This elaborately carved and painted \u2018altar\u2019 is one of the last remaining objects from the Bathurst branch of the Chinese Masonic Society. It is now to be found in a replica Chinese temple that is part of the Bathurst Goldfields display on Mount Panorama. The distinction between a Chinese temple or Joss house and a Chinese Masonic Society hall was not always apparent to non-Chinese and it is not uncommon for objects from the one to be attributed to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact the Chinese Masonic Societies were an evolution from the various \u2018Brotherhoods\u2019 or so-called \u2018secret societies\u2019 that were common associations among Chinese people in the 19th<\/sup> century. While some like to play on the \u2018secret\u2019 aspect of these groups, an observer as early as the 1870s felt that they had declined \u2018into mere tea-shops\u2019<\/a>.Though as anti-Qing feeling grew among the Overseas Chinese along with a desire to modernise China these organisations formed themselves into branches of the Zhigongtang (\u81f4\u516c\u5802 \u2013 written above the altar) or Chinese Masonic Society. They were strong supporters of Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 revolution in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Bathurst Chinese Masonic was demolished in 1953, that in Sydney remains today. However, the Bathurst Chinese Masonic Society<\/a> was operating strongly in the 1920s when it hosted a visited by Ma Hsiao-chin<\/a>, an early Sun Yat-sen supporter and member of the Chinese Parliament. In this it was continuing a long tradition of overseas Chinese support for the Nationalist Party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This elaborately carved and painted \u2018altar\u2019 is one of the last remaining objects from the Bathurst branch of the Chinese Masonic Society. It is now to be found in a replica Chinese temple that is part of the Bathurst Goldfields display on Mount Panorama. The distinction between a Chinese temple or Joss house and a … <\/p>\n