RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 46 HUGH D. R. BAKER to "Mui Tsai in Hong Kong", the Report of the Committee appointed by the Governor, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1935.- "The most careful inquiry shews that no male children are bought and sold here as slaves or servants. and confirms the statements in the Blue-book that 'Boys are sold to be sons. not slaves' and 'that no such thing as a slave-boy exists in Hong Kong". It might too with truth have been added 'nor in Canton' ". The 1935 Report itself concludes that "there is no evidence of slavery among Chinese males”. 90 ***. 91 蒙養學校. 92 *. 93 It is tempting to link this Sai Man surname with the original name of Kam Tin - Sham Lei - and to postulate a history of enslavement by 岑里 the Tangs of the original inhabitants. There is no evidence to support such a theory, however, and it must be put down to coincidence. 94 趟。 95 Anyway, since the vegetable-growers are mainly immigrants, indigenous men were freed from the land and looked elsewhere for income in addition to the rents from these fields. 96 Perhaps the village of Tai Tau Leng ★★ may be taken as an example. 97 See for instance Freedman, op. cit.; Hu Hsien-chin, The Common Descent Group in China and its Functions, New York, 1948; Arthur H. Smith, Village Life in China, New York, 1899; Lena E. Johnston, China and her Peoples, London, 1923; and many others. 98. A.D. 1662-1723. 99 For more details see Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842, Hong Kong, 1963, (Chinese version 1960), chapter VI. 100 Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and *, Governor of Kwangtung. For details see the Hsin-an Hsien-chih B of 1819; also Lo Hsiang-lin, op. cit., chapter VI. 101 I have not seen this temple, and believe it to be on the mainland side of the border which runs through the town. 102 It has become very much a part of village life, accommodating a school; while on the ten-yearly occasions of Kam Tin's Ta-chiu Festival it is the physical focus of the ceremonies, and also has importance in that Chau and Wong are the 'patron saints' of the festival, 103 周王二院. 104 In fact, it was only the Tang Clan which was not wholly involved in the venture---those of its lineages on the West side of the New Territories not being included. The whole of each of the other four clans took part. 105 That is the Tangs of Tai Po Tau and Lung Kwat Tau. 106 Burned down in the fire of 1954, and not yet rebuilt. 107 深圳河. 108 The Tangs of Lung Kwat Tau, the Haus and the Lius. 109 The Tangs of Tai Po Tau, the Pangs, and the Mans of San Tin and Tai Hang. 110 J. W. Hayes, op. cit., note 52. 111 "Despatches and other papers relating to the extension of the Colony of Hong Kong", in Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1899. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 180 BOOK REVIEWS Children's toys and games are not overlooked, and are detailed in the chapter on the Tenth Moon. This was the season for kite flying, often with aeolian harps attached. The forms mentioned include the flamingo, wild goose, and flying tiger, all painted with extreme care. Tun is fond of seeking motives for children's amusements and considers the kites beneficial in making the eyes clearer as they are strained to look after the mounting objects. He finds a similar value in shuttlecocks. These were made of a skin covering sewn over a copper coin, with a bunch of feathers attached to the top with a cord. When children kick them about it promotes the circulation of the blood, and keeps them warm. As a side-line the glass factories produced two forms of trumpet, one gourd-shaped, and the other of conventional type. By blowing these the young people were obliged to take deep breaths and filled their lungs with fresh air. Boys of the poorer class ground stones into small marble-like balls which they kicked about as footballs, so keeping the blood circulating in their extremities. "Peace Drums" sound like very modern propaganda. They consisted of an iron circlet over which a donkey skin was stretched. They were furnished with a handle like a fan, at the lower end of which was a loop with a number of iron rings. The drum was beaten with a rattan cane making a booming noise that contrasted with the jangling of the rings. Diabolo was a favourite toy, and the flanges were provided with a rectangular opening to produce a humming sound when sufficient speed was acquired. The cotton string which operated the reel was always given a twist, and some children were very skilful at operating a diabolo with only one flange balanced by a ball-shaped piece of wood. Nothing in the local scene escapes the observant author, who describes fighting crickets and the seasonal birds, with notes on their training. He describes one autumn fruit, Tou Ku-niang as being “shaped like a small egg plant, red as coral, round, glassy and slippery." It was, he says, a great favourite with the young, and owes its name "Fighting girls" from the contention it arouses for its possession. The book is lavishly illustrated with Chinese line drawings and several coloured plates, whilst inside the covers are skeleton maps of Peking, with conventional signs for places of interest referred to in the text. In addition, there are six most useful ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d BOOK REVIEWS 343 in this new publication, the subject being discussed by Ch'eng Wei is only one of many aspects of Chinese painting. 44 Such as (A) in Chapter X whether Chiao Ping-chen should be regarded as an artist of the Yu-shan school, and (B) in Chapter IV, whether Mo Shih-lung's chronology is to be rendered as ca. 1540-1587. Undoubtedly the chronology which appears in Professor Li's book is far more reasonable than ca. 1567-1582, the impossible chronology suggested by C. C. Wang and Victoria Contag in their Seals of Chinese painters and collectors of the Ming and Ch'ing Periods (1966, Hong Kong), p. 134. Nevertheless, for many years Mo Shih-lung's chronology has always been a puzzle to students of Chinese art. No one so far, except Professor Li, has so explicitly pointed out the years of birth and death of this artist. For example, in Nan-ching po-mu-yüan tsang-hua-chi, Chinese paintings in the collection of the Nanking Museum (1966, Peking), Vol. I, p. 3, the editor was able only to find Mo Shih-lung's death was in 1587. In Professor Li's book, this artist's year of death agrees with what the Nanking specialists have found. About Mo's year of birth, Vol. I, p. 106 states, "he must have been born around 1540, though the precise date is not known", so it seems that 1540-1587 is a tentative calculation. However, students of Chinese art would feel grateful if Professor Li could give his original information and state that on what ground this chronology is obtained. THE SANDALWOOD MOUNTAINS; READINGS AND STORIES OF THE EARLY CHINESE IN HAWAII: compiled and edited by Tin-Yuke Char, pp. xv, 359. Honolulu, University Press of Hawaii 1975. “Yum sai see yuen.” “When drinking water, think of the source." This ancient Chinese proverb came to mind as I read Mr. Char's compilation, The Sandalwood Mountains. This is a monumental book—a monument to the Chinese who came to Hawaii in the early 1800s to start the first sugar plantations there and who later came in the tens of thousands in the latter third of the 19th century. Many of these early Chinese laborers were brought to Hawaii indentured for three to five years at a cost of $5 to $7 a month, including pay and support. Many of them later left to start their own rice plantations and other agricultural pursuits. Others left to go into retailing and service industries. Many lived to see their children and grandchildren become teachers, professional people, political leaders and thoroughly integrated into Hawaii's multi-racial life. The book is also a monument to the compiler, Tin-Yuke Char, who has brought to his task an unusual background including studying and teaching in Hawaii, China and the mainland United ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 184 DAVID FAURE née Yau, of Mang Kung Uk is not untypical. She grew up in Tseng Lan Shue, was betrothed at 4 years old, but continued to live in her father's village. At 7 she helped to look after three cows, driving them up the hill early in the morning, returning at approximately 8.00 am or 9.00 am for breakfast, and going back to the hill to drive them home in the early afternoon. At 10, she began to help her mother to carry firewood into Kowloon, carrying approximately 30 catties on each trip. She married at 19, and worked under the supervision of her mother-in-law. Her husband was a seaman, and received only 8 dollars per month. Her mother-in-law looked after the children, and she cooked, farmed, raised pigs, cut firewood and grass, and carried water. She often had to rise at 4.00 in the morning and work till late at night.64 Up to the eve of World War II, daily life in Sai Kung did not change significantly from the description given in this chapter. This background is needed for an understanding of the impact of the War on Sai Kung's residents. THE WAR YEARS The coming of the Japanese It was 3.00 o'clock in the morning, December 10, 1941. Mr. Chung P'oon was awakened by loud banging on his door. Thinking that these might be bandits, he answered the door with knife in hand. He opened the door to find several guns pointing at him. The Japanese army had arrived at Wong Chuk Shan Village. For him and for the rest of the Sai Kung population, the occupation had begun.... Through an interpreter, the Japanese told him they wanted to be taken to Kowloon. Mr. Chung did not know it then, but we now know that two days earlier, the Japanese army had overrun Tai Po and Sha Tin, and the day before had taken what was known as the "Shingmun redoubt". British forces were withdrawing from the New Territories to Hong Kong Island, and a contingent of Sepoy soldiers were covering the retreat at Devil's Peak. The Japanese soldiers in Wong Chuk Shan had probably strayed into the village by mistake. They had come over from Shap Sz Heung, intending to find their way into Kowloon. Now, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v 191 N° of Column Omens 19. Offering made to each of the four quarters will be auspicious. 20, 21. The Shuozhou says: "Dogs die and are repeatedly reborn; to eat dogs is unlucky. + + inauspicious. Once (it) possesses supernatural powers (it) can cause misfortune. death and destroy one's links (with the living???). difficult to catch in order to kill it; if wounded it becomes even fiercer(?). If you reflect on how best to worship (it) again in order to grow rich (then) release something living(?), it will bring great good fortune to all of us. Afterward, all things will rapidly be successful as promised in the rules. (?) Make an amulet and put a dog at the top. 22. 23. Chapter 27: Omens from sounds. All these sounds are (produced) by the ghosts of dead soldiers. If a sound is heard on a zi day, it bodes ill; there will be illness 24. (and misfortune?). Write an astronomical charm and hang it over the door and all will be well. If a sound is heard on a zhou day, there will be damage to wealth and property and misfortune for small children. Offer a peach tree branch, 6 inches seven cun long. 25. Write an astronomical charm and place it in the branch and it will bring good fortune. If sounds are heard on a yin day, it bodes ill. There will be illness, calamities and loss of wealth. Offer a peach tree branch 6 inches 7 cun long. 26. Write an astronomical charm in order to produce good fortune. If a sound is heard on a mao day, disasters will affect young children. Offer a branch of the tong tree three inches nine cun long. I made the following corrections: - "muži" to "cun" (assuming it's a unit of measurement, and "cun" is a common Chinese unit) - "US" to "us" - "zi F day" to "zi day" (removed the extra character) - "zhou # day" to "zhou day" (removed the extra character) - "mao p day" to "mao day" (removed the extra character) - Added or corrected punctuation for better readability - Corrected some spacing issues - "seven muži" and "7 mu" to "seven cun" (consistency in unit of measurement) Note that some parts of the text still appear to be unclear or contain uncertain characters (e.g., "(with the living???)" and "(?)"). These were left as is, as per the instruction to not rephrase or rewrite the text. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 31 nance altered, I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. Maybe the official teaching of the Christian Churches would not approve of such an approach but I see the definite possibility of composing a set of 60 or 100 oracles based on Biblical stories: the books of the Bible, Old and New Testament, abound with events and actions which can be used as models for the present. If one maintains a strong belief in divine guidance, it is not a priori unacceptable that one would cast a Christian oracle and obtain a Christian answer parallel to those of the Chinese temple oracles. To mention just a few random examples, first from the Old Testament: Abraham leaves his home: obedience to God's will; Abraham sacrifices his son: God tempts the faith of his devotee; Joseph in Egypt: virtue is sometimes tested, but will ultimately triumph. From the New Testament: John the Baptist's message: if you do not repent, you will perish; Mary's acceptance of a superhuman mission; the poor widow's contribution to the temple; the healing power of Jesus for those who have faith. Such an experiment may not be welcomed by the Church authorities, not because the examples are not relevant, but because of the divination approach involved. However, it could be interpret- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 82 BARBARA E. WARD around 12 (range 6 to 12), compared with the small liner's 5. By 1970 the picture had changed not at all for the small-liners, but the purse-seiners were no longer working in pairs. Each operating purse-seiner crew now averaged about 9.5 members only (range 7 to 16). The existence of very wide ranges of difference between different boats of the same type should suffice to draw attention to the fact that the averages given here are no more than arithmetical figures. It is especially important that this should be clearly understood in connection with the number of able-bodied crew members. Because these are essentially family crews, their actual numbers are intrinsically likely to vary quite widely, especially if, as here, all children upwards of 10 years old are included. The decision to include them is defended later in this chapter, but it does raise certain problems for economic analysis. In particular, also, it makes it imperative that the reader should beware of confusing either average or actual figures with any kind of optimal numbers. Some of these issues appear again in the section on boat's masters, below, and in Chapter 8.45 Nevertheless, certain implications for the kinds of family structure likely to be found on different types of fishing boat do follow from the broad average figures just given. It is clear that small long-liners required smaller working crews than purse-seiners. This made it possible for the small liners in Kau Sai to operate with smaller scale family groups on board. In fact, of the 17 small liners based on Kau Sai in 1953, 11 housed nuclear family units, 4 were occupied by stem families (i.e., father, mother, one married son and his wife, with or without the unmarried children of both couples) and 2 by families comprising two or more adult brothers with their wives and children. Perhaps surprisingly, nearly half the purse-seiners, regarded as single boats, also housed simple, nuclear families. There were 15 of these. Of the others, 14 contained extended 3 generation families comprising a man and his wife (wives) together with one or more married sons and their wives and children as well as their own unmarried children, and 8 were occupied by groups in which adult brothers, their wives and children were living ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 89 It is clear from this table that a man would not be in charge of a fishing boat until he was over 30 years of age. By that time he would usually be a married man of between 10 and 20 years' standing with several children. The significance of this (and therefore the importance in local estimation of early marriage and the rapid production of children) should be obvious from the earlier discussion about the size of the work force on different types of boat. A man with wife, mother and 2 children aged 10 or above could run a small long-liner quite successfully. With fewer than that, or with only younger children, he would encounter difficulty; alone or with only a wife, he would have to take to the much less remunerative business of handlining or find paid employment on somebody else's junk. A master's age and his date of marriage could thus be seen in one light as functions of his role (and vice versa). The likely age of mastership was fixed also by a man's father's age. The father of a man of, say, 36 years would be likely to be in at least his middle fifties. By that age a Kau Sai man tends to think of himself as old, and, as we shall see, it is not uncommon for masters of fifty and upwards to enter upon "retirement". When this happens their places are normally assumed by their eldest sons in about their mid-thirties. There were no cases in Kau Sai of retirement before 50, and only one example of a man (aged 57) handing over his mastership to a son under thirty. (It should not be inferred from this that all men of fifty and over wished to withdraw from active mastership: retirement, which is discussed in detail below and in Chapter 8, was an idiosyncratic matter). There is some evidence that the expectation of life among the Boat People is lower than among the land people in Hong Kong. Barnett1 discerns a rapid falling off in numbers after the age of fifty. In so far as that was the case it would follow, of course, that a common age for succession would be sometime in a man's thirties or late twenties. My figures from Kau Sai are too few to add anything of substance to the discussion about the expectation of life among the Boat People in general, but the following tables, which show the incidence of mastership among males of the various age groups, do provide some support for Barnett's hypothesis. Row 1 in Table 2 records two dramatic decreases: between the forties and fifties and the thirties and forties. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 102 BARBARA E. WARD It should not be inferred from any of the foregoing that the potentially polluting nature of females in general and the actually polluting nature of menstruating and parturient females in particular was not considered to be of prime importance. The dangers were certainly felt to be completely real, the fears they engendered just as worrying to the women as the men. It so happened, however, that the prohibitions that were believed to ward the dangers off had little to do with the performance of work. Provided she observed the correct ritual taboos and did not take part in shooting lines or nets while in a state of impurity a woman's participation in fishing operations was not thought to be unlucky.65 Both in 1953 and 1970, when the full counts were made, the Boat population of Kau Sai was distributed almost equally between males and females. Children and the elderly The following information has been compiled from the full count made in 1953 and discussed in more detail in Chapter below [not included in manuscript]:- Type Number 0-9 10-15 16-59 Over 60 Total Purse-seiner 37 121 25 180 13 339 small long-liner 15 26 16 55 3 100 medium long-liner 3 7 1 11 hand-liners and others 8 8 3 17 1 29 Totals 61 158 44 259 18 479 The divisions in this table have been made to accord with the common practice of including young people of 16 years and above in the economically active section of a population and excluding old people over 60. There was nothing very realistic about this division in Kau Sai, where boys and girls around 10... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 113 3 This is the Cantonese pronunciation of the characters which in literal translation mean "egg families". 4 Ref: my articles in A.S.A. Volume and in Man. ["Varieties of the conscious model, the fishermen of South China," in M. Banton, ed. The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology (London, Tavistock, 1965), pp. 113-37, and "Sociological self-awareness; some uses of the conscious models,” Man (1966) vol. 1, pp. 200-15.] * Professor Chan Tze-king states that the Boat People speak whatever dialect is dominant in the area in which they live, and that some of them (notably around Kwangtung) therefore speak non-Cantonese dialects [Ch'en Hsü-ching, op. cit., pp.30-1.]. To the best of my knowledge all so-called Tanka in Hong Kong speak Cantonese. "[The 1961 census reported a 'marine population' of 136,802 persons.] 7 This is a translation of the local term (suen cheung), the official title was Village Representative. & Substituted by nylon in late 'fifties. 9 The Chinese expression used was either a fisherman's name or a pronoun, followed by the possessive particle. 10 Chinese is suen. 11 Note about equipment from New Zealand C.A.R.E. etc. 12 Note on land tenure situation: these were officially "temporary structures" and therefore limited in size. 13 Eating sweet potatoes, except by children as a kind of sweetmeat, is regarded as a sure sign of poverty and much derided. 14 Except at weekends. His wife refused to live at Kau Sai and he quite often failed to return until Tuesday or even later in the week. The present day teachers also go back to the Mainland at the weekends and during school holidays, but are punctilious about keeping school hours. 15 Officially called Kau Sai New Village. 16 Or rather his wife; but that was not stated, nor were his wages taken into account. 17 The roles of these different organs of administration are discussed fully below. [Discussion not found in manuscript.] 18 [Not included in manuscript.] 19 It does not follow that because for practical purposes movements on land and water were equally simple no intellectual distinctions were made. The point is discussed at length in the final chapter below. [This final chapter is not found in the manuscript.] 20 Note on dynamite. 21 The effect of mechanisation in breaking down specialisation seems to have been quite general among inshore fishermen. It is discussed further in Chapter V [section 5 below]. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x 116 BARBARA E. WARD 50 Two of these men were already married and with several children; each was master of a second boat in a purse-seine pair. The third, aged only 20, was the very recently bereaved son of a man who had died in an accident. This boy later took a paid job ashore in Sai Kung. The father of the fourth (aged 24) was still living with him on his junk. This case is described further in the text below. 51 [The manuscript at this point allows almost three blank pages after this phrase: "The data for 1970, compiled for me by". The blank pages are followed by this paragraph: "One major difference between the figures for 1953 and 1970 is the disappearance from the latter of the two-boat firm of purse-seiners. Concomitant with this, there has been a general diminution in the number of purse-seiners and some raising of the age of boats' mastership. We have already seen how it is linked also with mechanisation and the move ashore."] 52 For example, the 20-year-old master and his mother mentioned above, and the blind man with a sick wife and one ten-year-old son were both hand liners. 53 Cp. above Table 1. The discrepancy between the figures there and in Table 3 is due to the fact that the ages of the crews of 2 small liners were not recorded. Both housed nuclear families with father as master. 54 Barnett's hypothesis (above p. 101) was formed on the basis of the Census in 1960. If improved living standards among the Boat People date (as I believe they do) from the acceptance of mechanisation, they would only begin to become generally apparent from about that date onwards. 55 The economic arguments for and against division in such circumstances could be very evenly balanced. With mechanisation, it might well pay a group of brothers to stay together and convert to medium long-lining. See Chapters 8 and 9. For family division in general, see Chapter below. 56 So much so, and so well authenticated by magical signs, that it was difficult to find him a bride. See below Chapter 9. 57 Cp. D. above. [A table, similar to Table 4, probably intended.] 58 See my forthcoming study of the Boat People of Hong Kong. [Not written.] 59 Above, pp. [105-6]. 60 Above, pp. [96-7]. 61 The most poignant incident during my stay in Kau Sai concerned a young Sai Kung-based fisherman who left his wife and two tiny children on board their small junk while he went off in a sampan to set fish traps. On his return about an hour later, the junk was empty. Presumably the toddler had fallen overboard, and the distraught mother trying to reach him had toppled in herself, taking the baby, who was slung upon her back, with her. 62 m gon ching: this term can be used with either ritual or secular connotations. 63 Women were said to suffer more often from sea-sickness. 64 To staunch the flow, they used sheets of locally made absorbent paper (iso chi, lit: coarse paper; the adjective can have the same double meaning as in English). This was tucked between the legs and held in place by the close-fitting underpants which were worn by both sexes and sometimes also by a waist cord. The paper was cheap, easily available, bulky, uncomfortable, and almost impossible to dispose of privately at sea. Once convinced that, contrary to their... Page 135 Page 136 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 46 without being confronted at every turn by Acts of Parliament, and systems of espionage, that seem especially designed to restrict individual enterprise and frustrate industrial endeavour. Letter of 1900 - Hong Kong Telegraph ▬▬ The effects of this "freedom" of the individual to sell his labour but occasionally pricked the conscience of the Hong Kong resident only occasionally. A letter writer using the pen-name "Balthasar" observed in the Hong Kong Telegraph, 18 May 1900, that, Among the labourers carrying bricks and lime up the Glenealy may be noticed several children whose physique is quite unequal to the toil. These poor young children gasp under their burden. One of them, on being spoken to, answered that his father had died of plague, and if he worked not had no rice. He was thirteen years of age, and yet carried two baskets of lime, usually borne by adults, and which he had to lay down several times along the way. After describing these conditions, the writer asked, "Is there no law in Hong Kong to regulate the employment of minors?" The answer, as he well knew, was "No". It was not that there was no money in Hong Kong for charitable purposes. He reminded the community that a Colony "that can exceed all expectations in its contribution to the War Fund [the Boer War] may well look to the relief of its own stricken poor". Bowley's Articles on "The Children's Charter" Mr. Francis Bulmer Lyon Bowley, a solicitor practising in Hong Kong since 1893, published a series of articles in a Hong Kong newspaper in 1911 on "The Children's Charter", that is, the British Children's Act of 1908. He contrasted its provisions with the situation in Hong Kong. The Attorney General took the matter up and two provisions were subsequently introduced into the laws of the Colony. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 12 The certainty that this is the best system of human thought as regards the relations of man to man is as much a part of the thinking of every educated Chinese as his vertebrae are a part of his skeleton; and the same may be said of the uneducated Chinese when the word feeling is substituted for thinking.*18 I have italicized the latter part of Dr. Smith's statement, because my experience of country people from the 1950s to the 1970s has led me to the certainty that this way of thinking was still very strong among older villagers without much education. It was even more alive among their leaders, and again as much the result of feeling as of education and upbringing. Among the educated class, and in particular the scholar-gentry and scholar-officials, its intensity had been extreme. The scholar-official father of Yang Kang, the novelist, said this; the intensity of his words can stand for the heart-felt beliefs of his whole class: "Confucianism is in our hair, our marrow. The entire body of the Chinese people is Confucianism. What can you offer to replace it? Without Confucianism there will be no China, no Chinese people. Without Confucianism the country and the people will fall to pieces. Nothing worse could happen. You understand me, children?"*19 + 2. Backed by the Legal Codes Not that the authorities had left all to the example set by Emperors Yao and Shun, or to Confucius and the Chinese Classics either. The moral code to which Dr. Smith referred was, in successive dynasties, ever strongly reinforced by the Legal Code. The contents of Ch'ing law, in particular, provide interesting social commentary on some of the subject matter in this chapter. There is the strong support given to family interests, with punishments prescribed for failure to observe the customary rites and social observances due to family members in the major events during life and in death. There is, too, abundant evidence for the importance of ritual in government and social life as contributing to and sustaining the desired fabric of society. This was all part of the pattern of obligations and expectations, from government to people and people to government and among themselves, that formed the basis of an ordered society and moved it forward on an ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 51 They had then shop at 10 Queen's Road until 1869 when they closed out their business (DP 17 Mar. 1869). They moved to Macao where A. Muller and Co. is listed in the Macao Directory for 1877 as a naval and general storekeeper at 75 Rua Praia Grande (Macao Boletim, 12 Dec. 1868). Gunmakers Wilhelm Schnudt Wilhelm August Ferdinand Schmidt opened a gunsmith shop on Wellington Street in 1865 (DP 2 Jan. 1866). After several changes of location and some years later he advertised his firm as a commission agent in arms, machinists and artists in general, scientific mechanics and inventors of spring mountain chains. He assured the public there were trained native assistants at the shop. In 1885 he moved his store to Beaconsfield Arcade in Queen's Road. Mr. Schmidt died in 1895 leaving his widow Caroline Johanne Georgine Schmidt to carry on the business. She died in 1923 at the age of eighty-one. They had two children, a son Hermann Hugo James, who died at the age of fourteen in the same year as his father, and a daughter Henrietta A. Schmidt, who married Capt B.R. Branch in 1917 (DP 5 Oct 1895). The daughter was the proprietor of the firm in 1914. As she had been born in Hong Kong in 1884 she was not considered an enemy alien and was allowed to continue the business, though the name of the firm was changed to something less Germanic, the Hong Kong Sporting Arms and Ammunition Store. It was for many years in business at the Beaconsfield Arcade. German Banks The Deutsch Bank had branches in China from 1873 to 1875 (Frank H.H. King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Cambridge University Press [1987, Cambridge, England], 1, p. 151). In 2, Chapter 11, p. 603-27, Dr. King discusses the Hong Kong Bank's relations with Germany. As a result of the Franco-Prussian War, the French bank Comptoir d'Escompte dismissed its German employees. These dismissals provided management for the newly organised Deutsch Bank. A notice in the Daily Press of 29 April 1872 states that: "Mr. Seligmann, formerly of Comptoir d'Escompte, arrived here [Hong Kong] and will proceed to Shanghai to... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 27 Tungtang): Papa gave in, and Rosalie [Suyin] and Tiza [her younger sister] went to the Catholic Chinese school; every morning there was half an hour of Bible story, and in this version St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary were Chinese, born in Shantung province. Rosalie asked: “How can this be? The Western School says born in Judea, and the family were all Jews." "That's what they say, but we here believe it is in Shantung,” replied the Chinese lay-sister who taught Catechism. Rosalie was not happy, and talked to the other children about it, and three days later Mother Superior sent for her after school and told her to stop asking questions. “You must understand, my child, that the others don't know any better. They are Chinese.' The devastating atmosphere of her childhood years made Han Suyin write a bitter paragraph in Chapter 11 (The End and the Beginning), taken from volume five, Phoenix Harvest. In this episode, she describes the family's difficult life in pre-revolutionary China: Their [Han Suyin's parents'] decades together were of sorrow and pain and insecurity, of war and running away and making do; and seeing their children despised for being Eurasians. Only I had the courage (or the foolishness) to scream against the general contempt for Eurasians, "But we are the future." In her early teens, Han Suyin had the courage to think of a sky-high virtually impossible dream for a female Eurasian in pre-revolutionary China, namely of becoming a medical doctor. In order to at least partially finance these very costly studies, she first had to learn typing and shorthand writing, and then got a secretarial job with P.U.M.C. (Peking Union Medical College). At P.U.M.C., this child of barely fourteen was immediately confronted with inequality in payment for equal accomplishment, depending on the employee's racial status, white, Eurasian in various different proportions, or simply Chinese. In Chapter ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 295 regular aside about their breasts and occasionally their naked crotch. He also made much of his affairs with Chinese women and at this point, in 1864 had a 'romantic and intimate interlude' with a young Chinese widow. She did not appear to be short of money and, having sought Mesny's company, accompanied him up river from Zhenjiang to Hankou where they remained until she left to join her in-laws in 1865. He had been away for a fortnight to the cotton growing districts and on his return had been handed a very polite letter from the 'fair charmer' thanking him for all his attentions to her and informing him that she was continuing on to her late husband's home in Hunan there to rear her children and end her days in virtuous widowhood. She ended, wishing him joy and happiness, by saying that the Chinese banker would hand Mesny a little keepsake to be retained by him in everlasting remembrance of their unexpected meeting at Zhenjiang, their romantic adventures and intimacy on the voyage up the Great River, and their separation for ever at Hankou. Mesny's visit to Zhenjiang 1874 After he had left military service in 1874 Mesny made frequent and repeated egotistical assertions to prominence and repute within Chinese bureaucracy and commercial circles with his endeavours, so he claimed, concentrated on guiding and promoting what he described as the westernisation and modernisation in China. It is far from clear how he made a living after 1874 though later we read in his Miscellanies that he had obtained lucrative business in Guiyang at one stage; that in 1886 he had an insurance agency in Shanghai; and was also the representative for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company. He must have had many other irons in the fire to enable him to travel so widely and so far within China, of which only a few were described in his Miscellanies. In late 1874 he travelled down river to Zhenjiang and then overland through Shandong to Beijing, spending the winter in Jinan. From the dates he gives in his autobiographical notes Mesny must have left his bride fairly soon after their marriage as he travelled through Shantung province on his way to Peking from Chen-kiang' [Mesny does not explain why he was there though almost certainly it would have been no more than a port on his journey from Hankou to Shandong]. In Shandong he visited, amongst other places, the home and burial place of Confucius at ================================================================================