Details

Editor: John Fitzgerald, Hon-ming Yip

Publication Date: April 2020

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Description

Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 sheds new light on the history of charity among Chinese overseas and its place in the history of charity in China and in the wider history of global philanthropy. It finds that diaspora charity, besides serving traditional functions of helping the sick and destitute and supporting development in China, helped to build trust among dispersed hometown networks while challenging color boundaries in host societies by contributing to wider social causes. The book shows that charitable activities among the “Gold Rush” communities of the Pacific rim—a loosely integrated émigré network from Guangdong Province perhaps better known for its business acumen and hard work among English-speaking settler societies in North America and Australasia—also led the way with social innovations that helped to shape modern charity in China.

Fitzgerald and Yip’s volume demonstrates that charity lay at the heart of community life among Chinese communities overseas. From remittances accompanying letters to contributions to benevolent organizations, emigrants transferred funds in many different ways to meet urgent requirements such as disaster relief while also contributing to long-term initiatives like building schools or hospitals. By drawing attention to diaspora contributions to their host societies, the contributors correct a common misunderstanding of the historical Chinese diaspora which is often perceived by host communities as self-interested or disengaged. This important study also reappraises the value of charitable donations in the maintenance of networks, an essential feature of diaspora life across the Cantonese Pacific.

Contents

Preface
Introduction: Diaspora Charity in the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949
John Fitzgerald and Hon-ming Yip

Part I: Operation and Networking of Chinese Diaspora Charity
1. Practising Charity (Xingshan 行善) across the Chinese Diaspora, 1850–1949: A Multidimensional Overview
Elizabeth Sinn
2. Making Chinese Charities Accountable: Institutional Changes in the Late Qing and the Republic and Their Overseas Connection
David Faure
3. Qiaopi (僑批) and Charity: The Mechanisms and Impact of Diasporic Chinese Philanthropy
Gregor Benton and Hong Liu
4. Huiguan (會館) as an Overseas Charitable Institution: Homebound Burials and the Global Chinese Diaspora, 1850–1949
Hon-ming Yip

Part II: Charity and the Cantonese Pacific
5. The “Letter Should Not Beg”: Chinese Diaspora Philanthropy in
Higher Education
Dong Wang
6. Chinese Charity in Early Chinese American History
Yong Chen
7. Chinese Engagement with the Australian Colonial Charity Model
Pauline Rule
8. The “Invisible Work” of Women: Gender and Philanthropic Sociability in the Evolution of Early Chinese Australian Voluntary Organizations
Mei-fen Kuo
9. Women and Guangdong Native-Place Charity in Chinese Australian Pentecostalism:“The Miracle of Grace”
Denise A. Austin
10. Building Trust: Private Charity (cishan 慈善) and Public Benefit (gongyi 公益)
in the Associational Life of the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 193
John Fitzgerald

Link: HKU Press

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