Passenger list Java-China-Japan Line m.s. Tjisadane, 19 May 1937, Jakarta (Batavia) to Shanghai via Hong Kong and Xiamen (Amoy). It contains the name of David van Gelderen, returning from a long leave in the Netherlands.
<a href="https://old.gwulo.com/%3Ca%20href%3D"https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninklijke_Java-China-Paketvaart_Lijnen">https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninklijke_Java-China-Paketvaart_Lijnen" rel="noreferrer nofollow">nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninklijke_Java-China-Paketvaart_L...</a>
m.s. Tjisadane was in use from 1931 to 1947. <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
Passenger list Java-China-Japan Line m.s. Tjisadane, 19 May 1937, Jakarta (Batavia) to Shanghai via Hong Kong and Xiamen (Amoy). It contains the name of David van Gelderen, returning from a long leave in the Netherlands, to Shanghai, where he worked for Unilever. <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
Jan Wesselingh was an employee of Netherlands Harbour Works Co. from Amsterdam, working in Guangzhou (Canton) before WWII and in Hong Kong after WWII. I was brought in contact with two of his sons by Theodor A.R. Strauss, 1988-1993 secretary of Nederlandse Reünisten Vereniging China (NRCV, Dutch Reunists Association China), of which Jan Wesselingh was a member.
According to tradition, this bronze bowl was found during dredging works by Netherlands Harbour Works Co. in Xiamen in 1938. The bowl has a flat surface and lettering or symbols at the bottom (3 photos). <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
Jan Wesselingh was an employee of Netherlands Harbour Works Co. from Amsterdam, working in Guangzhou (Canton) before WWII and in Hong Kong after WWII. I was brought in contact with two of his sons by Theodor A.R. Strauss, 1988-1993 secretary of Nederlandse Reünisten Vereniging China (NRCV, Dutch Reunists Association China), of which Jan Wesselingh was a member.
According to tradition, this bronze bowl was found during dredging works by Netherlands Harbour Works Co. in Xiamen in 1938. The bowl has a flat surface and lettering or symbols at the bottom (3 photos). <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
Jan Wesselingh was an employee of Netherlands Harbour Works Co. from Amsterdam, working in Guangzhou (Canton) before WWII and in Hong Kong after WWII. I was brought in contact with two of his sons by Theodor A.R. Strauss, 1988-1993 secretary of Nederlandse Reünisten Vereniging China (NRCV, Dutch Reunists Association China), of which Jan Wesselingh was a member.
According to tradition, this bronze bowl was found during dredging works by Netherlands Harbour Works Co. in Xiamen in 1938. The bowl has a flat surface and lettering or symbols at the bottom (3 photos). <Read more ...>
Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos):
First let's clear up the various different English versions of Amoy's name.
Traditionally, though Chinese pronunciation varied according to your dialect, everyone wrote things the same way. So, the place we're talking about is 廈門. If you lived there you spoke the local dialect of Hokkien, and pronounced it something like "Amoy". If you're from Beijing you say "Xiamen", today's official name. And if you're Cantonese it sounds like "Ha-moon". Just to add to the fun, in simplified Chinese it is now written 厦门.
We're just back from a long weekend in Xiamen, or Amoy as it used to be called. It was opened to British trade in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, the same treaty that ceded Hong Kong to the British. And though Amoy's international settlement never matched Shanghai or Hong Kong for size, it beats them soundly in one respect - most of the old settlement is still standing today.
Here's a summary of our weekend. I'll start with a brief introduction to where it is and its history, then cover what we saw in the old town and the international settlement (as you'll see, they were in nearby but separate locations). There's alsoa bonus entry on a tunnel network I stumbled upon, and some notes on getting there and around.
