RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY

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between those who were, and were not, socially acceptable. An inordinate degree of effort went into securing release from this social limbo. Release, when it occurred, was achieved in most cases by judicious entertaining, by obtaining entrée to the right clubs and associations, or by a change of occupation.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a beachcomber as ‘a settler on the Pacific islands, living by pearl fishery, etc., or loafing about wharves and beaches' and as 'a white man in Pacific islands etc., who lives by collecting jetsam, longshore vagrant'. The term, a pejorative one in European circles in the East, in time was applied to all European vagrants by those in established positions and meant, simply, a loafer. It was difficult to survive on the beach in Hong Kong for the climate, with its cold winter months, did not provide the lush consolations of life on the Pacific islands; and the Chinese, the host population, whose traditions supported the values of hard work, frugality and sobriety, were not as easy-going as the denizens of the South Seas. Beachcombers in Hong Kong were defined as loafers, destitutes, down-and-outs, spongers, and paupers, and were referred to as such in the newspapers of the time. A news item in the China Mail of 1888 sheds light on contemporary attitudes toward beachcombers:

A 'Dead-Beat' named George Smith was brought before Mr. Sercombe Smith, in the Police Court to-day, charged with being a rogue and vagabond and having no visible means of subsistence. Defendant, who admitted having no occupation, no money, and no place of abode, was sent to Gaol for a month's hard labour, during which time steps will be taken to procure a more desirable berth for him.3

Beachcombers in Hong Kong were mostly discharged seamen, seamen who had jumped ship, or deserters from foreign navies, especially the American. A few were work-shy nomads who moved from port to port, waiting for something to turn up. Others adopted an itinerant mode of life because their capacity to work regularly had been undermined by drink, drugs, or debauchery in general. Some were escaping from a criminal past. All were objects of suspicion.

A European constabulary had been recruited to police the city of Victoria and adjacent areas soon after the establishment of the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v
# OF HONGS AND TONGS AND ALL THAT JAZZ: A NOTE ON LEXICAL BORROWING FROM CHINESE IN ENGLISH WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HONG KONG

MIMI CHAN

UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

In a language contact situation such as exists in Hong Kong, and has existed since the mid-nineteenth century, there is bound to be some degree of mutual exchange. The extent to which English has affected the vocabulary of Hong Kong Chinese is notable, but, as I have discovered in a previous study undertaken by myself and my colleague, Helen Kwok, by no means as extensive as might be expected, considering the tremendous influx of new 'things' and concepts from the West. In general the local population has to a large measure relied on native resources of vocabulary-building to fulfill lexical needs as they arise.

2

In a second joint study, just completed, of which this paper gives a summary, I am concerned with Chinese words which have entered the vocabulary of English with special reference to the English used in Hong Kong. It is of course a well-known fact that the English vocabulary is a highly heterogeneous one, made up of borrowings from many Western as well as Eastern languages. Studies of the origins of English words tend to give detailed lists of words borrowed from Greek and Latin, French, Germanic and Middle Eastern languages among others. They also tend to include quite a number of examples from Eastern languages like Indian and Malay. But when it comes to Chinese the inclusions tend to be few indeed. Otto Jespersen, in The Growth and Structure of the English Language, giving examples of English words borrowed from various sources, writes, 'From Chinese we have kowtow?' A careful search of the Oxford English Dictionary and various editions of the Webster will reveal a somewhat larger number of words, the etymology of which is at least conjecturally Chinese. But the words themselves and/or their etymologies tend to be little known generally. I have
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v
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(2) they are understood by at least 50% of the respondents to our questionnaire (In some cases the percentage is much higher).

(3) they are found in at least one of the dictionaries we have consulted viz. O.E.D., Webster, Collins' Random House (In many cases they are listed in more than one dictionary).

All the words listed in the Appendix which will be included in our study, fulfill the first of the three criteria mentioned above. A large number also meet the other two criteria. A small group of words fail to meet the third criterion. This last group consists of more recent borrowings, and includes terms with restricted currency within Hong Kong, e.g. tai tai and pak pai, and terms originating from contacts between China and the west after 1950, e.g. Renminbi and Putonghua, of which there are twenty-five in our Appendix.

In general, meanings and etymologies given are based mainly on the various editions of the Oxford English dictionaries; whenever useful, this information is supplemented by explanations taken from other dictionaries, but since a word in the lending language may be changed beyond recognition once it is borrowed into another language, the origins of some loan words are shrouded in mystery, and their etymologies may be based on conjecture rather than fact, e.g. ketchup and also gung ho. According to the O.E.D. and Collins ketchup is derived from Amoy koê-tsiap or kê-tsiap or 'brine of pickled fish', but it would be virtually impossible to find the Chinese words which would convey sound and alleged sense. Gung ho allegedly is derived from the Chinese for 'work together', possibly 工合, but the etymology is dubious.10 Also, over a period of time, mutual borrowing among a number of languages and related dialects may take place, so that it is often difficult to discover the path through which a loan has travelled, and the changes which have taken place through the varying intermediate stages. We have made every effort to discover the true etymologies of the loan words. Many ‘old China hands' and indeed 'new' hands know cumshaw as a loan word. But at least two theories exist concerning its origin. It is either derived from the Amoy pronunciation of 'thank you' or it
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v
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considered to be 'foreign' when the objects or ideas they refer to are largely restricted to an alien culture. One respondent to our questionnaire has this to say about wok: 'Of course it is a Chinese word. I never use the word because I don't use the thing.' A word like tea is considered to be English partly because its referent has become very much a part of the life of the English-speaking world. Using familiarity with the objects designated by the words as the sole yardstick would exclude thousands upon thousands of words listed in various standard dictionaries from the English word stock, among many other words like fo from 佛, petunse from 白墩子 'China stone', and loquat from 蘆橘. This criterion must therefore be supplemented.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "The Vocabulary of widely-diffused and highly-cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits. So the English Vocabulary contains a nucleus or central mass of many thousands of words whose "Anglicity" is unquestioned; some of them only literary, some of them only colloquial, the great majority at once literary and colloquial, they are the common words of the language. But they are linked on every side with other words which are less and less entitled to this appellation, and which pertain ever more and more distinctly to the domain of local dialect, of the slang and cant of "sets" and classes, of the peculiar technicalities of trades and professions, of the scientific terminology common to all civilized nations, of the actual languages of other lands and peoples. And there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference'. (xxvii) The phrase that is of special interest to us is 'the actual language of other lands and peoples'. Of the words in the English vocabulary some would be, in the words of the O.E.D. 'originally native', and could be traced to 'their earliest English, or earliest Teutonic form', (xxxi) but an English word may also have been ‘adopted from some foreign language, i.e., it is a word once foreign, but now, without or with intentional change of form, used as English'. (xxx)

I have said that the line dividing English words from ‘foreign' words cannot always be sharply drawn. A word may be
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
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at least for some sections of the language community, when it occurs in puns and other examples of wordplay. During a popular television show in the U.S. a chow dog which bites people but is quite timid is described as 'chicken chow mein'. The term wok has become so familiar that it has become a favourite item for puns.

A fast food Chinese restaurant in Boston is called 'Wok In'. In San Francisco audiences watching a cooking programme are told to 'get wokking'. When someone had returned from a trip to Bangkok with some Thai silk ties, an expatriate colleague of ours was heard to make the following remark: 'Did the Thai tai tai tie your Thai tie? The noun lap sap from Cantonese laap saap ‘rubbish' is known to almost every English-speaker who has lived in Hong Kong for some time. Some people objected to the use of the word 'rubbish' as a verb in a slogan for the Clean Hong Kong Campaign launched by the Government recently: 'Don't rubbish your city' was felt to be bad English. The following letter to the editor of The South China Morning Post may be taken as evidence that lap sap and 'rubbish' are taken to be synonyms in the same language: 'To whoever gave us "Don't rubbish your city”, a piece of advice. Don't lap-sap your language.' (South China Morning Post, 7/12/82).

NOTES

1 See M. Chan and H. Kwok, A Study of Lexical Borrowing from English in Hong Kong Chinese, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1982.

+

The study is in the form of a monograph entitled Chinese Loan Words in English with Special Reference to English in Hong Kong has been accepted for publication by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, and will appear by early 1985. The monograph will include an appendix giving a list of 105 loan words with notes on pronunciation, meaning and etymology.

* Oxford, 1962, p. 143.

* For example, A.J. Bliss, A Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases, London, 1980, includes chopsticks, chopsuey, kowtow, kuomintang, sampan, tycoon.

D. Carroll, Dictionary of Foreign Terms in the English Language, New York, 1973, has kowtow and sampan.

A.H. Halt, Phrase and Word Origins, New York, revised 1961, has fairly lengthy explanations of pidgin terms and prevalent false etymologies, and includes references to chop chop, chow, kumquat, chau min.

Б

A.J. Bliss, op. cit.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h
# BIBLIOGRAPHY

245

1. Archives:

"London Missionary Society": Incoming Letters, Central China.

2. Newspapers and Periodicals:

**Boletim do Governo de Macao**, Macao, 1855-1865.

"China Mail", Hong Kong, 1845-1860.

"North China Herald", Shanghai, 1850-1867.

"Puck, or the Shanghai Charivari", Shanghai, 1871-1873.

*Shanghai Commercial Record*, Shanghai, 1865.

3. Books and Articles:

Adams, W. Davenport: "A Dictionary of the Drama. A Guide to the Plays, Playwrights, Players and Playhouses of the United Kingdom and America from the earliest times to the present", Vol. I (A-G) (no more published). Philadelphia, 1904.

Appleton, William W.: "Madame Vestris and the London Stage", New York - London, 1974.

Barr, Pat: "The Deer Cry Pavillion. A Story of Westerners in Japan 1868-1905", London, 1968.

Black, J.R.: "Young Japan. Yokohama and Yedo. A Narrative of the Settlement and the city from the signing of the treaties in 1858 to the close of the year 1879", Tokyo-London, 1968 (reprint of 1880-1881 edition).

Boase, Frederic: "Modern English Biography", London, 1965 (reprint of the 1891-1921 edition).

Booth, Michael (Ed): "English Plays of the 19th century", Volumes I and IV, Oxford, 1969-1973.

British Museum General Catalogue of Books.

Brown, T. Allston: "A History of the New York Stage from the first performance in 1732 to 1901, 3 vols.; New York 1964 (reprint of 1903 ed.).

Buckley, C.B.: "An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867, Singapore, 1902.

Carse, A.: "The Life of Jullien", Cambridge, 1951.

Chesterfield, Lord: "Advice to his son on Men & Manners in which the principles of politeness and the art of acquiring a knowledge of the world are laid down in an easy and familiar manner", Chiswick, 1826.

Conolly, L.W. and J.P. Wearing: "English Drama and Theatre 1800-1900. A Guide to information sources", Detroit, 1978.

Cordier, Henri: "Bibliotheca Sinica", second edition; 5 vols.; Paris 1904ff.

Davis, Jim (Ed.): "Plays of H.J. Byron", Cambridge, 1984.

'Dictionary of National Biography".

Dyce, C.M.: "Personal Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in the Model Settlement. Shanghai 1870-1900", London, 1906.

Engle, Gary D.: "This Grotesque Essence. Plays from the American Minstrel Stage". Baton Rouge, 1978.

Fétis, F.J.: "Biographic Universelle de Musiciens", Paris, 1864; Supplement by Arthur Pougin, 1880.

Fitzgerald, Percy: "Principles of Comedy and Dramatic Effect", London, 1870.

"The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", London, 1980.

Haan, J.H.: "Origin and Development of the Political System in the Shanghai International Settlement" in: "Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of Royal Asiatic Society", Vol. 22 (1982), p. 31-64.

Haan, J.H.: "The Shanghai Library: A history of the first foreign library in Shanghai" in: "Journal of the Hong Kong Library Association", 1987.

Hartnoll, Phyllis: "The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre", London, 1972.

Howard, Diana: "London Theatres and Music Halls, 1850-1950", London, 1970.

Page 270

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the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and written text by Craig Clunas, this work is an attractive volume for general readers interested in Chinese furniture.

Robert Ford, Captured in Tibet, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, reprint of 1957 edition. 266 pp. Index, Photographs. This is a reprint of a highly readable account of the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1950, with an additional introduction by the Dalai Lama. The author, seconded by the British Army as a radio communications officer to the Tibetan Army, spent a year as a prisoner of the Red Army.

Christmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism, London: Curzon Press, 1984. Paperback reprint, 1987. 224 pp. Little more than a dictionary, this book will be of help to English-readers who need a quick reference to Buddhist terms in Sanscrit, Chinese, or Japanese.

Robin Hutcheon, First Sea Lord — The Life and Work of Sir Y.K. Pao, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. 170 pp. Index, Photographs. A short commissioned biography written by the former editor of the South China Morning Post, this book is attractively presented with a number of photographs. A definitive study of the shipping and property giant, Sir Y.K. Pao and his phenomenal accomplishments, both in Hong Kong and worldwide, is still required.

Nigel Cameron, The Chinese File, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. paperback, 246 pp. Illustrations. First published in 1958 by Hutchison and Co. in London for an English readership, this book has been reprinted by Oxford University Press in Hong Kong. By now, the author is a well-known prolific writer in the territory. Cameron's observations as a serious traveller in China before he became a specialist, on such various topics as the Great Wall, the Minorities, the Deep South, and Sian, are interesting and enlightening.

Valery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares, Oxford Images of Asia Series, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. 66 pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index, Illustrations. In addition to delightful descriptions of the embroidered squares from court robes of the Qing officials, popularly known by Western collectors as Mandarin Squares, Garrett has presented in this most attractive volume in very simple terms how the Manchus came to the Chinese throne and how young men were trained to become officials.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g
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there are many forms of geomancy some of which are linked to their Four Elements* namely Air, Fire, Earth and Water, which, in turn, are linked to the four corners of the earth. North American Indians also have their forms of geomancy.

Ley Lines in Britain

There are also aspects of Chinese geomancy that bear comparison with European beliefs. 'Dragon veins' for instance, are similar in some ways, to the invisible 'ley lines' that crisscross Britain (see Oxford English Dictionary, vol. VIII, 2nd Edition). This pre-Christian network, 'woven' across the countryside, crosses bogs and mountains, links salient points such as hilltops, and, in some cases, follows ancient tracks which were once trodden by merchants when transporting commodities like salt and flint. Ley lines embrace, symbolically, rich identifying features like sacred sites, stone circles, menhirs, encampments, watchtowers, earthen mounds, wishing and holy wells associated with saints, moats and ponds, and graveyards (Miller, 1989). Key positions, often at crossroads, were formed at intersections of the 'ley' (or lay) which included sites like Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. From the latter, various astronomical observations can be conducted. Like watching the sun rise at mid-summer from the centre of the stone circle over the heel-stone.

The first stone churches were often built on pre-Christian sites, where symbolic rites had been performed, such as in the old 'Serpent Temples'. Some believe Saint Mary (the Virgin Mary) Churches are really Christianised versions of the old 'Shining Earth Goddess'. With the importance of life-giving solar energy and its involvement in everyday life, such events as the fire festival were important in ancient Britain.

This network of ley lines (Saxon 'leye'; an obsolete word for fire) which can be traced across the English landscape, is visible only to those who have 'eyes' to see it. Prehistoric tracks, sometimes pilgrimage routes, often followed ley lines. Roman or medieval roads were frequently not primary arteries but simply followed the ley. The Icknield Way running from the Wash down to the Thames, and on to the Berkshire Downs, is an example of a pre-Roman Track. There is also the famous Saint Michael Ley Line, with the Michael and Mary currents, which serpentines from the tip of Cornwall to the coast of East Anglia (Miller, 1989). Such lines are really 'routes' or 'corridors' rather than straight lines.
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https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
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which reveal the diversities in missionary styles and traditions, review research materials available in volumes such as the following: Gerald H. Anderson, Robert T. Coote, Norman A. Homer, and James M. Phillips, eds., Mission Legacies: Biographical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994; see the articles on "Mission" and individual missionaries in Nigel M. de S. Cameron, David F. Wright, David C. Lachman, Donald E. Meek, eds., Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1993); A Scott Moreau, Harold Netland, Charles Van Engen, eds., Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000); and relevant articles in Scott W. Sunquist, David Wu Chu Sing, John Chew Hiang Chea, eds., A Dictionary of Asian Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2001). For a recent article which places Legge into a broader context of missiological studies, consult Lauren Pfister, "The Mengzian Matrix for Accommodationist Missionary Apologetics”, Monumenta Serica 50 (2002), pp. 1-25.

5. See examples of this oversight in articles of the Chinese Repository (1831-1850), which was edited for most of its existence by the American missionary, Elijah Bridgman (Bei Zhiwen, 1801-1861), and the longer running Evangelical Magazine And Missionary Chronicle (below simply EMMC) edited from the 1820s to the 1850s by Legge's father-in-law, John Morison (c. 1795-1859). Special efforts in recent years have sought to correct this irregular normality in missionary literature and missionary studies, including more recently published works by Irene Eber on Bishop Joseph Schereschewesky, Michael Lazich on Elijah Bridgman, Jost Zetzsche on Chinese Bible translation and translators, and Lauren Pfister on James Legge's missionary career, as well as more general historical studies on Chinese Christians in English works by Carl T. Smith, Jessie Lutz, and Daniel Bays, as well as extensive Chinese studies in Hong Kong written by Lee Kam-keung, Timothy Wong Man-kong, Leung Ka-lun, and Ying Fuk-tsang. A new generation of younger scholars in mainland China are also writing new accounts of the early Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary histories, but while the Catholic studies often refer to the Chinese Christians involved, the Protestant studies are still largely hampered by lack of research into the Chinese converts, missionaries, and pastors during these earlier periods.

6. The early History of Anglo-Chinese College has been the subject of a monograph by Brian Harrison, Waiting for China: The Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, 1818-1843, and early Nineteenth Century Missions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1981), and special biographical details about a number of students are found in Carl Smith's two major works, Chinese Christians: Élites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong; Oxford University Press, 1985) and A Sense of History: Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishing Co., 1995). In these works Smith briefly describes among others the three Chinese students who joined Legge in an interview with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in February 1848: Lee Kim Leen, Song Hoot Kiam, and Ng Mun Sow. See Chinese Christians, pp.82, 148-149 and A Sense of History, pp. 339ff. This event was memorialized in a painting of 1848 that later became part of a commemorative
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