Cuiheng Village is the hometown of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who was born, and spent her childhood and youth here. The village was the window through which he first knew society, the soil giving birth to his revolutionary thoughts, and the earliest testing field of his social reform.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s grandfather Sun Jingxian (1789~1850) lived on over 10 mu of inherited ancestral farmland, married a Ms Huang at his 23, and gave birth to three sons – Sun Dacheng, Sun Xuecheng and Sun Guancheng. Sun’s father Sun Dacheng (1813~1888) served as a shoemaker in Macao when he was young, and later married the daughter of Yang Shenghui from Getian Township. They gave birth to six children – Sun Mei, Sun Jinxing (died youth), Sun Dian (died youth), Sun Miaoqian, Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Sun Qiuyi successively.

Sun’s family lived on renting and ploughing 2.6 mu of ancestral land of Suns that was located in the northeast of the village. In his childhood, Sun labored with his second eldest sister Sun Miaoqian, including firewood chopping, weeding and pig manure picking. At that time, he can rarely have shoes to wear and hardly have rice to eat, and often ate sweet potato to stop hunger. When he grew older, he had to transplant rice seedlings, weed, thrash rice, and carry water (from the Jinbinglang Mountain out of the village) with his father. In the slack season, he would catch fish and dig oysters on the sea with his maternal grandfather Yang Shenghui in Getian Township. Since his family could not afford to buy farm cattle, Sun had to graze cattle for several months every year in exchange for borrowing the cattle to plow his family’s land. He later talked to Soong Ching-ling many times that since then, he felt that Chinese farmers should no longer lead such a difficult life, and Chinese children should have shoes to wear and rice to eat. The rural life in his youth allowed his thoughts to develop freely, and formed his independent character and strong physique. Many of his later thoughts were inspired by his difficult rural life in youth at hometown, such as the thought of equalizing land ownership. Japanese friend Torazou Miyazaki once asked him, “Where is your thought of equalizing land ownership from? Theory or practice?” He answered, “I felt this necessity both practically and theoretically based on my childhood experience. If I were not born in a poor rural family, I might have ignored this important issue.”

In Cuiheng Village, there was an old man called Feng Guanshuang who participated in the uprising of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He would tell stories of the kingdom’s leader Hong Xiuquan to kids under the big banyan tree in front of Sun’s house in the evening. He often listened carefully, and was full of worship for Hong Xiuquan, saying, “Why didn’t Hong Xiuquan overturn the Qing dynasty?” When playing games with kids in the village, he often regarded himself as the “second Hong Xiuquan”. When answering Japanese friend Torazou Miyazaki’s question “Where are your thoughts from?” later, he recalled, “My revolutionary thoughts matured in my adulthood, but the original motive came from my talks with old man Feng, a hero of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the past, in my childhood.”

Sun was active and clever child with the rebellious spirit in his childhood, and there are many stories about his childhood in Cuiheng Village. It is said that there was a Tofu Show store in the village, and the storekeeper’s two kids were naughty and elder than Sun, so they often bullied Sun. When Sun could no longer forebear them, he threw a stone on the pot of boiling soybean milk in their store. The kids’ parents did not know the reason at first, but found out what happened after talking to Sun’s parents, and blamed the kids. Sun’s parents compensated for the damaged pot actively which the tofu store lived on, so Sun got the name of “Stone Kid”. When Sun was 10, villagers Yang Qiwen, Yang Qicao and Yang Qihuai who dealt with labor trading in Chaozhou and Shantou were accused of population trafficking in another county. The local county government assigned soldiers to search for them, and every family was terrified and horrified at that time. However, sun was not afraid, and followed the soldiers to see them seal houses. Each time he saw the soldiers closed down a house, he ran back to tell the family.

Since his family was poor, Sun did not begin to study until 9 at the village school which was at Feng’s Ancestral Temple. He studied traditional Confucian classics, such as The Three-character Classic, The Book of Family Names and The Four Books (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Confucian Analects, and The Works of Mencius) and The Five Classics (The Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Book of Rites and The Spring and Autumn Annals). His teacher Mr. Huang (or Wang, as Huang and Wang are sounded same in Cantonese) just asked the students to recite the texts without explaining meanings. Sun could recite texts after several times because he was clever and retentive. Soon after, Sun gradually became confused by this mechanical learning method, thinking, “What’s the use of reading texts without understanding them?” He asked the teacher to explain texts, but the teacher was angry about his offense and punished him with the ruler. However, Sun was not convinced, thinking, “There must be senses in these classics, and I will find them out one day.” Only with mechanical memorization, even retentive students would forget what was learned quickly. Sun also recalled, “I also attempted to recite classics like other students, but forgot more than half several years later.”

His teacher was later replaced by Cheng Junhai from nearby Nanlang Village, also known as Buying, Shoujian, Junhai or Jisheng. He was handsome, clever, knowledgeable and patriotic. Lu Xianhua, who studied together with Sun, recalled that Cheng Junhai paid particular attention to ideological inspiration and moral education in addition to knowledge teaching, and inspired listeners with national thought and national integrity each time when he told in a strong emotion about the history of Manchus invading Central Plains, killing the Han people and executing literary inquisition, and the history of the loss of sovereign rights by the Qing government.”Once Cheng said the first line of a couplet“Tiger or leopard can be found out”and asked the students to answer the second line, and Sun’s answer was“Dragon or snake is hardly to tell”. Therefore, Cheng Junhai taught Sun with particular care because he knew that Sun was unusual. Although these recalls are not entirely reliable, the private school education that Sun received in his childhood laid a preliminary foundation of Chinese classics for him. When he studied at lolani School in Honolulu, his classmate Tang Xiong thought that he was highly proficient in Chinese studies.

Although Cuiheng Village was an ordinary village nearby hills, it was not secluded. According to historical records, when Sun knew that the priest in the neighboring town had a map, he was eager to see it but failed; however, he started to be very interested in history, geography and politics since then. He thought that there was a greater world with many novel things outside China. A letter from his elder brother Sun Mei described how developed and fertile Honolulu was. At this time, Lu Haodong who returned home from Shanghai due to his father’s death became Sun’s classmate, and described the colorful metropolis, which interested Sun greatly, and made him curious about the outside world. Since his younger brother Sun Guancheng died when making a living abroad, Sun’s father Sun Dacheng did not want both sons to adventure abroad. In the summer of 1879, after repeated pleading by Sun, his father finally approved him to sail to his elder brother Sun Mei in Honolulu with his mother, and then Sun received Western education at lolani School and Oahu College in Honolulu. Sun was born in an ordinary farmer family, and his short-term private school education in China (about 2-3 years) had limited feudal influence on him, so he could accept Western thoughts and culture more easily without too much traditional concept burden.

In 1883, Sun returned home by ship from Honolulu. The ship was stopped at HongKong,and later here turned Cuiheng by a sand carrier.On his way, Sun and the other passengers were checked by customs and taxation officers and soldiers of the Qing government in the name of collecting levies and taxes, but actual for soliciting bribes. Sun was very angry. He spoke to the other passengers on board, saying that China must undergo a political reform, because “Our country is controlled by these corrupt officials.How can we just watch and do nothing?”

After returning to Cuiheng Village, Sun often told his experiences to the villagers, advocated the necessity of social reform, and criticized the corrupt Qing government. He said, “What does the county government do? They come to our village once a year to collect the specified money, and then return.”“The government should manage various affairs for people, just like the head of a family.” The villagers also elected Sun to participate in village affairs management. He carried out some reformatory activities using his knowledge learned from the West. At that time, Sun was entirely different from what he had been four years before, as foreign knowledge and his personal experiences had remolded him thoroughly, and he began to connect his own ideals with the nation’s destiny. It is said that Sun often assembled youngsters in the village, telling them the stories of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Washington and Napoleon. Lu Haodong, Yang Xinru, etc. were his companions of the same age. The villagers later called Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Lu Haodong, Yang Xinru and Yang Heling collectively as the “Four Heroes of Cuiheng Village”.

The Beiji Hall in Cuiheng Village is a temple worshiped by villagers. It is said that Sun’s mother was awakened by the Pak Tai God in her dream just before Sun’s birth, so the Pak Tai God was taken as Sun’s nominal father, and Sun was also called “Dixiang”. However, Sun disapproved of the villagers’ worship of this “nominal father”, and often told worshipers that these god statues were made of mud and wood, and had no influence on our reality, so it was useless to worship them. There are still stories about Sun’s objection to superstition and destruction of the god statues at the Beiji Hall in the village today. It is said that the autumn of 1883, Sun, Lu Haodong, Lu Can, etc. destroyed the statues of the Pak Tai God and the golden flower goddess at the Beiji Hall. He told villagers, “As you see, I have broken the Pak Tai God’s fingers and beard, and scratched the golden flower goddess’s face, but they cannot stop me and avoid but still smile to me. If they cannot protect themselves, how can then bless us?” His act was strongly objected by villagers and regarded as a blasphemy that would bring a disaster to the whole village. Finally, this trouble was not solved until Sun’s father Sun Dacheng promised to rebuild the damaged statues and ordered Sun to leave the hometown for Guangzhou. Sun later went to Hong Kong for studies, which became an important turn in his life.

In May 1884, Sun, who was studying at Central School in Hong Kong, returned to the hometown, and married Lu Muzhen, a daughter of overseas Chinese Lu Yaoxian from Waixue Village in the same county (today’s Waisha Village, Jinding Town, Zhuhai) under the presiding of his eldest brother Sun Mei. Sun was named “Deming”according to the pedigree after marriage. On March 24, 1888, Sun’s father Sun Dacheng died of illness in Cuiheng Village, before which Sun Mei had attended on him with Sun for months. Afterwards, Sun studied medicine for years, and all his expenses were borne by Sun Mei.

While studying in Hong Kong, Sun often compared Hong Kong ruled by Britain with his hometown Zhongshan. He later recalled:

When I studied in Hong Kong 30 years ago, I saw that the streets were tidy, the buildings were nice, the businesses and works were going well and better, which left a deep impression in my mind. I returned to Zhongshan twice a year, but the situation there was very backward. Compared with Zhongshan, Hong Kong is in order and stable. I had to act as a police myself to protect me with a self-defense weapon at hand every time when I was in Zhongshan.I often thought that why the two places apart by 50 miles only differed so much.

Sun also used his knowledge and thoughts to make some reform attempts in the hometown. He recalled:

I once persuaded villagers to make minor improvements, such as bridge and road construction, but they said they had no money. I then volunteered to raise funds, but the plan was aborted because road construction involved a land dispute with the neighboring village. Soon I made a request to the county magistrate who expressed his pity and promised to help implement the plan in my next vacation. However, this magistrate was replaced by a new one who bribed and paid 50,000 silver dollars to get the position, so my plan could not be implemented.

When returning home in a vacation, Sun once learned soil quality from old farmers, and planned to plant mulberry trees for the developing silk reeling industry in the Pearl River Delta. In 1890, Sun who was studying at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese wrote to retired official Zheng Zaoru who had once participated in the Westernization Movement, and expected him to support a trial of mulberry farming in the county in an effort to develop agriculture using advanced Western techniques and management methods, set up an opium banning office, and develop school education to train talents for the country, because these three programs would benefit the country greatly. This article was Sun’s earliest work available today. Sun also had contacts with Zheng Guanying of Zhongshan origin, a famous Westernization industrialist and thinker whose hometown Yongmo Village was just over 10 kilometers away from Cuiheng Village. It is said that the chapter on Chinese agricultural forum in Zheng Guanying’s famous work Warnings in the Blooming Age completed in 1892 was written by Sun.

In early 1892, Sun designed and supervised a two-storied masonry timber building with three bays with the fund remitted from his eldest brother Sun Mei from Honolulu, namely Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s former residence today. Sun graduated from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in the same year, and practiced medicine in Macao, Guangzhou and Shiqi successively. During this period, he often lived in Cuiheng, and treated nearby villagers at home. When villager Lu Tansheng’s wife had a difficult labor and his whole family can help nothing, Sun was invited to solve the problem, but his auntie obstructed him because a man should not deliver a child for a woman due to the stubborn traditional concept that it would bring “bad luck” to the man at that time. However, Sun did not mind, and solved the problem successfully. Sun often discussed current politics with Lu Haodong, etc. at his study overnight. One day, he tested the explosive made by him with Lu Haodong at the west gate of the village, about 30 meters away from his house. There is still a crack in the stone plaque of the Changgeng Gate, which is said to be created during the test.

After graduation from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, Sun opened pharmacies in Macao, Guangzhou and Shiqi, and shifted gradually from treating the people to treating the country, where he practiced medicine for one or two hours, and dealt with revolutionary activities for 7-8 hours a day. In early 1894, Dr. Sun Yat-sen drafted the Letter to Li Hongzhang (a high-rank official leading the Westernization Movement) with over 8,000 words of his political opinions and advises at his study in Cuiheng Village. In this letter, he pointed out that it was wrong to simply pursue advanced weapons, and the Western counties were powerful not only because they had advanced weapons, but also because they could make the best use of talents, land, resources, and transporting of goods. He thought that as long as China could realize these goals, China would certainly surpass Europe in about two decades. This letter was a plan to modernize China by learning from the West in education, agriculture, industry, mining, transport, etc., and Sun hoped to enter the upper class and realize his ambition with this letter. Unfortunately, this attempt of peaceful reform finally failed. He came to realize that such reform could not be realized in a peaceful way, and gradually resorted to violence toward the path of overthrow the Qing government.

In October 1895 when the Guangzhou Uprising failed without being started, Sun and his revolutionary companions escaped abroad, but Lu Haodong was arrested and sacrificed for returning to destroy the list of party members. This message shocked the whole village, and the villagers did not understand why this young man was desperate for the revolution. Village Head Lu Xingfu was upset, and said angry that these young men were mad, and would kill the whole village. He also worried that the Qing government might hold him accountable. Overseas Chinese Lu Can who returned from Honolulu for marriage and Lu Xingfu deployed armed villagers around the village as directed by his granduncle and a country gentleman in Tangjia Village to protect villagers from being arrested or slaughtered. When the soldiers arrived, they entertained them generously, detoured them for search, and gave them rich remuneration for distances traveled. In fact, as recalled by Lu Can, these soldiers had no intention to perform this task seriously, and left peacefully after taking the remuneration.They left uneventfully after the village head took them to the Sun’s house where they searched nothing.

Sun’s relatives had been sent to Hong Kong before the Guangzhou Uprising, and later arrived at Sun Mei’s pasture on the Maui Island in Honolulu with the assistance of Lu Can, while his house in Cuiheng Village was taken care of by Sun Xuecheng’s wife Cheng. For more than a decade thereafter, Sun was wanted by the Qing government, and could not return to Cuiheng Village. In October 1910, an article was published on local newspaper Zhongshan Ten-day (Issue 76), stating that consul Liang Guoying in Honolulu sent an official letter to the county,and alleging that Dr. Sun Yat-sen advocated the revolution and published a revolutionary newspaper in Honolulu, and supplied munitions to revolutionists together with Lin Yun, Liang Hai, Liang Yu and Liang Chang from Shiqi Village, Tan Liang and Tan Kui from Yakou Village, and Xu Fa from Pansha Village; Sun’s elder brother Sun Mei went to Kowloon to receive and transport munitions from abroad and gather bandits using his stock breeding business as a cover; they should be arrested secretly whenever they returned.

Sun did not return to his hometown Cuiheng Village until May 27, 1912 when he had resigned from the office of Provisional President, 16 years from his last return. On that night, Sun entertained villagers aged above 60 years in Cuiheng Village and neighboring Jiubao Village in the open space in front of his house, including women, because he advocated equal rights for men and women, while only men could attend such banquets in the past. At the banquet, Sun gave a speech on a table, thanking the fellow villagers for supporting his revolution, and consoling those who suffered the harassment and suppression from the Qing government. On the following day, Sun attended a welcome meeting by local villagers at the ancestral temple in Nanlang Village, and gave a speech. At the meeting, a villager representative read a welcome speech, in which Lin Xihan said:

We are highly encouraged by the arrival of former president Dr. Sun, and highly admire his unusual achievements in transforming the country and benefiting the people.

The welcome speech expressed the villagers’ worship for Sun, and reflected that the democratic and republic thoughts had gone deep into people’s hearts after the foundation of Republican China. Sun then met his relatives at the Suns’ Ancestral template in Nanlang Village with his family, gave a speech at the Renshan Square in the county town, and held a talk with people of different communities.

This was Sun’s last return to his hometown in his life, because he was busy with the revolution later, and traffic was inconvenient then. However, Sun often funded local public welfare programs, and poor relatives and friends. In 1919, Sun wrote to his first wife Lu Muzhen and remitted over 3,000 silver dollars andover3,000 Hong Kong dollars, asking her to donate the money to education in the village school and those in need. On June 20, 1921, an article Education of Cuiheng Village issued by Zhongshan Voice reported that all funds of Peizheng School in Cuiheng Village had been donated by President Sun since 1919. In 1921, when Sun served as Extraordinary President in Guangzhou, villagers Lu Xiansha and Yang Canwen went to Guangzhou, requesting him to appropriate government funds to construct school buildings in their hometown. Sun received them warmly, and expected everyone to donate to the school because “the Qing government was overturned by all of our people.Better education needs funds and effort from each of you.” Sun also sent them the inscription“Going Beyond” as an encouragement, which has been hung at the Yang Yangxian Shrine ever since.

Sun later still expected to return home. In the summer and autumn of 1917, Sun wrote to his first wife Lu Muzhen, saying, “I still have many things to do, and cannot return home yet. Please ask uncle Ding Cai to meet me, and I will entrust him to repair village houses and handle village affairs. I will return home in person when I finish my tasks.” On July 4, 1918, Sun also mentioned in a letter to his son Sun Fo that he would be back at the right time to fulfil his years of desire of returning home.