Tong Wo Society, Kapaʻau卡帕奥东和会馆（关公庙）
- Type
- Overseas Daoist Temples
- Location
- United States · Hawaii State · Kapaʻau (North Kohala) · 53-4358 Akoni Pule Highway, Kapaʻau, Hawaiʻi 96755, North Kohala, island of Hawaiʻi
- First built
- 1886 · Two and a half acres of land purchased in 1883, construction begun in 1884, completed in 1886, with the society formally organized the same year
- Heritage status
- Hawaii State Historic Site No. 10-02-7127
Overview
The Tong Wo Society is the first Chinese association hall on the island of Hawaiʻi, with land purchased in 1883, construction begun in 1884, and completion in 1886; its founders were mainly Hakka sugarcane-plantation laborers. The upper floor houses a shrine, its principal deity Guan Gong (the protector deity), together with Guanyin and the Earth God, and a separate memorial room for Sun Yat-sen — North Kohala was once the operating base of Sun Mei, elder brother of Sun Yat-sen, and an important site of Xingzhonghui (Revive China Society) activity outside Honolulu. This spatial arrangement of 'association hall below, shrine above' is the typical pattern of Chinese religious sites in Hawaiʻi, differing from the path taken in the continental Pacific Northwest of building freestanding public temples first. The temple grounds also contain over two hundred graves, mostly of Chinese laborers on the Kohala Ditch irrigation project and children who died in influenza epidemics. It is now maintained by local volunteers and opens to the public only once a year, at Lunar New Year. The Hawaiʻi State Historic Preservation Division cites the society's dependence on Daoist belief as one of the bases for recognizing its historical value.
Highlights
- The first Chinese association hall on the island of Hawaiʻi (1886)
- Founded by Hakka sugarcane-plantation laborers
- Principal deity Guan Gong, together with Guanyin and the Earth God
- A Sun Yat-sen memorial room, linked to Xingzhonghui activity
- Over two hundred graves of Chinese laborers on the temple grounds