少白

Many of you know that Sun Yat-Sen studied medicine in our sister medical school.

There, a notable classmate of his was Chen Shao-Bai (陳少白).

Chen was actually two years more junior than Sun, and he quited the medical school at the third year. Together with Yau Lit (尢列) and Yang Heling (楊鶴齡), they were known as The Four Bandits (四大寇) - for their famous frequent meetings inthe shop Yang Yiu Kee (楊耀記), owned by Heling's family, at Gough Street of Hong Kong.

To put it simply, Chen was a dedicated supporter of Sun. He joined the Hsing Chung Club, and became the chairman of its Hong Kong branch. Following the advise of Sun, Chen started a newspaper China Daily (中國日報) in 1900, with an aim to broadcast Sun's idea of revolution.

In addition to the Hsing Chung Club, Chen was asked by Sun to join The Triad (三合會), in which he became a key member and served for quite some time as the White Fan (白扇) - a romantic name of the Secretary for Finance.

As one of our country leaders used to say, there are patriots in The Triad.

PS. There is an entirely different China Daily nowadays. Don't be mistaken.