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Comment by tony | Hacker News Reader

Random: Did you know Guangzhou (Canton) was briefly capital of China back in the day? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912%E2%80%...

There's an important political figure in the history of modern China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen

He studied medicine in HK. He lived in Hawaii for a time [1]. He had a political philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Principles_of_the_People

To my surprise I found Sun Yat-sen is still revered in China. He was Cantonese, like many of HK people. He has a University in GZ named after him!

If you would like to learn more about history of China this professor is fantastic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Baum, in particular, The Fall and Rise of China The Teaching Company, 2010 is really good. It's on audible.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20131016060255/http://media.nara...

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Extra History did a series of 5 10-minute videos about Sun Yat-sen:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5AsEQ8iuHDn...

Nice!

Why is it surprising? Cantonese is one of the largest subgroups of "han".

Not that, but him still being considered a national hero despite his having a different political philosophy.

> To my surprise I found Sun Yat-sen is still revered in China.

He was one of the most important figures that helped to end the Qing Dynasty. Of course he's revered by communists.

But Sun Yat-Sen is the founder of Kuomintang, an adversary to the communist party. He's revered in TW too.

Doesn't that imply legitimacy to the three principles?

He also received aid from the Soviet Union and formed an alliance. The CCP allows downplaying of Kuomintang, and he's not realy that revered in China, often described as extremely corrput and incompetent.

The two parties weren’t antagonistic until after Sun’s death, Sun was an avid socialist even if Chiang Kai Shek wasn’t.

Sun Yat-sen is the father of the Republic. A revolutionary in his own right.

He has a huge mausoleum in Nanjing.

His portrait used to be where Mao's is now on Tiananmen. And his portrait is still displayed in Taiwan's parliament (the Republic of China's parliament).

It certainly helped his official standing in mainland China that he died in 1925, i.e. only soon after the Communist Party was founded and before the bulk of the civil war.

> He was Cantonese

What does that even mean? He's a dialect? Sun Yat-sen is widely regarded as the founding father of modern China(as apposed to Qing dynasty). This is beyond political differences. That's why he's highly regarded on both sides. And believe or not, Kuomintang started out as a left wing party as well. They received tons of aids from Soviet Union when they were initially founded.

Cantonese isn't just a language, it can also mean "people from Canton province"

People who have roots in the province of Guangdong (previously Canton) refer to themselves as Cantonese. A fair amount of people in HK identify both as Hongkongers and Cantonese.

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