RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 CHINATOWN IN HONG KONG: THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN DAFYDD Emrys Evans It seems unrealistic to talk of a 'Chinatown' in a place as obviously Chinese as Hong Kong. But for a very long time, there was indeed an area thought of by the Europeans as a part of the city into which they would not normally go. This area has, right from its inception, been known as "Tai Ping Shan' or Mountain of Peace, after the Chinese name for the mountain the Europeans called Victoria Peak. When the British arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1841, the north shore of the island was substantially unoccupied, there being nothing more than scattered huts between the village of Sai Ying Pun in the west and Wong Nei Chung in the east. The principal site for the new city lay in the present Central District of Hong Kong, and the first areas built up by the Europeans (apart from the waterside godowns and houses which extended from the Central Market to Causeway Bay) lay around the present Central Magistracy but rapidly extended within the first three years of the Colony's existence east and west of that spot. Although a small number of Chinese obtained grants of land in this area it is true to say that the town was exclusively European (with, of course, a number of Parsee merchants from British India) from the line of the present Garden road as far as the present Aberdeen Street and up the hill to Hollywood Road. At the time of the Colony's inception there were never more than a few hundred Europeans contrasted with several thousand Chinese who came as tradesmen and artisans. Where, then, did the Chinese live? Apart from the small town that Jardine, Matheson & Co. built out at East Point, there were three principal areas where the incoming Chinese settled at first. It is known that in the early days after June, 1841 a good many matshed huts sprang up on the hillside to the west of the area later to be the site of the main part of the town (and these were destroyed by the great typhoon in August, 1841) and one stretch of the waterfront was 'taken over'. As early as August 1841 the 'Lower Bazaar' was forming in the area of what later became Jervois Street and Bonham ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 81 should be seized as a traitor by the Mandarins. In the end he settled at Hong Kong, where he is said to encourage disreputable characters by the loan of money, and in various ways to reap the proceeds of profligacy and crime.5 Loo Aqui also appears in the records as Lo Aking 盧亞 or Sze Mun King [Lo] (King, the Gentleman). At the time of the Sino-British war he seems to have played both sides of the game. The Chinese government lured him back to Canton by offering him an official degree of the sixth rank. He accepted but did not stay long with the Chinese, as he was soon back in Hong Kong enjoying the rewards of his services as provisioner for the British forces. He seems to have had supporters in Hong Kong Government circles for he secured the grant of a large and valuable section of land behind the Marine Lots of the Lower Bazaar. This was the area between Queen's Road and Jervois Street extending from near its junction westward to Cleverly Street. He and his family also acquired a number of Marine Lots by grant or purchase. Of the twenty-seven signers of the petition of land owners in 1848, about one-fifth of them were members of the Loo clan. Soon after the settlement of Hong Kong Loo Aqui was operating a gambling establishment and brothels. In 1845 he built a theatre. For a time he held the opium monopoly, and when the residents of the Middle Bazaar were removed to the Tai Ping Shan area in 1844, he petitioned the Government for the privilege of operating a market for the inhabitants, agreeing to build a substantial market house at a cost of $2,500 and to pay a monthly rental to Government of $200 for a period of five years. Loo Aqui and Tam Achoy were recognized as the leaders of the Chinese community, for according to a Chinese account entitled "Information as to the period of the formations of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan—a bay to Wan—a circuit”, in 1847 they built the Man-Mo Temple on Hollywood Road and here "they judged the people in public assembly" until 1851 when the shopkeepers of the Lower Bazaar "repaired to Man-Mo Temple, elected a Committee, and therein decided all cases of any public interest". Aside from Aqui's income from various business ventures, he had a steady income from his properties. In 1850 he was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 113 corporated as a more integral part of government, and its members may be regarded in many ways as the élite of the élite. But these developments are beyond the time limit set for this particular study. NOTES 1 See the studies by Chung-li Chang, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (Seattle, 1926) and The Chinese Gentry: Studies in their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society (Seattle, 1955) and by Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China (New York, 1964). 2 The South China Morning Post, 12 July 1933, in column "Old Hong Kong". 3 Colonial Office Records (hereafter given as C.O.), Series 129-12. 4 The Friend of China, 6 Nov. 1861. 5 George Smith, The Consular Cities of China (London, 1847), p. 82. 6 Yen-p'ing Hao, The Compradore in Nineteenth Century China (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), p. 195. I have not been able to check the sources he cites. 7 These were Loo King A owner of I.L. 99, LL.102, I.L. 103; Lo Lye or Alloy A owner of M.L. 16 C., M.L. 19; Loo Foon owner of M.L. 16 D.; Loo Sing A owner of M.L. 17 C.; Loo Chuen alias Loo Chew alias Young Aqui alias Loo Choo Tung owner of M.L. 16 A., M.L. 28 A., M.L. 35 A. The family lived in Aqui's Lane, or as it is now known Kwai Wa Lane† running from Hillier to Cleverly Street and lying between Queens Road and Jervois Street. Here in 1872 lived Loo Wan Kew, Loo Yum Shing, compradore of D. Sassoon, Sons and Co., and Loo Achew. 8 The China Review, Vol. 1 (1872), p. 333, "The Districts of Hong Kong and the Name Kwan-Tai-Lo". This source also confirms the deleterious effect of Aqui's activities in Hong Kong: "In 1843, when there were but few merchants or shop keepers, one Sz-man-king, unto whom those who were in distress, in debt, or discontented, resorted, opened a place for gambling along Chung Wan to which all among the fishing-boat people, who loved gambling, came." 9 Quoted by R. M. Martin in his report, 24 July 1844, in G. B. Endacott, An Eastern Entrepot (London, 1964), p. 97. 10 E. J. Eitel, Europe in China (Hong Kong, 1895), pp. 168-169. 11 Endacott, op. cit., pp. 96-98. 12 Ibid., p. 107. 13 Ibid., p. 96. 14 A Singapore house was a pre-cut timber house ready for assembling imported from Singapore. At the time of the gold-rush in California, a similar type house was shipped from Hong Kong to San Francisco in large numbers. The trade enriched a number of Hong Kong carpenters. 15 C.O. Series 129-12, No. 97, 10 July, 1845. 16 C.O. Series 129-7, 23 July, 1844. 17 C.O. Series 129-3, Treasurer's Report 1847. 18 The Friend of China, 5 Jan., 1856. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 173 a Convention between Captain Elliott, who was then our plenipotentiary, and the Chinese commissioner Ke-shen; and some adventurous spirits had soon after located themselves on it. Ke-shen got into disgrace with his government for the cession; but it was fully confirmed by the subsequent treaty, and the island received the status of a Colony from an order in Council dated the 5th April, 1843, its principal town to be dignified with the name of our Queen. When I arrived, it was under the government of Sir Henry Pottinger, who had brought the war to a successful close. To give you an idea of the place as I first saw it, I had proposed to take a walk with you along the Queen's Road from the west to the east, but I found that that would take too much time. That road was marked out, in many places imperfectly, from Sae-wan on towards Aberdeen, the waters of the bay, from which so much land has since been taken, coming, in the greater part of its course between East and West points, up to it on the north, Hollywood Road, and the streets running down from it to the Queen's Road, were also indicated in a rudimentary fashion. A little beyond the present Sailors' Home, were the Naval Stores, and, south of them, all the indentation of the hill where the Reformatory now stands was occupied with tents and huts peopled by the 55th Regiment. From that eastwards all was blank to the bluff where the Civil Hospital rises, and on which was a bungalow built by Jamieson, How & Co., and occupied by Mr. Edger, belonging to that firm, and in later years a member of the Legislative Council. On the other side of the road were some godowns of the same firm, washed by the sea. The next European buildings were Gibb, Livingston & Co.'s premises, enclosed within a ring fence, and where partners and employés all managed to reside, with none of the massive godowns which now seem to serve as buttresses to the offices. Up and down, and athwart, T'ae-p'ing-shan, were thread-like paths, with a Chinese house here and there, but the ground was mainly boulder and sandy gravel. Turning to the west, where Wellington Street runs into Queen's Road, you could see a few Chinese houses on either side of the latter, and Jervois Street was in course of formation, the houses on the north side of it having the waters of the bay washing about among them. Eastwards from the same point on to Pottinger Street, Queen's Road was pretty well lined with Chinese houses; ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 206 CARL SMITH When the London Mission closed its work in Malacca and moved to Hongkong in 1843, Ho A-sun came with it. He wanted his children to have the advantage of education under the direction of Dr. Legge. His eldest child, a daughter, had already been under instruction of Mrs. Legge. She was the one who later married Ng Mun-sow. Two sons were of an age to be in the first small class in Hongkong of the transplanted Anglo-Chinese College. Ho A-sun set himself up in the Lower Bazaar at Hongkong as a block-cutter and printer. His shop was next to the London Mission Chapel on Jervois Street. He had been baptised in Malacca and was an ardent propagandist for his new faith. When customers came to his printing-stationery store he gave them Christian tracts. He was always ready to discuss religion with those who showed any interest. After shop hours he would go about the streets distributing literature and explaining the religion the foreigners had brought to China. While he had not the skill at preaching or the education or scholarship of one like Ho Fuk-tong, he had devotion and earnestness which in their own way were impressive. The mission called him “a humble, unobtrusive Christian.” Through hard work he was able to acquire sufficient real estate in Hongkong to leave valuable properties at his death in 1869 to each of his six sons. He also provided that the family house on Hollywood Road west of Aberdeen Street be retained as a residence for his widow, sons and grandsons. This property was resumed by Government in 1883 for the purpose of acquiring ground for the erection of a new Central School. His older children attended Dr. Legge's school. The younger ones were students at Central School after it was opened in 1862. The eldest was Ho A-lloy. He became the most prominent of the family. Dr. Legge characterised him in 1852 as a very promising lad. He was disappointed later, however, when A-lloy had to be excluded from church fellowship for taking on a secondary ================================================================================