I am hoping someone can give me further information on a refugee program organized by Irene HoTung. In about 1940, Madame Chiang Kai Shek sent 500 Mandarin-speaking orphans to Hong Kong before the Chinese communists arrived. The Hong Kong government promised to look after them. Irene Ho Tung took charge of the children's arrangements. They arrived with about 25 Mandarin speaking teachers.
Would anyone know where these children came from? Also, where did they live in Hong Kong and what happened to them? My mother-in-law, since she could speak both Cantonese and Mandarin, was in charge of organizing their education. She doesn't remember what became of them though. Any information would be appreciated.
Orphans sent to Hong Kong
Is this connected at all?
As the war against Japan expanded, Ji Zhiwen took the Bethel co-workers, including Mary Stone and Miss Jennie V. Hughes, along with the seminary students and more than 100 orphans, to Hong Kong. In Kowloon he established a church, an elementary school, and an orphanage. The war had created many homeless orphan children; Ji responded to the call of Song Meiling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) and established orphanages in Hong Kong and Guizhou for these victims of warfare. He later went to America to preach and to promote the needs of orphans, receiving support from American Christian friends, who sponsored more than a thousand orphans as well as providing support for the orphanages opened by Ji. Mrs. Ji returned to Shanghai from Hong Kong, where she rented a three-story building and opened an orphanage on Da Xi Road, obtaining the very effective assistance of Miss Ou Jialing.
Extract from: http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/j/ji-zhiwen.php
Regards, David
Mme Chiang Kai Shek orphanage
This orphanage gets a mention in The Yip Family of Amah Rock by Jill Doggett. In 1941 arrangements were made, in the event of a Japanese invasion, for the Fanling Babies' Home, the BCMS Home and the orphanage sponsored by Madame Chiang Kai Shek to go to the Jockey Club Stables, where 'ample stores of food and blankets were available.'
Fanling Babies were at Fanling, and the BCMS Home at Taipo. I'm just wondering if Madame Chiang Kai Shek's orphanage was also somewhere in the New Territories.
Kweilin reference
I just found this reference to Madame Chiang in the First 25 Years of the BCMS online chronicle page 186 -
'After further adventures, the boy was taken to a war orphanage at Kweilin which was under the auspices of Madame Chiang, and the missionary arrived at Hong Kong on March 14.'
Is this modern day Guilin? The date is around 1940.