RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 64 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG uninhabitable according to our notions, and we therefore tell the Chinese that the Minister is obliged to postpone taking up his residence until the residence is fit to receive him. Mr. Adkins is therefore charged with the task of repairs, and in March of next year or possibly earlier Mr. Bruce expects to take up his quarters there. His arrival at Peking before we quitted it was a happy hit. Formal interviews took place between Lord Elgin and Prince Kung at which the former introduced his brother and abdicated in his favour; so that before we quitted Peking Mr. Bruce had commenced his business with the Chinese authorities, while that of the Special Embassy terminated.7 So interpreter Adkins remained alone in the Palace of Duke I-liang throughout the winter of 1860-61, until in March 1861 Bruce set out from Tientsin, accompanied by Thomas Wade, his interpreter, and Dr. Rennie, physician to the new Legation. Colonel Neale, the Secretary of the Legation, with two attachés, St. Clair and Wyndham, had gone ahead with the baggage. We are fortunate to have a detailed account of the first year at the British Legation kept by Dr. Rennie. In the Preface to his book Peking and the Pekingese he explained that "a few months after Her Majesty's Legation had been established in Peking, a feeling began to be entertained by its members, that, with a view to future publication, some record should be kept of the various incidents which were from day to day occurring, during what may be termed the inaugural period of foreign diplomatic residence at the capital—the most important event in the modern history of Anglo-Chinese intercourse." Since Rennie had been keeping 7 Quoted in The Life of Sir Harry Parkes by Stanley Lane-Poole, 2 vols., (London, 1894), I, 404-5. Parkes was born in 1828, and came out to China in 1841 to join his two sisters who were living with their cousin, the wife of the Protestant missionary, the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff. Parkes was attached to Sir Henry Pottinger's suite in the expedition up the Yangtze in 1842 and witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. He started to learn Chinese and at the age of fifteen was attached to the British Consulate at Canton. Many appointments as interpreter and consul followed until 1865 when he was appointed Minister to Japan. In 1883 he became British Minister at Peking. He died in 1885. * D. F. Rennie, Peking and the Pekingese during the First Year of the British Embassy at Peking, 2 vols. (London, 1865) vii. Page 75 Page 76 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 80 J. L. CRANMER-BYNG Gamewall, an American Methodist, became almost legendary. We get a pen picture of Gamewall in the diary of the Rev. Roland Allen, who was chaplain to the Anglican Bishop in North China at this time. "Mr. Gamewall was almost voiceless, but still pursued his weary round of the Legation on his bicycle, overseeing the fortifications, and carrying out every suggestion of the military council with untiring zeal."25 Outside the Legation Chapel (by now filled to overflowing with missionaries) stood a stone kiosk with a bell inside it, erected to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee. This Bell Tower stood in the middle of the Legation at a point where four ways met. As Allen explained: "The Tower stood in the midst of tree-shaded ways beautiful from every point of view, sheltered, too, more than most spots from shot and shell. It was only once struck; no one was wounded there. It was well suited to be the centre of the life, as it was by nature the centre of the structure of the Legation." People used to collect there in groups to discuss the latest news and rumours. The bell itself was used as an alarm in case of a general attack, when it was rung furiously, and in the case of fire when it was tolled. All round the kiosk were posted up notices for the guidance of the besieged as well as cables, messages, edicts and rumours. Here also was posted up, from time to time, an official census of the inhabitants of the Legation. For instance on August 4th Jessie Ransome entered in her diary the census figures just posted up on the Bell Tower which gave a total of 883 men, women and children. One of the few amusing incidents of the siege was only known to the besieged some time afterwards. On 16th July, 1900 the Belfast newspaper, Northern Whig, had published an account of 25 Rev. Roland Allen, The Siege of the Peking Legations (London, 1901), 161. A photograph of the six fighting parsons' can be found in Archibald Little, Gleanings from Fifty Years in China (Philadelphia, 1908), 289. 24 When Professor L. Carrington Goodrich passed through Hong Kong in 1962 we spoke about the siege of the Foreign Legations and he told me that he was one of the children of missionary parents who sheltered in the Legation chapel. His father was the Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, remembered today by students of Chinese as the author of A Pocket Dictionary and Pekingese Syllabary, which was first published in 1891 and is still in print, See A. H. Mateer (Mrs.) Siege Days (New York, 1903), 217-18 and photograph opposite page 44. For another photograph see Arther H. Smith, China in Convulsion (New Jersey, 1901) II, 494. 27 Allen, op. cit., 119. H ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 106 BOOK REVIEWS Among other things, the map on page 92 is a black-and-white photo reproduction of the original colour map. Through this "simplification", the beauty of the original map is completely lost. This tells us that if we want to turn out a worthwhile map, we should take pains. The demand may, however, be contradictory to the strain of life in Hong Kong, The whole volume also contains thirty-four photos printed on art paper, all very clear. Compared with general publications in Hong Kong, the printing and binding of the book can be said to be beautiful, and printing errors are also few. Nevertheless, I should like to point out several places that had escaped the eye of the proofreader : On page 26, the figure in "The area of cultivated land is approximately 5.1 sq. miles" is obviously “51 sq. miles" misprinted; on page 56, "6.5 miles" is obviously "6.5 sq. miles" with the word "sq." missing; on page 127, "the remainder came from Japan" should read; from Taiwan; on page 115, "December 1951 - August 1945" is also clearly a misprint. A few other places could also be cited. * + + + These minor flaws naturally will not detract from the academic value of the book as a whole, and in the second edition they can be easily corrected. The publication of the book is undoubtedly an important increment to the literature of Hong Kong. The Chinese University of Hong Kong A CHENG-SIANG CHEN POCKET DICTIONARY CHINESE - ENGLISH AND PEKINGESE SYLLABARY. Chauncey Goodrich. Hong Kong University Press 1964. Re-issue March 1965. As a pocket or table companion, this is one of the best dictionaries available for students of Chinese. Its unique value lies in its combination of conciseness with comprehensiveness. Despite its moderate size, it contains, including duplicates, as many as 10,587 characters, i.e. two or three thousand more than some other considerably larger dictionaries. It carries a chronological table of Chinese history, lists of the Chinese "ten celestial stems" and "twelve earthly branches”, a group of four sexagenary cycles for the period A.D. 1804 - 2043, and Chinese units of weights and measures, all of which are reference data of practical value. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES 101 news bulletins in English for some reason they adopt a terrible mid-Atlantic jargon, both prolix and imprecise, as unworthy of the English tradition as modern Pekingese is of the Chinese. Now let us do a little fetching and carrying. "When he brought the letter I had finished cleaning my boots'. Why, my Chinese friends ask, does the second clause have "had" (the pluperfect) where they feel it more appropriate to say, and most of them would say “have"? The sentence records two separate and logically unconnected actions: the bringing of the letter and the cleaning of the boots. Both are in the past; but the cleaning of the boots was already over at the moment of bringing the letter. That kind of temporal relationship is expressed in English, as in Latin, by the pluperfect tense: but whereas in Latin the pluperfect is a real tense, formed by putting "historic" terminations on to the "perfect" root, English uses auxiliary verbs, usually "had". Indeed the sentence could be expressed more concisely as "I had cleaned my boots when he brought the letter." Greek also has the pluperfect tense, indicated by the augment, then the reduplication, then the verb root, then the perfect infix kappa, then special terminations; sounds cumbersome and is, which is perhaps why Greek prefers to jump back to the time of arrival, as Chinese does. Let us look at the likely combinations in sets, beginning with the present: He brings the letter: I am cleaning my boots. He brings the letter: I have cleaned my boots. He brings the letter: I shall clean my boots. When he brought the letter I was cleaning my boots. When he brought the letter I had cleaned my boots. When he brought the letter I was about to clean my boots. Now for the future, pausing only to notice that modern English uses the present indicative, no longer the subjunctive, for the subordinate verb; and never did use the future as Latin, Greek and French would do: When he brings the letter. I shall be cleaning my boots, When he brings the letter, I shall have cleaned my boots. When he brings the letter, I shall clean my boots. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 88 Chinese Loan Word Characters Meaning Pak-choi 白菜 Another name for Chinese cabbage, *Pak pai 白牌 Literally 'white label', meaning hire cars which are in fact operating illegally because they are not licenced to carry passengers for a fee. Pekingese 北京(狗) A small long-haired dog, of the pug type, orig. brought from the Imperial Palace at Pekin. Pekoe 白毫 A superior kind of black tea, so called from the leaves being picked young with the down still on them. *Pinyin 拼音 Literally 'to write according to sound' referring to the romanization system used to write Chinese rather than the traditional Chinese characters. Petuntse, 白墩子 A white earth, consisting of pulverized granite; used in combination with kaolin in the manufacture of Chinese porcelain, Petuntze A 4-stringed Chinese musical instrument plucked like a guitar and having a large body resembling a lute and a neck with 12 or more frets that leads into the body. Pipa 琵琶 *Putonghua 普通話 Literally 'ordinary speech', the standard dialect of China. *Renminbi 人民幣 Literally 'the people's currency', referring to the currency of the People's Republic of China. Samfoo 衫褲 A style of casual dress worn by Chinese women, consisting of waisted blouse and trousers, Sampan 舢舨 Applied by Europeans in the China seas to any small boat of Chinese pattern. Samshu 三燒 An alcoholic liquor distilled in China from boiled and fermented rice. *Sharpei, 沙皮 Literally 'sand-skinned', referring to the rough and loose skin of this breed of dog, formerly known as the 'Chinese Fighting Dog'. sharpi To drug or otherwise render insensible, and ship on board a vessel wanting hands. Shanghai 上海 A soft undressed Chinese silk. Shantung 山東 A Chinese breed of small dog similar to a Pekingese. Shih tzu 獅子 One of the finer varieties of black tea. Souchong 小種 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 210 Pollard, Samuel (1864-1915), In Unknown China a Pioneer Missionary Among Tribes in Western China, Philadelphia Lippincott, 1921 Poussielgue, Achille, Voyage en Chine et en Mongolie de M de Bourboulon, Ministre de France, et de Madame de Bourboulon, 1860-1861, Paris L Hachette, 1866 Powell, Lyle Stephenson, A Surgeon in Wartime China, Lawrence (Kansas) University of Kansas Press, 1946 Power, William James Tyrone, Recollections of a Three Years Residence in China, including Peregrinations in Spain, Morocco, Egypt, India, London R Bentley, 1853 Pritchard, Earl H, Anglo-Chinese Relations During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, 1929 Purcell, Victor, The Boxer Uprising, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1963 Rabe, Valentin H, The Home Base of American China Missions, 1880-1920, Cambridge (Mass) Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1978 Rachewiltz, Igor de, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, London. 1970 Rasmussen, Albert Henry, China Trader, London Constable, 1954 Reed, James, The Missionary Mind and American East Asia Policy 1911-1915, Cambridge (Mass) Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1983 Reid, Archibald, From Peking to Petersburg, London E Arnold, 1899 Reinsch, Paul S, An American Diplomat in China, Garden City (New York) Doubleday, 1922 Rennie, David Field, Peking and the Pekingese During the First Year of the British Embassy at Peking, London John Murray, 1865 Ricalton, James, China Through the Stereoscope, a Journey Through the Dragon Empire at the Time of the Boxer Uprising, London Underwood, 1901 Ripa, Matteo, Memoirs of Father Ripa, During Thirteen Years' Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China, with an Account of the Foundation of the College for the Education of Young Chinese at Naples, translated by Fortunato Prandi. New York Wiley and Putnam, 1846 Roberts, Frances Markley, Western Travellers to China, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh, 1932 Rockhill, William Woodville, The Land of the Lamas, Notes of a Journey, London Longmans, 1891 ================================================================================