A Widow & Her Sons
1905
The term “Tiger Mom” is an invention of the 21st century, but in China the concept of a mother who will move heaven and earth to advance her progeny is age old. Widowed mothers earn special praise. Confucius’ disciple Mencius is the example par excellence. He had a mother like this (pictured at top of page), and even today, her wise and stern parenting finds its way into storybooks as a reminder for good children to heed their parents and improve themselves.
In 1905, in one of China's eastern provinces, such a mother and her eighteen-year-old son were mulling over the young man's options. 1905 was a trying year for Tiger Mothers because that was the year that the national examination system that had structured learning and advancement for over a thousand years was abolished. With no successor system firmly in place, ambitious Chinese would need to find new educational pathways.
Spurred on no doubt by also having seen a rising Japan seize Chinese territory and earlier in 1905 defeat Russia to gain control over even more Chinese territory, this particular young man saw a military career as his and his country’s way forward. He would enroll in one of China's new military academies and then go on to another in Japan. Though she would not live to see the day, his mother’s efforts on her son's behalf would be vindicated when he entered the history books as the country's first leader to stand with the great Western powers and reverse Japan's incursions. His name was Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石 Jiang Jieshi).
Meanwhile, in the south of the country, two slightly younger boys, again with such a mother, were also about to reconsider their options for schooling, but not only because of warring foreign powers and because the imperial decree of September 1905 had changed education in China for everyone.
A half year earlier, in the spring of 1905, Huang Han Liang and Huang Han Ho had lost their father. Called “Ye-Tau” (亦陶 Yitao, b. 1870; formal name 黃綿裕 Huang Mianyu ), he had been thirty-five years old. Their mother “Yu Koon” (尤昆官 You Kunguan, b. 1873), now a widow in her early thirties, believed her husband had eaten something unclean. Another story says that the boys’ father died of bubonic plague, a scourge throughout Southeast Asia which erupted regularly, transmitted by rats and fleas carried on the ships that docked in the port city of Amoy where they lived.
If this were true, and his disease-ridden corpse were burned or communally buried in the interest of public hygiene rather than laid out at home as was customary, that could explain why no details of Ye-Tau’s burial were recorded in the family genealogy, as had been done for five generations of Huangs.
Regardless of how Ye-Tau had died, what mattered most was that Yu Koon was left with two fatherless boys to raise. Born in 1891 and 1893 and aged fourteen and twelve, they must have already demonstrated that they were clever boys, but a strategy for making the most of their smarts was now that much less certain.
In 1905, in one of China's eastern provinces, such a mother and her eighteen-year-old son were mulling over the young man's options. 1905 was a trying year for Tiger Mothers because that was the year that the national examination system that had structured learning and advancement for over a thousand years was abolished. With no successor system firmly in place, ambitious Chinese would need to find new educational pathways.
Spurred on no doubt by also having seen a rising Japan seize Chinese territory and earlier in 1905 defeat Russia to gain control over even more Chinese territory, this particular young man saw a military career as his and his country’s way forward. He would enroll in one of China's new military academies and then go on to another in Japan. Though she would not live to see the day, his mother’s efforts on her son's behalf would be vindicated when he entered the history books as the country's first leader to stand with the great Western powers and reverse Japan's incursions. His name was Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石 Jiang Jieshi).
Meanwhile, in the south of the country, two slightly younger boys, again with such a mother, were also about to reconsider their options for schooling, but not only because of warring foreign powers and because the imperial decree of September 1905 had changed education in China for everyone.
A half year earlier, in the spring of 1905, Huang Han Liang and Huang Han Ho had lost their father. Called “Ye-Tau” (亦陶 Yitao, b. 1870; formal name 黃綿裕 Huang Mianyu ), he had been thirty-five years old. Their mother “Yu Koon” (尤昆官 You Kunguan, b. 1873), now a widow in her early thirties, believed her husband had eaten something unclean. Another story says that the boys’ father died of bubonic plague, a scourge throughout Southeast Asia which erupted regularly, transmitted by rats and fleas carried on the ships that docked in the port city of Amoy where they lived.
If this were true, and his disease-ridden corpse were burned or communally buried in the interest of public hygiene rather than laid out at home as was customary, that could explain why no details of Ye-Tau’s burial were recorded in the family genealogy, as had been done for five generations of Huangs.
Regardless of how Ye-Tau had died, what mattered most was that Yu Koon was left with two fatherless boys to raise. Born in 1891 and 1893 and aged fourteen and twelve, they must have already demonstrated that they were clever boys, but a strategy for making the most of their smarts was now that much less certain.
While the Huangs did not have the wealth of the Chiang family, which had parlayed five acres of land into salt and wine dealerships, it seems they were not entirely without means. After all, Ye-Tau’s older brother “Been-Sa” (品三 Pin San, b. 1865; formal name 黃綿鎰 Huang Mianyi) had recently married off his daughter Huang Tang (黃堂, b. 1888) with two serving girls to take to her new home.
But then again, Been-Sa could well have had little interest in heirs other than his own. Hearsay suggests that the brothers may have already been going their separate ways for some time. When their own father had died in 1880, Been-Sa and Ye-Tau were younger than Han Liang and Han Ho now. Been-Sa had since had more than his share of further misfortunes. His first child, a son, had died as a baby, and then during or soon after the birth of his daughter Huang Tang, his wife had died. A second wife had also died, although a son from that marriage survived. He now had a third wife barely half his age, a three-year-old son, and hopefully more children on the way. |
Whatever the family's resources, they were not readily extended to Yu Koon for the education of her sons. Later on, Han Liang and Han Ho would greatly credit their mother with scrimping and saving to make their schooling possible. According to Han Ho's daughters, Yu Koon earned an income by renting out a couple of small properties, suggesting that Ye-Tau had been able to leave something toward the maintenance of his sons. But still we must remember that Han Liang and Han Ho's survival depended on a mother who, completely typically, was herself illiterate and who also had bound feet.
Life for them remained precarious.
Life for them remained precarious.
WHAT DOES HOKKIEN SOUND LIKE
The romanization for Uncle Been-Sa's name is my own devising, based on typing the characters for his name into this app:
https://zh.forvo.com/languages/nan/ |
"Ye-Tau" is Han Liang's own romanization, as is "Yu Koon". In the app, the "Tau" character sounds more like "Dough".
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