<h3>At least 1,300 Chinese crew members suddenly disappeared</h3>
One afternoon in July, Ms Judy Kinnin, 76, walked into the Chinese Centre at Liverpool's Baixiang Tower. A group of elderly British people in the hall were practicing tai chi exercises, which evoked Judy's warm memories: "I went to Beijing and Shanghai a few years ago, and it was a great trip. ”
She took out a picture of her and some other Britons posing in Beijing playing tai chi. "This was taken in Tiananmen Square." It was obvious that she had misremembered and the background of the photo was actually the square in front of the hotel.
China is both strange and kind to Judy. She took out another old yellowed photograph of the family: a dignified and beautiful white lady, a Chinese man with thick eyebrows, and a little girl in the middle.
The Judy family.
Judy said, "The girl is me, this is my mom, this is my dad. Dad is a Chinese seafarer. ”
On Judy's certificate of birth, dad's name was registered as Chang Au Chiang, a ship assembler. Other than that, Judy was completely unimpressed with her Chinese dad. All I know is that the Chinese dad suddenly disappeared one day in 1946, "and someone saw him and some Chinese seafarers being loaded into a car, pulled to the dock docked boat, and the boat drove away." ”
In 1946, at least 1,300 Chinese sailors suddenly disappeared in this way, and 300 of them are believed to have started families and had children with British women. Their English wives had no idea what was going on and thought they had been abandoned by their Chinese husbands. The hundreds of mixed-race children left behind by these families have since lived in a crippled world.
Through the declassification of an archive, posterity glimpsed the truth of this historical event: after The Second World War in 1945, the then ruling British Labour government deported Chinese seafarers stationed in Liverpool, and the Chinese men with families were arrested and deported before they could inform their wives and daughters, and hundreds of Chinese and British families were torn apart overnight.
Today, the descendants of Chinese seafarers, including Judy, have begun to pursue the truth about the disappearance of their Chinese father in the twilight of their lives, and are committed to seeking justice from the British government.
<h3>The origin of the Chinese seafarer community in Liverpool</h3>
Ms. Liao Zilan of liverpool Baixiang Tower Chinese Center introduced that Liverpool is the earliest Chinese gathering place in Europe. In 1865, the British Blue Funnel Line (Blue Funnel Line) was founded, the Blue Chimney is based in Shanghai, the main business is to and from Shanghai and Liverpool shipping, employing a large number of Chinese seafarers, including Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Guangdong and other coastal places, engaged in various types of work on the ship. Most of the merchant ships bound for Europe will dock in Liverpool, a history that lasted more than 80 years, and Liverpool gradually formed a Chinese community dominated by Chinese seafarers.
After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the British government needed thousands of merchant ship crews to transport large quantities of food, weapons and ammunition, fuel, and even armored vehicles, and recruited 20,000 Chinese sailors in 1940. The main reason for the massive recruitment of Chinese seafarers is cheapness, and Chinese seafarers are paid less than half that of British seafarers. Some seafarers were killed in the gunfire. By organizing a strike, the Chinese Seafarers' Union won the same monthly war risk payment as British seafarers.
After the war, the use of these Chinese ended. The Home Office estimates that there are about 2,000 retired Chinese seafarers in Liverpool. Judy is a crystallization of these Chinese-British families who run laundromats, restaurants and even traditional British fish and chip shops in Liverpool, and many of whom are Chinese seafarers – about 300 – who marry local white women and have children.
Post-war unemployment and inflation were severe in Britain, and Chinese seafarers and local seafarers faced competition. Shipping companies are anxious to get rid of Chinese workers, cutting wages and recouping war risk money, making them unable to survive.
In 1942, a group of Chinese seafarers was outside a hotel in Liverpool.
On October 19, 1945, the British Home Office decided to take action, and the secret file code-named "HO/213/926" was titled: "Forced Repatriation of Unwelcome Chinese Seafarers", and the Home Office allowed Chinese seafarers who had started families with British women to stay, and described British women who had relations with or married Chinese men as prostitutes, and did not conduct due diligence on the targets of arrest, and some people were arrested simply going out on the street to buy milk for their daughters.
According to data disclosed by the Guardian, at the end of 1945, 128 people were repatriated. By 23 March 1946, 800 people had been repatriated. The largest operation was on July 15, 1946, when an immigration officer submitted a report to the Home Office declaring: "We spent two full days conducting intensive searches of about 150 boarding houses and private homes. By this summer, a total of 1,362 "low-paid and otherwise unpopular" Chinese seafarers had been deported.
Liverpool's Chinese community generally believes that at least 2,000 Chinese seafarers have been forcibly evicted, and even more if they are added to the Chinese seafarers forced to sign a "voluntary departure" agreement.
<h3>Psychological wounds that are difficult to heal</h3>
Peter Foo, 77, showed up at the Baixiang Pagoda Chinese Center. He was burly and his steps were slightly staggered. Pitt is also a descendant of Chinese seafarers, whose father was deported in 1946. He was only 2 years old.
"I want this country (the UK) to apologize to us!" Pete said solemnly.
Wedding photo of Pete's parents.
Pete took out his parents' marriage certificate and wedding photos from the bag he was carrying, showing his Chinese father dressed decently, glasses and a very polite person. Pitt has always retained his father's Chinese surname, Foo.
He said: "My father is from Hainan. ”
Judy said, "My dad is from Shanghai!" The tone was firm.
With a birth certificate and a marriage certificate, Pitt also knows some information about his father, while Judy only vaguely knows that his father came to Liverpool from Shanghai. Otherwise, they knew very little about their respective fathers.
"I never knew what kind of person my dad was." Pete said.
"We were all too young at that time!" Judy said she was only 15 months old when her father disappeared. "I don't know Dad at all. I just know that Dad and Mom are not married, the day Dad disappeared, the clothes are still at home, Mom and a group of Chinese are playing mahjong, don't know what's going on, think the man went to sea, a month later, I don't think it's right, I don't know what's going on. She never saw her father again. ”
On the back of the photo taken when Judy was 2 years old, her mother wrote down her thoughts about Chinese men: To my dearest, you have been away from us for ten months, and our daughters have grown up.
"Mom finished writing and was ready to send it to my father, but she didn't know where to send it. Mom didn't know where Dad had gone until she died. It wasn't until many years later that rumors were heard that Dad's ship had been bombed. Dad blew up. ”
Pete, who was listening, interjected: "No way, I have not heard of this, world war II in 1946 is over, it is impossible for bombs to blow up ships." ”
He said that 1946 coincided with the Chinese civil war, so many ships repatriated from Liverpool could not dock at Chinese ports, and some crew members were randomly dumped in Hong Kong, Singapore and other places, and the whereabouts of these Chinese seafarers were not known.
The declassified Home Office "HO/213/926" document reads: "The deportation targets are Chinese seafarers with criminal records – smoking cigarettes and gambling – who pose a hidden danger to Liverpool's security. Pete said it was an unfair analysis. "The government uses one or two criminals to smear the entire Chinese community." Actual forced repatriation is random and uncontrolled.
"No matter what the circumstances, we should not expel Chinese seafarers who have wives and children," Pitt said. ”
These children were judged to be irresponsible Chinese seafarer fathers who abandoned their families, which became a psychological wound that was difficult to heal. Because of their Chinese fathers, almost all of them grew up experiencing discrimination.
Pete said: "I don't like this city, I don't like this country because they discriminate against Chinese! Tens of thousands of Chinese crew members, after the battle, there were only one or two thousand people left, and the Chinese crew gave their lives to the British, but they were thrown away like garbage! ”
<h3>After the seafarers, people huddled together for warmth</h3>
Speaking of which, Pitt was a child star in his early years, and in 1958 he collaborated with the big movie star Ingrid Bergman on the film "The Lucky Inn". Filmed in Wales and London, the film was the second most popular film at the UK box office in 1959. The film is based on real events and depicts the story of the British missionary Aylward who rescued hundreds of Chinese children during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in China.
Pete (front) in the movie "The Lucky Inn".
In the film, Ingrid Bergman plays Aylward, the director went to Liverpool to find some descendants of Chinese seafarers to act as Chinese children in the film, and 14-year-old Pete was selected to play one of the Chinese teenagers. Judy was also selected to audition and was screened out, "They said my eyes were too big, so they didn't let me shoot." In the past, Westerners were racially prejudiced, believing that Chinese should be small squints.
This experience did not give Pete a sense of accomplishment, and the loss of his father's wounds was constantly painful. A year before the film was filmed, Mom remarried to another Hainan crew member and moved to New York, leaving three sons with her missing ex-Chinese husband in Britain. The youngest Pete initially lived in Wales with his grandmother, who died and returned to Liverpool to live with his brother. This upbringing created somewhat cynical personality in him.
Pete, who got married in his 20s and went to dinner at a restaurant owned by a Chinese seafarer, a friend of his father's, told Pete, "Your father is still alive and was sent to Singapore that year." ”
Pitt hides a grudge against his father and refuses the suggestion to restore contact with his biological father, "He has left us." I didn't want to see him anymore. ”
A few years later Pitt received a letter from Singapore. The letter was sent from a Chinese father he had never met, "I am your father, and you have two younger sisters and a younger brother." "It turned out that my father had started a new family in Singapore.
It wasn't until the Home Office's archives were declassified that Pete learned the truth of the incident and regretted it again, but his father had died in 1976.
Judy's growth has also been turbulent. "My mum came to Liverpool from Manchester and I don't know how she met dad. After my father left, my mother had some mental problems, and I grew up with my grandmother. Later, my mother married a Chinese and gave birth to a younger sister. ”
Judy once thought that this Chinese was the biological father, once the parents quarreled, Judy persuaded: "Daddy don't shout at Mom", the man responded: "I am not your father", Judy only knew that the biological father had someone else.
The deportations involved many innocent people, and some Chinese seafarers remain. A photo that Judy kept shows many mixed-race children with Chinese characteristics getting together to play. The descendants of Chinese seafarers maintained their identity and hugged each other for warmth.
These Chinese-British hybrids are connected again in the twilight of their lives. Pete and Judy are a year apart, but they have the same birthday, and almost every time they come forward together to tell the outside world about their sad past.
Judy said: "This thing will always be in my heart. I wonder if Dad has ever returned to China? Are there any relatives in China or elsewhere? That's what I've always wanted to know. ”
<h3>Can't wait for an apology</h3>
After the scandal of the expulsion of Chinese seafarers came to light, it attracted the attention of British society. Many have called on future generations of seafarers to make claims against the British government.
Pitt introduced that there was once a group of Indian soldiers who were driven back to their hometown after fighting for the British. After the matter was exposed, the British government made compensation at 5 pounds per person per month. But it is difficult for descendants of Chinese seafarers to claim compensation from the government, because there is no way to prove that their fathers were expelled by the government.
"The first thing we need is an apology from the British government. After apologizing, there is evidence. Pete said.
In July 2015, Liverpool City Council passed a motion acknowledging the mass expulsion of Chinese seafarers in 1946 and calling on the Home Office to apologise for these injustices.
Pitt wrote many letters to many British MPs, and in 2015 launched a petition online to then-Prime Minister Theresa May to apologize to the Home Office, but there was no response. Many politicians have expressed concern, but once they leave office, things will disappear.
"They don't specifically speak to Chinese," Mr. Pitt said, "and Chinese officials start from the bottom and spend their whole lives doing things." Therefore Chinese can do things with long-term goals. Uk MPs only do it for 4 years, so they don't really care about us people. ”
In March 2021, Labour MP Kim Johnson raised the issue with Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a parliamentary inquiry, who declined to say whether the government would consider issuing an official apology, saying vaguely: "We are certainly very grateful to the Chinese community across the country for their amazing contribution." ”
In July, Kim Johnson came to the Baixiang Pagoda Chinese Center to meet the descendants of Chinese seafarers. She said that hundreds of Chinese families in Liverpool, forcibly separated by the British government in 1946, "this is one of the most naked racist incidents in the history of the British government, a shameful stain on our history, but almost no one remembers." "Officials should admit these crimes, and these families should get a formal apology for the pain of separation."
Judy showed reporters family photos.
Leaving the Baixiang Tower Chinese Centre, Pitt came to liverpool by the sea. On the bustling Esplanade, there is a commemorative plaque documenting the injustices suffered by the Chinese crew and their families. The Chinese character in the middle of the inscription is: Peace. This was set up by the Liverpool children of the Chinese crew.
A British couple of tourists walked to the monument, looked intently at the above text introduction, learned that Pete was the descendant of Chinese seafarers, and shook his head repeatedly, "Unbelievable! Such an ugly thing has happened in Britain. ”
Pitt himself designed a Chinese garden, which he hopes will be presented in Liverpool's neighbourhood in the future to honor the expelled Chinese seafarers and remember history.
Yang Meng