We can see that the garrison in Victoria was of a respectable size just from the overall positioning of the military installations. Historical records show that there was a dispute between Pottinger, the first governor, and the military in the early days of the city’s construction. Pottinger had originally intended to set aside Western District for military use (i.e., the area to the west of what was later named Possession Point, where British forces first landed on Hong Kong Island), but the military insisted on being stationed in the heart of the city and demanded the use of the hillside in the center (i.e., the area afterward used for the Botanic Gardens and Government House). The dispute eventually had to be taken to London. The result was that the military cantonment was established to the east of the central area, on a portion of land commanding strategic control over the key east-west main thoroughfare along the northern shore.
These are the facts that we learn from historical and anecdotal sources. Later map researchers arrived at an entirely different conclusion by studying this map. They argued that the layout of military installations in early Victoria had come about as an encirclement of Scandal Point. This map has the place known as Scandal Point right in the middle, south of the naval dockyard, on the low hill between the residence of the general officer commanding and Victoria Barracks. The military installations in this area surrounded Scandal Point to the east, west, and north, as if Scandal Point was the center that the cantonment was designed to protect.
The name Scandal Point was given to the place by the British, although, strictly speaking, “scandal” here should be understood as referring only to malicious gossip. While it is impossible to trace the actual origin of this name, Ye Lingfeng points out in his book Momentous Changes in Hong Kong History that Scandal Point was adjacent to St John’s Cathedral in Garden Road and the foreign believers who worshipped there on Sundays walked along the short road at Scandal Point on their way back to their Mid-Levels homes. While walking it was natural for them to exchange news and gossip, spreading stories of adultery and scandalous behavior or telling jokes about social events. Although this interpretation of the name seems reasonable, it lacks a substantial foundation.
Some teleological map readers maintain that the relationship between Scandal Point and the surrounding military cantonment was not fortuitous. The function of the cantonment was clearly protecting the scandals while at the same time containing them. By concealing them behind armed fortifications, wider dissemination was prevented, but their continued multiplication was ensured.
24
MR. SMITH’S ONE-DAY TRIP
The central area of Victoria in the early twentieth century is described by the Englishman John Smith (1850–1914) in his book Round the World on the Sunrise. His account is useful for our understanding of a map from 1905, which is called “Massey’s Directory” and was printed privately by W. S. Bailey & Co. The area covered stretches from the junction of D’Aguilar Street and Queen’s Road in the west to the cricket club between Queen’s Road and Chater Road in the east and from Ice House Street and Battery Path in the south to Connaught Road and the newly reclaimed waterfront in the north.
The ocean liner SS Sunrise sailed from England by way of the Mediterranean to the British colonies of India and Singapore, finally arriving in the city of Victoria on August 9, 1907. The Sunrise arrived late and stayed for only one day because of a previous delay caused by a typhoon in the Strait of Malacca. It then continued its journey to northern China and Japan. Smith’s account describes how a sampan, “bizarre, filthy and with the flavour of the Orient,” took him ashore at Blake Pier. Upon disembarking, he and his party moved on to Pedder Street opposite the pier. At the corner of Des Voeux Road they found a Chinese man, “gaunt, shifty-eyed, speaking English like a pelican singing,” who served as their guide. After being shown the building of Jardine, Matheson & Co., they went to have lunch at the Hong Kong Hotel near the junction of Pedder Street and Queen’s Road. The people in Mr. Smith’s party found the hotel, which was so famous in the city, to be too old-fashioned, and it had also lost its former view of the harbor after the latest land reclamation. Moreover, “the Chinese hotel waiters appeared so tense all the time that nobody felt very relaxed.” Only the hydraulic lift in the lobby was impressive.
After lunch Mrs. Smith and some of the other ladies decided that a visit to a hairdresser was needed after several days of stormy weather at sea and chose to go to Campbell, Moore & Co. on the ground floor of the hotel. Being thoroughly fed up with the Chinese guide’s poor English, Mr. Smith also decided to leave the party “in a reckless spirit of exploration.” He described himself as “just like an explorer entering a tropical rain forest, a hunting rifle in hand and with dangers on all sides.” His sharp eyes swept across the extraordinary creatures in the street, such as “Chinese coolies and chair bearers, all looking the same to me,” and some “natives in European attire looking like dressed-up monkeys.” Mr. Smith ventured across the busy street with caution and escaped into the post office on the opposite side, where he mailed a letter for his children at home. In lopsided handwriting, this letter, composed on board, recounted his observations on the journey in a style replete with British wit. Turning next into a street named Queen’s Road, he soon arrived at Kelly & Walsh, where he shopped for Capstan Navy Cut tobacco, a local map, and books to relieve the tedium on the remainder of the journey. He spent quite some time in the shop reading with great interest such books as Cantonese Made Easy, Gems of Chinese Literature, and The Dragon: Image and Demon. In the end he purchased Herbert A. Giles’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio in two volumes at a price of $6.50. A short distance farther on, Mr. Smith bought seasickness medicine and a bottle of Scotch whisky from A. S. Watson & Co. At the Afong Studio in Ice House Street he selected a few pictures of local people and scenery that his wife would be bound to treasure, among them a color photograph of a small boy from a poor family carrying a baby on his back. It stirred in him a feeling of being “deeply touched by human sincerity.”
After admiring the City Hall and Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation buildings with their elegant colonnades and portals in traditional European style, Mr. Smith felt that he had had a rewarding excursion and rejoined his wife and the other members of their party at the Hong Kong Hotel. They dined at the hotel and then returned to the Sunrise by sampan. Mrs. Smith had gained a favorable impression of Victoria, her only disappointment being that she had failed to see the slanting eyes that so many pictures of Chinese people had led her to expect.
Mr. Smith’s book includes a sketch map of the central area of Victoria drawn by his wife, Emily. It would seem to be copied from “Massey’s Directory,” and on it is traced Mr. Smith’s circuitous route on the day of his visit to Victoria.
25
THE VIEW FROM GOVERNMENT HOUSE
The governors of Victoria did not have a permanent office or residence in the early years before Government House was built on Government Hill in 1855. However, an examination of cartographic materials reveals that Government House was still only delineated with dotted lines on a map of the central area dating from 1856, thus raising doubts concerning the exact date of its construction. As regards its location, there is no doubt that it had a commanding position overlooking the entire city. The 1889 “Plan of the City of Victoria” shows the Botanic Gardens on the slope behind Government House. It was popularly known as Ping-tau Fa-yuen, the Commander’s Garden. On the lower ground in front of Government House were government offices and the Murray Battery, while the commercial area of Central District with its harbor frontage was slightly farther west. A descent from the northeast would pass St John’s Cathedral, the Murray Parade Ground, and the City Hall. We can already see on Lieutenant Collinson’s survey map of Hong Kong from 1845 how the planned governor’s residence on Government Hill would tower over the city.
The tenth governor (1887–1891), Sir William Des Voeux, described the view from Government House as follows in his memoirs:
&
nbsp; Looking out at night from the front gallery of Government House, before the moon had risen, I witnessed an effect which was quite new to me. The sky, though clear of clouds, was somewhat hazy, so that the small-magnitude stars were not visible, though some of the larger ones were plain enough. Beneath, however, the air was quite clear, and consequently, though the vessels in the harbour were invisible in the darkness, their innumerable lights seemed like another hemisphere of stars even more numerous than the others, and differing only as being redder.
For over fifty years, the view from Government House probably remained much the same as described by Des Voeux. Even on maps from the 1940s and 1950s the shoreline right in front of Government House is only slightly extended outward. However, a careful study of a 1990 street map of Central, on a scale of 1:5,000, supplemented by other material, reveals Government House blocked in front by the monstrous, postmodern HSBC headquarters, and, to the right, by the Bank of China Tower, the tallest building in the city. The shoreline has also moved northward a considerable distance, making Government House located inland on this map.
There is no reliable documentation of the view from Government House in later periods. It is alleged that Chris Patten, the last governor (1992–1997), remarked to the gardener at Government House one evening shortly before his departure:
Looking out at night from the front gallery of Government House, before the moon had risen, I witnessed an effect which was quite strange to me. The sky, though clear of clouds, was somewhat hazy, so that the small-magnitude stars were not visible, though some of the larger ones were plain enough. Beneath, however, the air was quite clear, and consequently, though the buildings in the city were invisible in the darkness, their innumerable lights seemed like another hemisphere of stars even more numerous than the others, and differing only as being more dizzying.
26
THE TOAD OF BELCHER’S DREAM
Every city has its creation myth. In January 1841 the HMS Sulphur investigated the waters around Hong Kong Island under the command of Captain Edward Belcher. That project represented the last stage of a survey journey around the world undertaken by the Sulphur from 1836 to 1842. The resulting “Hong Kong Nautical Chart” was the first scientific survey map with Hong Kong Island as its object and also the first map of Hong Kong under British rule. Later historians of cartography evaluated this chart highly, seeing it as an example of the consistently rigorous approach and precise technique of the British Royal Navy surveyors. Annotations indicate that the surveying work was accomplished on the deck of a wooden sailing vessel with the help of sextant, compass, and lead lines. The drafts were then sent to London for copperplate engraving. The chart shows the coastline of Hong Kong Island and carefully records depths in the surrounding waters, while giving only sketchy information on the land area. In this way “Hong Kong” was born on Belcher’s Sulphur.
To commemorate this pioneering work of local mapmaking, the government of the newborn city of Victoria named the waters off the island’s northwestern part, where the Sulphur had been at anchor, Belcher Bay. The strait at the northwestern end of the island was named the Sulphur Channel.
We can still read Belcher’s own account in his Narrative of a Voyage round the World Performed in HMS Sulphur during the Years 1836–1842. However, Stanley Wells, a student of Hong Kong cartography, has written an article entitled “A Cartographer’s Nightmare” in which he quotes a manuscript said to be from Belcher’s hand and revealing another side to “the first Hong Kong map.”
Wells quotes Belcher:
In the evening after our first landing, we returned to the Sulphur, since there was simply no place to stay on the barren island. I was unable to sleep for almost the entire night, just sitting by the porthole looking toward the nearby gunboat Nemesis, while invisible in the pitch-black darkness behind me was that land that was to be presented to Her Majesty the Queen. At the approach of dawn I witnessed a strange scene. The darkness gradually gave way, and as the sea reflected a cold, blue light, a gigantic monster emerged from the water. I quickly took up my pen to put down the appearance of that creature on paper, but everything before my eyes was engulfed in its growing shadow. I do not know how much time passed, but as I opened my eyes I found myself lying head down on the table with the early-morning sunrays shining obliquely into my eyes. On the drawing paper unfolded in front of me was a sketch of a jumping toad, its body all covered with warts.
It is said that the above passage was later excised, and it does not appear in the Narrative of a Voyage round the World. Belcher subsequently drew his image of Hong Kong Island for “The Hong Kong Nautical Chart” with hachure representation of relief, and Wells describes how that image happens to have an uncanny resemblance to the drawing left on the paper that early morning.
On January 24, 1841, when the negotiations between China and Britain to end the Opium War had not yet reached agreement, the commander of the British expeditionary force, Sir J. G. Bremer, ordered the immediate occupation of Hong Kong Island. Captain Belcher proceeded on the Sulphur to the northwestern part of the small island and landed at Possession Point on January 25.
27
THE RETURN OF KWAN TAI LOO
The inhabitants of Victoria could not have foreseen that they would be following the twists and turns of “Kwan Tai Loo.” This phrase can be interpreted as “Ah Kwan leading the way” but also as “girdle road.” However, what was subsequently renamed Kwan Tai Loo is completely unrelated to the Kwan Tai Loo of old.
Ye Lingfeng has presented a careful study of the origin of the name Kwan Tai Loo in his Momentous Changes in Hong Kong History. First of all he has shown that the legend of “Ah Kwan showing the way” is a fantasy concocted by early British colonialists. The story is that a Chinese man by the name of Ah Kwan acted as a guide for the British when they landed and that the route along which he took them came to be known as Kwan Tai Loo. The scene of Ah Kwan guiding the British was subsequently painted and incorporated into the official seal of the city of Victoria as used until 1962.
Ye Lingfeng believes that the Cantonese expression kwan tai should instead be understood as the girdle (tai) of female attire (kwan). In the early days of Hong Kong, a mountain road zigzagged across the center of the island from south to north. As seen from Kowloon across the harbor, it resembled a girdle around the island, and so the villages along a section of the road became known as Kwan Tai Loo (loo meaning “road”). This name occurs as early as in the late Ming dynasty edition of the Dongguan County Gazetteer, in the taxation section giving the annual levies at different places. In a memorial to the Daoguang emperor during the Opium War, the high imperial official Qishan mentioned “the place locally known as Kwan Tai Loo” when referring to the site of Victoria soon after the British had occupied Hong Kong. The first issue of the government gazette after the founding of the city mentions a village with fifty inhabitants named Kwan Tai Loo. The Chinese characters used for the name in this document mean something like “public highway” and are not the same as those meaning “girdle road” or “Ah Kwan leading the way.” However, it must be a case of erroneous transcription of the local name using other characters with the same pronunciation. A search through nineteenth-century maps reveals that maps produced by the Chinese authorities still used the name Kwan Tai Loo for quite some time after the founding of Victoria. Examples of this are the “Map of the Sun-on-district,” drawn in 1868 by Simeone Volonteri, and the map included in the Guangdong Provincial Gazetteer from as late as 1897, where the simple yet elegant Kwan Tai Loo has survived.
All trace of the name Kwan Tai Loo was erased from twentieth-century maps as Victoria expanded, devouring everything in its path. The modern inhabitants of Victoria had no idea what the name referred to. Some rash and sloppy collectors of old stories made far-fetched or excessively literal interpretations, arguing that the notion of a woman’s girdle must have something to do with “petticoat influence” and nepotism, also known as kwan tai in Chinese history. In their
judgment the term kwan tai loo casts aspersions on Chinese social groups as prone to underhand dealings, excluding outsiders, basing influence on kinship ties, and emphasizing personal relations while neglecting legality. It is hard to understand how such baseless lies had come to be accepted as incontrovertible truth toward the end the century and even made some cynics call for the restoration of the name Kwan Tai Loo. Some cartographers predicted that the city would enter a new “Kwan Tai Loo age,” and the scholarly journal Studia Cartographica published a fashionable computer-generated “déjà-vu topographical chart.” The city of Victoria has been renamed Kwan Tai Loo on this chart.
28
THE CURSE OF TAI PING SHAN
Tai Ping Shan (peace mountain) is, strictly speaking, not a mountain but a hillside district in Victoria situated to the south of Sheung Wan between Queen’s Road and Caine Road. It was a Chinese residential quarter in the early history of Victoria.
As an age of peace and prosperity began, however, Tai Ping Shan was slowly forgotten, and the name also vanished from maps. The 1889 “Plan of the City of Victoria” shows Tai Ping Shan as a densely built-up area crisscrossed by alleys, but on twentieth-century maps the only signpost that remains to connect people’s minds to the past is Tai Ping Shan Street. The most conspicuous landmarks in the vicinity of Tai Ping Shan Street are Blake Garden and the Tung Wah Hospital.
Atlas Page 8
