In the middle of the 19th century, steam engine ships had not yet been born, and in this case, in our coastal cities in Guangdong, someone had already made such wooden boats without mechanical devices, drifted across the ocean and came to the other side of the ocean.
It has sails and a vent in front. This kind of boat, Cantonese people call it "big-eyed chicken", that is, it has an eye and is shaped like a rooster.
Its safety factor is very poor. Chinese workers were forced to come abroad for their livelihood, so the tickets they bought were usually the cheapest first-class cabin, that is, in the bottom compartment.
As soon as Huagong got out of the cabin, this hatch was closed, for safety reasons.
After months of floating across the sea, the air is quite dirty, the food is very simple, and people often start seasickness as soon as they get on board, and then all kinds of illnesses come.
Fever, then swinging, all kinds of diseases, in the middle of which many people died, according to the regulations at that time, it was to be buried at sea, and the body could not be kept on the ship, so it was directly thrown into the sea and buried.
Western historians call this sea voyage "floating hell on the surface of the sea."
In the early days, Chinese workers did not build railways, but digged for gold.
Is there a famous team in the United States called 1849? It is about the discovery of gold in 1849 in the Rocky Mountains of San Francisco.
Canada was a little bit later, probably in 1860, the first generation of Chinese workers, who traveled across Haiti and did the profession of gold mining.
In the environment of gold mining at that time, the living conditions were very poor, that is, when fighting against such harsh natural conditions, often these Chinese workers would not appear with their wives, and women were almost invisible in Chinatown, not to mention children.
Before there was a big railway in Canada, it was difficult to communicate between the east and the west, and only after the completion of the railway, people who came ashore from Vancouver and Victoria in the west could take the train all the way to the east, so the footsteps of immigrants stepped on the east several years later than the time they stepped on the west.
In 1860, Canada's four eastern provinces formed a very loose confederation, and the western provinces like British Columbia, which is the province of today's Vancouver and Victoria, were still British territories, and two forces wanted to compete for this fertile land with mountains and rivers by the ocean.
One of the forces comes from the United States, which is far closer to Ottawa in terms of geographical relations, and people with a little geographical knowledge know that the province below British Columbia is the state of Washington in the United States, and geographically speaking, the United States and British Columbia are almost bordered, while Ottawa and British Columbia are separated by thousands of mountains and rivers.
In order to compete for the land that is now western Canada, to be able to join the loose alliance of the west, the federation sent a lot of people to lobby, the United States is fighting, Canada is also fighting.
Canada said, we will help you build a large railway between China and the West for free, so that our transportation and trade can be smooth, so the British Columbia government at that time found this proposal very attractive, and said: "Okay, then you pay to build us a big railway."
After saying this, it dragged on for ten years, and then the people in British Columbia were anxious, saying that we would leave without building a railroad, so the federal government ordered that this railway must be built.
This great railroad was built for five full years from 1880 to 1885, it passed through more than a thousand miles of land, it was completely made of granite, and the tools for building the railway at that time were very primitive, and even did not have the industrial explosives that we have today, so it was almost a process of splitting mountains with meat and hands, so the mortality rate was also very high.
At that time, when the tunnel could not be blown up, the white man was very anxious, and he would say, "If anyone can throw explosives into it and blow this tunnel open, I will reward you with a ferry ticket back to China and bring your wife over."
So today, a ticket is not very attractive, but at that time, it was a great attraction to award you a ferry ticket to go home and pick up your wife, so there were many Chinese workers at that time who risked their lives to engage in such things.
The Chinese worker formed a group of three or four people, and there was a translator in each group, and the so-called translator, his English was actually very bad, but he had supreme power in the tent, because he was the only one who could communicate with the white artificial head, and he was the one responsible for keeping working hours and issuing silver rewards, so everyone had to pat his horse fart well.
Moreover, among these people, a cook must be sent to cook specially, because Chinese workers are not accustomed to eating foreigners' meals.
Along the coast of the Western Canadian Railway, there is a monument called "ThelastSpike", which is "The Last Stud".
It was at this point that the last nail was hammered into the great railway.
At the commemorative banquet, the front page of all Canadian newspapers at that time reported the news of the successful construction of the trans-Pacific railway, full of celebrations, everywhere about the sake of wine, but the Chinese name was not heard, as if this railway was directly laid on the ground from heaven.
The names of Chinese laborers have been forgotten for many, many years.
On September 14, 1894, in the Sino-Japanese naval battle, the Beiyang Naval Division was completely destroyed, and in order to comfort the severely damaged Li Hongzhang, the Lafayette Empress Dowager Cixi sent him out to the sea, all the way to Western Europe and North America, to make new friends and meet old friends.
At that time, no one knew about the Guangxu Emperor or Empress Dowager Cixi, and everyone knew a "generalLi", which was the Li general Li Hongzhang.
In China's diplomacy, there were actually some very unfair descriptions of Li Hongzhang, and on the international stage at that time, the world did not know that there was a second person in China, only that this was "general Li".
At that time, Li Hongzhang came to the United States after walking around Europe, and went to Washington, New York, and Boston.
In fact, he wanted to return home through Asia, but at this time, the "Chinese Exclusion Law" of the United States had been announced, and the "Chinese Exclusion Law" of the United States at that time made the Chinese workers very angry, thinking that the Qing government was so powerless, when they knew that Li Hongzhang was going to return to China through Asia, a group of angry Qing people protested in Seattle.
So Li Hongzhang did not go to Seattle, so he transferred to Vancouver and returned to China.
As soon as these Chinese workers in Vancouver heard that Li Hongzhang was coming, whether it was opening a shop or doing big or small business, they all came to the Pacific Pier for a day off, whether it was a salaryman or a boss, all the people came to greet Li Hongzhang.
Li Hongzhang always holds two things in his hand, one hand is holding a pipe, and the other hand is always holding a silver cup,
Li Hongzhang only asked three sentences when he saw people: the first sentence was "where do you live", the second sentence was "how far away from New York", and the third sentence was "how much money do you make".
The official interpreter of his Great Qing Ambassador's Kingdom was sweating every time he heard it, and he had to report to his master again and again, and this kind of words were the most polite words of our Great Qing representative and expressed the deepest concern and respect for you on behalf of our master, so he had to ask this again and again.
According to the Washington Post, one day, Li Hongzhang met an old general he had received in the Qing Dynasty in Washington State, and he was very happy to see his old friend, so he said: Are you rich? The old general translated this sentence to the old general, and the old general replied: I am not rich, I am a servant of the people.
Then Li Hongzhang said: Oh, this way! After a while, a small general came in, a subordinate of the old general.
Li Hongzhang still asked after exchanging pleasantries with him: Are you rich? The little general smiled silently, and then the entourage behind the little general said that the general has money, and how many farms he has.
After hearing this, Li Hongzhang flicked his sleeves and was furious: How can this be reasonable, how can you be richer than your boss?
After 1885, large numbers of Chinese workers flocked from construction sites to big cities, to Victoria, and to Vancouver.
They lose their jobs, and when they lose their jobs, they have to look for new jobs, one of the most popular ones being working in fish washes.
In this fish washing farm, they work with Indian women, who do relatively clean canning work, and Chinese workers do dirty fish washing work.
On the west coast of Canada, fishing is a very abundant income, so there are a large number of fish processing factories, and our Chinese workers have found such jobs in them.
In 1910, an engineer in Seattle invented an automatic fish washing canning machine, which could replace 38 fish washing Chinese, so it was called "Iron".
At that time, the Chinese government did not conclude diplomatic relations with Canada, and Li Mengjiu basically replaced the imperial court as an informal messenger, and his clothes were very similar to the posture of an imperial court official.
At that time, Chinese workers in North America were not "piglet Chinese workers", Chinese workers in South America were, and Chinese workers in North America were "contract Chinese workers".
Therefore, almost every contract at that time would write words such as "life and death, wealth in the sky", which means: you take me out, I happen outside, you don't need to be responsible for me.
But they still have a heavy burden on what they will do, so they will also write in the contract: If anything happens overseas and I die, you must transport my bones back home within seven years.
It's really interesting——— you don't have to be responsible for my life, but you are responsible for my death.
That is to say, they value the fate of the soul more important than the destination of life.
So why seven years? Because Cantonese people believe that seven years is enough time for the flesh and heart on the corpse to rot and clean, and only bone remains.
Then at this time, the whole bone will be sent home, so there is a very sad meaning of "returning the bones".
There is such a description of the return of bones to their homeland in "Golden Mountain": after seven years, the very clean bones to be transported back will be sealed and sent to Hong Kong, and then the family will go to Hong Kong to collect the bones.
But what problem does this inevitably cause? It is when you are mixed with the Christian cemetery, when you return home, the cemetery will be destroyed in large areas, sometimes we will not pay so much attention to the bones again, there will be hair, bones exposed, and even the tomb is not sealed back, so this has caused strong dissatisfaction among some local whites (especially Christian families), and they are no longer allowed to Chinese mixed with them.
Indeed, there have been white people with guns in the cemetery, and when Chinese families carry the body into the cemetery for burial, they will say: If you dare to come in, I will kill you.
After this story was spread repeatedly, it became a very shallow story of racial discrimination.
At that time, the Chinese community was very grouped and absolutely did not allow whites to enter their group, and in turn, the white group also had a great prejudice against the Chinese group.
For this reason, in later days, the bodies of Chinese workers could no longer be buried with whites.
So in Victoria there was a dedicated Chinese cemetery, with two huge incense burners, facing the sea and towards their hometown.
A mass grave between the 14th and 18th years of Guangxu was accidentally discovered a few years ago while traveling to Xinhui, Guangdong, and there were more than 300 unclaimed corpses buried together.
In fact, the bones of these people have already arrived in Hong Kong, but Guangdong has not claimed them, why did this happen?
In fact, it is very simple, because overseas Chinese workers are the only way for the family to earn money, once they die, their family will be broken, then their family will soon die, when the family no longer exists, when their bones are transported to Hong Kong, they stay in the hospital and are never claimed again.
Between the fourteenth and eighteenth years of Guangxu, more than 300 unclaimed bones were accumulated, which were finally combined into a mass grave.
Such an ending is also sad for them, who desperately go abroad to earn a living for their families.