RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 127 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH List of Members at 28th February, 1961. ABRAHAM, R. D. Aide-de-Camp AKERS JONES, D. Allen, H. W. ALLEYNE, Mrs. E. L. BAIRD, J. W. BARD, Dr. S. M. BARNETT, K. M. A. BARON, D. W. B. BARR, J. S. BASTO, G. de BARTON, T. The Hon. H. D. M. BAUER, Miss H. BEIDLER, P. BERTUCCIOLI, G. P. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. L. BLACKMORE, M. BLUNDEN, Prof. E. C. BONSALL, G. W. BRAGA, J. M. BRAWN, Squadron Ldr. W. N. H. BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BRIMMELL, J. H. BROOKS, D. E. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. BUSH, R. C. BYRNE, D. J. CALLAHAN, G. W. CHAN, Dr. H. C. CHAU, The Hon. Sir Tsun-Nin CHENG, Dr. Irene CHENG, T. C. CHEUNG, Oswald 41 Island Road, Deep Water Bay, H.K.Government House, H.K. N. Kowloon Magistracy, Taipo Road, Kln.U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. H.K.U.Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., H.K. H.K.U.P.O. Box 248, H.K. 361 The Peak, H.K.Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. 604 Fu House, 7 Ice House Street, H.K.Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., H.K. U.S.L.S., U.S. Consulate-General, H.K.U.S. Embassy, Saigon, Vietnam Ministero degli Esteri, RomeFar East Mansions, Apt. 5-H, Kln. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., Alexandra House, H.K.Dept. of History, H.K.U. H.K.U.P.O. Box 951, H.K. Air Headquarters, H.K.86 Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Flat 4, 12 Magazine Gap Road, H.K. Radio Hong Kong86 Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Tao Fong Shan, Shatin, N.T.China Light & Power Co., Ltd., Argyle Street, Kln. Apt. 23, Kellett Grove, The Peak, H.K.Bank of Canton Building, H.K. 8 Queen's Road West, H.K.Education Dept., Fung House, 5th fl., H.K. S.C.A. Fire Brigade Building, H.K.1002 Alexandra House, H.K. Page 127 Page 127 Page 127 Page 128 Page 128 Page 128 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author 132 TANG Shiu Kin THOMAS, L. F. - THOMPSON, R. W. TOPLEY, Dr. Marjorie TREGEAR, Miss M. TRISTRAM, Mrs. J. TRISTRAM, M. P. W. + + + + - TSEUNG, Dr. F. I. - + - T Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 The Kowloon Motor Bus Co., Ltd., 505 Pedder Building, H.K. 56 Conduit Road, Flat 103, H.K. Dept. of Modern Languages, H.K.U. 6 Peak Mansions, H.K. H.K.U. P.O. Box 845, H.K. Rating & Valuation Dept., Man Yee Building, 9th fl., Des Voeux Road C., H.K. China Building, 4th f., H.K. TURNER, The Hon. M. W. H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. VETCH, H. VETCH, Mrs. H. VIO, Dr. E. G. - WALDEN, J. C, C, - WALTON, A. St. G. WARD, Miss J.- + + WARD-MORRIS, Mrs. B. WATSON, K. A. WEI, Dr. Tat. WEISS, K.- WELCH, H. H. WONG, Dr. Man WONG Pao Hsie WONG Po Shang WOO, Dr. Arthur W.. WOO, Dr. Pak Foo WRIGHT, D. A. L. WILSON, B. D. - YAO Pe Chun YAO Hsin Nung + - Hong Kong University Press, H.K. Hong Kong University Press, H.K. 315 H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Establishment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. Establishment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. 35 Chater Hall, Conduit Road, H.K, 18 Hillgate Place, London, W.8. Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. H.K. Anti-Tuberculosis Assn., Queen's Rd. E., H.K. P.O. Box 718, H.K. Shatin, N.T. Room 108, China Building, H.K. Butterfield & Swire, H.K. B-5 Wah Kiu Mansion, 1st fl., 80 Taipo Rd., Kln. Woo Clinic, Edinburgh House, 1st fl., H.K. 204 China Building, H.K. Hong Kong Club, H.K. Urban Services Dept., Secretariat Building, West Wing, H.K. 18, Monmouth Terrace, 3rd f., Kennedy Road, H.K. 1 Dorset Crescent, Kowloon Tong, Kln. Mental Hospital, High Street, H.K, YAP, Dr. Pon Meng YUEN, Miss I. - 4 Radio Hong Kong. ZIGAL, Mrs. I. - - 12 Bowen Road, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f 127 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH List of Members at 16th May, 1962. ABRAHAM, R. D. · AIDE-DE-CAMP - ALLEYNE, Mrs. E. L. · BAIRD, John W. BARD, Dr. S. M. BARNETT, K. M. A. BARON, D. W. B. BARR, John S. · BARTON, Hon. H. D. M. BASTO, Gerald De. - - 41, Island Road, Deep Water Bay, Hong Kong. Government House, Hong Kong. University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum, Hong Kong. c/o Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd. Hong Kong. Hong Kong University, Pokfulum, Hong Kong. P. O. Box 248, Hong Kong. 361 The Peak, Hong Kong. c/o Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, Shatin. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd. Hong Kong. 604 Fu House, 7 Ice House Street, Hong Kong. BEDWELL, Miss Elizabeth c/o H.K. Housing Authority, G. P. O. BERTUCCIOLI, Giuliano BIRNBAUM, Mrs. Sylvia Daniels BLACK, Donald BLACKMORE, Michael BLUE, A. D. - BLUNDEN, Prof. E. C. BONSALL, G. W. BORGEEST, Gus BRAGA, J. M. - BREUIL, N. du Mrs. BROOKS, D. E. BRUUN, Frederick T. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. - BYRNE, Desmond J. Building, T/F. · Italian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon. Peat, Marwick Mitchell & Co., Alexandra House 8/F. Dept. of History, H.K. University, Pokfulum, H.K. c/o China Navigation Co., Butterfield & Swire. The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum, Hong Kong. Flat 3, 94-D, Pokfulum Road, Hong Kong. P. O. Box 1058, Hong Kong. P. O. Box 951, Hong Kong. 86, Main Street, Stanley, Hong Kong. Radio Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 908, Takshing House, Hong Kong. 86, Main Street, Stanley, Hong Kong. c/o China Light & Power Co., Ltd. Argyle Street, Kowloon. BENHAM, Miss M. E. M. Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., Hong Kong. CALCINA, P. G. Commercial Investment Co., Ltd. Union House, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 150 BOYD, J. D. I. BRAGA, J. M. - BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BRUUN, F. - A-1 9th Floor, 2 Oaklands Path, H.K. - P. O. Box 951, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Fisheries Research Station. The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen. Radio Hong Kong, Rodney Block, G/F., Wellington Barracks, H.K. 908, Takshing House, H.K. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. - 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. BYRNE, D. J. - CALCINA, P. G. * CHAN, Dr. H. C. - CHAN, Hok-lam CHAN, Leonard + CHAU, Hon. Sir T. N. *- CHAU, Wah-ching CHENG, T. C.. CHEONG-LEEN, Hilton + c/o China Light & Power Co., Ltd. Argyle St., Kowloon. Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th Floor, H.K. Bank of Canton Building, H.K. c/o Department of History, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. c/o Pâzer Corporation, G.P.O. 323, H.K. 8, Queen's Road, West, H.K. English Department, Chung Chi College, Ma Liu Shui, N.T. United College of H.K., Bonham Road, H.K. G.P.O. Box 584, 310 Yu To Sang Building, H.K. CHESTERMAN, Prof. W. D. 4 Felix Villas, Pokfulum, H.K. CHEUNG, O. CHING, Henry CHING, Joseph - CHIU, Miss B. T. CHIU, Ling-yeong CHOA, Dr. G. H. CHOW, Edward T. CLARK, Mrs. N. E. COHN, Dr. A. J. - COLE, M. 1002, Alexandra House, H.K. 9, Village Road, 1st Floor, H.K. c/o U.S. Consulate-General, 26 Garden Road, H.K. Department of Botany, The University, H.K. 167, Yee Kuk Street, 3rd Floor, Shumshuipo, Kowloon. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulum, H.K. 3 Village Terrace, Happy Valley, H.K. 71, Peak Road, H.K. 116, Leighton Road, Lei Shun Court, 6th Floor, "F", H.K. 16, Conduit Road, H.K. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE 51 I will here jump ahead and say that one study which is urgently needed to restore one of the missing pieces in our puzzle before it melts away, is the collection preferably on tape recordings, of local stories, legends and above all, songs and rhymes. These were formerly widely heard, especially among the Tanka43 and Hokloss boat people and among the Hakka149 villagers of the high plateaux where they are called shan-ko.117 When I was District Commissioner, New Territories, I attempted to arrange a performance of some of these shan-ko for the then Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, but the star performer, who was a very old man, was afflicted by stage-fright and would not sing a note until after the Governor had left; nor would he allow the songs which he afterwards rendered to be recorded. However, I am sure this kind of reluctance could be overcome, perhaps by a little alcoholic inducement, but the point I really wish to emphasize is that now everybody has a transistor radio, no one wants to listen to the old songs and they are remembered only by the ancient. The evidence which they enshrine of the origin of our local people may be of high importance, quite aside from the artistic and musical merits of the songs and stories, and I think a determined effort should be made to ensure that this evidence, which we have so outrageously neglected while it was plentiful, should be put on record before it is too late. Two non-Chinese words are the word yong for a village and the word kan53 for a water channel; if only more studies of the Yao languages were available, the list could be much longer. The late S. L. Wong of Hong Kong University, previously of Lingnam University, who had done original research among the Yao of two districts of Kwangtung Province, including his own native district of Tsang Shing,159 told me many years ago that one thing to look for when testing whether a "Chinese" village was of Yao origin was to keep a watchful eye and ear for traces of the cult of Pan-ku.112 At the same time he warned me that where the memory of tribal origin still lived among village traditions they were careful to conceal the fact from strangers, so that any direct question would almost certainly meet flat denial. This, I need hardly say, is characteristic of rural communities the world over and I have encountered similar difficulties even in recording the local names of mountains and streams, including one instance ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 156 BENHAM, Miss M. E. M. - Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., BERTOVICH, Miss R. C. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. BLACK, Mrs. W. A. BLACKMORE, M. BLATCHFORD, C. H. BLUNDEN, Prof. E. C. BOAK, C. D. BOARD, D. B. M.* BOLLMEYER, Mrs. H. BONSALL, G. W. BORGEEST, G. BOXER, B. BOYD, J. D. I. BRAGA, J. M. BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BROWNE, H. J. C. BRUNN, F. BUCKNELL, P. BYRNE, D. J. H.K. R.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa. U.S.A. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon. Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland. 10-A, Stanley Beach Road, Stanley, H.K. Dept. of History, H.K. University, H.K. New Asia College, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. H.K. University, Pokfulum, H.K. Dept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K. 408/9 Yu To Sang Building, 37 Queen's Road, C., H.K. H.K. University Library, Pokfulum, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. 2, Percival Street, 3rd floor, H.K. c/o Political Adviser, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. P. O. Box 951, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K. c/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. 908 Takshing House, H.K. Legal Dept. Central Govt. Offices, H.K. BURKHARDT, Col. V. R. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. CALCINA, P. G.* CAMERON, N. CASHMORE, Miss M. CHAN, Fook-Lam CHAN, Dr. Hee Chi P. O. Box 15118, H.K Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K. 75, Deepwater Bay Road, H.K. 9A, Cameron House, 40 Magazine Gap Road, H.K. 77 Chun Yeung Street, 10th floor, H.K. Bank of Canton Building, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 78 A. D. BLUE on board at the time. A similar, but even more murderous case had occurred in 1858, on a river steamer between Canton and Hong Kong. As this was during the Second China War, and the attackers were definitely established to be Chinese soldiers in disguise, this case might be charitably described as an act of war. Most China coasters carried deck passengers, in addition to a dozen or so saloon passengers. In the emigrant trades, however, hundreds and even thousands of deck passengers were carried, and the emigrant ships were the greatest temptations to the pirates. The strategy was to get control of such a ship, take her to Bias Bay or Mirs Bay, both conveniently just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, and then make off ashore in Chinese territory with the money and valuables of the passengers. A few wealthy passengers might also be taken for ransom. An operation of this nature required careful planning and organizing ability, some knowledge of the ship's geography and routine, and some knowledge of navigation and engineering. In many cases it became known afterwards that some members of the gang had travelled on the ship previously, so as to make themselves familiar with it. A piracy of this kind required at least two dozen men, who boarded the ship along with the other passengers, with weapons concealed in their baggage. At a prearranged time a simultaneous attack would be mounted on the ship's key points—bridge, engine room, radio cabin, and saloon; often a meal time being chosen when everyone not on duty would be congregated in the saloon. While the ship was being taken to her destination under the supervision of a few pirates on the bridge and in the engine room, the others were robbing the passengers and broaching the most valuable cargo. As the destination was invariably Bias Bay or Mirs Bay, the piracy would take place as near there as possible, so as to reduce the time the ship was under pirate control and out of communication with Hong Kong. The average coaster never had more than seven or eight European officers, and if the attack were well-timed they could all be immobilized in the first few minutes of the attack. There was usually little resistance from the Chinese crew, and a few men in the engine room and on the bridge were able to take the ship to its destination. There always seemed to be some pirates ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 128 BENHAM, Miss M. E. M. Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., BERTOVICH, Miss R. C. BERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G. BEVERIDGE, R. J. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. + BLACK, D. BLACKMORE, M. BLAKER, D. J. R. - BLATCHFORD, C. H, BLUE, A. D. - T BLUNDEN, Prof. E. C. BOAK, C. D. BOARD, D. B. M.* BODILLY, Mrs. M. BOLLMEYER, Mrs. H. BONSALL, G. W. BORDWELL, J. H. BORGEEST, G. BOXER, B. BOYD, J. D. I. BRAGA, J. M. BRAUN, F. 7 ד BREUIL, Mrs. N. du - BRITTON, Mrs. N. M. BROMHALL. J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BROWN, Miss B. BROWN, Mrs. D. L. + - - + + + H.K. R.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa. U.S.A. Italian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan. University Press, Hong Kong University, Pokfulum, H.K. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon, Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland, Dept. of History, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K. New Asia College, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. c/o World Wide Shipping, Cornes & Co., C. P. O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan. Merton College, Oxford University, England. Dept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K. 12A Mt. Nicholson Road, H.K. c/o W. F. Bollmeyer & Co. (H.K.) Ltd., Rooms 408-9 Yu To Sang Building, H.K. Flat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K. P. O. Box 25, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. Dept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A. c/o Political Adviser, Colonial Secretariat, H.K. P. O. Box 951, H.K, 8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. 6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K. Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K. Medical Rehabilitation Centre, L. 254 Kun Tong, Kowloon, Chatham Galleries, 103 Chatham Road, Kowloon. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 144 BOOK REVIEWS Iyer," a revised transcription of a UNESCO radio broadcast in April 1959. This was the origin of both the book and its title. PHILIP SHEN Chung Chi College The Chinese University of Hong Kong. THE CHINESE IN PHILIPPINE LIFE 1850-1898, Edgar Wickberg. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1965. 280 pages. For students and scholars interested in Southeast Asian studies this is an illuminating book. It discusses the Chinese in the Philippines during the period from the date of the changed Spanish policy on the status of Chinese in 1850 to the end of Spanish rule in the Philippines in 1898. The limited number of serious studies that have previously been made of the Chinese in the Philippines have concentrated on the problems of the twentieth-century community. However, since many important features of Philippine economy and society are traceable to developments in the latter half of the nineteenth century, this period comprises the formative years of modern Philippine economic and social life. Professor Wickberg's book is the first exhaustive research on a period of significant change of the Chinese in the Philippines. It concentrates on their institutions, and on their relations both with their host society and with China. The fully documented book is supplemented by maps, showing Manila and other areas in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and includes reproductions of paintings, vividly showing the dress fashions of Chinese and Chinese mestizos in the mid-nineteenth century. There is a glossary of Chinese names and terms, and a comprehensive bibliography listing published works in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese, on Chinese both in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and on other topics relative to Southeast Asian studies. The sources of unpublished material used are also listed. The book begins with a lucid narrative of the Philippine Chinese before 1850. The Chinese had early contacts with the Philippine Archipelago and were directly involved in the economic and social affairs of the Philippines long before the arrival of the Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 173 BENHAM, Miss M. E. M. Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., BENT, Miss Dora BERTOVICH, Miss R. C. BERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G. BEVERIDGE, R. J. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. BLACKMORE, M. BLAKER, D. J. R. BLUE, A. D. BOAK, C. D. BOARD, D. B. M.* BONSALL, G. W. BORDWELL, J. H. BORGEEST, G. Nethersole Hospital, Bonham Road, H.K. R.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa., U.S.A. Italian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan. University Press, Hong Kong University, Pokfulum, H.K. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon, Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland, Dept. of History, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K. Chief Engineer, M.V. "World Yuri", World Wide (Shipping) Ltd., c/o Cornes & Co., C.P.O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan, Dept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K. Flat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K. P. O. Box 25, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. BORRELL, Rev. Bro. O. W. St. Francis Xavier's College, 45 Sycamore Street, Kowloon. BOXER, Prof. B. BRAGA, J. M. BRAUN, F. BREUIL, Mrs. N. du BRITTON, Mrs. N. M. BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BROWN, Miss B. BROWNE, H. J. C. BRUCE, Robert BRUUN, F. BUNGER, Dr. Karl Dept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A. P. O. Box 951, H.K. 8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. 6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K. Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K. Medical Rehabilitation Centre, L254 Kwun Tong, Kowloon. c/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. 908 Takshing House, H.K. Consul General, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1, Duddell Street, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g # PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1966 During 1966, the seventh year since its revival in the Colony, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society has achieved a gratifying and encouraging success. It continued to diversify its activities and in addition to the regular lectures, a list of which is appended, it published its sixth volume of the Journal while a most successful Symposium was organised under the Chairmanship of Dr. Marjorie Topley in association with Mr. Ma Meng and Mr. James Hayes who also organised an interesting and instructive tour of the old temples and shrines of the Tai Ping Shan district of the island. The lectures given at the Symposium entitled “The Natural and Supernatural in Chinese Social Life and the Role of some Traditional Conceptions in Hong Kong today" covered a wide variety of subjects on cultural, scientific and practical subjects. The Symposium endeavoured to exploit the rich field which Hong Kong affords for the study of the history, life and customs of the Chinese people and to record the traditional patterns of their everyday life before they die out. In this work Dr. Marjorie Topley and her associates repeated the success of the 1964 Symposium, "Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories". Particularly noteworthy was the number of papers and talks by distinguished Chinese medical experts who took part in the discussions. The Society is under a great obligation to Dr. Topley and Mr. James Hayes for their zeal and hard work and I should like to record our deep appreciation also of the valuable contributions of Dr. Gerald Choa, Dr. F. I. Tseung, Dr. P. M. Yap and Mr. K. M. A. Barnett as well as that of Mr. Timothy Birch of Radio Hong Kong who led the discussion panel. The results of these studies are being edited by Dr. Topley and recorded in a booklet to be published this year which is likely to be as much in demand as that of 1964 which has now been sold out and will have to be reprinted. The annual Journal, of which the sixth volume appeared last year, continues to maintain its popularity as well as the high standard of scholarship and of editorial capacity set at the outset by Mr. Cranmer-Byng and continued last year with great distinction by Mr. Uhalley who, to our great loss, has left Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 84 A. D. BLUE China coasters came from all parts of the Commonwealth, but with a preponderance of English, Irish, Scots, and Welshmen. There was never any lack of Welshmen, and no coaster was complete without its Jones or Evans, invariably prefixed by 'Dai' or 'Taffy'. Australians and New Zealanders were not uncommon, and there were also a few Anglo-Indians. In my time, however, I can recall only one Canadian and one South African. One pleasant feature of coast life was the friendship and harmony between deck and engine departments, something still too rare on home ships. The small number of Europeans on the average coaster may have contributed to this, seldom more than three mates and four engineers, with the radio officer often a Hong Kong Chinese. The riverboats were a special species of 'China coaster', and many of their officers spent their entire careers on the Yangtse. The Lower Riverboats, which ran between Shanghai and Hankow, operated a fortnightly schedule, of which three days were spent in Shanghai and two in Hankow. During the summer months of high water, however, some Lower Riverboats continued to Ichang, which extended their schedule to three weeks. Jardines, the China Navigation Company, and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company each had a daily sailing from Shanghai to Hankow, calling at the intermediate ports, of which the most important were Chinkiang, Nanking, Wuhu, Anking, Kiukiang, and Yochow and Shasi on the Middle River between Hankow and Ichang. The China Navigation Company's Lower Riverboats left the French Bund at three o'clock in the morning, so that they could navigate the tricky Lungshan Crossing at the estuary in daylight, and it was not unknown for junior officers to miss their ship. By catching an early morning train from Shanghai, however, they could rejoin at Nanking in the afternoon, an extreme form of pierhead jump. If riverboat men were a special species of 'China coaster', the men who sailed on the Upper Yangtse were a distinct sub-species. The Upper Riverboats ran between Ichang and Chungking, the section of the Yangtse which included the famous and spectacular Yangtse Gorges. The men on these ships had some justification for considering themselves the aristocrats of the China coast. The slightest error in navigation, or the slightest engine mishap, would almost certainly have meant a serious casualty. The Gorge boats ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 190 BENHAM, Miss M. E. M. - Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., H.K. BENIANS, S. M. BENNETT, Frank C., Jr. - BENT, Miss Dora BERNADETTE, Sister Maura BERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.* BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. BLACKMORE, M. BLAKER, D. J. R. BLUE, A. D. BOARD, D. B. M.* BONSALL, G. W. BORDWELL, J. H. BORGEEST, G. BOXER, Prof. B. BRAGA, J. M. BRAUN, F. + BREGMAN, R. U. BRIGGS, G. G. - + + + - + BRITTON, Mrs. N. M. BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BROWN, Miss B. BROWNE, H. J. C. BRUCE, Robert BUNGER, Dr. Karl + + - - - c/o Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., Jardine House, H.K. c/o United States Consulate General, Garden Road, H.K. Nethersole Hospital, Bonham Road, H.K. The Maryknoll Sisters, Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon. Lungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon, Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland. Dept. of History, H.K. University, H.K. c/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K. Chief Engineer, M.V. "World Yuri", World Wide (Shipping) Ltd., c/o Cornes & Co., C.P.O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan, c/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K. Flat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K. P. O. Box 25, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. Dept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A. P. O. Box 951, H.K. 8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K. University Surgical Unit, Queen Mary Hospital, H.K. The Supreme Court, H.K. 6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K. Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K. Medical Rehabilitation Centre, L254 Kwun Tong, Kowloon. c/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. Consul General, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1, Duddell Street, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 202 BRIGGS, G. G. BRIM, John A. BRITTON, Mrs. N. M. • + BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. BROWN, Miss B. BROWNE, Hon. H. J. C. BRUCE, Robert BUNGER, Dr. Karl BURTON, Miss Jill V. BUTT, Dr. Nancy S. G. - CALCINA, P. G.* + CAMERON, N. CAPLAN, M. – - CAREY-HUGHES, Dr. J. CARLSON, Miss R. E. CATER, J. CHAMBERS, J. W. CHAN, Alfred T. - CHAN, Gilbert Fook-lam CHAN, Leonard CHAU, Sir Tsun-nin* CHEN, Ching-Ho CHEN, Prof. Cheng-siang CHEN, Yih + + + J + + + - The Supreme Court, H.K. c/o Universities Service Centre, 155 Argyle Street, Kowloon. 6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K. Fish Fisheries Research Station, The Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, 7th Floor, Prince's Building, H.K. Medical Rehabilitation Centre, L254 Kwun Tong, Kowloon. c/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. Consul General, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1, Duddell Street, H.K. 807 The Hermitage, MacDonnell Road, H.K. The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen. H.K. Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K. A-9 Repulse Bay Towers, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. 6. Homantin Hill Road, Kowloon. Room 315 Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. 4, Mansfield Road, Flat 13, 6/F., H.K. c/o Trade Development Council, H.K. c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. Coronet Court, 14/F “H”, North Point, H.K. La Belle Mansion, 118-120 Argyle Street, 7th floor, Flat A, Kowloon, c/o Pfizer Eastern Corporation, G.P.O. Box 2513, Bangkok, Thailand. 8 Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong. New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon. Geographical Research Centre, Chinese University of Hong Kong, On Lee Building, 545 Nathan Road, Kowloon, 406A Bank of East Asia Building, H.K. *Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 184 BELL, G. J. BENANZIO, Dr. Mario BERKOWITZ, Dr. M. I, BERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.* BEVERIDGE, R. J. BEYENS, Baron F. BIRCH, Dr. A. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. BLACKMORE, M. BLAKER, D. J. R. BLUE, A. D. BLUNDELL, G. S. BOARD, D. B. M.* BONSALL, G. W. BORDWELL, H. H. BORGEEST, G. BOXER, Prof. B. BRAGA, J. M. BRAUN, F. BRIDGES, G. A. BRIGGS, G. G. BRIM, J. A. BROMHALL, J. D. BROOKS, D. E. Royal Observatory, H.K. 189 Ampang Road, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. c/o Dept. of Sociology, University of Pittsburg, Pa., USA. Lungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy. c/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale, Melbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia. Room 145, Alexandra House, H.K. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon, Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K. c/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K. "Upper Woodburn", 19 Millig Street, Helensburgh, Scotland. D-4 Silverstrand, 94 Mile Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon. c/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K. c/o The University Library, University of Hong Kong, HK. P. O. Box 25, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. Dept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ. East Lansing, Michigan 48823, U.S.A. P. O. Box 951, H.K. 8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K. c/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. The Supreme Court, H.K. c/o Universities Service Centre, 155 Argyle Street, Kowloon. c/o Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K. Radio Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 100 K. M. A. BARNETT For a Chinese in particular, and in still more particular a Chinese brought up in Hong Kong, I am going to make myself unpopular and say it would be a miracle if any of them really did obtain a thorough grasp of English without first learning Latin, quite a lot of Latin, and some Greek. He needs the Greek because English has (perhaps unconsciously) borrowed a lot of its flexibility from Greek. Then, building on that foundation, he needs to read and read: some Shakespeare and Milton, of course, for they are two cornerstones of the English language, but still more he should read, whatever his religion, large chunks of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. Just as any student of Greek must read Plato, regardless of whether he approves of Plato's philosophy, so any student of English who keeps away from the Bible because he is neither a Christian nor a Jew is throwing away the most fruitful source book: for every English person, even the modern pagans, even those who for Scripture teaching use some other version (e.g., the Revised), still falls back in his ordinary speech on the diction and rhythms of the Authorized Version. LAT Having read and learned by heart the basic speech patterns of the language, it is then safe for him to jump to such modern exponents as G. Bernard Shaw; yes, I would advise jumping all that way, leaping over the 18th and early 19th century writers; you can always go back for them afterwards. But in making this big leap you need an inquiring mind and a patient teacher. Why does Shaw always write ARN'T I? when you have been taught AM I NOT and so forth. At this point I could bewail the lack of an efficient method of writing either (or any) language. Cadmus' alphabet is as unsuitable for any modern language as LI HSIH's: though both were miracles in their day. G. B. Shaw must be grinning wryly at the damp squib his legacy turned out. But although it would be a fine thing if someone would bequeath a few millions to our universities to put a good team working on something of lasting value—a way to record, faithfully, the 15 or so local languages—don't forget that we have a way. The tape recorder makes it possible for the prose or poetry writer of today, in any language whether or not it has a writing, to compose exactly as he wishes it to go. So another piece of advice to the student: ask for a library of recorded radio scripts. But avoid 94 Page 105 Page 106 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 110 K. M. A. BARNETT has to be a special particle to take care of the general aspect of nouns of all classes. In Cantonese this particle is the word DHE, pronounced always with the short "flat" i which Turkish writes without a dot, and is spelt I in English words like SIT. There is no real character for the word, and unfortunately many of those who hold themselves out as "teachers" without first properly learning what they profess to teach, confuse this particle with DHI (meaning "a small quantity of") which has the other vowel which English usually writes EE, and then they write them both with the unsuitable made-up character having XAO on the left and DHEK on the right70. There is another indicator of the "general" state of nouns. When governed by a noun or pronoun in the possessive case, "particular" nouns have the possessive pronoun or noun prefixed directly; "general" nouns either have the particle DHE, just described, or the possessive particle GEA, never both. As GEA is not used thus before the "particular” noun, which includes any demonstrative pronoun or numeral, you see that GEA also can denote that the noun following it is "general" (I am sorry that Radio Hong Kong's Cantonese classes mis-teach this idiom). Thus my car (or sewing machine) is NGOR-GAA-CHEAH72 or NGOR-NHIGAA-CHEAH73. My two cars (or sewing machines) is NGOR-LREOR-NGGAA-CHEAH. My cars and sewing machines in the generality would be either NGOR-DHE-CHEAH15 or NGOR-GEA-CHEAH6 which may be thus distinguished: class "my things", sub-class "cars or sewing machines" use NGOR-DHE. Class "cars and sewing machines" sub-class "mine" use NGOR-GEA. But you will find this usage is pretty flexible, except that you'll never find both GEA and DHE. Similarly the GEA that winds up a relative clause drops off before the "particular" noun which follows it. Although I did not wish to get bogged down in details of pronunciation, it is worth looking at the pattern of stresses when phrases of this description are used in Cantonese. In English we 70啲 74 **** 75 我啲車 72 我架車 73 我呢架車 76 我嘅車 71 4 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 218 BROOKS, D. E. BROWNE, Hon. H. J. C. BRUCE, R. BRUUN, F. BUNGER, Dr. K. BUTLER, Miss B. A. - BUTT, Dr. Nancy S. G. - c/o Radio Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon. c/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K. c/o Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona 86301, U.S.A. c/o H. Tonkin & Co., 908 Takshing House, H.K. 532 Bad Godesberg, Lukas-Cranach-Str. 14, Germany. c/o Public Services Commission, Room 573 Central Government Offices, 5th Floor, H.K. c/o The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen, H.K. BUTTERFIELD, Mrs. Ellen 5K Bowen Road, Ground Floor, H.K. CALCINA, P. G.* - CAMERON, N. CAPLAN, M. - CAREY-HUGHES, Dr. J. CARLSON, Miss R. E. - CATER, Hon. J. CENTRE OF ASIAN STUDIES CERRA, R. L. CHAMBERS, J. W. CHAN, Alfred T. CHAN, Gilbert Fook-lam CHAN, Leonard CHAU, Sir Tsun-nin* CHEETHAM, Mrs. J. A. CHEN, Prof. Cheng-siang Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K. A-9 Repulse Bay Towers, Repulse Bay Road, H.K. 6, Homantin Hill Road, Kowloon. Room 315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. 2C Ridge Court, 2nd floor, 21 Repulse Bay Road, H.K. c/o Dept. of Commerce and Industry, Fire Brigade Building, H.K. University of Hong Kong, H.K. Yau Yat Chuen, No. 18 Fa Po Street, Flat B-7, Kowloon. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. Coronet Court, 14th Floor, “H”, North Point, H.K. La Belle Mansion, 118-120 Argyle Street, 7th floor, Flat A, Kowloon. c/o Pfizer Eastern Corporation, G.P.O. Box 2513, Bangkok, Thailand. 8 Queen's Road, West, Hong Kong. B2, Bowen Hill, 12 Peak Road, H.K. c/o Geographical Research Centre, C.U.H.K., 545, Nathan Road, Kowloon, Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 227 BARD, Dr. S. M. BARNES, Mrs. A. M. BARR, Miss E. c/o University Health Service, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum, H.K. Mercantile Bank Ltd., Bombay 1, India. 80 Robinson Road, H.K. BARRETT, Rev. Cyril, S. J. c/o Wah Yan College, Queen's Road, East, H.K. BARRY, Cmdr. R. S. BASHALL, Mrs. C. G. BEDLINGTON, Mrs. M. BELL, G. J. BERKOWITZ, Dr. M. I. BERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.* BEVERIDGE, R. J. BIRCH, Dr. A. BIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. BLACK, D. BLACKMORE, M. BLAKER, D. J. R. BLUE, A. D. BOARD, D. B. M.* BOEHMKE, Mrs. A. Karl BONSALL, G. W. BORGEEST, G. BOXER, Prof. B. BRAGA, J. M. BRAUN, F. BRIDGES, G. A. BRIGGS, G. G. BROOKS, D. E. c/o Hong Kong Club, H.K. c/o H.M. Prison, Stanley, H.K. Unknown. c/o Royal Observatory, H.K. Unknown. Lungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy. c/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale, Melbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia. c/o Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon. Long Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland. Unknown. c/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K. 15, Lansdowne Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland. c/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K. 4, Shouson Hill Road, A-2, H.K. c/o Hong Kong University Press, Pokfulum, H.K. P. O. Box 1058, H.K. 167 Laurel Circle, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, U.S.A. c/o National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia. 8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K. c/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K. c/o The Supreme Court, H.K. c/o Radio Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon. Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 88 G. J. BELL his death also carried his last paper on this subject (and one on atmospheric electricity). When receiving weather reports by radio from ships near the central regions of typhoons he noticed (1925) that radio communication was relatively undisturbed by atmospherics—the crackles and bangs due to lightning discharges. This point was not really appreciated by others until the post-war years when it was found that tropical cyclones could not be reliably tracked with equipment designed to locate lightning flashes (sferics equipment). Some typhoons do contain thunderstorms—they can be almost continuous in the eye wall—but others have none. The reasons for this variable behaviour have not yet been adequately explained. During the war years Fr Gherzi noticed coincidences between certain characteristics of the ionosphere and the air mass prevailing around the sounding station. He considered that the events were not unrelated and went on to use the association as an aid to weather forecasting (1946, 1950). Unfortunately, the matter has proved more complicated than Fr Gherzi implies in his papers and the method has not been adopted for general use. INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL INTERESTS In the Annual Report of the Director, Royal Observatory, Hong Kong for 1927, Mr Claxton wrote: 'Father Gherzi of the Zikawei Observatory, after patient experiments and with the utmost goodwill, has recently inaugurated a short-wave broadcast service by which we obtained at 9 hr 45 min the 6 hr observations from seven stations from the Yangsi and North China. The thanks of all concerned are due to Fr Gherzi for these valuable observations'. By personally receiving the Morse signals from ships and other countries Fr Gherzi helped to maintain good communication standards in the region; he would send terse, admonitory notes to wireless operators or meteorological services who did not follow good practices or keep to schedules. His Observatory was represented at the very first regional meeting of Directors of weather services which was held at Hong Kong in 1930 to decide on codes for signalling tropical cyclones and transmitting weather reports. Subsequently, in April 1934, Fr Gherzi and Mr Jeffries, Director of the Royal Observatory, Hong Kong travelled to Manila together to decide, with the Director of the Manila Observatory Fr M. Selga, on standardised storm warning procedures. Fr Gherzi also attended the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG 181 that the fears of the reluctant officers were justified. A monthly deduction of the order of £14 was made from the home pay of officers who were prisoners of the Japanese. This, added to the uncertainty in all cases of their husbands' fate, caused great concern to wives. Fortunately, at a later date a wiser and more generous course was taken and by the end of the war all money thus deducted had been refunded, In addition to their contributions to the Central Fund, officers gave support in money to individual other ranks, patients and staff, and some were particularly generous. It is pleasing to record the generous gifts made from their pay by officer prisoners. The greatest contribution to our energy requirements was undoubtedly made by the rice in our diet. As an aside on this, my wife told me that when listening to the daily broadcasts on food by the Radio Doctor at that time, Dr. Charles Hill, she heard him say that rice was not a good diet. (It was probably in short supply at home at the time). Incensed, she wrote to him saying that his statement was most disheartening for families who had relatives who were prisoners in Japanese hands, knowing that rice was their staple diet. Needless to say she got no reply but ended up wiser in the arts of propagandists. Because of our dependence upon rice, that part of money spent and gifts devoted to general messing was used on purchases designed to make the wearisome rations more palatable, and also to provide a supplement on the lean days when boiled rice and vegetables were the only food available. If judged solely by calorie values the proportion of energy supplied in the general diet from money contributed by officers and from the gifts of our Hong Kong friends was not large. The money, though, bought substances which were invaluable in giving men some interest in their food and thus in making better use of it. Adding together the value of gifts received from visitors and purchased using money contributed by officers my records show the following additions to the daily of all receiving general rations Protein G Fat Carbohydrate G. 1943. One week in Jan. 7.9 12.6 28.6 Average for June. 3.0 2.0 9.0 Average for Dec. 2.0 3.0 6.0 1944. - Average for March. 1.6 3.6 12.6 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG 231 more than a casual call during an afternoon's stroll but I would never have expected such a call to have been made by chance and at the very least they probably wanted to see for themselves the conditions in which we were guarded. When they left the guards and ourselves resumed our normal behaviour, not unlike the chattering of birds, stilled while the hawk is overhead and resumed when the danger has passed. It is not difficult now to attribute some at least of the searches which took place about this time to the prevailing mood of the Japanese in Hong Kong. Suspicion of foreigners had been fostered assiduously in Japan before the war and xenophobia flourished exceedingly when war began. The turn of the tide against the Axis powers I suppose did nothing to soften this feeling. In Hong Kong Dr. Selwyn-Clarke was arrested in May 1943 to face charges some of which sound grotesque, and I have given a short account of his subsequent experiences. In July 1943 the Japanese gendarmerie arrested a number of men in Sham Shui Po. Under torture the names of others who had sent and received messages from Waichow via Chinese drivers of ration lorries were extracted and Colonel L.A. Newnham late Middlesex Regiment, G.S.O.1 British Troops in Hong Kong, Captain D. Ford 2 Royal Scots and Flight-Lieutenant Gray, R.A.F., were implicated. These three officers were tried by Japanese Court martial in Stanley in December 1943 and shot the same month. They had endured interrogation, a word now thoroughly debased, for many months and their condition at the end was described as deplorable. Against the background of events outside which I have just described we were in a position of some privilege in Bowen Road, but it seems likely that there was some link between the two situations. It could easily be that the Japanese inspections of some of our medical and electrical equipment was carried out by men capable of detecting apparatus usable for radio communications. Some of the searches certainly seemed aimed at the detection of concealed radio apparatus. We were lucky that nothing on which suspicion could feed was discovered, but my scalp always crawled a little while the searches were in progress. We had a number of visits from Japanese doctors who wanted to see our patients, principally at this time those partially blinded by the deficiency diseases. My diary records that we found one such doctor, a lieutenant-colonel, to be courteous to our patients. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG 259 arrived accompanied by interpreters and the Japanese sent in 3000 packets of cigarettes, 12 bottles of saki, 36 tins of coffee, 40 kilos of salt, 180 kilos of sugar, 240 tins of milk, 48 kilos of butter and a sack of coffee beans. We were now doing very well because Major Crewe a R.A.S.C. officer came from Sham Shui Po to learn what supplies we needed and brought with him 26 pints of fresh milk which we gratefully received. Mr. C.E. D'Almeida brought us a gramophone and records and other gifts from 10 Ice House Street, and promised us supplies of drugs free which he was going to send over. A refrigerator and five bread tins came from the Red Cross in Hong Kong and I was told that stores were arriving the next day from Sham Shui Po for us to split between internees, Indian prisoners and ourselves. The internees numbered about 300, including sick and about 30 children. I was able to meet a request from Sham Shui Po for various regulations including Kings Regulations and Financial Instructions. On 22 August we arranged with Colonel Field for all our Q.A. sisters to return, and Saito and Sekiguchi came to ask what they could do. The Governor of Hong Kong had been removed from the Colony by the Japanese and Mr. Gimson who had been Colonial Secretary at the time of our capitulation came with Mr. Nakimura from the Japanese Foreign Affairs Department. Major Lamb R.A.S.C. had been appointed to take charge of supplies and his policy was for us to rely upon Japanese rations supplemented by Red Cross stores and to indent on Sham Shui Po for our additional needs. A radio, with some mugs and gifts of milk were gratefully received by us from Mr. C.E. D'Almeida and gifts also came from Messrs. Ruttonjee of 11 Duddell Street. Eight of our civilians left for Stanley with Mr. Gimson and were delighted to go. The radio was working well indeed and on 23 August I asked Dr. Selwyn-Clarke to get us some vegetables, fruit, invalid jellies and flour. I telephoned Nomura about our records and on 24 August I wrote to Colonel Tokunaga formally requiring the return of our hospital records. Mr. Campbell and I presented this letter to him personally at Japanese headquarters in the presence of Nomura. I said that we held Tokunaga personally responsible and he accepted the letter. A batch of 19 visitors arrived from Stanley including two children, and we had to put them up overnight because of stormy weather in the harbour. British headquarters now required us to set out prominently a sign, "P.W." each letter to be 20 feet by 20 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 262 DONALD C. BOWIE A R.A.F. sergeant got married on 28 August and Miss M. da Roza, a local lady offered her services as a masseuse for our patients. At this time I had to deal with complaints arising from long standing antagonisms in P.O.W. camps now openly displayed after long repression. I am glad to say that this phase subsided eventually without overt official action becoming necessary. We also prepared a system of recording the medical condition of Hong Kong Volunteers before they were freed to their homes in the Colony. Doctor Newton, the deputy Chief Medical Officer in the civil medical service, took charge of the Internee Camp nearby and we were allotted a motor car which we shared with the Indian camp. It was on 28 August that Saito came in with Hasegawa after 9 p.m. and told me formally that all our medical records had been burned about 15 August along with their own records which the Japanese were burning at that time. As I have reported earlier I got his written acknowledgement that these records had been destroyed and also that none of the plain clothes removed by him from us remained. My diary records that I spoke sternly on this matter, which must have given me some pleasure at the time. By now a party was going each day from the hospital to visit relatives and friends in Stanley. The journey was made by ferry and took about two hours. On 29 August some planes came over just after 7 a.m. and some food and cigarettes were dropped later the same day in Sham Shui Po. Included in the drop were some medical boxes and my diary records that the contents of these came as a marvellous revelation to us. We were doing well about this time because the Japanese delivered about eleven thousand packets of cigarettes and jam to us and we heard that British warships and aircraft carriers had been seen off Stanley. On 30 August planes were flying over Hong Kong all morning and a B.B.C. radio report said that the fleet had come. Nomura asked for lists of our patients and I required him to come and get these himself. This action was possibly required of him by our relieving force. True enough a large fleet came into harbour on 30 August, which was 14 days after the Japanese surrender. This delay seemed a long time to us but the arrival of the fleet brought to an end a confused situation in which we were increasingly managing our own affairs. We sent our car for Admiral Harcourt to go to Sham Shui Po and he later went round our hospital with Mr. Gimson who Page 270 Page 271 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 176 A. D. BLUE Chinese shipping in these years, and anti-Japanese boycotts led to the virtual disappearance of Japanese shipping for long periods. Not that these last few years were trouble-free for British ships. There were also anti-British boycotts, brushes with pirates, war lords, and lawless soldiers, and the famous 'Wanhsien Incident' of 1926 which has already been described. Then when Japan gained control of the Lower Yangtze at the end of 1937, the British presence on the Yangtze rapidly declined. Hankow became the capital before Nanking fell to the Japanese in December 1937, and Chungking succeeded Hankow before the latter fell in October 1938. As the Japanese moved up the river the British steamers moved ahead of them as far as possible, maintaining an increasingly restricted service, which by mid 1940 had been reduced to infrequent trips between Chungking and Wanhsien. During this period many Lower River steamers were abandoned. By mid 1940 the situation had become impossible, fuel was unobtainable, and the last few British officers were evacuated from Chungking by the new road to Kunming, then by the French railway to Haiphong, and finally by sea to Hong Kong. At this time there were two Royal Navy gunboats still at Chungking, H.M. Ships Falcon and Gannet. The former remained to act as radio link for the British Embassy, while the latter was decommissioned and her crew sent to Hong Kong by the same route. Soon after this the Japanese occupied Indo-China, and the Haiphong-Kumming-Chungking lifeline was also denied China. The Chungking-Kunming road was then extended to Burma, and became China's most important route to the outside world, fulfilling the dreams of earlier generations of China traders. This was the famous Burma Road, sometimes identified with the whole 1,000 miles from Rangoon to Chungking, but more accurately with the 600 miles from Lashio (the railhead 130 miles above Mandalay) to Kunming. Thus, after decades of neglect and oblivion, the Burma Road into China was restored to international importance. It was again disrupted when the Japanese conquered Burma in early 1943; but re-opened along a new western route when General Stilwell's American and Chinese forces built a road through North Burma to link Assam with the eastern section of the Burma Road. This route played a vital part in the Allied reconquest of Burma, Malaya, and Indo-China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945 37 fruit and ice cream for the children. In their departure there was promise that our own repatriation would follow. The writer's own repatriation did not follow until the war ended. Soon after the second repatriation, the Camp was stunned by the news of the executions of seven internees who had been involved in possessing a radio set. The troubles had begun in April 1943, when the Japanese arrested several internees concerning the radio set and passing messages in and out of Camp on the ration truck. Military trials were held and the seven internees were sentenced to death. On October 29, 1943, a group of children passing the prison saw a van drive out. As it went by, English voices shouted out, “Goodbye, boys". The van drove down to the jetty in Stanley Bay and internees at Bungalow C, as well as others, saw seven men walk from the van to the hillside. They knelt beside trenches and were shot. Apparently to lessen the impact of the executions, the Japanese announced that about 700 persons would be repatriated "shortly". This never took place. 1943 was a particularly bad year. In April, an internee returning from treatment at St. Paul's Hospital in Causeway Bay was found to have a large sum of money hidden under his bandages. At this time a number of British bankers, including Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, the Chief Manager of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, had been kept in the city to work on liquidating non-Axis assets in the bank. Furthermore, the Director of Medical Services, Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, had been allowed to remain in the city to assist with medical matters. Soon after the discovery of the money, both Sir Vandeleur Grayburn and Dr. Selwyn-Clarke were arrested. Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke and Lady Grayburn were sent into Stanley. In August 1943, Sir Vandeleur Grayburn died in Stanley Prison. His body was released to the internment camp and medical examination revealed that he had died of malnutrition. He rests today in Stanley cemetery. Dr. Selwyn-Clarke was kept in the prison until December 1944, when he was transferred to Kowloon. In 1975 he published his memoirs, under the title Footprints. Speaking of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, this is a good point to talk about medical treatment in camp. The internees were fortunate that * Sino-American Publishing Co., Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 256 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: PARR, M. J. · · · PARRINGTON, Miss J. PARRY, R. H. · + PAUL, Mr. & Mrs. A. M. PEACOCK, B. PERESYPKIN, O. P. + + Wardley Ltd., G.P.O. Box 8983, Hong Kong. Arts Faculty Office, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. The Marine Dept., 102 Connaught Road, C., Hong Kong. 9, Jade House, 47C Stubbs Road, Hong Kong. Museum of History, Star House 4/Fl., Kowloon, P.O. Box 1382, Hong Kong. PETERS, Mr. & Mrs. R. K. 15, Magazine Gap Road, Hong Kong. PICKFORD, J. B. PNIEWSKI, T. J. PORDES, F. PRENTICE, E. PRESCOTT, J. A. PRYOR, Dr. E, G. - QUESTED, Dr. R. K. I. - RAM, Mrs. J. - REID, A. J. H. REYNOLDS, Prof. W.. A. RICHARDS. Mr. & Mrs. S. F. RIBEIRO, Mrs. S. RIELY, Miss C. C. - RIGG, Mrs. J. R. · E/M Department, Public Works Dept., Caroline Hill, Hong Kong. 'Serious Music', Radio Hong Kong, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon. 47/50 Gloucester Road, Lap Heng Building 1/F, Hong Kong. Flat 7, 94C Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 67B Perkins Road, Jardine's Lookout, Hong Kong. Colony Planning Division, Crown Lands & Surveys Office, Murray Building, Hong Kong. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 80 Kennedy Road, Lee Building, Hong Kong. Kleinwort Benson (H.K.) Ltd., Wing Lung Bank Building 9/FL, 45 Des Voeux Road C, Hong Kong. 19, Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Far Eastern Economic Review, P.O. Box 160, Hong Kong. ROBERTSON, Mrs. A. G. - 5A, Hatton House, 15 Kotewall Road, Hong Kong. ROBERTSON, Mrs. W. G. Park Mansion, 4 Mile Tai Po Road 1/Fl., Kowloon, RODGERS, R. D. - B1 Harbour View Mansions, 11 Magazine Gap Road, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 36 REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS tions were flying thick and fast from both sides. Everybody was happy and elated, and when we retired it was with the thought of arising the next day to celebrate the glorious Feast of our Blessed Lady, Her Immaculate Conception, and to make preparations for our trip to the missions. December eighth in the Far East and December seventh in the Western world! Maryknoll at Stanley rose as usual. Masses and breakfast followed and shortly after we were electrified by the report that Kai Tak airport had been bombed at 7:45 and that the Pan American Clipper which brought our new missioners had been destroyed. WAR! And Hong Kong is in the news! Being eleven miles over the mountains from Hong Kong we had, of course, heard nothing of the bombing, and were inclined to believe that the whole thing was a hoax of some kind. But soon we were entirely disillusioned when the radio flashed news of Pearl Harbor and when shortly after tiffin the planes flew over Stanley and dropped a few bombs to the west of us, apparently over the sea. We tried to get news from Hong Kong over the telephone but nobody seemed to know just what was happening. We anxiously gathered around the radio and tried to pick up what news we could. Evidently, war was on in earnest and America and we were involved. About five o'clock in the afternoon, our telephone jangled and we heard the voice of His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, saying that all his Italian priests had been interned by the British Government, and that he would like to have Father Downs come to help him out at the Cathedral. His priests were given only a short time in which to pack up their personal belongings and were immediately taken away to a destination which was not disclosed to the Bishop. Father Downs hastily packed his suit case and caught the half past five bus for Hong Kong, and it must be confessed, with no little trepidation. The trip to the city was a tense one. Along the route the bus was stopped periodically by the British sentries, inspected and finally diverted by way of Aberdeen, instead of the usual Happy Valley route. The whole city, too, was tense, and though the downtown streets were crowded, there was fear and uneasiness everywhere. At the Cathedral were His Excellency, Father Rosello, a Spanish priest attached to the Cathedral and Father Craig S.J., from Wah Yan College, as also a few young Chinese priests. His Chancellor, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46 55 expected at any minute, especially when we passed a level spot of ground, to be ordered to turn around and face a firing squad. Half way down our driveway a plane was heard overhead and our guards herded us over to the bank at the side of the road so as to be out of sight of the aviator. Here, while waiting for the plane to disappear, our guards noticed two watches. Mine was one and its small chain was dangling from my pocket. The guard came over, pulled out the watch, looked at it, hesitated (for it was not a wrist watch and they were more in demand) and then deciding it might do, yanked it free from its clasp and resumed his post. The plane by this time having disappeared, the guards marshalled us in line again and off we started, wondering where we were bound for and what was going to happen to us. Some thought we were going to be taken to Repulse Bay for internment, but as we got to the foot of our hill we turned not left, but right, towards Stanley Village, but instead of continuing on we were routed up a small driveway which led to an unused road just behind the Carmelite Convent. As we passed an open space where a number of soldiers were standing, I again thought of a firing squad, but we kept marching on until turning up another bypath, we were told to halt. This dead end of the road had been cut out of the hill and we were thus pretty well protected from flying bullets, for the fighting was still going on, at least sporadically. Here we noticed a higher ranking officer than we had hitherto seen, and he had with him a portable radio or telephone set, probably the latter as wires were in evidence along the ground. We were ordered to sit or squat down—it was most awkward to sit and to rise with our hands tied behind our backs, but we had to do so again and again. The officer then, using a very few English words, questioned us. We tried to make him understand that we were "church" people, and though puzzled he finally seemed to grasp the significance of this word. After making us sit and rise repeatedly to indicate our nationality—there were in our ranks Americans, British, Canadian, Irish, Polish and Russian, for in addition to us Maryknollers, there were Bishop O'Gara, and Father Charles Murphy, Canadians; Mr. Brown previously mentioned, British (or rather Australian); Brother Bernard the Salesian, Irish; Father Szeliga, Salesian, Polish and a Russian, whom we called Michael, who also had been in the employ of the British. Incidentally, Father ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 87 they may not visit or talk to us. We understand they have been allowed to retain their servants, and have a good supply of food. They have a very small compound in which to recreate. 12-A Mrs. Greensburg, Catholic, died at the Hospital today. No bread today. 13~~One slice for supper. First meal, rice and raisins only. More British internees arrive from Hong Kong; namely, the telegraph and radio men; also the Colonial Secretary. Rumor of a Red Cross ship bringing food to us. It has, in fact, already left San Francisco! 14- Father Quinn leads the songfest. More British arrive in Camp. 15- Sunday. Father Allie preaches in the morning and the Bishop in the afternoon. If you want the impossible done, go to the Maryknoll Sisters. No one may leave or enter this Camp under any consideration, yet today, Sister Paul and two other Sisters wangle permission to do so, from the Japanese officer in the Prison, in order to go to Carmel for vestments and other things for our coming Holy Week ceremonies. They almost get permission to go to the Cathedral in Hong Kong, but were stopped by the gendarmes, who were quite incensed that they had gotten out of the Camp. 16-Father Vincent Walsh quite ill, with some former intestinal trouble. He does not go to the Hospital, but the doctors attend to him in his room. At present we have two British doctors, Dr. Hackett and Dr. Talbot, assigned to take care of us Americans. More English arrive. Father Haughey gets his face slapped for some infraction of some kind of a rule. Curfew and roll call now the order of the day. 17-St. Patrick's Day brings us some sunshine. In the evening at St. Stephen's Hall, Father Charles Murphy directs an Irish entertainment, featuring Father Madison in an Irish history skit. After the show, dancing was permitted by the Japanese authorities, in other words, the gendarmes, for they are our keepers. Brother Anthony returns from the Hospital. Mr. Tcheng, the Chinese comprador in charge of our rations, is reported to be seriously ill, and leaves. A Japanese, Mr. Yamashita, now takes charge. This, we hope, augurs an improvement in our food rations. 18 No soya beans since February 24; no salt for three days, and the ration of milk for babies has been reduced. Evidently the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 131 vestments, books, including some of Father Meyer's dictionaries and Father O'Melia's language books, a typewriter or two, an adding machine, and various odds and ends. The officer in charge was quite pleasant and when he was in the building, gave us permission to go to the attic and rummage through the mess on the floor. In the attic, everything which had been stored in the missioners' trunks and boxes, such as clothing, books and other personal articles, was all strewn about on the floor, and the place looked a sight. In the attic, we also came across the large crucifix and two wooden statues from our main chapel and these we were also allowed to take away to the Carmelite Chapel. The Japanese seemed to have a superstitious dread of such things. Once on the bus going to Stanley, we noticed a Chinese girl who evidently worked for the Japanese stationed in our house, carrying a small hand-bag. Looking carefully at it, we noticed it was made out of a silk vestment, for we could see the embroidered border and the monogram IHS. December came again and found us still waiting and hoping for some word about Kwangchauwan, but the Foreign Office was silent. Early in the month there was some talk about further repatriation, and we wrote to Mr. Oda again stating that if we could not go to Kwangchauwan we would like to make application for repatriation. NOVEMBER On the first of the month the Japanese government issued orders that all shortwave radio sets must be turned in to be sealed, after which they would be returned to their owners. At that time there was no radio at Bethany, but we listened to a neighboring one, the owner of which kindly opened his door wide and turned up the radio strong. After the first we still heard the radio news but from other sources. On the 23rd, His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, went to see Mr. Oda at the Foreign Office on a matter of his own. A few weeks previous, one of his Chinese priests, Father Wong, in charge of the mission at Sai Kung, disappeared, and it was feared that he had been killed. Later, Father Terruzzi, the Bishop's Chancellor and right-hand man, went to Sai Kung to look over the ground and he was never seen again. Conflicting reports seeped in concerning his fate, and it seems that in some way or other he was killed and his body thrown into the sea. Of course it is not known by whom, but ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v its street traders, and will continue working eastwards in preparation for the second book, Other activities Apart from the more routine aspects of our work, this year has been a busy one for the Council in other respects. A number of new proposals took shape and have either produced results or show promise for the future. Perhaps the most successful has been a series of eight 15-minute talks on buildings of historical significance, broadcast on English Channel 4 of Radio Hong Kong in February and March 1984. The subjects included Government House, the Supreme Court, Flagstaff House (formerly the General's residence), the Bishop's House and St. Paul's College, together with a number of Chinese buildings, Sam Tung Uk Village, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, Tsang Tai Uk at Shatin and Tai Fu Tai at San Tin. With one exception, these talks were undertaken by Council members of the Society, and the fact that we were able to produce them upon request underlines the Council's combined expertise in this line. I should add that we received excellent support on the production side from Ms Tisa Ng, editor of the series and her staff. This venture has been taken a step further by a proposal to publish the talks in an expanded form with plenty of photographs, and the Hon. Editor has this in hand. We have also been considering a monograph series of publications, reprinting with commentary basic interesting documents from the past, such as the 1899 Lockhart Report on the New Territories and the 1882 Chadwick report on the sanitary condition of Hong Kong. In this connection, we have hopes of entering into a project with Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, whereby we will produce a number of monographs for consideration with a view to yearly joint publications with the Press. Meantime the University Press has requested us to consider sending their annual catalogue of books on oriental studies, mostly on China and Hong Kong, to our members. On the basis of this expected cooperation, and in view of the OUP's prestige and impressive publication programme, we thought it sensible to agree to this proposal. It will benefit members, and all mailing costs are paid by the Press. xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v In fact a pair of monkeys liked the place and seemed to want to join up. They would scamper all around the house as if they owned it. However, as they were not housebroken they were a nuisance. One day a very religious monkey was found in the chapel. He ran into the sacristy and the door was slammed on him. Then the tennis net was brought up to capture him. The door was flung open, and in charged the priests with the net flying. The monkey was so frightened that he smashed right through the window and disappeared in the woods. Apparently he had decided he didn't want to be a monk after all. There were no great incidents at the house till the war came in 1941. Incidentally, I was ordained in 1941 and arrived in Hong Kong the night before Pearl Harbor on the last of the Pan Am Flying Clippers. And today happens to be the anniversary of the starting of the war! It was dusk on that Dec. 7th as we drove from the airfield out to Stanley, so we didn't see much of the city. Next morning when I was saying Mass in the lower chapel, there were big explosions and the altar jumping around. I thought this is probably the way they start every day in the East. Then when I came down to breakfast, the news had been received on the radio that the Japanese were attacking Hong Kong. We also got the first uncensored reports on Pearl Harbor. As the Japanese army gradually conquered Hong Kong Island, many refugees came to take shelter in the house. The Salesian Fathers had brought out a group of orphans and taken over a part of the house. Some military were also quartered in the house. With us nine new arrivals, the staff etc. there were some thirty people. The war started on Monday, so on Tuesday we as aliens had to go downtown to register. The bus went through Aberdeen, right past Mt. Davis, a big British military installation. The Japanese were bombing this all day, and so we spent practically all day jumping on and off buses, diving into the gutters along the roadside or darting into air raid shelters. We arrived in town just in time to catch the last bus home. However, after dark, the bus only went as far as Repulse Bay and we had to walk the rest of the way. With us were two Carmelite Sisters who had been to town to buy provisions for the siege. As we came down the road into Stanley ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x himself (by the President). This is a most interesting book which I commend to members who have not purchased a copy. I would remind them that it is still available to members at a 25% reduction in block orders through the Society. I am also glad to report that the talks given on Radio Hong Kong in 1984 by eight members of the Society on important buildings in Hong Kong, under the title "Heritage Houses”, are now in course of publication by Government Information Service with the editorial assistance of Mr. David Skinner: in short, another joint venture. Photographic Survey Mr. Philip Bruce reported that he has completed photographing and cataloguing the Wanchai area. He is ready to move on to another district. Venues for Lectures during the Year During the year we have continued to use the Museum of History in Kowloon Park whose excellent lecture hall facilities have been made available to us through the courtesy of the Curator. We have been grateful to him and his staff for assistance on these occasions. However, despite the availability of the mass transit railway whose Tsimshatsui station is located outside Kowloon Park and only 5 minutes from the museum, we know that many members prefer the Hong Kong side. We have therefore looked for suitable venues there but with little success so far. We are continuing the search. One of the difficulties lies in the fact that it is not always possible to make bookings well in advance and find lecturers whose schedules meet the chosen dates. A New Home for the Library As stated in last year's report, a new home had to be found for our library after the Hong Kong Art Centre advised its constituent members, of whom we were one, that it would be revising the basis of their participation in the organization. This meant that X ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x Necessary to bring our Society and its activities to public attention. To this end, we have been assisted by media interest. We have to thank the South China Morning Post for an article on the Society which appeared in the Sunday Post Herald in November, 1985, just before our 25th anniversary celebration. There have also been a number of radio interviews on Commercial Radio and RTHK by our Hon. Secretary, Robyn McLean, our Council member, Elizabeth Sinn, and myself, as well as notices placed in the TV and Entertainment Times. Tours We have always been aware that members of the Society have been interested in overseas tours. Experience has shown that these are best arranged for the Society by a member of Council, but because they are busy people this is not always possible. Towards the end of last year we arranged for a questionnaire to be distributed to members on this subject. Some 45 affirmative replies were received indicating a continued strong interest in this area of activity. The matter was debated in the Council where there was divided opinion. Some members considered that we should not arrange tours through a commercial operator because expressed dissatisfaction, with or without reason, with the tour could affect the Society adversely; whilst others felt that this possibility was remote and outweighed by the service rendered to members. The Council voted to carry out one tour this year on a trial basis, and one will probably be organized for September. I wish to thank all members who responded to the questionnaire, and am sorry we have not yet made a written response to keep them informed. Recently another opportunity has presented itself, this time for a Guangdong tour under the auspices of the curator of the Fat Shan Museum. A 2-day guided tour is suggested. If successful, it is hoped that this will be the first of several of the kind. In this connection, the Council is grateful to Dr. David Faure for his initiatives and arrangements. Dr. Anthony Siu is also arranging a visit to Nam Tau (Shenzhen) soon. The Hong Kong Museum of History xiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 50 BARBARA E. WARD sun, and continuous weather watching. Women assisted in most of these jobs, and in addition were responsible for all the interior boat (and house) cleaning, cooking, cutting and collecting fuel and fetching water and, of course, clothes making, washing and mending. The entire care of very young children also fell to them. Unless she was still unmarried and had efficient sisters-in-law or was old with efficient daughters-in-law, a boat woman had virtually no free time. (A third but unlikely possibility would be that she had no children). Those who moved ashore during the 'sixties found life much less exacting. Not going fishing they were neither so fatigued nor so pressed for time, and managing a family household ashore was far less physically uncomfortable and time consuming than on a small boat. The outwork for Hong Kong plastics factories on which the women of Kau Sai were making pin-money in the late 'sixties would not have been possible, even if it had been available, in the early 'fifties. Men had always a little more time for recreation. Gambling (at poker, Russian poker, or mah-jong), talking, listening to the radio, sleeping and playing with young children were their major pastimes. Sometimes they even went fishing, for fishing remained a sport as well as a source of livelihood. At times they would drift into the shops to buy cigarettes and snacks (sweets, cake, aerated water), and when they were working on any major job (sail-making, for example, in the old days, or drying especially large quantities of fish) there would be a mid-day luncheon perhaps cakes or biscuits bought from the shop, or maybe something special cooked on the boat and sent across to them to eat. Birthdays, too, were often marked in this way. By about four o'clock the dried nets and fish were being gathered in, the purse-seiners would be preparing to go out again, the children wandering back or being collected by older brothers or fathers or uncles or cousins, the evening meal being prepared. Then after eating and washing once more the fishermen would be off for the next night's business. At sunset each evening as at sunrise each morning incense was burned for the ancestors and at the prow (where was located the water equivalent of the land- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 78 BARBARA E. WARD and the development of radio weather forecasts directed specifically to the fishing fleets, brought at least a measure of security which was quite new. I have stated that Kau Sai bay was not safe in a typhoon. Under sail the journey to the nearest relatively safe place, Sai Kung, might take anything up to two-and-a-half or even three hours. Given the unpredictability of typhoons any master who did not take his boat, with his family on board, off to Sai Kung at the first intimation of a possibly threatening storm would have been failing in his manifest duty. Many fishing days and nights in the summer were lost in this way. But with an engine there was nowhere in the whole territory which was more than an hour's journey from a typhoon refuge, and the journey itself was not dependent upon the very winds one was hastening to avoid. One of the most vivid and lasting memories of windy days in the summer of 1952 in Kau Sai, the first summer in which the village had had a properly mechanised boat at the anchorage, is of old Chung Fuk Hei chugging about here, there and everywhere to round up the stragglers and tow them into safety. He was unfailingly generous in this self-imposed task, and several times made two or even three journeys back to Kau Sai to make sure that no one was left behind. The lesson that engines spelled safety was very quickly learnt. Safety when proceeding under power was, of course, also a matter of official concern. The prohibition of petrol engines as a safety measure has already been mentioned. With the introduction of small marine diesels the Hong Kong Government, through the Marine Department, devised a simplified form of license for coxswains and engineers in order to make it possible for inshore fishermen with only a few years' schooling to obtain essential minimum skills in navigation and engine maintenance. If this had not been done it would have been necessary for the owners of mechanised junks to employ men with the existing unnecessarily advanced qualifications. Since such men could command salaries well beyond the range of ordinary purse-seiners or small long-liners, the mechanisation of the inshore fishing fleets would never have taken place. At about the time that the first small marine engines made their appearance the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 350 world by first fixing them in the arms of a mounted paper horse rider known as gung-chou, who served as a messenger, and then burning the three (horse, rider, and memorial) together. The other form, known as bong, was posted in a rite on the main day of the festival on a wall, and remained there until the conclusion of the ritual. The scripture chanting/Repentance session took place before the Three Pure Ones three times a day. The manual used was the common Jade Emperor's Repentance Scripture. The sessions were very short. The one I timed lasted only fifteen minutes. The other daily rite was the procession of offerings, which started at the Taoist altar with worship of the Three Pure Ones, then visited all the five faan posts, all the temporary altars and the Jau and Wong Temple, the guardian gods of the paang, and the yau-saan. The procession included flags and banners, and was preceded by a man holding a "spirit summoning flag". At each spot it stopped at, the priests briefly chanted and made offerings. The other (and longer) rites involved a lot of chanting and singing, which, in many cases, nobody could hear clearly. The amplified music of the puppet theatre drowned out any other sound. The only exception was a scholar of religion from the Chinese University of Hong Kong who had the high priest carry a wireless microphone for him and who could therefore listen to the priests' words from a headphone radio and compare them with the manual. My descriptions of the Taoist rites, therefore, are often interpretations of what I saw and heard on the basis of past experience and manuals. 63 E. The Participants List in the Taoist Rites Of the elements of the rites, the villagers probably knew most about the Memorials in their different forms. The women villagers in general knew less about the festival (or they pretended to). When I asked some elderly ladies at the ritual site what da-jiu was all about, they explained that it was heui-lok promised to Jau and Wong, to commemorate them. They suggested that I should ask elderly men instead. It was men who knew more about these things. The knowledge was handed down from one generation to another. But I overheard, during the opening rite, the same group of elderly ladies asking themselves how many priests were reading the Memorial (the one to be burnt). They observed that there was too much noise for them to hear the reading. They explained to me that the names of all the villagers (yan-hau) were being read. The priests Page 375 Page 376 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 424 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. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 161 I have barely scratched the surface in this overview, but it gives the reader an idea of the vibrant state of the Jewish Community in Shanghai at its peak. Jewish Vestiges in Shanghai in the 1980s There were still some physical remains of the Jewish heritage in Shanghai visible during the 1980s. The Cathay Hotel, also known as Sassoon House, at the junction of the Bund and Nanking Road, built by the Sassoon interests, still exists today (October 1991) as a hotel, but has been renamed the Peace Hotel. Its ballroom, venue of many elegant tea dances in the hotel's heyday, is now a restaurant serving Western food. The Ohel Moshe Synagogue in Hongkew is now the isolation ward of the Shanghai Mental Hospital. A photograph taken in 1984 of the Beth Aharon Synagogue shows the dome of the house of worship intact but the Star of David covered by a coat of paint. The US government was asked to intercede to have this synagogue building preserved, but an article by Sam and Mona Kaplan in the Vancouver Bulletin reports that the building has been razed by a bulldozer.28 The Jewish Cemetery was demolished during the Cultural Revolution, but its chapel, as of September 1983, still stood, but as a tea house. Hardoon's Aili Garden became the Shanghai Agricultural Exhibition Hall. Kadoorie's Marble Hall has been transformed into the Children's Palace. NOTES 2 New York Yeshiva University Press, 1976 On a recent trip to Shanghai in September 1991 Mr Bramsen found that his grandfather's home had been razed only the year before There are still a number of former Jewish residents of Shanghai outside China, including Hong Kong. They are generous in sharing their memories, but they are advancing in years and more than a few of them are getting tired of being asked to recite the same things over and again. A PBS radio programme in Los Angeles featured a number of former residents of Shanghai recalling their life, but these were mostly German Jews who were there from the late 1930s to the early 1950s Carl T. Smith, Chinese Christians Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong Hong Kong, Oxford, New York Oxford University Press. 1985 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 210 the day we would be off to the beach annex of the Chefoo Club where there were rowing boats and canoes. From nine in the morning till lunch time and all afternoon a crowd of us were in and out of the water, rowing out to the raft which was a converted junk with diving boards. I got so brown that summer that the mark of the swimming trunks was still visible at Christmas time! Holidays at Home A great part of school life was the holidays at home. Home at this time was in Tung Shan Terrace off Stubbs Road, when my father was building the Chinese Methodist Church in Wanchai—the triangular red brick building at the junction of Hennessy Road and Johnston Road.* This was home not in a flat but a three-story house, with a garden overlooking Happy Valley. At the back we had access to Bowen Road which was a safe place to play as there were no motor vehicles. Those holidays I remember chiefly for rambles up to Sir Cecil's Ride and a major hike over to Tytam from Wong Nei Chong Gap. And we went to a school pantomime at the Central British School (now King George V School) where the bad guy called himself “ZBW my middle name is trouble you" ZBW being the embryo Radio Television Hong Kong. We had our first family car here, an Austin Seven with a folding roof and went for picnics to the beaches at Repulse Bay and Big Wave Bay, and at Stanley where a new prison was being built. Although it was winter in Hong Kong the climate was comfortable for us from the north and we had no hesitation in swimming. — Our journeys home in the winter holidays were considerable undertakings. Of course there was no air travel nor was rail travel possible. Instead we went by sea on the B. & S. ships of the China Navigation Line. These were coasters of about 7,000 tons which made their way up and down the China coast carrying cargoes of all sorts, a small number of passengers in cabins and a much larger number of deck passengers. Sometimes we were able to get a ship that went all the way from Chefoo to Hong Kong but often we had to get off in Shanghai and wait in the China Inland Mission hostel for a suitable connection. Some luckless schoolmaster had to accompany some twenty or so children more as far as Shanghai on these journeys. They were carefree days and I have wondered how we all survived. We would sit up on the taffrail undeterred by the possibility of toppling over into the sea. I remember getting into frightful trouble from practising throwing a penknife into the cabin bulkhead. In the ports we watched *Since demolished [Editor] — Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 76 to the homing instinct of some birds, the salmon's sense of smell and the robin's sensitivity to stellar radiation. A trained person can walk across a field with a forked twig and he or she can say with certainty whether water is present below. The influence given off by the movement of water has been likened to an electric field (Pike, 1945:16 and 24). Similarly, horses during periods of drought will locate an exact spot where water is to be found below in an otherwise waterless district. Dead horses have been seen at such spots, with hoof-marks left on the ground, where the unfortunate animal tried to paw his way to water. As a leftover from our animal past, the skill of divining in which the 'human radio set' picks up cosmic waves, magnetic energy or radioactivity is possessed by different people with varying degrees of sensitivity. 'Listening to the earth' has been likened to developing the powers of clairvoyance. Such fields and lines of currents radiate patterns of energy. They vitalise the countryside. Some spots produce more life, in the form of trees, flowers, animals, birds and minerals, than others. Cows, for example, prefer to stay in parts of a meadow which are places of energy (Pennick, 1979:38). Dowsing, with its 'inner eye', has sometimes been used to trace leylines in Britain (Miller, 1989:26). The author, however, knows of no cases where dowsing has been employed to try to trace the 'dragon veins' of fung shui. Linking Chinese fung shui and dowsing; it is interesting that an old Hakka village in Tsuen Wan, in Hong Kong's New Territories, has a well which was sunk in the position advocated by a fung shui consultant. And even during bad droughts, like that of 1963 when water was on tap for only four hours once every four days, villagers maintain the well always remained 95 per cent full (Leung, 1986:19). Case Study One This paper now examines an actual case of fung shui, at Realty Gardens, 41 Conduit Road, Mid-Levels, on Hong Kong Island, where the author has lived since 1976. The flat in question is situated in the centre block of five blocks. A fung shui master visits the flat annually. It is said to be situated in a good geomantic spot. Many uninitiated Westerners would more likely phrase it as, 'the flat has good spatial orientation'. Both ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 96 In the sub-tropics, in a place like Hong Kong, because of ionisation by the wind or the sun's rays, or during a thunderstorm, static electricity is commonly prevalent. Weather-sensitive people frequently feel 'depressed', irritable and nervy. Many suffer from 'typhoon head', when the atmosphere is 'heavy'. Statistics are said to show there is more violent crime in southern France when the Mistral, a strong, cold, dry wind, blows. The reason people feel such effects is because of electrically charged particles, static electricity, in the atmosphere. Ions, neutral atoms and molecules can release or take on electrons which become electrically charged in the process. Later, after the storm has passed, because of the upsurge of negative ions, those same persons feel on top of the world. Because of factors outlined above, it could really be that, as the fung shui master maintains, metal coins and crystal have parts to play in reflecting radiation. Also fortune plants, with their non-calcified, non-woody stems, serve a useful purpose in purifying the atmosphere and reducing ions. Such precautions help promote harmony and peace in the home or workplace. Mankind has always been subjected to the interchanging forces of nature. These include heat, magnetism, electricity, chemical action, motion, and natural (solar and stellar) radiation. People may find these, in some forms, disturbing. They upset peace of mind. In the modern world new technology and invisible forces have also to be considered. These include man-made radiation; toxic agents; germ warfare; nuclear-energy plants; electrical and electronic systems; computers and communication systems; radio and television waves; and space travel (Smith, 1993:96). All these can affect vibrations and energy flow to some degree. Although belief in fung shui is unlikely to die, and it will likely remain part of Chinese culture for a long time to come, nevertheless methods of dealing with it must change. Certainly, in some circumstances, fung shui can be a barrier to progress. In the case of the business establishment that the author visited, together with the fung shui consultant, the management delayed redecoration, on one occasion for several months, because it was not considered 'an appropriate time to hammer walls'. It is only comparatively recently that conservation has been taken seriously, by 'Friends of the Earth' and similar associations. It is no longer... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g # THE STUDY OF LOCAL HISTORY IN HONG KONG: A REVIEW - ELIZABETH SINN 147 For the past few years, local history in Hong Kong has been enjoying a popularity which is quite unprecedented. Hong Kong's main historical museum, the Hong Kong Museum of History which attracted 224,756 visitors in 1995, will be replaced in 1997 by a new museum with an exhibition area three times its present size. In the New Territories, a brand new Heritage Museum devoted to Hong Kong's history, is scheduled to open in 1998, and it will be even larger. A recent school heritage festival, designed to heighten students' awareness of historical monuments and their conservation, created great enthusiasm. Local history is now often the theme of radio and television programmes and everywhere one turns, one sees books on Hong Kong history in both English and Chinese. On the academic front, Hong Kong history courses are offered at four universities and the number of postgraduate students working on the subject has also been growing. This paper seeks to trace the history of the study of local history in Hong Kong, to see how from very humble beginnings it has reached the stage of maturity today. It will examine the changes in approach, method and focus over time, and survey the various groups of practitioners in the field in the past 50 years. Lastly, it will look at some of the problems. ## Defining Local History in Hong Kong Hong Kong, not being a sovereign state, and being geographically very small - its total area is only a little over 1,000 sq km - it might be justified to some extent to categorize all historical studies about the territory as 'local history'. However, despite its smallness, Hong Kong is actually a very compact place. Its high population density and the richness and diversity of its historical experience make it possible to study its history on a macro-level as well as a micro-level. In this paper on local history, I shall only be referring to studies done on a sub-territorial and micro-level. Admittedly, the boundaries are hard to define, and it is not always possible to classify works as macro-level or micro-level studies in any clear-cut way. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 151 Urban Historians We may discern yet a fourth group, those studying the local history of urban Hong Kong. Their work started later in the 1960s, and among the pioneers were political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists as well as historians, many being teachers at the University of Hong Kong. Again, up to the mid 1970s, most of them were Westerners. The source materials they used were primarily government publications, archival materials and newspapers, and since most read only English, they either had no access to Chinese sources, or had to rely on research assistants. There was an attempt to tap a new source, oral history, which Alan Birch of the History Department, HKU, carried out with great fervour in the early 1970s. Later in the decade, he organized two radio programmes interviewing those who had lived through the Japanese invasion and the Japanese occupation, and two books based on these interviews were published. However, since Birch only speaks and reads English, his interviewees were confined to expatriates and English-speaking Chinese, and the stories that he could reconstruct were inherently one-sided. Among urban historians, Carl Smith was rather exceptional. A genealogist by training, he began his research on Hong Kong in 1960 with the history of the Protestant church, looking at the impact of the church's activities on Hong Kong society, before going on to examine many other aspects. His studies on localities include detailed works on Shamshuipo and Wanchai. He has, moreover, written many biographies of local people and on the different ethnic and national groups in Hong Kong. His research is based on a broad range of materials, both English and Chinese. Besides government records and newspapers, he uses church records, missionary archives, wills, company records, genealogies, inscriptions on headstones, land records, commercial directories, to name just a few of them. His work opens up a whole new world to the reader, who discovers not just the lives of great men but ordinary men and women - school teachers, policemen, prostitutes, bank clerks, junior government servants, shopkeepers and their families and social circles. In his hands, Hong Kong's urban history is no longer just the story of one Governor following another, but of real people, living in real neighbourhoods, going to real churches and schools, and yes, based on cemetery records, dying and being buried in real graveyards. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 164 over HK$4 million to do a Territory-wide survey of historical buildings almost a year ago, work has yet to start partly because they are unable to line up enough qualified people to lead the survey (the Heritage Museum will be flying in scholars to help with its exhibitions - one a Canadian anthropologist who has been doing work in Hong Kong on and off since the 1960s, and the other an English design historian who returned to teach in the UK four years ago). There are simply not enough bodies! The same 10 historians or so are burdened with research projects; advising the museums and AMO, advising radio and television programmes, exhibitions, even film; being interviewed by local and international newspapers; adjudicating photo competitions and students' projects; designing teaching materials for secondary schools; besides doing a full-time job of teaching and administration! Although a number of postgraduate students have written on Hong Kong history for their degree, many became secondary school teachers, civil servants, joined the private sectors, even the museum system as administrators, rather than pursue a career in research. The problem is, unlike England for example, there is no army of amateur local historians (or local history societies) who study their own parish, church, village, street... as a hobby. In Hong Kong, local history is much more a consumer item than a participatory item. Despite the increased participation in projects by school and university students in the last decade or so, there is little sustained effort after the project is completed, few taking the initiative to continue research as a hobby. Thus, the main burden still falls upon those few scholars, every one of whom is spread desperately thin. There is a yawning gap, and what is missing is what we might call 'middle management' - budding scholars who can take on a project independently, without the supervision of a more senior scholar. One worries also that the glamour of the marketplace might lure scholars away from serious scholarship. Why bother with painstaking collection and analysis of materials, criticism of text and interpretation of data when all one has to do is tell a good story to sell books? How does one strike a balance between pursuing serious research, which is almost by definition esoteric and exclusive, and serving the public? There is another minor problem: items for research are now becoming much more difficult to come by. One effect of the growing popularity of... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g municipal library. For some reason which I have not been able to fathom South Korea has a Royal Asiatic Society - founded about thirty years ago and very flourishing it is. The Hong Kong Branch however after its foundation in 1847 did not survive for very long and due to internal dissensions collapsed in 1859, not to be resuscitated until 1960 at the initiative of one of our past Presidents, Dr. J.R. Jones. It was resuscitated very much on the basis conceived by the founders, i.e. monthly lecture, an annual journal, the occasional symposium and publication. The one thing we do not have is our own building and permanent office, but to a certain extent we have overcome this since our library is very well housed in the Urban Council facilities on the 3rd floor of the High Block at the City Hall. In the past few years, however, the Society has added and expanded on the activities originally conceived by its founders, i.e. we have arranged a considerable outreach programme whereby we visit not only many places of historical interest, within Hong Kong, but travel to nearby places which has helped to put our perhaps rather narrow perspectives into a larger context. We have also arranged exhibitions, and we are now consulted on many aspects about Hong Kong, its history, the preservation of buildings, and other areas in which some expertise by our members is perceived to be important. In the last year for instance our members have been consulted by the Hong Kong Government, the Hong Kong Tourist Association, the British Broadcasting Corporation and an Australian Radio Station. We publish and provide a useful platform for our members to publish. In short we have expanded our activities and enlarged our fields of interest into wider fields than our founders originally conceived. These developments are I feel to the Society's advantage. They have kept the membership up to a reasonable level with a good cross-section of nationalities. They have enhanced the Society's public profile, and they have given a strong basis for the Society to move forward confidently through 1997. The above is of course a rather potted history of the Society but I think it is important to remind ourselves of the Society's background, because quite clearly we have entered changeable times and they are not likely to go away in the foreseeable future. Your Council has in the last year reviewed the society's activities and its objectives, in the viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g particular attention and that was the three and a half months photographic exhibition which was put on by the Society in conjunction with the very helpful Antiquities and Monuments Office. This exhibition, covering many aspects of Hong Kong history with a fine array of photographs from the Society's archives and other sources, ran for three months. It attracted a great deal of publicity in the Chinese and English press, radio programmes and United Press International also beamed a release around the world, not just about the exhibition but also about heritage and local history in Hong Kong in general. I would like to thank the staff of the Recreation and Culture Department of the Hong Kong Government, and particularly its Secretary, Mr. T.H. Chau, for making this all possible, those who lent photographs for the exhibition, Mrs. S. McGrady, Mr. Colin Gimson, Mrs. P. Alway, Mr. Brian Pearce and Mrs. Elaine Marden, and even more particularly Dr. Dan Waters. Without Dan's drive and enthusiasm it is doubtful if the Exhibition would ever have got off the ground, but it did and we owe him a huge vote of thanks. The Exhibition was such a great success that we do hope that it will be possible to run similar events. I have dwelt for sometime on the activities of the Society deservedly so since they play a very important and prominent part in the Society's affairs. However there are other activity areas which are important for us to note and acknowledge. Firstly there is the library. Under the capable guidance of Ms. Julia Chan, our Librarian, it continues to flourish: she will report separately to you. Secondly, there is the administration of our finances, by our Treasurer, Mr. Robert Nield; he will be reporting to you separately later in detail. However, well as the finances are run, and they are in a sound position, even he cannot manufacture income from nothing and escape from the ravages of inflation. Subscription rates have not been raised since 1993 and you will note therefore that we are recommending a rise in rates with effect from 1 January 1997. Lastly I would like to convey our thanks to those who keep this very interesting Society together, to all Council members, particularly to the two Vice-Presidents, Reverend Carl Smith and Dr. Elizabeth Sinn; Mrs. Anita Wilson for co-ordinating the all important Newsletter and last but not least our Assistant Secretary, Mrs. Claire Hockaday. XIV Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 Council Member, together with his wife, back to Hong Kong last December. We hope Immediate Past President David Gilkes will also come back to see us. We sincerely hope, too, that he and Edith, who also attended so many of our functions, will enjoy a long and happy retirement together. Personalities are obviously important. They help to make a society. That is why it was especially interesting, in December 1996, when Professor P. S. Erasmus G. Harland lectured about his forebear, Dr. William Aurelius Harland, who took up a position in 1843 at the Seamen's Hospital in Hong Kong. He served in the Colony as a prominent physician until 1858 and translated several Chinese medical works into English. During his time in the Colony he was, of course, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, first time around. That is from 1847 to 1859. During that period the Society proposed that the Botanical Gardens be established. It was a pity our Branch slumbered for a century. Membership Your Council decided, in January 1997, that, with manageability being a consideration, the optimum membership was probably about 650. But with so many leaving Hong Kong with the change-over, this figure is largely academic. The President, Dr. J. R. Jones, wrote in his 1960-61 Branch Report. As we are a Royal Society, we do not go out into the highways and byways to recruit members. Since then, conditions have altered. We need to keep membership up to ensure adequate funding. In this regard public relations, including radio, television and press interviews, play a part. As at 22 March 1997 the membership stood at 500 locally, with an additional 85 members overseas. The number of local members could, in fact, be fewer than 500 as, unfortunately, some members do not inform us when they leave the Territory. With a spirit of localisation prevailing in Hong Kong, but within the framework of an English-speaking Society, we have, over the past few years tried to encourage more Chinese to become members. xi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 149 THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY AND HERITAGE EDUCATION DAN WATERS (This paper was presented at the International Conference, "Heritage and Education”, held in Hong Kong on 17 and 18 December, 1997. It formed the concluding event of "Heritage Year" which was organised by the Antiquities Advisory Board, the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust and the Antiquities and Monuments Office throughout 1997. It has been very slightly altered from the original version.) "The Royal Asiatic Society ... ?” "What does it do?” Although the Hong Kong Branch has received a fair amount of good publicity, mainly in the press and on the radio, such questions as the above are not unusual. To start to answer them let me quote from the Hong Kong Branch's Constitution: The objects of the Society are to encourage an active interest in East Asia, and in particular China, through the medium of lectures, meetings, discussions, visits, and by publishing an annual journal, and to do such other things as may be conducive to the attainment of the objects of the Society. With a fluctuating membership of approaching 500 in Hong Kong and around 100 overseas, members' broad interests include local history, social anthropology, natural history, and the cultural and religious developments of Hong Kong, the adjacent parts of South China, and the broader south-east Asian region. Members come from a wide variety of national and cultural backgrounds. Visits to countless places have been conducted all over urban and rural Hong Kong and have included trips to Ta Tsui (“village purification") festivals, heritage trails, and to view such spectacles as the release of large, hot-air balloons in the Sha Tau Kok district on the Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 together with his wife Edith, re-visited Hong Kong. So did Past President Dr James Hayes who gave an entertaining, illustrated talk to our Branch about his army days, in Hong Kong and Korea, in the early 1950s. We were delighted to see these three old friends once again. It is always sad when old friends depart, for whatever reason, and we are sorry to have to report the passing of two of our overseas members in Britain: the Reverend Cyril Clarke and Mr G Harden. We are also sad to record the passing of Lady May Ride who was a strong supporter of our Branch from 1960 right up to her death after she had moved to England. May they all rest in peace. In addition other members resigned and some left, we later discovered, without informing us which complicates the keeping of our records. As a matter of general interest, there appears to be no founding member (who joined in 1960) who is still active in our Branch today. Membership drive Because of reduced membership, strenuous attempts have been made to increase numbers in various ways. For instance a successful photographic exhibition, on the Landmark Building's Overhead Walkway in Central, was mounted at the end of May, 1998 (see Appendix C). The major organisers for this event were Robert Nield and Tim Ko, assisted at planning stage by Philip Bruce and Arthur Hacker. Their efforts were greatly appreciated as was the help of a large number of other members, including Dr Michael Lau who did the Chinese translation. In addition to the successful Landmark Exhibition (no pun intended), the RAS message has been spread in various other ways. This has included the President and members giving talks to, or liaising with, approaching 20 associations, such as the Corona Society, Dante Alighieri and the Hong Kong Natural History Society. Reciprocal arrangements with other societies are obviously important and, in some cases, other associations have been very supportive. Councillors have also taken part in radio and television programmes and our Branch is to be allocated space by the British Consulate on the Internet. For all this assistance we are grateful to many different organisations. We are also grateful to RAS members Bob and Sally Bunker and Xiv Page 15 Page 16 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 18 people believe, and there appears to be truth in this (with greater use being made of the Chinese language since the Handover), that Hong Kong as a city-state is becoming more Chinese. Although this can affect the development of Hong Kong humour it is expected to be more than offset by globalisation and the world-wide effects of radio, television, the Internet and information technology. The late Lin Yutang postulated that a Chinese believes, while getting in a few puffs while standing in front of a no-smoking sign, that the world is a stage where drama and high comedy abound. Life is a huge farce and one must not take matters too seriously, whether they be government reforms or funerals (Lin, 1936:65). The latter have a certain amount of 'gaiety' about them. Sending a person on his or her last journey to confront the final mystery of life should, it is believed, be expensive. The Chinese consider only Europeans (Lin insists) take funerals seriously and try to make them solemn affairs. What is wrong at a funeral in getting a few words across to a pal, about horse racing or morning walks, when you have not seen him for a long time? The man who takes life too seriously and obeys all the rules (according to Lin), and keeps off the grass when nobody is looking, appears ridiculous. In addition Chinese humour often takes a tolerant view of vice and evil. Instead of condemning them outright why not make fun of them? Lin Yutang believed humour could transcend cynicism and be used for other and better purposes than reconciling oneself to one's down-trodden position. According to Lin Yutang (1936:64), first-class humour is to be found in the Confucian Analects. "After all, Confucius is quoted as having said, because Tsai Yu napped during the day: Rotten wood cannot be carved nor a wall of dried dung trowelled. How would I rebuke him? A saying like that is always good for a chuckle. Much humour is to be found in Ming dynasty novels, in Hong Kong's New Territories' folk songs (largely forgotten except among the elderly), and in the poetry of the drunkard, Li Po (alias Li T'ai-po), who lived in the eighth century. He made much of the solace and lib- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 21 But, while comparing Chinese and western humour, with the latter propagated by television, radio and other forms of the mass media, it has to be borne in mind that the peoples of many countries are changing their way of life. The world is fast becoming a global village. Amusement in language In the mid-1950s, the author recalls, a fashionable colour in Hong Kong was described in Cantonese (a vibrant, vivid language) as ‘duck's excreta green'. This tickled foreigners but was (and still is) good descriptive, serious stuff to our Chinese friends. They never seem to realise, however, that any of their own surnames, such as Mr Wu, Mrs Ma (meaning horse), Mrs Lung (meaning dragon) or Miss Ng (which is difficult for some Europeans to pronounce), may strike the average Westerner as funny. Yet the author has never really understood why his family name, 'Waters' (which hardly ever strikes Europeans as comical) (probably meaning his forebears lived near a river or a lake), is often considered amusing by Chinese. A Chinese physician once wisecracked: 'Dan Waters, please pass some water;' while a Chinese architect quipped, 'Dr Waters has been inspecting waterworks structures all morning.' In other examples just the mention of the name Green, Whalebelly or Goodbody strike many Chinese, understandably perhaps, as comical. We British have become accustomed to such names. However, the countless Chinese firms with names like Lee Kee Motor Boat Service, No-Squeak Wong the cobbler and Au-Choo the medicine shop, do strike the average Westerner as good for a chuckle. There is a Chinese saying which, when translated, goes something like this: Walking we will not change our family name. Sitting we will not change our given name. It really implies we are digging our heels in and sticking to our principles. Nevertheless, Sir (now Lord) David Wilson did change his name when he came back to Hong Kong to become Governor in 1987. He had served in Hong Kong before and his Chinese name had previously been romanised as Ngai Tak-ngai (Spurr, 1995;246). The Chinese, however, who read far more into a name than the average European, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 23 Yet mime performer, Philip Fok Tat-chiu, who worked for the Hong Kong Government before emigrating to Australia as recently as 1992, although a relative newcomer, seems to have made a success of his life 'Down Under.' The greats in the field of mime include Sid Caesar, the contemporary French master Marcel Marceau and, of course, Charlie Chaplin himself (Lee, 1999). Another form of entertainment, Chinese 'cross-talking' (‘double voice' as it is known in Cantonese,) is much like American vaudeville. It needs one serious performer with a deadpan face and one comic to deliver the punchline. Acting out 'sketches,' like those performed by Ho Bo-man and Chou Chi-hung in Guangzhou, using every-day hilarious situations with rapid-fire exchange, amount very much to the art of language and repartee (Cheung, 1996:5). Slang is important. Jokes can be about portable telephones, which no self-respecting person-about-town can manage without, or about climbing up the beam of a torch (flashlight) in the dark. Isn't it slippery and dangerous? What happens when I switch the torch off?! Maybe the banter is stupid, but gags like these can serve a useful purpose. They can help motivate people,' says comedian Harry Wong of Metro Radio. 'Something useful can come out of such jokes.' After the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) ended the 'Gang of Four' was a popular target for 'quick-fire twosome' acts in China, although many tried (and still try) to steer clear of politics. But unless one possesses an extremely good knowledge of Cantonese there is limited chance of a European understanding a great deal of this rapid-fire talk. In fact at a Chinese banquet, with one European and the remainder Chinese, when the conversation is in rapid-fire Cantonese interlaced with slang, if the gwailo appreciates six out of 10 jokes he or she is not doing at all badly. Of course there are jokes which people of most nationalities, if they can grasp the language, can laugh at. Like the chap in northern China who always ate at a government canteen. 'All the time cabbage!' he nagged, 'cabbage, cabbage, cabbage! 'Can't you give us a choice?' 'Of course you can have a choice,' came the chef's reply. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 33 Then there is another tale which goes as follows (Giles, 1925: Joke64): A Chinese chess player was proud of his ability, although on one occasion he lost three games in a row. The next day a friend asked him how he got on. 'I didn't win the first game,' he replied, and my opponent didn't lose the second.' 'As to the last game, I asked him to agree to a draw but he wouldn't.' Many Westerners talk as if face, which really amounts to 'worth' in the eyes of others, is only important to Asians. U Thant, the Burmese diplomat who was made Permanent Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1962, was fond of saying: 'Face is very important to Europeans.' While the author does not disagree, it would appear Asians place even more emphasis on it than do Westerners. Much has been made recently by the media about senior civil servants not being tolerant of Radio Television Hong Kong's political satire when the foolishness of the establishment has been highlighted in an amusing way (Yeung, 1998a). It amounts to what is accepted (especially in the West) as good clean fun being taken seriously by some Hong Kong government servants (Yeung, 1998b). It largely boils down to the fact that, when the joke is on them and they lose face, civil servants are unable to accept it in good heart. Although a bit of a struggle at first, many Japanese politicians have now, apparently, learned more recently to accept criticism, passing it off by describing it as a form of 'art' and saying the attention he receives shows that he must be popular.10 'After all, we do not criticise those who we do not think much of, but we do criticise those who we love and esteem.' When China's President, Jiang Zemin, visited Hong Kong in 1998, a photograph in the Hong Kong Standard, on July 1, showed him travelling in the back of a car with his seat-belt unbuckled. Most Europeans (and some more westernised Chinese too) took this as good, mischievous fun. A letter in the same newspaper, on July 5 from a Chinese living in the United States, however, asked whether, if during colonial days a member of the British Royal Family who was visiting Hong Kong, or a British governor were caught not wearing a seat-belt, whether it would have been publicised (and by implication made fun of) in a similar way. This Overseas Chinese felt it was wrong to publish the photograph of Jiang Zemin in the Standard. In fairness, of course, until ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 37 (15) Humour changes over time and many Chinese, for example Singaporeans, have become Westernised in various ways, including regarding their sense of humour. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), and its vicious aftermath, even though it was for many Chinese largely of their own making, had a profound effect on China physically, politically and morally. But the Chinese have considerable capacity for survival boosted largely by their philosophy of life, acceptance of realism, and capabilities to surmount the vicissitudes of life with understanding, limitless grace and (it must be stressed) with considerable humour. Nevertheless, where there are differences in senses of humour, the more a Westerner learns about and appreciates Chinese culture, or when a Chinese understands Western culture, the more he or she 'extends' his or her own sense of humour in an alien culture. More rigorously chronicled jokes and more well-researched material will assist this process. But with time, improved travel facilities and communications, including radio, television, the Internet, other forms of the mass media and information technology, the world is becoming more of a global village. In spite of Hong Kong becoming in some respects more 'Chinese' since the 1997 Handover, from Britain to China (including more use being made of the Chinese language), the merging of western and Chinese cultures will continue. This will, in the end, result in differences being narrowed and Chinese and Westerners laughing more at each others' jokes. Laughter will then cross the Great Wall more easily. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 30. Private Wombles D°. D°, 391 Whilst we have no idea what has happened to the Monument dedicated to the Westmoreland Regiment in Zhoushan we were taken by the curator to the site of a Chinese horseshoe-shaped grave bearing the inscription in Chinese carved into a lengthy granite slab in pre-simplified characters [that is pre-1950s], stating that it to be The Tomb of Officers and Men of the Army and Navy of Great Britain 大英水陸將士墓 It had been refurbished as recently as 1993 by the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army, [PLA Navy], apparently unsolicited and without any ceremony.xi The monument was situated on the north facing slope of a low hill overlooking the town of Dinghai. There was little to see. A modern concrete edifice some three feet high holds an original granite block. Above it on the slope, some ten feet away, is another monument which bears neither inscription nor clues to its original purpose. It is rectangular standing some six feet high, two foot six inches wide and about ten inches deep. It has three indented faces, central, left and right on which, presumably, the erstwhile inscribed tablets had been inserted. These two monuments are situated overlooking Dinghai Town but facing away from the sea and at the rear of a radio station with one tall mast and several radio dishes, possibly a PLA [Navy] unit on the Island. ... It would be interesting to obtain the current Chinese official version of the provenance of the two monuments. As an interesting side note - at the foot of the hill on which the two monuments stand, a Chinese lady, a member of our party from Hong Kong, recognised her family ‘ancestral' home from the descriptions she had heard of its European design with Chinese touches. It is now the residence of the Admiral of the Chinese PLA [Navy] responsible ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x himself a Hongkonger at heart and one of us. He helps the Branch in many ways albeit at a distance. We are sorry to have to report the death of Sir Robert Black, at the age of 93. Sir Robert was Governor of Hong Kong from 1958 to 1964. While serving in the Colony he was Patron of the RASHKB and, on one occasion, he even chaired a Branch meeting. This was the first time a governor had chaired such a meeting since the days of Sir John Bowring in the middle of the 19th century. Sir Robert was also our first Honorary Member, a position he held until his death. We also regret having to record the passing of member Jeanne Bromfield, in May 1999 in England. She, together with husband Tony and family, lived and worked in Hong Kong, as a teacher, from the 1950s until relatively recently. She attended RAS functions regularly. We are also sorry to have to record the passing of RAS member Dr Alan Birch who taught at the University of Hong Kong for many years. He made a major contribution to local history and many students passed through his hands. His monuments are around for all to see. Membership drive and public relations Realising that if our Society wishes to attract new members it is not desirable to hide our light under a bushel, some emphasis has been placed on public relations. This has included appearances by members on television and radio, on both English and Chinese programmes, and reports in the press. A number of our members have also been engaged by other societies to lecture to their memberships. In such cases they usually take the opportunity to mention the RAS. We must also thank RAS Member Sydney Cowell who sent out details of the RAS to a number of his colleagues and friends. As a result, new RAS members were recruited. We are grateful to Council member Julia Chan who arranged for a RASHKB exhibition to be held in the foyer of the Main Library of Hong Kong University. This attracted considerable attention among staff, students and visitors. Plans are being laid for similar exhibitions to be held at other venues in the Territory. xiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 119 one of the best descriptions about the background to the Battle of Hong Kong. The Battle Itself In terms of the actual fighting, a host of publications specifically on the facts of the fall of Hong Kong and its aftermath, both English and Chinese, has been published, beginning in 1943 with Harrop's memoir, The Hong Kong Incident (Harrop 1943). This was followed after the war by the despatch by Major-General C.M. Maltby to the Secretary of State in the London Gazette, “Operations in Hong Kong from 8th to 25th December, 1941" of 1948 and a Hong Kong Government publication in the same year, Events in Hong Kong on 25th December 1941 (Hong Kong Government, 1948) and in 1953, A Record of the Actions of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps in the Battle of Hong Kong. Seven years later, Carew's book The Fall of Hong Kong was published (Carew, 1960). Endacott's History of Hong Kong, first published in 1958 (Endacott, 1958), and Fung's Chinese counterpart of 1967 (Fung, 1967) represented the earliest local works that put the Battle in the historical context of the Colony. Another 17 years lapsed before another phase of active publication occurred, starting with Coates' A Mountain of Light (Coates, 1977). One year later, Hong Kong Eclipse commenced by Endacott and posthumously completed by Birch appeared (Endacott and Birch, 1978) with Lindsay's The Lasting Honour: the Fall of Hong Kong 1941 (Lindsay, 1978). Birch's own Radio Hong Kong broadcast on the Battle was published one year later in a book entitled Captive Christmas: the Battle of Hong Kong (Birch, 1979). In 1980, Ferguson's work, Desperate Siege: the Battle of Hong Kong, was published (Ferguson, 1980). In the following year, Vincent's (1981) work, No Reason Why: the Canadian Hong Kong Tragedy: An Examination, and Lindsay's second work, At the Going Down of the Sun: Hong Kong and South East Asia 1941-1945 (Lindsay, 1981). This active phase of publication ended with the first systematic Chinese account, A History of the Fall of Hong Kong, (Yip, 1982) and The Royal Hong Kong Police 1841-1945 written by Crisswell and Watson (Crisswell and Watson, 1982). Most English works in this period retained a condescending view about the reliability of Chinese soldiers who happened to be in the Colony and Chinese civilians who helped the defence of Hong Kong. The odd ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n PROUDFOOT, W.J.: Notes from Biographical Memoir of James Dinwiddie, LL.D, embracing his account of travels in China as a member of Macartney's Embassy, Edward Howell, Liverpool, 1886. WALEY, A.: The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes, Allen and Unwin, London, 1958. WONG, J.Y.: Deadly Dreams: Opium and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, 1998. WOODWARD, N.H.: Teas of the World, Collier Macmillan, London, 1980. This paper was presented at the "International Conference on Lin Zexu, the Opium War and Hong Kong,” held at the Hong Kong Museum of History in December 1998. Among his many other accomplishments, Dr. S. M. Bard, OBE, ED, is also a historian. His published works include the following: In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (Urban Council Hong Kong 1988); Traders of Hong Kong: Some Foreign Merchant Houses, 1841-1899 (Urban Council Hong Kong 1993); and Garrison Memorials in Hong Kong: Some Graves and Monuments at Happy Valley (Antiquities and Monuments Office, Hong Kong: Occasional Paper No. 4, 1997). Some scholars prefer to divide the Wars into the Opium War, 1839-1842, and the Arrow War, 1856-1860. * A Dutchman, Dr Cornelius Decker, advocated 40-50 cups a day. Portuguese Princess Catherine is credited with introducing tea to Britain when she married King Charles II. A story is told of German Radio, during the 2nd World War, which announced that due to shortage of tea in Britain, the British were ready to sue for peace, not having access to their 5-o'clock tea. It only served to amuse the British, for the Germans got the time wrong! ================================================================================ 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 218 A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong produced The Burt Report) concluded that a technical college in Kowloon was essential. The Chinese Manufacturers Association (CMA) offered to donate one million dollars if Government would provide a similar sum and a site. The Administration accepted the offer and the College commenced classes in November 1957, on its new Hung Hom campus, after we stopped teaching for three days to move physically from Wan Chai. In the 1947/48 academic year there were a mere 25 full-time and 599 part-time students on roll at the Technical College (TC) in Wood Road. By the time TC had moved to Kowloon these figures had increased to 345 full-time and 5,532 part-time. Various walks of Hong Kong society were extremely generous. The College expanded rapidly. Buildings added over the next decade or so included an all-purpose hall, a dyeing and finishing block, an electrical laboratory, a multi-storey craft workshop block, a heavy-current electrical laboratory as well as a library, a textile workshop block and a new classroom wing. It was estimated that in 1967, of the total building cost of $7.5 million at the Hung Hom Technical College, about 64 per cent of funds had been donated. Similarly, out of a total estimated cost of $6.0 million for equipment, 40 per cent had been donated by industry. Nevertheless, many of us were far from satisfied with the rate of expansion, bearing in mind the need at the time for technical education. Money allocated by Government for recurrent costs was strictly limited. For example the one-year, full-time electrical engineering technician level Radio Officers' course, in 1967-68, was estimated to cost only $61,262 to run for a full year. With an average of 25 students in the class this worked out at a total cost of $2,450 a student each of whom paid a nominal fee of $400.00 a year. During the 1960s, the Technical College was mainly pre-occupied with technician level teaching the entry requirement for which was completion of Form ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 220 A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong Sidney was also a good ‘cadger'. Most of the many donations made to technical education in his time were largely due to his determined efforts. He had worked as a radio officer on a ship in earlier life. Every Monday morning he would lead a small retinue of staff around the College on a formal inspection just as a captain does on board ship. I recall when a newly appointed Hong Kong University member of staff came to see him, about the setting up of a University Extra-Mural Department. Burt told him frankly it was a waste of money. 'The Technical College provides all the evening classes the Colony needs', he insisted. The Director of Education wanted Burt to move into the Departmental Headquarters to oversee technical education but he preferred to do this while serving as incumbent Principal at the Technical College. Because of this inherent stubbornness the development of technical education was probably retarded. There was no 'Senior Education Officer (Technical Education)' post in Headquarters until 1967 and no 'Assistant Director (Technical Education)' post until 1972. But Hong Kong owes Sidney Burt a great deal for laying the foundations of technical education. But moving on: the Principal and staff of the College had long felt that a second Government institution was needed which, although bolstered by some technician programmes, would concentrate on craft courses. This was why the Morrison Hill Technical Institute came into being in 1969. In fact there was a school of thought which believed that the first technical institute should run craft courses only, but, as things have since developed, it would have been an incorrect move. One of our more advanced pursuits at MHTI, in addition to technician education, was technical teacher training. This was transferred away in 1974 with the establishing of the Technical Teachers College. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g resigned each year, mostly on leaving Hong Kong, and had to be replaced with new members if the overall membership was to remain the same size. If the Society fails to replace those members resigning on leaving Hong Kong, then, in very short order, the Society would face serious membership problems. Because of this high annual turnover of members, Council decided we had to institute a major reform of our membership database. This task proved to be a major task, and took well over a year before it was completed earlier this year. We now know a lot more about the make-up of our membership, and in a more up-to-date fashion. I must here thank especially our previous Hon. Secretary, Dr Peter Barker, who recently left us on relocation to Chicago. It was his hard work which, above all, enabled the successful completion of the new database to be achieved. At the moment we have a total of 605 members of the Society, comprising 451 Annual Members and 154 Life Members. Of these 605, 492 are resident in Hong Kong, and 113 are resident abroad. 402 are Single Members, 174 are Joint Members (representing 87 couples), 9 are Institutional Members, and 20 are Student Members. 111 new members joined the Society during the year. This was significantly more than the number who resigned on leaving Hong Kong or for other reasons. The Society has, therefore, over the year, managed to increase its membership by a reasonably substantial figure (the increase, when compared with the figure given in the last President's Report would seem to be much more substantial, but a good deal of the apparent increase is due to a change in the way we calculate Joint Memberships, and is thus to some degree illusory). Over this last year, the Council has advertised the Society in a number of ways. In particular, we have run a series of advertisements in Dollarsaver. Councillors also regularly give talks to various community groups (e.g. Rotary Clubs), and also on the radio, and this provides excellent advertising exposure for the Society. Councillors giving academic lectures also often give their academic affiliation as "The Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch" and this, too, provides useful exposure. I would like at this point to thank my predecessor, Dr Dan Waters, in particular, for the many talks he has given, and the tremendous help this has been to our advertising campaign. The xvi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g We were particularly fortunate in our next event, which took place in August 2001 in Salisbury, to visit the Cathedral and the Salisbury museum where we also heard a lecture by Patrick Hase on 'Traditional South China Agriculture.' To find this latter combination, i.e. Patrick in Salisbury in August and South China agricultural instruments in the Salisbury museum, may appear somewhat far-fetched; however, by the end of the fascinating and extremely well researched lecture and a visit to the museum to actually see the agricultural instruments, which formed part of the Pitts River ethnographic collection, there was no doubt that all members had experienced a day well worth it. Our sincere thanks go to Patrick for giving us his time and for educating us on a subject about which most of us knew absolutely nothing. The Friends have for some time been trying to arrange a tour to Northern France to view the World War I battlefields, and in particular the Chinese Connection, when around 100,000 Chinese labourers were brought over from the Far East to support the war effort behind the lines. A number of them died in the process and are buried in the cemeteries. For various reasons the trip has not taken place except by the inveterate few, but we were fortunate in having the next best thing, i.e. a talk by Brian Fawcett, which took place on Saturday, 1st December 2001. Brian has been researching the Chinese Labour Corps for some time and the Friends were particularly fortunate to hear the results of his research and to see a short video/film of First World War relevant events. The fruits of his labour have recently been published in the 40th volume of the Journal of the Society, and Radio 4 in the U.K. will shortly be giving a half-hour programme on the subject. And our programme did not end there. Recently, on 16th February 2002, forty-five members and guests sat down to celebrate the incoming Year of the Horse at the Joy King Lau Chinese restaurant. Not only did we welcome Dr. Patrick Hase and his wife Aileen, who were fortunately in the U.K. again, but we also had Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Bailey (Bill), who was the first Chairman of the Hong Kong Arts Centre in the 1970's and 1980's, and was very supportive of the Society when it was a Constituent Member of the Arts Centre. Now, however, we are preparing ourselves for our next far-flung visit at the end of April to take place in Cornwall, when about twenty-five members will visit the Gardens (Caerhays, Trewithen, Pine Lodge, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 282 Egypt, which was built in the 3rd century B.C. - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was an eight-sided tower on top of which was a cylinder that extended up to an open cupola where the fire that provided the light burned. On the roof of the cupola was a large statue of Poseidon (the Greek God of the Sea and Earthquakes) facing the sea, northward. It was said ships could detect the light from the tower at night or the smoke from the fire during the day up to 100 miles away. The lighthouse collapsed in the 14th century, probably as the result of an earthquake. The remains of Pharos are now at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Its name, however, has become the root of the word "lighthouse" in the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian languages.2 Modern navigation aids By the 21st century traditional aids to navigation have already gradually taken over. These include satellite navigation systems in order to cope with the needs of high speed and the huge volume of modern sea transportation. Even more recent inventions like the Radio Beacon and the Decca Navigator System are now almost obsolete. The Global Positioning System (GPS), provided by satellites, is now the primary position fixing system for marine navigation. A public Differential GPS service is able to enhance the accuracy of GPS signals to within 10 metres up to 50 nautical miles around the coasts off the United Kingdom and Ireland. This system assists the safe passage of all classes of vessels from cargo ships, cruise liners and fishing vessels to small yachts. As a back-up system to the GPS, chains of Loran C on land are also adopted.3 Nineteenth century Hong Kong In Hong Kong, things were quite different. There was not much sea traffic going to China before the first Opium War (1839-42) because of the Chinese policy of keeping its doors closed to foreign trade. Canton (Guangzhou), in the Pearl River Delta, was the city where limited foreign trade was permitted under stringent conditions. Macao under Portuguese administration served well as a buffer for foreign merchants waiting for the start of the trading season. Only after the Treaties of Nanking, Peking and Tientsin (1842-1860) was China forced to open up more and more ports for trade. Hong Kong's Victoria harbour became ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 294 were smashed by the mass of water being blown against them. The Royal Observatory reported: Gap Rock is lying very near the track of the worst typhoons that have been felt in the Colony, in an exposed position, and the conformation of the sea bottom, as well as the shape of the rocks causes the sea to be much worse than in other places (Bruce; 1990, 3). It was reported in 1984, that the Royal Observatory and the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau had signed an agreement to set up a joint venture automatic weather station on Huang Mao Zhou, about two kilometres from Gap Rock so, presumably, the weather is as interesting today as it was in the 1890s (Bruce; 1990; 3). It is obvious that lighthouses have to withstand immense force during bad typhoons. Consequently, they are designed circular on plan so as to offer the least resistance to both wind and sea. Lighthouses are expensive to construct. Nevertheless, like the cast-iron tower at Waglan, they can be reasonably pleasing in appearance. Before December 1952, and from 1964 onwards, weather observations on Waglan were taken by Marine Department lighthouse keepers and transmitted by radio (Hong Kong Observatory; 1999). 33 The Observatory staff started taking weather observations on Waglan in 1952 and withdrew from the Island to the meteorological station at Cape Collinson Lighthouse in 1964. As Waglan was no longer manned after 1989, the observatory constructed an automated weather station on the Island. The old weather recording station and a small store where equipment was housed were still there when the author visited in 1999, although the latter is no longer used. But the typhoon mast, where signals used to be hoisted, has been taken down. Water supply Waglan has no wells or springs. Keepers depended on rainfall for their water supply. Catchment areas consisted of roofs of a clutch ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 298 main lamp in the lighthouse could, allowing for the curvature of the earth, be seen for a distance of about 26 nautical miles (one nautical mile equals 1,852 metres). If because of fog, the light's visibility was reduced to less than two nautical miles, the fog horn system would switch on automatically. It could also be switched on by radio. After World War Two there was a hotline radio link to Cape Collinson, on Hong Kong Island, from where calls could be relayed elsewhere. In the years leading up to automation, in 1989, a direct exchange line telephone was provided in the air-conditioned communications tower to enable staff to keep in touch with their homes. No relatives or friends were allowed on the island. There was also an inter-communication system installed at Waglan so that staff could communicate between buildings on the island. Creature comforts and sustenance Like life for the man on the top of a tram in Wanchai, living conditions improved considerably over the years for lighthouse staff. In earlier years staff would stock up larders with enough food to last keepers for a full tour of duty. A few days later food would no longer be fresh. In more recent years they had refrigerators. In the first instance these were powered with kerosene. Electricity had to be used sparingly and was available from dusk to dawn when the beacon light was switched on. 37 Staples were different kinds of noodles, meat, vegetables and fish.3 The last was supplemented by delicious fish which they caught themselves, by line or cage. These were commonly nai mang ue and sek gau kong. It was much tastier than the salted fare which they ate in earlier days. Little food was wasted. Waglan was a homely place. They kept pets. The half dozen or so cats finished off leftovers. In addition, some staff with green fingers would grow vegetables and bring shrubs and flowers back to the Island after shore leave, to plant and beautify their surroundings. In the days when the lighthouse was manned there was a bed of red-leaf flowers grown in the shape of 'WL,' standing for Waglan. As Superintendent of Lights, Yip Kin-sang, told the author, lighthouse keepers had a strong sense of belonging. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 300 Recreation Certainly man cannot live by rice alone and provision had to be made for recreation and welfare. What facilities were there? One imagines in the early 20th century a limited amount. But in the years leading up to Waglan becoming automated, in the 1980s, colour television, stereo music, radio, a small library, darts, ping-pong and mah-jong, all accommodated in the air-conditioned recreation room, were available (Port Services Division; 1987). Let us now turn to the actual men who manned the lighthouses. Lighthouse personalities In 1838, Grace Horsley Darling (1815-1842) became the heroine of Britain when she and her lighthouse keeper father rescued nine of the crew of the good ship Forfarshire. It was wrecked near the Longstone Lighthouse on one of the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast, England. It is fitting that Darling's name is still recorded in English dictionaries and encyclopaedias although today people are more likely to hero-worship figures like astronauts, film stars and footballers. What about Hong Kong's keepers and others associated with lighthouses? What sort of men were they? Let us look at some of them. James Arthur William Deakin's father was a British soldier who married his Chinese wife in 1935.42 He served as a gunner on Mount Davis when the Japanese attacked in December 1941. Later, as a child, James was called upon by his mother to put food parcels through the wire fence of the Shum Shui Po Prison Camp where his father was incarcerated. When he grew up, after attending the then Government King George the Fifth Secondary School, Jimmy Deakin went into government service. In the late 1950s he was posted to the Marine Department from the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Division of the Public Works Department. Allen Lack informed the author that he had known Deakin earlier, as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 304 charge of the government gunpowder depot), coupled with community service, Thirlwell was awarded an MBE in 1971 by Her Majesty the Queen. Towards the end of his government service he was awarded a merit trip to England. But, Louis Thomas recalled, after about five days he requested permission to return to Hong Kong. We are talking of a Hong Kong before the MTR and the like and Thirlwell was having difficulty in adjusting. Britain was quite different then to Hong Kong and especially to being stationed out at Waglan. But although lighthouse keepers during most of British colonial times by tradition were mainly Hong Kong Eurasians, in November 1956 three Chinese joined the lighthouse service as keepers at Waglan. In the run up to automation and as localisation took effect, by the 1980s all such posts were filled by Chinese. How does Lai Tak-wah, who still serves in the Marine Department, who had been at sea as a radio operator before joining the civil service, look back on his ten years spent at Waglan? 146 'It was all right for someone who enjoyed a peaceful existence. But separated from one's family out at Waglan, life was boring,' Lai told the author. 'A week at a stretch was too long.' How would he have felt pre-World War Two, when keepers did a one-month tour of duty in one stretch, one wonders? But he said that for three to four years of his time spent on Waglan he studied for his City and Guilds of London Institute telecommunications examinations.47 These sentiments, regarding boredom, were echoed by Lai Kwok-keung, another Chinese employed at Waglan. On being interviewed by a reporter when the island's lighthouse was changing over to automation, he said, as he lowered the Union Jack for the last time: 'I'm not sad to leave' (Hong Kong Standard; 1989). Superintendent of Aids to Navigation Tam Cheong-wai (now retired), a Chinese (previously this post, as mentioned before, was held by a European and later by a Eurasian), who spent one week's induction training at Waglan when he first joined the Marine Department, agreed. 'It was boring,' he said. Not everyone shared his views. There are ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 309 19 Antiquities Advisory Board site visit 1996. 20 HKGG 12 February, 1876, p. 87. 21 http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/dept/pressrelease/dec/2912h.html 22 HKPRO HKRS156 1/144 No.49, 1888 May 21. 23 The Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce, on page 330 under the heading Gap Rock Lighthouse. 24 T. Roger Banister (1932). The Coastwise Lights of China, Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, Statistical Department. 25 Patrick Beaver (1973). A History of Lighthouses, Citadel Press, p.5. Part Two 26 Loran (Long range navigation) is a navigational system operating over long distances. Synchronized pulses are transmitted from widely spaced radio stations to aircraft or shipping, the time of arrival of the pulses being used to determine positions. 27 Tat Hong Lighthouse, on Tung Lung Island, was the last to be manned in Hong Kong. It was manned by two technicians until 1993. 28 [Hon. Editor - Died 27th December 2002. R.I.P.] 29 The author was informed by retired Marine Department staff member, James Deakin, in 1990, that a baby was born in the Cape Collinson Lighthouse at the turn of the century. On reaching maturity, he too became a lighthouse keeper. As another aside, in Ma Wan Village, not far from Kap Sing Lighthouse, a large quantity of gold was discovered on Tung Lung Island after World War Two. This was handed over to the government. 30 In the spring of 1999, the dilapidated basket was still kept in a store (which had a telephone when the lighthouse was manned), halfway up the steps to Waglan Lighthouse. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 313 Lee Kar Hung (1999, March 16), Principal Queen's College, letter to Author. Lighthouse Digest, Canada, www.LighthouseDigest.com Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, part III, The Theologian's Tale, Elizabeth IV. Navigation News (1998 November/December), front cover, magazine of Royal Institute of Navigation. Pearson, Lynn F.(1998) Lighthouses, Shire 312 Album, Shire Publications Ltd, Britain. Port Services Division (1987 December), Waglan Lighthouse, Welcome Aboard, Government Marine Department, one page brochure. Rull, Peter (1999 February 23), Lighthouse Keepers, letter to Author. Sinclair, Kevin and Nelson Ng Kwok-cheung (1997), Asia's Finest Marches On, Policing Hong Kong from 1841 into the 21st Century, Kevin Sinclair Ass. Ltd. Hong Kong. Video (2001), Hong Kong's Lighthouses, Radio Television Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society reviewed that all the major public libraries which include Hong Kong Central Library, libraries at City Hall, Kowloon, Shatin, Tuen Mun, Tsuen Wan and even the RAS Collection have incomplete holdings of the Journal. Since it is important to keep the Journal up-to-date, copies of all missing volumes, including the Indexes and Seminars, were provided to all the public libraries at the Society's expense. While Hong Kong Central Library will continue to receive one free copy that comes with the Library's institutional membership, payment will be made for renewals for the Journal for the other five branches. It has been the normal practice of the Hong Kong Public Libraries to record subject talks conducted at their venues. Prior consent is sought from the speakers to do this. For legal protection, Council Members agreed that RAS speakers will also be requested to sign the same form for RAS lectures. In order to better preserve the content, it was decided that tapes of RAS speakers will be digitized if permission is granted. The Hong Kong Central Library has kindly offered, free of charge, to digitize these tapes since they are produced by the Library. The digitized version will be stored in the Multimedia Information System, available for convenient access in the larger Public Libraries via the System. The RAS Library will also be given one audio CD for each of the tape digitized for borrowing or archival purpose. Hong Kong Central Library has also sent us a list of past recordings of all the RAS lectures held at City Hall Library, 78 in total dating back to 1988. Since none of the speakers had given consent to record their talks before and it would not be feasible to seek retroactive consent, it was agreed that while these tapes will be digitized for preservation purpose, the CDs will be placed in the RAS Collection in Rare Book Room, available for use in the Library but not for loan. The audio tapes will also be stored in the Rare Book Room, serving as back-ups. Another digitization project that will be undertaken by RAS is a collection of old RTHK radio programmes related to the history of Asia and Hong Kong. Due to limited resources, these tapes probably will not be digitized by RTHK. In order to preserve the culture and heritage of Asia, Council members expressed interest and investigations will be conducted into the feasibility of digitization and projected demand for the finished project. 1 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 London: George G. Harrap, 1945. Ritchie, Edmee Alice My memoirs or good of its kind. [s.l.: s.n., n.d.]. Secret notes on Japanese army North Melbourne: Victorian Railways Printing Works, 1942. The Shanghai directory 1941: City supplementary edition to The China Hong List. Shanghai: The Office of the North-China Daily News & Herald, Ltd. Shneider, Vladimir Traces of the ten. Beer-Sheva: V. Shneider, 2002. Smith, Arthur Henderson, 1845-1932. Village life in China: a study in sociology. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1900. Ticozzi, Sergio Historical document of the Hong Kong Catholic Church. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives, 1997 Vocational Training Council (Hong Kong) The Morrison Hill story [videorecording]. [Hong Kong: s.n., 199-. Waters, Dan. Lunch beat [2 sound cassettes]. (Dr Dan Waters shares his in-depth knowledge and stories about Hong Kong's past in two episodes of radio programme The Lunch Beat. [Hong Kong: RTHK, 1998 - 2001]. Way, Denis M. and Nield, Robert Counting house: the history of PricewaterhouseCoopers on the China Coast. Hong Kong: PricewaterhouseCoopers, c2002. Wu, You-ru Shen-jiang sheng jing tu. Shanghai: Hua bao zhai shu she, 1999. Zhang, Yingjin lvii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 46 speeds of at least 64 knots (1 knot equals 1.15 miles per hour). Unlike hurricanes in the Atlantic, Pacific typhoons can occur at any month, although most take place from May to October. Compared to the other weather factors that could influence a Hong Kong operation, a typhoon is more intense, more mobile, and more unpredictable. Even the USN lacked the means to predict the movement and intensity of a typhoon. If one was spotted by reconnaissance, the need to code and decode messages or to maintain radio silence meant that such information would be outdated by the time it was received. Typhoon tracking was very sketchy during the war, and remained so for decades thereafter. 22 'It is a memorable experience to watch a big typhoon, but it is better to do so from a well-built house than from a ship at sea. +23 The power of a typhoon is beyond the ability of most people to gauge. Its sustained winds can reach 130 knots, while periodic gusts can exceed 150 knots. Rain accompanying a typhoon strikes early (usually when the centre of the typhoon is about 250 nautical miles away), late (the heaviest rainfall occurs after the passage of a typhoon's centre), and hard. The last refers to the horizontal motion of typhoon rains, which hit like knives or bullets, and could cause damage, destruction, injury, and death. The energy released by only a small-scale typhoon during a 24-hour period is equivalent to that of almost 500,000 atom bombs, or about 20 billion tons of water. 24 Typhoons tend to weaken once they reach land, but that doesn't mean people are out of danger. On the contrary, for most people the danger has only begun. To give an example, in September 1937, Hong Kong was struck by one of the most powerful typhoons ever to visit the territory. Gusts of up to 145 knots were recorded, six inches (15 cm) of rain were dumped on the territory in just two days, and sea levels rose 15 feet (4.57 meters). Hong Kong's fishing community suffered the worst of it. Of the 3,500 junks and sailing craft present, 1,255 were sunk and 600 seriously damaged. The death toll from these losses totalled some 11,000. 25 That was about one per cent of Hong-Kong's population at the time. In the Tai Po area of the New Territories, the carnage was even more frightening. Tidal waves of up to 30 feet (over nine metres) in height formed at Tolo Channel, crashed onto its shores at adjacent Tolo ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 342 they would have provided (had they been left) and for the urban lineage they would have represented. Those wonderful old buildings are no longer with us to provide anchors in times of need. They were replaced within a few years by high-rise air-conditioned buildings. Many depend upon artificial lighting and ventilation and have windows which do not open. Today, so many live and work in an artificial atmosphere. This major change led long ago to people discarding shorts and open-necked shirts and wearing two-piece suits and more formal and more uncomfortable clothing. The new lifestyle meant the better off were stepping from their air-conditioned homes, carrying brief cases, into their air-conditioned cars and then being conveyed to their air-conditioned offices. At the end of World War Two the Chinese Nationalist Government was waiting in the wings just over the border to take over Hong Kong. But the British beat them to it. If the Americans had had their way, and British rule had been terminated in Hong Kong in 1945 and the place had been returned to China, it is possible to speculate what would have happened. In 1949 Hong Kong, like other big cities in China, would have been taken over by the People's Republic Government. This would have meant that, after 30 or so years of communist rule, Hong Kong would have been as backward economically as the rest of China. There would have been no 'Hong Kong miracle'. After 1978 the Territory would not have been able to form a nucleus for the economic development for the rest of China with its 'Open Door Policy.' Pigeons Up until 1914 every marine launch of Hong Kong's Water Police (as the Marine Police were known then) took a few pigeons on board. These were used to fly messages back to headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. But in spite of the introduction of radio the pigeons were kept on strength. Members of the force contributed to buy them food. The flock of about 50 birds came to be looked upon much like the Barbary Apes at Gibraltar or the Ravens at the Tower of London. It was said when the pigeons departed from Marine Police Headquarters so would the British from Hong Kong. The pigeons disappeared during the Japanese occupation but were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 357 MORE ON LOUIS DE SAN PAUL BOLDING Young and keen for adventure, Louis de San was 29 in 1939 when he found himself in Chungking as a Belgian diplomat at the court of the nationalist Chinese government as the Japanese seized more and more of the country. Through a family connection I met Louis de San in Syria in 1988 where he had retired and where he later died. I have recently acquired a fascinating letter he wrote to a friend from Chungking and some family photographs. In addition, his own recollection of how he set an Asian gliding altitude and duration record in Chungking in 1940 has been published. The letter describes how he arrived in Hong Kong en route for his new post. 'I knew absolutely nothing about China. It took me three days to find out what was happening, buy supplies (bed linen, underwear, radio, wines and spirits etc) daily lunches and dinners, packing and repacking my stuff, making a thousand demarches, in short an absolute killer of a regime.' He took the 900-tonne steamer Canton for Haiphong, a three-day journey. Hanoi he found ‘a small French provincial town replanted in Asia; the Japanese will find it easy to swallow it when it takes their fancy.' He caught a train to Kunming and waited there for a plane to Chungking. After five days, French fliers got him a place on a flight on a Douglas. 'A lunar landscape with nowhere to land in case of accident; these poor planes are flying 10 or 12 hours a day!' he wrote of the trip. He was immediately put to work by colleagues and the next day was at the French embassy when air raid sirens sounded. 'In a few seconds, everyone was underground in the shelters with admirable discipline; then the wait with a note of anxiety and mystery... one did not know if one would still be alive minutes later... that lasted half an hour. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 Council members also expressed interest in digitizing a collection of old RTHK radio programmes related to the history of Asia and Hong Kong in an effort to preserve the culture and heritage of Asia. These are tapes that RTHK will not be able to digitize due to limited resources. The Hong Kong Central Library has requested a list of these titles and arrangement has been made to digitize 11 of them. RAS will pursue digitization for the remaining 34 titles if rights could be obtained. Following the success of the exhibition of the Society's photo archives on Western District in the University of Hong Kong Libraries in January 2000, a similar exhibition was held in the University Libraries in August 2003. These photographs illustrate domestic, industrial and commercial buildings and interesting street scenes in Sheung Wan and Western District in Hong Kong in the 1960's. Again, it aroused great interest. A Library user spotted a man in a photograph that looked very much like his father and requested a copy of this photograph. The Home Affairs Bureau also requested access to our photo archives to assist them in reviewing their existing policy on heritage preservation. Some of these photos were published in the book: Hong Kong Going and Gone and 14 copies were sold during the exhibition. In response to demonstrated interest, a new Committee has now been formed to compile all other photos in the Society not included in Hong Kong Going and Gone and publish a brand new book on cultural and architectural heritage of the Central and Western district. Concerning usage of the HKBRAS Collection, as compared to last year, reference enquiries had increased by 29%. There is a 64% drop in books being loaned out, perhaps users are making use of the pleasant environment in the Library to read and research rather than borrowing the books. As reported by the Hong Kong Central Library, usage of the HKBRAS Library for the period from 1 March 2003 to 29 February 2004 was as follows: xli ================================================================================