A Study On Charity Of Hu Xueyan

Hu Xueyan was well-known as "red top official merchant" in the late Qing Dynasty. His legendary way of doing business was worthy to be respected and worshiped by later generations. In addition, Hu was also the famous philanthropist, which had done all kinds of charity from boom to decline. However, Hu’s motivation was very complex just in terms of charity, which mainly included several factors: The invisible promotion of traditional Chinese gentry society; There is philanthropicminde tradition in the regions south of the Yangtze River in the long run; Huizhou merchants’ s characteristics of the Confucius theory and proverbs; The influence of traditional culture of filial piety. There are, of course, attempts to curry favor with powerful for his own benefits. Hu’s charitable activities that he had engaged cover all aspects in during his lifetime,which mainly included four aspects: charity relief, public-welfare relief, the aftermaths of the disaster and “Hu Qingyu Chinese Pharmacy”. Despite his charitable activities had some shortcomings, such as improper donations sources, insincere charitable motives.His charity was highly valued by the people at that time. Hu Xueyan was known as “Hu Da Shan Ren ” and “A prime minister to save the times”.What’s more, his charity also had a significant positive impact on the Late Qing society, which make his village benefit, stabilize social order and activate the development of private philanthropy. Especially “Hu Qingyu Chinese Pharmacy” he founded leave a good name forever and benefit people everywhere. However, Hu Xueyan, after all, was a businessman who was most concerned about making money. Doing Charity was only his avocation. Therefore, although Hu did a large deal of charity, the role promoted the modern transformation of traditional Chinese philanthropy was little important to some extent in the key period of modernization transformation. Hu’s philanthropy embodies the auxiliary and practical features of philanthropy of businessman philanthropist. What’s more, the research of Hu’s charity has an important significance to motivate today’s merchant to take an active part in Social Philanthropy.