“It was in this house that I, the fourth son and eighth child of the family, was born before dawn on a Monday, the eighteenth day of the Second Moon in the fifth year of Emperor Kuang Hsu, corresponding to March 10, 1879, of the Gregorian calendar. My elder sisters and the shop assistants used to tell me, as soon as I could understand their talk, that I was born under a lucky shining moon, for the date was the eighteenth day of the second moon and the hour was three o’clock in the morning. The overhanging clouds had drifted away and the moon seemed brighter than usual in the dark sky. There was apparently no difficulty in the delivery, or subsequent complication. “

(From Chapter V Childhood and Schooldays, Plague Fighter)

Slide design credit: Quah Seng Sun