About:Hui (secret society)

Hui (Chinese: 會) is a Chinese word, generally meaning 'conference', but which is sometimes used to refer to a secret society. It is often mutually interchangeable with terms like kongsi (Chinese: 公司; pinyin: Gōngsī), a term generally used to mean 'corporation' or 'company'. For overseas Chinese, kongsi can also denote a Chinese clan or a Chinese district association (Chinese: 會館; pinyin: Huìgǔan). The Hokkien-derived term kongsi (公司, Pe̍h-ōe-jī: kong-si) is more widely known in Southeast Asia, however, whereas in China, the secret societies were just simply known as hui.