RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 110 TIN-YUKE CHAR Aldersey 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. Chan 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. In 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. The 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.” From 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. A 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY 115 He served as chief secretary at the Chefoo Convention in 1876, and until the time of his death assisted at the many transactions Viceroy Li had with foreign powers. He was to have joined Li in his mission to Japan after the Sino-Japanese War, but Li excused him saying, “You are old and so am I; but I have to go because there is no help for it." At the time of his death Chan Lai-sun was survived by his widow, two sons and two daughters. He was predeceased by his son William and a daughter. The death notice of his widow, who died at the age of 92 on 17 Jan. 1917, was published in the Chinese Recorder (v. 58, p. 258). Her son Spencer T. Lai-sun had died only thirteen days before. Spencer had been educated at Queen's College, Hong Kong, before being taken to the United States by his father at the inauguration of the Chinese Educational Mission in 1872. He and his elder brother, Elijah, attended Yale. According to his obituary (South China Morning Post, 23 Jan. 1917), Spencer had an “extraordinary command of English” and was remarkably well informed on Chinese affairs, being one of the first to forecast the gravity of the Boxer Uprising. He was simultaneously on the staff of a Chinese language newspaper, the Hu Pao, and of an English language paper, the North China Daily News, both published at Shanghai. In 1911 he abandoned his newspaper career and as an expectant Taotai joined the staff of Viceroy Tuan Fang at Nanking. Early in his career in 1885 he undertook a special mission to India. When a reporter of the Times of India interviewed him, he was impressed with Spencer's European style clothing and the absence of a queue, for the latter he was said to have been given special permission by the Chinese authorities. During his school days in Hong Kong, Spencer had become acquainted with the family of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong, being most likely a regular attendant of the Chinese congregation which met in the afternoons at Union Church. He married Ho Man-kwai, the daughter of the pastor. She died in Shanghai in 1894 at the young age of twenty-eight, leaving a young daughter, Daisy. The other two daughters of Chan Lai-sun married Europeans. The husband of the eldest daughter was a Danish ship captain, N. P. Andersen. He had seen service in the Taiping Revolution and had a long career in the Coast Staff of the Chinese Customs. He was somewhat older than his wife and married in middle age. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 409 the community as a shining example of a native son. He certainly helped bridge the vast gap between Victorian, colonial society and the Chinese community and he frequently presented - and clarified the often-misunderstood Chinese viewpoint. One gets the impression that, in spite of his western background he was still at heart very Chinese. In spite of having an eminent pastor father, the Reverend Ho Fuk Tong (Ho Tsun Shin), he was not opposed, for example, to concubinage. In the same way that Sir Kai Ho Kai was a son of whom Hong Kong could be truly proud, so too the author's family has roots going back in the Territory for a number of generations. As a true Hongkongese, Choa has had a lifetime of experience as a physician, scholar and senior government administrator. He is a long-time, life member of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch. Such a background fits him admirably to write such a book. It has been well researched, contains a wealth of detail and is a good read. Understandably, with limited information in some areas, this account is often more about the times in which he lived than Ho Kai himself. But that does not detract from the value of the book. As one of Hong Kong's true sons Sir Kai Ho Kai deserves to go down in history, during an important period, as one of the few Chinese who was able to leave his indelible mark. The book, together with its epilogue, bibliography and 11 appendices, should be on the shelves of every serious researcher of Hong Kong history. At the same time the book is a good product, on good quality paper with clear print and a stout, attractive cover, unlike so many books published today. Although some of the 25 illustrations, which are mainly photographs, are more common, there are some the reviewer had not seen before. DAN WATERS NOTES 1 Susanna Hoe, The Private Life of Old Hong Kong: Western Women in the British Colony 1841 - 1941, Oxford University Press (1991), pp. 293; and Univer- ================================================================================