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This book is available in English and French. In 2009 it is also to be published in Chinese.
Béthanie and Nazareth are two of Hong Kong's best-kept secrets. Now for the first time, the fascinating stories of these former French Mission foundations are brought to life by historian Alain Le Pichon. The text is extensively illustrated with previously unpublished historic photographs from the French Mission archives in Paris, and contemporary images by renowned architectural photographer Virgile Simon Bertrand.
Béthanie was Hong Kong's first sanatorium. Built by the French Mission in 1875, it operated for a century on a hilltop surrounded by dairy pastures at Pokfulam.
This is how Prof. Alain Le Pichon describes the Béthanie chapel that is now used for worship by Emmanuel Church - Pokfulam every Sunday:
"The chapel was indeed a remarkable architectural achievement. It had been conceived very much as a functional place of worship, mostly for the use of sick missionaries sent Hong Kong to recuperate. But its very simplicity was the key to its charm and appeal.
From the outside, with its domed-roof, its tall, arched windows alternating with its elegant flying buttresses, it was reminiscent of the choir apses of a thirteenth century French cathedral. And, from inside, an uplifting feeling of space was created by the use of the rib-vaulting technique which first originated in the Ile-de-France area near Paris in the twelfth century. The application of this technique at the Béthanie chapel was coupled with the use of slim columns whose supporting capitals reach unusually a third of the way up the tall windows to support the ribbing, thus enhancing the feeling of space inside the chapel.
With the light streaming in through the stained glass of the nineteen tall windows, it was then a beautiful place to come and pray, as it is today a beautiful place to come and visit.
Remarkably, the feeling of peace and serenity was achieved with little, if any regard to ornamental refinement or striking effect. The architect [Fr. Osouf] and his assistant [Fr. Patriat] were happy to adhere to a few guiding principles, functionality of design, purity of line, time honoured architectural techniques, and they made a virtue of being extremely sparing of expensive stone carvings and other ornamental detail."
Nazareth, its sister building nearby, became the French Mission's linguistic and printing headquarters in Asia, publishing thousands of titles in dozens of Asian languages between 1894 and 1956.
Click here for a potted history of Béthanie.
About the Author
Alain Le Pichon was born and educated in France. After graduating from the Ecole Normale Superieure at St Cloud, he went on to teach at Eton. He then joined an English merchant-bank in the City and later on Wall Street. He now lives in Paris and Hong Kong and teaches British History at the Sorbonne.
"Béthanie and Nazareth: French Secrets from a British Colony" recalls the presence and activities of the French missionaries in Hong Kong. It adds a colourful chapter in the history of foreigners' contributions to the development of Hong Kong. Alain's prose is spiced with vignettes of the missionary Fathers and the idiosyncrasies of the mission.
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