MANY important figures have emerged over the past 180 years from a family surnamed Ling in Laoxu Village in Buji, Longgang District.

It is estimated that more than 20 descendants of this family have worked in government, universities, hospitals and scientific research institutions, and have had influence on politics, education, business and the military sectors, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

According to the family genealogy compiled in 2008, the Ling family are Hakka people, and moved to Laoxu Village from Meizhou in around 1662.

Starting from the sixth generation after they had taken root in Shenzhen, the Ling family raised many talents by paying close attention to good education. Ling Qilian (1842-1932) had eight sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Ling Shanyuan, founded Tsung Him School in Hong Kong. His sixth son, Ling Shanyong, was the first accountant in China to learn Western economic management methods.

His seventh son, Ling Shan’an, was a leading authority in education circles at that time. As an English teacher at the Beijing Imperial Academy of the Qing Dynasty, he taught Emperor Guangxu and later taught as a professor at the Catholic University of Peking and Yenching University. Ling’s eighth son, Ling Shanfang, graduated from Yale University and worked as a railroad engineer under Zhan Tianyou, the father of China’s railways.

Ling Qilian had 19 grandsons and 9 granddaughters. Most of them studied in Europe or the Unites States and returned to China after graduation to become pioneers in all walks of life. Ling Daoyang was the initiator of Arbor Day in China and was regarded as a leading authority in the forestry field. He was also the chairman of the preparatory committee of Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Ling Xiuying was among the first batch of obstetrics and gynecology specialists in New China. Ling Anna was a music professor at Hunan Normal University. Ling Hongzhang was the lifetime professor at the University of Maryland, and an expert in semi-conductor circuits and integrated circuits.

The Ling family attached great importance to family rules and education. Ling Hongxiao, the great grandson of Ling Qilian, recalled that the family’s rules and regulations had helped the family members in cultivating the habits of being diligent, frugal, benevolent and polite from a very young age. “Starting from my grandfather’s generation, if one couldn’t recite the family rules, a knock on the forehead was unavoidable,” Ling said. Every household of the Ling family now has a copy of the family’s genealogy. The descendants have always upheld the family rules as their philosophy of life.

Ling Hongxiao added that his family could be described as “teaching and running schools as always.” Ling Daoyang and Ling Guoqiang had the greatest influence on the running of schools. The former participated in the preparation and foundation of CUHK, while the latter invested and founded several schools in Shenzhen, including two kindergartens, an elementary school, and Shenzhen Baihe Foreign Language School. (Zhang Yu)