While my father Jack Spackman was visiting churches and orphanages for his Catholic Weekly article, his wife Margaret and mother Doris joined a sightseeing tour, which included a visit across the border into the Chinese county of Zhongshan – birthplace of Dr Sun Yat Sen.
It seems remarkable that in those troubled times they were able to enter China, but the pictures bear testament to their visit. It appears their tour was specifically devoted to Dr Sun, as they are wearing the same tour badges at landmarks related to him in both Macau and Zhongshan.
In Macau, they are pictured outside the Memorial Hall of the National Father of Macau, also known as the Casa Memorativa Sun Yat Sen, built in 1918.
Interestingly, the ‘sun’ emblems on the gate shown in an earlier picture are missing. Presumably they were removed shortly before Margaret and Doris’ visit at the behest of the ascendant Communist Party. The blue and white sun remains a Nationalist Kuomintang symbol to this day.
Dr Sun established a medical practice in Macau after completing his studies in Hong Kong, where he developed his revolutionary ideas and began his life’s work of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and bringing China into the modern world.
He was an early hero of Your Young Girl Reporter. He seemed to embody all the idealistic principles I continue to hold dear. Time and history studies have not altered the fact that he was also undeniably handsome.
As you would expect, his good looks only enhanced Your Young Girl Reporter’s opinion of Dr Sun, as did the only scandal of his life – his second marriage to his secretary, one of the glamorous Soong sisters, who I always found far more interesting than the Mitford girls, their British equivalent.
After Dr Sun’s death in 1925, the county of his birth was renamed Zhongshan in his honour but the area continued to play an important role as a backdrop to the events of history.
When the Nationalists and Communists joined forces against the Japanese in 1942, they launched numerous guerrilla attacks on the invaders in Zhongshan until its liberation in 1945.
That was not the end of the area’s turmoil. Zhongshan was held by the Nationalists for much of the Chinese Civil War which followed and the scene of a great deal of the fighting until the victory of the People’s Liberation Army in 1949 and the establishment of today’s People’s Republic of China.
The Zhongshan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery, another tour stop for Margaret and Doris, commemorates the fallen of the Great Revolution, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the War of Liberation, as well as the period of socialist construction.
It was built in 1958 and expanded in 1960. In 1995 the cemetery was designated as a patriotic education base where students and service personnel gather for inspiration and to pay their respects.
Mum and Grandma also visited the Zhongshan Memorial Middle School, founded in 1934 by Dr Sun’s eldest son and built under the supervision of his widow, Soong Ching-ling.
Soong had her own remarkable role in China’s history. Following her husband’s death in 1925, she was elected to the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee but broke with the organisation, accusing it of betraying her husband’s legacy, when it turned on the Communists in 1927.
She left China for Moscow and supported the Communists throughout the bitter civil war, going against her own family, including her sister who was married to Chiang Kai-shek, Dr Sun’s successor to the leadership of the Kuomintang.
Madam Sun was ultimately honoured by the People’s Republic of China, first as a guest at the ceremony in Tiananmen Square in 1949 to mark the establishment of the new government, and finally with the title of Honorary President of the People’s Republic of China, just weeks before her death in 1981. She is the only person to have held this title.
In between, she survived the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution when she was heavily criticized by factions of the Red Guard who also desecrated her parents’ graves, exposing their bodies. Zhou En-lai stepped in, recommending that she be declared a ‘protected cadre,’ a move endorsed by Chairman Mao.
Madam Sun is revered by the Communists, who regard themselves as the true heirs of her husband’s legacy. But at the time of Margaret and Doris’ visit to the school she built in Zhongshan, her future must have been very uncertain.
There is no trace in these pictures of the storm that was raging at the time throughout China, Macau and Hong Kong. Many millions suffered and died in that turbulent decade of Cultural Revolution, and many monuments of the past were swept away.
These landmarks, visited by my mother and grandmother in the early days of that storm, survive unscathed. My family was surrounded by turmoil on that trip across the Pearl River estuary in June 1967 but here, in the footsteps of Dr Sun Yat Sen and his wife, were moments of shelter.
Back in Hong Kong, demonstrations and rioting inspired by the Cultural Revolution had been raging for weeks and would continue in the months ahead. There would be no more respite that summer.
© Maria Spackman 2018
Second of a two-part report on the Spackman visit to Macau in June 1967. My grateful thanks to the Hong Kong in the 60s Facebook group, in particular John Lai, whose help in identifying the locations in these photographs was invaluable.
While Margaret and Doris were following in the footsteps of Dr Sun Yat Sen, my father Jack Spackman was reporting on the Communist-led unrest, in particular its impact on the Portuguese colony’s large Catholic community. You can catch up with part one here:
Further reading:
Sun Yat Sen memorialized in Macau and China, neglected in Hong Kong – Daniel Beitler, Macau Daily Times, 24 March 2017. An interesting Macau perspective which also mentions the riots there in 1966 and the contentious issue of the Nationalist flag.
Traces of Sun Yat-sen among the highrises, bars and galleries – Doug Meigs, Hong Kong Free Press, 18 October 2015. A fun tour of the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Trail which winds through one of my favourite districts of Hong Kong. Some of the details may be out of date, but the key information will be unchanged.
The very different Soong sisters and their roles in China’s history – Sarah Brennan, Young Post, 9 December 2014. A delightful potted history which appeared in the South China Morning Post’s children’s section – Your Girl Reporter’s introduction to newspapers.
There are many memorials to Dr Sun Yat Sen around the world. If you’re in Hong Kong, the Sun Yat Sen Museum in Castle Road is well signposted from the Central-Mid-levels Escalator. What they don’t tell you is that its housed in a magnificent historic building, Kom Tong Hall, which is well worth a visit in its own right. Oh, and while you’re there you can grab a selfie with the ultimate Power Couple.
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