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 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 51 friends of Education the expediency of establishing a public library in China. This plan was brought to our notice by the following letter, (which we publish with Mr. Colledge's permission) addressed: To the Rev. E. C. Bridgman, corresponding secretary to the provisional committee of the Morrison Education Society. My dear sir, On the dissolution of the British factory, it became necessary to make some disposition of the library belonging to the members of that establishment; and it was proposed to give the whole collection to the Morrison Education Society. The arrangement, however, not meeting with the concurrence of all the proprietors, a division of the books was determined on; and while I regret that so excellent a suggestion should not have been adopted, I am still happy in performing with my share, what it was my anxious wish should have been done with the whole, by presenting it to that admirable institution. The very injudicious method pursued in the division of the works, has allotted to me volumes of comparatively little value. Such as they are, I present them to the Morrison Education Society; with an ardent hope that I may live to see an institution, which so distinctly marks this enlightened age, attain, under your fostering care, the full realization of its philanthropic intentions, by promoting virtue and happiness through the blessings of education. I am, My dear sir, Respectfully and faithfully yours, T. R. Colledge. Macao, May 21st, 1835. Further early history of the Society can be traced through reports in the above-mentioned journal. One book still in the Library, A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts Collected with A View To The General Comparison of Languages, And To The Study of Oriental Literature, by William Marsden, London, 1827, is inscribed by the author, "For the Library at Canton from the Author" and reminds the reader of the origin of some of the books. "Proceedings relative to the formation of the Morrison Education Society including the Constitution" were published in December, 1836. By this time there was a collection of some 1500 books on scientific, literary, and other subjects which had been presented to the Society, 700 from Mr. T. R. Colledge, 600 from Mr. J. R. Reeves, and others from Messrs. Dent, Fox, A. S. Keating, and J. R. Morrison, who gave a number of his father's books, some of which still bear his signature. A constitution was drawn up for the Library which stated that "The books belonging to the Society shall form a public library and be styled the 'Library of the Morrison Education Society'," and also provided that “rules for the regulation of the ================================================================================ 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 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 63 There are two examples of translations of Chinese plays, again by a French scholar, Antoine-Pierre-Louis Bazin (1799-1863), Théâtre Chinois ou choix de Pièces de Théâtre composées sous les Empereurs Mongols, 1838 and Le Pi-Pa-Ki ou l'Histoire du Luth, Drame Chinois de Kao-Tong-Kai. A last example of the work of French sinologues of the early part of last century is Dictionnaire des noms anciens et modernes des villes et arrondissements de premier, deuxième et troisième ordre compris dans l'Empire Chinois, by Edouard Biot, 1842. Some examples of books published by the press established by Morrison and his colleagues at the Anglo-Chinese College established at Malacca are in the Library. The most interesting from the point of view of the history of the mission is William Milne's A Retrospect of the First Ten Years of the Protestant Mission to China. Accompanied with Miscellaneous Remarks on the Literature, History and Mythology of China, etc., 1820. William Milne was sent to join Morrison by the London Missionary Society and arrived in China in 1813. After encountering many difficulties about obtaining permission to stay in Canton he went to Malacca and finally founded the Anglo-Chinese College there, whose primary object was the establishment of a Chinese free school in the hope that it would prepare the way for a Seminary. Another interesting example from this press is Notitia Linguae Sinicae by Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare, S.J. (1666-1736), printed in 1831. There is a letter of March 1825 quoted in the Memoirs concerning the Latin MS of this book from Lord Kingsborough to Morrison. It states that the original MS is in the Royal Library of France, describes the book as giving rules for the composition of Chinese in both classical and modern style with many examples from Chinese texts and says that he is having it transcribed at a cost of sixty guineas for Morrison. He also says that Rémusat had made an index for it and suggests that 'by the publication of a work of this learned Jesuit-confessedly the most profoundly versed in the genius of the Chinese language of the Roman Catholic Missionaries who visited China-he will be doing a thing useful to the friends of science, and creditable to themselves.' Elsewhere in the Memoirs it is recorded that Viscount Kingsborough also gave the College £1,500 to defray the cost of printing the book. This then is the brief history and description of a collection of books gathered together to perpetuate the memory of Robert Morrison. But his name is remembered in the most fitting way by his two major contributions to Chinese studies, a record of which is thus written on his tombstone in the Protestant Cemetery at Macao: ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 204 BOOK REVIEWS because there is a much greater body of pre-war material than the items included here. This criticism could have been turned away by an indication, beyond the qualifications already made in the introduction, that this was a selected bibliography. The introduction is a useful and stimulating part of the work. Besides explaining how the bibliography has been brought together, and why, it draws attention to some of the lacunae in Hong Kong studies, especially in the social science field. However this is surely as much due to the lack of a social science faculty at the University of Hong Kong until recently and the small size of the faculties in the colleges of the Chinese University, than, as the writers suggest, to 'purposive decisions..... to avoid issues with important policy overtures'. The complaint that nowhere in Hong Kong is there a full collection of Hongkongiana is still, I believe, justified and should be remedied... perhaps to the extent of compiling a master list of books on the subject available in the main Hong Kong libraries. As a publication, it is well produced and printed, though it bears many marks of hasty compilation and checking that were probably due to its issue coinciding with the departure of the joint compilers from Hong Kong. These should be put right on a second issue. And, if I may end on a personal note, I always like to see titles and authors on the spine - it is so much more convenient when looking for a book. Hong Kong, 1970. + JAMES HAYES FOLK RELIGION IN AN URBAN SETTING. A STUDY OF HAKKA VILLAGERS IN TRANSITION. Morris I. Berkowitz, Frederick P. Brandauer, John H. Reid. Hong Kong, Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture, 1969. As the first book-length study of Chinese religious practices in Hong Kong, this report deserves our careful consideration. Studies of Chinese folk religious practices are rare enough, and those of Hakka villagers are still rarer; therefore this general study of Hakka religion is very welcome indeed. The book represents the first of a series of research projects to be conducted by the Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 214 BOOK REVIEWS When Sir Percival David undertook to translate the KKYL, he avoided one of the pitfalls of working with Ming books, and Ming editions of earlier work, by making sure he had a reliable edition. This he did in 1940 in Shanghai, when he acquired the earliest known edition of the book which is most probably the first edition of 1388. It would have been a relatively simple task to translate this original ("original" in the sense that it was the first book published in this name by Ts'ao Chao) work of three chapters. But later he also had the good fortune to acquire an equally rare 1462 printing of the enlarged edition of 1459 which had been swelled to thirteen chapters with additions made mainly by Wang Tso who brought out the 1459 edition. Sir Percival decided, bravely but perhaps not so wisely, to translate the enlarged edition. But then he failed to avoid the other pitfalls mentioned at the beginning of this review. First, there is the original three chapter edition. The copy acquired by Sir Percival, called "O" in the translation, is reproduced in full at the end of the book. Sir Percival thought it was "the result of Ts'ao's study of actual specimens and ancient texts concerning them". This is not so. For, with the exception of a few very brief entries on Sung porcelain and on lacquer, the whole book is a collection of mutilated passages extracted from similar works of the Sung and Yuan periods, such as Chao Hsi-ku's Tung-t'ien-ch'ing-lu-tsi (hereafter referred to as the TTCLT) and Hsia Wen-yen's T'u-hui Pao-chien. The latter is itself a notorious work of plagiarism.1 It should be noted here that the "erudite" manuscript notes in "O" written by a Ming reader consist mainly of sentences from the TTCLT which Ts'ao Chao omitted in his copying. Indeed Ts'ao was such a poor plagiarist that he made nonsense out of some of the most important passages in the TTCLT. For example, the detailed and accurate description of the cire perdue process of bronze casting in the TTCLT, incidentally one of the earliest Chinese accounts of this method of bronze casting, appears in the KKYL as (David's translation): "Ancient moulds (reviewer's italics) for casting bronzes were made of wax. The patterns were finely and neatly carved as finely as a hair, and the strokes of their inscriptions were even and clear. They were inverted like roof-tiles, though not very deep.... "The mistranslation of the word mo, meaning the original wax model of the bronze, into English "mould" is of course at least partly due to the brutal précis-ing of two long ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 334 BOOK REVIEWS a literary figure of the Chin Dynasty. In his biography it has been recorded that whenever he travelled alone he always tied 100 coins on top of his stick, and wherever he found a wine shop he always drank with pleasure, as much as possible. He did not care what his wife prepared for her meals.19 Juan Hsiu is stated by the same source of information as a step-son20 of Juan Chi ✯ (210-263), one of the eccentric masters of a literary circle collectively known as "the Seven Talents of the Bamboo Groves".21 Juan Hsiu's alcoholical love, therefore, might have been a reflection of the deep spiritual influence of Juan Chi. Because of this reference, it is clear that to tie 100 coins onto a stick, could certainly be interpreted as to have some private money, which can be taken one step further to mean wine money. Thus, the literary meaning of K'un-ts'an's last line, as far as the surface implication is concerned, should read as "there is no need to take wine money to own mountains". According to such an understanding, if this line is to be rendered into English, but still taking Prof. Li's same basis for using no explanation of the term "Chang-tou", then it suggests as "I would rather take money to buy wine but not to consider a piece of land.” A second but more weighty problem is, once again, one of identification. In the Drenowaltz collection there is a 12-leaved album of landscape painting by Chin Nung. This album is dated 1736, the first year of the Ch'ien-lung era, by the artist's own inscription. According to Prof. Li's study of Chin Nung's life, the artist was in Peking in that year, and had attempted to pass the Po-hsueh-hung-tz'u22 degree examination but failed. In this album each leaf contains a landscape painting completed in an extra elaborate manner. This is quite noticeable since the normal subject-matter of this artist, as Prof. Li has rightly pointed out, happens to be either Buddhist figures, horses, bamboo, or plum blossoms, all in ink. Moreover, such stylistic continuity achieved by the careful but conscious use of the brush in these landscapes seems to be extraordinarily unusual for Chin Nung. In addition, in each of these 12 leaves, the un-used space in each composition is always completely filled up by a good number of small but regular characters written in Chin Nung's peculiar Ch'i-shu script. The contents of these inscriptions on each leaf of this album have been identified by Prof. Li. However, this brings up a second type of problem of identification. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 342 BOOK REVIEWS 34 This observation is mainly based on the fact that the first poem from his own collection is entitled "Chin shou-men has shown me a rubbing of the inscription taken from the bronze bells being made for the Ching-lung Monastery during the Tang Dynasty.” 毒門见示所裁唐景龍觀錘髭拓本 In Li E's Fan-hsieh SFC, chuan 1, p. 1 under this poem, the date of its completion is recorded by the combined used of the Chinese cyclical characters: chia-mu which according to Li E's chronology, is to be identified as 1714 (the 53rd year of the Kang-hsi era). 35 Ever since 1963, the Kwang-tung ying-jen chuan, “A Biographical study of the seal-carvers in Kwang-tung", edited by Ma Kuo-chuan, has continuously appeared in the -lin section of Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao Daily News. His study about Chang Hsiang-ming in particular, appeared in Ta Kung Pao, December 19, 1965. In October 1974 this biographical information was edited and published by the Nan Tung Company in Hong Kong, still entitled Kwang-tung ying-jen chuan. The portion concerning Chang Hsiang-ning is to be seen in this book edition p. 98. 36 This is based on Takikawa Shiteru's colophon being inscribed on Hsiao Yün-ts'ung's painting entitled Li Sao T’u. A full reproduction of this painting has been printed in 1924 in Tokyo by Seigei Omura as one item of his edited Zubon Sosho. In addition, Takikawa's colophon was also quoted by Professor Akiyama Mitsuo in his Sho Sekiboku to Shuzan Koryo zu which appeared as the last article, being collected in the same author's Nihon bijusisu ronko (1943, Tokyo), pp. 413-414. 37 According to Tzu Hai (1967, Taiwan edition), Appendix V (A conversion chart British, Japanese and Metric Lengths), each Japanese feet equals 0.3030 metre. Thus, 40 Japanese feet equal 12.12 metre. On the other hand, since the Drenowaltz handscroll measures 1302 cm; namely, 13.02 metre, the lengths of this painting, now in Switzerland, and the Li Sao Tu, once in Japan, are certainly very close. 38 See Hu I: "Hsiao Yun-ts'ung Nien-p'u” “A Biographical study of Hsiao Yün-ts'ung on A Yearly Basis”, in Mei-shu Yen-chiu (1960, Shanghai), No. 1. 39 For these literary men who were gifted artists as well as members of the Fu She Association, these were, in addition to Hsiao Yün-ts'ung, many others, such as Li Sui-chlu from Kwangtung province, Wan Shou-ch'i (1603-1652), Wu Wei-yeh (1609-1671), Chi Pao-chia (middle 17th century) and Mao Hsiang (1611-1693) from the Kiangsu province, Fang I-chih (1611-1671) from the An-hui province, and Yang Wen-ts’ung (1597-1645) from the Kwei-chou province. These were all example-figures of such a type. 40 Hsiao Yün-ts'ung name is listed in Fu She Hsin-Shih Lu "Records of Members of the Fu-she Association" first volume, p. 7a. This rare book is now owned by the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica at Nankang, Taiwan. 41 Hsieh Kuo-chen: "Nan-ming shih-luch" “A Brief History of the Southern Ming Period" (1957, Shanghai), pp. 12-13. 42 S. W. Stephen: Chinese Art, 2 vols. (1904-06, London). 43 Ch'eng Wei: “A primary study on the Origin and Development of Ancient Bird-and-flower paintings" in Wen-wo (1963, Peking), No. 10, p. 22-29. This article probably serves as the only research on the history of Chinese painting by using one single painting collection as its basis. Yet unlike the work done by Professor Li ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 76 D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU popular booklets on Hong Kong flora, fauna, and minerals. The Hong Kong Herbarium was transferred to the Agriculture and Fisheries Department in 1972. The Check List of Hong Kong Plants was updated and formally printed and published in 1974. It was again revised and published in 1978. In 1975 the Botanic Gardens were renamed the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, resulting from a significant expansion of the zoological work under the curatorship (in an honorary capacity) of Dr. K. Searle, in the early 1970s. The collection housed rare or endangered species of animals and birds for conservation and educational purposes. In 1983 the construction of a new large free-flight aviary and a new mammal complex were completed though the most prominent horticultural feature of the Gardens, the Fountain Terrace, had to be removed to allow for the reconstruction of the roof of the service reservoir over which it was built. Work was completed in 1987 with the provision of a larger fountain of attractive design, an expanded collection, enlarged catering facilities and a book shop. In 1984, a typhoon again caused serious and widespread damage throughout the Gardens. The Gardens had to be closed for a week to allow for the clearance of debris to proceed. The large greenhouse was damaged beyond repair and had to be rebuilt. Though the facilities of the Gardens have improved greatly over the years, steady urban encroachment has reduced its original size of about 7 hectares to the present 5.35 hectares. It is conveniently located at the centre of the city and is a popular outdoor recreational and educational facility in Hong Kong. It attracts 3 million visitors a year, including overseas visitors, and is looked after by a staff of 66, including a park keeper, a zoo keeper and numerous gardeners. SOURCES OF REFERENCE MATERIAL 1. The Bentham Correspondence a) Vol. 2 and Vol. 5 b) Chinese and Japan Letters ALC-HAN 1865-1900 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 192 reports; and even the reports of such associations as the Red Cross and the Paper Hunt Club of Shanghai. There were printed catalogues of pertinent collections in such foreign libraries as the Newberry and John Crerar Libraries of Chicago, the Morrison Library of Hong Kong, the Bibliothek zu Berlin, the universities of Leiden and Upsala, and the Raffles Museum of Singapore. In spite of all this bibliographic wealth, the librarian maintained the Society's tradition of complaining about what was not there: It still suffers from forgetfulness, ― not the willing neglect of authors. Refusals to requests for books are rare, but unfortunately unsolicited presentations are not as numerous as might be wished.2 Use statistics were seldom mentioned in early annual reports, but they became a regular feature in the 1920's. In 1926, for example, 3,124 people used the reading room, and 543 volumes were checked out to members.29 By 1928 a campaign was mounted to raise Tls 100,000 for a new building, and two years later the British government donated the land it had formerly leased to the society, thus enabling the society to borrow funds against it. The British Tobacco Company, Sassoon and Company, and other enterprises made significant contributions. An official of His Majesty's Foreign Office called the society "the one bright spot in Shanghai*." In 1931 the library collection was crated and stored while the old building was torn down and a new one constructed in its place. It reopened in 1934 with the library occupying the second floor. It included a “private office for the librarian and a well-lighted Reading Room. The storage space for books is amply designed to provide for future expansion".3 Yet another recataloguing of the collection took place in 1936 in preparation for the sixth edition of the catalogue. The count was 11,350 titles. That year also saw the beginning of the keeping of an accession book,32 As the political situation in China became more unstable, the library became more heavily used. This was in part owing to the destruction ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q DEZAKETTRE DWUKISME) James Hayes 233 NOTES See the list of printed papers given at pp. 271-272 of my book, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Conn., Archon Books, 1977). Perhaps I should add that whilst the progress of the survey and land settlement are described, the records of hearings in cases where disputes could not otherwise be settled are not now available, save for some reports in the local English-language newspapers.1 See Chapter 4, "Shek Pik, A Multilineage Settlement of Cantonese Farmers" in Hayes 1977, op cit, pp. 104-128. I have also used some of the documentary material in my paper Education and Management in Rural South China in the Late Ch'ing at pp. 575-592 of Vol. 1 of Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Asian Studies 1984, (Hong Kong, Asian Research Service, 1985). 1 Although surviving “Chi Tsai” from the New Territories are few in number, they are not rare either. I have come across them here and there in my research, but unfortunately dismissed them as being of no particular interest or value, compared with the Block Crown Leases and actual customary deeds of sale and mortgage. One entry from my Notes, for instance, taken at Chuk Yuen Village, New Kowloon, in July 1963, states, "Her husband's father was Lam Hei (), and she showed me a few chits for lot numbers claimed at the Land Court in 1901. They included one interesting receipt for 13 tax receipts, presumably Ch'ing land tax receipts, which must have been submitted as proofs of ownership at the land settlement following the lease of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898“. A collection of some dozens of chi tsai from New Kowloon villages is in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong (HKMS104): these will be the subject of a separate note in due course. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 73 elements in the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching". The expression ‘brilliant teaching' for Christianity occurs three times in the text of the Book of the Secret Peace and Joy, but there is no reference to Ta-ch'in. We must conclude that, by the tenth century, the Nestorian monks at Tun-huang no longer used Adam's formula Ta-ch'in ching-chiao as punctiliously as they once had, although both Ta-ch'in and ching-chiao are found separately, and that a tendency to render proper names by transliteration from the Syriac had replaced the earlier policy of finding appropriate Chinese terms for them. Other examples of this tendency can be found in the titles of some of the thirty-five books listed in the Book of Praise: The Gospels (Syriac: evangelion) are the A-wan-chü-li-yung ching; the Epistles of St. Paul (Syriac: shlicha, the Book of the Apostle) the Shih-li-hui ching; the Book of Hosannas the Wu-sha-na ching; and the Book of the Cross (Syriac: tsuliba) the Tz'u-li-po ching. Although these are the titles, according to the Book of Praise, of books translated by Adam, it is difficult to believe that he would ever have allowed them to be given such meaningless names in Chinese. We have seen how much care he took in the Sian tablet inscription to make himself clear, and suitable Chinese titles could easily have been found for these books. But book titles, as we have already seen in the case of other Tun-huang manuscripts, are obvious targets for updating in the light of changing taste, and these Syriac-influenced titles were probably given to Adam's books by the Tun-huang monks in the tenth century. They lived on the fringes of China and were not writing for discerning scholars in the capital, as Adam was. They preserved the memory of their past glories under the leadership of men like Reuben and Adam, but a definite change of style had taken place since the confident days when the Sian tablet was erected. They were conscious that an era had passed. 1 NOTES Hong Kong has a fine collection of bronze crosses from the Ongut region, worn by Nestorian Christians during the Yüan period, in the Fung Ping Shan museum of Hong Kong University. See F. S. Drake's article "Nestorian Crosses and Nestorians in China under the Mongols", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 1962, pp. 11-25. His Chinese name, given in the Sian tablet inscription, was A-lo-pen. It is suggested in Volume 3 of the Cambridge History of China that A-lo-pen is a transliteration of Reuben, and this seems to me as good a guess as any. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 40 PRIVATE PATRONAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP AND LEARNING DURING THE MID-QING: RUAN YUAN AND THE SCHOLARS AROUND HIM* WEI PEH T'I This paper is an initial essay towards a biographical study of Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), a major scholar-official and patron of scholars of the Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns. I hope that by examining the life and work of a competent and respected scholar-official of this era, 'the prime exemplars of any age'.1 I may be able to bring into focus the critical problems and atmosphere of early 19th century China, the two score or so years immediately preceding the Opium War after which traditional Chinese institutions and values began to change. I have been fortunate in being able to make use of the extant Qing archival documents and Ruan Yuan's own publications for this research. Ruan Yuan left considerable literary remains. I have located 75 titles, including a number of monumental publications that carry his name as author, compiler or editor. There are also prefaces he wrote for his own and other scholars' works, indicating that at least he had known the content of them before publication. Impressive indeed as these achievements were, questions about Ruan Yuan's actual efforts arise. * I would like to thank the following libraries for allowing me access to their valuable collections in preparing this paper: Library of the National Palace Museum, the National Taiwan University libraries; the National Central Library; the Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Academia Sinica; The Library of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong Libraries; the Rare Book Collection of the Beijing Library; the Oriental Manuscripts Collection and the Main Collection of the British Library, the Harvard-Yenching Library of Harvard University; the Gest Library of Princeton University; the Library of Congress; the New York Public Library; and Qing letters from the collection of the late Dr Wang Shih-chieh. I am also grateful to the following individuals for their help and comments on an earlier draft of this paper: Chang Ling-sheng, Ch'ang Pe-te, Chuang Chi-fa, Wang Ching-hung, Wang P'u and Wu Che-fu of the National Palace Museum (Taipei), Wang Junyi and Huang Aiping of the People's University; Ji Longwei of Yangzhou Teachers' College; Feng Erkang of Nankai University; Beatrice S. Bartlett, Iona Crook and Stephen Shott of Yale University; F.W. Mote of Princeton University; Elizabeth Sinn, Maureen Sabine and Shih Hsio-yen of the University of Hong Kong; and Deng Linyu and Xu Xiaohui of the Chinese International School of Hong Kong. Of course, they are not responsible for the errors contained in this paper. My gratitude also goes to the Department of History and Centre of Asian Studies of the University of Hong Kong. I have opted to use pinyin to accommodate a particular Chinese software program, but have left the Wade-Giles transliteration in quotations. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 10 [bid || 63 &£#* (The He You sheng, "Chen Lan Fu di xue shu ji chi yen yuan" [learning of Chen Lan Fu and its origins], Gu Gong Wen xian 2.4 (Taipei, 1971), 1-19. He's study on Ruan Yuan can also be found in "Ruan Yuan di jing xue ji chi zhi xue fang fa" [Classical scholarship of Ruan Yuan and his education policy], Gu Gong Wen xian 2:1:19-34 (1970). 12 Liang Chi chao, qing dai xue wen gai lun [A discourse on Qing learning], (1921, Taipei Commercial Press reprint, 1975), 22 13 Xiao Yi shan, ging dar tung shi [History of the Qing dynasty], (1935, Taipei Commercial Press reprint, 1976), 11 717. 14 Hu Shi, Dai Dong yuan di zhe xue [The philosophical studies of Dai Zheng], 138. 15 This is the only work of Ruan Yuan's that I have not been able to find. It was never printed because Ruan Yuan was not satisfied with the draft. The manuscript had been kept with Ruan Yuan's papers in his lifetime and subsequently disappeared. There was no indication whether it perished in the fires that destroyed the Ruan residence in Yangzhou in 1843, or that which burned down his studio, Wen xuan lou, in 1935. 16 Ruan Yuan himself, as well as contemporary and modern scholars, complain often of the many errors in this edition. Ruan Yuan gave the excuse of not having had time to proofread the manuscript himself. In fact, he had been receiving admonitions from the Jiaqing Emperor at that time that he was expending too much time and energy on scholarly activities instead of concentrating on the affairs of state. Gungzhong dang (Palace memorials) Jiaqing 017818 (1817/29). 17 This work was not printed during Ruan Yuan's lifetime, but is in Qing shi kao (Draft history of the Qing dynasty). 18 There are a large number of these biographies of individual scholars, not necessarily all Ruan Yuan, scattered throughout rare book collections in various libraries. Copies of the biographies are also among the Guo Shih Guan (Qing Historiography Office) documents in the National Palace Museum (Taipei). 19 For example, the Provincial Gazetteer of Fujian by Chen Shouchi, the Gazetteer of Yicheng by Liu Wenchi, and a new edition of the Gazetteer of the Prefecture of Yangzhou by Jiao Xun. 20 A contemporary print is in the collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library. 21 Struve, 233 22 Ruan Yuan, Ding Xiang ting bi ji [Informal notes from the Ding Xiang studio] 4:1b-2a. 23 [bid. 24 Ruan Heng, Ying zhou pi tan [Notes from Yingzhou] 1.4b; also Ruan Yuan, Yen jing shi ji [Notes written in the Yen jing studio] 11:8:8a. 24 Zhang Jian, et al, Let tang an zhu di zi ji [The life of Ruan Yuan as recorded by his sons and students] 1:19b. 26 The preface was dated 1804, but the work was not printed until later, in 1807 when the manuscript was finally acceptable to Ruan Yuan. 27 Preface of a work entitled Ji Gu Zhai Chong ding yi chi kuan shi, printed in 1853. A copy can be found in the Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Academia Sinica in Taipei. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 64 28 19 3:0 David Nivison, The Life and Thought of Chang Hsueh-ch'eng, (Stanford, 1866), 251 Ibid See Si ku wei shou shu mu u yao, 5 juan, 1807 Ruan Yuan's bibliographical annotations on important books omitted from the Si Ku chuan shu. He had found these books in Zhejiang. The original memorials that accompanied these books and his annotations are in the Qing Archival Collection at the National Palace Museum (Taipei) 31 Yi zheng Liu Meng zhan nian pu (Chronological account of the life of Liu Wen chi), 114-115. 32 Arthur Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, (Washington DC, 1943), 91 33 34 Yang Wensheng X, Si shi cao ji (1801), Preface Letter to Liu Taigong (1790-1855), dated 1802 Liu's daughter was married to Ruan Yuan's adopted son, Ruan Changsheng, 34 Letter to Wang Niansun. 36 Ruan Yuan blamed the errors on the fact that he had not had a chance to do the final proof reading before the book was printed. 37 Ruan Yuan's letters written in old age, Ruan Wen da gong zhi shi hou jia shu, consisting of several dozen memos written to his family after 1838 when he retired from government service, serve to prove that Ruan Heng, always referred to as "my younger brother" but actually a distant cousin who had been adopted as heir to a half brother of Ruan Yuan's father, had taken care of Ruan Yuan's business and financial interests with the aid of a couple of clerks. These letters are in the Rare Book Collection of Beijing Library. I am grateful to Professor Wang Junyi and his staff of the Qing History Institute at the People's University who made it possible for me to have access to the collection in March 1991 38 I am not happy with the English translation "tent friend" or "guest" Ding xian ting bi tan, 1:11a. 40 41 See, for instance, Ding xiang ting bi tan 3.52b-53a Hai ning zhou zhi gao 4:3 shan, 11b-12b. 42 Xie Guozheng, Jin dai shu yuan xue xiao zhi du bian quan kao (An inquiry into recent changes in the academies and schools of China), (Hong Kong, 1972), 2-18. 43 Zhang Ying in Wen lan xue bao 2:1 Lin Bo tong, Xue hai tang zhi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 186 every year from January to end of June; from end of September to the end of October. His hunting grounds were the provinces of Kiangsu and the mountainous country of Anhwei, except that in 1910, he collected on the Hwangshan range. In these 20 years, he brought back some 40,000 plants fully annotated especially the rare and not well known species. His Anhwei collection was published in 1933 by his successor H. Belval S.J.. The tome VI book 1 published in 1920 contains his Kiangsu 1918 collections 136 pages in quarto, with 23 plates. It's interesting to follow him step by step, as he describes his daily encounters; oppressive heat in the valley; cold wind; pestilence around Nanking and Ousi; military movement hindering his projects; bands of inquisitive villagers hampering his work, especially his bird hunting; torrential rains several days sleeping in the open air; 12 hours walk; 60 li mountain climbing, often-dangerous storms; dinky boats; unreliable or even treacherous porters and so on and so forth. ― F. Courtois' Bird collection was published also in 1920. It comprised 130 pages of text and 60 plates, and there was more forthcoming. Besides Heude's, Courtois' and some other minor collections, the Zi-Kia-Wei Museum had two collections worth mentioning. Both Floras of Hangzhou, one by Oliver, determined by Courtois and the other by Clive of the Chinese Customs. The Musée Heude In 1930, the Heude Museum was built as an annex to the University of Aurora, on Avenue Dubail, now Chong Qing Rd. (South). I understand the University is now the 2nd Medical University, and the Museum has become an Entomological Research Centre. I think Dr. Henry Belval S.J. was given the task of transferring the extensive collections of the Zi-Kia-Wei Museum and the vast library to the Musée Heude, then a majestic building with a garden richly endowed with a variety of rare species. I never met Dr. Belval. He must have gone back to France in 1932. I arrived in Shanghai from Beijing in September 1935. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 227 Fukuda Shozo, With Sweat and Abacus Economic Roles of Southeast Asian Chinese on the Eve of World War II, translated by Les Oates from the Japanese, edited by George Hicks, Singapore: Select Books, 1995. 284 pp. (Review reprinted from Eastern Express). It must be exciting indeed to obtain a rare publication, albeit in Japanese and on microfilms and to have translated it into English, making available to specialists and general readers alike a unique field of knowledge. With Sweat and Abacus. Economic Roles of Southeast Asian Chinese on the Eve of World War II, on the tremendous economic progress made by Chinese immigrants to Southeast Asia during the 19th century and the early 20th, was written by Fukuda Shozo (died 1973). It was originally published in Tokyo in 1939 with a third edition printed in 1942. "Thanks to Fukuda Shozo," writes the noted Australian scholar Jamie Mackie in the introduction to this English translation, "we know more about the role of the Chinese in the economic life of Southeast Asia in the 1930s than we know of their role in the 1990s." The fact remains that after reading Shozo's work, we should know quite a bit more about the Chinese in Southeast Asia than merely their economic role. It is known that Fukuda Shozo had spent four years in Shanghai from 1933 to 1937, researching and writing this book. After its completion, he was made Director of the Third Research Committee of the Toa Kenkyujo (Third Research Institute) to ferret out information on anti-Japanese activities among the Chinese in Southeast Asia, but Shozo also paid attention to Chinese economic relations between the mainland and Southeast Asia. Little else is known about Shozo, except that from 1938 until his death, he taught at Chuo University in Tokyo. Perhaps due to wartime conditions, the quality of the paper of the 1942 edition was inferior. During the intervening years, fewer than a handful of copies survived, but it was learned that the brittleness of the paper would not withstand photocopying, which is extremely harmful to the original. Ramon Myers, Curator of the East Asian Collection in the Hoover Institution at Stanford, came up with the brilliant idea of microfilming the book. Les Oates, a specialist in the field and a Japanese linguist at Melbourne University, translated the work into English. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 131 was intended to build up a library collection of books on Asia. It has been an abiding personal interest, for I have at all times been instrumental in adding to it. Although modest in size, it contains a good stock of works on Asian subjects in Western languages, with a major emphasis on China. Over the years, our books have been housed in various places: in the British Council; in the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wanchai after its completion in 1972; and for almost a decade from 1985, in the new Kowloon Central Library. They are now back again on Hong Kong Island, in the City Hall Main Library. Placing the collection in Kowloon turned out to be a big mistake. In the past, expatriates who lived on Hong Kong Island talked and thought of Kowloon almost as though it was on another planet.* One might have hoped that two harbour tunnels, cross-harbour buses and the Mass Transit Railway would have altered old perceptions and prejudices. However, during the ten years the Library collection was kept in Kowloon, few of our members found the way there, or made much use of the book retrieval service provided for them at the City Hall Library. As it turned out, after computerization of our membership records in the mid-1980s, most of our members did live on Hong Kong Island, and the old views of Kowloon had apparently persisted. Still being added to yearly, the Collection is now housed on the 9th floor of the re-modelled City Hall High Block and is under the care of the Urban Council Library staff there. Honorary Editor I was Honorary Editor of the RAS Journal between 1966 and 1980, responsible for producing fourteen annual issues for the years 1967-1980 inclusive, as well as a number of the Society's Symposia Brochures—the published papers of those presented at symposia devoted to special subjects. I much enjoyed editorial work, and benefited from the many friendships it brought with it. One among them was with the late Professor Luther Carrington Goodrich of Columbia University, whom I first came to know in 1967, after asking him for a note on Ming cannon found in Hong Kong and sending on details of newly discovered pieces. He forwarded other contributions to the Journal thereafter; and once, when lagging in my editorial work, he had sent a "chaser", urging me to put a bomb under our printer. Of course, I had to reply that the bomb needed to be placed under me, as the guilty party. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 132 This is perhaps an appropriate place in which to put my last remembrance of a grand old man. In the mid 1980s, on one of my visits to New York, when he was approaching his 90th year but was yet active in mind and body, we had lunch together in the faculty club at Columbia. We then adjourned to a drawing room, to enable him to look at a draft paper I was preparing for publication, on which I had asked his advice. A watery sun shone through the fading curtains, onto the rather elderly carpet and furnishings in the large and otherwise deserted room. Goodrich looked through the long draft for about twenty minutes without saying a word, then told me that it was on the right lines and worth pursuing. It was good of him to take the trouble at his age, though I have since found that "Fu Hsien-seng", as he was called by his devoted former pupils, had a great reputation as a teacher and friend, 19 Our Printer Like many editors, I have been fortunate with printers, one of whom deserves a special mention. Lam Yung-fai ("Y.F." to his friends) was our RAS printer from the very first issue of the Journal in 1960. He was works manager of Ye Olde Punterie, Ltd., in Duddell Street, and printed the Journal and all other RAS publications almost up to his retirement in the early 1980s. From first to last, "Y.F." took a keen personal interest in our printing work. In those days, his firm's compositors were all elderly and experienced men. They were very efficient, but I knew that "Y.F." used to help me out by doing preliminary proof-reading, so that when I got to see the galley-proofs the number of errors in them was usually small; far less than when, facing rising charges after his firm was reorganized and re-equipped around 1980 and he went on semi-retirement, we turned to other printers. "Y.F." was a Hong Kong man, born and bred. Before the Second World War, he had been with the South China Morning Post, and was among those employees who helped bring out the first issues of the newspaper after the Colony was liberated at the end of August 1945. He gave me copies of these historic news-sheets, which are now in the Hong Kong Collection (Special Collections) at the Library of the University of Hong Kong, or the Museum of History, I forget which. One or two rare book items were also handed on for the Special Collections, and I had the satisfaction of looking at one recently, noting the Page 150 Page 151 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g Book Review 217 JAMES HAYES (1996), Friends and Teachers: Hong Kong and its People, 1953-87, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 11 chapters, appendix, glossary, index, 320 pages. James Hayes needs little introduction to most members of the Society. He was a former editor of the Journal and President of the Council for many years. He is also an extraordinarily nice human being with a passion for bow-ties. He allegedly retired, to Bondi Beach, Australia, in 1987 but there is little evidence that he is taking this seriously. Au contraire, he continues to write prolifically for the Journal and has also added many new books to the Society's collection through his constant forays into used-book shops. All-in-all, James spent 32 years in Hong Kong. He was a member of the Administrative Service of the Hong Kong Government from August, 1956 (he was here briefly in 1953 with the Army). Although he had the varied career that characterises the Service, he spent almost half his time in the New Territories as District Officer South (1957-62), District Officer (and Town Manager) Tsuen Wan (1975-82), and Regional Secretary, New Territories (1985-87). He was, and remains, a noted sinologist and accomplished in the Chinese language. Academically, he was very sound with a PhD from the University of London and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters bestowed by the University of Hong Kong in 1992. James has decided to share his memories of his service in Hong Kong with us in a new book. Autobiographies by former Hong Kong Government civil servants, and by Hong Kong people generally for that matter, are relatively rare events, almost as if the majority are reluctant to write their memoirs for fear of criticism or ridicule, or have little in their careers worth writing about. James has no problem on either count. His career was rich and varied, filled with achievements and may truly be said to have added value to public life in Hong Kong. As for the telling of it, he has avoided the inclination to embark upon a literary ego trip although he is not averse to describing the highlights in detail. Few will be offended by the style. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT As of 15 March 1998, the library collection had increased to 3,429 volumes. A total of 240 volumes were added during the year. There was a reduction of books purchased by Dr. James Hayes from Australia. However, a large donation was received from the Command Library (British Armed Forces Library), amounting to around 60 books. Most of these books are about Hong Kong, China and Southeast Asia. Donations of books were also received from Dr. Gillian Bickley, Dr. James Hayes, Dr. Li Shu-fan, Mrs. Patricia Lim, Mr. Liang Xi-hua, Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, Dr. Anthony Siu, and The Hong Kong Archaeology Society. Members of the Royal Asiatic Society visited the Hong Kong Collection of the University of Hong Kong Libraries together with the Hong Kong University Museum on 22 November 1997. The comprehensive collection of books, records, newspapers, microfilms and other documents is renowned as the best collection relating to Hong Kong in the territory. The group was given a guided tour by the curator of the Special Collections, Mr Y.C. Wan. Mr. Wan also gave a brief history of the unique collections in the Rare Book Room. Members were particularly interested in the antique maps of Hong Kong and China. To help publicise and promote the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, as part of the University of Hong Kong Libraries' digital project, it was suggested that selected articles of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society could be mounted on the HKU Libraries web server for wider access. The proposal is still under consideration because of copyright concern. Consent of the authors is required to launch the project. As of November 1997, the RAS Collection is available for searching on the Internet (http://www.uc.gov.hk/ucpl) via the On-line Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) of the Provisional Urban Council Public Libraries. Users may search the catalogue by author, title, subject, and/or keywords. The RAS collection is one of the special collections in the City Hall Library. xxxiii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x and seminar about the old library of the Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch with the new Hong Kong Central Library at the beginning of 2001. Mr. Michael Lee (Chief Librarian of Provisional Urban Council Public Library) and Ms. Agnes Lee (Reference Librarian of City Hall Public Library) will be travelling to Shanghai and will take the opportunity to examine the conditions of the books before making any decision to set up the exhibition. Efforts have been made in planning the relocation of the RAS Collection to the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay around the end of 2000. Similar to existing arrangements, post-1900 materials will be located in the special collection, and pre-1900 materials (previously the RAS Reference Collection) will be housed in the new Rare Book Room for reference only. Mrs. Valery Garrett and Mrs. May Holdsworth have kindly spent some time in reviewing the existing RAS pre-1900 western language materials, and selecting/adding titles from the special collection to the rare book collection as appropriate. Ms. Julia Chan, Honorary Librarian, worked with Dr. Michael Lau in arranging the RAS rare book collection in Chinese language. Compact shelving will be provided to maximize storage capacity and a comfortable reading area will be available to users to consult the materials. The collection will also be open to the academic communities and general public for reference. Usage of the RAS collection for reference was similar to last year. But while the number of borrowers has dropped by 50%, the number of books loaned out has increased by 22%. As reported by the City Hall Library Office, usage of the RAS Library for the period from 1 March 1999 to 28 February 2000 is as follows: No. of reference enquiries No. of books consulted No. of borrowers No. of books loaned out 188 457 44 128 Julia Chan Hon. Librarian 1 March 2000 XXXV ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2000/2001 As of 1 March 2001, the library collection had increased to 4,133 volumes. A total of 148 volumes were added during the year. Donations of books were received from Mr. Anthony Chung, Ms. Launa Christofis, Mr. Peter Crush, Mr. Bob Horsnell, Dr. James Hayes, Dr. Dan Waters, Hong Kong Museum of History, and Friends of the Art Museum at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The relocation of the RAS Collection to the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay has again been delayed. It is now planned to move in April 2001 to take advantage of the Easter holidays so that it will cause less disruption to service. There will be two RAS Collections in the new Library: the Main Collection of post-1900 materials shelved in the Special Collections area, and the Rare Book Collection of pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) housed in the Central Library Rare Book Room. Both collections will be on the 7/F of the Library. The Rare Book Collection is for reference only and will be under close supervision. Some Council members have expressed concern about the deteriorated condition of some books in the RAS Collection. City Hall Public Library has kindly agreed that their Conservation Unit will help to restore these books through binding and repair after they have settled down in the new location. They will also cooperate with the Hon. Librarian to catalogue and process the Arnold Graham Collection which was donated by the late Mr. Arnold Graham in 1995 but sent directly to the City Hall Public Library without being catalogued. These books will then be able to be accessed from the Online Catalogue. In light of the move to the new location, the Library Regulations for usage and borrowing have been revised and accepted by the Council members. The regulations became effective July 2000 irrespective of the Collection's location. Copies of the Library Regulations have been distributed for information. The new Library Regulations demand stricter borrowing xlii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2001/2002 As of 1 March 2002, the library collection had increased to 4,380 volumes. A total of 247 volumes were added during the year. Donations of books were received from Mr Anthony Chung, Mr Peter Crush, Mrs May Holdsworth, Mr Bob Horsnell, Dr James Hayes, Mr Lai Tim-cheong, Mr Hugh Phillipson, Dr Dan Waters, Hong Kong Museum of History, and Friends of the Art Museum at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The long awaited for Hong Kong Central Library was finally opened on 16 May 2001. The RAS Collection is now housed on the 7/F of the Central Library. The Main Collection of post-1900 materials is shelved in the Special Collections area, and the Rare Book Collection of pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) is housed in the Rare Book Room. Compact shelving is provided to maximize storage capacity and a comfortable reading area close to the Collection is also available for users to consult the materials. A guided tour of the RAS Collection was organized by the Hon. Librarian for the Society members on 15 September 2001. A total of 34 members in two sessions attended the tour. All were impressed and appreciative of the modern and well-equipped facilities as well as the spacious and pleasant environment conducive to study, research and recreational reading. It was gratifying to see that the RAS Collection is well taken care of and has adequate room for expansion. During the Library tour, the Hoi Ha (Village) Collection which was moved from the Shatin Central Library to the Hong Kong Central Library was displayed specially for the members. These books were found by our President, Dr Patrick Hase, by accident some years ago. It included books on schools and medicine and covered all aspects of village life in that period. Patrick gave a very interesting talk on the history of the collection at the same time. With the move to the new location, Hong Kong Central Library xlii Page 45 Page 46 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY LIBRARY REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2002/2003 As of 1 March 2003, the Library collection had increased to 4,856 volumes. A total of 476 volumes were added during the year. The number of additions this year is double that of last year, which was 247 volumes. Donations of books were received from Mrs Anna Baker, Mrs Lorna Christofis, Mrs Valery Garrett, Mr Michael Guilford, Mrs Patricia Lim, Mrs Ann Marden, and Dr Dan Waters. We would like to thank all our donors and welcome future contributions of old and rare books or journals. The new additions are treasures for our Library. Our Library has also been enriched by some very valuable and interesting gifts from a number of societies and institutions. Dr Patrick Hase brought back, from his visit to Shanghai Library, a superb copy of a two-volume reproduction of a series of nineteenth century Chinese woodcuts from Shanghai; the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong sent us a beautiful booklet on The Lugard Tribute; the Siam Society contributed 34 issues of the National History Bulletin: the Cultural Institute of the Macao SAR Government contributed 91 issues of the Review of Culture; and the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities sent us their Bulletin as part of the newly established exchange programme. With assistance from the Hong Kong Central Library, processing of the Arnold Graham Collection was finally completed. The Collection was donated by the late Arnold Graham in 1995 and sent to the City Hall Public Library directly without being catalogued. To facilitate access to this collection, efforts were made to process these materials soon after the move to the Central Library in 2001. About 77% of the records were successfully matched against University of Hong Kong Libraries' records and the Hon. Librarian searched or did original cataloguing for the remaining titles. The Collection comprises a total of 423 volumes, with 361 volumes in English and 62 in Chinese. These are shelved as a separate section in the Rare Book Room and can now be searched through the online catalogue of the Hong Kong Central Library, RAS Collection. A survey conducted last year on the Journal of the Hong Kong xlix ================================================================================ 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 143 Until recently the journals have been housed in the RAS collection in the City Hall Library. They are part of the 4,000 volumes of publications — including very rare books — on Asian studies, bought by or donated to the Society. Members can borrow the books and the public is invited to use them for reference. The collection now sits in the new Central Library in Causeway Bay, which opened in May 2001. Waters has published extensively in the journal and contributed to other publications by the RAS, including a book on Yau Ma Tei. "I had been interested in local history all my life. When I was a child in England, when my father or some others talked about local history, my ears used to prick up straight away and I used to listen. And as a rule, I can remember it all." ** Waters has done best financially with a series of textbooks for learning technical English but one publication that may be most impressive, is a paper for his Ph.D., which he got at the age of 65 from Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. "I wanted a challenge and it was a challenge, and I overcame the challenge. I can remember a young Chinese friend of mine saying... when you get to the age of 30 you can't study, you can't concentrate... Well, I mean I could show him that's rubbish. I can concentrate, I can still concentrate." Beyond the Metropolis... The first speaker at the 40th anniversary conference is Dr. Patrick Hase. He would become Society president in three months. Hase is a stocky man, with wavy brown hair. A bit of grey around the temples hints at his age. His talk is on Sha Tin in the New Territories and the early development of the new town. Historical slides flash on screen from way before the new town was established, and more slides chronicling the development of the area follow, one by one. There's a lot of interesting history being shared but the dimmed lights and such an early hour has put a number of the audience into a dream state... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 364 Block was expanded and renovated. The Society's collection was housed in a Special Collection room in the City Hall Library. Collection expansion with a resulting shortage of accommodation is a common problem amongst all libraries. While members appreciated the convenient location and ease of access with the City Hall Library, some members lamented that the room was becoming very crowded, making it very difficult to browse the collection. Although the Chief Librarian, Mr. Mak, acknowledged their concern, not much could be done since the City Hall Library was experiencing similar space problems for its entire collection. The situation was ultimately relieved with the building of the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay. This was officially opened on 16 May 2001, and comes with well-equipped modern facilities, and a spacious and pleasant environment. The Society's collection, as part of the Reference collection, was relocated to the new Central Reference Section. The Main Collection of post-1900 materials is shelved in the Special Collections area while pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) are housed in the new Rare Book Room. Compact shelving is provided to maximize storage capacity with adequate room for expansion. A comfortable reading area is also available for users to consult the materials. The Collection Since the acquisition, through inheritance, of the Medico-Chirurgical Society's collection, the Library continues to expand through donations, purchases and international exchanges. Periodic appeals are made by presidents of the Society for gifts of books. While many members generously send donations to the Library, Dr. James Hayes has to be acknowledged for his relentless contribution to the building up of the Society's substantial and valuable collection. Dr Hayes (HKBRAS President from 1983-1989) has been largely responsible for book purchases, especially during his presidency, augmenting the Library's size to around 3,000. Subsequent to retirement in Australia, he still actively searches for modestly-priced, hard-to-find books in second-hand bookstores, for the Society. The Society now possesses an excellent quality Library. The collection consists of books, periodicals, pamphlets, photo albums, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 365 microforms, audiovisual materials, and CD-ROMs, covering oriental subjects and cultures, in varied languages, and has become a fine reference source. Some of the books provide eye-witness accounts of China over the past years. Many of these are old and out of print, available to the public only in this Library. The Society has also established exchange programmes with many learned societies all over the world. The Journal forms the basis of the Library and sufficient numbers are printed for exchange. The Journal has a book review section which helps to bring in a useful nucleus of publications. Of high academic standards and interest, there has been an increasing demand for it from members and scholars overseas. The Collection is growing steadily as a result of the many useful exchanges established with other institutions. Collection access Post-1900 materials are available for loan. For security and preservation of rare and valuable materials, pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) which might be difficult to replace are only for in-house use. The collection is also open to the academic community, students and the general public as it is the intention of the Society to aid scholarly research on China and the Far East. Bibliographic aids To facilitate the use of the Society's Journal, Mr. H.A. Rydings compiled two indexes, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Index to Vols. 1-10 (1961-1970) and Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Index to Vols. 11 - 20 (1971-1980), in 1972 and 1983 respectively. These two indexes combine, in one alphabetical sequence, entries for authors and subjects of articles in the 20 volumes of the Journal and cover the contents of the annual Journal from 1961-1970 and 1971-1980. In addition, the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society is one of the journals enlisted in the University of Hong Kong Libraries' digital project on Hong Kong Journals Online which contains scholarly journals published in Hong Kong. This database is open to access worldwide and allows browsing of table of contents ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 of medical history in Hong Kong for our Journal. The Shanghai Library was also offered Honorary Institutional membership during Patrick Hase's trip to Shanghai, The Arnold Graham Collection has now been fully processed and catalogued. It was sent to the Conservation Unit of the Hong Kong Central Library for fumigation in April 2003. The Collection comprises a total of 423 volumes, with 361 volumes in English and 62 volumes in Chinese. Since they are of historical and intrinsic value, the whole Collection has been moved to the Rare Book Room. A white round label with the initials ‘A.G.' indicating Arnold Graham is adhered to the spine of each book for easy identification. At the Council meeting on 22 September 2003, it was resolved that borrowing privileges of Honorary Institutional Members be modified. One membership card will be issued to the Secretary of each of the Honorary Institutional Members and the membership card could be lent to any member of that Institution, but only to one member per month. Each member of that institution would be allowed to borrow only one book at a time for a period of 1 month. Regular members could borrow 3 items at any one time for 2 months with a maximum of 10 items. Talks of RAS speakers have been recorded in tapes for years. In order to better preserve the content, it was decided that these tapes be digitized if permission is granted by the speaker. The Hong Kong Central Library has kindly offered, for free service, to digitize these tapes since they are produced by the Library. The digitized version will be mounted on the Multimedia Information System, available for convenient access in the Public Libraries via the System. Since retroactive consent of previous talks could not be obtained, it was agreed that while these tapes will be digitized for preservation purpose, the CDs will be placed in the HKBRAS Rare Book Collection, available for use in the Library but not for loan. To date, 6 records (10 tapes) from 1988 to 1994 were digitized, available for listening in the Hong Kong Public Libraries via their Multimedia Information System; 34 records (37 tapes) are in preparation and 38 records (39 tapes) are pending for digitization. There are a total of 78 records (86 tapes). ================================================================================