The new Republic of China did not usher in stability as had been hoped. A year later, Sun Yat-sen resigned and power fell into the hands of another revolutionary faction, led by Yuan Shikai. A military leader from north China, Yuan undermined the fledgling democracy by ruling as a dictator until his death in 1916. The government was subsequently splintered by feuding warlords, who brought further unrest and violence to China.
Overseas, the Guomintang quickly established itself as a political party under the name Chinese Nationalist League and developed branches across Canada. Toronto held the first Eastern Canada Conference in 1916. Now a direct competitor of the Zhi Gong Tang, the party selected key individuals, to bolster membership. One notable was Cheng Tianfang, who served as the head of the Guomintang in Toronto and chief editor of the Shing Wah newspaper while he was studying at the University of Toronto. The thesis of his doctoral dissertation was “The Oriental Immigration to Canada.” After 1926 he returned to China, where he led a distinguished career as an educator and diplomat.
As the popularity and importance of the Guomintang grew, Canadian officials were persuaded that the members of this political party were violent radicals who posed a danger to Canadians. In 1918 the Guomintang was banned by the Canadian government and closed down for six months. The political party weathered the storm and re-established itself in 1919.22
The Guomintang established itself in Toronto as the principal community organization during the Second World War.
For their part, the Zhi Gong Tang became known as the Chinese Freemasons by 1920. This organization, a former supporter of Sun Yat-sen, became an adversary of his Guomintang party when the rewards for supporting his successful revolution did not come to fruition. The Freemasons reorganized themselves and expanded to 65 branches by 1924, predominately in the West, with 43 in British Columbia. A new internal organization, the Dart Coon Club, opened across the country to foster athletic activities, like martial arts, tennis, basketball, and lion dancing.
When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, a thousand Chinese marched along Queen Street, University Avenue, and Dundas Street to attend a memorial service at Victoria Hall.23 He is still esteemed as the Father of Modern China for freeing China from the Qing dynasty.
Chinese Newspapers
The early Chinese newspapers in Canada were communication vehicles of political reformers and revolutionaries. Reading newspapers to obtain news was not a tradition for the Chinese. Newspapers were expensive, and the literacy rate in China was estimated at only 3 to 5 percent.24 However, a keen interest in the events and welfare of China developed and fostered a strong readership in the overseas Chinese community, and the political associations took full advantage of this by making newspapers readily available.
This group of men gathered on November 18, 1942, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Shing Wah Daily News.
In 1903 Vancouver became home to the first Chinese newspaper, which the Chinese Empire Reform Association published.25 A second paper, the Chinese Times (Dahan gong bao), was established by the Zhi Gong Tang political organization in 1907 to promote the society and recruit members. In 1928 a second newspaper, the Chinese Times (Hung zhong bao), was published under Zhi Gong Tang’s new name of the Chinese Freemasons. It started as a weekly newspaper, then continued as a daily from 1929 until 1956.26 A local Toronto version that cost $1.25 per month or 6 cents per issue was published from an Elizabeth Street premise.27
The Guomintang party established a weekly newspaper, Shing Wah, in 1916, and its office was located on Hagerman Street in Toronto. In 1918 the paper was shut down during the temporary ban of the Guomintang organization by the federal government. The newspaper resumed publication in 1922 as a daily under the name Shing Wah Daily News. It became one of the largest Chinese newspapers in the Dominion. News feeds came directly from Chongqing in China, first by radio to Hong Kong, then by cable to San Francisco, and to Toronto by overland wire.
Religious Life
When the Chinese came to Canada, they brought with them, almost wholesale, their cultural and religious practices. Joss houses, or Chinese temples, date as early as 1862 in Barkerville, British Columbia, and were commonplace in the early Chinese settlements. “Joss” means god or idol, and shrines were installed with statues and portraits from the Buddhist and Taoist faiths, like the goddess of mercy and god of wealth.
Ancestor worship also figured prominently, and the clan associations placed ancestral altars in their main halls. Typically, presiding over a table laden with burning incense, flowers, and plates of food, there would be a portrait of the clan ancestor. The Chinese believed that ancestors’ souls protected their families and ensured good health, happiness, and wealth. Ancestor worship was a vital component of filial piety, an observance that was important in Confucian ideology. Every spring during Qingming, the Pure Brightness Festival, families made trips to the cemetery to show respect for their ancestors.
MISSIONARIES
The Christian faith gained a foothold in China with its 400 million potential consumers; missionaries descended on the treaty ports to save as many “heathen Chinee” as possible. If there was success in converting the Chinese living abroad, the assumption was that these Chinese Christians would return to China and evangelize the heathen population of millions. Missions in Canada were from three major Protestant denominations that took to task the teaching of Christianity. The Methodist Church, later becoming the United Church, organized its Chinese mission in Victoria as early as 1885; the Presbyterian Church, in 1892; and the Anglican Church, in 1917. Other denominations, like the Baptists, Salvation Army, and Seventh Day Adventists, became active in the 1920s.
The China Mission seminary, later named the Scarboro Foreign Mission, was founded in 1918 for evangelical work in China. Featured on the cover of its magazine for three years was the caption “400 million pagans in China; 33,000 die daily unbaptized.”28 The seminary settled on Kingston Road in 1924 after several moves. From 1918 to 1940, 53 priests were trained to work in China. Among the graduates of the mission was Father Paul Kam, who was born in China. Trained as a catechist, he had made it known that he wanted to become a missionary priest and work in his homeland. Monsignor Fraser took heed and in 1918 brought him to Canada, where he was ordained in 1925 as Canada’s first Chinese priest.29 After years of missionary work in China, he was imprisoned in 1952 by the new Communist government as it cleaned house of all missionaries and church leaders. He endured several years in a labour camp and died in 1959.30
Another missionary noted for his work in China was Reverend George Leslie Mackay, a Presbyterian missionary who graduated from Knox College, Toronto, in 1866. Nicknamed the “Black-Bearded Barbarian,” he was the first Canadian missionary sent to China and was instrumental in the missionary movement that swept Ontario from 1880 onwards. He became a national hero in Taiwan, where he established a hospital, 60 chapels, and in 1872 the first Canadian overseas mission. He was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church in 1894.
The evangelical training soon expanded into China. From 1911 to 1914, young Chinese men were trained in the mission schools there and assigned missionary work in Canada. Educated to speak English, they preached to both Chinese-born and Canadian-born members of their congregations. By the 1920s, Toronto was the headquarters for the Eastern Canadian Chinese Mission, the Canadian Presbyterian missions, and the United Church missions in China. The Eastern Canadian Chinese Mission was headed by