Sun Yat-Sen Lived Here from Shanghai to SingaporePrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
It’s much more interesting to travel when we have a plan in mind. High on my list is to seek out historical sites, and this includes the homes and residences of illustrious people of the past. It’s amazing what you can find. In Paris I enjoyed tracking down where novelist Ernest Hemingway lived above an old sawmill. And of course, there were the bars and cafés that he favoured. In Spain it was much the same, but here it meant going to the bull fights every Sunday afternoon. The trail of Emma Coe, better known as Queen Emma of the South Seas, was much more challenging. I had to travel across the South Pacific, from Apia in Samoa to the island of New Britain in New Guinea. It took me a couple of days to find her gravesite, forgotten and overgrown by jungle. And there were others, many others, from Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and to a small village in Thailand.
And then there is Sun Yat-sen. Few historical figures can be more interesting than the man who is considered to be the father of modem China. He left his footprints not only in China, mainly in Shanghai, but in Singapore and San Francisco as well. He has the distinction of being the only political figure revered by both Taiwan and the Mainland Chinese. The Kuomintang party that he established in 1905 sought to replace the ailing Qing dynasty with democratic leadership, and finally succeeded in 1911.
Born in 1866 to a peasant family in Guangzhou, Sun, at age thirteen, went to live with his elder brother, a prosperous merchant, in Honolulu and here he got his early education. He became a citizen of the United States and was issued an American passport. After graduation from the prestigious Iolani School in 1882, Sun enrolled in Oahu College for further studies. Upon graduation his brother sent him back to China. His American experience was to be of lasting influence.
Back home, he became greatly troubled by what he saw as a backward China. He continued his studies that included medicine at the Guangzhou Boji Hospital. He became a medical doctor and practiced medicine in that city briefly in 1893. After the Qing Dynasty rebellion, he became a leader in the Tiandihui revolutionary party. His protégé, Chiang Kai Shek, was also a member.
In 1906 Dr Sun Yat-sen traveled to Singapore to drum up support for his nationalist cause among the Nanyang (overseas Chinese) and was given a villa for his use. It was here that he plotted the overthrow of the 267-year-old Manchu Qing Dynasty in China. Soon, the bungalow became known as the Sun Yat Sen Villa.
In 1910, Sun went from Singapore to San Francisco. He lived in Chinatown briefly and published a radical newspaper there. He then returned to China and took up residence in Shanghai. In 1915 he married Soong Ching Ling, one of the three famous Soong sisters. They were the daughters of the wealthy businessman and missionary Charlie Soong who made a fortune selling Bibles in China. Two dauaghters attended Motyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, and graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, United States. Ching Ling's parents greatly opposed the match, as Dr. Sun was 26 years her senior. Her younger sister, May-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek.
All three residences of Sun Yat-sen are worth a visit and give us a vivid perspective of the great Chinese leader. In Singapore it’s called the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial, a lovely two-storey Victorian-style bungalow with open verandahs at the front and sides. In front of the building, in the centre of the garden, is a seated statue of Sun Yat-sen. Originally built in the 1880s by a wealthy merchant, Boey Chuan Poh, for his wife, the bungalow occupied a site that was part of a sugar plantation owned by John Balestier, the first American consul appointed to Singapore in 1837. It was eventually bought by an overseas Chinese, rubber magnate Teo Eng Hock, a supporter of the Chinese revolutionary cause. The villa was then known as Wan Qing Yuan, which means "a haven of peace in the twilight years".
At present, and until August this year, the former residence will be closed to allow repairs to be carried out, an $800.000 endeavor. The villa was gazetted as a national monument in 1994, and underwent a four-year, $8 million restoration back then before opening as a memorial hall and museum in 2001.
After the successful revolution in China in 1911, the villa fell into disrepair. It was sold to an Indian merchant who left it unoccupied. Then, in 1938, a group of philanthropists bought the building with the purpose of preserving it. In 1942, their plans came to a halt when World War II erupted. Throughout the war the Japanese used the villa as a communications centre. In 1945, it became the headquarters of the Singapore Branch of the Kuomintang. After the end of Kuomintang activities in Singapore, the villa was handed over to the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce to manage.
In San Francisco there are half a dozen places that boast that “Sun Yat-sen lived here.” But there is no mistaking the impressive 14-ft (4-metre) granite statue that stands at the northeast corner of St Mary's Square in Chinatown and bears his name. The sculpture in his honor was commissioned by the federally funded Works Progress Administration and was placed there in 1938. Its well-known sculptor, Benjamin Bufano, also created several other sculptures around the city, often of whimsical animals.
Finally we come to his residence in Shanghai. Located at No. 7 Xiangshan Road, Sun lived here in this Edwardian-era house with his wife Soong Ching Ling from 1918-24. Among the plush Chinese carpets, artwork and gleaming black wood furniture—all supposedly originals despite the house having been looted by the Japanese—is a 1924 picture of Sun and Ching Ling in front of the first aeroplane in China.
It is quite surprising how simply Sun and his wife lived. Visitors are given plastic bags to fit over their shoes and can walk around the two-storey house at will, although the rooms are roped off and entry is not permitted. The house displays include Sun's library of 2,700 books, the popular uniform he designed, his medical instruments, writing brushes and ink stone, various maps and a display of photographs, among them one of him and Ching Ling in Guangzhou.
Sun's books are shelved behind locked glass doors; the titles depict the man he was—“The Monroe Doctrine,” “Problems in the Pacific,” “Democracy and the Empire,” “The history of Old Japan,” “The Imperialist,” “The Problems of Local Government.”
Also a landmark in Shanghai is Soong Ching Ling's house at 1843 Huahai Zhong where she lived after the death of her husband. It too is a museum and is open to the public.
Sun Yat-sen died in 1925. The three Soong sisters became China's most significant political figures of the early 20th century. Each, in her own way, ultimately changed the course of Chinese history. Throughout their lifetimes, each sister followed her own belief in terms of supporting the Nationalist or the Communist Party of China. In the 1930s, Soong Ai-Ling and Mei-Ling were the two richest women in China.
When the Second Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, all three got together after a 10 year separation to unite against the Imperial Japanese army. When the Japanese occupied Nanjing, the three sisters moved to Hong Kong.
Soong Ching Ling became the Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China. On May 16, 1981, two weeks before her death, she was admitted to the Communist Party and was named Honorary President of the People's Republic of China. She is the only person ever to hold this title.
Although Ching Ling remained in Mainland China while Soong Mei-Ling, or Madame Chiang Kai-shek, her younger sister fled to Taiwan with her husband Chiang Kai-shek, both are today quite beloved and memorialised by the public in the mainland for their unique charismas and contribution.
Next week I will be taking readers on a little wine tasting in central California.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q. Dear Mr. Stephens, I applaud your stand on sticking to the bright side regarding travel destinations and let those that can't see much of anything good cover the remainder. Most writers seem to enjoy looking for only the downsides in wherever they go and can't wait to gleefully express their opinions of other societies' shortcomings. It probably doesn't hurt much in some areas that are dangerous, and don't really have all that much to offer anyway, to warn prospective travelers as long as it's kept in perspective. Keep the stories coming. Ed Boden, N.C. USA
A. Dear Ed, I thank you for your nice comment. And I shall keep the stories coming. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
