During the mid nineteenth century, China was beset by social-economic problems, internal subversions and foreign encroachments. The Qing Emperor's ineptitude, the corrupt government, the heavy taxes, the impairment of sovereignty by foreign aggression, high unemployment, devastating famines and droughts caused the Chinese people to erupt in public furor and mount numerous uprisings against the Manchu government. The Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the twentieth century sparked the mass invasion of China by eight countries, including Britain, America, Germany, France and Russia. It was a period when Western powers were trying to colonize Asia, and Japan too was trying to follow their footsteps.
On October 10, 1911, two years after the death of Empress Dowager Ci Xi, who ruled China for almost 50 years, the United League, founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, organized a major revolt in Wuchang that set off a chain of insurrections throughout the country. The demolition of the Qing Dynasty was fast underway. The Republic of China was proclaimed in Beijing on January 1, 1912. Dr Sun returned to China from the United States and became Provisional President. In order to force Emperor Puyi to abdicate the throne in February 1912, Dr. Sun had to relinquish the post of president to Yuan Shikai, the commander in chief of the Qing military forces. In the national parliamentary election of February 1913, the KMT won a majority of seats. However, Yuan dissolved the KMT and purged its members from parliament. He made himself president for life and later proclaimed himself emperor.
Yuan Shikai's dictatorship and perversity aroused strong opposition from provincial governors around the country. By 1916 many provinces had declared independence and mounted rebellions against him. Yuan's death in June of that year ushered in a warlord era that saw a non-functioning government with political chaos and crisis that would last until 1927.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Japan seized Germany's possessions in Shandong Province and set forth 21 demands asking for China's recognition of its claim to Shandong. On May 4, 1919, a major demonstration by Chinese students against Japan and the government erupted in Beijing. More demonstrations followed in other cities that led to the emergence of the New Cultural Movement - a movement calling for cultural redirection, an end to Confucianism, emancipation of thought, learning from Western experience, and the promotion of science and democracy.
In 1918, Dr. Sun founded the Military Government of the Republic of China in Guangzhou. In 1920, Dr. Sun, under the Kuomintang (KMT, Nationalist Party) was elected President of the Republic. In 1921, Mao Zedong and eleven others founded the Communist Party of China (CCP).
In 1923, Dr. Sun became the commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Government with its headquarters in Guangzhou. Dr. Sun and the KMT cooperated with the CCP even though there were animosities between them. They worked together on a common cause to fight the Japanese who were determined to seize the natural resourcerich Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and North China. With help from the United States and Soviet Union, the KMT and CCP began a campaign for China's national unification. They succeeded in controlling half of the country. Unfortunately for the KMT, Dr. Sun died of cancer in March 1925. Chiang Kai-shek succeeded Dr. Sun as commander in chief of the nationalist army.
Between the years 1928 and 1937, Chiang Kai-shek was determined to eliminate the Communists. Civil war broke out between the KMT and CCP. On July 7, 1937, the Japanese attacked Chinese troops near Beijing. Once again, the KMT and CCP collaborated to fight the Japanese. When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the animosities between the KMT and CCP erupted. The CCP defeated the KMT and Chiang fled to Taiwan in December 1949. Having captured most of Mainland China, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing on October 1, 1949 bringing an end to the warfare that had wrecked China for the previous forty years.
Chinese emigration has been active for centuries. The reasons behind this mass movement varied throughout time. Chinese traders and workers had followed their trade routes to set up settlements in the Nanyang or present-day Southeast Asia. After the opening of the first five treaty ports - Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fizhou, Ningbo and Shanghai - under the Treaty of Nanjing in the 1842 along China's southeast coast, the Chinese especially from south China migrated to the Nanyang in even greater numbers.
In China, the traditional society consisted of four classes, namely scholars, agriculturists, artisans and merchants in order of the Confucian social hierarchy. Our ancestors were mainly agriculturists or peasants and led a tough life in the countryside. One major constraint was the limited amount of farmland. Farming alone could not sustain the subsistence level of the poor peasants who own only a small piece of land. According to our father Chung Chow's recollections, our great-grandfather, Chan Ah Chek, had four sons (Ah Kee, Pak Lam, Thin Yang and Say San) and a daughter (Sai Mooi), and poverty or economic hardship aggravated by overpopulation may have important push for emigration. And new opportunities overseas lured the peasants away.
Nineteenth century Chinese society had also become more geographically mobile. Venturing beyond the village horizon was very much a part of the peasant life. Information flow within the local marketing community and the larger regional system, such as Guangzhou, helped broaden the cultural outlook. The peasant's awareness of the outside world was further enhanced and updated from time to time by the returned emigrants.