British Chinese
Encyclopedia
British Chinese including British-born Chinese (also informally referred to as BBC) are people of Chinese
ancestry who were born in, or have migrated to, the United Kingdom
. They are part of the Chinese diaspora, or overseas Chinese
. The British Chinese community is the second largest in Europe just after France and thought to be the oldest Chinese community in Western Europe (if not all of Europe), with the first Chinese coming from the ports of Tianjin
and Shanghai
in the early 19th century, many thousands of whom settled in port cities such as Liverpool in 1804 and earlier.
Today, many Chinese families and communities have been in the UK for several generations. These communities have an active ethnic life with many activities and support networks for members, but have also integrated into the British community at large. Compared to most ethnic minorities in the UK, the Chinese are more widespread and decentralised, with a record of high academic achievement, and have one of the highest inter-ethnic marriage rates in the country. Since the relatively elevated immigration of the 1960s, the Chinese community has made rapid socioeconomic advancements in the UK over the course of a generation. There still exists a segregation of the Chinese in the labour market, however, with a large proportion of the Chinese employed in the Chinese catering industry. The Chinese are said to form a relatively invisible community. While anti-Chinese sentiment on the part of the "white" majority host community has abated since the 1970s, segments of the UK press still frequently resort to stereotypical depictions of Chinese in their coverage of news events concerning China or Chinese in Britain.
Most British Chinese are, or are descended from, people who were themselves overseas Chinese when they came to Britain. Most are from former British colonies, such as Hong Kong
, Malaysia, Singapore
, Canada
, Australia
and New Zealand
. People from mainland China
and Taiwan
and their descendants constitute a relatively minor proportion of the British Chinese community. There are Chinese communities in many major cities including London
, Birmingham
, Glasgow
, Manchester
, Liverpool
, Newcastle
, Cardiff
, Sheffield
, Belfast
, and Aberdeen
. In the 2001 Census, 247,403 people listed their ethnicity as Chinese, accounting for 0.4 percent of the total population. The Chinese community is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK, with 9.9 percent annual growth between 2001 and 2007. More than 90 percent of this growth was due to net migration.
The first recorded Chinese person in Britain was a Jesuit scholar called Shen Fu Tsong who was present in the court of King James II
in the 17th century. Shen was the first person to catalogue the Chinese collection in the Bodleian Library
. The King was so taken with him he had his portrait painted and hung in his bed chamber. The portrait of Shen hangs in the Queen's collection.
In the mid-18th to 19th century, the British aristocracy developed a passion for Chinoiserie
, which affected not only furniture and ornaments, but fashion and society as well; upper-class gentlemen enjoyed dressing up in dragon and mandarin robes on festive occasions and ladies endeavoured to procure Chinese boys as pages or pets.
The first settlement of Chinese people in the United Kingdom dates from the early 19th century. Because many of the Chinese settlers were originally seamen, the first settlements started in the port
cities of Liverpool
and London. In London, the Limehouse
area became the site of the first Chinatown
established in Britain and Europe.
The East India Company
, which was importing popular Chinese commodities such as tea, ceramics and silks, and bringing Asian
sailors too, needed trustworthy intermediaries to arrange the sailors' care and lodgings while they were in London. A Chinese seaman known as John Anthony took on this lucrative role looking after Chinese sailors for the East India Shipping Company in the late 18th and early 19th century. By 1805, Anthony had amassed both the fortune and the influence to become the first Chinese man to be naturalised as a British citizen—an act so rare it actually required an Act of Parliament
.
British shipping companies first started employing Chinese sailors during the Napoleonic Wars
(1803–1815) to replace the British sailors who had been called up to the Royal Navy. They soon discovered that they worked for less, did not drink to excess, and were easier to command. Conditions aboard ship appalled Lee Cheong, for instance, when he visited his father's quarters: "The smell ... I remember the smell and the incredibly cramped conditions. I remember going down below, rows and rows of bunks, knapsacks and all sorts of junk stuffed in every nook and cranny ... lots and lots of people milling around. I couldn’t think of anything worse than those sorts of conditions."
With the advent of steam in the 1860s, the recruitment of Chinese seamen increased on the trading routes from the Far East.
In 1865, the first direct steamship service from Europe to China was established in Liverpool by Alfred and Philip Holt's Blue Funnel Line
, using cheap Chinese crews.
The first Chinese student to graduate from a British university was Wong Fun who received his MD
in 1855 from Edinburgh. He marked the beginning of a steady flow of students from China, encouraged by educational reformer Zhang Zhidong
who believed Western learning was needed to reverse China's fortunes and help it to catch up with the rest of the world. Many Chinese graduates did indeed return to make a significant contribution to their country, but some stayed.
In 1877, Kuo Sung-tao, the first Chinese minister to Britain, opened its legation
in London, and in 1882, Wu Tin Fang became the first Chinese student to be admitted to the bar
in London. In the mid-1880s, Chinatowns started to form in London and Liverpool with grocery stores, eating houses, meeting places and, in the East End, Chinese street names. In 1891, the Census recorded 582 Chinese-born residents in Britain, though this dropped to 387 Chinese-born residents in 1896. 80% were single males between 20 and 35, the majority being seamen.
By 1890 there were two distinct, if small, Chinese communities living in east London. The Chinese from Shanghai
were settled around Pennyfields, Amoy Place, and Ming Street (in Poplar
) and those from Canton
and Southern China
lived around Gill Street and Limehouse
Causeway. There was much prejudice against the East End Chinese community largely due to exaggerated reports of gambling
and opium den
s. This may have been true of some, but for the majority of Chinese people, life consisted of hard work in the London Docklands, struggling to save for a passage for the return voyage to the Far East
. Like much of the East End
it remained a focus for immigration
, but after the devastation of the Second World War many of the Chinese community relocated to Soho
.
After the 1890s, the Chinese community in the East End grew in size and spread eastwards, from the original settlement in Limehouse Causeway into Pennyfields. This area was provided for the Lascar, Chinese, and Japanese sailors working the Orient
al routes into the Port of London
. The main attractions for these men were the opium dens, hidden behind shops in Limehouse
and Poplar
, as well as the availability of prostitutes, Chinese grocers, restaurants, and seamen's lodging-houses. Hostility from British sailors and the inability of many Chinese to speak English fostered a distinct racial segregation
and concentrated more and more Chinese into Pennyfields. Gradually the drab shops of Pennyfields were transformed into Chinese emporia
and their colourful interiors became an exotic contrast to the grey streets of Poplar. It was written at time that "[t]he Chinese shops are the quaintest places imaginable. Their walls decorated with red and orange papers, covered with Chinese writing indicating the "chop" or style of the firm, or some such announcement. There is also sure to be a map of China and a hanging Chinese Almanac
."
The heady smells of burning opium, joss-sticks, and tobacco smoked through the hubble-bubble, produced an atmosphere much sought after by the literary and artistic coterie
of fin-de-siècle London. Pennyfields became a 'sight' for West End
society. From the 1890s until the 1920s, parties regularly went east at night, expecting to find the unusual and morally degenerate in Pennyfields. Instead they found a commonplace street. The Pennyfields of legend was always more exciting than that of reality. But it was different from the rest of Poplar: "In the darkness of Pennyfields dark faced men are passing. Over the restaurants and shops are Chinese names."
In 1901, the first Chinese laundry
opened in Poplar
, and it was immediately stoned by a hostile xenophobic crowd. The Trades Union Congress
(TUC), concerned about the importation of Chinese labour into the South African gold mines
, suggested that the mine-owners and the Conservative government
were "preventing South Africa
becoming a white man's country". Also during that time, the first report on the Chinese in Britain was produced by the Liverpool City Council
amidst concern over Chinese marrying English wives, gambling, and opium-taking. Liverpool
's Chief Constable
, however, expressed the view that the resident Chinese were "quiet, inoffensive and industrious people".
In 1907, the first recorded Chinese restaurant was opened in London. By 1918, the number of Chinese living in Pennyfields, Poplar totalled 182; all were men, nine of them had English wives. At its height during the 1930s, Chinatown (which included Limehouse Causeway) consisted of 5,000 residents, many of whom were sailors. A few Chinese remained in Pennyfields until its demolition after 1960. As early as the 1920s, many of the houses occupied by the Chinese were described as "very old and in many cases extremely dilapidated externally". Internally, most were clean, uncrowded, vermin-free and less susceptible to infectious disease than their English neighbours.
In opposition to cheap Chinese crews, many crowds of angry British seamen prevented Chinese seamen from signing on ships in 1908. The Chinese had to return to their boarding houses under police escort to avoid molestation. In response to the general increase in hostility, from around 1900–1910, Chinese Mutual aid (or Benevolent) associations
were set up in London and Liverpool. In contrast to the semi-mythical Chinese (Masonic) secret societies
, these associations looked after the interests of their members, arranged burials, and assisted in cases of exploitation. (See also Tiandihui
, Triad society and Triads in the United Kingdom
.)
The 1911 Census recorded 1,319 Chinese-born residents in Britain and 4,595 seamen of Chinese origin serving in the British Merchant Navy. Also during this time, China was going through domestic and international turmoil as the Republic of China
was established with the overthrow of the Manchu
Qing dynasty
. The turmoil wasn't limited to the Chinese mainland; during the 1911 Cardiff riots in Wales
, every one of the city's 30 Chinese laundries was attacked by Welsh mobs.
As more Chinese seamen began to settle in the ports of London and Liverpool, a powerful set of myths began to develop about "Chinatown". The 1913 publication of the first Sax Rohmer
novels about the evil genius Dr. Fu Manchu
kick-started a near-hysterical interest in London's Limehouse
, turning it from a few drab streets of shops and restaurants to the most infamous patch of land in Britain—which supposedly harboured cunning "Chinamen" who lured white women into their opium dens. This exotic netherworld was featured in countless novels, films, and songs, and engrained the stereotype of the Chinese as inscrutable criminals in the heart of western popular culture.
A short-lived plan was propsed by the British Government to introduce several hundred thousand Chinese labourers into Britain in 1916, but trade union
leaders protested that such a project would have had "calamitous effects on the standard of life".
In 1917, 1,083 Chinese left Shandong
on a British ship bound for Le Havre
, as the first group of a total of nearly 100,000 recruited to unload munitions and supplies in France for the Allied effort
in World War I (see the article on the Chinese diaspora in France for more details).
After World War I ended, the Aliens Restriction Act was extended in 1919 to include peacetime, bringing about a decline in the Chinese population in Britain. The Zhong Shan Mutual Aid Workers Club was established, offering a meeting place free from British ridicule and humiliation. It aimed to unite the overseas Chinese
in Britain, to improve their working conditions and to look after their welfare
. Also in 1919, the Cheung clansmen
founded a limited liability company
controlling a group of successful restaurants, the first step in a new business trend. The 1921 census figures put the Chinese-born resident population at 2,419, including 547 laundrymen, 455 seamen and 26 restaurant workers.
In the early 1920s, many of the Crescent Moon literary group spent time in British universities, including the Cambridge romantic poet Xu Zhimo
(1896–1931) and LSE essayist Chen Xiying.
In 1925, the Kuomintang
sent a representative to London, establishing a close relationship with the Zhong Shan Workers Club to gain their support. The 1925–1926 Canton-Hong Kong strike
included Chinese workers who were based in the UK, following the massacre of workers in Shanghai
by the British. Effects of the immigration regulations were felt in Liverpool's Chinatown as the local press reported in 1927 that "the whole Chinese quarter has a dying atmosphere".
The 1931 Census showed a drop to 1,934 Chinese residents. There were over 500 Chinese laundries established in Britain as well as two to three Chinese restaurants open in Soho
catering to the British clientele of the West End theatre
crowds. In 1935, the first Chinese school—the Zhonghua Middle School—was established in Middlefields, Ealing
with thirty students. In 1937 at the beginning of World War II, Japan attacked China
, which led to the establishment of the China Campaign Committee in Britain with the support of Chinese students, Chinese intellectuals (such as Professor G.H. Wang, researching at the London School of Economics
), and by the Chinese communities in London, Liverpool, and Manchester. In 1938, two attempts to load a cargo of iron for Japanese munitions were defeated by dockers in Teesside
and London and Chinese seamen who refused to sign on the Japanese ship, despite bribes
. Also in that year, "China Week" and "China Sunday", supported by the Archbishop of York
and other Church leaders as well as the Chinese communities in Britain, raised funds for the International Peace Hospital in Yenan.
When World War II broke out in full in Europe in 1939, the Chinese Merchant Seamen's Pool of approximately 20,000 was established with its headquarters in Liverpool. These men manned the oil-tankers
on the dangerous Atlantic run. The China Campaign Committee and Chinese students, including K.C. Lim and Kenneth Lo, organised a petition of 1.5 million signatures in 1940, in protest at the closure of the Burma Road
by the British Government.
During both world wars, hundreds of thousands of Chinese seamen and workers were recruited and many hundreds were killed and injured aboard British ships, including those torpedoed by German submarines. A Chinese seaman called Poon Lim set the world record of 133 days for survival on a wooden raft after his ship was sunk by a German U-boat
in 1942.
Despite such risks, Chinese seamen were treated far worse, with less pay and fewer rights than their British counterparts. A London meeting of Chinese seamen launched a campaign, eventually successful, to win a wartime danger bonus for Chinese seamen equal to that granted to British seamen.
After the Second World War was over, however, the British Government and the shipping companies colluded to forcibly repatriate thousands of Chinese seamen. The Blue Funnel Line
fired all of its Chinese crews. Many of those left behind wives and children they would never see again. More than 50 years later in 2006, a memorial plaque in remembrance for those Chinese seamen was erected on Liverpool's Pier Head
.
. At the time, nearly 100 Chinese restaurants were open, as former embassy staff and ex-seamen found a niche in this trade. Records showed remittances
to Hong Kong of HK$ 2.5 million.
The largest wave of Chinese immigration took place during the 1950s and 1960s and consisted predominantly of male agricultural labourers from Hong Kong
, particularly from the rural villages of the New Territories
. This also included immigration, through Hong Kong, from the Guangdong
province of China
. The majority of these Chinese men were employed in the then growing Chinese catering
industry. Chinese-run laundry
businesses were the other major source of employment for the Chinese, but it was a declining industry and Chinese-run laundries are today non-existent. By 2004 for comparison, according to official figures, just under half of Chinese men and 40% of Chinese women in employment worked in the distribution, hotel, and restaurant industry.
The 1961 Census recorded Britain's Chinese population at 38,750, with a fivefold increase in Hong Kong-born residents in London. The Association of Chinese Restaurateurs was formed to maintain the good reputation of the Chinese catering business and to organise recruitment from the New Territories
.
Since the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act
, restrictions were placed on immigration from current and former British colonies, and these were tightened by successive governments. The Immigration act included a voucher system and significant Chinese migration to Britain did still continue by relatives of already settled Chinese and by those qualified for skilled jobs, until the end of the 1970s. Today, a significant proportion of British Chinese are second or third generation descendants of these post-World War II
immigrants. Approximately 30,000 workers from the New Territories were resident in Britain in 1962 and records showed remittances at HK$40 million. Ninety-six wives from Hong Kong joined their husbands in Britain in the beginning of that year, indicating a new phase from 'sojourning' to family reunion and a more settled life.
In 1963, Soho's Chinatown finally took over from the East End as the Zhongshan Workers' Club opened in the West End
, showing films and running classes. The first Chinese New Year
celebrations were held in Gerrard Street. The Overseas Chinese Service opened the first specialised agency to assist the Chinese in dealing with the host society by offering a translation and interpreting service. The Kuo Yuan
restaurant introduced Peking Crispy Duck to Britain.
In 1971, the Census recorded Britain's Chinese population at 96,030, more than doubling in ten years. By now, nearly every small town and suburb in the UK had its own Chinese restaurant. Out of the 4,000 Chinese owned businesses, about 1,400 were restaurants, indicating that as the market for restaurant trade reached saturation, the takeaway
trade had already taken off.
In 1976, Britain's Chinese population included approximately 6,000 full-time students and 2,000 nurses. The Chinese Community Centre opened in Gerrard Street with Urban Aid funding to deal with the problems experienced by the Chinese community.
In Northern Ireland
, the first ethnic minority to arrive in significant numbers was the Chinese in the 1970s. There are 4,200 speakers of the language (as of 2004) and, although this is dwarfed by the numbers claiming to be able to speak Irish
and Ulster Scots
, it was said for many years that Mandarin Chinese was the second most widely spoken "first language" in Northern Ireland after English. Chinese people first arrived in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Chinese is the largest non-native restaurant genre in Northern Ireland, as many of the initial immigrants set up food outlets in order to make a living.
In 1980, in what was considered a media breakthrough, David Yip
starred as the main character in the popular TV series, The Chinese Detective
.
The 1981 British Nationality Act
deprived Hong Kong British Overseas Territories citizen
s of the right of abode
in the United Kingdom, an issue that caused some controversy in the years leading up to the territory's handover
to China
in 1997. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
, it was considered necessary to devise a British Nationality Selection Scheme
to enable some of the population to obtain British citizenship to maintain confidence in Hong Kong and to counteract the effects of the emigration
of many of its most talented residents. The United Kingdom made a provision to grant citizenship to 50,000 families, whose presence was important to the future of Hong Kong, under the British Nationality Act (Hong Kong) 1990. (See also British nationality law
and British nationality law and Hong Kong
).
In 1981, the Census recorded Britain's Chinese population as 154,363. Thirty-five Chinese-language newspapers and 362 periodicals were on sale from seven bookshops in Soho
. Sing Tao
itself had a circulation of 10,000 in Britain. The Chinese population now numbered the elderly, and 30,000 children in British schools. Of these, 75 percent were born in the country, representing a new phase of settlement.
In 1982, the Merseyside Chinese Community Services opened the 'Pagoda of Hundred Harmony', an advice centre built with the help of an Urban Aid grant. In 1983, the Chinese Information and Advice Centre (CIAC), an amalgamation of the Chinese Workers Group (1975) and the Chinese Action Group (1980) received Greater London Council
(GLC) funding for a centre. Sixty Chinese associations, including women's groups and old people's clubs, were consolidated into two national umbrella organisations. There were approximately 7,000 restaurants, takeaways and other Chinese owned businesses, indicating a slow-down in the rate of growth. There were 926 students attending the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Mother Tongue School, which ran classes up to O-level standard.
The most significant migration from China
commenced in mid-1980s. This coincided with the Chinese government
's relaxed restrictions on emigration, although most left for the United States, Canada, and Australia.
In 1984-85, the British and Chinese governments signed the Draft Agreement on the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China in 1997. Construction was also begun of Manchester's Chinatown archway (now the largest in Europe), and was completed in 1987. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee
report identified five main problems faced by the Chinese in Britain. Recommendations included more language training, careers advice, community centres, and interpretation and advice services. Over 50 percent of the Chinese population was under 30; 50 percent lived outside the large metropolitan areas; only 2 percent were professionals, which included doctors, solicitors, architects, bankers, stockbrokers, business executives, teachers and university lecturers.
In 1986, Ping Pong, the first Chinese film from the Chinese community in Britain, opened in London. Directed by the British-born director Po-Chi Leong, who had directed several features in Hong Kong, the film was a rich, lively tale set in London's Chinatown. It had a largely unknown cast and dealt with traditional Chinese themes of family responsibility and duty. In 1987, Manchester's Chinatown Archway, the largest in Europe, was completed, marking co-operation between the government of China, Manchester City Council
and the local Chinese community. Currently, the largest Chinese arch in the UK is located in Chinatown, Liverpool
. It was constructed in 2000 and is also the largest such archway in the world outside of China.
As Hong Kong and China became wealthier during the 1990s, Hong Kong and Chinese parents increasingly sent their children to study in the UK and elsewhere. An estimated 80,000 Hong Kong and Chinese students attended UK universities in the academic year of 2004-05.
Small numbers of unskilled migrants from China sought employment in the UK in the early 1990s. In recent years, there has been an increase in illegal immigrants coming from China
and other countries into the United Kingdom, some of whom pay traffickers (so-called "snakeheads
") to smuggle them into many Western countries. Due to historical and cultural reasons, a sizeable proportion originate from Fujian
province in southeast China. Others are citizens from the Commonwealth countries (mostly former British colonies), who have been able to obtain tourist or student visas and remain in the UK after their visas have expired. Most work in the black economy or are employed as illegal cheap labour, usually in agriculture
and catering
. This activity became publicised nationwide in tragic consequences in the form of the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster
, though most migrants have remained invisible.
In April 2001, one of the largest demonstrations by the Chinese community, with around 1,000 people protesting, was held in London against media reports that Chinese restaurant
s had started the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis by using diseased meat. Within weeks, a Chinese community monitoring group reported that trade at restaurants and takeaways had plummeted because an unsubstantiated rumour had become a scare story labelling an entire community as "dirty". Following the march, the then Agriculture Secretary
Nick Brown
publicly denied that the rumours had begun in his department and described the controversy as a racist attack on the Chinese community. As of 2001, there were about 12,000 Chinese takeaways and 3,000 Chinese restaurants in the UK.
, who played for Stoke City (1933–1945) and Leslie Charteris
who wrote The Saint
novels that were made into the successful 1960s TV series.
dates back to the early 19th century, with the main influx arriving at the end of the 18th century. This was in part due to the Alfred Holt and Company establishing the first commercial
shipping line
to focus on the China trade
. From the 1890s onwards, small numbers of Chinese began to set up businesses catering to the Chinese sailors working on Holt's lines and others. Some of these men married working class
British women, resulting in a number of British-born Eurasian
Chinese being born during World War II in Liverpool. At the beginning of the War, there were up to 20,000 Chinese mariners in the city. In 1942, there was a strike for rights
and pay equal to that of white
mariners. The strike had lasted for 4 months. For the duration of the War these men were labelled as "troublemakers" by the shipowners and the British Government. At the end of the conflict, they were forbidden shore jobs, their pay was cut by two-thirds and they were offered only one-way voyages back to China. Hundreds of men were forced to leave their families, with many of their Eurasian children continuing to live in and around Liverpool's Chinatown to this day. See http://www.halfandhalf.org.uk.
, Highfield is the centre of the Sheffield Chinese community. There are many Chinese restaurants, supermarkets, and community stores as well as the Sheffield Chinese Community Centre. The Sheffield Chinese community is pressing for the street to be formally labelled Sheffield's Chinatown. The Chinese community in Sheffield is also spreading toward the city centre
, with a notable number of Chinese people, greatly influenced by the city's university, which has the largest number of Chinese in the country.
Britain began trading with China in the 17th century and a small community of Chinese sailors grew up around Limehouse
over the next two centuries. From the early 20th century, restaurants and laundries dominated this dockside Chinatown. Due to heavy bomb damage, however, the area was demolished after World War II. The Chinese established a new and larger Chinatown in Soho
. Many immigrants found employment in its restaurants during the 1960s and it is now a flourishing Chinese community in the heart of London.
The history of Chinese migration to London can be traced to the early 15th century, when the Ming Emperors of China
sent out a series of fleets, many under the command of the Admiral Zheng He
. These fleets consisted of the largest ships built anywhere in the world at the time. Their missions were to sail throughout the Far East
, across the Indian Ocean
to India
, the Red Sea
, and the East coast of Africa
.
The Chinese communities of Southeast Asia
, especially those of Thailand
, Indonesia
, Malaysia and the Philippines
, are thought to date from this period. The arrival of the first Chinese seamen in London was linked to the growth of British trade with China and Southeast Asia during the 18th and 19th centuries. Chinese sailors had reached London on board East India Company ships by 1782. This small group lived around Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway near the docks.
As the activities of the most important commercial association in the world at that time, the East India Company, expanded, China became a hugely important and profitable market. In the mid-18th century, imported Chinese products became fashionable, particularly porcelain. Tea dominated the Anglo-Chinese trade as it quickly became an English habit and its consumption grew in Britain, but there was nothing comparable that the Chinese wished to buy from the British.
The Company began to export opium
from India to China, selling the drug to raise the money to buy shipments of tea. This was against the law and angered China's authorities. In 1839, war
broke out between Britain and China over the opium trade. Britain defeated China and under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking
in 1842, Hong Kong
became a British colony.
In 1857, the Second Opium War
resulted in the unequal Treaties
of Tianjin which included a clause allowing Britain and France to recruit Chinese to the British Colonies, North American, South America, and Australia as cheap labour (otherwise known as "Coolies") following the cessation of the slave trade.
Forced to pay for defeat in these and other colonial wars, impoverished Chinese people were driven abroad where they were often treated with suspicion, hostility, and even violence. Cheap labour was often used as a pretext by British employers against demands for higher wages, and Chinese people became targets for frustrated British seamen. For example, the Ebbw Vale Company threatened to import cheap Chinese labour from Nevada
to break a strike of their workers in Wales
. Yet frequently the community did organise itself to better its conditions. The record of British people is not all negative either; for the most part, it was only a minority who did speak out and join with Chinese people to fight these injustices.
Chinese sailors were employed as Lascars on East India Company ships. Most Chinese seamen were engaged in the "country trade" between China and the main Indian ports. Some did make it to London on East Indiamen. Later in the 19th century, as more ships—especially the fast tea clipper
s—sailed directly from China to Britain, the number of Chinese sailors in the port increased. There was even a visit to London by a Chinese junk. The Keying reached Gravesend
on 28 March 1848, after sailing from Canton
to New York
. This was the first Chinese vessel to enter the Port of London
. Queen Victoria boarded it while moored in the River Thames.
For those Chinese who were left destitute in east London, there was some hope that they would be accepted into the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders. This place of safety was opened in 1857 in West India Dock Road
. Research into local inquests has highlighted some maltreatment of Chinese crew. In one case, a Chinese Lascar called Chan arrived in London from Calcutta on the ship Norma. Chan, who was in a very weak condition, was found by two other Lascars who carried him to the Dreadnought hospital ship at Greenwich
. Almost as soon as he boarded the ship, he collapsed and died. A coroners' examination showed that he had died from starvation. In 1860, a total of 47 Chinese were admitted to the Seamen's Hospital. In 1863, two Chinese inmates who had been at the Strangers' Home for a year retired to spend the rest of their days in London.
Between 1854 and 1856, many Chinese seamen were housed at the "Oriental Quarters" by the riverside at Shadwell
. They were off the High Street, near the present day Wapping Underground Station. These Oriental Quarters were lodging houses frequently run by English women who often spoke Oriental languages, and went by names such as Chinese Emma or Canton Kitty. Their premises were often used as gambling houses and opium dens. Some ran Chinese gambling houses, where card games were held downstairs and the upstairs served as an opium room. About 20 Chinese men lived in each. The 1851 census found 78 Chinese-born residents all living in London and a parliamentary enquiry expressed doubt as to whether there was sufficient space for living conditions.
The China tea trade via Canton was resumed despite increased competition from India
, which quickly surpassed China as the primary source of tea. In December 1877, the Louden Castle discharged 40,000 packages of China tea at the London Docks
. Chinese seamen stranded in London were allowed to work in the docks and many were involved in unloading China tea. One of the best-known Chinese Lascars was James Robson. Robson had been found as a castaway baby and taken on board a British ship by the wife of the captain. James was brought to London and grew up at Poplar
. He became a seaman and cook on the Cutty Sark
between 1885 and 1895. Another Chinese man who served on the Cutty Sark was Ah Sing Lee, a steward
from Singapore
. He was taken on at Shanghai
in 1879 and discharged at London in 1880.
The 1881 British census
included British vessels at sea that had a number of Chinese aboard Royal Navy
vessels, such as the HMS Encounter, the HMS Comus, and the HMS Sheldrake. There were also Chinese cooks, stewards, and servants on board the HMS Mosquito and the HMS Iron Duke. The British India Steam Navigation Company (BISNC), with ships such as the SS Almora and the Blue Funnel Line brought more Chinese seamen to London, especially after 1890.
By the 1850s, there were occasional records of Chinese women arriving in Britain as the nurses or 'Amahs' to British missionaries who had served in China. One example is Sing Seng, who arrived in London in 1858 from Ningpo. After some time in London, she returned to China in the service of a bishop to Hong Kong
. Local sources suggest that by 1860 there were some Chinese men married to English women. Many lived at riverside settlements such as Deptford
and Woolwich
. Most Chinese seamen lived to the north of the river. By 1880, the Chinese community was based in Limehouse
and consisted mainly of seamen from Shanghai
and Canton
who catered for the Chinese and Indians that arrived at the docks. In 1881, there were several Chinese seamen living in the boarding house of Mr M. Lamar at 14 Limehouse Court.
By 1890, there were two distinct communities in London— Chinese from Shanghai were settled around Pennyfields, Amoy Place and Ming Street (presently the area between Westferry
and Poplar
DLR
stations), and the Chinese from Canton and Southern China were settled around Gill Street and Limehouse Causeway. The historian Sir Walter Besant
put the Limehouse Chinese community at less than 100 people in 1891.
By the end of the 19th century, the transient Chinese dock community in London numbered over 500. Virtually all were single men, and some married English women.
In 1901, there were more than 40 Chinese sailors aboard the Bulysses at the Royal Albert Dock
s: 21 were from Canton
, 12 from Soochow
, at least three from Hainan Island, and one from Hong Kong
.
By 1911, the area of Limehouse and Pennyfields was known as Chinatown. At Pennyfields there was a Christian Mission for the Chinese and a Confucian temple
. At Limehouse Causeway there was the famous Ah Tack's lodging house.
There was much prejudice against the East End
Chinese community, with much of it initiated by the writings of Thomas Burke
and Arthur Henry Ward. Both of these men wrote about the Chinese community. Burke and Ward exaggerated the Chinese community's true size and made much mention of gambling, opium dens, and "unholy things" in the shadows. Though there were some individuals involved in gambling and opium smoking, for the majority of Chinese people life was hard work in the docks. It was a struggle to find passage for the return voyage to the Far East. The novelist Arnold Bennett
, who visited the Limehouse Chinatown in April 1925, correctly remarked: "On the whole a rather flat night. Still we saw the facts. We saw no vice
whatever. Inspector [of Police] gave the Chinese an exceedingly good character."
Changes to labour laws during the early 20th century meant that Chinese sailors found it increasingly difficult to find employment on ships. They turned instead to running restaurants and laundries.
The rector at St Anne's, Limehouse, estimated that at its peak after the First World War the local Chinese community never numbered more than 300 people. At that time, the community was still based around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. The area was marked with lodgings for seamen and restaurants. These streets were heavily bombed during The Blitz
.
During World War II, around 10,000 Chinese men enrolled in the Merchant Navy
while others defended Hong Kong and undermined Japanese forces in the Far East. The London docks
were badly damaged by bombing, and the remains demolished by the council. Now, only their names remain to evoke the past community. There are names such as Canton Street, Mandarin Street, Pekin Street, Ming Street and Nankin Street. Today, mostly elderly Chinese people live in the Limehouse area.
Despite the decline of the London shipping industry, the Chinese population grew steadily after the Second World War. After the war, the Chinese began to move into Soho
and bought up cheap property. Entire families were also entering the laundry
trade. Chinese hand laundries were made obsolete in the 1950s by the introduction of laundrettes and eventually much later the widespread use of domestic washing machine
s.
Yet the Chinese community continued to grow in the 1960s. This expansion was in part due to the labour shortage in Britain and the demand for Chinese labourers. During the same period, there was a collapse of traditional agriculture in the New Territories
(the mainland area of Hong Kong), as farmers became disillusioned with land reform
in Hong Kong and faced tough competition from rice farmers in Thailand and Burma. This led to the migration of single men seeking employment in Chinese restaurants in London, especially in the Soho
and Bayswater
areas. Most spoke Cantonese or Hakka, though written Chinese was a means of communication for the whole community. These restaurant workers sent part of their wages home to support their families.
The increase in immigration was initially composed of single men coming to Britain on work permit
s. Sometimes the men would register their age as 10 years younger than they really were. This was especially true of those seeking employment in the Merchant Navy
. After saving enough money they would bring their families over and establish their own catering
businesses.
During the 1960s, the number of Chinese people in London rose fivefold. The Chinese established various organisations such as language schools, gambling houses for socialising, and a Chinese Church in the West End. One notorious club was the Chi Kung Tong (Achieve Justice Society), the first Triad Society in Britain.
By the late 1960s, the Chinese restaurants and shops around Gerrard Street, Lisle Street, and Little Newport Street had evolved into "Tong Yan Kai", otherwise known as Chinatown. The general public developed a taste for Chinese food during the postwar restaurant boom.
In the 1970s and 1980s, many ethnic Chinese who had settled in Vietnam
for generations were forced to leave as "boat people
" following the Vietnam War
. Many settled in Lewisham
, Lambeth
, and Hackney
, as well as elsewhere in the UK.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a migration of academics and professionals from Chinatown to the suburbs of Croydon
and Colindale
.
Since the 1980s, London's Chinatown has been transformed by Westminster City Council
to become a major tourist attraction and a cultural focal point of the Chinese community in London.
Today over 100,000 Chinese people live in London, and are more evenly dispersed throughout the city and its boroughs. Roughly a quarter of the Chinese population of the United Kingdom now live in London, mainly in the boroughs of Barnet
, Haringey
, Waltham Forest
, Hackney
, Southwark
and Westminster
. Mare Street in Hackney is the hub of a small Vietnamese community. The principal languages of the London Chinese community are Cantonese and Hakka (from the New Territories, Hong Kong, and Vietnam). There are also some speakers of Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese. The Chinese from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and Singapore tend to speak Mandarin (or Putonghua). A large network of Chinese schools and community centres offers support and a means of passing on cultural identity from one generation to the next.
, or Spring Festival, is the most important celebration for Chinese and other East Asia
n communities. It links overseas Chinese and their descendants to their heritage, even though they live thousands of miles away from their ancestral homelands. Celebrations for Chinese people are of great traditional significance and include a ritual cleaning of their houses and visit to the temple, but also involve feasting with the family, celebration, fireworks, and gift-giving. This festival follows the lunar calendar
so it can fall any time from late January to mid-February and begins on the first day of a new moon and ends with the full moon on the day of the Lantern Festival
.
Celebrations in London are famous for colourful parades, fireworks, and street dancing. The route starts in the Strand
and goes along Charing Cross Road
and Shaftesbury Avenue
. Other activities include a family show in Trafalgar Square
with dragon and lion dances and traditional and contemporary Chinese art
s by performers from both London and China. There are fireworks displays in Leicester Square
, as well as cultural stalls, food, decorations, and lion dance displays throughout the day in London Chinatown.
There are Chinatowns and Chinese community centres in almost every place where there is a substantial Chinese community, and new immigrants and long term citizens can find help and support there.
There are also many activities of interest to new generations and the community at large, such as women's groups, health talks, day trips, cookery sessions, English-language classes, and IT training courses. There are celebrations of Chinese and British festivals, volunteer groups to help members of the community, as well as a work experience scheme for local school students to spend placements working within businesses in the community.
There exists several organisations in the UK that support the Chinese community. The British Chinese Society
is a non-profit organisation that runs social events for the Chinese community. Dimsum
is a media organisation which also aims to raise awareness of the cultural issues that the Chinese community face. The Chinese Information and Advice Centre
supports disadvantaged people of Chinese ethnic origin in the UK.
Since 2000, the emergence of Internet discussion sites produced by British Chinese young people has provided an important forum for many of them to grapple with questions concerning their identities, experiences, and status in Britain.
s, which have become tourist attractions where Chinese restaurants and businesses predominate, although in some cases relatively few Chinese people may live there. There are Chinatowns in London
, Birmingham, Manchester
, Liverpool
, Newcastle
, Sheffield, Belfast, and Aberdeen.
, Camden
, Islington
, Lambeth
, Haringey
and Tower Hamlets. Major organisations include the London Chinese Community Centre, London Chinatown Chinese Association, the London Chinese Cultural Centre.
The Westminster Chinese Library, based at the Charing Cross Library, holds one of the largest collections of Chinese materials in UK public libraries. It has a collection of over 50,000 Chinese books available for loan and reference to local readers of Chinese languages; music cassettes, CDs, and video films for loan; community information and general enquiries; a national subscription service of Chinese books; and Chinese events organised from time to time.
The London Dragon Boat Festival is held annually in June at the London Regatta Centre
, Royal Albert Dock
s. It is organised by the London Chinatown Lions Club.
and depression are common and, increasingly, Chinese community groups are providing advocacy and counselling to alleviate these problems. For men in the catering trade, unsociable hours and the lack of after-hours venues has led to the problem of late-night gambling clubs.
Accommodation tied to work is still common practice for those working in restaurants. As a result, homelessness is a serious issue faced by many elderly retirees. Limited access to Chinese-speaking housing associations makes it harder for them to obtain advice on housing and rights.
For older Chinese Londoners, tri-lingual community centres are an invaluable resource providing essential advice and services. For the younger generation of British-born Chinese, these centres provide a meaningful way to participate in their community and keep in touch with their language and cultural identity.
The connection between China and London has developed recently, with China hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, before handing the baton on to London. A series of cultural and business exchanges and exhibitions have increased awareness about Chinese culture for many Londoners. The Trafalgar Square celebration of Chinese New Year is now a firm fixture on London's Festival Calendar.
and domestic violence
from the Chinese community. This work includes actions against the police for misconduct, representation and advocacy, training, information dissemination, a helpline, and open surgeries.
In 1999, the New Diamond Restaurant in London Chinatown was attacked. Volunteers formed a group to support and represent the victims of the attack. The volunteers mounted a campaign highlighting the plight of the waiters, set up an emergency Helpline for the victims, and an advice surgery in Chinatown. The need for these services was so great at the time that the fledgling Min Quan group was soon overwhelmed with calls for assistance from across the country during the winter months of 1999. Throughout this time, the volunteers carried out their activities with the assistance of The Monitoring Group (TMG), a long-established anti-racist organisation. In 2000, Min Quan formalised its status and became a branch of TMG.
, the city with the second largest Chinese community in the UK, and the organisation is part of the region's rich Chinese heritage. The Chinese Arts Centre also hosts the International Chinese Live Art Festival which showcases work by Chinese artists from across the world.
The Yellow Earth Theatre Company is a London-based international touring company formed by five British East Asian performers in 1995. It aims to promotes the writing and performing talents of East Asians in Britain.
The Chinatown Arts Space is an organisation that promotes East Asian visual and performing arts.
and London
. These communities consisted of a transnational and highly mobile population of Cantonese
seamen and small numbers of more permanent residents who ran shops, restaurants, and boarding houses that catered for them. The number of Chinese seamen (who mainly worked as stoker
s) dwindled sharply during the Depression
and the subsequent decline of coal-fired intercontinental shipping
after the Second World War. In the 1950s, they were replaced by a rapidly growing population of Chinese from the rural areas in Hong Kong's New Territories
. Opening restaurants across Britain, they established firm migration chains and soon dominated the Chinese presence in Britain. In the 1960s and 1970s, they were joined by increasing numbers of Chinese students and economic migrants from Malaysia and Singapore
.
Chinese migration to Britain continued to be dominated by these groups until the 1980s, when rising living standards and urbanization in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia gradually reduced the volume of migration from the New Territories. At the same time in the 1980s, the number of students and skilled emigrants from the People's Republic of China
began to rise. Since the early 1990s, the UK has also witnessed a rising inflow of economic migrants from areas in China without any previous migratory link to the UK, or even elsewhere in Europe. A relatively small number of Chinese enter Britain legally as skilled migrants. However, most migrants arrive to work in unskilled jobs, originally exclusively in the Chinese ethnic sector (catering, Chinese stores, and wholesale firms), but increasingly also in employment outside this sector (for instance, in agriculture and construction). Migrants who enter Britain for unskilled employment are from both rural and urban backgrounds. Originally, Fujian
ese migrants were the dominant flow, but more recently increasing numbers of migrants from the Northeast of China
have arrived in the UK as well. Migrants now tend to come from an increasing number of regions of origin in China. Almost all Chinese unskilled migrants enter the country illegally and work in the nether economy, as the Morecambe Bay tragedy of February 2004 showed. Many claim asylum in-country, avoiding deportation after exhausting their appeals. In the United Kingdom Census 2001
, the population enumerated as Chinese totalled approximately 247,000.
(ONS), is based on the 2001 national census. However, it may not be an entirely accurate figure of the current population of people of Chinese origin in the UK. Reasons for this include: some had not participated in the 2001 national census, some had not specified their ethnic group in the census, either intentionally or unintentionally, and successive Chinese migration to or from the UK since 2001. A recent publication from the ONS, "Focus on Ethnicity and Religion (October) 2006", gave some detailed figures on the makeup of the UK's Chinese population that were based on the information by those who had identified themselves as 'Chinese' in the United Kingdom Census 2001
.
It should be noted, however, that in the United Kingdom, "Asian demographics" and "Chinese demographics" are separate. In British
usage, the word "Asian" or "British Asian
" when describing people usually refers to those from South Asia
(India
, Pakistan
, Bangladesh
, Sri Lanka
, Nepal
, Maldives
, etc.).
, Brighton
, Cambridge
, Glasgow
, Edinburgh
, Liverpool
, London
, Manchester
, Milton Keynes
, Hull
, Oxford
, Sheffield
, and Swansea
. In Northern Ireland
, Chinese make up the largest non-white minority, although the population of roughly 4,000 is relatively small.
Many locations with a high visible Chinese cultural presence are called Chinatown
s. Liverpool
's Chinatown is situated around the Berry Street and Duke Street area in the city centre. The Ceremonial Archway, which was built in Shanghai
, China, is located at the heart of Liverpool's Chinatown. Before World War II
, the original Chinatown was situated around Pitt Street. In London
, there is a Chinatown
centred around Gerrard Street, Soho
, in the West End
of central London which has many Chinese restaurants and businesses; it is mostly a commercial area, most Chinese live in other parts of London, especially north London
and Colindale
in particular. Sheffield's unofficial Chinatown is located at London Road
.
in London with a more than 5% Chinese population, which was Millwall
in Tower Hamlets
at 5.4%. The Chinese population is extremely dispersed, possibly because people want to set up a Chinese restaurant or takeaway that is a certain distance from the next one.
al achievement, figures in 2002 showed that British Chinese pupils were more likely to have gained five or more A*-C GCSE
grades than any other ethnic group, with 77% of British Chinese girls and 71% of British Chinese boys respectively achieving that target. British Chinese school pupils had the lowest exclusion rate at 2 per 10,000. A British Chinese person was also more likely to possess a university
degree
, or hold a job in a profession
al class, than the average Briton, but conversely, British Chinese people had the highest proportion with no qualifications (20%), and twice the unemployment rate (10%) compared to white Britons (5%). British Chinese men also had the highest rate of working-age economic inactivity (defined as those of working-age not available for work and/or not actively seeking work) of all males at 37%, twice the rate for white British men. The vast majority of economically inactive British Chinese men were students. The British Chinese were more likely to be self-employed (16%) than any other ethnic group except for Pakistanis. In 2004, just under half of British Chinese men in employment worked in the distribution, hotel, and restaurant industry, compared with one-sixth of their white British counterparts. British Chinese women are also concentrated in the distribution, hotel, and restaurant industry, as two-fifths worked in this industry in 2004. The British Chinese were most likely to have been employed in managerial and professional occupations (38%), compared with 27% for white Britons.
as "not good" of all ethnic groups. Chinese men and women had the lowest rates of long-term illness
or disability
which restricts daily activities. The British Chinese population (5.8%) were least likely to be providing informal care (unpaid care to relatives, friends or neighbours). Around 0.25% of the British Chinese population were residents in hospital and other care establishments.
Chinese men (17%) were the least likely to smoke of all ethnic groups. Fewer than 10% of Chinese women smoked. Fewer than 10% of the Chinese adult population drank above the recommended daily alcohol guidelines
on their heaviest drinking day.
The Chinese National Healthy Living Centre was founded in 1987 to promote healthy living, and provide access to health services
, for the Chinese community in the UK. The community is widely dispersed across the country and currently makes the lowest use of health services of all minority ethnic groups. The Centre aims to reduce the health inequality
between the Chinese community and the general population. Language difficulties and long working hours in the catering trade present major obstacles to many Chinese people in accessing mainstream health provision. Language and cultural barriers can result in their being given inappropriate health solutions. Isolation is a common problem amongst this widely dispersed community and can lead to a range of mental illness
es. The Centre, based close to London's Chinatown, provides a range of services designed to tackle both the physical and psychological aspects of health.
rates in the country when compared to other ethnic groups. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001
, 30% of Chinese women intermarried, a figure twice that for Chinese men (15%).
In a bid to increase voter registration and turnout, and reverse voter apathy within the community, campaigns have been organized such as the British Chinese Register to Vote organised by Get Active UK, a working title that encompasses all the activities run by the Integration of British Chinese into Politics (the BC Project) and its various partners. The campaign wishes to highlight the low awareness of politics among the British Chinese community; to encourage those eligible to vote but not on the electoral register to get registered; and to help people make a difference on issues affecting themselves and their communities on a daily basis by getting their voices heard through voting.
and settled in Britain, where they started up businesses based on their experience in America. There is little evidence to suggest that these "double migrants" had established close ties with Britain's other, longer-standing Chinese community. By the middle of the 20th century, the community was on the point of extinction, and would probably have lost its cultural distinctiveness if not for the arrival of tens of thousands of Hong Kong Chinese in the 1950s.
Starting a small business was the main way the Chinese coped with their limited ability to find employment in a generally alien and hostile English-speaking environment. They forged inter-ethnic partnerships to overcome the twin problem of raising funds and finding employees. In the first half of the 20th century, most Chinese were involved in the laundry
business, while migrants who arrived after the Second World War worked primarily in the catering
industry. As these businesses grew, so too did the demand for labour, which entrepreneurs met by exploiting kinship ties
to bring family members into Britain. Business partnerships broke up and evolved into family firms, starting and gradually reinforcing the move away from community-based enterprise. With this, competition escalated, since most migrants were involved in the same sector of industry.
This competition necessitated the community's geographical dispersal which further hindered its attempts to struggle collectively for greater protection from the authorities against racist discrimination. In urban areas, the experience of racism forced the Chinese into "ethnic niches", consisting primarily of restaurants and takeaways, thus heightening competition and placing further limits on communal cooperation. The more entrepreneurial of these migrants would strive to leave these enclaves and were usually the ones who achieved social mobility
. Later arrivals—the seafarers (in the first half of the 20th century) and immigrants from Hong Kong (from the 1960s)—were unable to cooperate to challenge the policies of the British government which were designed to prevent them from entering other economic sectors, even as part of the labour force. In addition to the generalised racism that they encountered, these Chinese migrants were trapped by policies to remain in economic spheres where their links with the majority population were curtailed and competition with the latter was minimized.
Government policies also had an important bearing on the issues of integration
and enterprise development. The Conservative
government under Margaret Thatcher
in the late 1970s and early 1980s actively promoted the setting up of small enterprises
, essentially as a mechanism to deal with the problem of racism. The government was then of the view that since immigrants preferred to concentrate on small businesses due to the hardships and difficulties, in the form of language barriers and racist discrimination, they experienced in the UK they would opt for opportunities for business ownership rather than employment with or by non co-ethnics.
While small enterprises have helped migrants to cope with the problem of their isolation and alienation in the new environment, a good segment of their children, on the other hand, have done well in education
, notably at the tertiary level
, and have made a prominent presence as professionals and in the high-tech sector. Given the knowledge that their parents worked long hours and under difficult conditions to alleviate themselves from poverty, most children of migrants scorn the notion of taking over their parents' businesses, specifically those that function as small enterprises. The dreariness of the nature of work and life in a takeaway also has a bearing on why they generally shun the businesses run by their parents.
By the turn of this century, the Chinese in the UK could be broadly categorized into four main categories:
Given their diverse national and class backgrounds, even though a small community, the Chinese never aspired for social cohesion. The absence of this goal of social congruence is reflected in the creation by them of numerous social and economic institutions to represent their interests. Most of these associations, fraught with divisions, have now ceased to operate. Moreover, a large number of poor Chinese migrants in the UK were forced to work for other Chinese who exploited them so badly that they could not wait to leave to set up their own enterprise. The diversity that exists within this society is what informs the character of the Chinese community in Britain.
The largest Chinese enterprises are involved in wholesaling and retailing
and are mainly controlled by migrants born in Hong Kong. There is no evidence that they have invested in launderettes. Unlike the situation in the US, the Chinese community in the UK has not built on its long presence in this sector. Although a small number of Chinese launderettes still operate in a number of cities, they do not seem to operate as companies.
The lists of directors and shareholders of Chinese-owned companies provide no evidence of interlocking stock ownership or of interlocking directorships. A number of them were created and ran as partnerships before coming under the control of one individual or family. Most of the start-up
funds for these businesses have come from personal savings or put together by family members. There is little evidence that they have had access to ethnic-based funding, and there are very few instances to suggest that financial aid has been provided on intra-ethnic grounds; rather, such assistance was for the mutual benefit of both borrower and lender. An example of an ethnic Chinese who capitalised on his ethnicity to create a Chinese-based business center in the UK is W. W. Yip.
An immigrant from Hong Kong who started out as a waiter, Yip became a restaurateur and later built his reputation as a leading wholesaler and retailer of Chinese food products. He is the owner of Britain's largest Chinese enterprise in terms of sales volume.
Chapters:
Online
Television
Radio
Publications
Communities
Old Bailey
Organisations
Arts Organisations
Radio
Statistics
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
ancestry who were born in, or have migrated to, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. They are part of the Chinese diaspora, or overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
. The British Chinese community is the second largest in Europe just after France and thought to be the oldest Chinese community in Western Europe (if not all of Europe), with the first Chinese coming from the ports of Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
in the early 19th century, many thousands of whom settled in port cities such as Liverpool in 1804 and earlier.
Today, many Chinese families and communities have been in the UK for several generations. These communities have an active ethnic life with many activities and support networks for members, but have also integrated into the British community at large. Compared to most ethnic minorities in the UK, the Chinese are more widespread and decentralised, with a record of high academic achievement, and have one of the highest inter-ethnic marriage rates in the country. Since the relatively elevated immigration of the 1960s, the Chinese community has made rapid socioeconomic advancements in the UK over the course of a generation. There still exists a segregation of the Chinese in the labour market, however, with a large proportion of the Chinese employed in the Chinese catering industry. The Chinese are said to form a relatively invisible community. While anti-Chinese sentiment on the part of the "white" majority host community has abated since the 1970s, segments of the UK press still frequently resort to stereotypical depictions of Chinese in their coverage of news events concerning China or Chinese in Britain.
Most British Chinese are, or are descended from, people who were themselves overseas Chinese when they came to Britain. Most are from former British colonies, such as Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Malaysia, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. People from mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
and their descendants constitute a relatively minor proportion of the British Chinese community. There are Chinese communities in many major cities including London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, and Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
. In the 2001 Census, 247,403 people listed their ethnicity as Chinese, accounting for 0.4 percent of the total population. The Chinese community is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK, with 9.9 percent annual growth between 2001 and 2007. More than 90 percent of this growth was due to net migration.
Early history
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
in the 17th century. Shen was the first person to catalogue the Chinese collection in the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
. The King was so taken with him he had his portrait painted and hung in his bed chamber. The portrait of Shen hangs in the Queen's collection.
In the mid-18th to 19th century, the British aristocracy developed a passion for Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie, a French term, signifying "Chinese-esque", and pronounced ) refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences...
, which affected not only furniture and ornaments, but fashion and society as well; upper-class gentlemen enjoyed dressing up in dragon and mandarin robes on festive occasions and ladies endeavoured to procure Chinese boys as pages or pets.
The first settlement of Chinese people in the United Kingdom dates from the early 19th century. Because many of the Chinese settlers were originally seamen, the first settlements started in the port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....
cities of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and London. In London, the Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
area became the site of the first Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
established in Britain and Europe.
The East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, which was importing popular Chinese commodities such as tea, ceramics and silks, and bringing Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
sailors too, needed trustworthy intermediaries to arrange the sailors' care and lodgings while they were in London. A Chinese seaman known as John Anthony took on this lucrative role looking after Chinese sailors for the East India Shipping Company in the late 18th and early 19th century. By 1805, Anthony had amassed both the fortune and the influence to become the first Chinese man to be naturalised as a British citizen—an act so rare it actually required an Act of Parliament
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
.
British shipping companies first started employing Chinese sailors during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
(1803–1815) to replace the British sailors who had been called up to the Royal Navy. They soon discovered that they worked for less, did not drink to excess, and were easier to command. Conditions aboard ship appalled Lee Cheong, for instance, when he visited his father's quarters: "The smell ... I remember the smell and the incredibly cramped conditions. I remember going down below, rows and rows of bunks, knapsacks and all sorts of junk stuffed in every nook and cranny ... lots and lots of people milling around. I couldn’t think of anything worse than those sorts of conditions."
With the advent of steam in the 1860s, the recruitment of Chinese seamen increased on the trading routes from the Far East.
In 1865, the first direct steamship service from Europe to China was established in Liverpool by Alfred and Philip Holt's Blue Funnel Line
Blue Funnel Line
Alfred Holt and Company, marketed as the Blue Funnel Line, was founded by Alfred Holt on 16 January 1866.The main operating subsidiary was the Ocean Steam Ship Company, which owned and operated the majority of the company's vessels....
, using cheap Chinese crews.
The first Chinese student to graduate from a British university was Wong Fun who received his MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
in 1855 from Edinburgh. He marked the beginning of a steady flow of students from China, encouraged by educational reformer Zhang Zhidong
Zhang Zhidong
Zhang Zhidong ; Pseudonyms: Xiāngtāo , Xiāngyán , Yīgōng , Wújìng-Jūshì , later Bàobīng ; Posthumous name: Wénxiāng ) was an eminent Chinese politician during the late Qing Dynasty who advocated for controlled reform...
who believed Western learning was needed to reverse China's fortunes and help it to catch up with the rest of the world. Many Chinese graduates did indeed return to make a significant contribution to their country, but some stayed.
In 1877, Kuo Sung-tao, the first Chinese minister to Britain, opened its legation
Legation
A legation was the term used in diplomacy to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an Ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary....
in London, and in 1882, Wu Tin Fang became the first Chinese student to be admitted to the bar
Bar association
A bar association is a professional body of lawyers. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their jurisdiction; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their members; in many cases, they are both...
in London. In the mid-1880s, Chinatowns started to form in London and Liverpool with grocery stores, eating houses, meeting places and, in the East End, Chinese street names. In 1891, the Census recorded 582 Chinese-born residents in Britain, though this dropped to 387 Chinese-born residents in 1896. 80% were single males between 20 and 35, the majority being seamen.
By 1890 there were two distinct, if small, Chinese communities living in east London. The Chinese from Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
were settled around Pennyfields, Amoy Place, and Ming Street (in Poplar
Poplar, London
Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
) and those from Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
and Southern China
Northern and southern China
Northern China and southern China are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never been precisely defined...
lived around Gill Street and Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
Causeway. There was much prejudice against the East End Chinese community largely due to exaggerated reports of gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
and opium den
Opium den
An opium den was an establishment where opium was sold and smoked. Opium dens were prevalent in many parts of the world in the 19th century, most notably China, Southeast Asia, North America and France...
s. This may have been true of some, but for the majority of Chinese people, life consisted of hard work in the London Docklands, struggling to save for a passage for the return voyage to the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
. Like much of the East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
it remained a focus for immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
, but after the devastation of the Second World War many of the Chinese community relocated to Soho
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...
.
After the 1890s, the Chinese community in the East End grew in size and spread eastwards, from the original settlement in Limehouse Causeway into Pennyfields. This area was provided for the Lascar, Chinese, and Japanese sailors working the Orient
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
al routes into the Port of London
Port of London
The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...
. The main attractions for these men were the opium dens, hidden behind shops in Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
and Poplar
Poplar, London
Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
, as well as the availability of prostitutes, Chinese grocers, restaurants, and seamen's lodging-houses. Hostility from British sailors and the inability of many Chinese to speak English fostered a distinct racial segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
and concentrated more and more Chinese into Pennyfields. Gradually the drab shops of Pennyfields were transformed into Chinese emporia
Marketplace
A marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...
and their colourful interiors became an exotic contrast to the grey streets of Poplar. It was written at time that "[t]he Chinese shops are the quaintest places imaginable. Their walls decorated with red and orange papers, covered with Chinese writing indicating the "chop" or style of the firm, or some such announcement. There is also sure to be a map of China and a hanging Chinese Almanac
Tung shing
The Tung Shing is a Chinese divination guide and almanac. It consists primarily of a calendar based on the Chinese lunar year.-History:...
."
The heady smells of burning opium, joss-sticks, and tobacco smoked through the hubble-bubble, produced an atmosphere much sought after by the literary and artistic coterie
Clique
A clique is an exclusive group of people who share common interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity. A clique as a reference group can be either normative or comparative. Membership in a clique is typically exclusive, and qualifications for membership may be social or...
of fin-de-siècle London. Pennyfields became a 'sight' for West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
society. From the 1890s until the 1920s, parties regularly went east at night, expecting to find the unusual and morally degenerate in Pennyfields. Instead they found a commonplace street. The Pennyfields of legend was always more exciting than that of reality. But it was different from the rest of Poplar: "In the darkness of Pennyfields dark faced men are passing. Over the restaurants and shops are Chinese names."
In 1901, the first Chinese laundry
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
opened in Poplar
Poplar, London
Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
, and it was immediately stoned by a hostile xenophobic crowd. The Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
(TUC), concerned about the importation of Chinese labour into the South African gold mines
Mining in South Africa
Mining in South Africa has been the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa's most advanced and richest economy. Large scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange River in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent...
, suggested that the mine-owners and the Conservative government
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
were "preventing South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
becoming a white man's country". Also during that time, the first report on the Chinese in Britain was produced by the Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Labour Party and is led by Joe Anderson.-Domain:...
amidst concern over Chinese marrying English wives, gambling, and opium-taking. Liverpool
Merseyside Police
Merseyside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England. The force area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million...
's Chief Constable
Chief Constable
Chief constable is the rank used by the chief police officer of every territorial police force in the United Kingdom except for the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police, as well as the chief officers of the three 'special' national police forces, the British Transport Police, Ministry...
, however, expressed the view that the resident Chinese were "quiet, inoffensive and industrious people".
In 1907, the first recorded Chinese restaurant was opened in London. By 1918, the number of Chinese living in Pennyfields, Poplar totalled 182; all were men, nine of them had English wives. At its height during the 1930s, Chinatown (which included Limehouse Causeway) consisted of 5,000 residents, many of whom were sailors. A few Chinese remained in Pennyfields until its demolition after 1960. As early as the 1920s, many of the houses occupied by the Chinese were described as "very old and in many cases extremely dilapidated externally". Internally, most were clean, uncrowded, vermin-free and less susceptible to infectious disease than their English neighbours.
In opposition to cheap Chinese crews, many crowds of angry British seamen prevented Chinese seamen from signing on ships in 1908. The Chinese had to return to their boarding houses under police escort to avoid molestation. In response to the general increase in hostility, from around 1900–1910, Chinese Mutual aid (or Benevolent) associations
Benefit society
A benefit society or mutual aid society is an organization or voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit or insurance for relief from sundry difficulties...
were set up in London and Liverpool. In contrast to the semi-mythical Chinese (Masonic) secret societies
Hui (secret society)
Hui is a Chinese word, generally meaning 'conference', but which is sometimes used to refer to a secret society. It is often mutually interchangeable with terms like kongsi , a term generally used to mean 'corporation', or a Chinese clan...
, these associations looked after the interests of their members, arranged burials, and assisted in cases of exploitation. (See also Tiandihui
Tiandihui
The Tiandihui is a fraternal organization that originated in China. The Hongmen grouping is today more or less synonymous with the whole Tiandihui concept, although the title "Hongmen" is also claimed by some criminal groups.As the Tiandihui spread through different counties and provinces, it...
, Triad society and Triads in the United Kingdom
Triads in the United Kingdom
Triads in the United Kingdom first appeared during the post-World War era with the 14K Triad emerging in Chinese communities in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester in England and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland as early as 1952...
.)
The 1911 Census recorded 1,319 Chinese-born residents in Britain and 4,595 seamen of Chinese origin serving in the British Merchant Navy. Also during this time, China was going through domestic and international turmoil as the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
was established with the overthrow of the Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. The turmoil wasn't limited to the Chinese mainland; during the 1911 Cardiff riots in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, every one of the city's 30 Chinese laundries was attacked by Welsh mobs.
As more Chinese seamen began to settle in the ports of London and Liverpool, a powerful set of myths began to develop about "Chinatown". The 1913 publication of the first Sax Rohmer
Sax Rohmer
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward , better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr...
novels about the evil genius Dr. Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century...
kick-started a near-hysterical interest in London's Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
, turning it from a few drab streets of shops and restaurants to the most infamous patch of land in Britain—which supposedly harboured cunning "Chinamen" who lured white women into their opium dens. This exotic netherworld was featured in countless novels, films, and songs, and engrained the stereotype of the Chinese as inscrutable criminals in the heart of western popular culture.
A short-lived plan was propsed by the British Government to introduce several hundred thousand Chinese labourers into Britain in 1916, but trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
leaders protested that such a project would have had "calamitous effects on the standard of life".
In 1917, 1,083 Chinese left Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
on a British ship bound for Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
, as the first group of a total of nearly 100,000 recruited to unload munitions and supplies in France for the Allied effort
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
in World War I (see the article on the Chinese diaspora in France for more details).
After World War I ended, the Aliens Restriction Act was extended in 1919 to include peacetime, bringing about a decline in the Chinese population in Britain. The Zhong Shan Mutual Aid Workers Club was established, offering a meeting place free from British ridicule and humiliation. It aimed to unite the overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
in Britain, to improve their working conditions and to look after their welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
. Also in 1919, the Cheung clansmen
Chinese clan
A Chinese clan is a patrilineal and patrilocal group of related Chinese people with a common surname sharing a common ancestor and, in many cases, an ancestral home.-Description:...
founded a limited liability company
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...
controlling a group of successful restaurants, the first step in a new business trend. The 1921 census figures put the Chinese-born resident population at 2,419, including 547 laundrymen, 455 seamen and 26 restaurant workers.
In the early 1920s, many of the Crescent Moon literary group spent time in British universities, including the Cambridge romantic poet Xu Zhimo
Xu Zhimo
Xu Zhimo was an early 20th century Chinese poet. He was given the name of Zhangxu and the courtesy name of Yousen . He later changed his courtesy name to Zhimo ....
(1896–1931) and LSE essayist Chen Xiying.
In 1925, the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
sent a representative to London, establishing a close relationship with the Zhong Shan Workers Club to gain their support. The 1925–1926 Canton-Hong Kong strike
Canton-Hong Kong strike
The Canton-Hong Kong strike was a strike and boycott in that took place between Hong Kong and Guangdong, China from June 1925 to October 1926...
included Chinese workers who were based in the UK, following the massacre of workers in Shanghai
May 30 Movement
The May Thirtieth Movement was a labor and anti-imperalist movement during the middle-period of the Republic of China era. It began when Shanghai Municipal Police officers opened fire on Chinese protesters in Shanghai's International Settlement...
by the British. Effects of the immigration regulations were felt in Liverpool's Chinatown as the local press reported in 1927 that "the whole Chinese quarter has a dying atmosphere".
The 1931 Census showed a drop to 1,934 Chinese residents. There were over 500 Chinese laundries established in Britain as well as two to three Chinese restaurants open in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
catering to the British clientele of the West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
crowds. In 1935, the first Chinese school—the Zhonghua Middle School—was established in Middlefields, Ealing
Ealing
Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located west of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village...
with thirty students. In 1937 at the beginning of World War II, Japan attacked China
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
, which led to the establishment of the China Campaign Committee in Britain with the support of Chinese students, Chinese intellectuals (such as Professor G.H. Wang, researching at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
), and by the Chinese communities in London, Liverpool, and Manchester. In 1938, two attempts to load a cargo of iron for Japanese munitions were defeated by dockers in Teesside
Teesside
Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of...
and London and Chinese seamen who refused to sign on the Japanese ship, despite bribes
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
. Also in that year, "China Week" and "China Sunday", supported by the Archbishop of York
Archbishop of York
The Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...
and other Church leaders as well as the Chinese communities in Britain, raised funds for the International Peace Hospital in Yenan.
When World War II broke out in full in Europe in 1939, the Chinese Merchant Seamen's Pool of approximately 20,000 was established with its headquarters in Liverpool. These men manned the oil-tankers
Oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...
on the dangerous Atlantic run. The China Campaign Committee and Chinese students, including K.C. Lim and Kenneth Lo, organised a petition of 1.5 million signatures in 1940, in protest at the closure of the Burma Road
Burma Road
The Burma Road is a road linking Burma with the southwest of China. Its terminals are Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. When it was built, Burma was a British colony.The road is long and runs through rough mountain country...
by the British Government.
During both world wars, hundreds of thousands of Chinese seamen and workers were recruited and many hundreds were killed and injured aboard British ships, including those torpedoed by German submarines. A Chinese seaman called Poon Lim set the world record of 133 days for survival on a wooden raft after his ship was sunk by a German U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
in 1942.
Despite such risks, Chinese seamen were treated far worse, with less pay and fewer rights than their British counterparts. A London meeting of Chinese seamen launched a campaign, eventually successful, to win a wartime danger bonus for Chinese seamen equal to that granted to British seamen.
After the Second World War was over, however, the British Government and the shipping companies colluded to forcibly repatriate thousands of Chinese seamen. The Blue Funnel Line
Blue Funnel Line
Alfred Holt and Company, marketed as the Blue Funnel Line, was founded by Alfred Holt on 16 January 1866.The main operating subsidiary was the Ocean Steam Ship Company, which owned and operated the majority of the company's vessels....
fired all of its Chinese crews. Many of those left behind wives and children they would never see again. More than 50 years later in 2006, a memorial plaque in remembrance for those Chinese seamen was erected on Liverpool's Pier Head
Pier Head
The Pier Head is a riverside location in the city centre of Liverpool, England. It is part of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was inscribed in 2004....
.
Post-World War II
The 1951 Census recorded a big increase in Britain's Chinese population, then standing at 12,523, of whom over 4,000 were from Malaysia, and 3,459 single males from Hong Kong. The influx of Chinese into Britain coincided with the increased pressure in Hong Kong due to the build-up of the huge numbers of refugees streaming in from China following the end of the Chinese Civil WarChinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. At the time, nearly 100 Chinese restaurants were open, as former embassy staff and ex-seamen found a niche in this trade. Records showed remittances
Remittances
A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. Note that in 19th century usage a remittance man was someone exiled overseas and sent an allowance on condition that he not return home....
to Hong Kong of HK$ 2.5 million.
The largest wave of Chinese immigration took place during the 1950s and 1960s and consisted predominantly of male agricultural labourers from Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, particularly from the rural villages of the New Territories
New Territories
New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory. Historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory...
. This also included immigration, through Hong Kong, from the Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
province of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The majority of these Chinese men were employed in the then growing Chinese catering
Catering
Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...
industry. Chinese-run laundry
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
businesses were the other major source of employment for the Chinese, but it was a declining industry and Chinese-run laundries are today non-existent. By 2004 for comparison, according to official figures, just under half of Chinese men and 40% of Chinese women in employment worked in the distribution, hotel, and restaurant industry.
The 1961 Census recorded Britain's Chinese population at 38,750, with a fivefold increase in Hong Kong-born residents in London. The Association of Chinese Restaurateurs was formed to maintain the good reputation of the Chinese catering business and to organise recruitment from the New Territories
New Territories
New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory. Historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory...
.
Since the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act
Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962
The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.Before the Act was passed, citizens of British commonwealth countries had extensive rights to migrate to the UK...
, restrictions were placed on immigration from current and former British colonies, and these were tightened by successive governments. The Immigration act included a voucher system and significant Chinese migration to Britain did still continue by relatives of already settled Chinese and by those qualified for skilled jobs, until the end of the 1970s. Today, a significant proportion of British Chinese are second or third generation descendants of these post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
immigrants. Approximately 30,000 workers from the New Territories were resident in Britain in 1962 and records showed remittances at HK$40 million. Ninety-six wives from Hong Kong joined their husbands in Britain in the beginning of that year, indicating a new phase from 'sojourning' to family reunion and a more settled life.
In 1963, Soho's Chinatown finally took over from the East End as the Zhongshan Workers' Club opened in the West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
, showing films and running classes. The first Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
celebrations were held in Gerrard Street. The Overseas Chinese Service opened the first specialised agency to assist the Chinese in dealing with the host society by offering a translation and interpreting service. The Kuo Yuan
Kuo Yuan
The Kuo Yuan was a Chinese restaurant on Willesden High Road, Willesden, London, England, which played an important part in the history of Chinese cuisine in the UK. In particular, it was the first restaurant in the UK to serve Pekinese dishes, including Peking Duck...
restaurant introduced Peking Crispy Duck to Britain.
In 1971, the Census recorded Britain's Chinese population at 96,030, more than doubling in ten years. By now, nearly every small town and suburb in the UK had its own Chinese restaurant. Out of the 4,000 Chinese owned businesses, about 1,400 were restaurants, indicating that as the market for restaurant trade reached saturation, the takeaway
Take-out
Take-out or takeout , carry-out , take-away , parcel , or tapau , is food purchased at a...
trade had already taken off.
In 1976, Britain's Chinese population included approximately 6,000 full-time students and 2,000 nurses. The Chinese Community Centre opened in Gerrard Street with Urban Aid funding to deal with the problems experienced by the Chinese community.
In Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, the first ethnic minority to arrive in significant numbers was the Chinese in the 1970s. There are 4,200 speakers of the language (as of 2004) and, although this is dwarfed by the numbers claiming to be able to speak Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
and Ulster Scots
Ulster Scots language
Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots generally refers to the dialects of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster in Ireland. Some definitions of Ulster Scots may also include Standard English spoken with an Ulster Scots accent...
, it was said for many years that Mandarin Chinese was the second most widely spoken "first language" in Northern Ireland after English. Chinese people first arrived in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Chinese is the largest non-native restaurant genre in Northern Ireland, as many of the initial immigrants set up food outlets in order to make a living.
In 1980, in what was considered a media breakthrough, David Yip
David Yip
David Yip is an English actor.Yip, of Asian and English descent, was born in Liverpool and trained at East 15 Acting School, London...
starred as the main character in the popular TV series, The Chinese Detective
The Chinese Detective
The Chinese Detective is a British television series, transmitted by the BBC between 1981 and 1982 and created by Ian Kennedy Martin, who had previously devised The Sweeney and Juliet Bravo....
.
The 1981 British Nationality Act
British Nationality Act 1981
The British Nationality Act 1981 was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament concerning British nationality. It has been the basis of British nationality law since 1 January 1983.-History:...
deprived Hong Kong British Overseas Territories citizen
British Overseas Territories citizen
The status of British Overseas Territories citizen relates to persons holding British nationality by virtue of a connection with a British Overseas Territory.-British Nationality Act 1981:...
s of the right of abode
Right of abode
The right of abode is an individual's freedom from immigration control in a particular country. A person who has the right of abode in a country does not need permission from the government to enter the country and can live and work there without restriction....
in the United Kingdom, an issue that caused some controversy in the years leading up to the territory's handover
Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong
The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, referred to as ‘the Return’ or ‘the Reunification’ by the Chinese and ‘the Handover’ by others, took place on 1 July 1997...
to China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
in 1997. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
, it was considered necessary to devise a British Nationality Selection Scheme
British Nationality Selection Scheme
The British Nationality Selection Scheme was a process used to grant British citizenship to selected persons in Hong Kong between 1990 and 1997.-Basis of the scheme:...
to enable some of the population to obtain British citizenship to maintain confidence in Hong Kong and to counteract the effects of the emigration
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
of many of its most talented residents. The United Kingdom made a provision to grant citizenship to 50,000 families, whose presence was important to the future of Hong Kong, under the British Nationality Act (Hong Kong) 1990. (See also British nationality law
British nationality law
British nationality law is the law of the United Kingdom that concerns citizenship and other categories of British nationality. The law is complex because of the United Kingdom's former status as an imperial power.-History:...
and British nationality law and Hong Kong
British nationality law and Hong Kong
British nationality law as it pertains to Hong Kong has been unusual ever since Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842. From its beginning as a sparsely populated trading port to today's cosmopolitan international financial centre of over seven million people, the territory has attracted...
).
In 1981, the Census recorded Britain's Chinese population as 154,363. Thirty-five Chinese-language newspapers and 362 periodicals were on sale from seven bookshops in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
. Sing Tao
Sing Tao Daily
The Sing Tao Daily is Hong Kong's second largest Chinese language newspaper. It is owned by Sing Tao News Corporation Limited, of which Charles Ho Tsu Kwok is the chairman. Its English language sister paper is The Standard...
itself had a circulation of 10,000 in Britain. The Chinese population now numbered the elderly, and 30,000 children in British schools. Of these, 75 percent were born in the country, representing a new phase of settlement.
In 1982, the Merseyside Chinese Community Services opened the 'Pagoda of Hundred Harmony', an advice centre built with the help of an Urban Aid grant. In 1983, the Chinese Information and Advice Centre (CIAC), an amalgamation of the Chinese Workers Group (1975) and the Chinese Action Group (1980) received Greater London Council
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
(GLC) funding for a centre. Sixty Chinese associations, including women's groups and old people's clubs, were consolidated into two national umbrella organisations. There were approximately 7,000 restaurants, takeaways and other Chinese owned businesses, indicating a slow-down in the rate of growth. There were 926 students attending the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Mother Tongue School, which ran classes up to O-level standard.
The most significant migration from China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
commenced in mid-1980s. This coincided with the Chinese government
Government of the People's Republic of China
All power within the government of the People's Republic of China is divided among three bodies: the People's Republic of China, State Council, and the People's Liberation Army . This article is concerned with the formal structure of the state, its departments and their responsibilities...
's relaxed restrictions on emigration, although most left for the United States, Canada, and Australia.
In 1984-85, the British and Chinese governments signed the Draft Agreement on the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China in 1997. Construction was also begun of Manchester's Chinatown archway (now the largest in Europe), and was completed in 1987. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee
Home Affairs Select Committee
The Home Affairs Select Committee is a Committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.-Remit:The Home Affairs Committee is one of the House of Commons Select Committees related to government departments: its terms of reference are to examine "the expenditure,...
report identified five main problems faced by the Chinese in Britain. Recommendations included more language training, careers advice, community centres, and interpretation and advice services. Over 50 percent of the Chinese population was under 30; 50 percent lived outside the large metropolitan areas; only 2 percent were professionals, which included doctors, solicitors, architects, bankers, stockbrokers, business executives, teachers and university lecturers.
In 1986, Ping Pong, the first Chinese film from the Chinese community in Britain, opened in London. Directed by the British-born director Po-Chi Leong, who had directed several features in Hong Kong, the film was a rich, lively tale set in London's Chinatown. It had a largely unknown cast and dealt with traditional Chinese themes of family responsibility and duty. In 1987, Manchester's Chinatown Archway, the largest in Europe, was completed, marking co-operation between the government of China, Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council is the local government authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. It is composed of 96 councillors, three for each of the 32 electoral wards of Manchester. Currently the council is controlled by the Labour Party and is led by...
and the local Chinese community. Currently, the largest Chinese arch in the UK is located in Chinatown, Liverpool
Chinatown, Liverpool
The Chinatown in Liverpool, England is located near the city centre's southern edge close to Liverpool Cathedral, and is home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe. The arch located at the gateway is also the largest, multiple-span arch of its kind outside of China, the largest single-span...
. It was constructed in 2000 and is also the largest such archway in the world outside of China.
As Hong Kong and China became wealthier during the 1990s, Hong Kong and Chinese parents increasingly sent their children to study in the UK and elsewhere. An estimated 80,000 Hong Kong and Chinese students attended UK universities in the academic year of 2004-05.
Small numbers of unskilled migrants from China sought employment in the UK in the early 1990s. In recent years, there has been an increase in illegal immigrants coming from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and other countries into the United Kingdom, some of whom pay traffickers (so-called "snakeheads
Snakehead (gang)
Snakeheads are Chinese gangs that smuggle people to other countries. They are found in the Fujian region of China and smuggle their customers into wealthier Western countries such as those in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and some nearby wealthier countries such as Taiwan and...
") to smuggle them into many Western countries. Due to historical and cultural reasons, a sizeable proportion originate from Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
province in southeast China. Others are citizens from the Commonwealth countries (mostly former British colonies), who have been able to obtain tourist or student visas and remain in the UK after their visas have expired. Most work in the black economy or are employed as illegal cheap labour, usually in agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and catering
Catering
Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...
. This activity became publicised nationwide in tragic consequences in the form of the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster
2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster
The Morecambe Bay cockling disaster occurred on the evening of 5 February 2004 at Morecambe Bay in North West England, when at least 21 cockle pickers were drowned by an incoming tide off the Lancashire/Cumbrian coast....
, though most migrants have remained invisible.
In April 2001, one of the largest demonstrations by the Chinese community, with around 1,000 people protesting, was held in London against media reports that Chinese restaurant
Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine is any of several styles originating in the regions of China, some of which have become highly popular in other parts of the world – from Asia to the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa...
s had started the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis by using diseased meat. Within weeks, a Chinese community monitoring group reported that trade at restaurants and takeaways had plummeted because an unsubstantiated rumour had become a scare story labelling an entire community as "dirty". Following the march, the then Agriculture Secretary
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889...
Nick Brown
Nick Brown
Nicholas Hugh "Nick" Brown is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne East since 1983...
publicly denied that the rumours had begun in his department and described the controversy as a racist attack on the Chinese community. As of 2001, there were about 12,000 Chinese takeaways and 3,000 Chinese restaurants in the UK.
Communities
From the beginning of Chinese settlement in the ports of London and Liverpool, there were no Chinatowns but communities of mixed families. Because few Chinese women were able to come to Britain, Chinese seamen established homes with local women. Many did not actually marry because that meant the woman could lose her British citizenship and would become an alien, resulting in restrictions on travel and benefits. The children of such unions often faced discrimination when it came to finding jobs. Many followed the example of Yorkshire-born Harry Cheong who had an exemplary army record during the Second World War, including fighting in Burma for which he was mentioned in dispatches. But on leaving the army he had to change his surname to get a job interview and has since lived as Harry Dewar. Such name changes have meant much Chinese history in Britain is now difficult to trace. Notable people who had Chinese fathers and English mothers include footballer Hong Y "Frank" SooFrank Soo
Frank Soo was an English professional football player and manager of mixed Chinese and English parentage. Soo played as an inside forward.-Personal life:...
, who played for Stoke City (1933–1945) and Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris , born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, was a half-Chinese, half English author of primarily mystery fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint."-Early life:Charteris was born to a Chinese father...
who wrote The Saint
The Saint (novel)
The Saint was the title of a mystery novel by Burl Barer published by Pocket Books in 1997. It was based upon the screenplay for the film The Saint, which in turn was loosely based upon the character Simon Templar, created by Leslie Charteris...
novels that were made into the successful 1960s TV series.
Liverpool
The first presence of Chinese people in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
dates back to the early 19th century, with the main influx arriving at the end of the 18th century. This was in part due to the Alfred Holt and Company establishing the first commercial
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
shipping line
Shipping line
-History of shipping lines:Large-scale shipping lines became widespread in the nineteenth century, after the development of the steamship in 1783. At first, Great Britain was the centr of development; in 1819, the first steamship crossing of the Atlantic Ocean took place and by 1833, shipping lines...
to focus on the China trade
China trade
China trade may refer to* History of trade of the People's Republic of China * Economy of the People's Republic of China* Economic history of China * Economic history of modern China...
. From the 1890s onwards, small numbers of Chinese began to set up businesses catering to the Chinese sailors working on Holt's lines and others. Some of these men married working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
British women, resulting in a number of British-born Eurasian
Eurasian (mixed ancestry)
The word Eurasian refers to people of mixed Asian and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indians of mixed British and Indian descent....
Chinese being born during World War II in Liverpool. At the beginning of the War, there were up to 20,000 Chinese mariners in the city. In 1942, there was a strike for rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and pay equal to that of white
White British
White British was an ethnicity classification used in the 2001 United Kingdom Census. As a result of the census, 50,366,497 people in the United Kingdom were classified as White British. In Scotland the classification was broken down into two different categories: White Scottish and Other White...
mariners. The strike had lasted for 4 months. For the duration of the War these men were labelled as "troublemakers" by the shipowners and the British Government. At the end of the conflict, they were forbidden shore jobs, their pay was cut by two-thirds and they were offered only one-way voyages back to China. Hundreds of men were forced to leave their families, with many of their Eurasian children continuing to live in and around Liverpool's Chinatown to this day. See http://www.halfandhalf.org.uk.
Sheffield
Sheffield has no official Chinatown although London RoadLondon Road
-England:There are countless London Roads in the UK. Only those significant outside their local area are listed here:* London Road, Brighton; for which a railway station is named* London Road, Guildford; for which a railway station is named...
, Highfield is the centre of the Sheffield Chinese community. There are many Chinese restaurants, supermarkets, and community stores as well as the Sheffield Chinese Community Centre. The Sheffield Chinese community is pressing for the street to be formally labelled Sheffield's Chinatown. The Chinese community in Sheffield is also spreading toward the city centre
Sheffield City Centre
Sheffield City Centre—often just referred to as town—is a district of the City of Sheffield, and part of the Sheffield Central ward. It includes the area that is within a radius of roughly of Sheffield Cathedral, and is encircled by the Inner Ring Road—a circular route started in the late 1960s...
, with a notable number of Chinese people, greatly influenced by the city's university, which has the largest number of Chinese in the country.
London
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
over the next two centuries. From the early 20th century, restaurants and laundries dominated this dockside Chinatown. Due to heavy bomb damage, however, the area was demolished after World War II. The Chinese established a new and larger Chinatown in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
. Many immigrants found employment in its restaurants during the 1960s and it is now a flourishing Chinese community in the heart of London.
The history of Chinese migration to London can be traced to the early 15th century, when the Ming Emperors of China
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
sent out a series of fleets, many under the command of the Admiral Zheng He
Zheng He
Zheng He , also known as Ma Sanbao and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin was a Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa, collectively referred to as the Voyages of Zheng He or Voyages of Cheng Ho from...
. These fleets consisted of the largest ships built anywhere in the world at the time. Their missions were to sail throughout the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
, across the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
, and the East coast of Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
.
The Chinese communities of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, especially those of Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Malaysia and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, are thought to date from this period. The arrival of the first Chinese seamen in London was linked to the growth of British trade with China and Southeast Asia during the 18th and 19th centuries. Chinese sailors had reached London on board East India Company ships by 1782. This small group lived around Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway near the docks.
As the activities of the most important commercial association in the world at that time, the East India Company, expanded, China became a hugely important and profitable market. In the mid-18th century, imported Chinese products became fashionable, particularly porcelain. Tea dominated the Anglo-Chinese trade as it quickly became an English habit and its consumption grew in Britain, but there was nothing comparable that the Chinese wished to buy from the British.
The Company began to export opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
from India to China, selling the drug to raise the money to buy shipments of tea. This was against the law and angered China's authorities. In 1839, war
First Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
broke out between Britain and China over the opium trade. Britain defeated China and under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking
Treaty of Nanking
The Treaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August 1842 to mark the end of the First Opium War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China...
in 1842, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
became a British colony.
In 1857, the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
resulted in the unequal Treaties
Unequal Treaties
“Unequal treaty” is a term used in specific reference to a number of treaties imposed by Western powers, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, on Qing Dynasty China and late Tokugawa Japan...
of Tianjin which included a clause allowing Britain and France to recruit Chinese to the British Colonies, North American, South America, and Australia as cheap labour (otherwise known as "Coolies") following the cessation of the slave trade.
Forced to pay for defeat in these and other colonial wars, impoverished Chinese people were driven abroad where they were often treated with suspicion, hostility, and even violence. Cheap labour was often used as a pretext by British employers against demands for higher wages, and Chinese people became targets for frustrated British seamen. For example, the Ebbw Vale Company threatened to import cheap Chinese labour from Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
to break a strike of their workers in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. Yet frequently the community did organise itself to better its conditions. The record of British people is not all negative either; for the most part, it was only a minority who did speak out and join with Chinese people to fight these injustices.
Chinese sailors were employed as Lascars on East India Company ships. Most Chinese seamen were engaged in the "country trade" between China and the main Indian ports. Some did make it to London on East Indiamen. Later in the 19th century, as more ships—especially the fast tea clipper
Clipper
A clipper was a very fast sailing ship of the 19th century that had three or more masts and a square rig. They were generally narrow for their length, could carry limited bulk freight, small by later 19th century standards, and had a large total sail area...
s—sailed directly from China to Britain, the number of Chinese sailors in the port increased. There was even a visit to London by a Chinese junk. The Keying reached Gravesend
Gravesend, Kent
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
on 28 March 1848, after sailing from Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This was the first Chinese vessel to enter the Port of London
Port of London
The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...
. Queen Victoria boarded it while moored in the River Thames.
For those Chinese who were left destitute in east London, there was some hope that they would be accepted into the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders. This place of safety was opened in 1857 in West India Dock Road
West India Docks
The West India Docks are a series of three docks on the Isle of Dogs in London, the first of which opened in 1802. The docks closed to commercial traffic in 1980 and the Canary Wharf development was built on the site.-History:...
. Research into local inquests has highlighted some maltreatment of Chinese crew. In one case, a Chinese Lascar called Chan arrived in London from Calcutta on the ship Norma. Chan, who was in a very weak condition, was found by two other Lascars who carried him to the Dreadnought hospital ship at Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
. Almost as soon as he boarded the ship, he collapsed and died. A coroners' examination showed that he had died from starvation. In 1860, a total of 47 Chinese were admitted to the Seamen's Hospital. In 1863, two Chinese inmates who had been at the Strangers' Home for a year retired to spend the rest of their days in London.
Between 1854 and 1856, many Chinese seamen were housed at the "Oriental Quarters" by the riverside at Shadwell
Shadwell
Shadwell is an inner-city district situated within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets located on the north bank of the Thames between Wapping to the south and Ratcliff to the east...
. They were off the High Street, near the present day Wapping Underground Station. These Oriental Quarters were lodging houses frequently run by English women who often spoke Oriental languages, and went by names such as Chinese Emma or Canton Kitty. Their premises were often used as gambling houses and opium dens. Some ran Chinese gambling houses, where card games were held downstairs and the upstairs served as an opium room. About 20 Chinese men lived in each. The 1851 census found 78 Chinese-born residents all living in London and a parliamentary enquiry expressed doubt as to whether there was sufficient space for living conditions.
The China tea trade via Canton was resumed despite increased competition from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, which quickly surpassed China as the primary source of tea. In December 1877, the Louden Castle discharged 40,000 packages of China tea at the London Docks
London Docks
The London Docks were one of several sets of docks in the historic Port of London. They were constructed in Wapping downstream from the City of London between 1799 and 1815, at a cost exceeding £5½ million. Traditionally ships had docked at wharves on the River Thames, but by this time, more...
. Chinese seamen stranded in London were allowed to work in the docks and many were involved in unloading China tea. One of the best-known Chinese Lascars was James Robson. Robson had been found as a castaway baby and taken on board a British ship by the wife of the captain. James was brought to London and grew up at Poplar
Poplar, London
Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
. He became a seaman and cook on the Cutty Sark
Cutty Sark
The Cutty Sark is a clipper ship. Built in 1869, she served as a merchant vessel , and then as a training ship until being put on public display in 1954...
between 1885 and 1895. Another Chinese man who served on the Cutty Sark was Ah Sing Lee, a steward
Steward's Assistant
A steward's assistant is an unlicensed, entry-level crewmember in the Steward's department of a merchant ship. This position can also be referred to as steward , galley utilityman, messman, supply or waiter.The role of the SA consists mainly of stocking, cleaning and assisting with the...
from Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. He was taken on at Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
in 1879 and discharged at London in 1880.
The 1881 British census
Census in the United Kingdom
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 and in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in 1921; simultaneous censuses were taken in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, with...
included British vessels at sea that had a number of Chinese aboard Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
vessels, such as the HMS Encounter, the HMS Comus, and the HMS Sheldrake. There were also Chinese cooks, stewards, and servants on board the HMS Mosquito and the HMS Iron Duke. The British India Steam Navigation Company (BISNC), with ships such as the SS Almora and the Blue Funnel Line brought more Chinese seamen to London, especially after 1890.
By the 1850s, there were occasional records of Chinese women arriving in Britain as the nurses or 'Amahs' to British missionaries who had served in China. One example is Sing Seng, who arrived in London in 1858 from Ningpo. After some time in London, she returned to China in the service of a bishop to Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. Local sources suggest that by 1860 there were some Chinese men married to English women. Many lived at riverside settlements such as Deptford
Deptford
Deptford is a district of south London, England, located on the south bank of the River Thames. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne, and from the mid 16th century to the late 19th was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Navy Dockyards.Deptford and the docks are...
and Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
. Most Chinese seamen lived to the north of the river. By 1880, the Chinese community was based in Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
and consisted mainly of seamen from Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
who catered for the Chinese and Indians that arrived at the docks. In 1881, there were several Chinese seamen living in the boarding house of Mr M. Lamar at 14 Limehouse Court.
By 1890, there were two distinct communities in London— Chinese from Shanghai were settled around Pennyfields, Amoy Place and Ming Street (presently the area between Westferry
Westferry DLR station
Westferry DLR station is a station on the Docklands Light Railway , in the Limehouse district of east London. The station is located in Travelcard Zone 2...
and Poplar
Poplar DLR station
Poplar is a station on the Docklands Light Railway in Travelcard Zone 2. It is served by three of the six regular routes on the DLR making it one of the busiest stations on the network in terms of services.-History:Long before the opening of the DLR in 1987, there had been three stations with the...
DLR
Docklands Light Railway
The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London...
stations), and the Chinese from Canton and Southern China were settled around Gill Street and Limehouse Causeway. The historian Sir Walter Besant
Walter Besant
Sir Walter Besant , was a novelist and historian who lived largely in London.His sister-in-law was Annie Besant.-Biography:...
put the Limehouse Chinese community at less than 100 people in 1891.
By the end of the 19th century, the transient Chinese dock community in London numbered over 500. Virtually all were single men, and some married English women.
In 1901, there were more than 40 Chinese sailors aboard the Bulysses at the Royal Albert Dock
Royal Albert Dock
The Royal Albert Dock is one of three docks in the Royal Group of Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands.-History:The dock was constructed to the east of the earlier Victoria Dock by the St Katharine and London dock companies and opened in 1880...
s: 21 were from Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
, 12 from Soochow
Suzhou
Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...
, at least three from Hainan Island, and one from Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
.
By 1911, the area of Limehouse and Pennyfields was known as Chinatown. At Pennyfields there was a Christian Mission for the Chinese and a Confucian temple
Temple of Confucius
A Temple of Confucius or Confucian temple is a temple devoted to the memory of Confucius and the sages and philosophers of Confucianism.- History :...
. At Limehouse Causeway there was the famous Ah Tack's lodging house.
There was much prejudice against the East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
Chinese community, with much of it initiated by the writings of Thomas Burke
Thomas Burke (author)
Thomas Burke was a British author. He was born in Eltham, London.His first successful publication was Limehouse Nights , a collection of stories centered around life in the poverty-stricken Limehouse district of London...
and Arthur Henry Ward. Both of these men wrote about the Chinese community. Burke and Ward exaggerated the Chinese community's true size and made much mention of gambling, opium dens, and "unholy things" in the shadows. Though there were some individuals involved in gambling and opium smoking, for the majority of Chinese people life was hard work in the docks. It was a struggle to find passage for the return voyage to the Far East. The novelist Arnold Bennett
Arnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
, who visited the Limehouse Chinatown in April 1925, correctly remarked: "On the whole a rather flat night. Still we saw the facts. We saw no vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
whatever. Inspector [of Police] gave the Chinese an exceedingly good character."
Changes to labour laws during the early 20th century meant that Chinese sailors found it increasingly difficult to find employment on ships. They turned instead to running restaurants and laundries.
The rector at St Anne's, Limehouse, estimated that at its peak after the First World War the local Chinese community never numbered more than 300 people. At that time, the community was still based around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. The area was marked with lodgings for seamen and restaurants. These streets were heavily bombed during The Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
.
During World War II, around 10,000 Chinese men enrolled in the Merchant Navy
Merchant Navy
The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...
while others defended Hong Kong and undermined Japanese forces in the Far East. The London docks
London Docks
The London Docks were one of several sets of docks in the historic Port of London. They were constructed in Wapping downstream from the City of London between 1799 and 1815, at a cost exceeding £5½ million. Traditionally ships had docked at wharves on the River Thames, but by this time, more...
were badly damaged by bombing, and the remains demolished by the council. Now, only their names remain to evoke the past community. There are names such as Canton Street, Mandarin Street, Pekin Street, Ming Street and Nankin Street. Today, mostly elderly Chinese people live in the Limehouse area.
Despite the decline of the London shipping industry, the Chinese population grew steadily after the Second World War. After the war, the Chinese began to move into Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
and bought up cheap property. Entire families were also entering the laundry
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
trade. Chinese hand laundries were made obsolete in the 1950s by the introduction of laundrettes and eventually much later the widespread use of domestic washing machine
Washing machine
A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
s.
Yet the Chinese community continued to grow in the 1960s. This expansion was in part due to the labour shortage in Britain and the demand for Chinese labourers. During the same period, there was a collapse of traditional agriculture in the New Territories
New Territories
New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory. Historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory...
(the mainland area of Hong Kong), as farmers became disillusioned with land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
in Hong Kong and faced tough competition from rice farmers in Thailand and Burma. This led to the migration of single men seeking employment in Chinese restaurants in London, especially in the Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
and Bayswater
Bayswater
Bayswater is an area of west London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the west . It is a built-up district located 3 miles west-north-west of Charing Cross, bordering the north of Hyde Park over Kensington Gardens and having a population density of...
areas. Most spoke Cantonese or Hakka, though written Chinese was a means of communication for the whole community. These restaurant workers sent part of their wages home to support their families.
The increase in immigration was initially composed of single men coming to Britain on work permit
Work permit
Work permit is a generic term for a legal authorization which allows a person to take employment.It is most often used in reference to instances where a person is given permission to work in a country where one does not hold citizenship, but is also used in reference to minors, who in some...
s. Sometimes the men would register their age as 10 years younger than they really were. This was especially true of those seeking employment in the Merchant Navy
Merchant Navy
The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...
. After saving enough money they would bring their families over and establish their own catering
Catering
Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...
businesses.
During the 1960s, the number of Chinese people in London rose fivefold. The Chinese established various organisations such as language schools, gambling houses for socialising, and a Chinese Church in the West End. One notorious club was the Chi Kung Tong (Achieve Justice Society), the first Triad Society in Britain.
In the 1970s and 1980s, many ethnic Chinese who had settled in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
for generations were forced to leave as "boat people
Boat people
Boat people is a term that usually refers to refugees, illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made...
" following the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Many settled in Lewisham
Lewisham
Lewisham is a district in South London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
, Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
, and Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, as well as elsewhere in the UK.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a migration of academics and professionals from Chinatown to the suburbs of Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
and Colindale
Colindale
-Transport:*Colindale tube station, on the Northern Line Edgware branch, is situated on the north side of the east-west Colindale Lane.-Development:...
.
Since the 1980s, London's Chinatown has been transformed by Westminster City Council
Westminster City Council
Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council and is entitled to be known as a city council, which is a rare distinction in the United Kingdom. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors...
to become a major tourist attraction and a cultural focal point of the Chinese community in London.
Today over 100,000 Chinese people live in London, and are more evenly dispersed throughout the city and its boroughs. Roughly a quarter of the Chinese population of the United Kingdom now live in London, mainly in the boroughs of Barnet
London Borough of Barnet
The London Borough of Barnet is a London borough in North London and forms part of Outer London. It has a population of 331,500 and covers . It borders Hertfordshire to the north and five other London boroughs: Harrow and Brent to the west, Camden and Haringey to the south-east and Enfield to the...
, Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
, Waltham Forest
London Borough of Waltham Forest
The London Borough of Waltham Forest is in northeast London, England. Officially, it forms part of Outer London as it borders Essex. However, it can be seen that the NE London boundary does not extend far compared to elsewhere in the city...
, Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, Southwark
London Borough of Southwark
The London Borough of Southwark is a London borough in south east London, England. It is directly south of the River Thames and the City of London, and forms part of Inner London.-History:...
and Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
. Mare Street in Hackney is the hub of a small Vietnamese community. The principal languages of the London Chinese community are Cantonese and Hakka (from the New Territories, Hong Kong, and Vietnam). There are also some speakers of Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese. The Chinese from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and Singapore tend to speak Mandarin (or Putonghua). A large network of Chinese schools and community centres offers support and a means of passing on cultural identity from one generation to the next.
Chinese New Year
The Chinese New YearChinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
, or Spring Festival, is the most important celebration for Chinese and other East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n communities. It links overseas Chinese and their descendants to their heritage, even though they live thousands of miles away from their ancestral homelands. Celebrations for Chinese people are of great traditional significance and include a ritual cleaning of their houses and visit to the temple, but also involve feasting with the family, celebration, fireworks, and gift-giving. This festival follows the lunar calendar
Lunar calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. A common purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar. A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to...
so it can fall any time from late January to mid-February and begins on the first day of a new moon and ends with the full moon on the day of the Lantern Festival
Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival ; is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar year in the Chinese calendar, the last day...
.
Celebrations in London are famous for colourful parades, fireworks, and street dancing. The route starts in the Strand
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
and goes along Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...
and Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major street in central London, England, named after Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, that runs in a north-easterly direction from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus....
. Other activities include a family show in Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
with dragon and lion dances and traditional and contemporary Chinese art
Chinese art
Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...
s by performers from both London and China. There are fireworks displays in Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
, as well as cultural stalls, food, decorations, and lion dance displays throughout the day in London Chinatown.
Community
There are also many activities of interest to new generations and the community at large, such as women's groups, health talks, day trips, cookery sessions, English-language classes, and IT training courses. There are celebrations of Chinese and British festivals, volunteer groups to help members of the community, as well as a work experience scheme for local school students to spend placements working within businesses in the community.
There exists several organisations in the UK that support the Chinese community. The British Chinese Society
British Chinese Society
BCS is a "not for profit" organization that promotes Chinese culture and language, and raise money for charitable causes in the British Chinese community...
is a non-profit organisation that runs social events for the Chinese community. Dimsum
Dimsum (non-profit)
Dimsum is a non-profit website for people interested in the experience of being Chinese or East Asian in the UK. The aim of the organization is to raise awareness of the complex issues Chinese people face in trying to fit into a predominantly European culture, specifically the issues British...
is a media organisation which also aims to raise awareness of the cultural issues that the Chinese community face. The Chinese Information and Advice Centre
Chinese Information and Advice Centre
The Chinese Information and Advice Centre is a United Kingdom charity which provides free legal advice and support to members of the Chinese community living in the UK....
supports disadvantaged people of Chinese ethnic origin in the UK.
Since 2000, the emergence of Internet discussion sites produced by British Chinese young people has provided an important forum for many of them to grapple with questions concerning their identities, experiences, and status in Britain.
Chinatowns
In several major cities there are ChinatownChinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s, which have become tourist attractions where Chinese restaurants and businesses predominate, although in some cases relatively few Chinese people may live there. There are Chinatowns in London
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...
, Birmingham, Manchester
Chinatown, Manchester
Chinatown, Manchester is an ethnic enclave within the city centre of Manchester. It is second largest Chinatown in the United Kingdom and the third largest in Europe. It is located in east central Manchester, and situated next to the Gay Village...
, Liverpool
Chinatown, Liverpool
The Chinatown in Liverpool, England is located near the city centre's southern edge close to Liverpool Cathedral, and is home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe. The arch located at the gateway is also the largest, multiple-span arch of its kind outside of China, the largest single-span...
, Newcastle
Chinatown, Newcastle
The Chinatown in Newcastle is a district of Newcastle upon Tyne, located to the west of the city on the edge of the shopping and commercial centre, mostly along Stowell Street...
, Sheffield, Belfast, and Aberdeen.
London
There are Chinese community centres in Chinatown, BarnetBarnet
High Barnet or Chipping Barnet is a place in the London Borough of Barnet, North London, England. It is a suburban development built around a twelfth-century settlement and is located north north-west of Charing Cross. Its name is often abbreviated to Barnet, which is also the name of the London...
, Camden
Camden Town
-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...
, Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
, Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
and Tower Hamlets. Major organisations include the London Chinese Community Centre, London Chinatown Chinese Association, the London Chinese Cultural Centre.
The Westminster Chinese Library, based at the Charing Cross Library, holds one of the largest collections of Chinese materials in UK public libraries. It has a collection of over 50,000 Chinese books available for loan and reference to local readers of Chinese languages; music cassettes, CDs, and video films for loan; community information and general enquiries; a national subscription service of Chinese books; and Chinese events organised from time to time.
The London Dragon Boat Festival is held annually in June at the London Regatta Centre
London Regatta Centre
The London Regatta Centre, a state-of-the-art rowing centre, is located in the heart of the Docklands area in the East End of London. It is built at the west end on the north of the historic Royal Albert Dock directly opposite London City Airport...
, Royal Albert Dock
Royal Albert Dock
The Royal Albert Dock is one of three docks in the Royal Group of Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands.-History:The dock was constructed to the east of the earlier Victoria Dock by the St Katharine and London dock companies and opened in 1880...
s. It is organised by the London Chinatown Lions Club.
Contemporary issues
Language poses a serious problem for the older generation and for women working at home. IsolationSolitude
Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, neurological disorders or circumstances of employment or situation .Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one...
and depression are common and, increasingly, Chinese community groups are providing advocacy and counselling to alleviate these problems. For men in the catering trade, unsociable hours and the lack of after-hours venues has led to the problem of late-night gambling clubs.
Accommodation tied to work is still common practice for those working in restaurants. As a result, homelessness is a serious issue faced by many elderly retirees. Limited access to Chinese-speaking housing associations makes it harder for them to obtain advice on housing and rights.
For older Chinese Londoners, tri-lingual community centres are an invaluable resource providing essential advice and services. For the younger generation of British-born Chinese, these centres provide a meaningful way to participate in their community and keep in touch with their language and cultural identity.
The connection between China and London has developed recently, with China hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, before handing the baton on to London. A series of cultural and business exchanges and exhibitions have increased awareness about Chinese culture for many Londoners. The Trafalgar Square celebration of Chinese New Year is now a firm fixture on London's Festival Calendar.
Min Quan
Min Quan is a branch of The Monitoring Group that provides casework, advocacy, and support services to victims of racialHate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
and domestic violence
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
from the Chinese community. This work includes actions against the police for misconduct, representation and advocacy, training, information dissemination, a helpline, and open surgeries.
In 1999, the New Diamond Restaurant in London Chinatown was attacked. Volunteers formed a group to support and represent the victims of the attack. The volunteers mounted a campaign highlighting the plight of the waiters, set up an emergency Helpline for the victims, and an advice surgery in Chinatown. The need for these services was so great at the time that the fledgling Min Quan group was soon overwhelmed with calls for assistance from across the country during the winter months of 1999. Throughout this time, the volunteers carried out their activities with the assistance of The Monitoring Group (TMG), a long-established anti-racist organisation. In 2000, Min Quan formalised its status and became a branch of TMG.
Arts
The Chinese Arts Centre is the international agency for the development and promotion of contemporary Chinese artists. Established in 1986, it is based in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, the city with the second largest Chinese community in the UK, and the organisation is part of the region's rich Chinese heritage. The Chinese Arts Centre also hosts the International Chinese Live Art Festival which showcases work by Chinese artists from across the world.
The Yellow Earth Theatre Company is a London-based international touring company formed by five British East Asian performers in 1995. It aims to promotes the writing and performing talents of East Asians in Britain.
The Chinatown Arts Space is an organisation that promotes East Asian visual and performing arts.
Film
British Chinese film productions include:- The Chinese DetectiveThe Chinese DetectiveThe Chinese Detective is a British television series, transmitted by the BBC between 1981 and 1982 and created by Ian Kennedy Martin, who had previously devised The Sweeney and Juliet Bravo....
, (1981–1982) television series - Ping Pong (1986) directed by Po-Chih Leong
- Soursweet (1988) directed by Mike NewellMike Newell (director)Michael Cormac "Mike" Newell is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television. After the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005, Newell became the third most commercially successful British director in recent years, behind Christopher Nolan...
- Peggy Su! (1997) directed by Frances-Anne SolomonFrances-Anne SolomonFrances-Anne Solomon is a Trinidadian-Canadian-British filmmaker, writer, producer, and entrepreneur.Born in England of Trinidadian parents, she began her professional life at the BBC in England, where she built a successful career as a Producer first with BBC Radio then with BBC television drama...
- Dim Sum (A Little Bit of Heart) (2002) directed by Jane Wong
- Spirit Warriors (2010) television series starring Jessica Yu Li Henwick
Demographics
Britain has been receiving ethnic Chinese migrants more or less uninterruptedly on varying scale since the 19th century. While new immigrant arrivals numerically have replenished the Chinese community, they have also added to its complexity and the already existing cleavages within the community. Meanwhile, new generations of British-born Chinese have emerged. The educational success of the younger, British-born Chinese has brought professional and economic prosperity to the Chinese community.Main migration waves
Chinese migration to Britain has a history of at least 150 years. Until the Second World War, Chinese communities lived around Britain's main ports, the oldest and largest in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. These communities consisted of a transnational and highly mobile population of Cantonese
Cantonese people
The Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...
seamen and small numbers of more permanent residents who ran shops, restaurants, and boarding houses that catered for them. The number of Chinese seamen (who mainly worked as stoker
Stoker
A stoker is "one who stokes".Stoker may also refer to:* A fireplace poker* Mechanical stoker - a coal-feeding device on a steam locomotive...
s) dwindled sharply during the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and the subsequent decline of coal-fired intercontinental shipping
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
after the Second World War. In the 1950s, they were replaced by a rapidly growing population of Chinese from the rural areas in Hong Kong's New Territories
New Territories
New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory. Historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory...
. Opening restaurants across Britain, they established firm migration chains and soon dominated the Chinese presence in Britain. In the 1960s and 1970s, they were joined by increasing numbers of Chinese students and economic migrants from Malaysia and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
Chinese migration to Britain continued to be dominated by these groups until the 1980s, when rising living standards and urbanization in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia gradually reduced the volume of migration from the New Territories. At the same time in the 1980s, the number of students and skilled emigrants from the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
began to rise. Since the early 1990s, the UK has also witnessed a rising inflow of economic migrants from areas in China without any previous migratory link to the UK, or even elsewhere in Europe. A relatively small number of Chinese enter Britain legally as skilled migrants. However, most migrants arrive to work in unskilled jobs, originally exclusively in the Chinese ethnic sector (catering, Chinese stores, and wholesale firms), but increasingly also in employment outside this sector (for instance, in agriculture and construction). Migrants who enter Britain for unskilled employment are from both rural and urban backgrounds. Originally, Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
ese migrants were the dominant flow, but more recently increasing numbers of migrants from the Northeast of China
Northeast China
Northeast China, historically known in English as Manchuria, is a geographical region of China, consisting of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The region is sometimes called the Three Northeast Provinces...
have arrived in the UK as well. Migrants now tend to come from an increasing number of regions of origin in China. Almost all Chinese unskilled migrants enter the country illegally and work in the nether economy, as the Morecambe Bay tragedy of February 2004 showed. Many claim asylum in-country, avoiding deportation after exhausting their appeals. In the United Kingdom Census 2001
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
, the population enumerated as Chinese totalled approximately 247,000.
Population
The population figure of 247,403 (approximately 0.5% of the UK population and around 5% of the total non-white population in the UK), cited from figures produced by the UK's Office for National StatisticsOffice for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.- Overview :...
(ONS), is based on the 2001 national census. However, it may not be an entirely accurate figure of the current population of people of Chinese origin in the UK. Reasons for this include: some had not participated in the 2001 national census, some had not specified their ethnic group in the census, either intentionally or unintentionally, and successive Chinese migration to or from the UK since 2001. A recent publication from the ONS, "Focus on Ethnicity and Religion (October) 2006", gave some detailed figures on the makeup of the UK's Chinese population that were based on the information by those who had identified themselves as 'Chinese' in the United Kingdom Census 2001
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
.
- Total population: Over 400,000 (2006), not including those of partial Chinese descent
- Geographical distribution: 33% of the Chinese in Britain live in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 13.6% in the South EastSouth East EnglandSouth East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
, 11.1% in the North WestNorth West EnglandNorth West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
. - Birthplace: 29% in Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, 25% EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, 19% Mainland ChinaMainland ChinaMainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, 8% Malaysia, 4% VietnamVietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, 3% SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, 2.4% ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, 2% TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, 0.9% WalesWalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, 0.1% Northern IrelandNorthern IrelandNorthern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. - Religion: 52% of Chinese reported no religious affiliationIrreligionIrreligion is defined as an absence of religion or an indifference towards religion. Sometimes it may also be defined more narrowly as hostility towards religion. When characterized as hostility to religion, it includes antitheism, anticlericalism and antireligion. When characterized as...
, 25.1% ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, 15.1% Buddhist. - Occupation: Of all ethnic groups, Chinese had the highest proportion as students (about a third) and the lowest in "routine/manual" occupations (17%).
It should be noted, however, that in the United Kingdom, "Asian demographics" and "Chinese demographics" are separate. In British
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
usage, the word "Asian" or "British Asian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...
" when describing people usually refers to those from South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
(India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
, etc.).
Geographic distribution
Compared to most ethnic minorities in the UK, the Chinese tend to be more widespread and decentralised. However, significant numbers of British Chinese people can be found in BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...
, Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, and Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
. In Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, Chinese make up the largest non-white minority, although the population of roughly 4,000 is relatively small.
Many locations with a high visible Chinese cultural presence are called Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s. Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
's Chinatown is situated around the Berry Street and Duke Street area in the city centre. The Ceremonial Archway, which was built in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China, is located at the heart of Liverpool's Chinatown. Before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the original Chinatown was situated around Pitt Street. In London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, there is a Chinatown
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...
centred around Gerrard Street, Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
, in the West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
of central London which has many Chinese restaurants and businesses; it is mostly a commercial area, most Chinese live in other parts of London, especially north London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
and Colindale
Colindale
-Transport:*Colindale tube station, on the Northern Line Edgware branch, is situated on the north side of the east-west Colindale Lane.-Development:...
in particular. Sheffield's unofficial Chinatown is located at London Road
London Road (Sheffield)
London Road is a shopping street in Sheffield, England. It leads south from the city centre near Moorfoot, parallel to Bramall Lane, through Sharrow, Highfield, Lowfield and Heeley, before becoming Chesterfield Road in Meersbrook next to The Crown Inn. Near Heeley Bridge was Heeley railway...
.
Languages
According to the website Ethnologue.com, Yue Chinese (Cantonese) is spoken by 300,000 Britons as a primary language, whilst 12,000 Britons speak Mandarin Chinese and 10,000 speak Hakka Chinese. The proportion of British Chinese people who speak English as a first or secondary language is unknown.Largest urban Chinese communities
(2005 estimates)- LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
- 107,100 (1.4%) - ManchesterManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
- 10,800 (2.3%) - BirminghamBirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
- 10,700 (1.1%) - LiverpoolLiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
- 6,800 (1.5%) - SheffieldSheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
- 5,100 (1.0%) - OxfordOxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
- 4,200 (2.9%) - CambridgeCambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
- 3,600 (3.1%) - Newcastle upon TyneNewcastle upon TyneNewcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
- 3,100 (1.1%) - EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
- 2635 (0.92%)
London demography
According the Census statistics, there was only one wardWards of the United Kingdom
A ward in the United Kingdom is an electoral district at sub-national level represented by one or more councillors. It is the primary unit of British administrative and electoral geography .-England:...
in London with a more than 5% Chinese population, which was Millwall
Millwall
Millwall is an area in London, on the western side of the Isle of Dogs, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the south of the developments at West India Docks, including Canary Wharf.-History:...
in Tower Hamlets
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks...
at 5.4%. The Chinese population is extremely dispersed, possibly because people want to set up a Chinese restaurant or takeaway that is a certain distance from the next one.
| Borough | Total population | Chinese population | Chinese percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of London City of London The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of... * |
7,700 | 100 | 1.3 |
| Barking and Dagenham London Borough of Barking and Dagenham In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 1,937; and the area was characterised by farming, woodland and the fishing fleet at Barking. This last industry employed 1,370 men and boys by 1850, but by the end of the century had ceased to exist; replaced by... |
165,500 | 1,500 | 0.9 |
| Barnet London Borough of Barnet The London Borough of Barnet is a London borough in North London and forms part of Outer London. It has a population of 331,500 and covers . It borders Hertfordshire to the north and five other London boroughs: Harrow and Brent to the west, Camden and Haringey to the south-east and Enfield to the... |
326,100 | 7,600 | 2.3 |
| Bexley London Borough of Bexley The London Borough of Bexley lies in south east Greater London, and is a borough referred to as part of Outer London. It has common borders with the London Borough of Bromley to the south, the London Borough of Greenwich to the west, across the River Thames to the north it borders the London... |
221,000 | 1,800 | 0.8 |
| Brent London Borough of Brent In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 2,022. This rose slowly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 5,646 in the middle of the century. When the railways arrived the rate of population growth increased... |
270,300 | 3,500 | 1.3 |
| Bromley London Borough of Bromley The London Borough of Bromley is a London borough of south east London, England and forms part of Outer London. The principal town in the borough is Bromley.-Geography:... |
297,900 | 2,200 | 0.7 |
| Camden London Borough of Camden In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century... |
222,800 | 6,000 | 2.7 |
| Croydon London Borough of Croydon The London Borough of Croydon is a London borough in South London, England and is part of Outer London. It covers an area of and is the largest London borough by population. It is the southernmost borough of London. At its centre is the historic town of Croydon from which the borough takes its name... |
335,800 | 2,700 | 0.8 |
| Ealing London Borough of Ealing The London Borough of Ealing is a borough in west London.-Location:The London Borough of Ealing borders the London Borough of Hillingdon to the west, the London Borough of Harrow and the London Borough of Brent to the north, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to the east and the London... |
305,700 | 4,400 | 1.4 |
| Enfield London Borough of Enfield The London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest... |
283,400 | 3,000 | 1.1 |
| Greenwich London Borough of Greenwich The London Borough of Greenwich is an Inner London borough in south-east London, England. Taking its name from the historic town of Greenwich, the present borough was formed in 1965 by the amalgamation of the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich with part of the Metropolitan... |
221,600 | 3,400 | 1.5 |
| Hackney London Borough of Hackney The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council.... |
207,100 | 2,800 | 1.4 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is a London borough in West London, and forms part of Inner London. Traversed by the east-west main roads of the A4 Great West Road and the A40 Westway, many international corporations have offices in the borough.... |
171,000 | 1,800 | 1.1 |
| Haringey London Borough of Haringey The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs... |
224,100 | 3,400 | 1.5 |
| Harrow London Borough of Harrow The London Borough of Harrow is a London borough of north-west London. It borders Hertfordshire to the north and other London boroughs: Hillingdon to the west, Ealing to the south, Brent to the south-east and Barnet to the east.-History:... |
214,000 | 2,900 | 1.4 |
| Havering London Borough of Havering The London Borough of Havering is a London borough in North East London, England and forms part of Outer London. The principal town in Havering is Romford and the other main communities are Hornchurch, Upminster and Rainham. The borough is mainly characterised by suburban development with large... |
226,300 | 1,100 | 0.5 |
| Hillingdon London Borough of Hillingdon The London Borough of Hillingdon is the westernmost borough in Greater London, England. The borough's population was recorded as 243,006 in the 2001 Census. The borough incorporates the former districts of Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington and Yiewsley and West Drayton in the... |
247,900 | 2,700 | 1.1 |
| Hounslow London Borough of Hounslow -Political composition:Since the borough was formed it has been controlled by the Labour Party on all but two occasions. In 1968 the Conservatives formed a majority for the first and last time to date until they lost control to Labour in 1971. Labour subsequently lost control of the council in the... |
216,600 | 2,000 | 0.9 |
| Islington London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington is a London borough in Inner London. It was formed in 1965 by merging the former metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury. The borough contains two Westminster parliamentary constituencies, Islington North and Islington South & Finsbury... |
184,200 | 4,300 | 2.3 |
| Kensington and Chelsea Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is a central London borough of Royal borough status. After the City of Westminster, it is the wealthiest borough in England.... |
175,800 | 4,700 | 2.7 |
| Kingston upon Thames Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is a borough in southwest London, England. The main town is Kingston upon Thames and it includes Surbiton, Chessington, New Malden and Tolworth. It is the oldest of the three Royal Boroughs in England, the others are Kensington and Chelsea, also in London,... |
153,900 | 2,500 | 1.6 |
| Lambeth London Borough of Lambeth The London Borough of Lambeth is a London borough in south London, England and forms part of Inner London. The local authority is Lambeth London Borough Council.-Origins:... |
270,300 | 3,500 | 1.3 |
| Lewisham London Borough of Lewisham The London Borough of Lewisham is a London borough in south-east London, England and forms part of Inner London. The principal settlement of the borough is Lewisham... |
253,200 | 3,500 | 1.4 |
| Merton London Borough of Merton The London Borough of Merton is a borough in southwest London, England.The borough was formed under the London Government Act in 1965 by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Mitcham, the Municipal Borough of Wimbledon and the Merton and Morden Urban District, all formerly within Surrey... |
195,300 | 2,900 | 1.5 |
| Newham London Borough of Newham The London Borough of Newham is a London borough formed from the towns of West Ham and East Ham, within East London.It is situated east of the City of London, and is north of the River Thames. According to 2006 estimates, Newham has one of the highest ethnic minority populations of all the... |
249,700 | 3,400 | 1.4 |
| Redbridge London Borough of Redbridge The London Borough of Redbridge is a London borough in outer north-east London. Its administrative headquarters is at Redbridge Town Hall in Ilford. The local authority is Redbridge London Borough Council.-Etymology:... |
249,000 | 2,600 | 1.0 |
| Richmond upon Thames London Borough of Richmond upon Thames The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is a London borough in South West London, UK, which forms part of Outer London. It is unique because it is the only London borough situated both north and south of the River Thames.-Settlement:... |
178,000 | 1,600 | 0.9 |
| Southwark London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark is a London borough in south east London, England. It is directly south of the River Thames and the City of London, and forms part of Inner London.-History:... |
264,000 | 6,800 | 2.6 |
| Sutton London Borough of Sutton The London Borough of Sutton is a London borough in South London, England and forms part of Outer London. It covers an area of and is the 80th largest local authority in England by population. It is one of the southernmost boroughs of London... |
183,100 | 1,500 | 0.8 |
| Tower Hamlets London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks... |
209,400 | 4,900 | 2.3 |
| Waltham Forest London Borough of Waltham Forest The London Borough of Waltham Forest is in northeast London, England. Officially, it forms part of Outer London as it borders Essex. However, it can be seen that the NE London boundary does not extend far compared to elsewhere in the city... |
220,300 | 2,000 | 0.9 |
| Wandsworth London Borough of Wandsworth The London Borough of Wandsworth is a London borough in southwest London, England, and forms part of Inner London.-History:The borough was formed in 1965 from the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea and much of the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth, but... |
276,400 | 2,700 | 1.0 |
| Westminster City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary... |
228,600 | 7,300 | 3.2 |
| London London London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its... |
7,456,000 | 107,100 | 1.4 |
- *not a London BoroughLondon boroughThe administrative area of Greater London contains thirty-two London boroughs. Inner London comprises twelve of these boroughs plus the City of London. Outer London comprises the twenty remaining boroughs of Greater London.-Functions:...
Education and employment
In terms of educationEducation
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al achievement, figures in 2002 showed that British Chinese pupils were more likely to have gained five or more A*-C GCSE
General Certificate of Secondary Education
The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills...
grades than any other ethnic group, with 77% of British Chinese girls and 71% of British Chinese boys respectively achieving that target. British Chinese school pupils had the lowest exclusion rate at 2 per 10,000. A British Chinese person was also more likely to possess a university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
, or hold a job in a profession
Profession
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....
al class, than the average Briton, but conversely, British Chinese people had the highest proportion with no qualifications (20%), and twice the unemployment rate (10%) compared to white Britons (5%). British Chinese men also had the highest rate of working-age economic inactivity (defined as those of working-age not available for work and/or not actively seeking work) of all males at 37%, twice the rate for white British men. The vast majority of economically inactive British Chinese men were students. The British Chinese were more likely to be self-employed (16%) than any other ethnic group except for Pakistanis. In 2004, just under half of British Chinese men in employment worked in the distribution, hotel, and restaurant industry, compared with one-sixth of their white British counterparts. British Chinese women are also concentrated in the distribution, hotel, and restaurant industry, as two-fifths worked in this industry in 2004. The British Chinese were most likely to have been employed in managerial and professional occupations (38%), compared with 27% for white Britons.
Health and welfare
Chinese men and women were the least likely to report their healthHealth
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
as "not good" of all ethnic groups. Chinese men and women had the lowest rates of long-term illness
Illness
Illness is a state of poor health. Illness is sometimes considered another word for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist...
or disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
which restricts daily activities. The British Chinese population (5.8%) were least likely to be providing informal care (unpaid care to relatives, friends or neighbours). Around 0.25% of the British Chinese population were residents in hospital and other care establishments.
Chinese men (17%) were the least likely to smoke of all ethnic groups. Fewer than 10% of Chinese women smoked. Fewer than 10% of the Chinese adult population drank above the recommended daily alcohol guidelines
Alcoholic beverages — recommended maximum intake
This article summarizes the recommended maximum intake of alcohol as recommended by the health agencies of various governments. These recommendations are varied, reflecting scientific uncertainty. The recommendations are distinct from legal restrictions that may apply in those...
on their heaviest drinking day.
The Chinese National Healthy Living Centre was founded in 1987 to promote healthy living, and provide access to health services
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
, for the Chinese community in the UK. The community is widely dispersed across the country and currently makes the lowest use of health services of all minority ethnic groups. The Centre aims to reduce the health inequality
Health disparities
Health equity refers to the study of differences in the quality of health and health care across different populations....
between the Chinese community and the general population. Language difficulties and long working hours in the catering trade present major obstacles to many Chinese people in accessing mainstream health provision. Language and cultural barriers can result in their being given inappropriate health solutions. Isolation is a common problem amongst this widely dispersed community and can lead to a range of mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
es. The Centre, based close to London's Chinatown, provides a range of services designed to tackle both the physical and psychological aspects of health.
Inter-ethnic marriage
The British Chinese have one of the highest inter-ethnic marriageInterracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
rates in the country when compared to other ethnic groups. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
, 30% of Chinese women intermarried, a figure twice that for Chinese men (15%).
Voter registration
A survey conducted in 2006, estimated that around 30 percent of British Chinese were not on the electoral register, and therefore not able to vote. This compares to 6% of whites and 17% for all ethnic minorities. The figure for Black Africans is 37%.In a bid to increase voter registration and turnout, and reverse voter apathy within the community, campaigns have been organized such as the British Chinese Register to Vote organised by Get Active UK, a working title that encompasses all the activities run by the Integration of British Chinese into Politics (the BC Project) and its various partners. The campaign wishes to highlight the low awareness of politics among the British Chinese community; to encourage those eligible to vote but not on the electoral register to get registered; and to help people make a difference on issues affecting themselves and their communities on a daily basis by getting their voices heard through voting.
Society and business
At the turn of the 20th century, the number of Chinese in Britain was small. Most were sailors who had deserted or been abandoned by their employers after landing in British ports. In the 1880s, some Chinese migrants had fled the US during the anti-Chinese campaignChinese immigration to the United States
Chinese American history is the history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States. Chinese immigration to the U.S. consisted of three major waves, with the first beginning in the 19th century. Chinese immigrants in the 19th century worked as laborers, particularly...
and settled in Britain, where they started up businesses based on their experience in America. There is little evidence to suggest that these "double migrants" had established close ties with Britain's other, longer-standing Chinese community. By the middle of the 20th century, the community was on the point of extinction, and would probably have lost its cultural distinctiveness if not for the arrival of tens of thousands of Hong Kong Chinese in the 1950s.
Starting a small business was the main way the Chinese coped with their limited ability to find employment in a generally alien and hostile English-speaking environment. They forged inter-ethnic partnerships to overcome the twin problem of raising funds and finding employees. In the first half of the 20th century, most Chinese were involved in the laundry
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
business, while migrants who arrived after the Second World War worked primarily in the catering
Catering
Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...
industry. As these businesses grew, so too did the demand for labour, which entrepreneurs met by exploiting kinship ties
Chinese kinship
The Chinese kinship system is classified as a Sudanese kinship system used to define family. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Sudanese system is one of the six major kinship systems together with Eskimo, Hawaiian,...
to bring family members into Britain. Business partnerships broke up and evolved into family firms, starting and gradually reinforcing the move away from community-based enterprise. With this, competition escalated, since most migrants were involved in the same sector of industry.
This competition necessitated the community's geographical dispersal which further hindered its attempts to struggle collectively for greater protection from the authorities against racist discrimination. In urban areas, the experience of racism forced the Chinese into "ethnic niches", consisting primarily of restaurants and takeaways, thus heightening competition and placing further limits on communal cooperation. The more entrepreneurial of these migrants would strive to leave these enclaves and were usually the ones who achieved social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
. Later arrivals—the seafarers (in the first half of the 20th century) and immigrants from Hong Kong (from the 1960s)—were unable to cooperate to challenge the policies of the British government which were designed to prevent them from entering other economic sectors, even as part of the labour force. In addition to the generalised racism that they encountered, these Chinese migrants were trapped by policies to remain in economic spheres where their links with the majority population were curtailed and competition with the latter was minimized.
Government policies also had an important bearing on the issues of integration
Social integration
Social integration, in sociology and other social sciences, is the movement of minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and underprivileged sections of a society into the mainstream of societies...
and enterprise development. The Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
government under Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
in the late 1970s and early 1980s actively promoted the setting up of small enterprises
Small business
A small business is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. Small businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships...
, essentially as a mechanism to deal with the problem of racism. The government was then of the view that since immigrants preferred to concentrate on small businesses due to the hardships and difficulties, in the form of language barriers and racist discrimination, they experienced in the UK they would opt for opportunities for business ownership rather than employment with or by non co-ethnics.
While small enterprises have helped migrants to cope with the problem of their isolation and alienation in the new environment, a good segment of their children, on the other hand, have done well in education
Education in the United Kingdom
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments: the UK Government is responsible for England, and the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are...
, notably at the tertiary level
Tertiary education
Tertiary education, also referred to as third stage, third level, and post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education, such as a high school, secondary school, university-preparatory school...
, and have made a prominent presence as professionals and in the high-tech sector. Given the knowledge that their parents worked long hours and under difficult conditions to alleviate themselves from poverty, most children of migrants scorn the notion of taking over their parents' businesses, specifically those that function as small enterprises. The dreariness of the nature of work and life in a takeaway also has a bearing on why they generally shun the businesses run by their parents.
By the turn of this century, the Chinese in the UK could be broadly categorized into four main categories:
- Hong Kong Chinese from the rural New TerritoriesNew TerritoriesNew Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory. Historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory...
who started arriving in large numbers in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of them moved into catering and food wholesaling and retailing. - Southeast Asian Chinese, who also started arriving in the 1960s. Primarily from middle-class, professional backgrounds, some of them have also gone into business, including catering.
- Arrivals from mainland ChinaMainland ChinaMainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
and urban Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
in the 1980s, who have gone into business related to technology and manufacturing. - British-born Chinese, whose members are mostly well-qualified and work in hi-tech industries.
Given their diverse national and class backgrounds, even though a small community, the Chinese never aspired for social cohesion. The absence of this goal of social congruence is reflected in the creation by them of numerous social and economic institutions to represent their interests. Most of these associations, fraught with divisions, have now ceased to operate. Moreover, a large number of poor Chinese migrants in the UK were forced to work for other Chinese who exploited them so badly that they could not wait to leave to set up their own enterprise. The diversity that exists within this society is what informs the character of the Chinese community in Britain.
The largest Chinese enterprises are involved in wholesaling and retailing
Retailing
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
and are mainly controlled by migrants born in Hong Kong. There is no evidence that they have invested in launderettes. Unlike the situation in the US, the Chinese community in the UK has not built on its long presence in this sector. Although a small number of Chinese launderettes still operate in a number of cities, they do not seem to operate as companies.
The lists of directors and shareholders of Chinese-owned companies provide no evidence of interlocking stock ownership or of interlocking directorships. A number of them were created and ran as partnerships before coming under the control of one individual or family. Most of the start-up
Startup company
A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets...
funds for these businesses have come from personal savings or put together by family members. There is little evidence that they have had access to ethnic-based funding, and there are very few instances to suggest that financial aid has been provided on intra-ethnic grounds; rather, such assistance was for the mutual benefit of both borrower and lender. An example of an ethnic Chinese who capitalised on his ethnicity to create a Chinese-based business center in the UK is W. W. Yip.
Wing Yip
Wing Yip is a Chinese supermarket chain in the United Kingdom, founded in 1969.The current Birmingham store now also serves as its headquarters office, international trading division, property and investments, , warehouse, and national distribution centre...
An immigrant from Hong Kong who started out as a waiter, Yip became a restaurateur and later built his reputation as a leading wholesaler and retailer of Chinese food products. He is the owner of Britain's largest Chinese enterprise in terms of sales volume.
See also
- East Asians in the United Kingdom (see template below)
- British-Chinese relations
- British nationality law and Hong KongBritish nationality law and Hong KongBritish nationality law as it pertains to Hong Kong has been unusual ever since Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842. From its beginning as a sparsely populated trading port to today's cosmopolitan international financial centre of over seven million people, the territory has attracted...
- Chinese emigration
- Overseas ChineseOverseas ChineseOverseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
(see template below)
Footnotes
- In British nationality lawBritish nationality lawBritish nationality law is the law of the United Kingdom that concerns citizenship and other categories of British nationality. The law is complex because of the United Kingdom's former status as an imperial power.-History:...
, a person can be naturalised or registered as a British citizen. This difference in the law is not important in this article. - Normally, ethnic ChineseHan ChineseHan Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
people holding a British National (Overseas)British National (Overseas)British National , commonly known as BN, is one of the major classes of British nationality under British nationality law. Holders of this nationality are British nationals and Commonwealth citizens, but not British Citizens...
passport are not considered to be "British Chinese", as they do not normally hold the right of abodeRight of abodeThe right of abode is an individual's freedom from immigration control in a particular country. A person who has the right of abode in a country does not need permission from the government to enter the country and can live and work there without restriction....
in the UK. Ethnic Chinese people who had obtained British Citizenship in Hong KongBritish nationality law and Hong KongBritish nationality law as it pertains to Hong Kong has been unusual ever since Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842. From its beginning as a sparsely populated trading port to today's cosmopolitan international financial centre of over seven million people, the territory has attracted...
prior to handover and do not normally reside in the UK are not a main concern of this article.
Further reading
There have been very few books written on the history of the Chinese in Britain, with what exists are mainly surveys, dissertations, census figures, and newspaper reports.Books
- Graham Chan (1997) Dim Sum: Little Pieces of Heart, British Chinese Short Stories, contains a collection of 16 short stories that serve up slices of British Chinese experiences and culture. (Crocus Books.)
- Hsiao-Hung Pai (2008) Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of Labour. Penguin.
- Wai-ki E. Luk (2008) Chinatown in Britain: Diffusions and Concentrations of the British New Wave Chinese Immigration. Cambria PressCambria PressCambria Press is an independent academic publisher based in Amherst, New York. The publishing company was established by 2006, with its first titles released in September of that year. Cambria publishes academic monographs and new titles by scholars in a wide range of research fields, initially...
. - The Chinese in Britain, 1800–Present: Economy, Transnationalism, and Identity by Gregor Benton and E. T. Gomez, Palgrave, 2007.
- Parker, D. "Britain" in L. Pan Ed. (2006) Encyclopaedia of the Chinese Overseas, Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre (revised edition).
- Tam, Suk-Tak. "Representations of 'the Chinese' and 'ethnicity' in British racial discourse". In: Sinn, Elizabeth, ed. The last half century of Chinese overseas. Aberdeen, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998. 81-90.
- Maria Lin Wong, Chinese Liverpudlians: A history of the Chinese community in Liverpool (Birkenhead, 1989).
- Shang, Anthony (1984) The Chinese in Britain, London: Batsford.
- Summerskill, Michael. "China on the Western Front. Britain's Chinese work force in the First World War". London: [The author] 1982 236p.
- The Anglo-Chinese author Timothy MoTimothy MoTimothy Peter Mo is an Anglo-Chinese novelist. Born to a Welsh-Yorkshire mother and a Hong Kong Chinese father, Mo lived in Hong Kong until the age of 10 before he moved to Britain, studying at St John's College, Oxford.He self-publishes his books under the label "Paddleless Press".- Novels :*The...
wrote the Booker prizeMan Booker PrizeThe Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
-winning novel Sour Sweet about a Chinese family running a restaurant in late sixties and seventies London who fall foul of a group of Triads. - Choo, Ng Kwee, The Chinese in London (London, 1968).
- May, John, "The Chinese in Britain, 1869-1914" in Colin Holmes (ed.), Immigrants and Minorities in British Society (London, 1978), pp. 111–124.
Chapters:
- Parker, David. Chinese people in Britain: histories, futures and identities. In: Benton, Gregor; Pieke, Frank N., eds. The Chinese in Europe. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. 390p. 1998 67-95
- Parker, David. Emerging British Chinese identities: issues and problems. In: Sinn, Elizabeth, ed. The last half century of Chinese overseas. Aberdeen, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998. 508p. 1998 91-114
- Parker, David. Rethinking British Chinese identities. In: Skelton, Tracey; Valentine, Gill, eds. Cool places: geographies of youth cultures. London; New York: Routledge, 1998. 66-82
- Baker, Hugh D.R. Nor good red herring: the Chinese in Britain. In: Shaw, Yu-ming, ed. China and Europe in the twentieth century. Taipei: Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, 1986. 318p. 1986 306-315
Papers
- Graham Chan. "The Chinese in Britain". Adapted from an article originally published in Brushstrokes, issue 12, June 1999. For additional articles and stories go to Graham Chan's website
- John Seed. ‘"Limehouse Blues": Looking for Chinatown in the London Docks,1900-1940’, History Workshop Journal, No. 62 (Autumn 2006), pp. 58–85. The Chinese In Limehouse 1900 - 1940. By John Seed 31 January 2007 - A talk at the Museum in Docklands.
- Akilli, Sinan, M.A. "Chinese Immigration to Britain in the Post-WWII Period", Hacettepe University, Turkey. Postimperial and Postcolonial Literature in English, 15 May 2003
- Archer, L. and Francis, B. (December 2005) "Constructions of racism by British Chinese pupils and parents", Race, Ethnicity and Education, Volume 8, Number 4, pp. 387–407(21).
- Archer, L. and Francis, B. (August 2005) "Negotiating the dichotomy of Boffin and Triad: British-Chinese pupils' constructions of 'laddism'", The Sociological Review, Volume 53, Issue 3, Page 495.
- Parker, D and Song M (2007) Inclusion, Participation and the Emergence of British Chinese Websites. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol 33 (7) : 1043-1061.
- ‘Belonging in Britain: The second generation Chinese in Britain’ Miri Song, University of Kent, England (pdf, 13 pages)
- Ethnicity, Social Capital and the Internet: British Chinese Web Sites (pdf, 57 pages)
- Gregory B. Lee, Chinas unlimited: Making the imaginaries of China and Chineseness (London, 2003). An academic study of culture and representation, including testimony from the author’s experience growing up in Liverpool.
- Diana Yeh. ‘Ethnicities on the Move: ‘British-Chinese’ art - identity, subjectivity, politics and beyond’, Critical Quarterly, Summer 2000, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 65–91.
- Ng, Alex. "The library needs of the Chinese community in the United Kingdom." London: British Library Research and Development Dept. 1989 102p (British Library research paper, 56.)
- Liu, William H. "Chinese children in Great Britain, their needs and problems". Chinese Culture (Taipei) 16, no.4 (December 1975 133-136)
- Watson, James L. 1974. Restaurants and Remittances: Chinese Emigrant Workers in London. In Anthropologists in Cities (eds) G.M. Foster & R.V. Kemper. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
- —. 1976. Emigration and the Chinese Lineage: The Mans in Hong Kong and London. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- —. 1977a. Chinese Emigrant Ties to the Home Community. New Community 5, 343-352.
- —. 1977b. The Chinese: Hong Kong Villagers in the British Catering Trade. In Between Two Cultures: Migrants and Minorities in Britain (ed.) J.L. Watson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Articles
- BBC History Magazine, May 2007. Features an article about Chinese in Britain by Mukti Jain Campion.
- Chinatown - The Magazine, May/June 2007. Features an article about Chinese in Britain by Anna Chen.
- Venetia Newell, "A Note on the Chinese New Year Celebration in London and Its Socio-Economic Background" Western Folklore, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 61–66.
Media coverage
Festivals- China Now 2008, the largest festival of Chinese culture ever to take place in the UK
Online
- Silk Screens 19 July 2008 - BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Video NationVideo NationVideo Nation was a BBC television project in social anthropology and audience interactivity. Beginning in 1993, the BBC encouraged people to record their lives on video. These video diaries were then shown on BBC TV and, from 2001-2011, were included on the BBC's website at .The original project...
, a series of simultaneous outdoor film screenings and live events in Birmingham, Glasgow, London and Manchester celebrating the lives of the British Chinese in the run-up to the Beijing Summer Olympics. Part of China Now (above).
Television
- The Missing Chink - an ironic take mixing comedy and vox-pop on the general low visibility of Chinese people in British society and media, the four 5-minute episodes was broadcast on Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
after the 7 O'Clock NewsChannel 4 NewsChannel 4 News is the news division of British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since the broadcaster's launch in 1982.-Channel 4 News:...
from January 19–22, 2004. It was written by and featured Paul Courtenay-Hyu, and starred Paul Chan, David Yip, Burt Kwouk, Rory Underwood MBE, Matt Wilkinson, Scott Corben and Simone Tully-Kedge. (All four episodes can be seen on Youtube) - Chinatown - A three part series broadcast on BBC TwoBBC TwoBBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 24th, 31 January and 7 February 2006, explored in depth the changes taking place in Britain's growing Chinese community.
Radio
- BBC - Radio 4 - Chinese in Britain - A groundbreaking ten-part series, "Chinese in Britain", broadcast by BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in April/May 2007, where presenter and co-writer Anna Chen told the story of the Chinese in Britain from the first known Chinese, Shen Fu Tsong in the 17th century, to the arrival of the migrant wave in the 1950s and 60s. The series was repeated in May 2008. See also: Anna Chen - Writer and performer; Producers: Culture Wise. - BBC - Radio 4 - Beyond the Takeaway Monday - Friday 10–14 March 2003, 3.45pm - five part series, actor and director David K.S. Tse, of the Yellow Earth Theatre Company, talks to the BBC, British-born Chinese, about their experiences of growing up and living in Britain.
- Liver Birds and Laundrymen. Europe's Earliest Chinatown Sunday Feature (45 min.) on BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
broadcast on 13 March 2005 21:30-22:15 - Gregory B. Lee, Professor of Chinese at the University of LyonUniversity of LyonThe University of Lyon , located in Lyon and Saint Etienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 16 institutions of higher education...
, returns to his native Liverpool, where his grandfather arrived from China in 1911, to tell a personal history of the earliest Chinese settlement in Europe. - Eastern Horizon (BBC Manchester), Manchester's first Chinese language radio programme and began broadcasting on 15 December 1983.
Publications
- Time Outs China in London - celebrating Chinese history, communities, cuisine, and lifestyle in London
- Dimsum Building bridges for the Chinese Diaspora
- Chinatown - The Magazine - Britain's only Chinese business and lifestyle magazine
- Squat, batgwa.com British-Chinese fashion, life and culture webzine
External links
- Chinese Britain: How a second generation wants the voice of its community heard (BBC News)
- Chinese diaspora: Britain (BBC News)
- How the Chinese Came to Wales: Find out how Swansea became home to a thriving Chinese community, BBC Wales South West, written by Swansea MuseumSwansea MuseumThe Swansea Museum in Swansea, Wales, UK is the oldest museum in Wales. The building was built for the Royal Institution of South Wales in 1841 in the neo-classical style.-Main museum:...
and the Chinese Co-Operative Community Centre - "PM wishes the Chinese community a Happy New Year", 10 Downing Street10 Downing Street10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....
, 27 January 2006 - History of Liverpool's Chinatown - Liverpool Chinatown Business Association
Communities
- CU Dimensions- Promoting healthy lifestyle
- LinkChinese Network UK
- British Chinese Youth Federation
- British Chinese Society
- British Born Chinese
- DimSum
- Chinese Community Development Centre
- BBC One Life: Sarah Yeh
- Visible Chinese - Guide to Achievers in UK Chinese Culture
- Eight Hundred Lives: Yvonne Foley, story of a Eurasian, daughter of a Chinese father and an English mother
- Reassessing what we collect website – Chinese London History of Chinese London with objects and images
- Hua Xian Chinese Society
Old Bailey
- Chinese Communities - Old BaileyOld BaileyThe Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
Proceedings Online, 1674 to 1913
Organisations
- Comprehensive directory of Chinese organisations including schools, associations and companies
- Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding
Arts Organisations
- Ricefield Arts and Cultural Centre, Glasgow - the Chinese Visual Arts organisation in Scotland
- Takeaway China: Art Film Culture - the unique arts festival celebrating Chinese New Year 2011 in Glasgow.
Radio
- Chinese Spectrum Radio - only programme in the UK broadcasting daily in Cantonese.
Statistics
- UK Census 2001: Ethnic minority statistics (Office for National Statistics, ONS)
- Focus on Ethnicity and Religion Source, ONS