Blogging... Walk The Talk

Slavery and Myths of the 'Age of 'Discovery'

2005-07-07T09:03:00.000+08:00

I have been reading an excellent new book by Malyn Newitt, the Charles Boxer Professor of History at King's College London. A specialist on Lusophone Africa, he decied it had been some time since an history had been published of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, so he has written a strong, powerful and thoughtful tome by Routledge (that ever faithful publisher of non-bestseller academic books) entitled History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400-1668. I highly recommend people with an interest in the history of the Age of Discovery or of the Portuguese Empire to read this book.

Now what is the one story that all European history textbooks cover about Portugal? It's that Prince Henry the Navigator ushered in the Age of Discovery by encouraging the exploration of the West African coast and beyond. And that he did so for a mixture of the honor and joy of discovery and trade with the Orient. Well, Newitt's book is a very accessible compilation of a lot of recent research by Portuguese- and English-speaking scholars alike that completely skewers all of these long-held and cherished myths.

Before I continue, I realize that some of these revelations may be considered offensive by some Portuguese, many of whom are very proud of their country's history. I would remind them in advance that Newitt does not deny that the Portuguese made any important discoveries, nor does he demean the bravery of those explorers. Also, slavery was an accepted practice in many societies of that era, and so applying today's standards to that time would be somewhat unfair. But he points out misallocations of credit where they are due, particularly in the case of the Infante Enrique (Prince Henry) and the motivations for the voyages.

As for the motivations of the voyages, Newitt writes:

"The ideology of [Portugal's] feudal armies was still that of chivalry and crusade. Fidalgos sought the formal honour of knighthood...the main reason for the expedition against Ceuta in 1415 [which was considered the starting point for the Age of Discovery - Ed.] had been the desire of the Infantes (princes) to be knighted on the field of battle rather than at a tournament. In his Cronica dos feitos de Guine, [Zurara] tells stories of the armed men in the service of the Infante Dom Henrique (Henry the 'Navigator') receiving the accolade on the beaches of western Africa after a slave raid. The idea of the crusade against the Moors was also prominent in the ideology of soldiers who often sought the justification for what they were doing in the traditional language of crusading - none more so than Dom Henrique himself. However, a knighthood was not just a military honour. It could carry with it membership of one of the Military Orders with their vast corporate wealth and the expectation of being rewarded with the grant of a commandery, town or castle in the control of the knights."

So basically, Newitt makes the convincing argument that the soldiers and nobles wanted to crusade to gain status and honour, which translated also into material gain. He goes on to say:

"Behind the language of chivalry and honour was the reality of what military activity meant in practice. War was expected to pay for itself and to provide the major pathway to a prosperous career. Lack of resources at the disposal of the Crown had always meant that...the army's pay were met from the proceeds of confiscations, ransoms or plunder. Nobles for their part had to reward their followers, with the result that the search for plunder, ransoms and slaves became so important that it often determined the whole thrust of a campaign. The voyages of 'discovery' down the coasts of Africa, organised after 1430 by the Infante Dom Henrique and other noblemen, were openly and explicitly a series of raids designed to obtain slaves for sale or important 'Moors' who might be ransomed."

So there it is - the first voyages of Discovery organized by Prince Henry were actually mainly slaving expeditions. And the reason they kept going further down the coast was because after a successful raid, villages on that part of the coast would move inland to avoid becoming enslaved and would defend themselves better; consequently the Portuguese corsairs and such had to go further down the coastline for easy prey that would be surprised. Rational economic decision-making was a major factor in the 'discoveries' after all.

Tune in tomorrow for "Prince Henry the Navigator?"

Prince Henry the Navigator?

2005-07-08T17:47:00.000+08:00

As we mentioned yesterday, the conventional story of European expansion usually starts with Prince Henry the Navigator. (That's certainly where we pick up the thread on our Macau walk.) He's said to have created a school of navigation and encouraged scholars and seafarers alike to develop new maritime technologies that brought about the Age of Discovery and that ultimately put European ships into the world's largest oceans and opened new trading routes.

Yet recent research has actually shown his role to be far less instrumental. The Portuguese undeniably were the first Europeans to round the cape of Africa, but their interest was far more economic than has been previously realized, focused specifically on the trade of slaves and to a lesser extent, of gold. Prince Henry, as only being third in line to the throne, realized his destiny not to be a ruler and instead focused on amassing titles and power, and the means to reward his followers with patronage. His father Joao had been the first real king of Portugal after defeating the Castilians at the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385, and to consolidate his position assigned his son, young Henrique, as head of the influential military order, the order of Christ (more on that in this link). The eldest, Duarte, was heir to the throne, and the next youngest, in order: Pedro, Henrique and Fernao, were given commissions and governorships or at least the hope of them.

Prince Henrique had actually been influential in pushing for the attack on the successful capture of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast. But he had preferred that more attention be brought to bear on a crusade in Morocco, instead of on other voyages down the African coastline; however, as his father Joao opposed any further expeditions, he had to keep silent until his father's death in 1433, when Henrique's elder brother Duarte took to the throne. He then immediately called for renewed attacks on the Sultanate of Fez in Morocco, ending in a disastrous attack on Tangier in 1437 that saw the imprisonment of his younger brother Fernao. To top it off, Duarte died in 1438, leaving a six-year old heir. Pedro took over as regent, and put the country back on track by making peace with Castile. Pedro and Henrique shared in the royal profits from licensing and commissioning slaving expeditions to Western Africa and later, to gold trading in the same region. Malyn Newitt (whose excellent book I mentioned in my last post) states:

"Pedro's importance in establishing Portuguese overseas commerce on a sound footing has often been underestimated, but it is now clear that he, rather than his much more famous brother Henrique, was the real driving force behind commercial expansion in the 1440s...It has even been claimed that Pedro and not Henrique should be seen as the real pioneer of the 'discoveries'. It was during his regency that ships' captains sailing to Guinea began for the first time seriously to chart the winds, currents river mouths and anchorages, and it was during these years that more African coastline was 'discovered' and exploited commercially than at any time until the 1470s.

However, in 1449 Pedro was defeated and killed at the battle of Alfarobeira by the Braganza faction which now re-established its suprenacy at the centre of the Portuguese monarchy. Henrique, concerned for his titles, jurisdictions and commercial monopolies, not to mention his governorship of the Order of Christ [the former Knights Templar], stood aside from the conflict and refused to intervene. He was rewarded by a confirmation of his titles and privileges by the young king - not least among them the monopoly rights over the trade with West Africa.

A few years after this political revolution it appears that the king, or more probably Henrique himself, commissioned a chronicle outlining the Infante's achievements in opening up the trade with West Africa. The chronicler appointed to do the work was Gomes Eannes de Zurara...a knight of the Order of Christ, and, as such, very much one of Henrique's men. It appears that he 'borrowed' the partly finished chronicle of the life of Dom Pedro...and adapted it for his purposes...In doing this he produced one of the most famous chronicles of the late middle agfes - a work in which with great skill he indelibly established the image of his patron in the minds not only of his contemporaries but also of posterity."

So basically, Henrique, our famous Prince Henry the Navigator, had his henchman steal his dead brother's biography, whom he betrayed, and take credit for many of his deeds. Because this is practically the only long source from this period, everyone had tended to believe in this fabricated tale. It is also a tale that has been embellished over the centuries many times, as Newitt points out, by one Joquim Bensaude in 1946:

"...in the Infante D. Henrique we meet the religious vision of a Dante...neither the sufferings of Dante, nor those of Milton or Beethoven, nor the sixty years of the artistic anguish of Michelangelo have the tragic grandeur of the martyrdom of the Infante."

But then Newitt turns the academic knife into the Prince:

"There is little real evidence that Henrique was a dedicated patron of exploration. Once Pedro was removed from the scene and Henrique was left to exploit his commercial monopoly, no further 'discoveries' were made. The last eleven years of Henrique's life were spent on diplomacy at the papl court to secure further rights for the Order of Christ and in organising a new Morccan expedition which was successfully launched in 1458. Diogo Gomes recorded that, while an expedition to Morocco was being organised, 'the Prince Henrique, being fully occupied gave no attention to Guinea. Exploiting the commerce of West Africa was left to merchants, many of them Italian, who came to Henrique for licenses but who were left very much to their own devices to make what profits they could.

Modern research has entirely demolished the idea that Henrique was a scientist, a mystic and the founder of a 'school' of navigation and geography. As Ballie Diffie wrote definitely in 1977, 'there is not found one single word of his love of books...nor does any contemporary praise his knowledge of astronomy...Henry was not learned in geography nor was he a mathematician. Those who knew him confirmed that he introduced no new navigational skills...The existence of scientists who supposedly gathered around Henry is equally difficult to verify.""

I suppose Regent Peter the Navigator just doesn't have the same ring.

Hong Kong, The Opium War, and Iraq

2005-07-11T12:05:00.000+08:00

Last week I read the account of Captain William Hutcheon Hall of his voyage to China and participation in the First Opium War. He captained the Nemesis, the first iron paddlewheel steamship fitted with guns. As the ship had a fully-loaded displacement of 6 feet compared to comparable wooden ships of 13 feet, it was ideal for operations in the Yangtze River. It proved itself as such, with the war junks of the Imperial Chinese Navy proving no match for it or its two 32-pounders.

Captain Hall's perspective of his role in the war was very much black-and-white, typical of military commanders. He said of Commissioner Lin Zexu:

"Lin himself was the Robespierre, the terrorist, the reckless despot...who conscientiously believed that he could terrify not only their own countrymen [he had solved an opium addiction problem in a previous province by executing addicts - Ed.] but foreign nations into submission to their will."

It is understandable, I suppose, that military commanders must have an unshakeable belief in the correctness of their actions, and leave their debate to the politicians. This particularly so in an age when a spade was called a spade, and colonization was very much accepted as part of the nature of the British Empire. He was very clear though, on the reasons for taking Hong Kong, and its advantages and disadvantages. On the subject he had this to say:

"The roads of Hong Kong and the bay of Victoria form an excellent anchorage, haing deep water very near the shore, and only one small shoal having 16 feet of water upon it."

Its cons of course, were the typhoons and the breezes disrupted by the mountains on the island. He attributed the latter in particular to the insalubrious nature of Hong Kong, with fresh air not dispersng the evil humors rising out of the ground. The typhoons were mitigated though by the mountains, so in Captain Hall's mind they were in equal parts blessing and curse. He states:

"To this [rainy June] succeeds the burning, tropical sun of July [I can related to that!-Ed.], with a sort of death-like stillness in the atmosphere, which, little weathered as it is on that [north] side of the island by the southwest monsoon, cannot fail, if it last long without any change, to promote fever and sickness."

His ambivalence about Hong Kong in general comes out in the following paragraph:

"At the time we took possession of the island, there was little to tempt us to make a settlement there, except the excellent anchorage on its northern side, having a passage in and out at either end, its proximity to the mouth of the Canton River, and the difficulty of finding any more suitable place for our purpose."

He even alludes to his own belief that the northern shore was an inauspicious place to begin the city of Victoria, pointing out that the Chinese also believe that facing north is unlucky and facing south, as the main town of Singapore does, is better. He also harbours the belief, so to speak, that most Europeans would move south to the more healthy environs of Repulse Bay. A man ahead of its time:

"Doubtless, in a very short time many of the Europeans will reside on the southern side of the island, and cross over the mountains daily to transact their business."

He was not averse to amusing his readers with entertaining observations. This one about the comparative methods of colonization by different European nations:

"It has been said, in respect to colonization, that the first thing the French undertake is to build a fort, the Spaniards a church, and the English a factory or warehouse." [Hong Kong was no different, the first building going up being the Matheson Opium Store - Ed.]."

His comments though, about the British mission to 'civilize' China gives pause for thought. It struck me how similar it sounded, even 160 years later, to the missionary zeal with which America brings its promotion of democracy to the Middle East. Read this passage of Captain Hall, substitute Christianity with democracy, and China with the Middle East:

"Providence has at length ordained that a vast empire, which comprises nearly a third of the human race, shall no longer remain totally excluded from the great family society of nations; and we cannot but believe that the period has at length arrived when that wonderful nation is, by a slow but steady progress, to be brought under the influence of Christianity. But while we are impressed with this feeling, let us not be too hasty in precipitating a crisis which may convulse a mighty empire from one end to another. This, then, leads us to the momentuous question of the ultimate disorganization or breaking up of the Chinese Empire. This is the great event which we have to dread; [Italics are original - Ed.] for who can contemplate the feaful results of such a crisis without alarm, and without a desire to prevent a catastrophe of so vast a nature?"

It is the hallmark and classic failing of any 'civilizing' mission, how does one know when to get out, and how to ensure that the long-term impact of your intervention is positive. It is difficult to see how that can be the case, when the intervention starts with an overwhelming victory in a one-sided war. Captain Hall expresses cautious optimism for the future:

"Our intercourse with that remarkable nation [its nationals would probably agree with the use of that term in a different manner - Ed.] ought to be recorded in the pages of history as a blessing, and not, what it might readily become, without great caution and prudence - a curse."

That China has never regarded the Opium War as a blessing should give the Americans in Iraq today some pause for thought.

Portugal's 'Booty' Policy of Expansion in Melaka

2005-07-15T10:58:00.000+08:00

Before I begin discussing today's subject, I would just like to note today is the 34th anniversary of Kissinger's secret visit to China. What an incredible moment, one that changed everything for Hong Kong. Optimism ran so high that then Governor Sir Murray MacLehose was dispatched to Beijing a few years later, hoping to extend the lease on their Colony - oops - Territory. No dice on that front though of course...

As I continue to get through Malyn Newitt's book on the expansion of the Portuguese empire, he explains at once the breathtaking audacity of once-poor Portugal to set up colonies in the East, but to actually claim sovereignty over all the oceans of Africa and India. King Dom Manuel's title that he chose for himself after da Gama's voyage was: 'King of Portugal and of the Algarves on this side and beyond the sea in Africa, Lord of Guinea and the Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce, of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India.' Essentially, he was saying that he had the right to take any ship on the high seas that did not pay duty to Portugal, whether it was on the Indian Ocean or the South Atlantic. Indeed, piracy and plunder was the only way by which the then-poor Portuguese monarchy could afford expansion. Newitt writes:

"Portugal's expansion in the Atlantic had always been driven by two different sets of interests - the Crown's commercial monopolies and the trading interests of private citizens and islanders. Now the eastern enterprise also was to be driven ahead by two competing interests. As the Crown gradually elaborated its plans to establish a great new commercial monopoly and maritime dominion in the Indian Ocean, the individuals who embarked with the fleets determined to make their fortunes more directly by plunder and piracy...the interests of the Crown and the servants complemented each other as plunder and piracy seemed to be the only way by which the king could pay for the Indian enterprise."

He's also writes with amazement that Portugal's King Manuel was able to pull it all together:

"It is still extraordinary to contemplate the daring with which this idea of an eastern empire was conceived. A small, poor and isolated European kingdom with little accumulated capital or developed industry and with the most primitive instruments of government was aspiring to create a state on the other side of the world and to enforce a trade monopoly on merchants from numerous rich, populous and powerful kingdoms, many of which had the military might to crush any army that Portugal could possibly put into the field. Portugal was planning to establish a militarised state which would be administered by a royal bureaucracy, which would be defended by a paid professional army and navy and which would operate a vast royal commercial monopoly."

The use by the king of German and Florentine banking families to finance this vision makes today's venture capitalists look like small fry. Especially when the rules didn't seem to apply to the Portuguese at all. Newitt describes this with acid tongue-in-cheek humor, particularly at the end:

"The policy of plunder could be represented as a complementary aspect of the policy of monopoly. Refusal to accept the Portuguese claims to a monopoly of the spice trade was considered reason enough to attack ships or towns, while the proceeds of plundering their enemies allowed the Portuguese to supply their fleets, purchase their cargoes of spices and secure the loyalty of their men. The trophies of victory did not always have such a utilitarian purpose, however. After the capture of Malacca in 1511 Albuquerque's share of the plunder consisted of six bronze lions which he wanted for his tomb, a bracelet which Albuquerque had been told had magical powers to prevent wounds from bleeding and 'some girls from all the different races of the country' to send to Dom Manuel. Booty was an addiction which the Portuguese would find it hard to give up. [Italics are mine - Ed.]"

Horseplay in Hong Kong and Beijing History

2005-07-15T21:21:00.000+08:00

Stephen Vines has written an excellent editorial in today's Standard newspaper about the lack of debate about the value of staging the equestrian events in Hong Kong. It has already been noted in an insightful post by Simon on his blog back on the 12th that there is going to be a likely HK$500 million shortfall between the amount spent on the event and the income from it. Staging Olympics has always been a questionable proposition from an economic standpoint, as Athens discovered last year, but to stage a minor event of little interest to anyone except for a small number of fans surely makes it a very black and white equation that we should not, as Vines suggests, be slapping ourselves on the back over.

My question for pragmatic Hong Kong is this: why are we not solving this cash shortfall the Hong Kong way and simply grant the Hong Kong Jockey Club the monopoly rights to take bets on every event? Ha ha, I suspect my suggestion will not get much airplay. And anyway, who wants to bet on the dressage, possibly the most boring and pointless Olympic event of them all? This quote from Judy Schott, President of the Central Washington Dressage Society:

" Many riders are drawn to dressage because it provides a step-by-step training plan for their horses. The basics are learned in training level, and these basics are used as the building blocks for all other movements. The sport may appear boring, but appeals to people who enjoy studying a discipline that will be a lifetime quest. ItÂs impossible to describe; it has to be experienced!"

Thanks Judy, we admire your enthusiasm.

Anyway, this whole issue has arisen because it is said that Beijing is unsuitable for the equestrian events because they pose a health hazard to the animals. Supposing that it is because of the pollution in the air and water, is it not also hazardous to the human competitors? Leaving that aside for the moment, I will share with you an interesting fact I learned from Austin Coates' China Races, which I blogged about a few weeks ago.

You may wonder: all this money in racing in Hong Kong. Yet the members of the Hong Kong Jockey Club spend millions (if not billions) every year on buying new horses, or griffins, from Arabia, New Zealand, Australia or America. Why not set up a breeding facility here or somewhere in China? Well the answer is that the vegetation in China simply won't allow it. No grass will grow anywhere in China that has sufficient calcium to sustain the nutrition necessary for the strong bones of a racehorse. So they can't graze naturally on local grasses, because they'll simply go to seed. They need imported food as well as oats, which is why raising horses in China is totally unfeasible.

Yet it did not stop punters from buying and racing horses for 160 years in all of China's Treaty ports, as well as Beijing. To be specific, the animals raced were generally not horses per se, but rather were ponies from Mongolia, strangely called China ponies. Some British colonials had reservations about the ponies, as can be gathered from the 1894 guide to Hong Kong written by one civil servant named Bruce Shepherd, who commented that "the Chinaman, like his Chinese pony, is treacherous and has a murderous nature, and is not to be trusted." Nevertheless, they were the mainstay of racing all along the China coast for over a century and a half, providing entertainment for all races, whether Chinese, British, or otherwise.

Indeed, the races in Beijing were apparently the best attended of all, some meetings in fact gathering as many as 80,000 in one session, an attendance record unmatched for that era and probably even today. I shall close this blog with a few select quotes from Coates' excellent book about the races in Beijing, or Peking as it was known then to the Cantonese-friendly British:

"The races were [first] held on Thursday, 17 December 1863, on the Anting plain north of the city. All the Ministers, indeed everybody, turned up. Even a missionary was seen. He was in for a shock. The student-interpreters [of the British legation-Ed.] had become very bored with missionaries. One of them had had a horse named after him, Revd Mr. Mitchell, and it raced. Another was called Excommunicated and another Devil. To make it worse, Excommunicated won a race; his rival, well ahead, bolted within yards of the winning post.

But the most interesting feature of the meeting was the dense crowd of Chinese, Mongolians and Tibetans assembled near the winning post, deriving unlimited satisfaction from the riding and the speed of the horses and ponies. Once again in China...the magic of the races, their most extraordinary quality, had completed taken possession. At the following April meeting more than 50,000 people came, the largest gathering yet seen at a China race-meeting. Thus it continued, with ever more and more attending. As was said at the time, the crowds at the Peking races would be beyond the imagination of people in Europe and America. These were the largest race-meetings in the world....The vast throng surrounded [the track], yelling their heads off as the ponies passed, booing lustily at any pony dropping behind, the entire enormous human mass maintaining complete order. There was not a policeman in sight."

Coates impresses on the readers what a profound impact horse-racing had on the Chinese public when first introduced, and what huge numbers turned out for the meetings. Let it never be said again that Beijing never had equestrian events before, and couldn't have done it without Hong Kong's help!

Postscript:

I am sorry - I must add a bizarre story I have just received about a new form of robot camel racing in Qatar. I am sure that neither the members of the IOC nor the founders of racing on the China Coast would have approved.

Walk the Talk in The Standard and in HKTB News

2005-07-18T09:50:00.000+08:00

We are always gratified to see that people are interested in the urban history of Hong Kong and Macau, that the stories we feature on our site are enjoyed by its visitors, and that most of all, people find that these stories can be profoundly relevant to the place we live in today. So we are extremely grateful that Doug Crets chose to feature our blog in his article on blogs in Hong Kong that serve a public purpose or civic function. Appreciations to Madame Chiang for being the first to let us know of its publication today. I hope that all of you that have so kindly helped us find our way in the blogosphere liked Mr. Crets' quote from us at the end:

"Hong Kong is a city that relentlessly pushes people towards the practical,'' says Wong. Blogs, he believes, are a chance for open-minded people to develop ideas and challenge the status quo in a very constructive way."

I think the opportunity to reflect on the day's events, on their relevance to our lives, and engage in candid discussion is why many of us enjoy blogging. That's why we do, anyway. Thanks Doug!

We'd also like to send our appreciation to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, which is starting to recognize the value of heritage tourism in this city. We are featured in their most recent newsletter for the Australian market.

For more information on our heritage tourism service via mobile phone, visit www.walkthetalk.hk. Our regular history blogcast resumes later today...

Hong Kong's Cycles of Creative Destruction

2005-07-21T13:55:00.000+08:00

Why has Hong Kong not preserved its historic monuments? It is said that unbridled capitalism is simply the process of creative destruction, a form of economic natural selection, the survival of the fittest companies and ideas. In Hong Kong we have a city that is dominated by, and obsessed with property - not just today, but since its early beginnings, when the early Colonials debated how to set up shop on an island that had virtually no flat land.

If property is so valuable, though, why are heritage sites and even not-so-old buildings constantly being torn down? Why must we Hong Kongers endure the incessant sound of the jackhammer, almost Pavlovian in conditioning us to accept change as a fact of life? The answer - ownership is limited, forcing this city of immigrants to try to maximize their returns on this valuable asset as quickly and efficiently as possible. I would argue that around this basic fact of life in Hong Kong, an entire ethos has been created.

Property on Palmerston's 'Barren Rock' was clearly a very valuable asset, and the Hong Kong government recognized that from the first. For that reason, all land in Hong Kong was sold on the basis of long-term crown leases generally ranging from 50-99 years. During periodic crises in the 19th century, various governors were lobbied by the business community to cave in and sell 'freehold' land (with perpetual title) to boost business confidence. But not one of them even flinched, and all of them, whether liberal or old-school, stuck to their guns in insisting on keeping the 'Crown Lease' system. Why? Hong Kong had from its very beginnings been a free port, and one of its main attractions was its lack of income tax (the 15% came later). Property taxes and property auctions, therefore, became the central money maker for the Colonial government (other than their opium monopoly).

A great example of this thinking came from the mouth of Governor William Des Voeux, who in the 1880s was trying to arrange for the financing of the first big land reclamation proposed by Paul Chater. He was a very frustrated man, because while Jardine Matheson could secure loans from HSBC at 3.5%, the sovereign Government of Hong Kong couldn't even get a loan at 4%! Eat your heart out, credit analysts. He was trying, in effect, to justify a better credit rating because of Hong Kong's huge fixed assets. On the subject of property, this is what he said:

"For though the area of the Colony is small, its Crown lands are of an exceptional value...there can be no moral doubt that the 20,000 acres of unsold land in the Colony will eventually realize an enormous sum. Indeed at this moment, if the necessity were to arise for changing the present policy of selling without the condition of immediate building, and abandoning the speculators the profit that will otherwise be reaped by the community, there would be little difficulty of obtaining from sales within a few weeks an aggregate sum equal to several times the Annual Revenue of the Colony."

Translating his Victorian English, he is basically saying that if he sold land in perpetuity, he could raise tons of money but that he'd be abandoning the local market to speculators. What he does not say is that the Government by default becomes the biggest land speculator of them all! As those of you who know Hong Kong will recognize, absolutely nothing has changed in 130 years (and Tung Chee-Hwa's tentative steps away from this policy ended in disaster).

What does that mean for Hong Kong? It means that we are stuck with quick maximization of returns on property for the foreseeable future, exacerbated by HSBC and the banks not offering long-dated mortgages for old properties. It means Hong Kong people will continue to have a disposable attitude to their homes and property, which lies at the heart of the principles of this throwaway society. It means more dilapidated buildings from lack of interest in upkeep, continued cycles of construction and demolition, and that Hong Kong's three certainties will continue to be death, property taxes and the jackhammer. A culture of preserving Hong Kong's architectural heritage will never exist as long as this property policy, such a sacred cow to the government, remains.

The Jail Ship On Stonecutter's Island

2005-07-25T10:55:00.000+08:00

Thanks to all of you for your story suggestions. I'll be incorporating them over the next couple of weeks. And Madame Chiang, if you have any specific streets you'd like to hear about, I'd be happy to oblige...

In the 1860s, Hong Kong's crime rate had fallen somewhat from its first two decades, but the number of criminals in the Colony had still remained obstinately high. Also there were frequent arrests and convictions of many members of the Chinese community that might not have occurred had they known the laws of the land. In the 1850s, for instance, according to research conducted by local historian Christopher Munn, it is estimated that fully 8% of the Chinese population of Hong Kong came before its courts, which is high by any standard.

Hong Kong's problem at the time was that there wasn't really any place to house all these criminals. Victoria Prison, which earlier Hong Kong residents had speculated was a desirable place for Chinese criminals to end up, because they were fed, had become massively overcrowded. The prisoners were frequently left together in common rooms, where medical witnesses of the 1860s reported were filthy, with extremely low hygiene standards and where prisoners were 'committing unnatural acts' with one another. Also, on January 12th and March 14, 1863, according to E. J. Eitel, successive gangs of prisoners had successfully made their escape from Victoria prison using the storm drains underneath the gaol.

For that reason, Charles Ryall from England was appointed the new superintendent of the prison system. His solution was to put many of the new prisoners on a disused ship's hulk, The Royal Saxon, and to park the ship just off of Stonecutter's Island, a small plot of land in Victoria Harbour ceded to Britain at the end of the Opium War in 1860. It had a granite quarry, but Ryall thought it suitable to house prisoners there as well. As Eitel says:

"Things went on well enough so long as a gunboat and a military guard were provided to guard the hulk, but when these were withdrawn, frequent attempts at rescue were made by outside associates of the prisoners."

There were also many mishaps, and one tragedy in particular, which occurred on July 23rd, 1863, [142 years ago last weekend!] is worth relating. During the transfer of 38 prisoners from Victoria Prison to the hulk, the boat carrying all of them capsized. As all of them were chained and manacled, all of them drowned and went to the bottom.

What really made it clear that this hulk idea was not going to work, though, were the events of April 21st, 1864. That day, over 100 prisoners, on a signal, overpowered their guards, undid their manacles, and escaped on junks that 'just happened' to be lying nearby. Ryall had in the meantime been fired and a new superintendent brought in. Mr. F. Douglas, according to Eitel, was able to quickly improve the conditions at Victoria Prison, which apparently soon became known as the "Douglas Hotel."

St. Francis Xavier on the 'Ruins of St. Paul'

2005-07-27T10:39:00.000+08:00

On our Macau walking tour through the heart of the old city, we naturally bring people to the Mater Dei church, popularly known as the 'Ruins of St. Paul'. It is so named because it was part of the College of St. Paul, built by Jesuits as 'the greatest center for learning in the East' at the end of the 16th century to provide a training ground for priests to convert the millions in China and Japan.

There many things to discuss in the facade, but what makes it particularly interesting is that St. Paul himself does not feature on it! When the Mater Dei church was conceived and plans of it were sent to the Vatican for approval, the fifth tier of the facade was to have two statues flanking the entrance to the church - St. Peter and St. Paul. But in the 16th century, Macau was a long, long way away from Rome, and so when the Jesuits built the church they replaced Peter and Paul with saints from their own order - St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder, and St. Francis Xavier, the greatest preacher of the Catholic church since the time of the apostles! This move by the resident Jesuits indicates both in what high regard they placed these two figures of their movement, and the power and confidence they had in tricking Rome.

We mention this today, because today is the anniversary of St. Francis Xavier's arrival in Kagoshima in 1547. While St. Francis had been in Malacca five years earlier, he had met a samurai that had accompanied the first Portuguese ship to visit Japan back to Portuguese territory. St. Francis had great hopes for converting the Emperor of Japan himself, and set off for Japan in 1547, which is the year he first set foot on the islands. The picture on the right is a stele that celebrates St. Francis in Nagasaki.

I thought today, rather than tell you St. Francis' story in my traditional manner, I would let us see the script for the St. Francis Xavier 'option' you can listen to on our Macau tour near the Ruins of St. Paul. We may also do free 'podcasts' of selected audio options of our walks in future - let us know if you'd be interested!

"Saint Francis Xavier is the Catholic ChurchÂs most famous missionary, considered its greatest preacher since the time of the Apostles. Indeed, the Jesuits venerated their predecessor so highly they saw fit to have his statue along with St. IgnatiusÂ framing the entrance to this faÃ§ade in place of Peter and Paul. His zeal took him on perilous journeys stretching 37,000 miles across the world, performing miracles and converting thousands to Christianity. His death in 1553 on the nearby isle of Samchuan on a mission to reach China has been a source of inspiration to many generations of Jesuits.

St. Francis was born into a Basque noble family in 1506. He was a brilliant student at the University of Paris and a career as a professor stretched before him. However, while there he met fellow countryman Ignatius Loyola and against his familyÂs wishes he made the vows of the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest in 1537. When the Pope recognized the Order in 1540, King John III of Portugal asked him and two other Jesuits to sail for Goa; he gladly accepted. The nobleman was soon to be found criss-crossing India, preaching the Gospel wearing just simple robes and with the support of his walking stick.

He moved to Malacca in 1542 and began using it as a base for proselytizing across the Indonesian islands, Sri Lanka and India. He also generated many converts in Malacca, purportedly having performed various miracles, including prophesy, healing the sick and even raising the dead. After a sneak Achinese attack on Malacca in 1547 that left the Portuguese navy decimated, he preached a crusading attack against them. The sailors, swayed by his oratory, departed for battle. Despite expectations of failure, during Mass he fell into a trance and said the battle had been won. The sailors duly returned with news of a great victory.

That same year, St. Francis met with a samurai from Japan. When he heard of the country, he resolved to go there to convert them. He duly arrived in 1549, bearing fabulous gifts, and spent a year learning Japanese. Although he did not succeed in converting the Emperor, he did manage to make many converts across the country, including some daimyo feudal lords. After his success he returned to Malacca and Goa in 1552. He set out the next year for China, but unfortunately was not able to convince a local to bring him to the mainland. After a short illness, he died on the nearby island of Samchuan, within sight of mainland China. When his body was exhumed three months later, it had suffered no decay, and showed no signs of it during its journey via Malacca to Goa, where it is buried. To this day, the body is remarkably well-preserved. His memory is much cherished by Catholics worldwide; particularly in those congregations he started himself."

Governor Hennessy and Wing Lok Street

2005-07-29T17:01:00.000+08:00

Many of you who've been to Hong Kong may have spent some time on the corner of Wing Lok Street, a short road sandwiched between Queen's Road and Des Voeux Road as both major arteries head into Western district. Today it is a busy crossroads with mobile phone shops, restaurants, and an entrance to the MTR station that emits thousands of busy pedestrian subway riders every day.

What you may not know though, is that Wing Lok Street in 1878, during the tenure of Governor John Pope-Hennessy, was the site of perhaps Hong Kong's most daring robbery. Now Hennessy, has we have revealed in previous posts, had taken a liberal attitude towards rules for the Chinese, and had removed some of the more strict punishments for Chinese criminals like flogging and branding them before deportation to the mainland. The colonial community was up in arms at these relaxations of the rules, which they felt were the only thing standing between order and anarchy. They felt that a rise in the crime rate was attributable specifically to these moves. They didn't like his appointment of Ng Choy, the first Chinese in Legco, to the chamber either.

So imagine the outcry when the following incidents took place, as described excellently by Crisswell and Watson in their book on the Hong Kong police force, 1841-1946:

"On September 25^th 1878 there was a sensational attack on a gold dealer's shop in Wing Lok Street by between 80 and 100 armed men. The robbers, reputedly from Sham Shui Po, had planned their attack well, to the extent of extinguishing the gas lights in Wing Lok Street and the surrounding area. They fought a retreat and eventually escaped on a stolen steam launch."

I shall save you the trouble of imagining the reaction of the newspapers by relaying the story run in the Hong Kong Daily Press:

"such an audacious attack on property as that which took place in Wing Lok Street yesterday morning has not been perpetrated in the Colony for many long years. Matters have surely reached a climax when a band of desperadoes armed with guns, swords spears and stinkpots can assemble and hold a street for some time before it is possible to disperse them. The seizure of the steam launch was an appropriate consummation to the daring defiance given to the Authorities by these miscreants. The Police showed plenty of courage and no lack of promptitude when they ascertained the position of affairs, but their arrangements were not equal to the emergency. Some two years ago we were able to congratulate the community on the decrease in crime of a serious character in Hong Kong, to compliment the police on their increased efficiency and everyone fondly hoped that the old days of frequent highway robberies and burglaries were over and done with. Then came Mr. Hennessy with his new-fangled and humanitarian views as to the treatment of criminals."

The effects were immediate. The colonial community not too long after demanded the Governor's resignation and wrote many letters home to the Secretary for the Colonies. It didn't work immediately, but eventually they got their way. Hennessy was a man before his time, which is why even though many Chinese came to see him off on his departure, not one colonial resident of Hong Kong did the same; it was not until the 1920s that 'Hennessy Road' was named after him in his honor. Appropriately, the road running through Wanchai was in the heart of a Chinese district.

Place and Memory in Hong Kong

2005-08-04T08:17:00.000+08:00

Let us move away from the traditional history format of our posts today to discuss the importance of urban memory. There has been much made of the terms 'place' and 'space' by postmodern architectural theorists, but our feeling on the subject is this: there may be urban 'spaces' everywhere in the city, but without memory, they cannot become 'places', a geographic anchor in the collective imagination.

Which is why I was so intrigued to hear a similar philosophy from an Taiwanese theater designer that had grown up in Hong Kong called Ingrid Hu. The excellent journalist Douglas Crets interviewed her in yesterday's Standard regarding her new project in the Southorn Playground, please do read this article! A quote:

For Ingrid Hu, cities are a theater of sorts. And creating urban spaces, she says, is all about capturing the elements of theater in public areas - character, drama, movement, space and time.

To me, all these elements are important, but particularly the last element, time. Places exist both physically and in the mind, and it is the conjunction of those physical and mental landmarks that gives life to the idea of a city. The persistence of those conjunctions over time is what gives a place character, and also gives the individual a sense of how they belong to their environment. Unfortunately, in Hong Kong, the rapid cycles of construction and destruction often leave behind no trace of what has gone before, with entire districts transformed beyond all recognition every thirty years. That actually takes a grave toll on the residents of Hong Kong and their sense of belonging to the city. We at Walk the Talk try to do our small part to invest spaces with historic memory through our stories of what happened on those spots in the past, and turn them into 'places'. Ingrid Hu elaborates eloquently on this point:

``A city needs memory, people need memory, and people make cities,'' Hu said in an interview with The Standard. ``But if there's no memory, in a way, there's nothing to hold on to.''

Years of rapid development have succeeded in uprooting and dismantling the city's beautiful spaces. Hu says that, without these spaces, the lack of historic memory leads to displacement. People need a space in which to share their memories and use them for something productive and life-rewarding. Space, like theater, ``conveys something that is not material,'' she says. ``It's more about meaning.''

I would use the word 'place' instead of 'space' in her quote, but I think her point is very important. Without historic memory, and the consequent displacement that causes, you have a city without a deep sense of belonging. From a positive perspective, it may explain Hong Kong's deep-rooted cosmopolitan identity and the yearning of its people to go to other places (find me a HK movie that doesn't have a subplot about leaving!). But from a negative perspective, it also means that people have less of a bond with the city, when so much of what they know and love of it changes and becomes alienated from them so quickly.

Hu even suggests that London, her long-time home, felt during the bombings a deep sense of paralyzing powerlessness.

Terrorism does that. But so, too, can a daily life that relentlessly pushes its citizens to pragmatism, says Hu.

Her project to create something unusual and creative in the Southorn Playground in Wanchai, a suspended basketball court of semi-transparent glass and resin, is a worthy project that may give the residents of Wanchai, something real, different and tangible to hold on to. Wanchai of course has already had the heart of its older buildings like on Lee Tung Street ripped away from it. If everything you know can be taken away, particularly in a city where land comes so dear, how can you expect to have a loyal, well-adjusted citizenry?

Libel and The Sordid Details of Early Hong Kong

2005-08-11T17:31:00.000+08:00

Sorry, we've just gotten back from distributing our new bilingual (Mandarin/English) brochure in Macau (which, by the way is FREE for anyone to dial in, except for airtime and the fact that you must be on the CTM network - buy a CTM SIM card right at the ferry terminal to lower your dial-in costs!), and haven't much time before our walk in half an hour. But I thought I would share with you some rather scurrilous stories of early Hong Kong. You see, before the advent of effective libel laws here, the small, petty colonial community engaged in mud-slinging matches that could literally be heard from London (due to complaint letters sent to the colonial office). I take the stories here verbatim from a book entitled, Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Other Treaty Ports of China: Their People, Commerce, Industries and Resources, published at the early date of 1907, I believe. This is some great stuff:

The Press perhaps, was the least to offend in these unwholesome days, the Government officials among themselves indulging in the most disgraceful open calumnies and undisguised defamations. In 1857, the Attorney General (Mr. T.C. Anstey) charged the Registrar-General (Mr. Caldwell) with Âhaving a scandalous association with a brothel licensed by himself; with having passed a portion of his life amongst Chinese outlaws and pirates; with an alliance with some of the worst Chinese in the Colony, through his wife Â a Chinese girl from a brothel; with being a speculator in brothels, &c.

In August of the same year (1857) the editor of the Friend of China was brought to court for libeling the Acting Colonial Secretary on a charge of burning the books of the pirate Machow Wong to screen himself and the Registrar-General against a charge of complicity with pirates, but the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, and the Court awarded the costs against the government.

The libel case in which Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Caine, Lieutentant-Governor of the Colony, sued William Tarrant, editor of the Friend of China on September 17, 1859 created great interest. In the articcomplainedned on the sentence occurs that ÂColonel Caine must either be one of two things, either the cleverest rascal that ever lived Â a felon for whom transportation would be too light a punishment Â ir he is a much-maligned man, and deserving of the sincerest pity.Â And the charges were that he wanted a dollar per head from each inmate of Chinese brothels, ad lib.

That Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Caine, by the way, is indeed the same one Caine Road is named after. More on him another day; anyway, hope you enjoyed those. Until tomorrow!

First Official Contact Between China and the West

2005-08-15T09:58:00.000+08:00

Two months ago, I had written about the first contact between Britain and China, in the form of Captain Weddell's visit to China, preserved for posterity by Peter Mundy. That was certainly an important moment, as it was the first time that the English-speaking and the Chinese-speaking worlds were brought together; that relationship continues to be one of the most important, perhaps the most important in the 21st century.

But for those of you who read that blog entry, it was obviously not the first contact between East and West, as Weddell's voyage had stopped at Macau, a city that had already been Portuguese for 80 years. So we would like to cast light on the first official meetings between the Portuguese and the Chinese. While the Portuguese individually were not the first Europeans to go to China (Marco Polo and others come to mind), they were the first to arrive not merely as private citizens but as representatives of the Estado da India, the extensive Portuguese network of fortresses and trading towns that stretched from Guinea to Goa to Malacca, brought about thanks to the initiative of Afonso da Albuquerque.

The first contact came with a merchant named Jorge Alvares, who had chartered a junk for a voyage near Canton. While he did not succeed in reaching Canton, he did get to explore the Southern Chinese coastline. Intrigued, the Viceroy of the Estado da India despatched a kinsman of Columbus, Rafael Perestrello, to try to secure an official audience in Canton and establish trading relations with China. Perestrello chartered a Malay junk for the purpose. He was admitted to Canton, but Imperial China, for most of its history, has never considered diplomatic relations with other countries as a relationship of equals. Rather, it has been envisaged as a tributary relationship; the fact that the letter from the Viceroy addressed the Emperor in egalitarian terms, and the fact that is was not even the King of Portugal but just a deputy that addressed the Son of Heaven, rendered his embassy quite worthless.

In the meantime, the King, Dom Manuel I, was fascinated by the discovery of this vast Kingdom of China, both for its potential as a trading partner, and as a vast power that was not Muslim. So it was that he dispatched an official mission, directly from the King, that would impress upon the Chinese the Portuguese desire to open contact with them. The bearer of this missive was a man, already proven as an able soldier and explorer, named Fernao Pires de Andrade. The King had already demonstrated his curiosity about the Chinese in a letter he had sent to a Portuguese planning on exploring the country:

You shall ask after the Chijns, and from what part they come, and from how far, and at what times they come to Malacca, or to the places at which they trade, and the merchandise that they bring, and how many of their ships come each year, and regarding the form and type of their ships, and if they return in the same year, and if they have arms or artillery, and what clothes they wear, and if they are men of large build, and all other information concerning them, and if they are Christians or heathens, or if their country is a great one, and if they have more than one king amongst them, and if any Moors live amongst them or any other people that are not of their law or faith; and if they adore, and what customs they observe, and towards what part does their country extend, and with whom do they confine.

Whew! Unfortunately for Dom Manuel, this curiosity was not reciprocated. However, Fernao Pires de Andrade was able to go to Canton; he reached the city on August 15th, 1517, exactly 488 years ago this day. His Embassy recognized, and a Portuguese priest, Tome Pires, was left behind to formally present himself to the Emperor. He also conducted a successful sale of goods before leaving, although he was not permitted at that time to buy products from the Chinese. The killing of one villager in Tuen Mun (today part of Hong Kong's Western New Territories) was glossed over. Pires was kept waiting though, for permission to visit Beijing.

There was little glossing over of the visit of Fernao Pires de Andrade's younger brother Simao de Andrade, however. He arrived the following year in 1518, got into violent altercations with Chinese merchants and apparently roughed up a Chinese official. Even worse, when some kidnappers had brought children for sale to Simao as slaves, he thought nothing of buying them - this became a major scandal in the annals of Chinese history. Pires' Embassy did not benefit from this episode, and it was not until 1519 that he was approved for a visit to Beijing. This was a description of Chinese women that Tome Pires had written in his spare time:

The women resemble Castilian women. They wear pleated skirts, with waistbands, and jackets that are longer than in our country. Their long hair is beautifully coiled up on top of their heads, with many golden pins holding it in place. Those who have precious stones scatter them around their hair and place golden jewels on the crown of their heads, in their ears and on their necks. They coat their cheeks in white lead and then put make-up on top, so well that the women of Seville cannot surpass them. They drink like women from a cold country. They wear pointed shoes of silk and brocade. All of them carry fans in their hands. They are as white as we are. Some of them have small eyes, and others big ones, while their noses are as they should be.

His presence in Beijing, though was not tolerated, and he was soon sent back to Canton to await further developments. Ultimately, he got to meet the Emperor when the latter was on tour in Nanjing. The meeting with the Chang De Emperor went very well; the Emperor, who was apparently an easy-going person, asked Pires about his country, played games with him and inspected all his presents and said he looked forward to receiving all of them formally in Beijing. Unfortunately, soon after the Emperor's return, he died.

Soon after, the xenophobic element within the Ming dynasty court got control, and Pires was thrown in prison, where he died along with some other Portuguese that had the misfortune of coming on another trading mission in 1521, and had the temerity to misbehave. So ended, for the time being, the first episode of diplomatic relations between China and the West. Portuguese traders thirty years later though, would have much better luck in establishing a base in Macau, after their guns and seen off a large flotilla of pirates; the mandarins in Canton allowed them this base apparently in gratitude for rendering this service.

Rats, Pigs, Horses and the Hong Kong Plague

2005-08-18T12:10:00.000+08:00

We living in Hong Kong are used to plagues of chickens, ducks, civet cats and pigs. Some may not know that fears of the spread of such diseases from mainland China are far from a new phenomenon. Here is an example of an episode from a century ago.

I had the (dis?)pleasure this morning of looking at a very interesting document that was 106 years old, entitled: "Report on the Health and Sanitary Condition for the Colony of Hong Kong For 1899" by J.M. Atkinson, Principal Civil Medical Officer. Those of you familiar with the health conditions prevailing in Hong Kong at that time will know that it would make grim reading, as it was one of the years that the Bubonic Plague had struck Hong Kong hard. The population indicators on the first page showed the death rate for the various races. From 1898 to 1899 the 'Whites' death rate had fallen from 16.2 to 12.5, a marked improvement. The 'Coloureds' over the same period fell from 33.6 to 28.3, a huge discrepancy uncommented upon by Mr. Atkinson but considered also an improvement; however, the 'Chinese' group rose from 22.54 in 1898 to 24.4 in 1899, due, in Mr. Atkinson's words, to the increase in plague cases in Hong Kong.

Rats were clearly a problem in those days, as is evidenced already on page 2 of the report. He describes in detail:

"A grant of $200 was made for traps, poison, and other requisites. Experiments were made to see if it were possible to attract rats into cellars by means of food in order that poison might afterwards be used. It was found that the animals had so much garbage on the streets and lanes, that the choice food placed in cellars had no attraction."

The rats population was quelled though by setting traps on virtually every corner, and also by employing a new strategy: "The Chinese are paid 2 cents a head for each rat, the Sanitary Inspectors of the various Health districts collecting them on their morning rounds, by this means 300 rats a week are now being destroyed." The poor sanitary conditions in the Chinese tenement districts, which could not be improved by colonial authorities due to opposition from Chinese elites who maintained improvements would require a higher cost of living for the coolies living there, boiled over into borderline racist frustration, as can be seen from the following statement:

"The [Rat Extermination] Commission was dissolved in May, as the Medical Officer for Health stated that it was more probably that rats caught plague from man rather than that men were infected through rats. Although the West Point District had probably never before been so free from rats as it was just before the plague appeared, the epidemic there was one of the worst experienced."

A table later on the page shows statistics for the incidence of plague that clearly demonstrated that the plague went away periodically. The frustration with sanitary conditions in West Point continues in the report:

"From July 1898, to the end of February 1899, only sixteen cases occurred, the disease during this time was quiescent, the marked recurrence of cases, however, in houses previously infected shows that the bacilli are but dormant and in the ill-ventilated, badly lighted and overcrowded Chinese dwellings which exist in this Colony only require certain atmospheric conditions to favour their growth and spread."

But it seemed that the Health Officer was of two minds about the source of the plague, because then he later blamed the Chinese obsession with the horses:

"The great increases of cases in epidemic years has always occurred in the spring proves that in these years a fresh introduction of plague bacilli occurs, information was obtained of the presence of sporadic cases in the district round Canton at the commencement of the year, an outbreak also occurred at Wuchow at the beginning of March and news was obtained of the presence of cases at Pakhoi on the 16th of March, it also appears that the great influx of Chinese at the Annual Race Meeting [in Hong Kong], which is always held towards the end of February, may be one means whereby these germs are introduced afresh into the Colony."

To be more specific, the Health Officer was blaming the mainland Chinese that came to Hong Kong to enjoy the horseracing. It goes to show that while the Hong Kong Chinese do feel an increasing kinship with their mainland brethren, there has always been a certain sense of sanitary dubiousness with which locals here regard their mainland cousins. Today's Hong Kong and the case of the pigs is definitely no exception!

A 19th c. Resident on Penang and Malacca

2005-08-19T11:33:00.000+08:00

When I say Resident, I mean 'Resident', not resident in lower case. For that was what the head colonial administrator in Singapore was called from 1819-1826. Yesterday I had the pleasure of perusing former Resident John Crawfurd's account of his Embassy to the kingdoms of Thailand and Vietnam, entitled: "Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China", a mission he undertook in 1821 and 1822 on behalf of the British East India Company. He was a longtime employee of the British East India Company. Born in Scotland in 1783, like William Jardine, he was also trained as a surgeon in Edinburgh, and also joined the service of John Company. Unlike Jardine, though, he was not posted on board ship but was rather sent to the North Western provinces of India. He later was sent to Penang for three years in 1808, where he became fluent in Malay.

As the Napoleonic Wars were on, Britain sailed in to storm (oops I mean protect) the Dutch colonies from French interference, and so from 1811 to 1816 he served under Sir Stamford Raffles in his administration of Dutch Java under the auspices of the East India Company. After retiring to Britain for a few years to write a 3-volume book, he was sent back out for this mission, and was soon after appointed Resident of Singapore from 1823 to 1826.

His Journal provides some fascinating insights into the man that was soon to shape Singapore's future (he in fact was the one that put pen to paper with the Sultan of Johore, securing the rights to Singapore island in perpetuity, instead of just as a leasehold, of which arrangement had been created by Raffles and Colonel Farquhar, the first Resident). It is clear he had divide-and-rule on his mind when commenting on the agricultural industry in Penang:

The landed proprietors of Penang consist, however, of persons of all the races which inhabit it; but the chief arboretors, and the only improvers, are the two most industrious classes - the European and the Chinese.

He also had very practical views on the administration of such a colony, and on how to generate revenues for the treasury - chiefly, through a tax on gambling. Politicians in Singapore discussing the logistics of the Integrated Resorts on Sentosa may wish to consider they are reviving an old debate. Crawfurd writes of Penang:

In former times a tax was levied on gambling more productive than all the rest put together; but on the institution of the Court of Justice, it was presented by the Grand Jury as a nuisance, and abolished. This was, perhaps, being too fastidious. The Chinese, the Malayas, native Christians, Burmans and Siamese, are violently, and without a revolution in their manners, not certainly to be brought about by mere municipal regulation, incurably addicted to gambling. The Chinese especially, habitually repair to the gaming-table after a day of severe toil. It would, perhaps, have been better to have regulated and controlled this propensity, than vainly to have attempted to eradicate it. The consequence of attempting the latter has been, that gaming still goes on clandestinely - heavy fines are levied by the police, and its officers are afforded a pretext, for vexatious interference in the private concerns of the inhabitants.

So Crawfurd here alludes to the problem of corruption that arises when you try to prevent something that he views as in the nature of the Chinese.

When he heads to Malacca, he demonstrates that he very much views the administrative tasks of the colonial power as the 'white man's burden', and demonstrates that he is rather against Europeans 'going native' in the course of their duties in the East. Here is an example of his railing against the Dutch going 'tropo' in their colony of Malacca:

Out of 37 [Dutch] ladies, two or three only were Europeans, and the rest born in the country, with a large admixture of Asiatic blood. The female dress, of the younger part, was in the English fashion; and a very few only of the elderly ladies dressed in the Malay kabaya, a sort of loose gown, or wore their hair in the Malay fashion. The long residence of the English in the Dutch colonies, the influence of the French, and lately, of their own more polished countrywomen - have nearly banished these external marks of barbarism. Before the last 10 years, the habits and costume of the female Dutch colonists partook more of the Asiatic than the European. Instead of Dutch, they spoke a barbarous dialect of Malay; they were habited, as I have described, in the dress of that people; they chewed the pawn-leaf publicly, and even in the ball-room each fair dame had before her an enormous brass ewer to receive the refuse of her mastication.

Crawfurd clearly felt that such concessions to Asian culture and practices were letting down the side. And no phenomenon seemed to disturb him more greatly than that of mixed-race Portuguese left behind in Malacca after the Dutch conquest of it in 1641. He writes:

The Portuguese amount to 4,000 and are all of the lowest order. Although with a great admixture of Asiatic blood, the European features are still strongly marked in them. I have no doubt there are among them many of the lineal descendants of the haughty, intolerant and brave men, who fought by the side of Albuquerque; but they certainly inherit no part of the character of their ancestors, and are a timid, peaceable and submissive race. They offer to us a spectacle not frequently presented in the East - that of men bearing the European name, and wearing the European garb, engaged in the humblest occupations of life, for we find them employed as domestic servants, as day labourers, and as fishermen.

Note that his theories of racial eugenics precede those of social Darwinists later in the century, and indeed the books of Darwin himself.

There is much more I have read on his travels, but will not tax you overly with their details, which I find fascinating, but perhaps you may not. Gaaah! His influence is telling even in the sentences I write. Should you want to hear more about his theories on race in Singapore, I should be happy to oblige with his incendiary observations...

Hong Kong Police Blotter: For 1905

2005-08-22T11:00:00.000+08:00

Many of you may be unaware of a wonderful resource in finding old documents about the former Colony of Hong Kong: the archives of the University of Hong Kong. One element of the archives is entitled: The Hong Kong Government Reports Online, which has many different reports from various arms of the government stretching back into the 19th century. Although almost all of the local archives were destroyed (largely for fuel) during the Japanese Occupation, some of it was preserved in London.

My findings from the archives are from the Report of the Captain Superintendent of Police, and of the Superintendent of the Fire Brigade, for the Year 1905. The goings on and crimes of one century ago give us a great insight into the lives and milieu in which Hong Kongers lived one hundred years ago. Let me quote you some of the highlights:

"On the 6th January, a Philippino, named PAGUIN, passenger on board the S.S. Tremont in the Harbour, murdered a Philippino passenger and injured another. He afterwards swam ashore and attacked a rickshaw coolie named CHEUNG FUNG, aged 44, who was at the time sitting in his vehicle near Queen's Street, causing such injuries that he died in hospital the next day. PAGUIN was arrested, convicted at the Criminal Sessions and sentenced to death. The sentence was subsequently commuted to imprisonment for life."

One must recall that there was a very large Philippino, or as we would say today, Filipino community here. In fact, many of the revolutionaries of the Philippines Revolution, such as Rizal and Aguinaldo, planned the revolution from Hong Kong. It was here that they received funding and help with arms and equipment from the Americans to help defeat the colonial Spaniards in 1898. In fact, Admiral Dewey's flotilla sailed from Hong Kong en route to its one-sided battle in Manila Bay.

"On the night of 11th March, SIU SHU and his son SIU YING residing at 124, Wong Nai Wu in the Yaumati district, heard men carrying pigs past their house. They at the time thought their pigs were being stolen and went out to arrest them. One of the six was armed with a revolver, and fired on SIU SHU and his son, both of whom were badly injured and taken to Hospital. SIU SHU recovered from his injuries but SIU YING, aged 27, died next day. No arrest was made."

This short snippet illustrates several things - first, that many Chinese at the time persisted in keeping domesticated animals in the first floor of their houses, despite the risks to health and sanitation. Secondly, Yaumati, or Yau Ma Tei as we know it today, was much less crowded than the densely packed district of 2005. In fact, it was just in transition at that time from a farming village to urban district, thanks to Governor Nathan's construction of Nathan Road out to Yau Ma Tei, which in those days was considered the back of beyond. The fact that no arrest was made attests to both the difficulty of the British authorities to track Chinese that frequently moved between Guangdong province and Hong Kong.

"On the 20th June, the body of SHEK KAU, aged 20, was picked up in the Harbour off the Quarry Bay shipyard. Deceased was a boat girl and lived in a house boat at Shaukiwan. At 10pm on the night of 20th June she left in her boat to ply for hire. At that time she was wearing jewellry value $35. When she was picked up the jewellry was missing, it is supposed robbery was the motive. One man was arrested, and acquitted at the Criminal Sessions."

There is a great sadness to this factfile. The Tanka boat people, as late as the 1960s still a sizeable population living on the water, were considered the lowest rung of society and had been forbidden by the Qing dynasty to own land. They were also the first to be willing to cast aside loyalty to the Chinese Emperor and aid the British during the first opium war. Many of their young women also became mistresses to Western merchants and administrators, becoming 'pensioners' when these men inevitably returned home. Many also worked as prostitutes for both Westerners and Chinese, and entertained clients on their houseboats. The Captain Superintendent leaves some ambiguity in the phrase 'to ply for hire'. But if she had been simply taxi-ing passengers to and from Kowloon, it is unlikely she would have been wearing jewellry of some value.

"On 17th October, the steam-launch Evening Star collided with and capsized a rowing boat No. 3502 while sailing in the Harbour between the French mail buoy and Blake Pier with the result that two persons lost their lives. The master of the launch was arrested, and later discharged by the Police Magistrate."

What is interesting to note is that the Evening Star was in fact the first steam-launch to be used as part of the Star Ferry service started by the Indian Parsee Dorabjee Nowrojee. He had originally used it as a way to make bread deliveries to ships in the harbour, and also as his own private transport home to Kowloon from Hong Kong every night. He had called it Evening Star because one of his favorite poets was Alfred Lord Tennyson, in particular Crossing the Bar. The first line of the poem is Sunset - and Evening Star, and One Clear Call for Me! He regarded the Evening Star as his personal call to go home for dinner with the family.

That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed this sorrowful walk down memory lane...

The Trouble With Anniversaries in Hong Kong

2005-08-23T11:21:00.000+08:00

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have frequently tried to remind people of the significance of particular dates in history significant to Hong Kong, or more generally to the history of Sino-Western relations. The reason I do this is to invest both time and space with a greater memory of past events. I do this not only for sentimental reasons; Hong Kong's legal system and rule of law is based on English (some like to say Anglo-American) Common Law, which is in turn based on precedent. How can one have a city with a strong sense of the rule of law, if people have no sense of the past and have therefore have little sense of precedent?

But as I have mentioned in past posts, the reason for the lack of historicity lies in the postwar colonial government here. For all of its merits, and the progress under its watch, there was little it could do to hide its own embarrassment about Hong Kong having been seized as a prize of the First Opium War. I found an interesting article written 14 years ago in the International Herald Tribune (to this day, actually) about the difficulty of celebrating anniversaries of Hong Kong's founding. It discusses how in that year, the 150th anniversary of the post office was being celebrated, but how the fact that that was also the 150th anniversary of Hong Kong's birth was being totally hushed up:

On Jan. 26, 1841, Captain Charles Elliot raised the Union Jack over Possession Point [actually it was Captain Edward Belcher of the HMS Sulphur - Ed.], claiming the island of Hong Kong for the British crown.
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It is an event that the present colonial government has chosen to overlook.
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"I didn't even realize that that was the case," said Stanley Wong, a government spokesman, when asked about the anniversary. "I don't even know if there was any discussion about it."
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Mr. Wong later said that the anniversary had been discussed by the colony's leaders, but that it had been decided that 150 years was nothing special.
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"We don't think there is any significance to this particular event," he said. "This year is no different from any other year."
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But Mr. Wong denied that the government was not doing anything to celebrate.
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"I'm sure you are familiar with the fact that the Post Office is celebrating its 150th anniversary," he said.

It is fascinating that actually even soon after Tiananmen, the British still felt that it would have been inappropriate to celebrate the taking of Hong Kong from China on its 150th anniversary. Perhaps so, since while that was the date that Britain officially claimed Hong Kong, they did not receive it from the Chinese in writing ultimately until the signing of the Treaty of Nanking on August 29th, 1842. In any case, the pro-China Lord Wilson was then still Governor, and it was to be another year before the more antagonistic-to-China Chris Patten was assigned as the last Governor to the Colony (oops, Territory) of Hong Kong.

But the article later mentions some perceptive local historians that point out that all of the major anniversaries of Hong Kong's capture by Britain have come at the most dreadfully inconvenient times that made it impossible to celebrate then:

The 125th anniversary in 1966 came amid China's Cultural Revolution, when resentment of British rule led to riots in the colony. The 100th anniversary in 1941 came during World War II, and the 75th in 1916 occurred during World War I. There was apparently a celebration in 1891 to mark the 50th anniversary, but no one is around to remember what went on.
.. "I don't think any colony around the world has had the same remarkable level of social an
"Every time Hong Kong tries to celebrate, the situation is not so favorable, like this year," said Joseph Ting, curator of the Hong Kong Museum of History.
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Under the circumstances, many believe a celebration of the Hong Kong Post Office is an appropriate substitute. With its state-of-the-art optical recognition system and its low-key efficiency, the postal service is among the cheapest and finest in the world, exemplifying what may well be Britain's most lasting contribution to Hong Kong: an honest and well-run civil service.

Maybe so, but Hong Kong's willingness to forget history and embrace whatever-may-come from the future may come at the expense of the rule of law, and the 'honest and well-run civil service' the author mentions.

Raffles and the Cannibals

2005-09-01T13:50:00.000+08:00

As regular readers of our blog may have guessed, Singapore is rapidly falling into our ambit of operations. I'm not at liberty to say quite yet what those operations will be, but rest assured we'll let you know in due course.

We've been doing some reading, therefore on the founder, or purported founder of modern Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles (his primacy in the founding of the city is a matter of some heated debate). Some of you well-versed in history may be aware that before (and after, actually) founding Singapore as a British trading factory, Raffles was the Governor of Bencoolen, today known as Bengkulu, on the West coast of Sumatra (the Indonesian island whose northern side most recently was devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami).

In 1820, according to his very sympathetic biographer, C.E. Wurtzburg, in Raffles of the Eastern Isles (published posthumously in 1954), he wrote rather favorably about the Batta, a tribe from central-northern Sumatra that had the unfortunate predisposition for cannibalism. Think about them the next time you drink Sumatra Mandelhing coffee, because that's roughly where they were from. Now Raffles always had a reputation for being a tolerant, liberal visionary, but what I read last night was quite something else. Wurtzburg quote directly from Raffles' own memoirs:

"It is observed that formerly they [the Batta] ate their parents when too old for work: this, however, is no longer the case, and thus a step has been gained in civilization.

It is admitted that the parties may be redeemed for a pecuniary compensation, but this is entirely at the option of the chief enemy or injured party, who, after his sentence is passed, may either have his victim eaten, or he may sell him for a slave; but the law is that he shall be eaten, and the prisoner is entirely at the mercy of his prosecutor...

I could give you more details, but the above may be sufficient to show that our friends the Battas are even worse than you have represented them, and that those who are still sceptical have yet more to learn. I have also a great deal to say on the other side of the character, for the Battas have many virtues. I prize them highly. However horrible eating a man may sound in European ears, I question whether the party suffers so much, or the punishment itself is worse than the European tortures of two centuries ago. I have always doubted the policy, and even the right of capital punishment among civilized nations; but this once admitted, and torture allowed, I see nothing more cruel in eating a man alive [italics are mine - Ed.] than in torturing him for days with mangled limbs and the like. Here they certainly eat him up at once, and the party seldom suffers more than a few minutes. It is probable that he suffers more pain from the loss of his ear than from what follows: indeed he is said to give one shriek when that is taken off, and then to continue silent till death."

Well, that was pretty awful, but you have to admit now there were certainly some individuals within the 19th century Empire that were highly sympathetic to local cultural practices. I had my partner Stefan off his chair when I read it to him. His reaction was: "Imagine the faces of his superiors his London when they read this. They'd be thinking, 'Oh...My...God! This guy is so far up the river it's not funny!'" Aside from the fact that in 1820, neither had Conrad written the Heart of Darkness nor Coppola made Apocalypse Now, I must wholeheartedly agree. Not in a culinary sense, of course.

The Unfortunate Lord Napier in Canton

2005-09-02T15:35:00.000+08:00

Today we'll go set our time machine for 1834, just a few years before the founding of Hong Kong (our blog today is extra long, consider it a weekend edition!). British merchants first began arriving in force in China in the late 18th century. And to oversee their trade were the representatives of the British East India Company, self-styled the 'Honourable Company' or John Company. For half a century, they ruled the roost in Macau, more powerful than any other single force or individual in the city, dictating the actions and conduct of all British traders in China, whether they belonged to the Honourable Company or not.

But in 1833, that chapter of history came to and end; for that was the year of the Charter Act, which ended the East India Company's monopoly on British trade in Canton. As the British did not want to see chaos in Canton as a result of unregulated British traders, the government of the day dispatched one William John Napier, the 9th Lord Napier, a blue-blooded aristocrat of somewhat limited means, to China as Superintendent of Trade. His assistants were to be old John Company hands.

Sadly though, Napier did not seek their advice overmuch when he arrived in Macau to ascertain the position of Sino-British trade. At that time, China still did not recognize the representatives of any other country on an equal footing, and had in place a myriad of laws to prevent any diplomat from getting an audience with the Governor of Guangdong, let alone the Emperor. But Napier, upon his arrival, fell rapidly into the orbit of William Jardine and James Matheson, ardent free traders who believed that the current system of trade was untenable and an insult to British authority (never mind that their chief business was peddling illegal opium contraband). They worked him up into a frenzy, and got him to believe that he was on a mission from Britain - nay, from God, Adam Smith and the principles of free trade - to end the Chinese trade restrictions once and for all. It did not matter to him that the rules of trade had been previously been strictly followed by the East India Company, and that he was trying to force an unprecedented change in the status quo.

That was a bad idea, because he had no leverage with which to force the issue. He sent a letter to the Governor of Guangdong, but received no reply. This enraged him further, and he decided to head to Canton without permission and present his petition to the Governor directly, in the name of the British Crown. Unbeknownst to him, the Chinese officials were already very familiar with him and what to do with him. They referred to him in his official title as the 'barbarian eye', and transliterated his name to mean 'laboriously vile.'

This was the letter sent by Governor Lu to the Emperor (thanks to the City University of New York website):

The said barbarian [Lord Napier] would not receive the hong-merchants, but afterwards repaired to the outside of the city to present a letter to me, your majesty's minister Lu. On the face of the envelope the forms and style of equality were used ; and there were absurdly written the characters, Ta Ying kwoh (i.e., Great English nation). . . Whether the said barbarian has or has not official rank, there are no means of thoroughly ascertaining. But though he be really an officer of the said nation, he yet cannot write letters on equality with the frontier officers of the celestial empire. As the thing concerned the national dignity, it was inexpedient in the least to allow a tendency to any approach or advance, by which lightness of esteem might be occasioned. Accordingly, orders were given to . . the colonel in command of the military forces of this department, to tell him [Napier]authoritatively, that, by the statutes and enactments of the celestial empire, there has never been intercourse by letters with outside barbarians . . .
Now it is suddenly desired to appoint an officer, a superintendent, which is not in accordance with old regulations. Besides, if the said nation has formed this decision, it still should have stated in a petition, the affairs which, and the way how, such superintendent is to manage, so that a memorial might be presented, requesting your majesty's mandate and pleasure as to what should be refused, in order that obedience might be paid to it . . . But the said barbarian, Lord Napier, without ever having made any plain report, suddenly came to the barbarian factories outside the city to reside, and presumed to desire intercourse to and fro by official documents and letters with the officers of the Central Flowery Land [i.e., China], and this was, indeed, far out of the bounds of reason.<

The inaction and inability to progress enraged Napier further, and so he proceeded to circulate notices in Chinese throughout Canton explaining how 'perverse' Chinese officialdom was for ruining Chinese livelihoods for wont of trade (sounds like a modern complainant to the SCMP). This naturally pissed off the mandarins further, who shot off this counter-notice in the city, in an even more angry tone:

A lawless foreign slave, Napier, has issued a notice. We know not how such a dog barbarian of an outside nation as you, can have the audacious presumption to call yourself Superintendent (of Trade). Being an outside savage Superintendent, and a person in an official situation, you should have some little knowledge of propriety and law.
You have passed over ten thousand miles in order to seek a livelihood; you have come to our Celestial Empire to trade and control affairs;--how can you not obey well the regulations of the Empire? You audaciously presume to break through the barrier passes [i.e., entrance to the city of Canton; forbidden to foreigners] . . . According to the laws of the nation , the Royal Warrant should be respectfully requested to behead you; and openly expose your head to the multitude, as a terror to perverse dispositions.

Napier, in his final letter to the Foreign Secretary in London, wrote the following:

My present position is . .. a delicate one, because the trade is put in jeopardy, on account of the difference existing between the (governor) and myself. I am ordered by his majesty [the king of England] to "go to Canton, and there report myself by letter to the (governor)." I use my best endeavors to do so; but the (governor) is a presumptuous savage.
. . . Had I even degraded the king's commission [i.e., the orders given him by his government] so far as to petition through the hong-merchants for an interview, it is quite clear by the tenor of the edicts that it would have been refused. Were he to send an armed force, and order me to the boat, I could then retreat with honor, and he would implicate himself; but they are afraid to attempt such a measure. What then remains but the stoppage of the trade, or my retirement? [i.e., withdrawal]. If the trade is stopped for any length of time, the consequences to the merchants are most serious, as they are also to the unoffending Chinese. But the (governor) cares no more for commerce, or for the comfort and happiness of the people, as long as he receives his pay and plunder, than if he did not live among them.

He has clearly lost it at this point - he was sent to be a diplomat, and to ensure that unruly traders did not get out of hand. Instead, Lord Napier, turned rabid by the goading of Jardine and the arrogance of Chinese officialdom, was here actually calling for warships to bombard Canton! (Of course, this forshadowed events perfectly less than a decade later) Trade for all foreign merchants was stopped on September 2, 1834 (yes, today in fact, 171 years ago) and Lord Napier was forced to leave Canton, and on the way back to Macau, he died from fever. The anger and frustration of his stay in China had consumed him. Jardine and Matheson paid for his body being sent back to London, along with his widow and child.

The only reason we should remember the unfortunate Lord Napier today, though, is this: he sent one letter to London that, as far as we know, was the very first to highlight the attractions of the island of Hong Kong as a deep-sea harbour protected from the storms and typhoons of the South China Sea. It seems that letter made a lasting impression...

The Mystery of the Japanese Horses

2005-09-05T15:38:00.000+08:00

The picture you see to your left depicts the Japanese military leadership on parade down Nathan Road in Hong Kong, I believe, a few days after the Christmas Day surrender of the British in 1941. But an interesting question was posed to me recently - did the Japanese bring the horses themselves to Hong Kong? For it was thought that cavalry regiments had gone by the wayside in the same way they had in Western military forces by that time. Certainly the Japanese attacking strategy of striking quickly and hard with a mixture of mechanized units, air support and nimble infantry could not have accommodated horses and stableboys?

My interlocutor was right. The horses, I've discovered, did not come from Japan or even just across the border from China: they were noble steeds of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The Japanese had rounded the horses up and thought they'd make a useful addition to the pomp and ceremony of the Japanese Occupation of this British colony that had just celebrated its 100th birthday.

But round them up they certainly had to do, according to one of Hong Kong's best jockeys, Canadian Benny Proulx. He described the mayhem on 15th December, the night the Japanese bombed Happy Valley:

Here among the bursting bombs a hundred or so race horses were running wild in the streets. The near-by Jockey Club's stables had been badly bombed and the horses had escaped. They thundered through the avenues, swirled around me, stopping, turning sideways, running back, as bombs and shells burst among them with spouts of dark debris and shrapnel. Blood on their silky coats, straks of blood in their wide staring eyes, heads high in panic, they ran a futile race with death. A horse would suddenly slip and fall, another would balance himself, bewildered and helpless on three legs. Many lay dead in the littered streets.

One stood trembling, still bridled, and with the reins hanging limply from his mouth. I went up to him, but he seemed not to notice me. I started to unbridle him. Fifty feet away, a small shell burst with a high crack of noise and I instinctively ducked my head, but the horse stood motionless. Tossing the bridle away, I lingered for a moment stroking the sweaty back. I left him finally, but as I turned the corner of the next block I glanced back. He still stood there, quite motionless, head down among the rest of the panicky herd - a creature frightened into insanity, but so beautiful that it seemed no bomb could touch him.

Perhaps, I'd offer, the horse had become deaf from the bombing, and no longer therefore reacted to stimuli like bombs going off.

There was a dearth of horses though, despite Japan's best efforts to keep racing going during the War years, but according to author Austin Coates it was rigged and dishonest. Eventually they resorted to wooden horses, which didn't exactly set the Hong Kong public's imagination alight. Finally, 4 months before the end of the war, they cancelled racing altogether in April 1945.

Mickey Mao: Disneyland and Globalization

2005-09-07T18:38:00.000+08:00

September is here, the academics have returned from their summer breaks and the talks organized by the Hong Kong Anthropological Society have returned. The next talk is scheduled for September 22nd, at 7pm, in the Hong Kong Museum of History Lecture Hall in Tsim Sha Tsui it is entitled "Mickey Mao: What the World's Newest Disneyland Tells Us About Globalization", and the speaker is Geoffrey Fowler, who has been an Asian Wall Street Journal reporter based in Hong Kong since 2002 covering Asian media, marketing, youth and cultural affairs. Before becoming a journalist, Mr. Fowler trained as a social anthropologist, earning a graduate degree in anthropology at Cambridge University and an undergraduate degree in social anthropology and Afro-American studies at Harvard University. He was born in New York City.

The gist of his talk will be as follows:

The Hong Kong Disneyland opening on September 12 provides a rare window on the role of multinational corporations in the globalization of cultures. How did Disney as a corporation -- famous for selling and spreading Americana -- approach crafting and selling a theme park destined for Chinese consumption? What values might attract Chinese tourists to a Disney park - "American" culture, "global" culture, or something "Chinese"? And what role does the idea of local culture - from feng shui and shark's fin, to Mulan and fireworks -- play in the politics and marketing of the park? This will be one reporter's unofficial view, after hours of interviews with company officials, marketers, and visitors to Hong Kong Disneyland.

I encourage you all to come, it sounds like an interesting talk about the world's best paid rodent and what he's had to do to get there.