CHINA / TAIWAN: BANK OF ZHONG HUA or CHINA BANK - 1911 (?)

Description

CHINA / TAIWAN:
BANK OF ZHONG HUA or CHINA BANK - 1911 (?)
PRINTED IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE.
WHEN I WALKED INTO THE SINGAPORE BRANCH OF THE BANK OF CHINA FOR HELP I DID NOT EXPECT THE CHINESE STAFF TO BE UNABLE TO READ THIS DOCUMENT.
AS THE FRIENDLY FOLKS EXPLAINED TO ME: SIMPLIFIED CHINESE WRITING WAS INTRODUCED
IN MAINLAND CHINA
BY MAO DURING THE 1940s.
AFTER THAT ONLY VERY FEW PEOPLE LEARNED TO READ THE OLD WRITING STYLE.
FOR A PRECISE TRANSLATION I WAS REFERRED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE.
AFTER SEVERAL OF THE EXTREMELY HELPFUL STAFF LOOKED AT THE CERTIFICATE A SUPERIOR OFFICER BECAME INTERESTED AND STARTED TO LOOK THINGS UP ON THE COMPUTER.
I HAVE SCANNED HIS NOTES AS WELL. HE SUGGESTED THAT THIS CERTIFICATE ORIGINATED IN TAIWAN.
MUCH LATER AFTER MANY ANTIQUE, COIN AND STAMP SHOPS I CAME INTO A STAMP SHOP WHERE A WESTERN LOOKING GENTLEMAN WAS TALKING IN CHINESE TO THE TWO LADY OWNERS.
HE KINDLY TRANSLATED FOR ME AND THE CERTIFICATE WAS SHOWN AROUND.
ONE OF THE LADIES SUDDENLY PULLED OUT AN ALBUM OF STAMPS FROM TAIWAN AND POINTED OUT TO ME THAT THE FOUR SYMBOLS IN THE CORNERS OF THE CERTIFICATE WERE ALSO ON ALL STAMPS FROM TAIWAN AS SYMBOLS FOR THAT COUNTRY.
THE AGE WAS GIVEN AS BETWEEN 1911 AND 1913. THIS IMPRECISE INFORMATION RESULTS FROM THE FACT THAT THE CHINEESE YEARS ARE NOT CONGRUENT WITH WESTERN YEARS, HAVE NAMES ASSOCIATED WITH RULERS OR MYTHICAL FIGURES AND THE SYSTEM OF TWELVE MONTHS WITH A GIVEN NUMBER OF DAYS WAS NOT IN USE OVER 100 YEARS AGO.
I WAS AGAIN REFERRED TO THE UNIVERSITY. BUT THERE WAS JUST NOT ENOUGH TIME FOR THAT.
INTERESTING: THE SCANNED HANDWRITTEN NOTES FROM THE BANK OF CHINA SHOW THE DIFFERENCE IN WRITING BETWEEN "CHINA BANK" (as the Bank of China is called in China itself) AND THE CERTIFICATE ON OFFER HERE.
Simplified Chinese (SC)
Today this set of Chinese characters is used in mainland China and by people of Chinese origin in Singapore. A relatively modern form of text, Simplified Chinese (SC) was created as a way to encourage literacy and was made official with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The characters have fewer strokes than Traditional Chinese (TC).
Although SC is simple, it continues to evolve. Even as recently as 2013, the Chinese government released an official List of Commonly Used Standardized Characters. This list contained 45 newly recognized standard characters (previously considered variant forms) and 226 characters simplified by analogy (most of which already were widely used).
Traditional Chinese (TC)
This character set is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. As its name implies, this is a more traditional version of Chinese that has been written by people for thousands of years. The characters often have more strokes than in Simplified Chinese.