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the Chinese Classics. Few Chinese in Hong Kong at this period were noted for their literary or scholarly ability. Ho Fuk Tong was a good scholar, but in the area of Christian thought; having mastered Greek and Hebrew, he translated and edited Biblical Commentaries in Chinese. Though acquainted with the Chinese Classics, he was not an outstanding Chinese scholar. Wong T'ao, who like Ho Fuk Tong was closely associated with Rev. James Legge, was generally recognized as a competent Chinese literati. He was a baptized Christian and had come to Hong Kong from Shanghai because of suspected connections with the Tai Ping movement. He was recommended to Legge by the missionaries in Shanghai. Legge, who was involved in translating the Chinese Classics, found Wong T'ao to be an invaluable assistant and paid him the following tribute: "This scholar, far exceeding in classical (knowledge) more than any of his countrymen whom the author had previously known, came to Hong Kong in the end of 1863, and placed at his disposal all the treasures of a large well-selected library. At the same time entering with spirit into his labours, now explaining, now arguing, as the case might be, he has not only helped but enlivened many days of toil"45 Wong T'ao continued as editor of the Tsun Wan Yat Po until he left Hong Kong to return to Shanghai in 1884. He was largely responsible for the prestige the paper achieved, fulfilling in some measure the hopes of the prospectus for the paper that it "would eventually become in China what the London Times is in England"46. As a mark of his position in the community, his name appears on several memorials and deputations of representatives of the Chinese in Hong Kong in the 1880s.
Still another Christian associated with the introduction of western style journalism in China was Wong Shing alias 黃勝 Wong Pin Po. Like Ho Fuk Tong and Wong T'ao, he was closely associated with Dr. Legge for a number of years.
Wong Shing was a native of Heung Shan District near Macao and was in the first class of the Morrison Educational Society School. The school's principal, the Rev. Samuel Robbins Brown, took Wong Shing with three other students for advanced study in the United States in 1846. Wong Shing's health broke down and he had to return to Hong Kong after two years in America.