RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
A HAWAIIAN KING VISITS HONG KONG, 1881

Editor

TIN-YUKE CHAR*

Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch

Sir:

I am submitting a manuscript for publication in your Journal on King Kalakaua of Hawaii and his visit to Hong Kong in 1881. It gives a clear explanation why Hong Kong was chosen as the principal embarkation port for the Chinese labor recruitment to Hawaii. The strict administration of British regulations on emigration, the designation of an honorary Hawaiian consul in Hong Kong, and the reasonable contract between employer and employee signed in Hawaii, as documented in an appendix, all give a better understanding of the good treatment of our Chinese immigrants to Hawaii compared with the abuses in Peru and Cuba.

The first reigning monarch to make a trip around the world was King David Kalakaua of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The year was 1881. King Kalakaua, born November 16, 1836, reigned for twenty-three years (1874-1891) until his death in San Francisco on January 20, 1891.† He had already had his first experience travelling abroad in November 1874 when he called on President Ulysses S. Grant in Washington and addressed the United States Congress in fluent English. As a result of this visit, the Hawaiian government was

* Mr. Char was born in Hawaii in 1905 and has had a colorful life combining business and education. A graduate of McKinley High School in Honolulu, he received his B.A. degree from Yenching University in Peking and his M.A. from the University of Hawaii, and pursued graduate studies at Columbia University. He then taught, both in Hawaii and in China. In 1938, Mr. Char and his family returned to Hawaii as refugees from the Japanese military invasion of Canton. He spent the next thirty years in the insurance business. In 1952, he became the first person in Hawaii to gain the national professional designation of CPCU (Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter) in the field of insurance. Always active in community affairs, Mr. Char served on the boards of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Hawaii Congress of Parents and Teachers, the Nuuanu YMCA, and the Board of Underwriters of Hawaii (insurance), among others, and is currently a member of a number of historical societies, including the Hawaii Chinese History Center. Upon retirement in 1969 as president of the Continental Insurance Agency of Hawaii, Mr. Char spent a year on the campus of Chung Chi College, a division of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, as a volunteer in student counseling and placement service. Since then, he has devoted his time to historical research and writing.

Mr. Char is also the author of The Hakka Chinese: Their Origin and Folk Songs and Chinese Proverbs, both published by the Jade Mountain Press of San Francisco in 1969, and The Char Family Genealogy Book, privately published in Honolulu in 1970.

† See Plate 15.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
148

have been had he been alive when Ruth graduated from McKinley High School first in her class, with honours and a gold medal, or when she received a degree in medicine.

Although our dresses were home-made, our shoes and hats were from fancy shops on Fort Street, then the main shopping centre of Honolulu. Whenever Father took us out, he would tell us to 'dress up like a duchess'. Sometimes he would take us to a cinema, or to a stage show, or to a musical at the Y.M.C.A. A visit to the Bishop Museum was always followed by a pause at the site of the mental hospital then located on School Street, where we would peep through the knot holes of the fence to observe the bizarre behaviour of the inmates. When Queen Liliuokalani died and her body was on view in Kawaiahao Church, he took Ruth, Helen and me to this sad and historical event. I remember him carrying me out onto our porch in Iwilei to point out a comet with a wide spray of bright light. I believe it was Halley's Comet. These may not be unusual experiences for children of today, but in the early 1900s, they were not common for Chinese children.

Father's interests extended beyond our home. There were always illiterate women friends asking him to write letters. He did volunteer work at the Berentania Street Mission under the direction of Mrs. Elijah J. Mackenzie, a missionary who spoke fluent Chinese. There he taught English to young men newly arrived from China, gathered with them in worship, and interpreted for the Sunday and evening services when a sermon was given in English. When the Rev. Schenck came to Hawaii to administer the missions for the Hawaiian Board, he dispensed with Father's help so abruptly that it hurt Father deeply. Father had other community interests. He was one of the early members of the Chinese Y.M.C.A. which was located behind the Fort Street Chinese Church. Among its members were En Sue Kong, Luke Chan, Yim Quan and Tom Joon Yai. Father also served as English secretary for the See Dai Doo Society for many years, until his death. He would often drop by Wing On Tai for a chat or to do business; he would visit with friends from his village or nearby areas at the Pui Gun Horse Stable, located off Pauahi Street near River Street. There he enjoyed their fellowship and the news from 'home'. He would always buy a bag of roasted peanuts from a well-known shop on Pauahi Street to enjoy on his way home.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
164

for being arrogant, did not accept Ruth, probably due to her discrimination against Mrs. Chang's programme. However, she accepted me, perhaps because I was considered uncontaminated and because Father was employed in a bank owned by "white" people. She made a poor choice because Ruth was by far the better student. Ruth then was accepted by Mrs. Creighton of Kauluwela School where she was placed directly in the third grade with Mrs. Bowman. Ruth stood out scholastically and was the pride of her teachers. She continued to do well in McKinley High School and won first prize and a gold medal upon graduation. Granted a Barbour scholarship at the University of Michigan, after a premedical programme at the University of Hawaii, she completed her academic medical studies and received a medical degree in 1929.

At Michigan Ruth met and became engaged to Herbert Kai Gee Wong of Hong Kong before he left to finish his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, Ruth sprained an ankle on a tour of a theatre during her last year of school and, even after surgery, was not able to walk normally or to accept an internship in a Philadelphia hospital. On her way back to Honolulu to recuperate, she spent a few days with me in Lincoln and some weeks with Dr. George S. Chan, a distant cousin, in Los Angeles. Being a herbalist, he tried unsuccessfully to heal the ankle with Chinese herbs. Once home she came under the care of Dr. Joseph Lam, family friend and schoolmate of Ruth's at Michigan. An injection of some new medication from Germany, administered by Dr. Mils Larsen, resulted in her death from septicemia on 6 June, 1932. Her three years of illness were a great strain on her and on the family. It was a great tragedy that such a brilliant woman was struck down just at the beginning of a promising career.

―

Helen was a very appealing child bright, sweet and smiling. During the Easter, Children's Day and Christmas services at the Kauluwela Mission, she was always asked to sing or perform. She attended Central Grammar School as I did and was a favourite of her teacher, Miss Padgett, and of the principal, Mrs. Sophie Overend, who had replaced Mrs. Carter. From there Helen went to McKinley High School, where, during her senior year, she was elected ROTC Sponsor for Company L. At the University of Hawaii, from which she graduated in three and a half years with a B.A. degree in Education, she was selected runner-up by movie star John Gilbert in a beauty contest among a group of
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
167

grades, graduating in June, 1932. In August of that year, she and mother accompanied me to China. Because Aunt Pong felt she could manage better in Shekki with the money from the sale of their home, she and the children left Honolulu on the Empress of Japan as we did. Uncle Pong remained in Honolulu. This was during the Depression when the exchange rate was favourable for United States currency.

Dora enrolled in the True Light Middle School, where I had accepted a teaching position, but when she found her inadequate knowledge of Chinese quite frustrating, she left after the first semester for Hong Kong, where Mother was living in First Paternal Uncle's Kennedy Road home. There she was tutored in Chinese by a Chinese teacher. In July, 1933, after a short visit to Shanghai and Hangchow, Mother and Dora returned to Honolulu on the President Hoover, to welcome Mother's first grandchild, Edmund Tong.

For the next three years, Dora studied at McKinley High School and after her graduation in June, 1936, she matriculated at the University of Hawaii, and received a B.A. degree in liberal arts. Then she went to the University of Chicago to do postgraduate social work. At the International House where she resided, she met Tso-chien Shen, a Vice-consul from China, and married him on 19 September, 1941. He was a native of Pi Hu Chen, Li Shui County, Chekiang Province, and a graduate of the University of Peking. An article, "What Chinese Exclusion Really Means" by him was published in 1942 by the China Institute in America. Dora soon became pregnant and became so ill that she could not finish her last quarter of study to earn a Master's degree. Their sons, both born in Chicago, are:

Eugene Tsu-wang I, born 7/5/42

Gilbert Tsu-shang I, born 2/3/46

In 1946 when Tso-chien was promoted to Second Secretary of the Chinese Legation in Manila, he had to leave his family behind, because his salary was too low. After 1949, Tso-chien started a chicken farm, with Paul Sim as his financial backer. However, in 1950 when he was found to be suffering from cancer, he sent for Dora, but by this time he was already in a terminal stage. Whereupon Dora returned to Mother's home and arranged to have him flown to Honolulu in December 1950
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