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A Young Englishman in Victorian Hong Kong
Benjamin Penny
2023
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In August 1855, 16-year-old Chaloner Alabaster left England for
Hong Kong, to take up a position as a student interpreter in the China Consular
Service. He would stay for almost 40 years, climbing the rungs of the service
and eventually becoming consul-general of Canton. When he retired he returned to
England and received a knighthood. He died in 1898. Throughout his adult life,
Alabaster kept diaries. In the first four volumes of these diaries, collected
here by Benjamin Penny, the teenage Alabaster recorded his thoughts and
observations, told himself anecdotes, and exploded in outbursts of anger and
frustration. He was young and enthusiastic, and the everyday sights, sounds and
smells of Hong Kong were novel to him. He describes how the Chinese people
around him ironed clothes, dried flour and threshed rice; how they gambled,
prepared their food and made bean curd; and what opera, new year festivities and
the birthday of the Heavenly Empress were like. Like many a young Victorian, he
was also a keen observer of natural history, fascinated by fireflies and ants,
corals and sea slugs, and the volcanic origins of the landscape.
Alabaster's diaries are a unique, vibrant and riveting record of life in
the young British colony on the cusp of the Second Opium War. With A Young
Englishman in Victorian Hong Kong, Penny sheds new light on the history of the
region.
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Keywords
- alabaster
- Asian history
- Biography & True Stories
- China Consular Service
- Colonialism & Imperialism
- Diaries, letters & journals
- Diary
- History
- History: specific events & topics
- hong kong
- Humanities
- Regional & national history
- thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DND Diaries, letters and journals
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHF Asian history
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTQ Colonialism and imperialism
- Victorian period
Links
DOI: 10.22459/YEVHK.2023Editions