Liverpool Commemorates the Chinese Labour Corps of the Allied World War I front 10th August

An important upcoming event in the history of China's relations with the West. A hundred thousand Chinese volunteers worked alongside the Allied forces in the European theatre of World War 1, doing some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs on the battlefield. It was understood that an allied victory would mean China being given back its territories that had been taken by Germany.

These men were to be betrayed when the Versailles Treaty gave their land, not back to the Chinese, but to the Japanese, laying the foundations for some of the worst atrocities ever committed by humans on other humans.

Here is announcement from the Meridian Society.

Liverpool Commemorates the Chinese Labour Corps

As the centenary commemorations of World War I draw to a close this year, Liverpool remembers the contribution of the Chinese Labour Corps, almost a hundred thousand men from China who joined the Allied effort by providing logistical help at the Front.

The Meridian Society aims to raise awareness of their story nationwide through its project activities (supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund). Local residents and visitors from elsewhere are invited to join us in Liverpool on the occasion of the centenary of the last Chinese labourer buried at Anfield who died on 9th August 1918.

A day of remembrance in honour of the Chinese Labour Corps will take place in collaboration with the Museum of Liverpool and Friends of Anfield Cemetery on Friday 10th August (details below).

A Family Activities Day will be held at the Museum of Liverpool on Saturday 11th August, at which members of the general public will be able to hear a talk on the Chinese Labour Corps and attend film screenings, or learn about the experiences of Chinese labourers by taking part in workshops on story-telling and Chinese arts and crafts. A number of Chinese Labour Corps artefacts will be on display and the museum will provide World War I objects for handling.

A photographic exhibition on the Chinese Labour Corps from the W J Hawkings Collection, courtesy of his grandson John de Lucy, and kindly prepared by The Oriental Museum of Durham University, is currently on display at The Black-E, 1 Great George Street, L1 5EW. Entitled 'A Noble Duty Bravely Done - The Chinese Labour Corps in World War I', the exhibition will run until 18th August 2018.

Remembering the CLC at Liverpool on Friday 10th August

Commemorative service
Time 1.30 - 2.30 pm
Venue: Anfield Cemetery, 238 Priory Road L4 2SL
A commemoration in remembrance of the members of the Chinese Labour Corps who died in Liverpool to be held at their graveside in the Cemetery. Local residents and visitors from elsewhere are most welcome to join us in honouring them.

Film Screening
Time 3.30 - 5 pm
Venue: Museum of Liverpool, Pier Head L3 1DG
A documentary film ‘Forgotten Faces of the Great War’ containing oral histories by descendants both of Chinese labourers and Western Chinese Labour Corps officers to be screened at the Museum. Numbers are limited and places will be allocated on request.

If you would like to attend these events please email us
For more details on the project, please click here

Thousands of Chinese seamen forcibly repatriated after WWII deserve justice

Peter Foo writes in his Change.org petition, addressed to Home Office Minister Theresa May, seeking justice for men who risked their lives for this country and Allied interests in World War Two:

We are seeking an acknowledgement and apology from the Home Office for the 1946 Forced Repatriation of thousands of Chinese Seamen based in Liverpool on behalf of their families, wives, children and grandchildren.

On behalf of all of the children, I have started this petition because my father disappeared in 1946 and this event has had a bad reflection on my life.

It is reasonably well known and well documented that thousands of Chinese seamen made up the numbers to crew the British merchant ships during the Second World War, the majority manning cargo ships on the renowned North Atlantic run. They all played a part in the allied forces victory.

It was brought to light and made available to the general public in 2002 that in July 1946 the police under the supervision of UK government agents indiscriminately rounded up thousands of these Chinese seamen and forcibly deported them from the UK to the Far East.

Due to civil conflict between the Communists and the Republicans the coastal areas of main land China being inaccessible the majority of these seamen were not repatriated but were put ashore in foreign countries thousands of miles from their homes.

The families of these seamen were totally ignorant of these events thinking that the men were killed at sea or they had been deserted and left abandoned with no form of income.

A number of the Liverpool Chinese seamen forcibly deported over a period of two days, were married to Liverpool women or were in relationships with British women and were fathers to young children.

These ‘children’ are now in their late sixties - early seventies and have realised that their lives have been affected by the emotional upset of finding out that their fathers who had disappeared had probably been forcibly repatriated. Some of the women affected have found out in the last three years that they had been adopted and this has caused much upset to them and their children and grandchildren.

On the 18th October 1945 representatives of the British government along with the Chief Constable of Liverpool, Herbert Winstanley and the Liverpool Immigration Inspector, Ted Holmes attended a meeting chaired by a Home Office civil servant, Carew Robinson representing the Ministry of War Transport to organise the expulsion of 2000 ‘undesirable’ Chinese seamen. A decision was made that the women who were in relationships with Chinese seamen were prostitutes.

The consequence of this historic illegal deportation created a detrimental effect on the lives of innocent British citizens and has arguably had tragic and psychological life changing implications including financial difficulties and cannot be measured in any shape or form.

Peter Foo

Please sign

Windows to the past - China in Liverpool: South China Morning Post City Scope column

THE "OPERA FOR CHINATOWN" ART INSTALLATION, ON LIVERPOOL'S DUKE STREET, FEATURES PHOTOS OF THE OLD BOARDING HOUSE'S LONG FORGOTTEN RESIDENTS. 

My City Scope column for the South China Morning Post magazine 20th July 2014.

City scope: Windows to the past
Anna Chen in Liverpool

Liverpool, home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe, is hosting the International Festival for Business (IFB) this summer. And if you thought Britain was a country that didn't "make" anything any more, the IFB's emphasis on hi-tech industries serves as a reminder of what the nation does so well: the manufacturing, advanced engineering, automotive and aerospace sectors are all thriving.

Having been booked to read poetry for the festival's China Day, I discovered the city has had a wash and a brush-up in the decade since I last visited. The first thing you notice on emerging from the swanky new curved roof of Lime Street Station is the acreage of glass and steel springing up alongside the old iconic architecture.

The building of the Tate Liverpool art gallery in 1988 spearheaded a revival of interest in the visual arts, but it's only now that the visitor can see it exploding from the town's every pore.

Opposite the Il Forno restaurant, in Duke Street, where I was due to give my talk on the Chinese diaspora and read poetry, a grim Georgian terrace has been magically transformed into "Opera for Chinatown", an art installation dedicated to early Chinese immigrants. Once a boarding house, it's now a key piece of history for the Chinese in Britain.

A palette of scarlet, black, yellow and ocean blue against red brickwork frames enlarged black and white photographs of bygone inhabitants gazing out from the windows at the modern world. Descendants of these subjects have been moved to tears on seeing a forgotten generation made visible.

Some of those early boarding-house residents were sailors who'd served in the British merchant navy during the second world war, but were secretly and forcibly repatriated to China after risking their lives for the Allied cause. Many left behind families who never learnt of their fate.

In The Curious Disappearance of Mr Foo, a remarkable play about this shameful episode, which premiered at the festival, Simon Wan and Tina Malone play lovers torn apart by the Clement Attlee government's betrayal.

Writers Moira Kenny and John Campbell based the dialogue on verbatim testimony from their Sound Agents oral history project to create a powerful and illuminating drama which, alongside their invaluable preservation of the story of Liverpool's Chinese population, places the city centre stage in the rich chronicle of the diaspora.

Anna Chen's Chinese Diaspora talk and poetry reading at Liverpool's International Festival of Business China Day

A reminder about Liverpool tomorrow. I'm looking forward to giving my China Diaspora in Britain talk plus a poetry reading from Reaching for my Gnu at the Il Forno Restaurant in Duke Street, Liverpool, tomorrow at 4pm. My dad lived in Liverpool from the 1920s before he moved to London.

It's the International Festival of Business China Day. I'm speaking at Il Forno Restaurant and there's also an Opera for Chinatown in Duke Street.

Details here.

Twitter hashtags: #itsliverpool #IFB2014 #onecityonesummer #iliad

Chinese Diaspora talk and poetry in Liverpool 18th June

Anna Chen gives her Chinese Diaspora in Britain talk and reads poetry at the International Festival of Business China Day launching 'Opera for Chinatown' in Liverpool. 

I'm really looking forward to doing this live event in Liverpool.

"Writer, poet and broadcaster Anna Chen is coming to Liverpool on the 18th June to celebrate International Festival of Business IFB China Day and to launch The Sound Agents 'Opera for Chinatown' public art work in Duke Street. The event will take place in Il Forno restaurant in Duke Street at 4 pm. Booking Essential."

Anna Chen's talk on the history of the Chinese Diaspora In Britain includes the fascinating stories of the first Chinese visitors to Britain such as the Jesuit priest Michael Shen Futsong in the 17th century; her father and the politics of the time including the seafarers, Liverpool and his early role in London's Chinatown; the opium wars and the East India Trading Company; how Chinese scientific and cultural innovations affected Europe; the current changing political balance in the UK and representation in the arts; and the Fu Manchu Yellow Peril scare. Plus poetry. Far from being cowed, craven and submissive as depicted in colonialist popular culture, Anna shows that the Chinese in Britain were able to resist exploitation: her own father helped to found the Chinese Seaman's Union and was active in the Save China campaign during the Japanese occupation of China.

I'll be reading poetry from her collection, Reaching for my Gnu (pub: Aaaarh! Press) and some new ones.

More info here

The forced repatriation of Chinese seaman from post-war Liverpool: my column for the South China Morning Post

Photo: Pak Hung Chan

In 2007 I made a ten-part series for BBC Radio 4 called Chinese In Britain. Along with my wonderful producer Mukti Jain Campion at Culture Wise, we covered hitherto largely unknown issues and events such as the forced repatriation by the Attlee government of Chinese seamen who'd risked their lives keeping Britain's merchant navy running in World War II.

Last year, Moira Kenny at Soundagents helped organise a commemorative plaque on the site of the Blue Funnel offices in Liverpool. My South China Morning Post column on the subject:

"Keep my funnels tall and blue and look after my China men". So reads the quote from Victorian magnate Alfred Holt on the newly erected plaque outside the former Blue Funnel shipping office (now the New Capital Chinese restaurant) on Nelson Street, in Liverpool's Chinatown. 

It has taken more than 60 years but at last the thousands of Chinese mariners who worked for the company are being remembered. The plaque's blue denotes a historical marker and Holt's "China men" wrote their own chapter in Britain's seafaring tradition - only to be shamefully cast away in the aftermath of its "finest hour". 

For too long their experience constituted an episode the British authorities seemed to want to forget. Thousands of men sailed from Shanghai and Canton to Britain in the years following the Blue Funnel Line's establishment, in 1866. For decades it was Britain's main trading conduit with China - and by the second world war, some 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese sailors had made Liverpool their home. ...

READ MORE HERE

Also, read Don Flynn at Migrants' Rights

Chinese coolies on the Western Front in World War I.