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The new hall was a more impressive and comfortable meeting place for community leaders than the old Kung Soh which was not only rather small but was also beginning to show the marks of age.
A famous Victorian lady traveller, Isabella Bird, has left an account of the Tung Wah hall which she visited in 1879;
"The building where the directors meet... (has) one side open to the garden. It has a superb ebony table in the middle with a handsome chair for the chairman and six carved ebony chairs on each side—a most stately 'board room'.”
The furniture was once owned by the wealthy Canton Co-Hong family of Poon. They had encountered financial difficulties and the Chinese Government had seized their property for debt and sold it at a public auction. In this manner it found its way to Hongkong.
The activities of the hospital committee in affairs affecting the Chinese community were viewed with suspicion by Europeans in Hongkong.
Even before the hospital was opened, the committee came under attack for interfering in a scheme to recruit Chinese labour for the southern states of the United States.
The Daily Advertiser said that members of the board of the hospital "appear to have constituted themselves the governing body in the Colony in all Chinese matters. This we predicted in reference to the hospital almost from the time it was founded; and on this point there will be much to say at some time in the future.” As indeed there was.
The committee which oversaw the affairs of Tung Wah Hospital was elected annually from the most prominent members of the community.
Ostensibly their duties were to manage the hospital. Its members, however, also served as temple and kaifong directors. The jurisdiction of these bodies was not sharply defined.
193
The new hall was a more impressive and comfortable meeting place for community leaders than the old Kung Soh which was not only rather small but was also beginning to show the marks of age.
A famous Victorian lady traveller, Isabella Bird, has left an account of the Tung Wah hall which she visited in 1879;
"The building where the directors meet. .. (has) one side open to the garden. It has a superb ebony table in the middle with a handsome chair for the chairman and six carved ebony chairs on each side a most stately 'board room”.”
The furniture was once owned by the wealthy Canton Co-Hong family of Poon. They had encountered financial difficulties and the Chinese Government had seized their property for debt and sold it at a public auction. In this manner it found its way to Hongkong.
The activities of the hospital committee in affairs affecting the Chinese community were viewed with suspicion by Europeans in Hongkong.
Even before the hospital was opened, the committee came un- der attack for interfering in a scheme to recruit Chinese labour for the southern states of the United States.
The Daily Advertiser said that members of the board of the hospital "appear to have constituted themselves the governing body in the Colony in all Chinese matters. This we predicted in reference to the hospital almost from the time it was founded; and on this point there will be much to say at some time in the future.” As indeed there was.
The committee which oversaw the affairs of Tung Wah Hospi- tal was elected annually from the most prominent members of the community.
Ostensibly their duties were to manage the hospital. Its mem- bers, however, also served as temple and kaifong directors. The jurisdiction of these bodies was not sharply defined.
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