SONS OF THE YELLOW EMPEROR: A History of the Chinese Diaspora

by Lynn Pan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 23, 1990

From a woman born in Shanghai, educated in England, and now living in Hong Kong, an absorbing look at the reasons for centuries of Chinese emigration and its impact on the emigrants. Pan relates how the incursion of Europeans into historically insular China in the 16th and 17th centuries caused many Southern Chinese to establish homes in Singapore, Malaysia, and islands in the Indian Ocean. Driven by commercial motives and a desire for a better life, and despite repressive Manchu prohibitions against trading with foreigners, Chinese commerce flourished. Subsequent Chinese emigration has been so vast, Pan reports, that today there are approximately 30 million people of Chinese origin in over 109 countries around the world. Pan describes how the ""floodtide"" of Chinese emigration occurred in the second half of the 19th century, when the Opium Wars and exploitation of China by Europeans caused the decline and ultimately the collapse of the Manchu state. The British market for ""coolie"" labor caused emigration of Chinese throughout the British Empire, while other Chinese were lured by hopes of a better life to San Francisco, Australia, or South Africa. Everywhere, the Chinese suffered the peculiar fate of enterprising minorities--institutionalized racial discrimination--which sometimes exploded into violence, while at the same time distinctive customs were often forgotten as the Chinese melted into the indigenous population. For almost all emigrant Chinese, however, the Chinese homeland has remained their spiritual center--even if, as Pan writes, they ""love China best when they live well away from the place."" Informative and free of pedantry, a fine historical examination.

Pub Date: Oct. 23, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1990

Categories: NONFICTION