Sen Yet Young, a Honolulu-born aviator and engineer honored in China and Taiwan for his role in creating an air force and recruiting American fliers to overthrow warlords in the 1920s, has schools and memorials named after him in both countries.

A Hawaii Kai school last week entered into a sister school relationship with one of the namesake schools in Guangdong province in China. And the primary school’s principal, Yili Hwang, visited Hahaione Elementary to celebrate the new bond.

While Young’s accomplishments took shape a century ago, Hahaione Elementary Principal Shannon Cappy Goo said they align with the school’s mission to produce international-minded students who contribute to a global society.

“We continue to look for opportunities in education to better the world,” Goo said.

Born on Sept. 6, 1893, about six years before it became a U.S. territory, Young was educated at ‘Iolani School. Also, he attended the College of Hawaii and, later, Curtiss Aviation School in Buffalo, N.Y.

Even as a student, Young supported the establishment of American democratic principles in China, as did his father, Ahin Young, a Chinese immigrant who learned to speak Hawaiian and became a wealthy rice merchant in Hawaii in the late 1800s. He was an ardent supporter of Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), known as the father of modern China.

Ahin Young and Sun Yat-sen’s older brother, Sun Mei, arrived in the Hawaii in the early 1870s and were friends and partners in business as well as backers of Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary ideas.

In 1916, Sen Yet Young became Hawaii’s first land and seaplane licensed pilot. He was the 62nd person licensed in the United States to learn how to fly a seaplane and the 600th in land planes licensed by the Aero Club of America.

With additional education in engineering, Young designed and built the first airplane in China, naming it after Sun’s wife’s English name, Rosamond.

Young was 30 years old and helping in the fight against Chinese warlords by conducting bomb design research when an explosion killed him and two others on Sept. 20, 1923. The day is now observed in China as National Aviation Day.

Although China turned to communism in the late 1950s, China and Taiwan continue to honor Set Yet Young. In Hawaii, Leigh-Wai Doo, a former Honolulu councilman and a founder of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Hawaii Foundation, sees Young’s life story as a bridge to multicultural understanding.

Doo said Young devoted his life and wealth to liberating China, developing an airplane manufacturing plant, training military fliers and encouraging overseas Chinese Americans to join him in the effort to unify China by fighting against warlords.

“He and other people of Hawaii helped Dr. Sun Yat-sen to establish the first republic in Asia,” Doo said.

Doo said over the past dozen years, China’s late yet growing recognition of Sun as the father of modern China has prompted recognition for the leader’s American supporters, starting with those from Hawaii, including Sen Yet Young and his family.

An exhibit, sponsored by a China-based museum, detailing Young’s life was displayed earlier this year at the main branch of the Hawaii State Library in Honolulu.

Doo maintains that the exhibit and the sister school relationship with Hahaione Elementary represent simple yet significant steps by China to recognize Americans, notably those from Hawaii, who rocked the cradle of China’s democratic revolution and helped create the modern China.

“It’s recognizing shared roots historically,” Doo said.