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nature and not well suited to act as an aggressive leader. He seldom expressed an opinion at Legislative Council meetings.
He had spent most of his life in Hongkong. For a few years in the 1840s he had studied as a youth in the United States and had returned there in the middle 1870s as a supervisor of the Chinese Educational Mission. He had been a student of the Morrison Education Society when it moved from Macau to Hongkong in 1842. Through the years he had identified himself with the future of Hongkong.
He reminded his audience: "The Chinese were for the present subjects, and he trusted loyal subjects, of Her Majesty, and he thought they also (as well as the Europeans) should take part in the celebration of the jubilee."
Mr. Ho A-mei then arose and endorsed the chairman's remarks concerning the appropriateness of a Chinese expression of loyalty. He reminded the meeting that in 1869 on the occasion of the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Chinese had taken a prominent part in the celebrations. It was no more fitting now that, “as traders and merchants in the Colony, they ought to take some steps to show their gratitude for the protection afforded them."
The Chinese, he said, while residing in the Colony, were treated as British subjects, and “it behoved them to give some evidence of their loyalty and gratitude.” Especially, as "in no other country in the world were aliens so well treated as they were on British soil.”
In the flow of good feeling, he seems to have forgotten the criticisms he had brought against British rule in his struggle to have the Light and Pass Ordinance rescinded.
The long-standing problem of dual identity was expressed in Ho A-mei's statement that "they were treated as British subjects here in Hongkong, and although in reality they were not, they might consider themselves as such." Pride in the Chinese heritage pulled in one direction, identification with the community in which they lived pulled in another.
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nature and not well suited to act as an aggressive leader. He sel- dom expressed an opinion at Legislative Council meetings.
He had spent most of his life in Hongkong. For a few years in the 1840s he had studied as a youth in the United States and had returned there in the middle 1870s as a supervisor of the Chinese Educational Mission. He had been a student of the Morrison Edu- cation Society when it moved from Macau to Hongkong in 1842. Through the years he had identified himself with the future of Hongkong.
He reminded his audience: "The Chinese were for the present subjects, and he trusted loyal subjects, of Her Majesty, and he thought they also (as well as the Europeans) should take part in the celebration of the jubilee."
Mr. Ho A-mei then arose and endorsed the chairman's remarks concerning the appropriateness of a Chinese expression of loyalty. He reminded the meeting that in 1869 on the occasion of the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Chinese had taken a prominent part in the celebrations. It was no more fitting now that, “as traders and merchants in the Colony, they ought to take some steps to show their gratitude for the protection afforded them."
The Chinese, he said, while residing in the Colony, were treated as British subjects, and “it behoved them to give some evidence of their loyalty and gratitude.” Especially, as "in no other country in the world were aliens so well treated as they were on British soil.”
In the flow of good feeling, he seems to have forgotten the criticisms he had brought against British rule in his struggle to have the Light and Pass Ordinance rescinded.
The long-standing problem of dual identity was expressed in Ho A-mei's statement that "they were treated as British subjects here in Hongkong, and although in reality they were not, they might consider themselves as such." Pride in the Chinese heritage pulled in one direction, identification with the community in which they lived pulled in another.
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