Taiwan Today

Great stories are told of most great men, and Dr. Sun Yat-sen is no exception. As the Republic of China observed the cen­tennial of its Founding Father last month, newspapers and magazines published supple­ments and special issues on his life and think­ing. Much of the material was new—told by old revolutionaries and leaders who knew Dr. Sun or who lived during his lifetime and under his influence.

A restaurant owner in the United States recalled a midnight bowl of noodles served to Dr. Sun. A Taiwan worker remembered assuming the disguise of a patent medicine peddler to see Dr. Sun secretly in Taipei. A woman related her ride in a camouflaged bridal chair that carried weapons to Dr. Sun's revolutionaries. From these recollections emerges a new, fascinating, real-life image of the man whom the United Nations has honored as one of the immortals of the 20th century.

Even as a youth, Sun Yat-sen differed from his fellows. The late Sir James Cantlie, his teacher, recalled the young Sun as a model student at the Hongkong Medical College from 1887 to 1892. He was im­pressed by Sun's gentle character, diligence, and upright conduct. Others learned well by rote, he said, but Sun not only mastered the letter of an assignment but probed its meaning and was ready to apply the material when occasion arose.

Dr. Cantlie later became an enthusiastic supporter of Dr. Sun's revolutionary cause. He was instrumental in a rescue from the Manchu Legation in London when Dr. Sun was kidnaped and detained there in October of 1896 pending return to China for almost certain execution. Sun saw the Cantlies on his London visits and always impressed them with his politeness, ingenuity, and perse­verance.

In late October or early November of 1911, soon after the Wuchang uprising over­threw the Manchu government, a cable from Canton reached London. It was addressed to "Sun Wen London". The post office people went to the Chinese Legation, which forwarded the message to the Cantlies.

Mrs. Cantlie, who was home alone, knew Dr. Sun was arriving from the United States that very day. She dared not accept the cable because that would be tantamount to admitting she knew of Dr. Sun's where­abouts.

Message Copied

She told the messenger she did not know anything about Dr. Sun and to take the cable back. However, she first copied the numbers and Chinese characters that the lega­tion people had jotted on the cable. She couldn't read or write Chinese, but copied the ideographs stroke by stroke.

His wife was out when Dr. Cantlie returned with Dr. Sun. The maid produced the message, which Dr. Sun read and put in his pocket. When Mrs. Cantlie came home, she asked if Dr. Sun had seen the cable. "I hope it's important; I took so much trouble copying it," she said. Dr. Sun took out the paper, glanced at it, and said it couldn't be Mrs. Cantlie's handwriting. It was too good for someone who didn't know Chinese. Then Dr. Sun said: "You asked me if it's important. Well, who knows? They want me back as president."

Mrs. Cantlie jumped up from her chair. The maid shook Dr. Sun's hand. However, the president-to-be didn't appear overjoyed. He remarked with a lit-tie smile: "Thank you for your nice words. Let's see if we all feel the same five years from now." Dr. Sun knew the days ahead would be just as difficult as the revolutionary efforts of the preceding 15 years.

Dr. Sun was a great persuader, said an 81-year-old Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) member who first saw the revolutionary leaders in Dairen in Manchu times. Chien Kun-lai said Dr. Sun impressed him and others as a friendly, easily accessible person whose words were simple but effective.

Chien suggested that Chinese youths of the late Manchu period vaguely realized that something had to be done about the corrupt government. They were unhappy but didn't know what to do. When Dr. Sun was in Dai­ren, many young men sought his advice. Chien said some of the questions asked Dr. Sun were foolish, yet the great Chinese patriot always answered patiently and with examples to drive home his points. Dr. Sun turned noisy gatherings into serious study sessions and convinced everybody that a revolution was both necessary and feasible.

Dr. Sun's persuasive personality was always in evidence. A classic example goes back to 1905 in Malaya. He was talking with a number of revolutionaries when two burly strangers rushed in with swords and axes in hand. They demanded a duel with Dr. Sun. He was unperturbed. He asked the intruders to sit down and talked of the international situation and domestic Chinese affairs. The men were moved, then persuaded. They stood up, dropped their weapons, and bowed deeply to Dr. Sun. "We have been fooled by the pro-Manchu men," said one of them, named Chu Kang. "Now that we know about your noble cause, we hope you will forgive us and let us take part in your work."

Quiet Speaker

Cheng Tien-fong, vice president of the Examination Yuan, recalled that Dr. Sun spoke quietly when addressing public gatherings. He had a Cantonese accent when he spoke Mandarin, now the official language of China. Audiences always listened attentively. "He was friendly and there was never any trace of affectation," Cheng said.

Dr. Sun was considerate. Liang Han-chao, chairman of the Broadcasting Corpora­tion of China, who acted as stenographer to record Dr. Sun's 1924 Canton lectures on the Three Principles of the People, said a girl student, Tang Yun-kung, arrived late one day to find the auditorium already packed. Seeing that she could not find a seat, Dr. Sun interrupted his lecture and asked her to take a seat on the platform. She sat behind Dr. Sun throughout the rest of the lecture.

Liang recalled that in 1923, a Tsinghua University student heard Dr. Sun speak and wrote of his impressions in the school paper. "Dr. Sun appeared as solemn and austere as a tiger when he was silent," the student wrote, "but he was entirely different when he talked—amiable and approachable. He is a born leader who commands respect and obedience without demanding it."

But Dr. Sun could become impatient and angry. There were good reasons.

When Dr. Sun went to Northern China in 1894, he sent a message to Manchu Prime Minister Li Hung-chang recommend­ing steps for national salvation. Li was brusque. Without even looking at Dr. Sun's petition, Li said: "The affairs of the state are not so simple as you young people think." Dr. Sun was angry as he left Li's office. "I thought Li Hung-chang was unreasonable," he remarked to a friend. "If he isn't going to pay any attention to my petition, I will carry out the plans myself."

Sense of Humor

He had a good sense of humor. At a revolutionary planning session, an associate told him the Manchus were training many new soldiers. "What will happen to us if the Manchus succeed?" the associate asked. Dr. Sun laughed. He said: "The more soldiers they train, the better for us. The soldiers will be ours one day." That' is exactly what happened.

While in exile, Dr. Sun set up reading rooms to spread the cause of revolution. The Singapore reading room was across the street from a pro-Manchu organization. A friend suggested the room be moved. Dr. Sun said: "Let's wait and see. One day those people who have been going there will start coming this way." They did.

Dr. Sun was lenient with others, strict with himself. Once an associate asked him why he had been giving money to a party member who was notorious for his wrongful conduct. Dr. Sun said the man eventually would awake and repent. It happened that way; the money was not wasted.

Regard for Others

In 1918, when the Republic of China was, experiencing rough sailing, Dr. Sun visited the quarters of his followers in Shanghai and found them playing mahjong. When they expressed their embarrassment, he said: "Never mind. Mahjong games are like our revolutionary effort. You may not succeed in one game, but you may the next time."

At a dinner party in Canton in the autumn of 1923, the room grew hot. Dr. Sun stepped into the corridor to take off his vest. As he put his coat back on he saw that his aide, Chao Chao, had quietly followed him. Chao stepped forward to take Dr. Sun's vest but was told it wasn't neces­sary. "Could you ask the orderly to come and take the vest?" Dr. Sun asked. Chao said that was a roundabout way of disposing of the garment. Dr. Sun shook Chao's hand and said: "Thank you, then, for your trouble."

Dr. Sun never asked Chao to carry messages or run errands. That was not the kind of work Chao was supposed to be doing.

As Provisional President of China and subsequently, Dr. Sun always signed im­portant letters personally. His secretary said Dr. Sun could save a lot of time by using a stamp. Dr. Sun answered: "Even checks have to be signed personally. I wouldn't think of saving time that way."

Dr. Sun was famous for his opposition to nepotism, long a pernicious practice in old China.

When the Canton municipal government was undergoing reorganization in the summer of 1921, Dr. Sun was asked to consider his son, Sun Fa, for mayor. Dr. Sun said he could not appoint his son to a government post. Wei Pang-ping, the official who made the suggestion, quickly corrected himself and said he had come to let Dr. Sun know of the provincial authorities' intention. Dr. Sun told him to let nature take its course, that he would not back his son.

No Deceptions

In the spring of 1923, Dr. Sun's daughter, Yuan-ku, took her husband, Tai En-sai, to Dr. Sun's office and asked a job for him. "He has received a doctor's degree in educa­tion in the United States," she said. "That is very good," said Dr. Sun. "Education should be a life-long career. Since you studied education, you should devote your life to education. This is an administrative office and is not in your line. You had better find an educational position."

Chiao-lin Mei, a 94-year-old revolutionary now living in the central Taiwan city of Taichung, recalled the sincerity and devo­tion to work of Dr. Sun. In the autumn of 1909, when Mei and other revolutionaries in Chicago saw Dr. Sun for the first time, Dr. Sun skipped all formalities and went right to the heart of the need for anti-Manchu solidarity and action. In late March of 1911, Dr. Sun learned of the failure of a Canton uprising as he reached Chicago from President Chiang carries on Dr. Sun's lofty tasks Vancouver. Mei suggested that the news be kept from the others on hand to greet Dr. Sun so as not to hurt a Chicago fund-raising campaign then in progress. Dr. Sun said it was not right to deceive the people. He added: "Once the people find out that they have been deceived, they will stop believing us. Failures do not matter, if we can keep on trying until we gain victory."

Loo Lien, now 101 years old and still hale and hearty, was operating a restaurant in New York when he first met Dr. Sun shortly after the 1896 London incident. Loo came to Taiwan recently and told of inviting Dr. Sun to dine with him and the other restaurant workers. On a night in October, 1911, when Dr. Sun was hurrying home via Europe, Loo had the pleasure of cooking a bowl of chicken noodles for him.

Original Genius

Loo said he knew little of politics but supported Dr. Sun's great cause. Like countless other overseas Chinese, Loo be-friended Dr. Sun and contributed to the crusade for Chinese freedom and democracy.

In Taipei on November 9, Loo broke ground for a US$250,000 home for aged Chinese of the United States. The home will be named for Dr. Sun and is near the new National Palace Museum, which has been renamed the Chungshan Museum after one of Dr. Sun's adopted names.

Once the principal victory was won, Dr. Sun became a man of peace and the greatest genius since Confucius in developing a political and economic system suited to China's circumstances. It was at this time that Huang Chi-lu learned first hand of Dr. Sun's erudition.

In the winter of 1923, Huang returned to Canton from Canada with two new books just off the press in New York. He spoke to Dr. Sun of what he had learned from the books, adding some comments of his own to show off. He soon found Dr. Sun had already read the books. Huang, until re­cently the minister of education, said the lesson taught him scholarly humility.

Miss Chao Kuo-hua had a pleasant first meeting with Dr. Sun at a relative's house in Hongkong in pre-revolutionary times. She was 15 or 16 and wore a queue. Dr. Sun pulled at it and asked: "Doesn't this annoy you?" A long queue was a burden, and she knew it. It was time-consuming to comb and keep clean. Dr. Sun said: "Why do women have to bind their feet and suffer such pain?" Miss Chao never forgot that conversation.

A few years later, on the eve of the abortive Canton uprising of March, 1911, Miss Chao sat in a bridal chair with a grenade in one hand and a pistol in the other. The phony wedding procession car­ried arms to the revolutionaries' hideout in Canton. "I was not afraid," she said. The voice of Dr. Sun—"Men and women have opportunities alike to die for the national cause"—kept ringing in her ears as she carried out her mission.

Chao Kuo-hua was dubbed a "revolu­tionary bride" for her part in the uprising. She later became a real-life revolutionary bride by marrying Liu Mei-ching, who had played a leading role in the Revolution. Liu was killed in 1920 and she never remarried, contributing her modest share to the national well-being, on the mainland and now in Taiwan.

Taiwan-born Yeh Chia-chu, 79, joined Dr. Sun's Tung Meng Hui (Society of the Common Cause) at the age of 23. Many islanders had been fighting the Japanese in an attempt to reverse the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1895 that ceded Taiwan to Japan. Yeh was one of them.

Island Episode

In August of 1913, a year and a half after the birth of the Republic of China, Dr. Sun was in Taipei on his way to Japan. Yeh and Tu Ta-pai, another Taiwanese, disguised themselves as patent medicine peddlers and went to see Dr. Sun at a restaurant on what is now Yenping North Road. The secrecy was necessary because the Japanese frowned on any Taiwanese contact with Chinese mainlanders.

Yeh later sold his property and contributed the money to a campaign to raise funds for weapons. He was imprisoned for seven years when the Japanese discovered the plan. Yeh is still a patriot. His only son could have been exempted from military service in order to support him. But he sent the boy to the armed forces. National interest must come before personal comfort, he said.

The Republic of China has millions of people who feel as Yeh and Miss Chao and the others about Dr. Sun Yat-sen's lofty ideal and China's future. Most of them never saw Dr. Sun in person, but teachings, of the Founding Father live in their hearts. Under the leadership of Dr. Sun's successor, Pre­sident Chiang Kai-shek, they face the same great challenges: the liberation of all China from tyranny and the establishment of a modern, prosperous nation under Dr. Sun's Three Principles of the People.