Two beautiful plaques inscribed with Yeo Cheow Kaw‘s personal name hang on the wall of Sit Teik Tong in Rangoon. They commemorated Grandfather’s official appointments to the Hokkien provincial government, shortly after China overturned the Qing dynasty’s imperial rule in 1911. It was a time of great chaos in China with many states in the hands of local warlords. The provincial governments were often in dispute with one another, as well as with the two central political powers, one in Beijing led by Yuan Shikai and the other one in Nanjing led by Sun Yatsen. Chinese newspapers from 1912 to 1913 revealed the story behind Grandfather’s short stint in the Chinese government.
Yeo Cheow Kaw was appointed via telegrams to the Board of Industry in the Hokkien province by the Hokkien governor, Sun Daoren. In November 1912, he arrived in Fuzhou, the provincial capital, to find out that the directorship post he was supposed to hold had already been taken up by Li Hui, who had official documents to show his appointment by Nanjing’s central government. Li Hui was soon called to Beijing to meet Yuan Shikai and Grandfather was asked to deputize Li Hui. In his capacity as deputy, Grandfather made a telegram call to overseas Chinese to make trips to China to discuss industrial development and make business proposals. Partly to show leadership to committing to building industries, he also pledged eight million dollars on the construction of a railway from Zhanzhou to Longyan. Before Li Hui returned to resume the directorship, Sun Daoren invited Grandfather to be a senior consultant to his governor’s office. Later, wars broke out between the two major forces and individual provincial governments wavered in taking sides. Eventually, Sun Daoren was removed. Grandfather returned to Rangoon in 1914.
Yeo Cheow Kaw‘s name never appears on wiki websites such as
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/中华民国北京政府时期福建省职官列表
that lists the names of officers in the Hokkien provincial government during the late Qing and early Republic years.
As soon as he arrived in Fujian in 1913, Yeo Cheow Kaw started to build a residential bungalow in Xiayang, probably preparing for a longer period of stay in China with his new governmental appointment. After he returned to Rangoon, he built another residential bungalow in Kokhine in the outskirts of Rangoon. In 1917, his family of thirty-odd members from Xiayang travelled on ships to Rangoon and they moved into the Kokhine bungalow. Immediately after, Grandfather sent his sons to English schools, showing his final choice of permanent residency, in Burma.
Above the main door of the Xiayang bungalow, there was the original plaque bearing the same mention of the official title of Director of the Board of Industry, as appointed by Yuan Shikai. It is in stone and appears more solemn and authentic. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, this stone plaque almost fell into the hands of the redguards who came to Xiayang. They confronted our cousin, Ah Gang, 4th uncle’s eldest son, who lived there. Ah Gang was told to take down the stone. But he was defiant, “No, I won’t take it down. What do you want?”
“Then cover it with red cloth!”
And so, the stoned-honour lives on.73JYN9WE
