Qingtianese diaspora

Qingtianese diaspora

青田华侨 Chin1-dia2-wu6-jiuao2
Group photo of Qingtianese community in Poland, 1932
Total population
c. 381,000 worldwide
Regions with significant populations
Spain	c. 125,000
Italy	c. 103,000
Portugal	c. 12,000
Brazil	c. 11,000
France	c. 9000
Austria	c. 7000
Germany	c. 5000
Netherlands	c. 4000
Belgium	c. 3000
Serbia	c. 3000
Greece	c. 2000
Hungary	c. 2000
Languages
Qingtian dialect Wenzhou dialect Mandarin Spanish Italian French
Religion
Chinese Buddhism; Confucianism; Chinese folk religion Roman Catholicism; Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
Wenzhounese Wu Chinese Overseas Chinese

The Qingtianese diaspora refers to the overseas Chinese and their descendants that are originated from Qingtian county, Zhejiang province, China.

Qingtian is renowned in China for its centuries-old diasporan communities, in which out of the county's 568,800 original inhabitants, as many as 381,000 of them are currently residing in 146 countries across the world, forming the bulk of Chinese populations in many countries, especially in European countries such as Spain where they constitute over 80% of the entire Chinese community.

History

The history of Qiantianese diasporan communities could be traced back to late-Ming era and became established in the early days of the Republic of China, and the phase of its developments could be roughly divided into three stages.

Ming and Qing era

Located in the hinterland of Southern Zhejiang, approximately 90% of Qingtian's territory is covered by hilly mountains, with more than 200 peaks that have an altitude of over 1,000 meters. The county's steep geographical terrain is thus vividly described by locals as: "nine mountains, half water, and half farmland (九山半水半分田)", and scarce arable land was what pushed its people to emigrate abroad". According to the 1935 English edition of the China Yearbook (中国年鉴):

Administrative map of Qingtian county, 1941

"At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, there was already presence of a small number of Chinese who trekked overland through Siberia to Europe to engage in commerce. In the early days, most of them were from Qingtian, Zhejiang, and they specialized in selling stone handicrafts made from Qingtian."

In the aftermath of the Opium War, the stone merchants benefitted greatly from the lifting of sea ban (海禁) policy by the imperial Qing government, and with the ratification of "Treaty of Yantai" in 1876, Wenzhou, the primary port city of Southern Zhejiang located at the mouth of Ou River, was opened for international commerce and maritime activities. This provided a much more convenient route for Qingtianese to travel abroad than the previous land routes.

In the early days, people from Qingtian often traveled overseas by both land and sea. Usually, they would first sail from the pier in Hecheng to Wenzhou, then take a boat from Wenzhou to Shanghai. After arriving in Shanghai, some would take a boat north to Lushun (Port Arthur) or Port of Yingkou, then leave China via Manchouli by land, embarking on a long travel across Siberia before arriving in Moscow or St. Petersburg, and from there travelling to various of other European countries.

Others went abroad by sea, with two different approaches. One was "藏舱" (literally "to hide in the cabin"), that is to let the middlemen of Shiliupu Wharf (十六铺码头) to first get in touch with the boatswain of the ocean-going ships, allowing them to disguise as sailors on board, and hid in the warehouse, utility room or sailor's room. After arriving at the destination, the boatswains would then let them ashore and sent them to the destination in the dead of night. In order to save money, some even took cargo ships and hid in containers, the voyage was long and the conditions were incredibly harsh, and the dead bodies of those who did not make it to the final destination due to lack of oxygen, food and water were subsequently thrown into the sea, which could have been the ultimate ending of many Qingtianese emigrants, who had gone missing ever since leaving the homeland. Despite the extremely high risk, most Qingtianese still preferred this way to travel abroad as it would cost them only 200 silver coins.

The other option was to acquire a passport, or "明走" (literally "to go abroad openly"), which was 100 silver dollars more expensive than hiding in the cabin, but it was also relatively safer. At that time, there were service agencies in Shanghai that provided services such as purchasing passports, providing food and lodging, buying ship tickets, and contacting the boatswain for cabin matters, making it easier for county residents to go abroad. Regardless, whether going abroad openly or secretly, they both posed a heavy burden for the impoverished people of Qingtian, most of them had to sell their lands, take debts or receive help from relatives and friends in order to have sufficient funds for the journey, only few of them were lucky enough to get financial supports from the older Qingtianese men who had already established themselves in foreign lands.

After departing from Shanghai, the steamships would pass through Hong Kong and Singapore, crossing the Strait of Malacca and detouring around the Cape of Good Hope (known as "大浪滩 Dàlàngtān" by the Qingtianese), heading north to the Strait of Gibraltar before finally arriving in Europe in the Mediterranean Sea, taking more than two months to complete the voyage. After the Suez Canal was opened to navigation in 1869, the ships were able to directly sail into the Mediterranean Sea through the canal and arrive in Marseille, France or Naples, Italy, shortening the voyage by nearly 8,000 kilometers. Since then, there has been ever more frequent flows of Qingtianese people who took the journey to Europe.

Republic era

In the early years of the Republic of China, almost the entire county was devastated by the flood brought by a heavy rainstorm on August 29, 1912. Extreme hardship in the aftermath of the floods prompted waves of exodus, which between 1912 and 1914, approximately a thousand people had left the county.

In the midst of First World War, Britain, France and other states had all experienced varying degrees of labor shortages, and following China's entry into the World War I on the side of Entente Powers in 1917, 140,000 to 150,000 Chinese Labour Corps were sent to serve on the Western Front, with Britain accounting for around 100,000, and France 40,000. According to statistics from the French Ministry of War in 1922, of the 36,941 Chinese workers employed in France, 31,409 were from North China, and of the 4,024 workers who were from the South, more than 2,000 were from Qingtian. After arriving in France, the Qingtianese workers mainly engaged in rear-area service work, such as transporting supplies, digging trenches, and building railways.

Group photo of Qingtianese diasporas in France, Jin Zuoren first in the left ( a collection of Qingtian Overseas Chinese History Exhibition）

With the end of the First World War, while workers from other parts of China had mostly returned to their places of origin, one thousand labourers from Qingtian chose to stay. The size of Qingtian overseas Chinese reached its first climax during this period, with more than 30,000 people living in Europe and 42 other countries in the world.

Aside from Europe, Japan was also an ideal place for Qingtian people to earn a living in the early years of the Republic of China, due to its shorter distance and easier paperworks required. Demand for Chinese laborers surged with the booming of Japanese arms industry in the First World War, which in turn had attracted waves of immigrants from Wenzhou, Qingtian and other places to seek employment in Japan. However, the Chinese community was dealt with a catastrophic blow when a major earthquake rocked Japan in September 1–8th, 1923, which was ensued by a bloody massacre against the Koreans and Chinese residing in the country. Among the 716 Chinese civilians that were either killed, injured, or declared missing, 161 of which were workers and traders of Qingtianese origin.

Situation for Chinese immigrants deteriorated with straining policies implemented by the Japanese government, around two thousand Qingtianese and Wenzhounese migrants were forcibly repatriated, and applications of a thousand others to enter Japan were rejected between February and April, 1924. Immigration ceased almost entirely after Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

The 40 Qingtianese men who converted to Catholicism in Isola del Gran Sasso concentration camp, August 1941

The outbreak of World War II and the ensuing warfare, atrocities and displacements devastated the Qingtianese community in Europe. On September 27, 1940, Italy, which was under the rule of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, formed the Axis Aliiance with Germany and Japan and began to target the Chinese community in Italy, whose country of origin belonged to the Allied Powers. As a result of mass arrest taken by the Italian government, nearly 200 overseas Chinese from Qingtian were detained in the Isola del Gran Sasso internment camp located in the mountainous Abruzzo region of Southern Italy. According to the newspaper report of L'Osservatore Romano on August 4–5, 1941, 40 Chinese men in the internment camp converted to Catholicism on the same day under the persuasion of a Chinese pastor named Chang, and held a baptism ceremony in the church. At the end of 1943, the local anti-fascist guerrillas in Italy successfully liberated the town of Isola del Gran Sasso and released the Chinese imprisoned in the internment camp.

After World War II, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Nationalist government carried out relief work for overseas Chinese victims of World War II, sending most of the overseas Chinese in Europe back to China. Due to the ruinous state of Europe and the turbulent situation in China after the war, the number of overseas Chinese from Qingtian dwindled from more than 30,000 in the heyday of the 1920s and 1930s to less than 5,000 in 1949.

People's Republic and present era

Monument with inscriptions dedicated to Wu Guanpu, a Qingtianese diaspora who left for France in 1980.

Between 1949 and 1978, under the international context of the Cold War, the government of the People's Republic of China implemented extremely strict regulations on the entry and exit of its citizens. As a result, the process of applying for permission to leave the country was difficult, in which only 752 people from Qingtian county were allowed to go abroad during this period, and the movement of Qingtian expatriates at home and abroad was at one point stagnant.

After China's Reform and Opening Up in late 1970s, Qingtian experienced the third and also largest wave of emigration in its history. With the first decade of economic reform, 16,206 people in Qingtian county had obtained passports and were approved to go abroad, and from 1991 to 2000, a total of 117,476 people had, and in 2000 alone the number reached 29,980.

Since the late 1980s, the governments of Italy, Spain and France have repeatedly given amnesty for illegal immigrants. Relaxed immigration policy promoted the rapid growth of Qingtianese communities in these countries in recent decades. As of today, there are as many as 381,000 Qingtianese people currently residing in 146 countries across the world, forming the bulk of Chinese populations in many countries, especially in European states such as Spain where they constitute over 80% of the entire Chinese community.

Culture

Architecture

Nearly three hundred years of continuous contact with the world has profoundly influenced and changed the face of Qingtianese society. Aside from using the money they saved overseas to buy land and property, the returning Qingtianese also introduced Western architectural styles. They brought back building materials such as cement from abroad and integrated them with local brick and wood structures, leaving behind many private residences and public buildings with unique styles in the towns and villages of Qingtian. The Wu Family Mansion in Longxian Village, Fangshan Township, is a typical example of a diasporan architecture in Qingtian. It was built in 1930 by Wu Gankui, a renowned Qingtianese in Europe, in which the residence is a European-style building located against the mountain and by the water in line with the patterns of Feng Shui, with five rooms and three floors 14.62 meters in width, and 11 meters deep. The windows of the side rooms on both sides are mostly made of stained glass, retaining the aesthetics of a classic 1930s Qingtianese architecture with immense fusion of local and Western cultures.

Driven by the flourishing "diasporan economy" in the past three decades, a European architectural boom has also emerged in Hecheng, the seat of Qingtian. Located along the Oujiang River, the 1,770-meter-long Linjiang East Road (临江东路) is home to a great number of Baroque-style buildings, such as the Qingtian Library, the Kaiyuan Meitu Hotel, and the Overseas Chinese Hotel which was originally built in 1984 and has now been rebuilt and renovated. It has become a popular gathering place for the returning diasporans and tourists to relax and socialize.

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  A view of Linjiang East Road
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  Longjin park (龙津公园), in the distance is the Jingyun Pedestrian Bridge (景云桥) built in European style
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  Street slogan "Qingtian: Hometown of Overseas Chinese" in English
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  The main building of the Wu family's old mansion in Fangshan Township

Cuisine

Most of the early Qingtian immigrants who immigrated abroad started their careers in the catering industry. As a result, the Qingtianese have become an important medium for spreading Chinese cuisine overseas, especially in Europe, where Chinese restaurants run by Qingtianese account for half of the total. For example, in Austria, 7 out of every 10 Chinese restaurants are run by the Qingtianese.

While bringing their own cuisine and ingredients overseas, the Qingtianese around the world have also managed to master the culinary traditions of their host countries, and nurtured a burgeoning Western cuisine and coffee culture in Qingtian. In 1992, the first coffee house named "原乡人 Yuanxiangren" was opened for business in Qingtian. Since then, cafés and the habit of drinking coffee have sprung up throughout the county as batches of overseas Chinese left and returned. Today, there are as many 517 cafés across the county, with an annual coffee consumption of more than 100 tons and an average daily coffee consumption of nearly 20,000 cups, about 10 times the national average in China.

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  Zhengyang Restaurant (正阳酒楼), founded by Qingtianese Chen Yuguang, started its business in Madrid, Spain on June 18, 1992,
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  One of the branches of Qingtian Coffee store in Hangzhou East Railway Station, China

See also

• Overseas Chinese
• Chinese people in Italy
• Chinese people in Spain
• Chinese people in Germany
• Wenzhou people
• Fuzhou people

External links

Media related to Chinese expatriates at Wikimedia Commons