[
    {
        "id": 207736,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1976",
        "page_number": 124,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "IN SEARCH OF THE CHINESE NAME FOR “LI SUN”\n\n109\n\nlocate a photograph of Chan Lai-sun. It is not very surprising that there is none from his College days, as photography was not yet widely adopted in the 1840's. And no photographs were usually taken of honorary degree recipients in the late nineteenth century. As to the reference in the 1872 letter to Professor North, the family photographs are not in the correspondence file. They were evidently separated out when the alumni correspondence files were established. I have searched the miscellaneous North papers, but with no success. There is an old trunk of North memorabilia which I will also search as soon as time permits. . .\n\nChan's letters to Professor North from October 28, 1872 to September 10, 1873 and selections from Hamilton College Literary Monthly, July 1869 to February 1887, made possible a tentative biographical sketch. Also very helpful were Carl T. Smith's two articles in the Chung Chi Bulletin of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nChan Laisun (hereafter this name will be used just as he used it in his signature) was born 1829 in Singapore, the son of a poor gardener. Chan attended the Chinese day and boarding schools conducted by the American Board missionaries. His mother tongue was Malay, although his father was from the Ch'aochow prefecture of Kwangtung Province. His parents died leaving him an orphan.\n\nThe Reverend Joseph S. Travelli of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and his wife served as missionaries of the American Board. Soon after their arrival in Singapore, their attention was attracted by a Chinese boy waiting on the table of the American Consul, and they took him into the school which they established for Chinese children for English and Chinese studies.\n\nWhen the school was disbanded in 1842, Chan was taken to the United States and put into Mr. Randall's School in East Bloomfield, New Jersey until 1846. Then the Reverend Samuel Wells Williams of the American Board arranged for him to receive free instruction at Hamilton College. His college term ended in June 1848, and he returned to China with Reverend Williams as an assistant with the American Board mission in Canton until 1853. He had lost almost all knowledge of the Chinese he had known and had to engage a language tutor to relearn Chinese. In July 1850, he married Ruth Ati (1827-1917), one of two girls Miss",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207737,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1976",
        "page_number": 125,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "110\n\nTIN-YUKE CHAR\n\nAldersey brought over from her Batavia, Java mission school to become assistant leaders in her Ningpo school. Ruth and Laisun had a family of six children: Elijah, Spencer, Willie, Annie, Lena, and Amy.\n\nChan later left his mission work and went to Shanghai in 1853 where he became quite successful through his connections with an English mercantile firm. On a corner of the American Board's property in Shanghai, he built a school house where his wife opened a girls' school. As he was acquainted with Yung Wing and was qualified, he was engaged to accompany the Educational Mission to America in 1872. He took along his wife and six children. His two eldest sons were ready to enter college in two years and his two eldest daughters received part of their education in England.\n\nIn 1875 Chan was detached from the Educational Mission and appointed interpreter to Li Hung-chang, Governor-general of Chihli. Thus, he met Hawaiian King Kalakaua in Tientsin in 1881.\n\nThe February 1887 issue of the Hamilton College Literary Monthly had this letter from Chan, \"We all love the United States, for many reasons. Our hearts are still there, although we are back in China. I am in Tientsin, with the well-known viceroy, Si [Li] Hung Chang, as his Secretary, and Interpreter. Annie, our eldest daughter, is married to a Dane, Captain of the Chinese government revenue cruiser; and is the happy mother of a beautiful son. Elijah, the eldest boy, graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1887. He then went to Freiburg in Saxony, and remained there eighteen months. On his return to China, he was commissioned to open the copper mines in Eastern Mongolia. His prospects are very bright. He was offered the post of chief engineer for the government railroads, but declined to accept it. He is the first scientific engineer China has produced. His field is the largest ever offered to a single individual, for the mineral resources of China are almost infinite.”\n\nFrom Carl Smith's article, it was learned that another son, Spencer Tsang Lai Sun, married Man Kwai, daughter of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong (1818-71) of Hong Kong.\n\nA further lead to more information was given by Chi Wang of the Orientalia Division, United States Library of Congress. In Shu Hsin-ch'eng's Chinese book on Chinese Students in Foreign Countries, the interpreter of the Educational Mission was identified by his official name, Tseng Heng-chung. The same is true in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]