C. Y. Wang (王寵佑)

Kicking it old-school again today! I have a government-funded student to profile today who came to the US 8 years before the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship was founded. In fact, he entered the United States not long after the Boxer Rebellion itself ended! Today’s student is C. Y. Wang (王寵佑, pinyin Wáng ChǒngYòu; courtesy name 佐臣, pinyin Zuǒ Chén) who was one of the first Chinese students to attend the University of California.

Miss Antoinette Yut Yan Soo Hoo (司徒月蘭 )

Let’s return to the Soo Hoo family for a bit! So far in this blog I have profiled Nam Art Soo Hoo, the patriarch of the Soo Hoo clan, his oldest son Peter, his oldest daughter Clara, his son Andrew, his daughter Lily, and his two children who died young, Pauline and Lincoln. Impressively, this represents only half of his 11 children, with 5 more children with distinguished careers left to profile. So today we will continue with the family by profiling Miss Antoinette Yut Yan Soo Hoo (司徒月蘭, pinyin Sītú Yuèlán, Cantonese Jyutping Si1tou4 Jyut6laan4).

William Zu Liang Sung (沈嗣良)

Returning tangentially to the Soo Hoo family, I thought I’d dedicate a blog post to Lily Soo Hoo’s husband: William Z. L. Sung (沈嗣良, pinyin Shěn SìLiáng, Cantonese Jyutping Cam4/Sam2 Zi6Loeng4), a Chinese student who studied at Oberlin and Columbia and worked for St. John’s University in Shanghai.

Pauline Soo-Hoo (司徒月桂) and Lincoln Soo-Hoo

While most of Nam Art Soo-Hoo‘s 11 children were wildly successful and prosperous in their adult lives, there were a few exceptions. I’ve posted about Andrew Soo-Hoo, the son who accidentally killed his father during an argument/fight, and never seemed to recover from that horror. But two others of the Soo-hoo family never realized their full adult potential: second-oldest daughter Pauline Soo-Hoo and third-oldest son Lincoln Soo-Hoo, because they both died before their respective 30th birthdays.

Miss Clara Soo-hoo (司徒如坤)

I’ve made an executive decision on the next Soo-hoo child and decided to treat Clara as the oldest daughter. This is because Clara’s younger sister does so in her memoirs, calling her “1st daughter” (Sung, 291, cited in Chinese Historical Society). However, Western records suggest her sister Paulina may have been older than her, and there are even references to her sister Nettie being born only three months after her. The explanation for this discrepancy is most likely incomplete records – Paulina’s birth year has been guessed at from her school records – as well as variations in translation from Asian systems of measuring age to Western ones. Since I don’t know the original Asian-system birth dates for anyone, I’ll take a family memoir as being the truth on birth order: first Clara, then Paulina, then Nettie, and so will post about Clara first, followed by Nettie (Paulina I will save for later).

Nam Art Soo-hoo (司徒)

It’s been a bit since the Chan family, so I thought I’d tackle another large family of Chinese Christians. Again, like in my post about the Chan family, I’ll start with the patriarch, who had no university schooling in the United States. However, unlike Rev. S. K. Chan, he did feel very strongly the importance of education for both himself and his children.