by Slumpy » Thu Jan 09, 2020 12:18 pm
Nah, a "tong" is just a social outreach organization / social club. Many of them had no criminal association at all, which is what made them such great fronts for more criminal minded businessmen; It's like if Americans were to start using a Rec Centre as a front for criminal activity. They are/were about helping Chinese migrants acclimate to their new home by offering immigrant counseling and things like English classes.
Often, a singular tong is also a member of a larger tong organization and one particular tong is just that city's "branch", so you can have a situation in which Tongs under the same umbrella can be legitimate or criminal. That remains the case today, as recently as 2018 a branch of the Hip Sing organization (Chicago) was under investigation for organized crime links. Individual chapters have a great amount of autonomy and there is very little top-down oversight from the mother organization.
They are illegal in china because the root of the Tong system is in a political dissident movement whose aims were to oust the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). They were a secret society and all secret societies are outlawed in China.When the state crackdown came, that's when many members fled to various places in NA and Europe, bringing the Tong system with them.
Nah, a "tong" is just a social outreach organization / social club. Many of them had no criminal association at all, which is what made them such great fronts for more criminal minded businessmen; It's like if Americans were to start using a Rec Centre as a front for criminal activity. They are/were about helping Chinese migrants acclimate to their new home by offering immigrant counseling and things like English classes.
Often, a singular tong is also a member of a larger tong organization and one particular tong is just that city's "branch", so you can have a situation in which Tongs under the same umbrella can be legitimate or criminal. That remains the case today, as recently as 2018 a branch of the Hip Sing organization (Chicago) was under investigation for organized crime links. Individual chapters have a great amount of autonomy and there is very little top-down oversight from the mother organization.
They are illegal in china because the root of the Tong system is in a political dissident movement whose aims were to oust the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). They were a secret society and all secret societies are outlawed in China.When the state crackdown came, that's when many members fled to various places in NA and Europe, bringing the Tong system with them.