RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 90 G. J. BELL Influential contacts in London and Washington—usually naval officers whom he had first met as young men and who had subsequently attained high rank—would be called upon to ensure that the gifts were promptly regularised and confirmed. By these means he succeeded in getting radars, radios and associated equipment for all three Observatories—Zikawei, Hong Kong and Macau. It is remarkable that although cut off from the mainstream of meteorological research during World War II, yet he taught himself to understand and service new and complex radar sets. In 1954, at the age of 68, Fr Gherzi moved to the United States of America, staying briefly in Saint-Louis and New Orleans before moving in 1955 to the Observatory of Geophysics in the College Jean-de-Brébeuf, Montreal. He occupied the post of Director of Research in the Observatory and maintained his interest in the measurement of solar radiation, ionospheric soundings and atmospheric electricity. Although no longer engaged in routine weather forecasting he still went out of his way to communicate with ships' officers and in his last letter to me, in 1969, he enclosed a photograph of himself on the bridge of the Leonardo da Vinci (See plate 51 to this Journal). Fr Gherzi contributed an article to Weather on the 'Derivation of the word "Typhoon"' (1953) and he would be delighted to notice that 13 years after his long letter to the Editor on 'Unrealistic Weather Maps over Continents' (1954) the same point should again be made in a paper in Weather (Walker 1967). Fr Gherzi received international recognition for his work in so far as he was honoured by membership of the Pontifical Academy of Science and the Academies of Science in both Lisbon and New York and, of course, he was made welcome in observatories in the Far East and North America. However, nothing gave him more pleasure than to be in contact with, and of help to, mariners and aviators whom he served so well and so long. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 22 RICHARD J. SMITH 11 Comparative studies on selected aspects of modernizing change in these two time periods would be illuminating. One might compare, for example, the aims and accomplishments of the Peking Tung-wen kuan (established in 1862) and the Bansho Shirabesho (established in 1858). On the former, see Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-chih Restoration, 1862-1874 (New York, 1967), 241-248; on the latter, consult Marius Jansen, "New Materials for the Intellectual History of Nineteenth-Century Japan," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 20 (1957), 569-582. On the use of Westerners in military affairs in Japan from 1853-1868, see Presseisen, 1-23; H. J. Jones, "Bakumatsu Foreign Employees," Monumenta Serica, 29.3 (Autumn, 1974). 12 Presseisen, chapter 1; Smith, , chapter 4. 13 Albert Craig, Chôshu in the Meiji Restoration (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), 131-136, 201-203, etc.; Richard J. Smith, "Foreign-Training and China's Self-Strengthening: The Case of Fenghuang-shan, 1864-1873,” Modern Asian Studies, 10.2 (1976). 14 Presseisen, 22-23. 15 See notes 7 and 8; also Hyman Kublin, "The 'Modern' Army of Early Meiji Japan," Far Eastern Quarterly, 9.1 (November, 1949), 24-26; Meron Medzini, French Policy in Japan during the Closing Years of the Tokugawa Regime (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 125-133. 16 For a discussion of Li's modernizing efforts, his extensive use of foreign assistance, and the obstacles he encountered, see S. Y. Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West (New York, 1966), 111-112; K. C. Liu, “The Confucian as Patriot and Pragmatist: Li Hung-chang's Formative Years, 1823-1866,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30 (1970); Kenneth Folsom, Friends, Guests and Colleagues (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), 152-157; and K. C. Liu, “Li Hung-chang in Chihli,” in Albert Feuerwerker, et al., eds. Approaches to Modern Chinese History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967). 17 See, for example, Lord Charles Beresford, The Break-up of China (New York and London, 1899), 267-289, esp. 270-280; Major A. E. J. Cavendish, "The Armed Strength (?) of China," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 42 (June, 1898), 709-710, 713-714, 717; Richard J. Smith, "Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850-1860," Journal of Asian History, 8.2 (1974), 127. 18 See Smith, "Foreign-Training," 212; Cavendish, 709-710, 713-714. 19 See, for example, Cavendish, esp. 720-723; Captain W. R. E. Gill, "The Chinese Army," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 24 (1881), 371-377; Chester Holcombe, China's Past and Future (London, 1904), 81-88; "The Chinese and Japanese Armies," reprinted from the Army and Navy Gazette in the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, 15 (1894), 1258; James Scott, "The Chinese Brave," Asiatic Quarterly Review, 1 (1886), esp. 240; etc. 20 See Smith, , Chapters 8 and 9. 21 See Yang-wu yün-tung cited in Smith, "Foreign-Training," 218. On Chinese resistance to foreign instructors and officers, see ibid.; also Cavendish, 720-721. 22 See, for example, L. C. Arlington, Through the Dragon's Eyes (London, 1931), 18; Stanley Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs (Belfast, 1950), 478-481; John Rawlinson, China's Struggle for Naval Development, 1839-1895 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 65-78, 93-94, 163; Holcombe, 80-85, esp. 83. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q A HAWAIIAN KING VISITS HONG KONG, 1881 Editor TIN-YUKE CHAR* Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch Sir: I am submitting a manuscript for publication in your Journal on King Kalakaua of Hawaii and his visit to Hong Kong in 1881. It gives a clear explanation why Hong Kong was chosen as the principal embarkation port for the Chinese labor recruitment to Hawaii. The strict administration of British regulations on emigration, the designation of an honorary Hawaiian consul in Hong Kong, and the reasonable contract between employer and employee signed in Hawaii, as documented in an appendix, all give a better understanding of the good treatment of our Chinese immigrants to Hawaii compared with the abuses in Peru and Cuba. The first reigning monarch to make a trip around the world was King David Kalakaua of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The year was 1881. King Kalakaua, born November 16, 1836, reigned for twenty-three years (1874-1891) until his death in San Francisco on January 20, 1891.† He had already had his first experience travelling abroad in November 1874 when he called on President Ulysses S. Grant in Washington and addressed the United States Congress in fluent English. As a result of this visit, the Hawaiian government was * Mr. Char was born in Hawaii in 1905 and has had a colorful life combining business and education. A graduate of McKinley High School in Honolulu, he received his B.A. degree from Yenching University in Peking and his M.A. from the University of Hawaii, and pursued graduate studies at Columbia University. He then taught, both in Hawaii and in China. In 1938, Mr. Char and his family returned to Hawaii as refugees from the Japanese military invasion of Canton. He spent the next thirty years in the insurance business. In 1952, he became the first person in Hawaii to gain the national professional designation of CPCU (Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter) in the field of insurance. Always active in community affairs, Mr. Char served on the boards of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Hawaii Congress of Parents and Teachers, the Nuuanu YMCA, and the Board of Underwriters of Hawaii (insurance), among others, and is currently a member of a number of historical societies, including the Hawaii Chinese History Center. Upon retirement in 1969 as president of the Continental Insurance Agency of Hawaii, Mr. Char spent a year on the campus of Chung Chi College, a division of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, as a volunteer in student counseling and placement service. Since then, he has devoted his time to historical research and writing. Mr. Char is also the author of The Hakka Chinese: Their Origin and Folk Songs and Chinese Proverbs, both published by the Jade Mountain Press of San Francisco in 1969, and The Char Family Genealogy Book, privately published in Honolulu in 1970. † See Plate 15. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 34 RICHARD J. SMITH 1 Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, informed Western observers repeatedly pointed to the lack of a modern, Western-trained officer corps as the key deficiency of the Chinese army. See, for example, Mary Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism (New York, 1967), 201; Major A. E. J. Cavendish, "The Armed Strength of China,” Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 42.244 (June, 1898), 720-722; NCH, July 6, 1880; Chinese Times, December 3, 1887; etc. For an interesting and informative discussion of officer education in the West, consult Correlli Barnett, "The Education of Military Elites," Journal of Contemporary History, 2.3 (July, 1967). 2 Cited in Chang Chung-li, The Chinese Gentry (Seattle, 1955), 174. 3 Helmutt Wilhelm, "Chinese Confucianism on the Eve of the Great Encounter," in Marius Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization (Princeton, 1965), 288-289. 4 Etienne Zi, Pratique des examens militaires en Chine (Shanghai, 1896), 111-112. For other critiques of the traditional military examinations, see Chang Chung-li, 181, 187-190; William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 178-182; Ichisada Miyazaki, China's Examination Hell (New York and Tokyo, 1976), chapter 8. 5 Richard J. Smith, "Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850-1860," Journal of Asian History, 8.2 (1974), 128. 6 Hsieh Pao Chao, The Government of China, 1644-1911 (Baltimore, 1925), 311-312; Chang Chung-li, 187. 7 Cited in Chang Chung-li, 181. 8 Miyazaki, 106. See also Robert Marsh, The Mandarins, (New York, 1961), 149-151. 9 Smith, "Chinese Military Institutions," 135. 10 Wu Wei-p'ing, "The Development and Decline of the Eight Banners" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania), 1969), 84-88. 11 Lo Erh-kang, Li-ying ping-chih (Chungking, 1945), 199-200. 12 Cited in ibid., 53. 13 Lei Hai-tsung, Chung-kuo wen-hua yi Chung-kuo ti ping (Changsha, 1940). 14 W. T. deBary, et. al., eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York and London, 1960), 2: 9-10. 15 IWSM, Hsien-feng, 28: 46b-47. 16 Ibid., 28: 47a-b. 17 Ibid., 28: 47b-49. 18 Zi, 112. 19 Chang Chung-li, 181 and note 69. See also Chang Pe'i-lun's reform proposals in 1889, YWYT, 3: 527-530, and Chang Chih-tung's in 1898, Ayers, 178-182. 20 Ralph Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power 1895-1912 (Princeton, 1955), 93. 21 Smith, "Chinese Military Institutions," 150-156; see also Wang Erh-min, Huai-chün chik (Taipei, 1967) 191-193, 207-208. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 52 JIANN HSIEH Hsieh, J. 1977 Internal Structure and Socio-cultural Change: A Chinese Case in the Multi-Ethnic Society of Singapore. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A. 1978 "The Chinese Community in Singapore: The Internal Structure and Its Basic Constituents." In Peter S. J. Chen and Hans-Dieter Evers (eds.), Studies in Asian Sociology. Singapore: Chopmen, Kerri, J. N. 1976 "Studying Voluntary Associations as Adaptive Mechanisms: A Review of Anthropological Perspective." Current Anthropology, 17(1):23-49, Little, K. 1965 West African Urbanization: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Social Change. Cambridge: The University Press. 1974 Urbanization as a Social Process. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Skinner, G. W. 1960 "Change and Persistence in Chinese Culture Overseas: A Comparison of Thailand and Java.” Journal of the South Seas Society, 16(1-2):82-100. Suyama, T. 1962 "Pang Society: The Economy of Chinese Immigration." In K. C. Tregonning (ed.), Papers on Malayan History. Singapore: Journal of Southeast Asian History. Ward, B. E. 1965 "Varieties of the Conscious Model: The Fishermen of South China." In M. Banton (ed.), The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology. London: Tavistock. Willmott, W. E. 1967 The Chinese in Cambodia. Vancouver: Publications Center of UBC. Wong, A. K. 1968 "A Preliminary Report on the Kaifong Study." United College Journal, 7:27-48. 1971 "Chinese Voluntary Associations in Southeast Asian Cities and the Kaifongs in Hong Kong." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 5(2):62-73. 1972a "Chinese Community Leadership in a Colonial Setting: The Hong Kong Neighbouring Associations." Asian Survey 17(1): 587-601. 1972b The Kaifong Associations and the Society of Hong Kong. Taipei: The Orient Cultural Service. CCCHS 1950 Ch'ung chêng tsung-hui san-shih ch'ou-nien chi-nien t'e-kan (Thirty Years of the Tsung Tsin Association). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207 NOTES AND QUERIES 133 my first such expedition was I accompanied by anyone from the China Travel Service and that was simply because he knew the way, not because he had been ordered to check on my activities. I was never followed. Taxi drivers made out duplicate slips on each of my expeditions. They gave me a copy and kept the original (as they always do for every taxi ride). In my opinion Public Security cadres did not correlate—or even read—the slips from my many expeditions. One thing alone is of concern to cadres when it comes to tourists: foreign exchange. My taxi rides produced foreign exchange—though taxi fares are far less than in the United States or England. This is because there is only a minuscule charge for waiting; and the taxi often waited for me at a monastery for two or three hours. The People's Government wishes the outside world to know that there is now freedom of worship in China. I found that there is freedom of worship and have even published a remarkable photograph to prove it. Thus I have helped Peking to undo the harm that was done to public opinion abroad in 1949-1976. Harvard, Mass 1981 + HOLMES WELCH CHINESE RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT WITH ISLAM Since I wrote my Note on two examples of Chinese religious involvement with Islam on pages 199-202 of Volume 19 of the RAS(HK) Journal 1979, I have been fortunate enough to be able to purchase an image, some ten inches high, a typical Chinese altar figure, said to be off a Chinese temple altar in Surabaya on Java. It is of a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in songkok, sarong and a white shirt with cufflinks and removable buttons, worn outside the sarong. He also has white trousers under the sarong and is seated on a Chinese dragon-throne, a typical pose, decoration and carving of a Chinese deity from Fujian province. The Chinese who sold it to me said that he had obtained it from the temple keeper in Surabaya as it was no longer needed. It depicted, so he was told, the former President of Indonesia, Dr. Sukarno, born in Surabaya in 1901 and died in 1970. The image had been carved and placed on the altar in a Chinese temple as an Page 165 Page 166 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 10 16 not the temper to speak. He had the Chinese at his feet, and might have had what he wished; and what has he got? A few paltry dollars and a barren island... The Chinese are already chuckling, and say they have got the best of it. It makes me quite sick to think of it, and there are not half a dozen people on shore or afloat who are not quite furious'. The alleged sentiments of the Chinese in this letter are in direct contrast to those reported by James Matheson in a letter to William Jardine of 11 February: 'The cession of Hong Kong to the British is what most mortifies the Canton folks with Ki Shen's proceedings. They cannot bear to speak of it with composure'." It seems that a portion of the British community in the Pearl Delta area (the author of the letter wishes to appear to have as large a constituency as possible, not only within the merchant community) may have presupposed that their feelings of failure with regard to the acquisition of Hong Kong meant a corresponding sense of triumph for the Chinese. The second letter to The Times was equally scathing as it claimed that the British negotiators had been tricked because 'Hong Kong was virtually ours, for it is the place which the opium ships have used as a rendezvous for years'. It was only to be expected therefore that the Chinese would choose to cede that island rather than any other. 19 18 Of the acts of soldiers in the expeditionary force, it might have been expected that the formal taking of possession of Hong Kong would have been worthy of mention even if the author had not been present in person, but it seems that this is not the case. Neither Duncan McPherson nor W. W. Mundy refers to it. Nor did soldiers such as A. Cunynghame20 or Alexander Murray21 who became involved just after the cession of Hong Kong refer back to the ceremony. There is only one reference to the taking of Hong Kong in the official mouthpiece for the forces, The United Service Journal of 1841, and that was in a general article entitled 'The British colonies considered as military posts' written by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkie. He complained in July 1841 that the rationale for his inclusion of Hong Kong in the article was threatened because arrangements between the British and the Chinese had collapsed, ‘and consequently it is more than doubtful whether I shall have any more authority for treating of this island as a British colony, beyond the simple fact that it has been formally taken possession of as such',22 Contemporary press notices of the event, again in direct contrast to news of the opium war and the expedition to the Bogue, are terse and rudimentary. The Chinese Repository of February 1841, edited by the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 16 the Narrative of an Eventful Six Months in China (London, 1875). 20 A. Cunynghame, The Opium War, being Recollections of Service in China (London, 1844). 21 A. Murray, Doings in China: being the Personal Narrative of an Officer Engaged in the late Chinese Expedition (London, 1843). 27 The United Service Journal, 1841, part 2 (July 1841), p. 307. 23 C. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1985), p. ix. 24 Chinese Repository, 10 February 1841, p. 119. 25 Ibid., 11 November 1842, p. 579. 26 The Canton Press of Saturday, 30 January 1841. 27 Ibid., 13 February 1841. 28 The Canton Register of 16 February 1841. * For general information on the Sassoons, see C. Roth, The Sassoon Dynasty (London, 1941) and S. Jackson, The Sassoons (London, 1968). 30 K. N. Vaid, The Overseas Indian Community in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1972), p. 15. 31 For further information, see the centenary volume by [J. Steuart], Jardine Matheson and Co., 1832-1932 (Hong Kong, 1934) and M. Keswick ed., The Thistle and the Jade: a Celebration of 150 years of Jardine, Matheson and Co. (London, 1982). 32 JMA, C5/6, 65. 31 See J. Y. Wong, 'The Cession of Hong Kong: a Chapter of Imperial History'. The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 11 (1976), 52-3 and ibid., Anglo-Chinese Relations, 1839-1860 (Oxford, 1985), p. 51. H. B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire 1 (London, 1910), p. 624. 35 Wong, Anglo-Chinese relations, p. 52. J6 JMA, C5/6, 51. 37 See the report by the missionaries in The Canton Press of 27 February 1841, reprinted from one in the Canton Register of 18 February. 38 C. Smith, Chinese Christians, op. cit. p. 173. 39 40 Vaid, The Overseas Indian Community, op. cit. p. 22. For further information on the Madras Native Infantry, see J. B. R. Nicholas, 'Madras Native Infantry, c. 1845', Tradition, 42 and 43. 42 See The Canton Press of 16 January 1841. See B. Mollo, The Indian Army (Poole, 1981), pp. 64-5. For further information on the Bengal Native Infantry, see F. G. Cardew, A Sketch of the Services of the Bengal Native Infantry to the year 1895 (Calcutta, 1903) and A. Bharat, The Bengal Native Infantry, 1796-1852 (Calcutta, 1962). 43 P. Fay, The Opium War, 1840-2 (Chapel Hill, 1975), p. 208. 44 Vaid, The Overseas Indian Community, op. cit. p. 22. 45 Mollo, The Indian Army, op. cit. p. 50. 46 India Office Library and Records, London, China Medal 1842 and Bengal Army Lists. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 196 Cambridge History of China, edited by Denis Twitchett et al, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978+ Campbell, Charles S. Special Business Interests and the Open Door Policy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951 Carlson, Evans Fordyce. Twin Stars of China, the Behind the Scenes Story of China's Valiant Struggle for Existence by a US Marine Who Lived and Moved with the People, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940 Carr, Henry. Riding the Tiger: An American Newspaper Man in the Orient, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1934 Chang, Sul-jeung. The Jews in Kaifeng. Reflections on Sino-Judaic History, Monographs of the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong, vol. II, Hong Kong: Jewish Chronicle, 1986. Chardin, Pacifique Marie. Les Missions Franciscaines en Chine, Paris: Auguste Picard, 1915 Ch'en, Yuan. Western and Central Asians in China Under the Mongols, translated from the Chinese and annotated by Ch'en Hsing-hai and L. Carrington Goodrich, Los Angeles: Monumenta Serica, 1966 Chester, Ruth (Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean of Ginling College), 'Women in Wartime China', broadcast May 1941 from Chengtu, in United China Relief Series Inc. Chesterton, Ada Elizabeth (Jones). Young China and New Japan, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1933 China in the Sixteenth Century, the Journal of Matthew Ricci 1583-1610 translated by Louis J. Gallagher, SJ, New York: Random House, 1953 China Miscellany, pamphlets and reprints, Shanghai and Hong Kong, 1864-1948 Chinese Repository, Macao and Canton, 1832-1851 Chinese Travellers, the. Containing a Geographical, Commercial and Political History of China, etc. collected from Du Halde, Le Comte, and other modern travellers, second edition, London: printed for E. and C. Dilly, 1772 Chitty, J.R. Things Seen in China, London: Seeley, Service, 1912 Christmas, Margaret C.S. Adventurous Pursuits: Americans and the China Trade 1784-1844, Washington, DC: National Gallery, 1984 Clark, Robert Sterling and Arthur de C. Sowerby. Through Shen-Kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in Northern China, London: T.F. Unwin, 1912 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 122 his birth and childhood, and my favourite stamping ground in China Taiyuan, the capital of Shansi province, to his first wife, the daughter of John Mesny, a junior employee of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service, the life of whose elder brother, William Mesny, was the subject of my earlier research [vide.: my paper in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch: Volume 32, 1992]. Sowerby roamed far and wide throughout northern China before serving for a while in France as an officer with the Chinese Labour Corps [vide: my Note on Chinese Labour Corps Graves in England in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch Volume 29, 1989]. He then visited Fukien province and met Caldwell whose book on the Blue Tigers of that province had intrigued me when I was much younger. Finally, I was drawn to Sowerby's life story because he was not only a dedicated member of the North China Branch of the RAS in Shanghai for whom he wrote prolifically and eventually became its President, an honour he held for some five years, 1935-1940 but also because he produced his fascinating bimonthly journal on both everyday and exotic Chinese subjects. Since his death nearly fifty years ago he has faded into insignificance and is forgotten by all but those who happen to come across his books and journals. Arthur Sowerby was an explorer and author who lived through very exciting times, first as the son of a Christian missionary in the Chinese interior at the time of the decline of the Manchu dynasty, through the Revolution of 1911 and the fall of the Manchu dynasty to the War Lord period during which he roamed some of the more remote areas of northern China. This was followed by the crises and struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists, the incursions and eventual full-scale invasion by the Japanese, his incarceration in an internment camp in Shanghai during the Second World War, ending with learning during his latter years in retirement, first in England and then in the United States, of the Communist victory in 1949 and, just before his death, of the Korean War when China sent its "Volunteers" to aid the North Koreans against the South Koreans and their allies which included the Americans and British. During the last thirty-five or so years of his life he suffered great pain wracked as he was by arthritis. It was said that he could speak Chinese ‘like a Chinese.' There is no reason to doubt this as he must have learned it at his ayah's knee though he appears never to have made any effort to learn to read and write the language. During his life in China, the next forty or so years, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 214 Force conceded that there were reasons for beginning hostilities against China, whilst others were openly critical of a war opened on behalf of opium traders, badly treated or not. An anonymous military writer in Colburn's United Service Magazine observed bitterly at the time that "the poor Chinese - with their painted paste-board boats - must submit to be poisoned, or must be massacred by the thousand, for supporting their own laws in their own land." Another military officer, Lieutenant John Ouchterlony of the Madras Engineers in his history of the War, conceded: "That the quarrel was an unhappy one and for many reasons to be deeply deplored, does not admit of a doubt." At the same time, Ouchterlony introduced a wider consideration for his readers. However plausible the view taken in England by those opposed to a war which, as they thought, was being undertaken to enforce the opium traffic, it was, he said, “on our part just and unavoidable" due to the "vindictiveness and insufferable arrogance of the Chinese government" during the past half-century. "The opium question," to his mind, was to be "regarded merely as a spark blown into a mine, and no more to be considered the primary cause of the war than the match which ignites the train..." This was a view shared by another young officer, Lieut. Wyndham Charles Baker of the Madras Engineers, as we see from one of his published home letters. Not all their brother officers were convinced. The naval surgeon Edward Cree, was more concerned with the results of the War. Noting in his journal for Monday 29th [August] 1842 that "the articles of the treaty [were] signed this day," he commented: “So ends the Chinese War. About the justice and policy of it I leave to more competent judges, but one thing I dislike in connection with it is the opium question. It has cost the lives of many thousands of human beings, and great destruction of property and misery and sorrow to many. Waging War in European Style 11 In official circles in Britain, China's Court and Government were blamed for bringing on the War. Perhaps because of this, the British ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x 230 47 United Service Journal 1841, pp.531-2. The latter could not always be guaranteed, as we have seen. 48 The British navy was the major element in this technical superiority. These were still the days of sail, when its ships' commanders' chosen tactic in a fight was to force their enemy into submission. This was achieved by means of the broadside, the firing together of all guns on one side of a ship, resulting in "the hull-and-gun-crew-smashing at which they excelled" (Geoffrey Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe, 1770-1870, Fontana Paperbacks, 1982, p.146). In China, the same "hull-smashing" tactics were employed by the British navy against forts and city walls, with equally devastating effects. The inclusion in the expeditionary force of war steamers like the famous Nemesis, which could sail into any bay or anchorage regardless of wind and tide, meant that the British navy's supremacy was completely overwhelming. 49 Some examples may suffice. Upon coming from India, leaving only six men sick at Fort William, the 26th Regiment had numbered 28 officers and 902 other ranks. By the end of 1840, only 110 were fit for duty, having lost 240 by death and hundreds of others in hospital or too weak to go on parade. Yet this was the regiment, which, thanks to the healthy regime instituted in India by Colonel Oglander, had had a remarkable record of freedom from death and sickness. Holt, p. 112. Between 21 July 1842, upon its first landing at Chin-kiang-foo up to February 1844 - a period of little more than eighteen months - the unfortunate 98th Regiment had lost by death alone 432 out of 766 non-commissioned officers and men. Shadwell, p.123. 50 Cree, pp. 117-8. 51 Davis, ibid. 52 "The country round Chapoo beats anything we have yet seen, indeed I defy anything hardly to equal it in beauty, one immense valley as far as the eye could reach covered with the most luxuriant vegetation, with the people going on with their employment in the fields quite unconcerned." Blackwood's 1964, p.157. 53 Holt, pp.152-3. 54 Cited by Davis, Chinese Miscellanies, p. 179. Bingham, Vols. 1, pp.3 and 277, and 11, p. 156 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 93 Waters, D. D: The Chinese labour Corps in the First World War : Labourers buried in France : Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society: Vol. 35 : 1995 The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX United Kingdom Tel: 44-1628 634221 Fax: 44-1628 771208 Imperial War Museum NOTES 1 3 Lambeth Road, London, SE1 6HZ Tel. 020 7416 5000 Liang Shiyi (1869-1933). Chinese government official and financier. Under the Qing government, amongst his financial dealings, he helped found the Bank of Communications (1907). He was President of the Board of Communications (1912), Chief Secretary in the Presidential Office and General Manager of the Bank of Communications, acting Finance Minister (1913-1915); Director-General of the National Revenue Administration and Director-General of the Domestic Loans Office. He was linked with Yuan Shikai and in 1916 fled to Hong Kong. He formed the Wei Min Corporation for the recruitment of Chinese labourers to serve in France, as a proponent of China's entry into the war. Returning to Beijing in 1918, he was made Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Communications; Speaker of the National Assembly; Director of the Domestic Loan Bureau (1920); and Prime Minister (1921-1922). After exile (1922-1925) he again served in the Beijing Government under both Duan Jirui and Zhang Zuolin. He retired to Hong Kong in 1928 after the Northern Expedition reached Beijing. This was usually referred to by “real” soldiers as the Crosse and Blackwells, as this British provision company had a very similar crest. Lt Col. Bryan Charles Fairfax, a Yorkshireman, was born on 12th September 1873, the second son of Col. T.F. (or L?) Fairfax of the Grenadier Guards and passed through the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, being commissioned on 8th March 1893 into the Durham Light Infantry (DLI). He was posted to the 2nd Battalion, then serving in India. In 1898 he volunteered for service with the newly raised 1 Battalion, The Chinese Regiment of Infantry, stationed in Weihai ================================================================================