“For myself, however, it is the human element, the recollected words, the remembered faces, which give life to the printed record.” James Hayes’s many writings have made a major contribution to knowledge about life in rural Hong Kong. This book presents sixteen of his illuminating and original articles, each of which is rooted in his experiences as a district officer, administering and visiting villages under his care. His interest in the life and lives of the people went far beyond the formal demands of his official work, and Dr Hayes grew to admire and respect the villagers. As a result, his writings are suffused with his affection and esteem. Intended for scholars in the field of New Territories history as well as general readers interested in rural life in the region, A Pattern of Life provides a fascinating, academically important, yet highly readable picture of traditional life in rural South China and reinforces Dr Hayes’s reputation as one of the most important writers on the New Territories. “[James was] the archetypical example of those remarkable Colonial Service officers who became fascinated by, and deeply engaged with, the territories and people which it was their task to administer.” – Lord Wilson of Tillyorn Governor of Hong Kong (1987–1992)

“For this brief moment, the two sisters could be ‘together in heart and affection’, and through such letters bridge the distance of empire.” We often learn about the commerce, diplomacy, and military campaigns of the British empire without reference to the intimate side of life in these times—the development of self, the position of women, and the importance of family. In this book, the story of empire, so often told from a man’s perspective, is given a unique vantage point through Eliza Hillier’s letters to her younger sister, Martha. Written largely from Hong Kong, Shanghai, England, and Siam, the letters allow us to become a member of her family and follow the daily tribulations associated with the life of a young British woman in the port cities of Asia. We are thus able to share Eliza’s experiences as she leaves home to embark on married life, starts and raises a family, grieves at the abrupt and tragic loss of her husband, Charles Batten Hillier, and then sets about re-building her life. At once a reflection on the daily components of empire, an entertaining narrative of familial relationships, and the story of one woman’s inner feelings, My Dearest Martha guides us through the vagaries of life for a family who were very much a part of imperial careering and missionary circles in East and Southeast Asia. The letters are complemented by images and commentary from the author, a descendant of Eliza, providing context and depth, which together give us a fuller picture of British colonial life in the mid-1800s from a perspective that will resonate with readers around the world.

In Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing: Geopolitics and Informality, 1963–1985, Alan Smart and Fung Chi Keung Charles trace two decades of development of squatting in Hong Kong. The authors reconstruct the government policy on squatting through both ethnographic and archival research. The book sheds new light on the consequences of various attempts to control encroachment on scarce urban space. It argues that intersecting policy agendas resulted in decisions that were often not desired, but which emerged as practical solutions from prior failures. The authors address the challenges of explaining confidential policy decisions and offer new approaches applicable in other contexts. Overall, Smart and Fung make an important contribution to the understanding of how public housing and squatting interacted in influential ways that have been poorly understood and offer new perspectives on the challenges of urban governance and housing problems. “The definitive history of how resettlement policies evolved as the squatter population swelled and as London and Beijing moved closer to signing the 1984 Sino-British Declaration. A masterful combination of theorizing and documentary sleuthing, a landmark in contemporary debates over the optimal responses to the formalization of informal property.” —Deborah Davis, Yale University “Smart and Fung offer a fresh and thought-provoking analysis of the changing state-society relations in the postwar decades by unravelling the complexities of Hong Kong’s urban landscape through their critical analysis of the question of informality and the issue of squatting.” —Lui Tai-Lok, Education University of Hong Kong “Employing ethnography and combing through archives, Smart and Fung uncover how the British formalized squatter housing. Highlighting questions of sociopolitical and historical change by analyzing bureaucratic and geopolitical forces—a fascinating project delving into the nature of colonial rule, immigrant resilience, and political economic structures. A major contribution to evidence-based settler colonial studies.” —Setha Low, City University of New York

More Than 1001 Days and Nights of Hong Kong Internment is the wartime journal of Sir Chaloner Grenville Alabaster, former attorney-general of Hong Kong and one of the three highest-ranking British officials during the Japanese occupation. He was imprisoned by the Japanese at the Stanley Internment Camp from 1941 to 1945. During his internment, he managed to keep a diary of his life in the camp in small notebooks and hid them until his release in 1945. He then wrote his wartime journal on the basis of these notes. The journal records his day-to-day experiences of the fall of Hong Kong, his time at Stanley, and his eventual release. Some of the most fascinating extracts cover the three months immediately after the fall of Hong Kong and when Alabaster and his colleagues were imprisoned in Prince’s Building in Central and before they were sent to the camp, a period little covered in previous publications. Hence, the book is an important primary source for understanding the daily operation of the Stanley Internment Camp and the camp’s environment. Readers will also learn more about the daily life of those imprisoned in the camp, and C. G. Alabaster’s interaction with other prisoners there. ‘A prominent figure in pre-war Hong Kong, Alabaster was one of the leaders of the British community in Stanley Internment Camp. His recently discovered journal provides a detailed and candid account of the routines, anxieties, and hardships of camp life. It also offers new insights into the complex politics and divisions among internees. With its substantial editorial introduction, this book is an important addition to the growing literature on internment during Japan’s wartime occupation of Hong Kong.’ —Christopher Munn, University of Hong Kong ‘Of the many memoirs of the Stanley civilian internment camp, this is perhaps the most fascinating and engrossing. Written soon after the war and based on a diary, it is not only a day-by-day description of the travails of life in captivity but also, more interestingly, an account of the inner tensions and divisions that were rampant among the British internees from beginning to end.’ —Edward J. M. Rhoads, University of Texas at Austin

Set against the backdrop of regional and international post–Second World War tensions, Grounded at Kai Tak is the most comprehensive account of the complex legal struggle for ownership of 71 airplanes belonging to the two main Chinese airlines, which were stranded at Kai Tak airfield in Hong Kong at the end of the Chinese civil war. The resulting contest for possession of them took place in the courts and among politicians and diplomats on three continents. In the process, the struggle became entangled with the anti-communist policies of the United States in the emerging ‘Cold War’, British hopes for restoration of her pre-war commercial position in China, disagreements between nations about recognition of the new government in Peking, and the delicate balance that the colonial government of Hong Kong had to keep to preserve that colony’s interests. Merry tells the tale of this legal saga by weaving together archival documents and news reports of the day, revealing the international alignments that emerged from the aftermath of the wars and the colourful cast of actors that influenced the outcome of the dispute. This struggle would go on to become one of the leading public international law cases on the recognition of governments at the time. ‘This is the first book-length monograph on the legal and diplomatic battles for the ownership of the seventy-one aircraft grounded in Hong Kong. Set within the wider context of the Chinese civil war and the Cold War and packed with passionate characters, the book reads like a historical novel. A major contribution to Hong Kong history, legal history, and international history.’ —Chi-kwan Mark, Senior Lecturer in International History, Royal Holloway, University of London ‘This is a fascinating story, eloquently told by one of the true experts of Hong Kong’s modern legal history. By analysing the struggle for possession of seventy-one planes from many different angles, the author offers brilliant insights into law, society, and politics in post–World War II East Asia.’ —Lutz-Christian Wolff, Dean and Wei Lun Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This volume in honour of Professor Mair reflects the range of her interests, and those of the Department in which she taught, in many areas of social anthropology, for it reports on research in Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean, on the tensions between tradition and modernity, between the individual and society, deviance and conformity, stability and conflict. The ambiguities of social change and the choices thus presented to individuals are examined in all the essays and issues of modem politics and development dominate most of them.

“Without a clear idea of the history of the New Territories, the history of Hong Kong as a whole would be impossible to bring to any sort of satisfactory completion. ... Elucidating the development of a village, a clan, a temple, or a market-town is also, in and of itself, real and valuable history, and abundantly justifies the time and effort spent on it.” This book is a history of village communities in the New Territories of Hong Kong, including those in the areas of Ha Tsuen, Hung Shui Kiu, and Sha Tin as well as those on the islands of Lamma, Ma Wan, and Tung Ping Chau. Elaborating on primary interviews with village elders, government documents, and public information, this book places the individual histories of each area into the context of Hong Kong’s rich past. The introduction sets up the rest of the book, outlining common themes and highlighting the dangers of using the communal memories of village communities while, at the same time, showing the valuable information doing so can bring. Each chapter provides a more detailed account of one specific area, concentrating on the settlement history, the lifestyle, and the politics of that area.

Tracing its origins back to 1822 in Whampoa, the Mariners’ Club in Hong Kong was established to meet a specific need for an Anglo-Chinese society defined by that most dubious of activities, seafaring. Its creation was anything but straightforward, and in this can be seen the mutable and often tortuous relations between the various religious bodies, the local population, the transient sailors, the emerging captains of industry, and the growing regulatory reach of the colonial government. The club evolved through many embodiments and witnessed the growth of Hong Kong from a collection of mat-sheds on the foreshore, through colony to its current status. Throughout its turbulent past it has been occasionally marginalized but has always served as an important base for the key actors in the main commercial activity in Hong Kong: seafarers. This is a history of one of the most enduring institutions of Hong Kong, and the first of its kind. Using the Club’s own records as well as a wide range of sources both from within Hong Kong and from the seafaring world at large, this is a comprehensive account of the life of the Missions, the tenancy of the different chaplains, managers, and stewards, the changes in seafaring practices and shipping, and the transformation of Hong Kong itself.

BETWEEN 1846 AND 1874, OVER 290,000 CHINESE were embarked as indentured labourers destined mainly for Peru, Cuba and the British, French and Dutch West Indies. Of these, 15.13% did not reach their destination. The demand for labour was high. Among the poor, penniless and destitute of southern China, the search for remunerated work was also high. When demand outran the initial willing supply, trickery and misrepresentation, even kidnappeing, came to be used in obtaining recruits. These were among the several factors contributing to onboard suicides, attempted insurrections and successful mutinies when captains and some crew were killed or tortured, ships set on fire and sometimes entirely destroyed. There were also occurrences when recruits signed on, intent on piracy, which was occasionally successful.Authorities in the ports of departure introduced legislation to counter abuses. Receiving countries also introduced legislation related to imported labour.In this study, John Asome provides data on 732 voyages and commentary on a good number of these. As an expert in the field, Walton Look Lai, says, John Asome has filled, "an enormous gap in our knowledge of the Chinese coolie trade....He has enabled readers and future scholars to distinguish fact from myth, reality from exaggeration, in the understanding of this vast and complex experience."