RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 164 Michael Lau, was to see this problem had been solved, with the difficulty now being how to restrict the visit to a small number of galleries rather than to try and see too much in the limited time available. Accordingly, we visited the most renowned galleries only, those housing Ancient Chinese Bronzes and Ceramics. We were well rewarded by the quality and range of exhibits on display. Our enjoyment and understanding was greatly enhanced by explanations provided by the two senior staff members provided for us as gallery guides by Museum Director Ma Chengyuan. The next day, Saturday, we drove out north-west of Shanghai to the Jiading County Museum, in particular to see the exhibition on the former Jiading Imperial Examination Hall. RAS Council Member Joseph Ting, who also was our guide that day, had arranged this visit. (Prior to the visit, before leaving Hong Kong, Dr Betty Wei3 had given members a talk on the Hall and the imperial examination system, so important in China prior to 1905). Again we were given VIP treatment, with Director Zheng of the Jiading Cultural Bureau and Director Yang Chun of the Museum, addressing us upon arrival and providing us with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, Ms Liu Chuyong. Members were impressed by the graphic quality of the exhibits, especially those on examination cheating methods. The highlight of our Sunday programme was a tour of Old Shanghai, with our guide being Ms. Tess Johnston, author and raconteur extraordinaire, whose assistance had been obtained for us by Council Member Valery Garrett. After a bus tour of treaty port architecture, Tess led us on foot through the city's oldest area, Huangpu. There, one block west of the Friendship Store and two blocks south of the Wusong River (Suzhou Creek), on Huqiu (Museum) Road, near the junction with Dong Road, we found to our delight the old premises of the North China Branch. The building is now used as a bank and share-trading hall, but little has changed in its appearance and structure with RAS still to be seen on the pediment (see Illustration 1, a group photograph outside the building, and Illustration 2, plans of premises after the 1932-34 re-building; provided for us by Ms Johnston). On the Monday morning our exploration of both the past and present ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 375 BACKSTREETS OF BEIJING NOTES ON THE EASTER, 1998 VISIT TO BEIJING PENNY ROBBINS MEREDITH TONG-DRAPER GEOFFREY ROPER The idea of a visit to Beijing, the Branch's first, came up during the Easter 1997 visit to Shanghai when Council member Dr Joseph Ting offered to lead a trip to aspects of the capital seldom seen by the tourist. Despite a busy work schedule, Dr Ting came true to his promise and on Good Friday, the 10th April led a party of 26 members and guests, including Branch President Dr Dan Waters, to Beijing. Driving in from the Airport we found that spring had already arrived with the highway lined with trees sprouting every shade of green that one could imagine, and blossom in white, pink and deep crimson. Everything, that morning, looked fresh and clean, and to those who had not been there for some years, more prosperous. "Bamboo", the tour guide supplied by the travel agent, soon let us know that Beijing was now sharing in the nation's wealth. Dr Ting soon had us working hard and we went straight from the Airport to the Foreign Missionaries Cemetery in the western suburbs of Beijing, off Chegongzhuang Road, rather ironically tucked away in the grounds of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee Cadre Training School, where a billboard proclaimed Deng Hsiao-ping's pragmatic message “learn from experience". At the Cemetery, for which the Ming Emperor Wanli had given land in 1611, we were met by Professor Liu Shuyong a research fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Hon. Secretary of the Hong Kong University Alumni Association in Beijing, who had helped make many of the arrangements for our visit, and Madam Gao Zhiyu, President of the China Association for Matteo Ricci Studies, which had been formed in 1995. Madam Gao gave us a very informative guided tour of the cemetery. [Illustration One]. There are two main sections, one, which has three graves and another with almost fifty more. The principal grave is that of Matteo ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 187 virtually cut off the supply to the waterfall other than when they are overflowing, for instance after a heavy storm. Apart from pleasure boats and other small craft, Tai Tam Harbour was used more in the 19th century than it is today. During the period 1806 to 1819, long before Hong Kong was taken over by Britain, James Horsburgh, a hydrographer with the East India Company, surveyed the waters around the Island. He wrote that Tai Tam afforded shelter from almost all winds (Liu Shuyong, 1997:24). It is not of course a harbour as we sometimes know it with wharves and godowns. It is an inlet, which provides a place for ships to shelter. To illustrate again the Harbour's use as a place for protection from the elements mention is made of ‘tactical manoeuvring and target practice,' in February 1878, by the Royal Navy (White Ensign-Red Dragon, 1997; 39). It continues, 'The 20th February being very misty the fleet remained at Tytam Bay.' People naturally ask when exactly were the two Obelisks first erected; who erected them; and what purpose did (or do) they serve? As a start, with the aims of answering such questions, two Chief Inspectors, H J W Chetwynd-Chatwin and Keith Francis, both then serving in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, arranged an informal meeting, in 1994. The meeting took place in a bar at a police officers' mess in Wan Chai. It was followed by a curry lunch. About a dozen people were invited who, it was felt, could contribute. They included the Government Director of Marine and RASHKB member R S Hownam-Meek who spent his career in shipping with Jardine. A couple of weeks or so after the meeting the topic of the Obelisks was raised by Radio Television Hong Kong. Little of real substance emerged from the meeting or the ‘phone-in radio programme. The late Arthur May, then a retired civil servant, did however ‘phone in to say that, as a youth, he went to live at Tai Tam in 1919. He also recalled that when he sailed around the Harbour in the 1920s the two Obelisks were definitely already there. The Hydrographic Data Centre, at Taunton in England, maintains that information was received from the Commander-in-Chief, China, that two beacons, each 30 feet high, had been erected. These were first inserted on Admiralty charts by 'Notice to Mariners 755' of 1900 (Atherton, 1996:94). I have a chart showing Tai Tam Harbour, dated 1894, which shows the Obelisks, but Atherton informs me that this is a ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 191 Bard, Solomon (1988). In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong, the Urban Council Hong Kong. Empson, Hal (1992), Mapping Hong Kong, A Historical Atlas, Hong Kong. Lack, Alan (1994 March 17), retired senior member of staff of Government Marine Department, Hong Kong. Letter to the author. Hacker, Arthur, letter together with sketch to the Author dated 29 October, 2000. Liu Shuyong (1997), An Outline History of Hong Kong, Foreign Language Press, Beijing. The Mariner's Mirror, The Journal of the Society for Nautical Research, England, vol. 81, no. 3, August 1995. Op. cit. vol. 82, no. 1, February 1996. Mok, Sam (1995 February 25), 'Peaceful sea villages a Tai Tam treat', Hong Kong Standard. Sinclair, Olga (2000, June), e-mail to the author. Tai Tam Bay (1894), chart, surveyed by Lieut. J W Combe RN et al, published by the Admiralty, London. Trayhurn, Rob (1995, January 16), letter to author from Public Relations Officer, Clyde Submarine Base, Scotland. White Ensign - Red Dragon, The History of the Royal Navy in Hong Kong 1841-1997 (1997) ed. Commodore PJ Melson CBE, Royal Navy. ================================================================================