1.The 4th Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society for Social Education was held at the National Sun Yat-sen University(NSYSU).

From January 18 to 23, 1936, the 4th Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society for Social Education was held at NSYSU. The central issue discussed at the meeting was “how to improve local autonomy and social production through social education”. The annual meeting was unprecedented in scale, marking the southward shift of the center of social education. Liang Shuming, Yu Qingtang, and others who were in charge of the Chinese Society for Social Education gave speeches at the meeting.

Photo 1: The opening ceremony of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society for Social Education  

Photo 2: The Opening Day

Photo 3: Chairman Mr. Liang Shuming made an opening speech

2.President Zou Lu attended the International University Conference held at Heidelberg University, Germany

On June 25, 1936, Zou Lu, President of NSYSU, was invited to the International University Conference at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the 550th anniversary of the founding of the University of Heidelberg, where he also received the honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the University of Heidelberg. President Zou Lu made a speech on “The Mission of Universities”at the International University Conference, proposing that universities should advocate the basic philosophy of benevolence and peace.

Photo 1: Zou Lu and others travelling to Germany on the ship    “Victoria”

Photo 2: President Zou Lu attended the International University Conference and received the honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the University of ;Heidelberg

Photo 3: Zou Lu’s proposal at the International University Conference  

3.The establishment of the Association of Students of the National Sun Yat-sen University in Germany (Verein der Studierenden der National Sun ;Yat-sen Universität in Deutschland )

On August 31, 1936, the Association of Students of the National Sun Yat-sen University in Germany was founded in Berlin, Germany. Chang Chung Kang, one of the sixth group of students graduating from NSYSU, founded the association with others to promote communication among students of NSYSU in Germany. The association was formally founded at 3:00 p.m. on the 11th of August at Kunz Runtsclruhstr 12, Berlin. Chang Chung Kang was the first director of the association, Zhang Mengshi was the deputy director, and Chen Shaoheng was the substitute secretary. The address of the association was temporarily set up in Chang’s apartment. (Niebuhrstr. 10. A.I. Chang Chung Kang, Berlin, ;Charloueuburg.)

Photo 1: Group photo of the Association of Students of the National Sun  Yat-sen University in Germany at the time of its founding

Photo 2: Roster of members of the Association of Students of the National  Sun Yat-sen University in Germany (source from Sun Yat-sen University    Archives)

4.NSYSU successfully bred a new variety of rice that could bear thousands    of grains per ear  

On August 12, 1936, the College of Agriculture of NSYSU successfully bred a  new variety of rice that could bear thousands of grains per ear. The College  of Agriculture of NSYSU, in order to improve the rice crops in Guangdong and  Guangxi and solve the problem of food insecurity in Guangdong, strived to  breed new rice varieties for almost a decade to. Using the method of  hybridization for improvement, scientists collected more than 5,000 varieties  of domestic and foreign cultivated rice and wild rice, and then selected the  best ones for artificial breeding. A great number of new rice varieties was  therefore obtained, one of which, with the name “thousand grain”, could bear  over 1,400 grains per ear, which was unprecedented in the rice-growing history  in the world.

Photo 1: Report on NSYSU’s breeding of the new “thousand grain” variety of  rice in the Republican Daily News Canton

Photo 2: The new “thousand grain” variety of rice that could bear thousands of grains per ear

5.Former trustee Chiang Kai-shek inspected NSYSU’s new campus twice

After the “Guangdong-Guangxi Incident”, Chen Jitang went out of power. Chiang  Kai-shek, as a former trustee of NSYSU, went to Guangdong in August 1936 and  inspected the new Shipai campus of NSYSU twice on August 23 and September 27  respectively.

Photo 1: Chiang Kai-shek and Yu Hanmou in front of the College of Arts in the new Shipai campus

Photo 2: Report on Chiang Kai-shek’s visit by the National Sun Yat-sen  University Daily

6.Progressive teachers and students, together with the people in the Guangdong literary and art circles, held a memorial meeting for Lu    Xun.

On November 8, 1936, NSYSU and people in the Guangdong literary and art  circles held a memorial meeting for Lu Xun in the auditorium of the old campus  on Wenming Road. Progressive teachers and students of NSYSU, including Hong  Shen and Huang Huanqiu, made speeches at the meeting.

Photo 1: The scene of people in the Guangdong literary and art circles attending the memorial meeting for Lu Xun

Photo 2: Report on the memorial meeting for Lu Xun held by the people in    the Guangdong literary and art circles by Hong Kong’s Tien Kwong Morning    News

Photo 3: Lu Xun sitting on a chair

7.Re-establishment of the CPC Party Branch in NSYSU

Since 1925, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had been developing members and  establishing organizations among the students of the National Guangdong  University. At the end of that year, the General Branch Committee of the CPC  was established, with party branches set up in the Arts and Sciences School,  the Law Science School, the Agricultural Science School, the Medical School,  and the communes that handled miscellaneous affairs. After the first  Kuomintang-Communist Cooperation failed, the grassroots organizations of the  CPC in NSYSU and Guangzhou were dismantled by KMT activists and gradually  ceased to function. In 1936, the Canton Municipal Committee of the Communist  Party of China and its branches were rebuilt, with Luo Fanqun, Mai Pufei, Zhou  Ming, and others in the Committee graduating from NSYSU. The CPC party branch  in NSYSU was headed by its secretary Qian Xing, who was later succeeded by Kim  Chiang-hwa and Liang Jia.

Photo 1: Qian Xing, Secretary of the CPC Party Branch of NSYSU

Photo 2: Branches under the CPC Canton Municipal Committee in 1936 (“The    Organization History of the Canton Municipal Committee of the Communist    Party of China” CPC History Press, 1996)