Paper details
Ho Amei, 1838–1901, a fighter for Chinese rights in two colonies: his Australian experience
Within ten years of Ho Amei’s return in 1868 from Melbourne to Hong Kong he was acknowledged in the latter colony as a man of talent, an opinion-maker, a Chinese businessman sufficiently cosmopolitan that he could be invited to dine at an Englishman’s table. His status within the Chinese community was acknowledged when he was appointed Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Board in 1882 by his fellow Hospital Board ‘Directors’ and in 1883 Chairman of the associated social welfare organization, the Po Leung Kuk, both key Chinese institutions in Hong Kong.
On his return from 10 hard years in the Australian colony of Victoria he needed to make his way again. However his earlier experiences in an advanced capitalist economy of the time led him to move beyond the mercantile enterprises and property buying which were key activities of many Hong Kong Chinese businessmen. He launched into marine insurance, mining, munitions buying, investment in telegraph development and other speculative ventures both in Hong Kong and Guangdong province. These ventures challenged western economic supremacy and promoted Chinese modernization and independence. He also spoke out frequently in a provocative manner against the colonial government over injustices that limited the rights and freedom of the Chinese in Hong Kong, such as the longlasting Light and Pass System.
This paper will explore Ho Amei’s years in Australia. Its aim will be to uncover and examine not only his involvement with his older brother, Ho A Low, in the Chinese fight against the extreme racial hostility of the late 1850s but also his apprenticeship as an entrepreneur in a time of mining booms and busts, his experience of the building of a new society with modern economic infrastructure and his interaction with western ways, including family life. In colonial Victoria he was also at times an outspoken fighter for Chinese dignity and rights. The paper further aims to clarify his role in managing the introduction of Chinese diggers into the goldfields of southern New Zealand.
This research provides a prelude to the work of Carl Smith and Elizabeth Sinn on Ho Amei’s activities in Hong Kong and southern China. Its methodology is biographical as was Carl Smith’s unique, exhaustive and invaluable research into the European and Chinese inhabitants of colonial Hong Kong. Although the paper will only consider the life of one individual, Ho Amei, with his many attempts at capitalist ventures, is an early and important example of the significant role of overseas returned Chinese in the bigger picture of the modernization of China. As the British historian, Linda Colley, has demonstrated, the investigation of individual lives can be used to create an understanding of large historical transformations.