Welcome to Republic of Cantonia.The World Cannot Remain Silent!Please help us to promote the Cantonian people to the world for our struggle for human rights, liberty, democracy and freedom from China and Han Chinese racists.
我哋係大粵獨立建國理念嘅建構者！我哋堅定捍衛大粵民國（Republic of Cantonia）嘅國家主權！我哋係粵獨嘅先鋒！我哋將擊敗支那！我哋將終結嚟自支那嘅殖民統治！我哋將脫支獨立！我哋將鏟除所有試圖異質化大粵嘅支那文化毒瘤！我哋將恢復古南越3000年前久遠嘅傳統！我哋將喺大粵重新敲響得勝嘅銅鼓！
本論壇100%基於大粵民國（Republic of Cantonia）係主權獨立國家嘅立場！祇要妳唔係支那人，噉無論妳嚟自邊度，具邊國國籍，係邊種膚色，講邊種語言，妳祗要認同大粵民國（Republic of Cantonia）係主權獨立國家，噉我哋就係同一國嘅！歡迎妳註冊加入成為我哋嘅會員！為粵獨發聲！為大粵嘅獨立、自由、民主吶喊！
Total population c. 40,000 - 60,000[1][2] Regions with significant populations Toamasina, Antananarivo[1] Languages Chinese (primarily Cantonese and Mandarin), Malagasy, French
Related ethnic groups Sino-Mauritians[3]
Chinese people in Madagascar form Africa's third largest overseas Chinese population.[4] As of 2007, roughly 40,000 to 60,000 lived on the island.[1][2] They constitute a minority ethnic group of Madagascar.
Contents
[hide] 1 History 2 Employment 3 Education 4 See also 5 References 5.1 Notes 5.2 Sources 6 Further reading 7 External links [edit] History
The first Chinese migrant to Madagascar arrived in the east coast port of Tamatave (now renamed Toamasina) in 1862, where he opened a shop, and later married a local Malagasy woman.[5] Six others came to Nosy Be off the northwestern coast in 1866, then three more in 1872. Fourteen were noted at Majunga (Mahajanga), also in the northwest, in 1894. Then, a contingent of five hundred arrived at Tamatave in 1896.[6] The following year, three thousand Chinese more labourers were brought in at the initiative of the French general Joseph Gallieni to work on the construction of the railway.[5] Contract workers, intending to return home after their stint on the island, often became ill while working on the construction of the railway; though they survived to board ships back to China, many died en route.[4] In absolute terms the resident population remained quite small: 452 in 1904, with 76 in the north, 31 in the west, 24 in the centre, 315 in the east, and 6 in the south. The vast majority were men.[7] They had grown slightly by the time of the 1911 census, which found 649 Chinese in the country, making up about 3% of the country's foreign population and a minute fraction of the total population of 3.2 million.[8]
The initial migrants came from Guangxi, but were later supplemented by Cantonese-speakers, both those who came directly from Guangdong and those who had been driven out of Mauritius by increasing competition from Hakka-speakers.[4] Upon arrival, the Cantonese speakers colluded to prevent any Hakka migration to Madagascar.[3] As a result, the Chinese population remained largely homogenous; 98% traced their origins not just to Guangdong, but specifically to the Shunde district.[1]
Chinese came not just as indentured labourers, but as free migrants too.[9] Often, a Sino-Mauritian would bring his relatives over from China to Mauritius for a period of apprenticeship in his business; after they had gained sufficient familiarity with commercial practises and life in a colonial society, he would send them onwards with letters of introduction, lending them his own capital to start up businesses in neighbouring countries, including Madagascar.[3] Import-export was one popular business, with products such as coffee, cloves, vanilla beans, and sea cucumbers flowing outwards.[9] Intermarriage between Chinese men and native Malagasy women was not uncommon.[10]
1957 official statistics showed 7,349 Chinese living in Madagascar, in forty-eight of the country's fifty-eight districts.[11] By 2006, that number had grown to roughly forty thousand, composed of thirty thousand of the original migrants and their descendants, as well as ten thousand new expatriates from the People's Republic of China, and another hundred from the Republic of China on Taiwan. The recent migrants trace their origins to a more diverse set of provinces, including Fujian and Zhejiang. Half lived in either Toamasina or Antananarivo, with a further one-eighth in the Diana Region; the remainder were distributed among the other provinces.[1]
[edit] Employment
Most of the Chinese in Madagascar are engaged in retail business. In the 1990s, they controlled half of the alcoholic beverages and textiles industries; by the mid-2000s, their share of the alcoholic beverages industry had fallen to one-fifth, while that of the textiles industry had increased to 90%.[1] Others operated cake shops and ice-cream parlours, somewhat along the lines of coffee shops, where customers could sit down and enjoy a dessert; they controlled about 10% of this industry.[1][12] Popular resentment at the influx of Chinese small traders, whose prices undercut those of their Malagasy competitors, has strained relations with the People's Republic of China.[13]
[edit] Education
Chinese-language education in Madagascar began in the late 1920s; with the 1937 onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese parents could no longer send their children back to China for their schooling, which fueled the expansion of local Chinese education.[14] Two of the most well-known schools, the Kuomintang-run Ecole Franco-Chinoise (兴文学校) in Fenerive, and the co-educational Ecole Chinoise Mixte (华体学校) in Toamasina, were both established the following year.[15][16] By 1946, the island boasted eleven Chinese schools. However, after the end of World War II, and especially in the 1980s, parents began shifting their children towards French-language education instead. As a result, the number of schools decreased, and the ones which remained decreased the number of class hours devoted to Chinese-language teaching. Of eight schools in 1972, three disappeared by the mid-1980s; the Ecole Franco-Chinoise, which at its peak had enrolled 629 students, was forced to merge with the Ecole Chinoise Mixte to form the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise (华侨学校).[14][15]
By 1995, only two schools remained, in Fianarantsoa and Toamasina. The one in Toamasina, the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise, enrolled 398 students at the kindergarten through lower secondary levels as of 2008; it continues teaching both Cantonese and Mandarin.[14][16] The school in Fianarantsoa had about 100 students, including mixed-race children of Chinese and Malagasy descent, as well as non-Chinese children.[14]
The Confucius Institute opened a branch in Antananarivo in 2008.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
Indians in Madagascar [edit] References
[edit] Notes
^ a b c d e f g Man 2006 ^ a b Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs 2007 ^ a b c Yap & Leong Man 1996, p. 37 ^ a b c Pan 1994, p. 62 ^ a b McLean Thompson & Adloff 1965, p. 271 ^ Grandidier 1908, pp. 518, 521 ^ Grandidier 1908, p. 522 ^ Martin 1916, p. 906 ^ a b Pan 1994, p. 63 ^ Pan 1994, p. 157 ^ Tsien 1961, p. 170 ^ A. 2001 ^ Brown 2004, p. 635 ^ a b c d Chinese Language Educational Foundation 2004a ^ a b Chinese Language Educational Foundation 2004b ^ a b Chinese Language Educational Foundation 2008 [edit] Sources
A., Kathirasen (2001-07-31), "A vibrant minority: The Chinese and Indians, who make up a tiny minority in Madagascar, are doing very well for themselves", New Straits Times (Singapore), http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-82613088.html, retrieved 2008-10-28 Brown, Mervyn (2004), "Madagascar: Recent History", Africa South of the Sahara, Taylor and Francis, pp. 630–636, ISBN 9781857431834 Grandidier, Alfred (1908), Histoire physique, naturelle et politique de Madagascar, Paris: Impr. nationale Man, Shufang (2006-06-30), "马达加斯加华侨华人概况", Overseas Chinese Net (People's Republic of China: Chinese Language Education Foundation), http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/news/2006/0630/68/34599.shtml, retrieved 2008-10-27 Martin, Frederick (1916), "Madagascar", The Statesman's Year-book: The Statesman's Year-book: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1916, St. Martin's Press McLean Thompson, Virginia; Adloff, Richard (1965), The Malagasy Republic: Madagascar today, Stanford University Press, ISBN 9780804702799 Pan, Lynn (1994), Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, Kodansha Globe, ISBN 9781568360324 Tsien, Tche-hao (January 1961), "La Vie Sociale des Chinois a Madagascar", Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge University Press) 3 (2): 170–181, doi:10.1017/S0010417500012111, http://www.jstor.org/pss/177626, retrieved 2008-10-27 Yap, Melanie; Leong Man, Dianne (1996), Colour, Confusion, and Concessions: The History of the Chinese in South Africa, Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 9789622094246 Chinese Language Educational Foundation (2004-07-13), "马达加斯加华文教育", Overseas Chinese Net, http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/node2/node116 ... 39222.html, retrieved 2008-10-28 Chinese Language Educational Foundation (2004-07-13), "马达加斯加费内里费兴文学校", Overseas Chinese Net, http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/node2/node279 ... 39215.html, retrieved 2008-10-28 Chinese Language Educational Foundation (2008-01-08), "马达加斯加塔马塔夫华侨学校", Overseas Chinese Net, http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/hwjy/hwhx-qt- ... 2288.shtml, retrieved 2008-10-28 Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs (2007-04-20), "非洲华人华侨简况", Dongguan City Government Portal, http://dgfao.dg.gov.cn/gb/articledetail ... tegoryid=7, retrieved 2008-10-30 [edit] Further reading
Fournet-Guérin, Catherine (2006), "La nouvelle immigration chinoise à Tananarive", Perspectives chinoises (96): 46–57, ISSN 1021-9013, http://perspectiveschinoises.revues.org ... t1004.html, retrieved 2008-10-30 陳鐵魂 (1989), 《馬拉加西共和國華僑概況》 [Situation of Overseas Chinese in the Malagasy Republic], Taipei: Cheng Chung Books, OCLC 27405986 Andriamanana, Sarah R. (1987), Chinese immigration to California and to Madagascar: a comparative study, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, OCLC 70685639 Slawecki, Leon M. S. (1971), French Policy Towards the Chinese in Madagascar, Connecticut: Shoe String Press, ISBN 978-0208012517, OCLC 219947 Stratton, Arthur (1964), "The Chinese and the Indians", The Great Red Island: A Biography of Madagascar, Scribner, pp. 26–44, OCLC 1670237 [edit] External links
General Association of Chinese Traders and Entrepreneurs in Madagascar (French) Pictures of Antananarivo's Chinatown Malagasy Portal for Confucius Institute in Antananarivo, Madagascar (French)
Total population c. 30,000 - 40,000[1][2] Regions with significant populations Half in Port Louis, with small numbers all over the island[1] Languages Mauritian Creole, French, English,[3] Chinese (predominantly Hakka and Cantonese)[1][4]
Religion Roman Catholic, minority Buddhist[5]
Related ethnic groups Chinese people in Madagascar, Sino-Réunionnaise, Sino-Seychellois, Chinese South Africans[6]
Sino-Mauritians, also referred to as Chinese Mauritians or Mauritian Chinese, are Mauritians of Chinese descent. They form about 3% of the local population.
Contents
[hide] 1 Migration history 2 Demographics, distribution, and employment 3 Language 4 Sino-Mauritian Identity 5 Chinese schools 6 Media 6.1 Chinese Commercial Paper 6.2 Chinese Daily News 6.3 China Times 6.4 The Mirror 6.5 Hua Sheng Bao 7 Culture 7.1 Names 7.2 Religion 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Notes 9.2 Sources [edit] Migration history
Like members of other communities on the island, some of the earliest Chinese in Mauritius arrived involuntarily, having been "shanghaied" from Sumatra in the 1740s to work in Mauritius in a scheme hatched by the French admiral Charles Hector, comte d'Estaing; however, they soon went on strike to protest their kidnapping. Luckily for them, their refusal to work was not met by deadly force, but merely deportation back to Sumatra.[7] In the 1780s, thousands of voluntary migrants set sail for Port Louis from Guangzhou on board British, French, and Danish ships; they found employment as blacksmiths, carpenters, cobblers, and tailors, and quickly formed a small Chinatown, the camp des Chinois, in Port Louis. Even after the British takeover of the island, migration continued unabated.[8] Between 1840 and 1843 alone, 3,000 Chinese contract workers arrived on the island; by mid-century, the total resident Chinese population reached five thousand.[9]
The earliest migrants were largely Cantonese-speaking, but later, Hakka-speakers from Meixian, further east in Guangdong, came to dominate numerically; as in other overseas Chinese communities, rivalry between Hakka and Cantonese became a common feature of the society. [10] By the 1860s, shops run by Sino-Mauritians could be found all over the island. Some members of the colonial government thought that further migration should be prohibited, but Governor John Pope Hennessy, recognising the role that Sino-Mauritians played in providing cheap goods to less well-off members of society, resisted the restrictionists' lobbying.[10]
During the 1880s, despite the continuous influx of immigrants, Mauritius' Chinese population declined; Chinese traders, legally unable to purchase land in Mauritius, instead brought their relatives from China over to Mauritius. After training them for a few years to give them a handle on the business and to introduce them to life in a Western-ruled colonial society, the traders sent those relatives on their way, with capital and letters of introduction, to establish businesses in neighbouring countries. For example, between 1888 and 1898, nearly 1,800 Chinese departed from Port Louis with ports on the African mainland—largely Port Elizabeth and Durban—as their destinations.[11] By 1901, the Sino-Mauritian population had shrunk to 3,515 individuals, among them 2,585 being business owners.[9] Until the 1930s, Chinese migrants continued to arrive in Port Louis, but with the strain on the local economy's ability to absorb them, many found that Mauritius would only be their first stop; they went on to the African mainland (especially South Africa), as well as to Madagascar, Réunion, and Seychelles.[4] After World War II, immigration from China largely came to an end.[12]
However, Sino-Mauritians continued to maintain the personal ethnic networks connecting them to relatives in greater China, which would play an important role in the 1980s, with the rise of the export-processing zones. Foreign investors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the factories they built in the EPZs, helped Mauritius to become the third-largest exporter of woollen knitwear in the world.[13] Along with the investors came a new influx of Chinese migrant workers, who signed on for three-year stints in the garment factories.[14]
[edit] Demographics, distribution, and employment
Today, most Sino-Mauritians are businesspeople, with a "virtual monopoly" on retail trade.[15] After the Franco-Mauritian population, they form the second-wealthiest group on the island.[16] They own restaurants, retail and wholesale shops, and import-and-export firms. Chinese restaurants have greatly influenced Mauritian culture, and Chinese food is consumed all over the island by people of all backgrounds.
In a 2001 Business Magazine survey, 10 of the 50 largest companies were Chinese owned.[17]
[edit] Language
Most Sino-Mauritian youth are at least trilingual: they use Mauritian Creole and French orally, while English—the language of administration and education—remains primarily a written language.[3][18] In the 1990 census, roughly one-third of Sino-Mauritians stated Mauritian Creole as both their ancestral language and currently spoken language. The other two-thirds indicated some form of Chinese as their ancestral language[19] although only fewer than one-quarter of census respondents who identified Chinese as their ancestral language also indicated it as the language spoken in the home.[20] Few Sino-Mauritian youth speak Chinese; those who do use it primarily for communication with elderly relatives, especially those who did not attend school and thus had little exposure to English or French.[21] None use it to communicate with their siblings or cousins.[22] Among those members of the community who do continue to speak Hakka, wide divergence with Meixian Hakka has developed in terms of vocabulary and phonology.[23]
[edit] Sino-Mauritian Identity
Despite having kept some ties with their traditional culture, Sino-Mauritians do not identify to the mainland Chinese culture per se, probably due to the high "Mauritianism" and very strong Mauritian identity in the country[24] As Lemon Lau said in her study supervised by Hong Kong University on Sino-Mauritian identity, "Contrary to what could be observed in the U.S., when ones who looked like Chinese descendants being asked if they are Chinese, they would never give an asserting reply but they would rather say they were Mauritian. Had I not interrogated them further, they would not have given subsequent answer of them being a Chinese Mauritian." [25]
[edit] Chinese schools
Two Chinese-medium middle schools were established in the first half of the 20th-century. The Chinese Middle School (华文学校, later called 新华中学 and then 新华学校) was established on 10 November 1912 as a primary school; in 1941, they expanded to include a lower middle school. Their student population exceeded 1,000.[26] The Chung-Hwa Middle School (中华中学), established by Kuomintang cadres on 20 October 1941, grew to enroll 500 students, but by the end of the 1950s, that had shrunk to just 300; they stopped classes entirely in the 1960s, although their alumni association remains prominent in the Sino-Mauritian community.[27] The Chinese Middle School also faced the problem of falling student numbers, as more Sino-Mauritians sent their children to mainstream schools, and in the 1970s stopped their weekday classes, retaining only a weekend section. However, their student numbers began to experience some revival in the mid-1980s; in the 1990s, they established a weekday pre-school section. Most of their teachers are local Sino-Mauritians, though some are expatriates from mainland China.[26] As of 2003, the Chinese Middle School enrolled 200 students and employed 36 teachers, and looked forward to reviving full-time classes in the near future.[28]
[edit] Media
Three Chinese-language newspapers continued to be published in Mauritius as of 2001.[29] A monthly newsmagazine also began publication in 2005.[30] The newspapers are printed in Port Louis, but not widely distributed outside the city.[19]
[edit] Chinese Commercial Paper
The Chinese Commercial Paper (华侨商报) was once the largest and most influential Chinese-language newspaper in Mauritius.[31] It stopped publishing in the 1960s, and merged with the China Times.[31][32]
[edit] Chinese Daily News
The Chinese Daily News (中华日报) is a pro-Kuomintang newspaper. It was founded in 1932.[33] The rivalry between Beijing-friendly and Taipei-friendly newspapers reached its peak in the 1950s; then-editor-in-chief of the Chinese Daily News, To Wai Man, even received death threats.[34]
[edit] China Times
The China Times (formerly 中国时报; now 华侨时报) was founded in 1953.[31][35] The editor-in-chief, Long Siong Ah Keng (吴隆祥), was born in 1921 in Mauritius; at age 11, he followed his parents back to their ancestral village in Meixian, Guangdong, where he graduated high school and went on to Guangxi's Guangxi University. After graduation, he signed on with the Chinese Commercial Paper and returned to Mauritius. He left Mauritius again in 1952 to work for a Chinese paper in India, but a position at the China Times enticed him back.[31]
Originally a four-page paper, the China Times later expanded to eight full-colour pages.[35]
[edit] The Mirror
The Mirror (镜报) was established in 1976.[29] It is published on a weekly basis every Saturday. They have a staff of eight people. Their editor-in-chief, Ng Kee Siong (黄基松), began his career at the Chinese Commercial Paper in 1942 at the age of 25; after 18 years there, the paper was forced to shut down. He and a team of fellow journalists founded a paper to replace it, the New Chinese Commercial Paper; it was while working there that he met Chu Vee Tow and William Lau, who would help him to establish The Mirror.[32] Another editor, Feng Yunlong (冯云龙), majored in French at Beijing's Tsinghua University, graduating in 1952.[29] The paper is printed by Down Printing, which is owned by Ng's son David.[32]
Most of The Mirror's readers are in their forties or older; it has subscribers not just in Mauritius, but Réunion, Madagascar, Canada, China, Australia and Hong Kong as well.[29][32] The paper's local readership has been boosted slightly by guest workers from China, but in 2001, barely exceeded one thousand copies.[29] By 2006, that number had fallen to seven hundred.[32]
[edit] Hua Sheng Bao
Hua Sheng Bao (华声报), also referred to as Voice of China, was founded in 2005. With regards to its editorial line, it is a supporter of Chinese reunification. It began as a daily newspaper solely in Chinese, but then changed format to become a monthly eight-page newspaper, including one page each of English and French news. It mostly prints Xinhua wire reports, with one page devoted to local news. It employs about twelve staff members on a part-time basis.[30]
[edit] Culture
[edit] Names
Most Sino-Mauritians use the full Chinese name of the male head of family or a respected ancestor who led the family as their legal surname, the result of an administrative procedure that had been widely used in British India (e.g. Muthu s/o Lingham) and which was extended to Mauritius, including not just Indo-Mauritians but Sino-Mauritians in its ambit.[citation needed] This practise is not unique to Mauritius; some Chinese in the Philippines and Chinese migrants in the early Soviet Union also adopted such surnames.[36]
[edit] Religion
The majority of the Sino-Mauritians are Catholics, a result of conversions during the colonial era.[37] Other Sino-Mauritians are Protestant, Buddhist or Taoist; typically, some syncretism occurs among the latter two, incorporating elements of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and traditional ancestor worship. Sino-Mauritian Christians, especially members of the older generations, sometimes retain certain traditions from Buddhism[38]
[edit] See also
Indo-Mauritian Mauritian Creole people [edit] References
Bissoonauth, Anu; Offord, Malcolm (2001), "Language Use of Mauritian Adolescents in Education", Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22 (5), http://www.channelviewpublications.net/ ... 220381.pdf, retrieved 2008-10-27 Brautigam, Deborah (2003), "Local Entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: Networks and Linkages to the Global Economy", in Aryeetey, Ernest; Court, Julius; Weder, Beatrice et al., Asia and Africa in the Global Economy, United Nations University Press, pp. 106–128, ISBN 9789280810899 Eisenlohr, Patrick (2004), "Register levels of Ethno-National Purity: The ethnicization of language and community in Mauritius", Language in Society 33 (01): 59–80, doi:10.1017/S0047404504031033 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (1998), Common Denominators: Nation-building and Compromise in Mauritius, Berg Publishers, ISBN 9781859739594 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (1999), "Tu dimunn pu vini kreol: The Mauritian creole and the concept of creolization", Creolization Seminar, Transnational Communities, University of Oxford, http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%2 ... riksen.pdf, retrieved 2009-01-10 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (2004), "Ethnicity, class, and the 1999 Mauritian riots", in May, Stephen; Modood, Tariq; Squires, Judith, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority Rights, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521603171 Leclerc, Jacques (2007), "Île Maurice", L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde, Université Laval de Québec, http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/afrique/maurice.htm, retrieved 2009-01-10 Nyíri, Pál (2007), "Chinese in the Soviet Union, 1922-1989", Chinese in Eastern Europe and Russia: A Middleman Minority in a Transnational era, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-41544686-0 Pan, Lynn (1994), Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, Kodansha Globe, ISBN 9781568360324 Song, Shuyun (2001), "毛里求斯华人今昔 (Mauritius' Overseas Chinese, Today and Yesterday)", At Home and Overseas (All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese) (7), http://www.cqvip.com/qk/80779X/200107/8901118.html, retrieved 2008-10-27 Yap, Melanie; Leong Man, Dianne (1996), Colour, Confusion, and Concessions: The History of the Chinese in South Africa, Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 9789622094246 Zhao, Huijun (1999), "毛里求斯华人社会语言概况 (The Language Use of Sino-Mauritians)", Fangyan (South China Normal University) (3): 238–244, http://engine.cqvip.com/content/H/81953 ... 330521.pdf, retrieved 2008-10-27 Lau, Lemon (2006), Mauritius and the Chinese Mauritian, University of Hong Kong, http://www.hku.hk/linguist/program/MauritiusFAQ.html, retrieved 2010-11-12 Richards, Nigel (2007), Country Studies Series: Mauritius, Brandeis University, http://www.brandeis.edu/coexistence/lin ... 0FINAL.pdf, retrieved 2010-11-12
Total population c. 1,000 (1999)[1] Regions with significant populations Mont Fleuri[2] Languages Seychellois Creole; Chinese not widely spoken[2]
Religion Christianity[2]
Related ethnic groups Sino-Mauritians[3]
Sino-Seychellois are overseas Chinese who reside in Seychelles. As of 1999, their population was estimated at roughly 1,000 individuals, making them one of Africa's smaller Chinese communities.[1]
Contents
[hide] 1 History 2 Language, education, and culture 3 Notable individuals 4 References 4.1 Notes 4.2 Sources 5 Further reading [edit] History
The first Chinese immigrants to Seychelles arrived from Mauritius in 1886.[2] Until around 1940, it was common for a Sino-Mauritian to bring his relatives over from China to Mauritius for a period of apprenticeship in his business; after they had gained sufficient familiarity with commercial practises and life in a colonial society, he would send them onwards with letters of introduction, lending them his own capital to start up businesses in neighbouring regions, including Seychelles.[3]
Like in other overseas Chinese communities, rivalry between Cantonese- and Hakka-speakers was a common feature of their social life. The two separate groups lived in different areas and even refused to marry each other, instead preferring to marry local women of African descent. They started out working on vanilla plantations, but quickly turned to shopkeeping, transport, and fishing.[2]
[edit] Language, education, and culture
In 1945, Richard Man-Cham, the father of future Prime Minister James Mancham, requested government permission to open a Chinese school. The government responded coldly to the idea.[2] Formal Chinese language education would not be established in Seychelles until 2007, when the People's Republic of China sent a teacher to work with the adult and distance education department of Seychelles' Ministry of Education.[4] Today, most Sino-Seychellois do not speak Chinese, though they may understand it.[2]
Sino-Seychellois are largely Christian.[2] There are only two Buddhist pagodas in the Seychelles, both on Mahé.[citation needed]
[edit] Notable individuals
Sir James Mancham, descendant of a Chinese immigrant grandfather[5] Anglican Archbishop French Chang-Him, descendant of a Chinese father[2] [edit] References
[edit] Notes
^ a b Chinese Language Educational Foundation 1999 ^ a b c d e f g h i Mahoune 2000 ^ a b Yap & Leong Man 1996, p. 37 ^ Wang 2008 ^ An 2007 [edit] Sources
An, Ran (2007-09-12), "塞席爾領導人工作勤勉 首任總統有1/4中國血統", China Radio International, http://big5.china.com.cn/international/ ... 863598.htm, retrieved 2008-10-31 Mahoune, Jean-Claude Pascal (2000), "Seychellois of Asian Origin", International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter 20, http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/20/regions/20ISA1.html, retrieved 2008-10-31 Wang, Xingye (2008-01-28), "我是塞舌尔第一位正式汉语教师 (I was Seychelles' first official Chinese language teacher)", Overseas Chinese Net (People's Republic of China: Chinese Language Educational Foundation), http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/hwjy/xtgs/200 ... 4481.shtml, retrieved 2008-10-31 Yap, Melanie; Leong Man, Dianne (1996), Colour, Confusion, and Concessions: The History of the Chinese in South Africa, Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 978-962209424-6 Chinese Language Educational Foundation (1999), "1999年底非洲国家和地区华侨、华人人口数 (1999 year-end statistics on Chinese expatriate and overseas Chinese population numbers in African countries and territories)", Overseas Chinese Net, http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/node2/node116 ... 43484.html, retrieved 2008-10-30 [edit] Further reading
Benedict, B. (1979), "Family firms and firm families: a comparison of Indian, Chinese, and Creole firms in Seychelles", in Greenfield, Sidney M.; Strickon, Arnold; Aubey, Robert T., Entrepreneurs in Cultural Context, University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 978-0-82630504-6 Fane, Ly-Tio (1985), La Diaspora chinoise dans l'Ocean Indien occidental (The Chinese Diaspora in the western Indian Ocean), Mauritius: Editions de l'Ocean Indien
Total population 25,000 (1999)[1] Languages French, Réunion Creole; Chinese (predominantly Hakka and Cantonese) spoken only by members of older generations[2]
Religion Chinese Folk Religion (Guan Di), Christianity(Predominantly Roman Catholicism), Buddhism [3]
Related ethnic groups Sino-Mauritians[4]
Chinois, also referred to by the Réunion Creole name Sinwa or Sinoi, are ethnic Chinese residing in Réunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean.[5][6] As of 1999, roughly 25,000 lived on the island, making them one of Africa's largest Chinese communities along with Chinese South Africans, Chinese people in Madagascar, and Sino-Mauritians.[1]
Contents
[hide] 1 Migration history 2 Language and education 3 Employment 4 Cuisine 5 References 5.1 Notes 5.2 Sources 6 Further reading Migration history
Despite their French citizenship, the Chinois form a group with origins distinct from the Chinese in metropolitan France.[6] The first Chinese to arrive in Réunion came not directly from China, but rather were indentured labourers drawn from among the population of Chinese in Malaya, who arrived on the island in 1844 to work in grain production and levee-building. They violently resisted the slave-like manner in which they were treated, and as a result, the colonial government put a stop to the immigration of Chinese indentured labourers just two years later.[7]
Beginning in the 1850s, Cantonese-speakers began to arrive from Mauritius.[8] It was common for a Sino-Mauritian to bring his relatives over from China to Mauritius for a period of apprenticeship in his business; after they had gained sufficient familiarity with commercial practises and life in a colonial society, he would send them onwards with letters of introduction, lending them his own capital to start up businesses in neighbouring regions, including Réunion.[4] Hakka-speakers, from Mauritius came as well in this manner starting only in the late 1880s.[9]
However, re-migration from Mauritius was not the only source of free Chinese migration to Réunion. In 1862, Réunion's government liberalised their immigration laws, allowing any foreigner to take up employment. Each year, a few hundred Cantonese-speaking migrants from Guangdong took advantage of this law and arrived in Réunion.[8] Hakkas from Meixian and French Indochina began to arrive around the same time as those from Mauritius, in the late 1880s. As in other overseas Chinese communities, conflict between Cantonese- and Hakka-speakers was a common feature of social life, and the two groups tried to avoid contact with each other; the Hakka migrants settled in the south of the island, especially at Saint-Pierre and Le Tampon.[9] Re-migration from Mauritius to Réunion continued in this manner until around 1940.[4] Migrants were almost all male; until the late 1930s or early 1940s, fewer than one thousand had arrived on the island.[10]
After World War II, metropolitan French immigration laws were extended to cover Réunion. Along with the closure of China's borders in 1950, this meant that Chinese migration to the island largely came to a halt.[8] By that time, the Chinese population of the island was roughly four thousand.[11] Today's Chinois consist largely of their descendants.[8] However, roughly 2,000 more new expatriates have come from the People's Republic of China in recent years.[12]
Language and education
The first Chinese school in Réunion was set up at Saint-Denis in 1927, but closed three years later when the teacher returned to China. In the following decade, more schools were set up privately, financed by contributions from Chinese businessmen.[13] Prior to the 1950s, locally-born ethnic Chinese children typically attended these Chinese schools, and as a result, they speak both Chinese and Creole fluently, but not French.[2] However, authorities looked dimly on such schools, seeing them as promoting cultural separatism, and so imposed a variety of regulations on their operation, requiring that they spend more time on French-language teaching than Chinese-language teaching. As a result, new bilingual schools were established, the two most famous of which were the ones at Saint-Denis and Saint-Andre.[13]
After World War II, education in French schools became mandatory.[13] As a result, the generation who entered school after then typically speak little Chinese; however, many of them went to metropolitan France for their higher education, and as a result speak both French and Creole fluently.[14] In an effort to "return to their roots", members of this generation and the younger ones have been attempting to reconnect to Chinese culture through cultural and language courses, return trips to their ancestors' villages in China, and the like.[15] However, they are largely assimilated to French and Creole culture, and feel little connection to today's China, which has undergone huge changes since their ancestors emigrated.[15]
Employment
The immigrant generation, as well their children who were educated locally in Chinese schools, often found self-employment as shopkeepers; in the 1970s, with rising standards of living on the island, they were able to expand their small shops into spacious markets.[14] Their children, who were educated in France, have entered the liberal professions, such as medicine, dentistry, law, and architecture, or found employment in accountancy and engineering firms or the public sector.[16]
Cuisine
Chinese cuisine is now consumed by people all over Réunion. Chinese migrants also introduced a number of different plants and animals to the island, including a Chinese variety of the guava known locally and in Mauritius and Seychelles as goyave de Chine.[citation needed]
References
Notes
^ a b Chinese Language Educational Foundation 1999 ^ a b Yu-Sion 2003, ¶15 ^ Medea 2002 ^ a b c Yap & Leong Man 1996, p. 37 ^ Yu-Sion 2003, ¶1 ^ a b Yu-Sion 2007, p. 234 ^ Yu-Sion 2003, ¶5 ^ a b c d Yu-Sion 2003, ¶8 ^ a b Yu-Sion 2003, ¶10 ^ Yu-Sion 2003, ¶12 ^ Yu-Sion 2003, ¶11 ^ Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs 2007 ^ a b c Yu-Sion 2003, ¶23 ^ a b Yu-Sion 2003, ¶16 ^ a b Yu-Sion 2003, ¶16, 28 ^ Yu-Sion 2003, ¶17 Sources
Yu-Sion, Live (July-August 2003), "Illusion identitaire et métissage culturel chez les «Sinoi» de la Réunion", Perspectives chinoises (78), ISSN 1021-9013, http://perspectiveschinoises.revues.org ... nt160.html, retrieved 2008-11-01 Medea, Laurent (2002), "Creolisation and Globalisation in a Neo-Colonial Context: the Case of Réunion", Social Identities 8 (1): 125–141, doi:10.1080/13504630220132053, http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/conten ... 595&db=all Yu-Sion, Live (2007), "The Sinwa of Reunion: searching for a Chinese identity in a multicultural world", in Thuno, Mette, Beyond Chinatown: New Chinese Migration and the Global Expansion of China, Copenhagen: NIAS Press, ISBN 978-8-77694000-3 Yap, Melanie; Leong Man, Dianne (1996), Colour, Confusion, and Concessions: The History of the Chinese in South Africa, Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 978-962209424-6 Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs (2007-04-20), "非洲华人华侨简况 (Status of overseas Chinese and Chinese expatriate populations in Africa)", Dongguan City Government Portal, http://dgfao.dg.gov.cn/gb/articledetail ... tegoryid=7, retrieved 2008-10-30 Chinese Language Educational Foundation (1999), "1999年底非洲国家和地区华侨、华人人口数 (1999 year-end statistics on Chinese expatriate and overseas Chinese population numbers in African countries and territories)", Overseas Chinese Net, http://www.chinaqw.com.cn/node2/node116 ... 43484.html, retrieved 2008-10-30
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