adventurer as any produced by Elizabethan England, commanded seven overseas expeditions, and visited over thirty countries. Chinese naval, and consequently trading, hegemony extended from Japan to the east coast of Africa. The expeditions usually extended over two years. Setting out from the neighbourhood of Nanking in the autumn, powerful fleets, including sixty or more 'treasure-ships', and twenty-eight to thirty thousand men, moved down the Yangtze to the mouth of Liu creek (near Shanghai), where organisation was completed; thence to an anchorage near the mouth of the Min river in Fukien province where the ships waited for the favourable north-east monsoon. Java, Palembang, Malacca, Ceylon, Calicut, and Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, were regularly visited. On some occasions, detachments from the main force called at Arabian and at East African ports, sailing southward as far as Malindi. On the fourth expedition (1413-15), Cheng Ho was accompanied by a young Chinese interpreter Ma Huan who, on the basis of observations in the course of succeeding voyages with the 'grand eunuch', contributed perhaps the most important record of life and manners in south Asia by any traveller before the arrival of the Portuguese. Ying-yai Sheng-lan, introduced in two parts, the first describing the expeditions under Cheng Ho, and the second discussing Ma Huan and his book, may have been first published in 1451. Its author died about ten years later, scarcely better known than his book which never acquired a wide circulation. Ma Huan claimed ================================================================================ 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 33 Legion of Honour for Bravery. That same year he published Souvenirs de la Cochinchine,17 an account of his life and adventures in Indo-China in the years 1863-1868. It is extremely difficult to decide what is fact and fiction in this chronicle for Mayréna had already matured into a remarkable mythologiser and phantasist—a monumental liar. Little is known about Mayréna's life for some years after 1871, except that he set himself up as a banker in Paris, dabbled in journalism and led the existence of a boulevardier, ogling the girls at Tortoni's and the Napolitain. Then in July 1883 he was accused of swindling, a warrant for his arrest issued, and he fled to Holland. From Holland he embarked for the Dutch East Indies and arrived there penniless in September 1883. In August 1884 he was repatriated to France at the expense of the Dutch colonial administration. But only a few weeks after his return to France he was again on his way back to the East, this time as leader of a scientific expedition of exploration to Java, financed by the Baron Roger Seillière. Mayréna did not proceed to Java as planned but stayed on in Saigon. The 30,000 francs, handed to him by the Baron for equipping the expedition, he spent lavishly in the cafés of Saigon, relating wild Munchausen-like tales of his previous adventures in the East. The police soon compiled an extensive dossier on this troublesome fellow, who was suspected of gunrunning, swindling, and a variety of other offences. In August 1885, the Commissioner of Police wrote of Mayréna and his brother, who had accompanied him on this last trip, that they were 'faiseurs et monteurs de sociétés à exploiter les naifs'.18 Mayréna made several expeditions into the interior of Indo-China in the years 1885 to 1888, but it was his last journey which concerns us here. In March 1888 he landed on the coast at Quinhon at the head of a semi-official expedition of exploration into the independent region of the Moï country. The expedition had the blessing of the Secretary-General at Saigon. On 21 April 1888 the party left Quinhon. It included a seedy adventurer from Saigon, Mercurol; a trader, Paoli; two Annamite women; a few Chinese; and a contingent of local levies and porters. Mayréna was amazingly successful in a short space of time. He signed a treaty with an important Moï chief and soon succeeded in welding together a number of disparate Moï tribes into a confederation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 THE CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE KEITH G. STEVENS* In my research into Chinese iconography I made a considerable nuisance of myself in three particular two-storey shophouses in the middle of Singapore's Hokkien (Fukienese) area (see plate 1), by questioning the god carvers' every action during the process of carving and repairing images of Chinese gods. In Singapore three families are in partial competition, yet from their full order books business would appear to be thriving. Two of the families are Hokkien originating from near Foochow and Amoy respectively and the third is Teochew (Ch'ao chou) from Swatow, all being second or third generation Singaporeans who have never visited their homeland. Into these shophouses are crowded the unmarried longterm employees in addition to the families themselves, notably the apprentices who sleep on campbeds in the shop and eat en famille. One master carver bewailed the shortage of apprentices who in this age of affluence were unwilling to undertake a long and poorly paid apprenticeship. I have always referred to these craftsmen as god carvers and their shops as godshops. My article "Three Deities" in this Journal in 1972 provoked the editorial comment that the term was colourful and as such would be left unedited. My terminology is a far cry from the jargon of the anthropologist and it is my intention to describe, in my own terms, the production of gods in one of these godshops. These godshops are ten foot square or ten by twenty foot work-spaces on the ground floor of the shophouses. Here new gods are carved and painted and the old repaired, not only for the island of Singapore but also for places as far north as Thailand and Cambodia, as far east as Borneo and Brunei and as far south as Java. This group of godcarvers is unique in being the only Fukienese and Ch'ao chou specialist carvers still plying their trade save for a few * Major Stevens' other contributions on the interesting subject of Chinese gods in South-east Asia and Taiwan appeared in Vols. 12-13 of this Journal. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 5 films have been shown many times. This time—in June—we had a new film on the boat people of Hong Kong "Dragons of the Sea" made with Miss Barbara Ward, an anthropologist and also an old friend of our Society. We were invited together with many of the boat people and others in Hong Kong who had helped make the film a success. In July one of Mr. Brian Brake's films "Borobadur, Cosmic Mountain” was reshown. Borobadur is one of the world's greatest Buddhist monuments, situated in central Java. Mr. Brake is well-known for his documentary art films. In September another of his films "Ramayana” a major epic of the Far East was shown. Ramayana has culturally influenced Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and other parts of the East and has been represented many times in paintings, sculptures, dances and theatrical performances. In December films on Taiwan were shown in connexion with our excursion to Taiwan over the Christmas holidays led by Miss Werle. The Taiwan visit was a great success I understand (I never seem to be able to go on overseas trips myself owing to family commitments during the holiday seasons). Members visited Hualin, Taipei, the National Palace Museum and the Peking Opera School; various temples; and Tainan where a shadow puppet performance was seen. It was with great reluctance that we had to cancel our proposed visit to Borneo over the Easter holidays, owing to insufficient numbers. We realise, of course, that for many people this is not a “free” time and the possible lack of response was due to this fact. PUBLICATIONS Several of our talks for 1974 will be published in our coming 1974 journal, which will also include, apart from several original articles, two valuable reprints, one on the Tang Family of Kam Tin by the late Sung Hok-pang, and another on place names of Hong Kong and the New Territories by Mr. K. M. A. Barnett. Most of the items have already been passed to the printer and it is hoped the Journal will be ready for distribution by June this year. Also in press now, are the papers relating to the two symposia we held: Hong Kong, Chinese tradition and the Development of a Town; and The Flora of Hong Kong. Professor Lofts' symposium on the Fauna of Hong Kong is also in preparation. ARTS CENTRE As old members will recall, the Society is a constituent member of the Hong Kong Arts Centre. For new members our object is ================================================================================ 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-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 110 TIN-YUKE CHAR Aldersey brought over from her Batavia, Java mission school to become assistant leaders in her Ningpo school. Ruth and Laisun had a family of six children: Elijah, Spencer, Willie, Annie, Lena, and Amy. Chan later left his mission work and went to Shanghai in 1853 where he became quite successful through his connections with an English mercantile firm. On a corner of the American Board's property in Shanghai, he built a school house where his wife opened a girls' school. As he was acquainted with Yung Wing and was qualified, he was engaged to accompany the Educational Mission to America in 1872. He took along his wife and six children. His two eldest sons were ready to enter college in two years and his two eldest daughters received part of their education in England. In 1875 Chan was detached from the Educational Mission and appointed interpreter to Li Hung-chang, Governor-general of Chihli. Thus, he met Hawaiian King Kalakaua in Tientsin in 1881. The February 1887 issue of the Hamilton College Literary Monthly had this letter from Chan, "We all love the United States, for many reasons. Our hearts are still there, although we are back in China. I am in Tientsin, with the well-known viceroy, Si [Li] Hung Chang, as his Secretary, and Interpreter. Annie, our eldest daughter, is married to a Dane, Captain of the Chinese government revenue cruiser; and is the happy mother of a beautiful son. Elijah, the eldest boy, graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1887. He then went to Freiburg in Saxony, and remained there eighteen months. On his return to China, he was commissioned to open the copper mines in Eastern Mongolia. His prospects are very bright. He was offered the post of chief engineer for the government railroads, but declined to accept it. He is the first scientific engineer China has produced. His field is the largest ever offered to a single individual, for the mineral resources of China are almost infinite.” From Carl Smith's article, it was learned that another son, Spencer Tsang Lai Sun, married Man Kwai, daughter of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong (1818-71) of Hong Kong. A further lead to more information was given by Chi Wang of the Orientalia Division, United States Library of Congress. In Shu Hsin-ch'eng's Chinese book on Chinese Students in Foreign Countries, the interpreter of the Educational Mission was identified by his official name, Tseng Heng-chung. The same is true in ================================================================================ 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 13 Sultan Dewa Emas Kayangan, mated successively with fourteen aboriginal maidens. After much to-ing and fro-ing the fourteen chose one of their number as leader. When they were all converted to Islam the leader became sultan. The chronicles of Brunei which date from perhaps the early 1700s, relate that the first Muslim sultan was installed by the Sultan of Johore. This agrees in general with the theory among historians that Islam spread from centers in Malaya and Sumatra to the eastern archipelago, as far as Mindanao in the Philippines during the 15th century. It is interesting to note that among the ruling elite in Brunei there existed an admixture of ethnic origins. For the period of the 14th through the 17th centuries we know that there was much immigration to Borneo from Java, Sumatra, Malaya, China and Arabia. The second sultan was either Chinese or married to a Chinese woman, the daughter of a wealthy Chinese trader who had settled on the northwest coast. Accounts of the injection of Chinese blood into the royal line of Brunei vary. The third sultan was an Arab sharif who married the daughter of the second sultan according to Brunei chronicles. The addition of the blood line of the Prophet to the ruling clan would lend legitimacy to the ruler in Islamic terms. Whether fact or an invention of the royal chronicler it is impossible to verify. Up to contemporary times there have been numerous Arab adventurers living around the coastal regions of the Malay world who denominated themselves sharif - blood descendent of Muhammad. The kingdom of Brunei reached its greatest extent of power and prosperity under the fifth and great sultan, Bulkiah, after whom the present, the 29th, sultan is named. Brunei extended its power southward and northeastward around the coasts of Borneo. Bulkiah's forces raided into the Philippines as far as Luzon and left colonies of Brunei Malays on the shores of Manila Bay where they encountered the Spaniards in the middle of the 16th century. The Catholic Spaniards suspected Brunei, probably quite rightly, of being the center of Islamization of the Philippines and so attacked Brunei Town in 1578. Thereafter sporadic warfare continued for over 300 years between Malay Muslim communities of northern Borneo and southern Philippines and the Spanish conquistadores of Manila. This warfare is referred to in Spanish records as the Moro wars.3 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 which drew a great deal of stimulating discussion: Leadership and Ideas in Singapore since 1945. Altogether then, there were twelve lectures during the year. Excursions During June, Dr. James Hayes, the very busy Town Manager of Tsuen Wan, and editor of your Journal, organised an excursion to his district. During preparatory work for the redevelopment of Northern Tsuen Wan various religious institutions came to the notice of his department, which was also able to discover more information about others. The group attending the excursion visited a Buddhist monastery, where they had a vegetarian lunch; another religious establishment for the so-called "Three religions"; the Holy Mother Yiu temple, in a squatter area; and a temple to a sect established to help opium addicts and which has branches also in Singapore. Another local excursion is planned for March 29 to Macao, with the help of Dr. Leigh Wright of your Council. It plans to take in visits to places not on the usual itinerary of tourist visits, such as the Theatro Pedro V. There will be a Portuguese lunch and information on the places visited will be given by Father Texeira who has helped us on past occasions. I would like to take this opportunity of thanking him for his generous help to the Society. This visit should be a 'must' for those who like old architecture, churches, cobblestone streets as well as archives and libraries. Excursions to neighbouring territories and states also remain an important part of the Society's activities each year. Some twenty-two members visited Kashmir and Kathmandu (with an unscheduled but very interesting overnight stop at Amritsar) during last Easter, under the leadership of your Hon. Secretary, Dr. Brian Shaw; and it was possible to make a refund to each participant of over two hundred dollars as a result of various economies. A further group of twenty will be leaving this Easter for Darjeeling and Sikkim; and in July a smaller number will go to Ladakh (“Little Tibet”). Some members expressed interest in proposed visits to Central Java and to sites in Thailand, but the numbers were not sufficient to make the trips feasible last year. Our requests to Peking concerning visits to cultural sites in Central China have unfortunately not yet received a favourable response, but our efforts will continue during the coming year. For ix ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 222 NOTES AND QUERIES notably among which were beans, teas, wines, fertilisers etc., while the ones in Wing Lok Street concentrated so much on the sole item of rice that the street was nicknamed "Rice Street". These firms acted as a medium for trade between countries in Southeast Asia and Mainland China, operating on a commission basis, and in Chinese they were often referred to as the "98" firms implying that a 2% commission was charged both ways. Thus from Singapore came canes and firewood, from Java, sugar and from Siam, rice. In addition, they were also recognised as banking institutes through which overseas Chinese remitted money home before the modern banking system was fully developed. The majority of these pioneer merchants were from Chiu-chow, and within their small circle they possessed all the virtues of being sympathetic, honest, trustworthy and generous, eager to help each other in case of need. The stress was on a person's status and it was not at all surprising that business deals were sealed by the lips only and any consequences that followed would be fully honoured by both parties without further ado. Written contracts were unheard of and highly unnecessary. With wealth came the desire for honour, and it was quite common that most of the better-off merchants held official sinecures which were bought from the Chinese Government. This entitled them to don colourful official robes during ceremonies and important festivals. It was a spectacular sight to see these celebrities moving around, impressively attired during the Chinese New Year when European executives from leading shipping and insurance companies called to present their greetings. These were usually carried out amidst highly decorated surroundings, coupled with theatrical performances and lavish receptions which lasted for weeks. Class distinctions were obvious, and only the privileged few had the right of access to particular installations ranging from private clubs to public tea houses. An employee who was caught by his employer sneaking into one of these would be dismissed almost instantly. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 52 JIANN HSIEH Hsieh, J. 1977 Internal Structure and Socio-cultural Change: A Chinese Case in the Multi-Ethnic Society of Singapore. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A. 1978 "The Chinese Community in Singapore: The Internal Structure and Its Basic Constituents." In Peter S. J. Chen and Hans-Dieter Evers (eds.), Studies in Asian Sociology. Singapore: Chopmen, Kerri, J. N. 1976 "Studying Voluntary Associations as Adaptive Mechanisms: A Review of Anthropological Perspective." Current Anthropology, 17(1):23-49, Little, K. 1965 West African Urbanization: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Social Change. Cambridge: The University Press. 1974 Urbanization as a Social Process. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Skinner, G. W. 1960 "Change and Persistence in Chinese Culture Overseas: A Comparison of Thailand and Java.” Journal of the South Seas Society, 16(1-2):82-100. Suyama, T. 1962 "Pang Society: The Economy of Chinese Immigration." In K. C. Tregonning (ed.), Papers on Malayan History. Singapore: Journal of Southeast Asian History. Ward, B. E. 1965 "Varieties of the Conscious Model: The Fishermen of South China." In M. Banton (ed.), The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology. London: Tavistock. Willmott, W. E. 1967 The Chinese in Cambodia. Vancouver: Publications Center of UBC. Wong, A. K. 1968 "A Preliminary Report on the Kaifong Study." United College Journal, 7:27-48. 1971 "Chinese Voluntary Associations in Southeast Asian Cities and the Kaifongs in Hong Kong." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 5(2):62-73. 1972a "Chinese Community Leadership in a Colonial Setting: The Hong Kong Neighbouring Associations." Asian Survey 17(1): 587-601. 1972b The Kaifong Associations and the Society of Hong Kong. Taipei: The Orient Cultural Service. CCCHS 1950 Ch'ung chêng tsung-hui san-shih ch'ou-nien chi-nien t'e-kan (Thirty Years of the Tsung Tsin Association). ================================================================================ 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 133 my first such expedition was I accompanied by anyone from the China Travel Service and that was simply because he knew the way, not because he had been ordered to check on my activities. I was never followed. Taxi drivers made out duplicate slips on each of my expeditions. They gave me a copy and kept the original (as they always do for every taxi ride). In my opinion Public Security cadres did not correlate—or even read—the slips from my many expeditions. One thing alone is of concern to cadres when it comes to tourists: foreign exchange. My taxi rides produced foreign exchange—though taxi fares are far less than in the United States or England. This is because there is only a minuscule charge for waiting; and the taxi often waited for me at a monastery for two or three hours. The People's Government wishes the outside world to know that there is now freedom of worship in China. I found that there is freedom of worship and have even published a remarkable photograph to prove it. Thus I have helped Peking to undo the harm that was done to public opinion abroad in 1949-1976. Harvard, Mass 1981 + HOLMES WELCH CHINESE RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT WITH ISLAM Since I wrote my Note on two examples of Chinese religious involvement with Islam on pages 199-202 of Volume 19 of the RAS(HK) Journal 1979, I have been fortunate enough to be able to purchase an image, some ten inches high, a typical Chinese altar figure, said to be off a Chinese temple altar in Surabaya on Java. It is of a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in songkok, sarong and a white shirt with cufflinks and removable buttons, worn outside the sarong. He also has white trousers under the sarong and is seated on a Chinese dragon-throne, a typical pose, decoration and carving of a Chinese deity from Fujian province. The Chinese who sold it to me said that he had obtained it from the temple keeper in Surabaya as it was no longer needed. It depicted, so he was told, the former President of Indonesia, Dr. Sukarno, born in Surabaya in 1901 and died in 1970. The image had been carved and placed on the altar in a Chinese temple as an Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 Plate 17. A squatter temple dedicated to Guan Yin built in 1976 on the lower reaches of Lion Rock by Chaozhou immigrants. The roof ridge is decorated and the centre piece is a red double-gourd. Plate 18. The image of Dr. Sukarno from a Chinese temple in Surabaya, Java, Indonesia. Page 255 Page 256 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 350 BOOK REVIEWS However, such incomplete listings are probably common to many gazetteers. In truth, the gazetteer was never intended to be comprehensive, and Mr. Ng and Dr. Baker cannot be faulted. Perhaps it is just as well to emphasize this. Instead, we should be thankful that the informative and often picturesque descriptive writing in the gazetteer comes over so well in translation, and for the liveliness of Dr. Baker's notes and his other writings (particularly the Ancestral Images series mentioned above). Through the far-sightedness of the Hong Kong University Press, the two authors have surely provided us with a most valuable and useful basis for intelligent appreciation of our past, as well as with many hints for further reading and further studies if we are so minded. JAMES HAYES Histoire de l'Asie du Sud-Est, Révoltes, Réformes, Révolutions, Pierre Brocheux (compiler), Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1981, 276 pp. This collection of twelve essays, with a 9-page introduction by one of the contributors on behalf of himself and eight others, devotes itself largely to Vietnamese history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also includes material on early 20th century Laos and Cambodia, on Java and early Indonesian communism, and on present-day Singapore. The Vietnamese subjects are widely distributed in time and place. They include a historical review of peasant movements; reform and traditionalism at the court of Hué in the later 19th century; Ta Thu Thau, an unsuccessful revolutionary assassinated by the Vietminh in 1945; a revolt (1918-22) among the Hmong "montagnards" living on the confines of China and Vietnam; the extreme left pan-Asiatic movement and the Vietnamese national movement 1905-25; and a survey of the communists' approach to the peasantry in Vietnam. There is also an essay on the agrarian reforms of the Diệm regime with American prompting and support. In their introduction, the authors make the point that the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 170 Glassburner, Bruce, and James Riedel. 1972. “Government in The Economy of Hong Kong", Economic Record 48, No. 1: 58-75. Heilbroner, Robert Louis. 1964. "The View From The Top: Reflections on a Changing Business Ideology". In The Business Establishment, ed. by E.F. Cheit, New York, John Wiley and Sons, pp. 1-36. Hirschmeier, Johannes. 1964. The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Ho, Ping-ti. 1962. The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368-1911. New York and London, Columbia University Press. Hong Kong Cotton Spinners Association. 1973. "Annual Reports of The General Committee". Hong Kong, The Association, mimeographed. King, Ambrose Y.C., and Davy H.K. Leung, 1975. "The Chinese Touch in Small Industrial Organization". Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Social Research Centre, occasional paper. Levy, Marion J., Jr. 1955. “Contrasting Factors in The Modernization of China and Japan". In Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan, ed. by S. Kuznets, W.E. Moore, and J.J. Spengler, Durham, Duke University Press, pp. 496-536. McClelland, David C. 1963. "Motivational Patterns in Southeast Asia with Special Reference to the Chinese Case". The Journal of Social Issues 19, No. 1: 6-19. Mannheim, Karl. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. (1888) 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. Mayer, K. 1953. "Business Enterprise: Traditional Symbol of Opportunity". British Journal of Sociology 4, No. 2: 160-180. Miners, Norman, 1981. The Government and Politics of Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. Nichols, Theo. 1969. Ownership, Control, and Ideology: An Inquiry Into Certain Aspects of Modern Business Ideology. London, George Allen and Unwin. Oksenberg, Michel. 1972. "Management Practices in The Hong Kong Cotton Spinning and Weaving Industry." Paper read at seminar on Modern East Asia, Columbia University. Olson, Stephen M. 1972. "The Inculcation of Economic Values in Taipei Business Families". In Economic Organization in Chinese Society, ed. by William F. Willmott, Stanford, Stanford University Press, pp. 261-296. Owen, Nicholas C. 1971. "Economic Policy in Hong Kong". In Hong Kong: The Industrial Colony, ed. by Keith Hopkins, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. Pan, F.K. 1974. "The Simple Truth of Management and Maintenance”, a lecture delivered on 21st June, Hong Kong. Ryan, Edward, 1961. "The Value System of a Chinese Community in Java". Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. Seider, Maynard S. 1974. "American Big Business Ideology: A Content Analysis of Executive Speeches". American Sociological Review 39, No. 6: 802-815. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 39 of the past showed that mo was a grey and white mammal with black limbs, thick hide and short hair. It ate leaves and fruit, was said to be tame, slept by day and roamed about by night. Unfortunately, however, this animal turned out to be a native of Malaya, Java and South America, but was unknown in China. Further investigations found it to be a member of the tapir family, Tapirus indicus, thus not a panda at all. The other version of the animal called mo offered more possibilities. A monumental work compiled by Li Shizhen (1518-1593) during the sixteenth century, Studies of Animals, Minerals and Plants, a compendium that was a great deal more than a mere pharmacopoeia, had included all information on the world of nature Li had found in ancient Chinese texts as well as data he had gathered on his own. This work and its contents had been known through the scholarly world in Asia and Europe since its publication. A copy had been brought to Japan and made available to scholars there. Several editions in Japanese were subsequently published. The contents were included in Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza's Historia, which was printed in Rome in 1585. (This work, incidentally, was brought back into China by Portuguese missionaries in a later century). Further, the Historia was translated into English in 1588 as Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdom of China, Part I, Book III, Chapter XII. Even better for scholars in search of an ancestor of the modern giant panda, the mo in Li's work was a native of Sichuan. It subsisted on a diet of bamboo and plantain. Only, alas, its colouring was said to be yellow and black. Of more comfort, on the other hand, were Erya and the Book of Odes. Both proclaimed the mo to be a "white and black leopard, resembling a white bear with a small head and large body, which licks plantain plants but eats exclusively bamboo". Despite several contradictions in this definition, it was possible to think of the mo as the giant panda, with certain reservations, of course. Problems arose when an illustration in the Synthesis of Books and Illustrations showed the mo to be a rather fantastic being with spotted body, long limbs, wolf's ears and a trunk like an elephant. This version ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 198 T: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs F: Music Th: D R: This was the last theatrical entertainment organised by Horatio BUSKIN and he could look back on a successful "career" as manager. Only the music had flagged of late (tonight "a buzz in a box near the proscenium represented the music — we were ten feet away from it and it was therefore lost upon us" the days of "Sir George Smart and Messrs Thalberg" and "Koenig" were over). — To make up for these shortcomings "Mr. CLAY as Honeybun (in the Infanticidal Farce) was, as he always is, first rate". In Slasher and Crasher the public witnessed the debut of "Miss Polly DEXTER as Rosa, affording hope of a new evening star of the first magnitude" (NCH 23.2.1856). 14.8.1856 (Thur) N.N.: The Nigger Doctor and his Patient Patient or the First Lesson in Surgery T: Negro farce C: Travelling American Company (Messrs Baker, Woodward and Montgomery) Th: Old Theatre (C) N: The whole evening was announced as a "Grand Ethiopian Musical Soirée" R: An advertisement only was published in the NCH of August 9. In it the above mentioned gentlemen (formerly of the New York Serenaders) praised their performances as having been "the theme of universal admiration during the past four years throughout the East Indies as well as the Australian Colonies". In addition to the farce, the programme consisted of "Negro songs, interspersed with willy saying and doings peculiar to the African race in America". 19.9.1856 (Fri) Concert by Ali Ben Sou Alle and some local amateurs. Instruments: Turkophone, "Turkophonini", clarinet, piano. Programme: G. ROSSINI: Two overtures. V. BELLINI: Selections from "La Sonnambula". F. MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY: "The Fairest Flower" (song). Some German songs, The "Shanghai Redowa Walse", Medley of English, Scottish and Irish airs. Th: N.N. (C) R: Tonight was the occasion of the first real concert in the Settlement's history. It was given by Mr. ALI BEN SOU ALLE, a Turk who, after a study at the Conservatoire de Paris, had been appointed Directeur de Musique de Marine in Senegal (which had been French since 1871) in 1844. In 1847 he returned to Paris to enter the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, but the following year he went to London where he found employment in the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theatre at the Haymarket. He learned to play some instruments that had been invented by Adolphe Sax, the Belgian musician (1814-1894) and thereafter he made an extensive tour to Australia, Java, Singapore, Manila and China (CM 16, 10, 1856). In Hong Kong and even Canton he had appeared in August and October 1856 (CM 7.8. 14.8. 21.8. 16.10.1856). In between he gave two recitals in the Yangtze port. In the Survey it has already been stated that the soloist entertained the public with performances on several instruments that had been rechristened Turkophone and Turkophonini: in reality they were the Saxophone and (probably) the soprano saxophone. Well may we ask how these instruments, which were only of recent origin (1840s), were received by an audience completely unused to their sound. The artist interpreted a selection from Bellini's "La Sonnambula" on the "Turkophone" and the critic wrote that "the compass of the instrument is very great but we confess to some disappointment as regards its quality of tone, and correctness of tone also, in some few notes, and altogether we think it an imperfect instrument ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 272 beautifully marked by black bars on a white ground. On Thursday there were several albatrosses. The first mate says the wings of the largest would have measured quite 12 feet if spread out. They look almost as big as a dog of fair size, and fly round close to the stern of the ship. The bird I skinned was cased with fat, and very oily indeed. Directly they are caught and placed on deck they begin to vomit oil, and can never rise to fly from the deck. This cold weather is very agreeable after such a roasting as we had in the tropics. Soon however we shall experience the second edition which will be hotter. The captain has behaved uncommonly well lately, and has almost forgotten to swear. Moreover he is getting quite kind and obliging. Capt Moate and I keep together, and he finds that two to one is rather too many, so he had to knock under a little. Our provisions have lasted far better than I anticipated; we have still quite a respectable stock of fowls and vegetable. My mouth, however, quite waters for the pine-apples, mangosteins, bananas, yams, etc. which we shall get at Java when we get there. Our yesterday's dinner will give you a fair idea of what we have. Roast fowl, cold pork, preserved mutton pie, green peas preserved, potatoes, plum pudding (bottled plums), cheese, etc. etc. There is nothing to complain of as regards food. Yet I do not get fat upon it someway or other. I believe it is for want of exercise. They tell me I ought to drink wine, but as long as I can I shall be a tee-totaller. The captain's wife has been very unwell for some days. The sea evidently does not agree with her. A breeze is just now beginning to spring up, although it is hardly a favorable one. The sunset is very fine indeed. There is a ship just in sight, and the captain has just gone on the deck with his glass. I shall often be thinking of home, and all my friends and relations tomorrow. I can picture you all out now at home. Mother and Siss busy in the shop, and having a long chat with some old woman or other on Saturday night. Monday, June 3rd Since my last entry upwards of a fortnight has passed away, during which I have passed through no end of difficulties and misfortunes, that I am almost disheartened, and have not had the courage to attempt the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 276 was "scarfed" together and "fished" and "dowled", which operation has rendered it nearly as serviceable as a new one. We cannot use more than about a quarter of the sails yet, and it will take a long time to get the new masts up, and new sails made. Yet we are going along quite favourably considering, with a strong favourable wind. Yesterday we were on the look out for St Paul's and Amsterdam, two small islands in the Southern Ocean. Through the chronometer's being out of order on account of the storm, we had made a wrong reckoning, and did not pass between the islands till after ten o'clock at night, when the captain came and told me to look out of my window and see them, as I was gone to bed. It was too dark to see more than the bare form of them. In fact Amsterdam was the only one I could see from my side of the ship. It is simply a rugged rock, about 15 miles long, and quite uninhabited except by sea-birds, of which a great number were soon flying round the ship. This morning when I went on deck they were far out of sight. We ought to get to Java in 12 days if we were in good trim, but in our shattered condition we shall perhaps make nearly double the time. There will be a short stay also at Batavia to lay in stock of masts and spars to repair with. As yet we have been wonderfully favoured by the wind, and notwithstanding the storm and the fortnight tossing about in the Channel, we are four days ahead of the last voyage the ship made to Batavia. We shall now soon be going northward into warmer weather. The captain was quite knocked up with the storm, and has not yet got over it. He does not take his meals with us yet, and Capt Moate and I are in no hurry for him to do so, for we get on far better by ourselves. In fact I may say we are good friends, and have been so all the voyage. We have never had a misunderstanding between us, and as long as he does not swear or talk improperly I do not much mind him as a companion, especially as he is a far better scholar than I am, and has resided at Hong Kong, so that I know by this time what I must expect when I get there. I have got him to read some good books, and now and then a little serious chat with him, which he submits to just to oblige me. I know all his personal history, and in fact could write an account of his life with tolerable accuracy. He is thoroughly disgusted with Capt Harper, who is quite an uneducated man, and thinks he is a perfect gent. For my own part, I never disliked anyone more than I do him. I can hardly be civil to him at times; for he acts in such a disgusting manner ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 280 We are now going on very slowly indeed, and unless the breeze very much strengthens it will be a while even now before we reach Batavia. The weather is much warmer today and I have spent nearly all the time on deck. No one can imagine, unless placed in my circumstances, how much I long to see land once more, and to tread on "Terra Firma". Wednesday, July 3rd I am now writing under far different circumstances to my last. Here I am in a fine hotel in Batavia, recreating and resting till the vessel is able to proceed to her destination. How I came here I will endeavour to describe as clearly as possible, although I have had to pass through so much that I have forgotten one half of it. Now to proceed. The day after we spoke with the "whaler" I have just mentioned, we spoke to another which came from the same town. She had lately caught a whale, and as she sailed past I saw the greater part of the blubber upon deck, cut up in large pieces. They were boiling some at the time, and the scent was quite alarming, as it blew toward our ship. They wrote their longitude by their chronometers on a large board, and we did the same. We were 90 miles out, and this is the result of the captain's ignorance and negligence in all probability. The next few days we had a complete calm so that we were only making a few miles a day. The ship having only half of her sails that were capable of being used, made it slow work indeed. Day after day we went on till at last one afternoon we sighted "Java Head". The captain's impatience at the lightness of the wind knew no bounds. He walked about and swore, and stamped, and bullied, but all to no purpose. The next day we got off Prince's Island, and just moved a few miles along the shore. Pleasant indeed it was to be in sight of land once more after such a long stay on the wide ocean, with nothing to vary the tediousness and monotony. If it had been a dreary desert land it would have been a treat to look at it, but how great the pleasure to see with the glass the most fertile and luxuriant island in the world, completely embossed with trees, of the most graceful and imposing appearance. We could see the waves as they washed the shores, and hear their dashing against the sandy beach. The heat was something considerable on account of the calm. Butterflies and small insects came off to the ship from the shore, and were the first ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 281 inhabitants of the tropics which I encountered. As the moon rose the scene was grand beyond description, and the sailors' voices as they pulled the ropes echoed far and wide among the forest covered hills in the distance, and far away over the calm clear water, which reflected the moon's rays. The splendour of the moonlight and stars is far beyond what is ever seen in England. On the following afternoon we began to move a little, and I made several drawings of the land as we went past. Never did I see such a fertile island as Java, even at the distance. Its lofty hills were partly hidden by clouds, yet where they could be seen they were covered with trees up to their very summits. On the next day we were fairly in the Strait of Sunda, and could easily see Java on the right and Sumatra on the left. One peak in Sumatra called Krakatoa was in sight for a day or two. It was dreary work to sit on deck under the awning all day long, and see how slowly we moved. About noon the sea breeze blew toward the shore, and at five in the evening the land breeze blows from the island. No one who has not experienced the land breeze, after a hot day, can imagine how cool and refreshing it is, and it has such a delightful perfume which it brings with it from the land, that you seem in the midst of a blooming flower garden. In the early morning it is just about the same. At last we sighted Anjer Hill in the evening, and in the morning I rose at four o'clock to see the village as we passed it, which however we did not do till nearly noon. The sun rose behind the hills, and was the grandest sight I ever saw, About eight o'clock the steward came and told me a boat was alongside, so I went on deck to see it. It came off from the observatory and lighthouse on shore, which we saw very plainly, and the headman had a paper for the ship to fill up. There were plenty of fruit and provisions which the man brought on his own account. He and his crew were Javanese, and their appearance was not more prepossessing than their language, which is a strange conglomeration of harsh sounds as they speak it. They were all but naked. Every rag that one of them had on was hardly so large as a pocket handkerchief. Only fancy a fellow to come stalking on board in such a condition. The captain's wife instead of acting with modesty in such a case, was one of the foremost to go ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 286 and pretty. There are abundance of trees of all sorts growing at the sides of the roads. The shops of the Chinese amused me very much as we went along. At last we came to "Hughan's store", where there is a great space, with easy chairs, etc. for loungers and loafers. Hughan is a ship chandler, and by keeping this place pretty comfortable he gets the captains of all the English and American ships there, and of course gets the job of supplying their ships with provisions, etc. Before the whole lines of stores and offices there is a path, with a roof to it so that one can walk about for an hour without being in the burning hot sun, which in Java is very injurious, especially to Europeans. We took a short drive about the town with the captain, who was looking out for some spars for the ship, and then set off out in the country to Madame Baines' Hotel, which is the only English place where one can get to. It was a three-mile drive, but the beautiful appearance of the place made me think nothing of the distance. The Dutch, to whom the island belongs, are the greater part of the European population; consequently, the town is in every direction intersected by canals as is Holland. These canals serve the purpose of drainage, washing, and to keep the air cool. On each side of them is a very wide road, shaded by large trees from the sun. Thus the streets are very wide and airy. There are, of course, a great many bridges. The European houses are very grand, and nearly all built on the same model. Our two poor horses at last brought us up to our Hotel, where we arrived about two o'clock. It was half an hour before we could get anyone to attend to us, since it is the custom to sleep in the middle of the day. At last, after walking about over the house, we were met by our hostess, a Scotch lady of colossal dimensions, but withal a pleasant agreeable old party, who at once made us at home, and got us some "tiffin", or breakfast. All her servants are Malays, and she can speak the language very fluently. Indeed, when well spoken, Malay is a pretty language. Her house is an average specimen of all the European houses in Batavia. It has only one story on account of earthquakes, but it is very lofty and airy. There is a large dining hall and entrance hall, while round the house are the verandahs, where people spend a great part of the day, and especially the evenings. Facing the road, the verandah is very wide and lofty. In the garden is a stream, running round a small island, which has some fine clusters of trees, which are so curious that I cannot describe them. Some of the leaves are as large as a good-sized tablecloth. Round ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 287 the garden are the houses where the servants live, the bath rooms, the stables, etc. etc. There is a pretty lawn before the house, and at each side of the gate stands a lofty tamarind tree. The house is situated on one side of a square which is nearly four miles round, and the double row of lofty tamarind trees on each side of the road round it form a very cool walk. All round are villas, some of them of very elaborate architecture. They call Clifton a city of palaces but it sinks into insignificance compared with Batavia. On every side is displayed great magnificence, nature striving to outdo the elaborate effects of art. Almost each house has a grove of cocoanut trees, whose foliage gives a grand effect. After a rest of a few hours we went to dinner at half past six, which is the usual hour in Batavia. Previously we were introduced to the other occupants of the house: Mr Phillips, a surgeon and dentist, Mr Blyth, an independent gent, and Mr Elbrach, a man of considerable property who has resided 40 years in Java, during which he has never seen Europe. He is a regular tough old gent and no mistake. We had dinner in regular style, and there were no end of dishes. The curry pleased me very much. After dinner I took a walk with Captain Moate round the square, and afterward took a walk alone. It was a fine sight to walk past the villas, and see the verandahs all lighted up, while the ladies etc. were sitting in the cool of the evening, either reading, conversing, or singing. The music was quite a treat to me. No native is allowed to walk about after dark without a light, and also his written pass, to show who he is, and where he is going, Europeans however are allowed to go unmolested where they please. Yet a suspicious character is watched by the native police for miles, and notice is taken where he goes to. One night a fellow followed me home, although of course he did not imagine I knew he was doing so. As you pass each watch-house the guard challenges you in Malay, which I not understanding, I never used to take notice of. Every carriage has to carry lights before and behind, wherever it is going. The number of the carriages of the aristocracy that drive about is very considerable. We saw a company of Dutch and native cavalry pass the house. The horses were so small that the men's legs almost touched the ground. We also saw the "town militia" exercising on the square before the house. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 288 I had a good long yarn with Madame Baines on the verandah. When I told her what I was, she became very religious all at once; but I could see it was only hypocrisy, although she had an oily tongue. The Bishop of Victoria was there in 1856. The people were highly pleased with his visit, and all who I heard speak of him seemed to do so with respect. She was acquainted with a Mr King of the Scottish Free Church, who had returned from Scotland only three months ago; and promised to introduce me to him and drive me there in her carriage. At eleven o'clock I went to bed. My room was very fine and airy. All the beds in Java have to be curtained all round to keep out the mosquitoes, which would prevent sleep, and sting finely into the bargain. The captain and wife came from the ship to the hotel the next day. They made themselves such fools by wanting to appear grand that everybody laughed at them behind their backs. No sooner had the captain left the table, and the rest began to talk, when Mr Phillips began: “Well of all the disagreeable obstinate men I ever saw, I never saw anybody to beat him. I can see it in his looks although I have never spoken to him nor know who he is". When I told him it was our captain he wanted to know if he had not guessed right. I told him I must be excused from answering that question. Madam was finely laughed at, and reckoned up in just the terms she deserved. Since our return to the ship these parties have been equally run down by the captain and wife, A Two days I took a walk into the town in the middle of the day. I was afterwards told that no European would ever be able to do it, for it was enough to kill the strongest man on account of the sun's intense power. However it had not the least effect upon me. In fact I felt all the better for it. On the first day I started to go into town but took a wrong turning, and went out through one of the Chinese quarters into the country, where I had a few miles' walk. The scenery was very fine indeed. The palm and betel nut trees, and trees of which I have no idea formed a delightful shade. Even the country is intersected by canals. But whether in town or country, you always find the shore of the canal crowded with washermen. The clothes are never washed, but merely beaten. They get a smooth stone, and after soaking the clothes in the water, they keep dashing them on the stone, swinging them for that purpose round their head. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 291 out at church, and would be back before long, as the service began at nine o'clock. They only have one service, and get it over by eleven in time for breakfast. I was much disappointed, but of course it could not be helped. I took a long walk one afternoon with Mr Phillips, and posted my two letters. He took me through some parts I had never seen before. He had to call on business, so I came home alone. I passed the barracks, where I heard some native music, which to my ears was rather discordant. In addition to their horses, the Malays use bullocks for drawing water casks etc. These bullocks are great thick clumsy brutes, with monstrous horns, and a great hump on their back. They have scarcely any hair, and go along at about two miles an hour. There is a strange breed of dogs and cats. There are plenty of snakes; one was shown me about three yards long, but with a very thin body, and covered with beautiful green and yellow marks. The frugivorous bats are very large, and as one walks about under the trees in the dark they almost flap their wings in one's face. At last on Wednesday night we came off to the ship and once more took up our abode within its dreary sides. Everything seemed so dull and dreary, but I consoled myself with the thought that a fortnight ought to bring us to our journey's end. I brought with me a stock of pomeloes. They are a species of orange which grow larger than one's head, and are so healthy a fruit that one cannot eat too much of them. I got fourteen for two rupees. I have felt the benefit of eating them freely. In fact, they are such a cure for the bile that I have not been in the least troubled with it since eating them. I managed to catch two butterflies and a moth, all of them very large, compared with any to be seen in England. There are some very fine ones which seem to be very common there. The birds have the most brilliant plumage, of all colours; one kind of dove, which is wild, naturally keeps up a most curious noise which can be heard a long way off. Its note is rather long, and has a peculiar sound when heard in the stillness of the night. Indeed, Java abounds with everything that is lovely and enchanting. There is a perpetual summer. Everything is always in season, and the excessive fertility is the means of making the natives indolent and careless. They never work unless compelled to do so. Then having got a few cents, they live on it till it is gone, and only work again when they can go no further in debt. They creep about so slowly that one cannot help feeling tempted to help them to a kick. Even a small establishment ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 294 In fact since reaching Java I never enjoyed such good health. Captain Moate continually jokes me about my stoutness. I am really getting quite a corporation, in spite of having my clothes continually saturated with perspiration. Even now as I write the perspiration stands in great drops on the backs of my hands. Our diet holds out wonderfully well, in fact we laid in a good store in Batavia. Every morning I have a great dish of rice and curry. It is a capital dish and the condiments in the curry tend to strengthen the stomach, so that I can now almost digest a brick bat. I mean to live chiefly on it at China if all is well. Today there has been a pig killed, so tomorrow there comes a feast of liver and crow and roast pork. Meat here never keeps over a day, even under the most favourable circumstances. A few days more and with a fair wind we ought to finish our journey. I shall begin to pack up tomorrow. I brought a piece of American Drilling at Batavia. I got forty yards for eight rupees. Already I have made myself two pairs of trousers and nearly finished a third. I cannot however finish them off before reaching China. All on board in the cabin dress in white, as is the universal custom in Java, and China. My cabin is like a little oven on account of the hot sun shining on it all day. At night I sleep with my window open and of course never think of bed clothes. It is only towards morning that the temperature of the room becomes bearable. All day nearly I sit on deck under the awning, where there is generally a fresh breeze blowing when there is a breath of wind. Walking about or taking exercise is an utter impossibility on account of the heat. I find however the benefit of taking nothing of stimulative drinks. I am always myself, which is more than I can say of the rest of the folks. Only fancy a man taking these things during the day:- at seven o'clock a stiff glass of grog, made with full quarter pt [pint] of rum. Ditto at eleven, at twelve, at five, at eight and at midnight. At dinner a large glass of beer, and three or more glasses of port or sherry. I might have just as much if I liked to drink it, only I know a trick worth two of it. Captain Moate is almost if not quite a slave to spirits. He envies me for looking so stout, while he is continually troubled with a dysentery and is quite thin. A The Chinese has come off rather badly lately on account of this ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 301 This Journal to be sent all round. Let Anna have it as early as possible after you get it, and then ask her to return it to be sent all round. 2 NOTES The last dated entry in the diary is July 25th. August 6th was Fryer's 22nd birthday. Three "captains" are mentioned in the Diary. The ship's master was a Captain Harper. Captains Moale and Moult are mentioned as passengers, Captain Moult being last mentioned in the April 6th entry. It is likely that Fryer miswrote Moult for Moate in the early days of the voyage, and that there was only one captain on board as a passenger. 1 Fryer was born in Hythe. 4 Fryer was engaged to Anna Roleston of Chudleigh. & Anna Roleston worked as a seamstress in Teignmouth. Fryer was a collector of photographs and probably an avid amateur photographer. He mentions his collection of 5,000 lantern slides in his will, but these cannot be located. 7 Fryer proposed marriage to Anna Roleston (1838-1879) on his 21st birthday. They were married in the chapel of the British Consulate at Peking in November, 1864, by the Revd Thomas McClatchie. Fryer was teaching at that time at the Tung-wên Kuan, or **Interpreters' College**. Revd McClatchie, whose brother-in-law was Sir Harry Smith Parkes, was a Church Missionary Society missionary in Shanghai from 1845-1882. 9 Anjer-Lot on the Straits of Sunda, Java, near Bantam. Fryer mentions keeping a journal or diary in his later letters, but such a record has yet to be found. 10 Fryer's younger brother and lifelong correspondent. 11 George Smith, D.D., of the Church Missionary Society, entered China in 1844; appointed first Bishop of Victoria, 1849-64. 12 Charles St. George Cleverly. 13 The typewritten transcript reads "to be the boy that used to run errands." The holograph reads "to be the boy that used to clean boots & knives & run errands at a brewhouse." 14 15 The Rev. J. Irwin, Fryer ends his typewritten transcript here with "Yours, Signed: John Fryer." The post script that follows this point appears in the holograph. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 86 A local Ch'ao-chou cult image seen on a secondary altar in a tiny makeshift rural temple in Ulu Sembawang in Singapore is said to represent the spirit of a nine-year-old boy who died in the late 1960s. He is the medium spirit who speaks through his aunt, providing advice for local devotees. His aunt raised the image after she found that the spirit of the boy returned to her in a dream offering to help people. The boy is known by the title of 'the Prince of the East of the Sea', Hai-tung Tai-tzu. A Cantonese Kuomintang soldier, Huang Chin-ch'uang, crossed to Taiwan in 1949 with the retreating KMT forces. He was posted to Pingtung near Kaohsiung and served with a unit near the main village on the island of Little Liuchiu where some time later he became ill and died. The people of the village, remembering his kindness and goodwill and knowing that he had no family of his own, buried him in an auspicious spot on the hillside. He became the spirit guarding the hills above the village and also gained renown for his ability to protect fishermen in danger. A shrine, a privately run temple, was built in his honour and an image of him placed on the altar where he is now known as Marshal Huang despite having been a mere private soldier. Wang was a sailor left behind in Java by the great Ming explorer Cheng Ho at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His image is to be seen on a side altar in the Earth God temple at Ancol, not all that far from Jakarta, whilst tablets dedicated to him are to be seen in Chinese temples in Semarang and near Sourabaya, all on the island of Java. Local Chinese belief is divided as to whether he was pure Chinese or Javanese, and whether he was a shipwright, navigator, or senior member of Cheng Ho's crew, or merely a Javanese interpreter. They are at one, however, that Wang was a Moslem and that he married a Javanese wife and lived out his days, dying peacefully in Semarang. Of these ten male and two female spirits, all but two are represented by stylised images on altars, and they are taken from each of the main ethnic groups along the south China coast, the Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka, Ch'ao-chou, and Hainanese. Five originated during the past fifty years, three some time during the past century, whilst four definitely developed during the Ch'ing dynasty. Only six of the spirits still have their full names remembered, and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 184 and the Aurora University, the former French university, unknown to the members of the staff at the Department of Botany, where I have the pleasure and the good fortune to work. This excited their curiosity, they had never heard of a French Museum in Shanghai. That led Mr. Liu Zhong Ling, the organizer of this conference to invite me to give a talk on the History of the Heude Museum. The following is a poor result of memory work and information plucked from a few available sources. Charles de Vol's book, Ferns and Fern Allies of East Central China, published by the Heude Museum in 1945 has been of great assistance in writing this paper. The Zi-Ka-Wei (Xu Jia Hui) Museum This Museum was situated at the S. W. of Shanghai, just on the border of the Old French Concession. It was established in 1868 by Pierre Heude SJ., the year of his arrival in China. P. Heude made extensive collections in the Kiangsu, Anhwei and Chekiang Provinces. Between 1868 and 1880, he organized 13 expeditions. Though he collected plant specimens, he was essentially a zoologist, interested in molluscs, reptiles, fishes, birds and mammals. From 1892 to 1902, he extended his field work to the Philippines, Indonesia (Java), French Indo-China (now, Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), Polynesia, Japan and other neighbouring countries. I remember possessing a large volume on Conchology of Freshwater Molluscs. The pages were filled with series of scientifically and artistically drawn specimens well marshalled all through the book, with full descriptions and notes. A page advertising his works I discovered at the back of volume VI book I of the Zikawei publications shows the astonishing achievement of that remarkable man. On two pages, some of his works are listed: 5 tomes or large volumes each comprising 4 books, that is 20 books. A total of 1,100 pages, large format (in 4to) with 270 plates, some in colour (brush-painted). The content very impressive. (see below) River Conchology of the Kiangsu Province and Central China Study on the Trionyx ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 111 THREE FUKIENESE (MIN-NAN) CULTS Pao-sheng Ta-ti, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih KEITH STEVENS Not more than seventy miles distant from Amoy, though in different directions, three separate cult centres remain extremely popular not only with local residents but with Chinese emigrants from the area who now live as far afield as Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. They are the cults of the health protector, Pao-sheng Ta-ti; and of two individual and distinctive Buddhist monks deified centuries ago, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih. Pao-sheng Ta-ti The first, Pao-sheng Ta-ti, was traditionally a Sung dynasty local herbalist doctor, Wu T'ao or Wu Pen, who remained a bachelor and died in AD 1035. He is remembered not only for the magic spells he performed, such as spraying spirit water from his mouth on corpses or human skeletons bringing them back to life but, as his fame as a successful herbalist spread beyond Fukien, it led several centuries later to him being officially deified by Imperial Decree. It is not surprising therefore that his paramount role as a deity is to heal the sick. Known throughout his district, near Amoy, as the expert doctor who used his skills to cure the man in the street, he is remembered as having given his services free to the poor and by becoming a local deity by popular acclaim very shortly after his death. An image was carved by a local carver not long after his demise, said to be a true likeness but, according to another legend, it was how the carver had seen him in a dream. He is said by some to have been accompanied by a former petty official, only known as the Great Saint who Flew Off to Heaven [Fei-t'ien Ta-sheng], who also helped with his medical services. Pao-sheng Ta-ti is the patron deity of herbalists in Taiwan who claim he wrote a major medical encyclopedia and was a specialist in acupuncture in addition to his other skills. Wu T'ao, born around AD 979, is said to have lived a virtuous life. ================================================================================ 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-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 72 17] Kinnara known in Chinese as Chin-na-lo The heavenly musicians Listed as one of the twenty Deva in Soothill, and also one of the Eight Classes of supernatural beings in the Lotus Sutra. They are a group who, in Java for example, are portrayed as half-bird and half-human, and known in their plural as Kinnari. They are also one of the twelve spirits connected with the cult of Yao-shih Fo, the Buddhist Master of Healing. Another version claims that they are the musicians of Kuvera, with bodies of humans and heads of horses. In yet another version they dwell in the tall trees which grow on Gandhamadana, Incense Mountain. There are images of a Kinnara in both the Ta Pei Ssu and in the Pi-yun Ssu. In the former he is portrayed as a military figure, standing in armour and helmet and with a scarf swirling round the back of his head and down across his arms. His hands are clasped before his chest and his face, pink and friendly, has a short black beard and mutton-chop moustache. In the Pi-yun Ssu the image has a similar friendly face but this time he is wearing robes and cap of an official and not those of a soldier. 18] Mahoraga known in Chinese as Mo-hu-lo Mahoraga is one of the twelve spirits connected with the cult of Yao-shih Fo, the Master of Healing and the Buddha of Medicine. He is one of the twelve guardian spirits each of whom is associated with one of the twelve hours of the day. The twelve include Vajra, Indra and Kinnara. An image of the Mahoraga has only been seen in the Ta Pei Ssu and not in the Pi-yun Ssu. He is portrayed as an extremely ugly, ferocious inhuman demon with black skin. Dressed merely in a decorated and multi-coloured skirt he is standing and has a swirling scarf behind his head and a snake held in his right hand. He has spiky hair on either side of his head protruding like small snakes, and his large protruding jaw and upper lip and his sloping forehead make his face almost animal. The hair on the head is pulled up into a high point, with two ear-pressing tufts one on either side. His eyebrows are like white flames, and his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 231 [Seen but citation mislaid] The origin of the term "Fokies" is unknown to me. However, it seems to have been in use in the British navy long before the Opium War. For instance, it appears in the Account of A Voyage to India, China, & in His Majesty's Ship Caroline, Performed in the Years 1803-4-5 By An Officer of the Caroline, published by Richard Phillips, London, in 1806. There, it is written "Fukki," and is applied to a Chinese pickpocket who got the worst of an encounter with a British naval officer on the street near the British factory at Canton (pp.70-71). This book is remarkable for the unmistakable impression it creates of the high morale, national pride and spiritness of a well-led ship's company, the very same qualities which were to be again much in evidence in accounts of the Opium War; whilst the fate of the forts at the Bocca Tigris in 1841 are foreshadowed by a description of the battery at “Annanhoy" (Anunghoy) and its accompanying dismissal, “Such is the gasconade of the Chinese about a fort, that a man of war's launch, armed with a carronade, would knock about their ears in a very short time” (p.55 with 56-7). Yet it would seem that those few naval officers with earlier experience of dealing with the Chinese bad, like the officer of HMS Caroline, already taken the measure of their military and naval officials and their equipment. Critical assessments can be found in John McLeod's The Voyage of [HMS] Alceste to the Ryukyus and Southeast Asia, at pp. 125-170 of the Tuttle 1963 reprint of the First Edition published by John Murray of London in 1817; and in Captain Basil Hall's account of the same voyage, Narrative of a Voyage to Java, China, and the Great Loo-Choo Island (London, Edward Moxon, new edition, 1840) at pp.68-76, including the forcing of the Bogue. Hall commanded the Alceste's smaller consort, HMS Lyra. The animated spirit of the English officers and men, and the keen sense of the national honour, and especially of the flag, are well to the fore. This voyage was occasioned by the embassy of Lord Amherst to the Chinese Emperor, the two ships conveying its personnel to and from China, REFERENCES Commander J. Elliot Bingham, RN, Narrative of the Expedition to China From the Commencement of the War to the Present Period : With Sketches of the Manners and Customs of that Singular and Hitherto Almost Unknown Country, (London, Henry Colburn, MDCCCXLII [1842]. William C. Milne, Life in China (London, Routledge, Warnes & ================================================================================ 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 57 not orthodox spirits shen but dark spirits. Yinshen, the ghosts of those who have died a violent death before their due date. Chinese usually describe this group, in English, as the 108 Martyrs. They are never portrayed as images and tend to be regarded more as public worthies, folk hero "ethnic group" ancestors rather than deities. The tablet is very similar to the ancestral tablet and simply states that it is the 'Tablet to the One Hundred and Eight Brothers'. It is venerated and although the spirits of the brothers are occasionally asked for advice by devotees they are not usually prayed to for major requests or protection, although in Java in one temple the tablet was prayed to by seafarers before they set out on a long journey. Their festival, simple and not in any way lavish, is generally celebrated on the 15th day of the tenth lunar month, though in Singapore it is held on the 3rd of the eighth lunar month. The question is, who were the One Hundred and Eight Brothers? Three separate versions of the story of their demise have each been recounted with great solemnity, conviction and confidence by temple keepers in Java, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, and even in a Chinese temple in Bali. In Penang the story centres on a junk-load of Hainanese immigrants heading for South-east Asia which never arrived. One version claims that they were mistaken for pirates and wiped out by the 'French' [sic] navy off Annam or the 'British' off Malaya again having been mistaken for pirates. Another version suggests that they were all drowned during a typhoon off the southern tip of what is now Vietnam, and yet another that they were annihilated by Chinese government forces off the Leizhou peninsular immediately north of Hainan when, again, they were mistaken for pirates.12 The third story is that they were the original immigrants from Fujian province who arrived in Hainan to settle but all died in Hainan from disease or at the hands of the aborigines. A twist to the version heard in Penang claimed that the typhoon which sank the junk in the South China Seas drowned all but one of the one hundred and nine aboard, one small boy being saved after days of drifting on wreckage. He then died in Malaya at a ripe old age. 12 One hundred and eight is a secret symbolic number used by secret societies, and one of the Triad gangs in British Malaya was known as the 'One Hundred and Eight Society.' with a devotee in Seremban ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 394 remainder of the War. In 1946, he married Steffi Neubauer, a Czech and continued for a while with the Hong Kong Government. He took early retirement to be with his family during the school years of his three daughters in Winchester, U.K., where he became a school master. He died on 31 December 1990. Ian Morrison was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. He then became Professor of English at the Hokkaido Imperial University in Sapporo, Japan, where he remained until 1937. An interest in diplomacy and politics led him to accepting the position of private secretary to Sir Robert Craigie, then British Ambassador in Tokyo, a position he held from 1937 until 1939. Eager to further his knowledge of Asian affairs, he then became representative of the British and Chinese Corporation in Shanghai until October 1941. This was followed by a short stint as deputy director of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Ministry of Information in Singapore. In December 1941, two days after the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbor and began their conquest of the countries in the area, Mr. Morrison was appointed a war correspondent. Ian Morrison, circa. 1940 Christmas card from Ian Morrison showing route out of the Malayan Peninsula and Java in 1942 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 395 correspondent for The Times in southeast Asia, having previously supplied articles to the paper on a freelance basis. One of the last to escape the invading Japanese, he reported the retreat along the Malay Peninsula and the last stand and surrender of the British garrison in Singapore on 15 February, 1942. After Singapore, Mr. Morrison went to Java before following the campaigns in the South West Pacific under General MacArthur, and later in Southeast Asia under Admiral Mountbatten. Mr. Morrison was a courageous correspondent who never thought twice about entering a dangerous situation to get a good story. During the Second World War he spent a lot of time reporting from the front and shared the soldiers' life in the jungle. He regularly hitch-hiked on Australian or American army transport planes in order to follow the action and provide authentic accounts of the fighting with the Japanese. He often came close to death. In late November 1942 he was slightly injured during an air raid on the Buna front in Papua, and in December 1943 he was involved in a plane crash which resulted in head wounds and fractured vertebrae. This is how he telegraphed the paper: 'Regret involved in airplane accident enroute obtain eyewitness operational full stop hospitalised injuries seriouser than yestertime hope recover soon Dickson Brown newschronicler kindly consented cover next three days thereafter Curthoys sorry disappoint you good story - Morrison' His injuries on that occasion kept him out of action until July 1944, when he returned to cover the South East Area Command. He was not out of trouble for long. On 10 December 1945, while reporting from Batavia (now Jakarta) covering a local campaign he was again wounded and cabled the paper: 'Left hospital today. Thumb, in which fragments of Dutch bullet are lodged, will take at least a fortnight to Ian Morrison and family, circa 1950 ================================================================================