Chinese Freemasons celebrate 160 years of community and cultural support in Canada

Cecil Fung's first visit to central B.C. was an enlightening one, and not just because he had lived most of his life in Vancouver since arriving from Hong Kong in the 1960s.

In 2003, Fung and fellow members of the Chinese Freemasons installed a 140th anniversary headstone at the historic cemetery for Chinese gold miners in Barkerville, where the organization set up its first Canadian branch in 1863.

"[I] saw a lot of historical value and a lot of personal satisfaction in touching our roots and the history of the Chinese in Canada," he said of the visit.

Twenty years on, Fung, a leader of Canada's Chinese Freemasons, is now set to celebrate another milestone for the organization.

Up to 600 members from 19 branches across the country are due to gather Sunday at its national headquarters in Vancouver, where they will perform rituals such as paying tribute to Chinese deities and greeting each other with hand gestures inherited from their founders. 

Older than Confederation, Canada's Chinese Freemasons organization — also known as Hongmen (洪門) in Chinese — has played a critical role in supporting Chinese communities by, for example, providing settlement services for immigrants historically, and promoting and preserving Chinese culture.

It's also retained a controversial side in its stated goal of promoting Chinese unity, despite a history steeped in revolution.

The organization can trace its history even further back to the mid-17th century in southern China where, according to University of Notre Dame historian Dian Murray, it started as a group of secret societies that aimed to overthrow the Manchu-led Qing imperial dynasty and restore the Han-controlled Ming dynasty.

Two centuries later, many Hongmen members — predominantly male — migrated to California for the gold rush and established the first North American chapter of their organization in San Francisco in 1849. Most of them later moved to B.C.'s Cariboo region to stake new gold claims, according to the late Chinese Freemasons leader Harry Con.

It's unknown how Hongmen adopted its English name and connection to the wider movement of freemasonry. 

People join the organization by invitation, with sponsorship from existing members.

Contrary to much of western freemasonry, the Chinese Freemasons have always been open to female membership, according to their leaders.

Over the past century, many Chinese Freemasons branches across B.C. — including in Barkerville, which became a ghost town — have gone defunct due to aging membership, but many new ones have sprung up across the Americas, Australasia and Europe as mutual aid societies.

In Mainland China and Taiwan, Chinese Freemasons are a recognized political party named Zhigongdang (致公黨).