Dr. Sun is a brilliant and enthusiastic speaker in Chinese and in
English. His speeches to the Chinese often extend into hours. His
small copper-plate handwriting in English is better than his Chinese
chirography. He is a polished writer, having published in 1904 in
London a book on “The Chinese Question”. The Manchus have kept Doctor
Sun out of China, and he is therefore not yet thoroughly known to the
Hupeh and Hunan province guilds, who fired the first successful shot,
but he is the pick of the southern and the alien Chinese, who are the
best educated of their race, and have largely financed reform: the
Chinese of Canton, Singapore, Penang, noble Hongkong, Macao, America,
England, Japan, Australia, and brilliant Shanghai. He has never held
office under the Manchus at home or abroad, and is therefore not well
known to foreigners in the salons of diplomats, in the capitals of the
Caucasic race, or to the masses of the Chinese in the north and west
provinces, but he is a coming man, and perhaps the most consistent
and steady of the reformers, as he is certainly the most promising,
intellectual and coolly daring. Sun Yat Sen’s name may some day be
Latinized into Sunyacius, just as Kung Fut Tse’s name became popular
as Confucius. Why not also Latinize Yuan Shih Kai’s name into the more
popular Yuanshius? The following incident will throw a light on Sun’s
character: On February 22nd his elder brother, Sun Mei, a man ordinary
in equipment, was almost elected governor of the great province of
Kwangtung as a popular tribute to Sun Yat Sen. The latter wired from
Nanking, disapproving of the choice for the province’s good, and urging
“brother Mei” to confine himself to business, for which he was more
fitted. Such frankness in family relations when public preferment is at
stake, is scarcely common.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account