70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Although matters have been improved by the experience of war and internment, the vicious racism of 'old Hong Kong' survives both in attitude and regulation.

This morning Franklin Gimson meets Vincent Morrison of the Police, a re-captured escaper who has fallen in love with the woman who nursed him when he was released half-dead from Stanley Prison. The problem is that Marie Barton's mother is Sino-Portuguese, which means that Morrison will lose his job for marrying a Eurasian.

Morrison tells Gimson that the Commissioner of Police has told him that he has six months to prove that the Barton family were 'of pure Portuguese descent'. Gimson feels sorry for him, and considers that if he placed his case before the Secretary of State {in London} he would be allowed to keep his job and stay in the police. He offers him the possibility of  a transfer to another force, but doesn't think he'll accept.

Source:

Franklin Gimson Diary, Weston Library, Oxford, p. 110 (recto)