The Lung Kong Tin Yee Association (), also known as the Four Brothers, is a worldwide ethnic

fraternity A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, "wiktionary:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal ...

Lung Kong in the United States

California

The

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

and construction of the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

in the mid-1800s led many men, especially from

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

Province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, to immigrate to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Due to social hostilities and discrimination, most immigrants were forced to stay in the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

area. Many different family groups started to form family associations. In 1876, the families of Lew, Quan, Jung, and Chew built a "Lung Kong Ancient Temple" in the heart of San Francisco Chinatown, a replica of the same Temple in

Shui Kou County Shui may refer to: *Shui people, or Sui people, ethnic group living in southwestern China *Shui language, or Sui language, spoken by the Shui people *Shui (surname) Shui is the Mandarin pinyin and Wade–Giles romanization of the Chinese surname ...

(水口镇),

Kaiping Kaiping (), postal map romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong provinces of China, Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delt ...

built in 1662 as a place of worship and meetings. As years passed, more four-family members arrived in San Francisco. Around 1895, two four-family associations had organized: the San Francisco Lung Kong Association and the San Francisco Mu Tin Association (later changing its name to Ming Yee Association). The former engaged in fraternal activities such as providing a place for meetings, promoting social activities for members, and aiding newly arrived members from Guangdong Province, China. The latter was formed for the protection of its members from unfair hostilities. The

San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

of 1906 completely destroyed the Temple and all historical records. In 1910, the four-family forefathers built a new "Lung Kong Building" at 1034

Stockton Street Stockton Street is a north-south street in San Francisco. It begins at Market Street passing Union Square, a major shopping district in the city. It then runs underground for about two and a half blocks in the Stockton Street Tunnel (lending its ...

which became the home of the San Francisco Lung Kong Association. In 1924, another building was acquired at 924 Grant Avenue, named the "Ming Yee Building", in which the San Francisco Lung Kong Association has resided ever since. As economic opportunities began to open across the country, four-family members traveled to different parts of the country to work, settle, and form additional four-family associations with names such as Lung Kong (龍岡), Mu Tin (睦親), Ming Yee (名義), and Four Brothers (四兄弟).

External links

*
Pan American Lung Kong Tin Yee Association
{{coord missing, California Tongs (organizations) Buildings and structures destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake Chinatown, San Francisco