User:Frostly/Drafts/Lam Chi-fung

zh:林子豐 (link for easier navigation)

TODO DYK ideas
 * Convert references to "proper" references and sfn
 * Make sure that everything is actually translated
 * In the infobox, add the "children" parameter
 * Add language templates, e.g. lang and lang-zh
 * Final copy edit
 * Standarize Ka Wah Bank or K. Wah Bank
 * Change Lam Chi-fung to Lam in sections
 * Principal to headmaster
 * Move to mainspace
 * Add fair use image in infobox
 * That Lam Chi-fung originally aspired to become a doctor after graduating secondary school, but later studied foreign languages and commerce?

Lam Chi-fung, OBE (6 November 1892 – April 17,1971) was a banker, Baptist educator and philanthropist from Hong Kong. Lam founded Ka Wah Bank in 1922. He was the first headmaster of the Hong Kong Baptist University from 1956 to 1971, headmaster of the Hong Kong Pui Ching Secondary School from 1950 to 1965, chairman of the Hong Kong Baptist Association from 1941 to 1971 and the chairman of the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1971.

Born into a Christian family in Jieyang County, Guangdong, Lam went to Hong Kong in his early years to trade rice and later acted as an agent for the import of anthracite from Vietnam; in 1922, he founded Ka Wah Bank in Guangzhou, which later moved its headquarters to Hong Kong in 1924. Ka Wah Bank had a strong presence in the 1920s and 1930s, but its business was later curtailed by the political instability in mainland China and came to a halt after the Fall of Hong Kong in 1941. After the war, Lam reorganized Ka Wah Bank and remained chairman of the bank until his death in 1971.

Early life
Lam was born on 6 November 1892 in Jinkeng, Jieyang County, Shantou, Guangdong. His father, Lin Shaoxuan, taught in rural areas and later became a Baptist pastor. Growing up in a Christian family, Lam became a Christian at the age of 14. He attended the Baptist Jieyang Truth Secondary School in his early years and later transferred to Shantou Boulder Secondary School. After graduating from secondary school, he aspired to become a doctor and went to Beijing in 1911 to study medicine at the Peking Union Medical College, but soon went to Xiamen to attend Tongwen College to study foreign languages and commerce. After completing his studies, Lam planned to study abroad but eventually chose to return to his hometown.

Banking and business career
In 1916, Lam was hired by his uncle to join a rice making company in Chaoshan as an English speaking secretary. He was later transferred to Hong Kong to expand local markets and got promoted to a manager soon afterwards. Later, Lam created another company mainly to import anthracite. In 1926 Lam founded Zhongyi Steamships and expanded to Macau, Guangzhou and Zhanjiang. Henry Fok’s mother was hired by Lam as a transporter of coal near that time.

After Lam's commerce business stabilised, he noticed an opportunity in expanding the banking industry locally, so, on 2 February 1922, he founded Ka Wah Bank or what is now known as CITIC Bank International. In 1924，Lam moved the head office of Ka Wah Bank to Des Voeux Road in Central, Hong Kong, with a capital of HK$500,000. By 1931, he opened a branch of the bank in Shanghai, and the share capital of the bank increased HK$1,000,000. However, because of economic instability caused by political turmoil and Japan's invasion of China, Lam was forced to close the branches in Shanghai and Guangzhou in 1935. Lam was elected as the chairman of the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce from 1937 to 1939. Because of the influence generated by trading with Vietnam through the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce, Lam helped facilitate the "Sino-French Vietnam Business Treaty " in 1935. Things worsen for Lam in 1939 because of the start of World War II, his banking business was significantly impacted. In December 1941, because of the Pacific War, and the subsequent Fall of Hong Kong, the banked ceased operating until the liberation of Hong Kong in 1945. Ka Wah Bank resumed operations in Hong Kong and was subsequently renamed Ka Wah Bank Limited in January 1949.

After the war, Lam continued to act as the chairman of Ka Wah bank. The bank continued to steadily develop after the war. At the same time, he founded two factories in 1947, one of them mainly manufacturing flashlights, he became the chairman of both companies. In the early 1950s, Lam started changing his focus from his business to church and education, he gradually passed the family business down to his sons to manage. Despite this, he remained as the chairman of Ka Wah bank, and the 2 other companies previously mentioned until his death. After his death, Ka Wah Bank was neglected by the descendants of Lam, a majority of the ownership was given to an American financial group, later in 1974, the ownership changed hands to Liu Can Song a Singaporean businessman. In 1986, the financially endangered Ka Wah Bank received the help of CITIC Group and became CITIC Ka Wah Bank in 1998. In 2002, CITIC Ka Wah Bank, under the direction of the CITIC Group acquired Hongkong Chinese Bank. The same year, CITIC Ka Wah Bank changed its name to CITIC Bank International, and the acquired Hongkong Chinese Bank changed its name to CITIC Ka Wah Bank Limited, from then, Lam's family fully left the Ka Wah Bank business. In May 2010, CITIC Ka Wah Bank Limited changed its name to CITIC Bank International, fully removing the "Ka Wah Bank" name.

Philanthropy
Lam was Christian, he was a follower of the Hong Kong Baptist Church from a young age, and he later lead the church's financing and preaching departments. In 1938, Lam and his family moved from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon City. In the following year, he participated in the construction of the Kowloon City Baptist Church, he and his wife were the first few deacons of the church, and he was the Chairman of the Deacon Board until his death. Lam and his wife donated HK$120,000 thousand to support the construction of a new church in Kowloon City in 1962. He also participated in the construction of a church in Po Kong Tsuen and was elected to be a Chairman of a committee in the church, the church was built for Christians coming from Chaozhou, it was later renamed to Kowloon City Chiu Chow Baptist Church. In March of the same year, the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong was formed and Lam was invited to be one of the executive committee members to take charge of the war relief work. In addition, Lam was a member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese YMCA from 1930 to 1932, and later served as President of the Chinese YMCA from 1933 to 1934 and from 1939 to 1956, and was also the Chairman of the Hong Kong side of the Guangdong-Hong Kong Chinese YMCA Military Service Corps in 1938, and was also the General Secretary of the YMCA for a time in 1947. After stepping down as President of the Chinese YMCA in 1956, he was invited to serve again as Honorary President until 1959.

In 1935, he contributed to the construction of a canal in his hometown of Jieyang County. In 1940, in response to a call from the Nationalist Government, the church raised over 2 million French francs for the National Salvation Bonds in Hong Kong and Macau, and was awarded a plaque by the Nationalist Government in the same year as a token of appreciation for its "loyalty and righteousness". In January 1950, a fire broke out in Tung Tau Village in Kowloon City, destroying 6,000 wooden houses and leaving 20,000 people homeless. As the Hong Kong Government did not have a comprehensive public housing policy at the time, Lam joined the Hong Kong and Kowloon Joint Committee for the Relief of the Kowloon City Fire Victims and donated HK$1,000 to help the victims. During this period, he made several radio appeals for donations for disaster relief work in his capacity as President of the Chinese YMCA and later served as the Vice Chairman of the Kowloon City Fire Construction Committee, participating in its Construction Subcommittee and eventually setting up the "Pok Oi Village" at its original location to rehouse the victims.

He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Guangzhou Baptist Pui Ching Secondary School in the 1930s, and in 1933 he helped the school to secure land in Ho Man Tin, Hong Kong, for the construction of the Hong Kong Pui Ching Primary School, which later had an expansion in 1935 for to provide secondary school level education. After the fall of Hong Kong]] in 1941, Lam relocated to neutral Macau to escape Japanese rule. Although he was forced to pause many of his business ventures, he continued his church and school work, and in 1944 he agreed to be the headmaster of both Pui Ching Secondary School in Macau and Pooi To Girls' Middle School in Guangzhou, which had been temporarily moved to Macau. After the war, Lam returned to Hong Kong to reorganise the Baptist Church's educational activities. He was made the headmaster, manager and superintendent of Pooi To Middle School and helped secure land from the Hong Kong Government for the construction of a school building. In 1950, he was further invited to take up the voluntary post of headmaster of the Hong Kong Pui Ching Secondary School. During his tenure, he successfully persuaded the Secretary for Education, Douglas James Smyth Crozier, to grant a large piece of land adjacent to the original school building for expansion, and when the new Block E was opened in 1953, the then Governor of Hong Kong, Alexander Grantham, was invited to officiate at the key-opening ceremony. During his 15-year tenure as headmaster of Pui Ching Middle School in Hong Kong, and as superintendent from 1958 to 1959, the school received many donations from various sectors and developed significantly. After stepping down from the post in 1965, he was invited to serve as Superintendent of Pui Ching Secondary School in Hong Kong for one year until 1966, and as Superintendent of Pui Ching Secondary School in Macau from 1963 to 1970. In addition, Lam was also a member of the Board of Trustees of Minsheng College in Kowloon City from 1926 and became the Chancellor and Chairman of the School Council from May 1955.

His interest in education led him to be invited to serve as Vice-President of the Chinese Language Society of the University of Hong Kong in 1951, to be elected the first Chinese President of the Hong Kong Teachers' Association in 1952, and to be appointed a member of the Hong Kong Government's Education Committee in 1954. In 1951, Lam was appointed to the Advisory Committee on Higher Education in Hong Kong to review the development of higher education in Hong Kong, which led to the publication of the Jarswick Report in 1952. Although the report concluded that Hong Kong needed only one University of Hong Kong, it welcomed the establishment of more post-secondary institutions, laying the groundwork for Lam Chi-fung's future proposal to establish a Baptist post-secondary institution. In 1955, with the call to promote the Baptist spirit of schooling, Lam proposed to the Baptist Union the establishment of a Baptist College, and he was one of the members of the Preparatory Committee of the Hong Kong Baptist College. After the official establishment of Baptist College on 5 March 1956, he served as its headmaster until he died in 1971. In 1959, Sir Robert Black, the Governor of Hong Kong, agreed to grant a site at Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, as a permanent site for the school. To provide a venue for the College to hold ceremonies, Lam Chi-fung donated HK$500,000 to build a college hall for his wife's golden wedding anniversary in 1970, but the hall was not completed until May 1978, seven years after his death.

In 1950, a seminary that was built by the church was forced to close due to political reasons, he supported the church's opening of a seminary in Hong Kong to replace the closed seminary, he was the president of the preparatory committee for the Seminary. When the seminary, now named Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary, was officially established in 1951, he took the roles of the chairman of the board and the president of the seminary department. The seminary was originally established in Kowloon Walled City, but was moved in 1959 to Ho Man Tin mountain path and moved again in 1999 to the north of Sai Kung District, Xi Ao. In 1952, the Baptist Association advocated the establishment of a Baptist clinic to serve the public and elected Dr. Lam Sze On, the sixth son of Lam Chi-fung, as the Chairman of the Organizing Committee. In 1959, the Hong Kong Government further agreed to build a Hong Kong Baptist Hospital adjacent to the proposed Baptist College premises in Waterloo Road at the urging of Lam Chi-fung.

As a leading figure in the Hong Kong Baptist Church, Lam Chi-fung is an important bridge between Hong Kong and the American and other overseas Baptist churches. After the war, he was an enthusiastic participant in the work of the World Baptist Federation. In 1955, he attended the 9th World Baptist Congress in London, England, for the first time as a representative of Hong Kong, and was elected Vice-President of the Congress. In 1960 he was re-elected Vice-President of the 10th World Baptist Congress and was awarded the Brazilian Citizen of Honour and the Key to the City of Rio de Janeiro while attending the Congress in Brazil, followed by the Texas Citizen of Honour and the North Carolina Citizen of Honour and Key to the City when he moved to the United States. In 1965, he again travelled to the United States to attend the 11th World Baptist Congress and was subsequently awarded honorary doctorates in law from Baylor University and Stetson University respectively, and while in the United States he managed to raise $200,000 to support the construction of the Baptist College. In recognition of his work in education and Baptist ministry in Hong Kong, Baylor University also established the Dr. Lam Chi-fung Science Scholarship in 1959. As for Hong Kong, he was also awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal and the OBE in 1953 and 1957 respectively, in recognition of his educational and charitable work.

Later life
In his later years, Lam continued to be an supporter of the development of Hong Kong Baptist University, and succeeded in securing the university's accreditation as a registered post-secondary university by the Hong Kong Government in March 1970. Many years later, Baptist College was formally approved by the Hong Kong Government to become the Hong Kong Baptist University in 1994. On 17 April 1971, at 8.50a.m., Lam Chi-fung died of a stroke at the Hong Kong Baptist Hospital at the age of 78. His family held a mass funeral service at the Kowloon Funeral Parlour on 24 April of the same year and an interment service at the Kowloon City Baptist Church on the same day, followed by burial in the Pokfulam Road Cemetery of the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Churches Union. In addition, several schools and churches that were close to Lam Tze Fong, including Baptist College, Hong Kong Pui Ching Secondary School and Macau Pui Ching Secondary School, have held memorial activities in his memory. Tse Chi-wai, Head of the Physics Department of the Baptist College, has taken over the post as President of the College, which was left behind by Lam Chi-fung.

Personal life
Lam Chi-fung married Chen Zhiting in 1920 in his hometown of Jieyang County when Chen was 18 years old. Chen was the daughter of a prominent local family. The marriage resulted in seven sons and two daughters, Daniel Lam See-hin, David See-chai Lam, Lam Sze Chun, Lam Sze Chung, Lam Sze King, Lam Sze On and Lam Sze Yiu, in that order. Lam Sze Ying and Lam Sze Him are the two daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Lam's eldest son, Daniel Lam See-hin, has served as an appointed member of the Urban Council and a non-official member of the Legislative Council, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ka Wah Bank and Chairman of the Council of the Hong Kong Baptist College, and was awarded the CBE. He was the first Chinese governor and the second non-white governor of British Columbia from 1988 to 1995.

After his marriage to his wife, Chen Zhiting, Zhifeng Yuan was built in Jieyang County the same year of the marriage as their residence, and the house was later classified by the Guangdong Provincial People's Government in November 2012 as a provincial cultural relic protection unit. After moving to Hong Kong, the family lived in Tai On Terrace, Western District, Hong Kong Island, and then temporarily in the office of Kwong Yuen Shing Hong in Bonham Strand West due to a landslide. In 1938, he moved his family from Bonham Road to Robinson Road in the Mid-Levels area and then to Carpenter Road, Kowloon City.

Publications

 * 中東見聞錄. Hong Kong, Chik Fung Bookstore, 1958.
 * 友誼旅程. Hong Kong, Chik Fung Bookstore, 1961.

Special honors

 * Note: The full names and abbreviations of honors are listed below.
 * Order of the Dragon Star (Vietnam, 1936)
 * Nationalist government Zhong Yi Wei Huai (1940 )
 * Order of Saint John (S.B.St.J.) （2 January 1953 ）
 * Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal (June 1953 )
 * Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) (1957 )
 * Honered Citizen (Brazil, 1960 ）
 * The key to the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil, 1960 )
 * Honored citizen of Texas (United States, 1960 ）
 * Honored citizen of North Carolina and keys to the city (United States, 1960 )

Honorary degrees

 * Law degrees
 * Oklahoma Baptist University (United States, 1955 )
 * Baylor University (United States, 1965 )
 * Stetson University (United States, 1965 )

Eponyms

 * Lam Chi-fung church: Located in Pui Ching Middle School (Hong Kong).
 * Dr. Lam Chi-fung memorial hall: Built in 1991, Located in Pui Ching Middle School (Hong Kong).
 * Lam Chi-fung memorial building: located in Munsang College.
 * Lam Chi-fung memorial building: built during the expansion of the Hong Kong Baptist University Academic Community Hall.
 * Dr. Lam Chi-fung memorial cup: sports competition.
 * Dr. Lam Chi-fung Science Scholarship: Located in Baylor University.