RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1980
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207
SILK & SILVER: MACAU, MANILA TRADE

67

affairs clandestinely. This greatly encouraged them to develop autonomous merchant communities with what amounted to extra-territorial rights. The most important of these Chinese merchant communities at the end of the 15th century was in Malacca.

Ships went to and from Malacca as far as India and China, trading in a wide variety of Indian and Chinese goods which were exchanged for the products of the Indonesian islands. Malacca, the "city made for merchandise", was essentially an entrepôt the very existence of which depended upon its carrying trade. It had an excellent and easily defensible harbour, protected on either side by the narrow straits between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula and strategically placed, as Pires put it, at the end of one monsoon and the beginning of others. When Afonso de Albuquerque captured Goa in 1510 he was quick to see that Malacca's unrivalled position as an emporium and as a centre for the dissemination of Islam in South East Asia made it essential that he gain control of it also. He could thus fulfil Portuguese obligations to the Holy See and acquire a base for their commercial activities in the archipelago, in particular the carrying trade in spices and other precious goods from Indonesia to Goa and Lisbon in which the Portuguese sought to gain a share, if not a monopoly.

At the other end of the maritime area with which we are here concerned was another important trading centre. This was the Ryukyu Islands. The inhabitants of these islands, known to the Europeans as Lequeos or Loochoos, were actively engaged in the carrying trade between the northern and southern parts of the area from the 13th to the mid 16th century. The islanders carried to the south Chinese porcelain, silks and other textiles, metal goods and drugs, Japanese weapons and armour, lacquer and gold, all of which they exchanged for spices, aromatic woods, dyewoods and exotic beasts and birds from the Indonesian archipelago — goods that they could sell in China for several hundred times the buying price.2

Technically this trade with China remained an imperial monopoly and was carried out under the pretence of tribute. As Ming seapower dwindled and piracy in the China Seas accordingly grew, and as the Portuguese extended their trading activities in the years following their conquest of Malacca in 1511 into the Indonesian archipelago and beyond to the spice islands, to Timor and the Solor Islands, to Makassar and eventually to Macau—so the Ryukyu trade became increasingly circumscribed until it was con-
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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
108

When he landed in the United States, he had only three dollars on his person to begin seeking his own livelihood.

In those days, employment for Chinese immigrants was limited to working in restaurants, laundries, or importing businesses. Moreover, they had to work long and hard. When they had accumulated enough from their meagre earnings, they would return to their respective villages, get married (unless they were married already), raise a family, and enjoy their retirement. So it was that Uncle went to work for Sing Fat Chinese Emporium, an importing business. In a short time, he realized the importance of a good education, so used every opportunity to study English, even while at work. One day, while he was on the roof of the Emporium to dry some leather goods, he impressed an American neighbour, who, espying him poring over an English book, offered to tutor him.

Uncle was very resourceful. For instance, he would collect discarded Chinese newspapers and sell them at bazaars to Americans who would buy them out of curiosity or out of desire to help a struggling student. He would sell paper 'matches', rolled to the size and length of a drinking straw and used to light Chinese water pipes. At one of the World Fairs, he made money by telling fortunes. There is no information on the schools he attended, but we know that in the autumn of 1894, he was accepted by the Omaha Medical College at Omaha, Nebraska, and graduated on 22 April 1897, with a degree in General Medicine.

The earliest letter we have from Uncle to Father was dated 26 October 1894 from Omaha. In the letter, he noted that he had not seen Father since leaving home some ten years before and bemoaned the fact that poverty deprived him of the joy of seeing his family every day. He regretted that his ship did not pass Honolulu. (According to Toby, Uncle returned to China to get married in compliance with Grandfather's request, and no doubt was referring to this trip on his way back from the United States.) Uncle mentioned that he had seen Goon Sun MA, a second cousin, in Stockton the previous summer. It took him three weeks to get from San Francisco to Omaha to enter medical school. There, he had his dinner in a restaurant but cooked his own breakfast and supper each day. A year later, on 20 December 1895, he wrote that he was homesick seeing all the other students going home for Christmas.
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