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Post by douglaslam on Oct 11, 2008 7:14:00 GMT -5
I am starting this thread in the hope that members and visitors might have valuable information for the Eurasians of Liverpool, England, in their endeavour to find the fathers that they do not know. It is a very sad story of families being torn apart by officialdom. Again, the men's crime was being Chinese. Their story came to my notice through the BBC 2008 Reith Lectures. A simple search on the net came up with this amazing result. Please go to the following link: http:// www.halfandhalf.org.ukIt is a very compelling story. I have met Yvonne Foley,the driving force behind the story,and her husband. In fact,I am meeting them again tomorrow, in a BBQ hosted by their friends in Sydney, Australia. |
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Post by laohuaqiao on Dec 7, 2008 13:31:29 GMT -5
Thanks to Helen's link to www.nzchinese.proboards54.com I found the story of the Chinese Labour Corps, almost 100,000 men nearly all from northern China, and some never made it back to China and were buried in France. Noyelles-Sur-Mer was the base depot of the Chinese Labour Corps in France, the site of their largest camp and of No 3 Labour (originally the Chinese) General Hospital. The Chinese Labour Corps was the outcome of an agreement made between the United Kingdom and Chinese Governments on 30 December 1916, for the employment of Chinese labour in France. The men were recruited in north China and the first contingent arrived in France in April 1917. By the end of 1917, 54,000 were in France and Belgium. At the Armistice the Corps numbered nearly 96,000 and even in May 1919, 80,000 were at work. Nearly 2,000 died during the war and when the cemeteries were constructed after the war was over, the headstones for these men were engraved in Chinese characters by a selected group of their comrades. There are now 841 First World War burials in the cemetery. The cemetery also contains the Noyelles-sur-Mer Chinese Memorial, commemorating 41 men of the Corps who died on land or at sea and whose graves are not known. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Some links with more details of the history and photos of cemetery at Noyelles-sur-mer, sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/44/4400862.pdfwww.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_reports.aspx?cemetery=68500jeanbotquin.blogspot.com/2008/08/les-chinois-de-noyelles-sur-mer.html |
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Post by douglaslam on Dec 7, 2008 18:39:24 GMT -5
There were indeed many thousands of Chinese ( and Indians,too) served in someone else's conflict in Europe during WW I. The Canadian and US contingents also had a Chinese labourer componet. Though they were not combatants, they were still shot at, gassed, or got into harm's way in all manner of ways.
Life was even harder for a typical Chinese male to make a living back then.
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