The full name of Shaw Building is Shaw Teaching Building, which is located in major universities, primary and secondary schools across the country. In 2014, some netizens searched for a building named "Shaw Building" on an online map, showing that there were more than 30,000 Shaw Buildings, which were densely arranged on the abbreviated map of China.
At the beginning of the establishment of major universities, due to the lack of funds, it was necessary to call on entrepreneurs to donate to the society, and many well-known entrepreneurs have extended a helping hand to help the school raise enough funds to build teaching buildings. These "Shaw Buildings" were donated by the famous Hong Kong philanthropist Run Run Shaw, and the school named him after him in memory of the philanthropist.
But what is puzzling is that there are more than 6,000 "Shaw Towers" that have a little less "Yi" in the word, is the school so careless that they can't even remember the name of the benefactor? The school responded to this: these buildings have a little less "Yi", which was agreed by Run Run Shaw himself, and what is the reason for this?
Young and promising, find another way
Shaw, formerly known as Shao Renleng, was born in Shanghai and later moved to Hong Kong with his family due to Hong Kong's economic development. Run Run Shaw is the sixth child in the family, so the family calls him "the sixth", and Run Run Shaw also asked his friends to call him so, and later because Run Run Shaw was engaged in the film industry, he was respectfully called "Sixth Uncle" by insiders.
Shaw's family was very wealthy, and his father used to run a well-known pigment company. Later, the family fell into a downturn, and after discussion, the Shao brothers decided to give up the industry that their father had operated for many years and turned to the film and entertainment industry.
The Shao brothers set up a film company, and the brothers had a clear division of labor, with the eldest brother as the director, the second brother as the screenwriter, the third brother as the distribution, and the Shaw as the producer, and they began to shoot their own films. The studio produced more than 1,000 films, and in 1924 published the first feature film in Chinese history, which was so popular with Shanghai audiences that the Shaw Brothers became famous.
And Run Run Shaw has great potential as an investor and has a precise vision. Before 1932, Chinese films were mostly films with subtitles and no sound. Shaw, who returned from studying in the United States, realized that there was a gap between Chinese and American films, and that silent films would definitely be eliminated, so he decided to make a sound film.
Even though the global economic depression was triggered by the economic crisis in the United States at that time, Run Run Shaw still bought sound equipment at a high price, and directed and filmed China's first sound film "Platinum Dragon" by himself, which caused a sensation in the entire film industry upon its release and brought Shaw a huge fortune.
With such a perfect start, Shaw's film career flourished and he also had wealth that ordinary people could not imagine, but it is rumored that Shaw was very harsh on his company's employees. Perhaps Run Run Shaw once experienced the decline of his family's fortune overnight, and Shaw was so stingy that he refused to even buy fried buns for his employees, feeling that big steamed buns were more filling than fried buns.
But in his later years, Run Run Shaw was a well-known philanthropist who donated a lot of money to many schools, what did Run Run Run Shaw go through that made his temperament change so dramatically?
Passionate about philanthropy
When Shaw was young, he was very his employees, and even the company's most popular artists, Shaw repeatedly had to lower their salaries. The Shaw Brothers' film company is getting bigger and bigger, and the brothers are living a prosperous life. But the good times did not last long, and Run Run Shaw's third brother suddenly suffered a stroke, and he could only paralyze on the hospital bed and barely rely on drugs to continue his life.
Run Run Shaw knew his third brother's temperament and speculated whether it was because the third brother was too oppressive to the employees of the Singapore company that the third brother was so miserable in his later years. Shaw believes that there is reincarnation in heaven, and once worked side by side with him to start a business, the high-spirited third brother has now become skinny, every time he thinks of the third brother's face, Shaw will feel uneasy, he decided to change his usual style and become a "generous" person.
In the year that the third brother fell ill, Run Run Shaw established the "Shaw Foundation" and donated most of his wealth to help people in need. Shaw did not forget his hometown and built many public facilities for his hometown. After hearing about the Sichuan earthquake, Run Run Shaw donated HK$100 million to help the affected areas rebuild their homes as soon as possible.
Shaw not only committed himself to philanthropy, but also mobilized his family and friends to contribute to philanthropy. When the Red Cross in Hong Kong approached Shaw and asked him to help the Red Cross raise some money and blood, Shaw agreed.
Run Run Shaw set up a charity dinner for this purpose, and with his popularity in the film industry, Shaw successfully raised enough funds for the Red Cross to solve the problem. Run Run Shaw also explained the benefits and significance of blood donation to the people at the charity dinner, encouraging more people to donate blood to help those in need.
The main reason for Shaw's philanthropic reputation was not that he was awarded the Medal of Honour by the British Red Cross, but that Shaw financed the construction of school buildings for many schools in China. In honour of this philanthropist, the school named them "Shaw Building".
The word "Yi" is a little less "Yi" in the Shaw Building
It was found that among the tens of thousands of Shaw buildings donated by Run Run Shaw, more than 6,000 Shaw buildings had the word "Yi" missing a point. The Shaw Building was named in honor of this generous philanthropist, so how could the school make such a mistake when building it?
Originally, when the school building was under construction, although the construction amount was preliminarily formulated, the construction cost was often higher than the proposed amount due to construction problems or weather conditions. Run Run Shaw made a one-time donation according to the initial amount, and the shortfall needed to be made up by others.
Shaw believed that teaching buildings that were not built in full by him should not be named after him, but Shaw's donation accounted for the largest proportion, and the university decided to write a dot less on the word "Yat" in these Shaw buildings after consultation with Shaw, to indicate that it was not fully funded by Shaw. Shaw found it very interesting and agreed to the decision.
epilogue
After seeing what happened to his third brother, Run Run Shaw suddenly woke up and was willing to contribute generously to the world. Shaw's philanthropic contributions in the second half of his life have been praised by posterity, and those who have benerated him have spread all over China. After Run Run Shaw's death, the Chairman wrote a message to commemorate Run Run Shaw's merits to express his condolences to Run Run Shaw.
In that era of economic underdevelopment, many great philanthropists like Run Run Shaw were committed to contributing to various industries in China and promoting the development of the entire country's economy. Although Run Run Shaw passed away, his selfless dedication is still deeply remembered.