"Power, wealth, and position are all vehicles for one enduring mission - the education and betterment of people." 兴学传家。 - The Chen family creed 陈氏家训

Three Generations, Two Branches, One Thread

The Three Merchant Sages of antiquity give RuDao its theory; the Chen family of modern South China gives it a living example. The family story runs through three generations and two branches, and its arc is exactly the arc of this book: general to merchant to scholar (儒将, 儒商, 儒家). Key figures: Chen Jitang 陈济棠, Chan Shu Kui 陈树渠, Chen Shubo 陈树柏, Yau-Gene Chan 陈耀军, Anson Chan 陈耀璋. The thread that binds them is 兴学传家 - promote learning to pass on the family: the conviction that power, wealth, and position are all vehicles for one enduring mission, the education and betterment of people.

Generation One - The Confucian General 儒将: Chen Jitang 陈济棠 (1890-1954)

A first-class general of the Republic of China and leader of the Cantonese warlord clique, he governed Guangdong as chairman for about eight years (1928-1936) and was known as the King of the Southern Skies 南天王. History remembers his military and political power, but it tends to forget that he also pushed local construction and education 兴学 during his years in office - a rare figure honored by both the Nationalist and the Communist regimes. When he was finally forced to retreat to Taiwan, he sent his son to America with a specific charge: absorb the best of the American education system, then return to continue China's development. A general's command, but the battlefield was now the classroom.

Generation Two - One Family, Two Branches 一门两枝

The merchant branch 儒商一脉 descends through Chan Shu Kui 陈树渠. A graduate of Columbia University, he returned in the hard years of 1938 to 1939 to teach political science at Fudan University, later served as a magistrate, and then turned to business. He insisted that commerce and education both must take responsibility toward society, so he ran the Bao Sheng Group 宝声集团 while founding schools (Chan Shu Kui Memorial School 陈树渠纪念中学, 陈维周夫人纪念学校, 陈维周纪念中学). He died of heart disease in 1973, worn down by overwork.

The scholar branch 儒者一脉 descends through Chen Jitang himself: his son Chen Shubo 陈树柏 (Shu-Park Chan) answered his father's charge. He earned a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, spent three decades in Santa Clara University's engineering department - rising to Dean and its first endowed professor - and personally taught more than ten thousand students. His research in graph theory and network topology bridged electrical engineering and computer science, and his doctoral students went on to found Cadence, ATMEL, Oak Technology, and other pillar companies of Silicon Valley. Called the founding father of Silicon Valley hi-tech engineering education, he founded the International Technological University (ITU.edu 国际科技大学) in San Jose in 1994, the world's first global-network university model, built to bridge the "relevance gap" between theory and practice.

Generation Three - The Torch Passed 薪火相传

The merchant branch continues through Chan Shu Kui's eldest son, Anson Chan (陈耀璋): educated at UC Berkeley, with a master's in international politics from the University of Toronto; chairman of the Bao Sheng Group; and in 2011, founder of the Chan Shu Kui Center for Comparative Political Development at Fudan University, built in memory of his father - business and learning bound together.

The scholar branch continues through Chen Shubo's son, Yau-Gene Chan 陈耀军, who joined ITU in 2005 to run the university, succeeded his father as President and CEO in 2010, and led it to Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accreditation - attained on February 22, 2013, the very day his father passed away, having seen his vision realized. Yau-Gene Chan captured the lineage in a sentence: "I grew up in a family of scholars, where education was always a central core value."

The Next Chapter - The AI University 人工智能大学 (AIU)

In 2026, President Yau-Gene Chan launched ITU's newest venture, the Artificial Intelligence University (AIU 人工智能大学) at AIU.ITU.edu, extending the family's century-old charge from engineering into the age of artificial intelligence. The logic is unchanged: build learning for what comes next, not for what is peaking now. It is here that the lineage gained its newest branch. This book's author, Prof. Tony Tong, brings three decades of experience from Web1.0 to AI and Web4. President Chan invited Prof. Tong to join ITU as Adjunct Professor and Head of Global Partnerships, to help bring AIU to Asia. 兴学传家 has grown into 兴学传世 - promote learning to pass on to the world.

A Family-History Caution 谱系说明

One caution belongs in a family history: sources differ on the exact birth order of Chen Jitang's many children, so this account keeps to the generally accepted members and does not lock in any disputed ranking.

The RuDao Lesson 儒道启示

The Chen family is not a case study in wealth or power; it is a case study in continuity - in how a family transmits a way of seeing rather than a set of assets. The general 儒将 supplied the mission (leadership in service of learning); the merchant 儒商 supplied the means (profit disciplined by righteousness, 义以生利); the scholars 儒家 supplied the fulfillment (education as the permanent product of both). Three generations, three roles, one thread: 兴学传家.

For the modern reader building in the AI economy, the lesson is that a legacy built only on money dissolves, while a legacy built on learning compounds across generations. The tools changed from armies to factories to universities to code; the Way 道 never changed. Yet the point of reading a family history is not to affirm the past but to answer the present: ask yourself what you will leave your children - property 家产 or a family creed 家训 - and begin today with one small act that is both profitable and righteous.