Early years

(Sun Yat-sen (back row, fifth from left) and his family)

On November 12, 1866, Sun Yat-sen was born to a Hakka peasant family in Guangdong province.
After receiving a few years of local schooling, at age thirteen, Sun went to live with his elder brother Sun Mei, who had immigrated to Honolulu, Hawaii. Sun studied at the Iolani School where he learned English, mathematics and science. Originally knowing nothing about the English language, Sun Yat-sen picked up the language so quickly that he received a prize for outstanding achievement in English from King David Kalakaua. Sun then enrolled in Oahu College for further studies but he was soon sent home to China as his brother, Sun Mei, was afraid that Sun Yat-sen was about to embrace Christianity.
When he returned home in 1883, he was greatly troubled by what he saw as a backward China that demanded exorbitant taxes and levies from its people. The people were conservative, and the schools maintained their ancient methods leaving no opportunity for expression of thought or opinions. Under the influence of Christian missionaries in Hawaii, Sun had developed a disdain for superstition.
Sun studied English at the Anglican Diocesan Home and Orphanage in Hong Kong. In April 1884, Sun was transferred to the Central School of Hong Kong, later renamed Queen's College in 1894. Sun was later baptised in Hong Kong by Hickley, an American missionary of the Congressional Church of the United States, to his brother's concern. Sun pictured a revolution as similar to the salvation mission of the Christian church. His conversion to Christianity was related to his revolutionary ideals and push for advancement. As a result, his baptismal name, Rixin, means refreshing the old with the new day by day.
Ultimately, he earned a degree as a medical doctor from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (the forerunner of The University of Hong Kong) in 1892, of which he was one of the first two graduates. He subsequently practiced medicine in that city briefly in 1893. He had an arranged marriage with fellow villager Lu Muzhen at age twenty; she bore him a son Sun Ke, who would grow up to become a high ranking official in the government, and two daughters, Sun Yan and Sun Wan.