Early Chinese were nothing more than opening restaurants and laundries overseas.
In 1907, there was a history in Vancouver that the Chinese will never forget, that is, the anti-China riot of 1907.
On this day, white people armed with weapons such as sticks poured into Chinatown, smashing all the shops of overseas Chinese in Canada.
One is the price, the other is the labor market, they think that the Chinese workers eat too much rice from their bowl, so it causes public indignation, and a large number of people enter Chinatown and destroy everything.
On the side of Chinatown is Japan Street, and after they smashed Chinatown, they broke into Japan Street, but Japan Street is armed, so they didn't succeed.
A hundred years later, in 2007, Vancouver had a very meaningful event, that is, a large number of people wearing the clothes of that year walked along the route of the riots, which is to remind us and hope that history will not repeat itself.
After the anti-China riots of 1907, some white lawyers with a sense of justice took the initiative to enter Chinatown and said: I will help you fight the lawsuit and apply for compensation from our federal government in Ottawa.
But our Chinese workers really don't have much knowledge, and the application form should fill in what your original business is, and how much your loss is, so that you can declare.
As a result, we have Chinese workers who fill in: business ——— brothel; Business——— Big Smoke Hall.
At that time, Chinatown was completely isolated and almost isolated from the outside world.
Therefore, the police in Canada often say, Chinatown affairs are solved by yourself.
And the federal government, thousands of miles away, had no idea that opium was being sold on their land, so when they received the application form, they were shocked ——— actually Chinese sell opium there.
Then the Anti-Smoking Act, enacted in 1908, was not allowed to smoke large cigarettes in Canada.
Therefore, the Anti-Smoking Act is directly related to the Vancouver riots of 1907.
At the time, only wealthy businessmen could get their wives to buy a ticket to come to Canada to join them.
At that time, many Chinese workers were eager to bring their families to Canada, but at that time they were no longer free immigrants, or there was already a poll tax.
So in order to bring their children over, every time the Chinese workers go home to visit their relatives, they come back and say that they have given birth to a son, and then after a while the son can come and reunite with him.
No one has ever said that they gave birth to a daughter, because daughters are not worth being taken out by them, and poll taxes are expensive.
But slowly the Canadian government began to wonder: how can there be sons all the time, and some people even give birth once a year and once at the end of the year, where can there be so many sons? So when they entered the customs, they locked their son and father in two rooms and asked some questions separately.
They will ask, is your kitchen facing east or west? How many steps is the steps in your house from flat ground to your yard? What is the name of your dad's youngest brother? What is your mom's sister's birthday? Just like this kind of question, if two people say the right thing, then he will immediately say that you are fake, and will ask who your left neighbor is and who is the right one.
Therefore, in order to prevent the interrogation of immigration officials, the Chinese workers must make a very detailed explanation of the map of their hometown, and then the father will send it home and let the son memorize it one by one, which is called "confession paper" in Guangdong culture.
These "confession papers" are designed to avoid interrogation by immigration officials, and in this place in Jiangmen, Wuyi, Guangdong, there is a museum of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese, which contains dozens of such "confession papers."
After the Chinese went abroad, there was a resistance to the first generation of immigrants produced by this foreign culture, and they stuck to their own cultural customs.
She is a very famous figure in the history of immigration in the United States, and this old lady mingled with all her neighbors as soon as she arrived in Nevada, and was a very good old mother.
Her trick is to treat animals, she is bold, she can open a chicken and then use Chinese herbs to cure diseases, and she has a very good relationship with her neighbors.
The name of the street was "Fan TanAlley", and in the early years, the street was lined with brothels, smoke houses and gambling houses, so it was called "Fan TanAlley".
Among the overseas Chinese at that time, there were two factions competing for the money in the hands of the Chinese workers, and whoever had the money of the overseas Chinese leaders would be able to succeed in the revolution.
Then the first group of strength is Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, who have deep roots overseas, they just hope to implement a constitutional monarchy system in China, they are actually royalists, and the protection is Guangxu.
Their goal was to one day overthrow Empress Dowager Cixi, make Guangxu the real emperor, and embark on a new deal of reform in China.
So today, this may not be a bad road, but we in China have not taken such a road.
Why is that? Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei are authentic readers, and the readers think of the elite route, so they rely on the support of the elite among the Chinese and the Christian church.
Then there was Sun Yat-sen, who was relatively wiser in life, he knew that he needed to rely on the grassroots, and later he joined the Zhigong Party.
At that time, most of the Chinese joined the Zhi Gong Party, and Sun Yat-sen was the leader of the Zhi Gong Party (then called Hongmen) in North America, and the overseas Chinese at that time took out all the money in their pockets and gave it to Sun Yat-sen.
The last revolution required $110,000, and Sun Yat-sen told the head of Hongmen at that time that he needed money, and the head of Hongmen said that he would give him three months, but Sun Yat-sen said that he had no time and that he should get the money as soon as possible.
So the people of Hongmen pawned their office building and gave the money to Sun Yat-sen.
Therefore, after the success of the revolution, Sun Yat-sen said that "overseas Chinese are the mother of the revolution", which is not an exaggeration at all.
At that time, the trend of Chinese history was both inevitable and accidental.
At that time, if Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei had won over overseas Chinese, and they had received enough money, perhaps China was now following a constitutional monarchy system.
After the construction of the Great Railway, Chinese workers lost their jobs, and when they came to the city, they had to start opening up new channels of work, in today's parlance career planning.
They thought of an interesting profession, which was male nanny.
Because their children grow up, these people speak a little bit of English.
There are many immigrants from Europe in the Canadian Rockies, and the environment was so dangerous that European immigrant housewives followed their husbands across the ocean to the Rocky Mountains and needed a nanny to help them with their children, and these nannies were trained in traditional and very formal nanny schools in England.
Unfortunately, the entire wild land of the Rocky Mountains is full of men and women, not only Chinese workers, but also whites.
All the babysitters brought over, in a few months, will surely meet a lovely gentleman in the housewife's living room, and then get married, get pregnant, and leave.
So these white housewives were helpless: I paid so much money to bring this person from England, and within three months she was gone.
They thought it wasn't okay, so Chinese domestic servants came into being.
Chinese domestic servants often work in such families for twenty or thirty years, where they have forged strong friendships for the rest of their lives.
During World War II, there was a shortage of troops throughout Canada, but they didn't want Chinese to join the army.
At that time, the Canadian government stipulated that only Canadian citizens could join the army to serve the country, while Chinese workers did not give citizenship.
Because Canada was a British colony at that time, all laws were enforced using the British religious legal system.
Once you have the votes, you can change the charter in the election, thinking that the charter of the British Empire cannot be changed by you barbarians.
It is for this reason that it cannot allow Chinese to naturalize Canadian citizenship.
In World War II, when there was a shortage of soldiers, a group of brave Chinese said that we were not obliged to fight for Canada, but we voluntarily gave our lives for Canada, we have lived here for decades, this is our hometown.
The Canadian government later agreed because the British government had an "Asia Plan" to send a large number of people into the Malay jungle to organize underground armed forces to subvert Japan.
In this case, only Asian faces can survive locally, he cannot send Caucasians.
With this in mind, they decided to let stateless Chinese join the army.
There was a lot of controversy in Chinatown at that time, that is, should we ask for nationality before joining the army, or should we join the army first and then ask the government to give us nationality? Most of the brave people at that time said, let's go to war first.
In fact, it is not known whether to give you nationality after returning, but they are willing to take this risk.
The conscripts told them: Your pay is four times higher than that of ordinary soldiers, and because you have almost no chance of survival, you have to sign this life and death certificate.
As a result, none of our brave young people hesitated, and signed the life and death form, that is, they were ready not to return.
As a result, their parachutes had just landed in the Malay jungle, and their feet had just touched the ground when atomic bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Then, they came back without even touching the gun.
But because of their bravery, they returned from Asia with a heroic welcome for the first time in their lives.
Well, for the first time in their lives, the citizens of Vancouver, Canada, saw them as one of their own.
Therefore, the credibility of the Chinese was completely changed by World War II.
Almost immediately after the construction of the Great Railroad in 1886, a poll tax restricting the entry of Chinese nationals into Canada appeared.
It started with 50 dollars, in 1900 it suddenly became 100 yuan, and in 1904 it immediately became 500 yuan.
At that time, 500 Canadian dollars is equivalent to 100,000 Canadian dollars today, that is, equivalent to 100,000 yuan, which was a poll tax at that time, and Chinese must pay this tax when entering customs.
Later, the tide of immigration increased unabated, although it was a poll tax of 500 yuan, but the annual immigration still increased unabated, and finally in 1923, an absolute "Chinese Exclusion Law" was issued, so Chinese immigrants can no longer enter Canada no matter how much money you have.
Who is the worst? It is those who marry and leave their hometown at a young age.
Their wives, let's say sixteen or seventeen married for decades, were gray-haired when they met in Canada.
Others are people who go home to visit their relatives, and when they stay at home, the Chinese Exclusion Act is out, and they can never return to Canada, so this is a very painful history.
This "Chinese Exclusion Law" ended in 1947 and is definitely related to the brave participation of the Chinese in World War II.
After the end of the war, various people lobbied Congress that in order to give Chinese citizenship, the Chinese Exclusion Act must be repealed.
After the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Law, many Chinese workers were able to apply to pick up their wives.
By 1949, Canada's door was open, but China's door was closed.
In 1957, the first Chinese member of Parliament in Canadian history, he was elected in the Vancouver constituency, his name was Deng Tianhua.
He is a native of Taishan, Guangdong, and not all of his supporters are Chinese, he has many foreign supporters.
He was surrounded by a large number of avid white supporters, so he became the first Chinese member of parliament in Canadian history.
In these 150 years of history, they have experienced more than a century of getting along with each other, from hostility and mistrust to slowly understanding each other, and this willingness has arisen——— and after more than a hundred years of tempering and integration, they have learned that "coexistence is the only way to survive".
A truly multicultural society is a very desirable society, and we are slowly moving towards this process, but it is still a beautiful ideal.
Looking at this period of history, we have a deeper understanding of China's position in the international community, what kind of antecedent there is, and what kind of consequences it will have