Hong Kong Adventist College is located in Clear Water Bay. Five buildings from its early years, including Administration Building, Academy Building, Student Dormitory, One-Unit Staff Quarters and Five-Unit Staff Quarters are still preserved in the campus. They have been confirmed as Grade 2 historic buildings and were designed mainly by Elder Chu Yue-tat, the former president of the Hong Kong-Macao Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the late father of Pastor David Chu. Born in Guangdong, Chu Yue-tat was a civil engineer, who assisted in the design of Kwangtung Provincial Bank Building, Taishan Middle School, Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum in Nanjing, and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Guangzhou.
Schools Run by the Seventh-Day Adventists Church in China and Sam Yuk Schools
After the Qing court abolished the Imperial Civil Service Examinations in 1905, there was a growing demand for modern education in the society. Various Christian organisations came to China to establish schools, including the Seventh-Day Adventists Church, which founded the Sam Yuk schools. As early as the nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries had been arriving in China. In 1807, Rev. Robert Morrison of the London Missionary Society reached Guangzhou and embarked on the first Protestant mission in China. Initially, the schools were founded for evangelistic purposes and were not well-received by traditional Chinese people. In addition, the early missionaries were subject to various restrictions from the Qing court, and this inhibited the development of missionary schools.
After the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 and the Convention of Peking in 1860, the Qing court lifted the religion ban. There was a surge in the number of missionaries coming to China, and their scope of work was expanded. Coupled with the rise of the Self-Strengthening Movement, missionary schools developed rapidly to meet the needs of the society. As one of the country’s important gateways in the south, Hong Kong became a springboard for foreign missionaries entering the Mainland, and the missionary schools left historical footprints in the city.
In the early twentieth century, the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists sent missionaries Rev. J.N. Anderson and his wife, Ida Thompson and Rev. E.H. Wilbur and his wife to China to set up schools to preach. In 1903, Ida Thompson founded Bethel Girls' School in Tongqing Square, Guangzhou; subsequently, Rev. Wilbur established Yick Chi Boys’ School in Tongqing Square. The boys' school was closed in 1911, but was reopened a few years later, in 1915, in Zhuguang Li, Nanguan, Guangzhou, under a new name. It was the first Sam Yuk School. Bethel Girls' School was moved to Xiniuwei, Dongshan, in about 1915, followed by Sam Yuk School in 1917. In 1922, the two schools were merged to form Sam Yuk Middle School, serving the Guangxi, Guangzhou and Hakka missions. In the years that followed, Sam Yuk Middle School was relocated several times between Guangdong and Hong Kong due to the turbulent situation in the country. The school’s development was closely linked to the history and development of the Greater Bay Area.
Sam Yuk Middle School was relocated for the first time in the 1920s. As missionary schools in the Mainland prospered and grew, some educators there became concerned and called for the revocation of the churches’ rights to operate schools. Between 1925 and 1927, many students withdrew from some of missionary schools in Guangzhou, and many foreign teachers left the Mainland. Sam Yuk Middle School in Guangzhou went through a difficult time. In 1927, some of the students were transferred to Wah On School on Om Yau Street (present-day Fuk Wa Street), Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong. But the crisis in Guangzhou and the resulting relocation were rather short-lived. In the following year, the school returned to Guangzhou and classes resumed. By the 1930s, Sam Yuk had developed substantially in the Mainland and expanded into an education institution with operations in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian.
Development of Sam Yuk Schools during World War II and the Clear Water Bay Campus
In 1937, Sam Yuk Middle School was moved from Guangzhou to Hong Kong again and used Chan Lau in Sha Tin as its temporary campus. The school was named South China Training Institute. In 1938, China Training Institute in Qiaotou town, Nanjing, was closed due to the war, and the school was relocated to Hong Kong in autumn of the same year. It was merged with South China Training Institute and was renamed China and South China Training Institute. As Chan Lau in Sha Tin was only a temporary campus. Sam Yuk had to look for permanent premises in Hong Kong. The school identified the current site in Clear Water Bay and began construction of the school premises, which were inaugurated in 1939.
Not long after, events took an unfortunate turn. In 1941, Japanese forces invaded Hong Kong. Sam Yuk was forced to suspend classes, and in 1942, the school was moved to Laolong, a strategic town in the upper stream of the Dongjiang River in Guangdong again. A school campus, with an auditorium, classrooms, student dormitories and staff quarters, was set up, and desks, chairs and among other furniture were acquired. For the next few years, Sam Yuk conducted classes in Laolong without any hiccups and returned to the Hong Kong campus only after the war.
Development of Sam Yuk Schools after the War
After the Second World War, Sam Yuk’s Clear Water Bay campus was requisitioned by the British army, so the school was moved from its temporary location in Laolong during the war to its birthplace – Guangzhou – and returned to the Clear Water Bay campus only in 1947. The school operated as South China Training Institute until the early 1950s, when it resumed its name, Sam Yuk Middle School. With support and sponsorship from Chinese Union Mission of Seventh-day Adventists and the China headquarters, Sam Yuk’s operations in Hong Kong recovered swiftly, and its Clear Water Bay campus was expanded from 16 to 22 buildings.
Meanwhile, the Seventh-Day Adventists Church continued to expand its education mission in Hong Kong, opening several “Sam Yuk” schools, such as Kowloon Sam Yuk Secondary School and Tai Po Sam Yuk Secondary School. Operations were also extended to Macao: a kindergarten and a primary school were founded at No. 5 Rua de Sanches de Miranda in September 1953, and a secondary school was established in 1961. Today, Macao Sam Yuk Middle School, completed in 1996, is located at Rua Do Colégio, Taipa.
In the early days of Sam Yuk in Clear Water Bay, some of the teachers were hired locally, while the rest were transferred from Sam Yuk in Guangzhou or sent from the mission in the United States. To accommodate the non-local teachers, Chu Yue-tat built several dozen residential units. To reduce construction costs, most of the units were connected. As time passed, only Five-Unit Staff Quarters, facing northeast, remained. Between the 1960s and 1980s, the staff quarters were used as venues for gatherings on Friday and Saturday evenings, in which teachers and students would chat, sing, play games and cook. The strong bond between the alumni and Sam Yuk is largely due to the time they spent with their teachers during their formative years.
The Seventh-Day Adventists Church has operated schools in China for over a century. Five historic buildings at early years have been preserved in the Clear Water Bay campus, bearing important testimony to its history.
Open Day:
Normally held in the first Sunday in December each year. For details, please visit the official website of Hong Kong Adventist College: https://www.hkac.edu/.
Address:
1111 Clear Water Bay Road, Sai Kung, New Territories.