Milk of Paradise by Lucy Inglis

Author:Lucy Inglis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Welcome to Dai Fou

The word coolie comes from the Chinese word k ’u-li, translated as ‘hard strength’, from their traditional work as physical labourers. These workers who came aboard the merchant ships bound for America after the end of the Second Opium War were often indentured, and, having left the money for selling their labour with their families, emigrated for a set period of time, often a considerable number of years, to another country. Peru, America and Australia were the main destinations for them in the middle of the nineteenth century, and many were deceived about just how long they would be away from home. Many were also kidnapped and placed in barracoons, or holding centres, until the ships were ready to sail. Mortality rates, for which there are no reliable figures, were high enough to make perishing on the journey a genuine risk.

Their main point of entry was on the West Coast of America at San Francisco, which they called Dai Fou. By the time many of the first Chinese immigrants arrived there, the California Gold Rush was beginning and there was work to be had in the mining communities, or in large San Franciscan construction companies. The San Francisco Chinatown was the first and most significant on the West Coast, and well established by the 1850s, when it had over thirty general merchandise stores, more than a dozen apothecaries, several restaurants and herb shops and three boarding houses. It had been put aside by the city as an area where the Chinese could own land, so had become an obvious place to settle, as well as providing the comforts and ties of home. The level of immigration was incredibly rapid, with only 325 Chinese recorded in San Francisco in 1849, but 25,000 by 1852.35 This was partly because ordinary workers, now free to leave China, booked their passage on the Pacific Mail Steamship Company boats. They soon made up 10 per cent of California’s population, and were making their way east to work not only in mining towns but other settlements, although many remained on the West Coast.

The Chinese presence was almost uniformly resented by the American press and the American people. It did not matter that they had been pressed out of their own country, either by force or financial necessity, by people who then charged them for their crossing. One of the problems was the Chinatowns, which created an alien presence inside large, predominantly white settlements. Another was the sheer difficulty of the cultural barrier. Another was that the Chinese workers brought with them their prime means of relaxation at the end of a long day: opium.

Soon there were opium dens in San Francisco, causing both social and political problems, ‘where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken women and men are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy, there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, profanity, blasphemy and death are there. And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass is there also.’36

Authors of this type of writing, such as B.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.