Museum tells past stories of overseas Chinese

Silverware used by Chinese living in the South Pacific area.

The exhibition hall with a model boat on display.

By Wu Ziru

For many Chinese people, stories of their compatriots working overseas in the past few centuries are often those of legend – the rise from the bottom of society as laborers and basic workers, to the middle and upper classes of communities. A newly-opened museum about Chinese people overseas is showcasing the success stories of such workers.

After seven years of construction and a further seven years of being deserted, the Guangdong Provincial Overseas Chinese Museum was finally declared open last week for a trial run, with more than 1,000 pieces of cultural relics from overseas Chinese on display.

With a total investment of more than 90 million yuan ($13.18 million), the museum covers nearly 15,000 square meters, making it the largest museum in China about overseas Chinese.

The goal of the museum is to explore the experiences of overseas Chinese and track the contributions that they have made to their homeland, explained museum director Wang Minghui, at the opening ceremony Friday.

For many who sought their fortune overseas from the 17th to 19th centuries, the experience was often painful. They traveled to every corner of the globe, only to find themselves working in large farms or factories to earn a living.

There is even a saying that "under every railroad tie of the Central Pacific Railroad there is a Chinese worker buried."

The grand display in Guangdong Provincial Overseas Chinese Museum follows this period of history, showcasing a wide range of odds and ends that the intrepid travelers once used during their overseas expeditions.

Exhibited are safety lamps used as they worked as miners in America and several paper contracts they signed to sell themselves to farm or factory owners. Among the artifacts, 17 pieces of ceramic plates in various shapes, such as a butterfly and cicada, play witness to Chinese workers' lives in the Southern Seas, where many poor Chinese young people from the southern provinces such as Guangdong and Fujian, flooded to in the mid and late 19th century.

These kinds of ceramic plates were used as a special kind of currency that farm or factory owners often paid to the Chinese workers and were only circulated within their work places, according to Wang.

"It was actually a tool to exploit the Chinese workers, for they had to spend their 'money' in stores opened by their employers and they couldn't send their payment back to their homes in China as they were only ceramic plates not money, "he explained.

In stark contrast to the exhibits revealing the painful experiences of some overseas Chinese, an array of materials documenting the success of others is also on display.

A gramophone dating back more than 100 years is part of the museum's exhibition, believed to belong to a Chinese family in Canada, providing a clue to the lifestyle of wealthy Chinese abroad. The old machine still works well even after such a long time.

A bunch of letters by an overseas Chinese named Hu Libin written from the 1920s to 1950s is also very interesting. The letters not only show his deep love for his family, but also his concerns about China's fate during the War
of Resistance against Japan (1937-45) and the birth of New China.

"You can even find something interesting through the envelopes,"commented Wang, pointing out that on an envelope of a letter written after October 1949, the writer added the word "New China" before the address that had not changed for decades.

"No one asked him to do that and we guess that he just added these words with joy," Wang said.

As one of the largest hometowns of Chinese people who leave to work overseas, Guangdong Province has seen generation after generation follow Chinese explorer Zheng He's marine expeditions to "the Western Oceans." Zheng made his voyages during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and now there are more than 20 million overseas Chinese who have emigrated from Guangdong, according to Lei Yulan, deputy governor of Guangdong Province.

"Through the museum we hope to build an intact document on the history of overseas Chinese and encourage people here to inherit their spirit,"Lei said.

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