In Addition To Commercial Business: The Modern Shanghai Jewish Businessmen With Kazakhstan And The World

Pluralistic is the main character of modern Shanghai. In this city, more than 50 ethnic groups including Chinese, British, French and American are living together. However, with help of the people who willing to communicate among different ethnic groups, Shanghai avoided the lasting disruption and collision and managed to find a way to speak to the outside world with one voice. Silas Aaron Hardoon is an archetypical communicator.In the view of the development of Shanghai and the world, the first chapter of this paper focuses on the life journey of Silas Aaron Hardoon which started from 1851 in a Baghdadi Jewish family and ended in 1931 in Shanghai with the company of his Chinese wife and children. Materials from Chinese and English newspapers, documents and papers clarify misunderstanding of him in the books written by Chinese. The analysis of marriage between Hardoon and his Chinese wife Liza Roos helps us to understand Hardoon’s behaviors. Chapter two uses letters from Wangguowei to Luozhengyu and journeys of Cangsheng mingzhi daxue’s Student Union and Gangcang xuehui to study Hardoon’s investments in Chinese education and scholarship. Then make clear the influence of these investments to the upper class of China. Chapter three is comparing charity activities of Hardoon towards foreign and Chinese affairs according to newspapers including Shenbao and the North China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette(1870-1941). Based on the conclusion of activities in 1917 and others, this chapter tries to find features of Hardoon’s charity activities. Chapter four is concerning with Hardoon’s friends and methods he took to communicate. By using English documents and papers, this chapter fills a domestic gap in the knowledge of Hardoon’s relationship with Jewish, British and French. Then tries to explain the special role Aili Gardoon played in Hardoon’s communicate with Chinese. After that it tracks his social history with Chinese politicians and concludes Hardoon’s social patterns. Furthermore it attempted to depth the understanding of Hardoon’s social circle by analyzing his funeral.One of the most important factors to promote Shanghai’s prosperity is the peaceful coexistence among different ethnic groups. By studying Hardoon who effectively built a social circle with four ethnic groups could give us some ideas about how to promote cross ethnic communication among first generation of migrates. This thesis tries to amplify the knowledge of Hardoon’s social world and its meaning by unscramble domestic and abroad newspapers, documents, letters, journeys and papers.