Play the Baohuanghui Guessing Game--Unidentified Chapters

The Baohuanghui had at least 150 chapters, but we are still identifying where they were located. Here are  names of chapters in towns found in Baohuanghui documents that we can't identify by their geographical names. Remember that these would be pronounced in Cantonese.   Those in blue have been identified since we first posted this list.

The basis of this list (#1-48 below) is a 1908 document  naming 94 chapters that made donations for a Baohuanghui headquarters building. It is found in 《捐建帝国宪政总会所买地征信录》published in Kang Youwei yu Baohuanghui (pp. 529-537) . Thanks to Gao Weinong for pointing us to this list. We have added other unidentified chapters as we have found them. These chapters could be in the Americas, Asia, Australia (although we believe have fully identified Australian chapters), or even Africa. We don't believe there were chapters in Europe.

For already identified chapters, see the document  Mapping the Baohuanghui.  As chapters are idenfied, they are added. Especially useful have been the 1901 and 1913 International Chinese Directories, thanks to Philip Choy.

Appended to this list are many Canadian chapters whose place names are still unknown, thanks to the research of Zhongping Chen, University of Victoria.

Please leave your best guesses in the Comments field.

1. 墨属亚林务士埠 ALAMOS, SONORA, MEXICO [see 1913 International Chinese Directory p. 63-4 for Alamas/Hermosillo]
2. 墨属磨诗耀埠 HERMOSILLO, SONORA, MEXICO
3. 表舌地埠 BUTTE, MONTANA, US
4. 道禧埠
5. 意史伦敦埠 [East London or New London, Connecticut, US?  New London society is mentioned in Hartford Courant about BHH member funeral in Hartford, CT, 10-9-1905] ]
6. 呍地碧埠 [Winnipeg, Canada?]
7. 三宝垅埠 SEMERANG, JAVA, INDONESIA
8. 钵厘士卜埠 [Plattsburgh, New York, US?]
9. 咭厘亚根埠
10. 立定士顿埠 [Lewiston, Idaho, US?]
11. 坎文顿埠 [Hamilton or Hampton, Ontario, Hammond, BC, or Edmunton, Alberta, Canada?]
12. 碧架舌地埠 BAKER CITY, OREGON, US
13. 布路非埠 [Bluefield, West Virginia, US or Bluefield, Nicaragua--1913 Directory, p. 46?]
14. 山巴罢埠 SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA, [山地把罷, Santa Barbara, 1946 "Handbook of Chinese in America"]
15. 打罅市埠 DALLAS, OREGON, US
16. 那柯连埠 [New Orleans, Louisiana, US?]
17. 哈巴埠 HAVRE, MONTANA, US [1913 Directory, p. 57]
18. 谏拿呢埠 [Guanani, Venezuela?]
19. 柏失地埠  PARK CITY, UTAH
20. 火打慎火伴埠 [Fort Simpson, Northwest Terriorites, Canada?]
21. 路士卜埠 [Lordsburg, New Mexico, US?-1913 Directory, p. 58]
22. 乾连仑埠
23. 比呖珠创埠
24. 粒巴埠 [Napa, California, US?--1913 Directory, p. 52]
25. 敬士失地埠 [Kansas City, Missouri, US?]
26. 加李士跛埠 KALISPELL, MONTANA, US--1913 Directory, p. 57
27. 吸呛埠 [Capetown, South Africa?]
28. 红毛埠
29. 梳呖埠 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, US
30. 波士顿埠 BOSTON
31. 因陈卢卜埠 [Indianapolis?]
32. 火品顿埠
33. 姐仑埠
34. 千二米埠
35. 禄市仓埠
36. 保士顿埠 [Boston, MA, or Billings or Bozeman, Montana, US?]
37. 散岛埠 SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR [see Fang Zhiqin 2008, p 293]
38. 典地港打埠 ANACONDA, MONTANA, US [1913 Directory, p. 57]
39. 火士娣埠 [Fort Steele, BC?--but see Canadian list below]
40. 美所罅埠 [Missoula, Montana, US?--1913 Directory, p. 57]
41. 卜忌斜拿埠 [Pocatello, Idaho, US or Bocas Del Toro, Panama?]
42. 新味埠
43. 威麻埠
44. 加榄罢市埠 [Kalama, WA?]
45. 闲拿尼埠
46. 姐咕埠
47. 新进埠
48. 山寸埠
49. 雪地美慎 [1904, Kang Tongbi Invited to speak here by Hartford chapter]
50. 蠢梧 [in New Jersey?]
51. 布滿
52. 新村 in 戚市 state [may be near New Orleans]
53. 加利委市噸 [Kalispell? See 加李士跛埠]
54. 汕嘩囉 [may be San Salvador, or nearby]
55. 啡路底吪 or 水路爹吪 [established after Xu Qin visited; Springfield, MA, or Silver City, Idaho?]
56. 叨蒙
57. 升譜埠 [Eastern US?]
58. 埃士拿 [Oxnard, CA?]

UNIDENTIFIED CANADIAN CHAPTERS [some have been tentatively added to "Mapping the Baohuanghui"]

1.    火市姊 [Fort Steele, BC?]
2.    亚极士 [Agassiz, BC?]
3.   利地吻 [Ladysmith,Kitamat, or Lilloet, BC?]
4.  啡叻板偈 [Fraser Sawmill, BC?]      
5.   火委啉 [Falkland or Fort Valley, BC?]
6.   那市边 [Nass Bay or Nakusp, BC?]
7.  乾粦蔚 [Quesnel or Chilliwack, BC?]
8.   市姊厂 [Steveston, BC?]
9.  章臣 [Johnson, Ontario or Johnsons Landing, BC?]              
10.   茄市隙 [Cache Creek, Cash Creek or Chase Creek, BC?]
11.  锦补碌  CRANBROOK, BC     
12.  葛汝 [Courtenay or Keremeos, BC?]              
13.  亚市给 ASHCROFT, BC
14.  几粦蔚 [Greenwood or Glenwood, BC?]
15.  纲龙架 [Malakwa or Castlegar, BC?]
16.  老埃仑 [Long Island, BC?]
17.  把归  [Burgoyne Bay or Barkerville, BC?]             
18. 申汝 [Sidney or Surrey, BC?]
19.  襟补碌 [same as #11]

The Baohuanghui on Mott Street, New York City Chinatown

7-9 Mott St. ca 1905, Detroit Publishing Col, BHH on 4th floor

New York City was a Baohuanghui stronghold from the early days of the organization in the United .States.  Mott Street buildings would eventually house the chapter headquarters, its newspaper, an armory, and a school.  Although it's not clear when the chapter was founded, the New York Tribune of July 17, 1900 gives some evidence that the local association had formed as early as 1899 (most likely after the San Francisco chapter was organized on October 26).  In the Tribune article about rumors of a pro-Boxer secret society forming in New York:

CINARC Analyzes Artifacts in Victoria's CERA Building

This May after the WCILCOS conference, several of us ferried from Vancouver, BC to Victoria for a brief but thrilling visit to the first building of the Chinese Empire Reform Association, the guests of Ian and Wendy Sutherland, owners of this beautifully restored building. 

Examining the time capsule. 

Baohuanghui historians Robert Worden and his wife Norma Chue, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, and Jane Leung Larson were fortunate to be joined by Ben Bronson and Chuimei Ho of the Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee (CINARC).  Ben and Chuimei's  report on items found in the building's time capsule and the large donor plaque (with identities of the largest donors, including Kang Youwei) can be found at New Finds at the Empire Reform Association Headquarters .

 

New Finds at the Empire Reform Association's Headquarters

MAPPING THE BAOHUANGHUI

Mapping the Baohuanghui has been updated with many new additional chapters added thanks. This remains a preliminary table of known locations of Baohuanghui chapters, organized geographically with original organizational divisions if these are known. The goal is to create a chart of cities with associated businesses, schools, and newspapers; dates of existence; and local leaders, in both Chinese and English. Please leave a comment with corrections and additions.  Also see "Play the Baohuanghui Guessing Game" for chapters whose Chinese names we haven't been able to link with actual towns or cities.

AAS Panel: A Chinese Reformer in Exile: Kang Youwei and the Baohuanghui as Transnational Chinese History

March 16, 2012:  from left:  John Fitzgerald, Belinda Huang, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Zhongping Chen, Robert Worden, and Jane Leung Larson (chair)

 Perspectives
John Fitzgerald

How does one write a transnational Chinese history of Kang Youwei’s years in exile and the reform movement he led while abroad?  After reading our papers about Kang Youwei in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the Australian Sinologist John Fitzgerald pictured “historiographical continents colliding,” grinding together Chinese history, North American history, with Chinese diasporic studies in the middle.  He proposed a world historical perspective that took into account the movements of people, the hardening of state boundaries (as expressed, for example, in the Chinese Exclusion Policy in the U.S.), and increasing nationalism on all sides, alongside shared visions on both sides of the Pacific of a future one-world utopia—Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, which influenced Kang Youwei’s Datong Shu. 

Fitzgerald speculated that Kang was perhaps the best-traveled writer of his time with the highest access to power. In North America alone, he visited 50 cities and towns in the U.S. and 10 in Canada, and spent many months living and traveling in Mexico.  Traveling around the world, Kang had “ready entrée into elite society, not just Chinese communities.  Mayors, Governors, Governors General, the U.S. President, the Secretary of State, even the King of Sweden drops by for a cup of tea!”

Victoria's Treasure: The First Chinese Empire Association

February 2012, 1715 Government St.

The Baohuanghui was formally inaugurated by Kang Youwei in Victoria, British Columbia, on July 20, 1899.  Although its first home was probably on the third floor of founding member Li Fuji's Guangwanfeng store in Victoria's Chinatown, the birthplace of the international organization is most often given as the building pictured to the left, built in 1905 at 1715 Government St., also in Victoria's Chinatown.  

Archival photo, BC Archives

This February, the building's restoration was completed in time for Chinese New Year by the owner, Ian Sutherland, who has done a remarkable job in bringing to light and reconstructing historical artifacts.  Sutherland has consulted with Zhongping Chen and Jane Leung Larson, among many others, in his research on this building. The Edwardian-style building is in a National Historic District.

On the right is an historic photograph of the building from the BC Archives. You can plainly read the words "The First Chinese Empire Reform Assn." and "1905" and on the parapet see an elaborate emblem.  The image is faint, but during the restoration process found a time capsule that included an envelope fragment with a drawing that appeared close in design to the emblem on the building.  Sutherland used this to create a new image.  The Qing dragon flag is crossed with the Baohuanghui flag, which in this version has two red stripes flanking a blue stripe with three white stars.  C.E.R.A. and 保皇會 are written on the red stripes.

Evans Chan's Docu-Drama on Kang Youwei: Datong: The Great Society

Those interested in Kang Youwei and the Baohuanghui will want to see the new film by Evans Chan (陳耀成), Datong: The Great Society [Chinese title 大同：康有為在瑞典].  The DVD version is not yet released, but the film was shown in Hong Kong in December 2011 and will be in Taiwan in April. Baohuanghui Scholarship will post showings in the United States.

Datong's unusual form blends dramatic interludes with Kang (Liu Kai Chi), his second daughter Kang Tongbi (Lindzay Chan), and his most important disciple, Liang Qichao (Ben Yeung) and comments by scholars Marianne Bastid-Bruguière, Kai-wing Chow, Arif Dirlik, Ho-fung Hung, Jane Leung Larson, and Göran Malmqvist. It is narrated by actress, dancer and choreographer Chiang Ching. The film is based on Chan's extensive textural and archival research, as well as consultation with many China historians. 

Announcement of Book Project to Update Worden Dissertation on Kang and the Baohuanghui in North America

With Robert L. Worden's enthusiastic endorsement, Jane Leung Larson of Baohuanghui Scholarship has brought together a group of scholars from the U.S., Canada, and China to update and publish Worden's groundbreaking 1972 Georgetown University dissertation on Kang's travels in North America and the Baohuanghui, “A Chinese Reformer in Exile:  The North American Phase of the Travels of K’ang Yu-wei, 1899-1909.”  We believe our book will further illuminate Kang's travels and organizational activities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico and explore new interpretations of Kang and the Baohuanghui by Western and Chinese scholars.

Joining Larson and Worden in this book project will be:  Zhongping Chen, University of Victoria; Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University; and Chen Xuezhang, independent scholar, Guangzhou, China.

We are also proud to announce that members of our team will be presenting panels at both the Association of Asian Studies annual conference in Toronto, March 15-18 and the  International Conference of Institutes and Libraries for Chinese Overseas Studies in Vancouver, BC, May 16-19.

The AAS panel, A Chinese Reformer in Exile: Kang Youwei and the Baohuanghui as Transnational Chinese History, is described here:  A Chinese Reformer in Exile: Kang Youwei and the Baohuanghui as Transnational Chinese History..  Our discussant will be John Fitzgerald, Ford Foundation Representative in Beijing.