Post by NZBC on Sept 4, 2007 22:48:07 GMT 12
historytogo.utah.gov/people/ethnic_cultures/the_peoples_of_utah/thepioneerchineseofutah.html
Don C. Conley
The distance from the subtropical rice paddies of China's southernmost province to the mountainous desert of the Great Basin spans one-third of the earth's circumference. Along this tumultuous course of Pacific Ocean waves and Sierra Nevada mountain peaks came Chinese men to forge an integral but mostly forgotten link in Utah's frontier life.
The majority of the approximately one hundred thousand Chinese arriving at the port of San Francisco between 1860 and 1880 came from Kwangtung Province.1 In its capital, Kwangchow (Canton), the first trade between China and western nations flourished from 1760 to 1840.2 This commercial venture brought news of American current events, such as the California gold rush, that stimulated the imaginations of adventuresome Cantonese. The confrontation of two civilizations determined the future of many Chinese who found themselves toiling in factories, mines, chophouses, laundries, and building the first railroads in North America.
In the nineteenth century floods, typhoons, droughts, and general poverty were the endemic forces on the Pearl River delta of which Kwangchow was the city center. Besides insufficient protection from natural catastrophe, further insecurity stemmed from the loose and faltering central government in Peking, twelve hundred miles north of Kwangtung,3 an abundance of local bandits roaming the hills, ethnic disputes among the three main districts (Hakka, Punti, and Tanka), local official corruption, heavy taxes which drained a large portion of meager earnings, and unparalleled population density.
Don C. Conley
The distance from the subtropical rice paddies of China's southernmost province to the mountainous desert of the Great Basin spans one-third of the earth's circumference. Along this tumultuous course of Pacific Ocean waves and Sierra Nevada mountain peaks came Chinese men to forge an integral but mostly forgotten link in Utah's frontier life.
The majority of the approximately one hundred thousand Chinese arriving at the port of San Francisco between 1860 and 1880 came from Kwangtung Province.1 In its capital, Kwangchow (Canton), the first trade between China and western nations flourished from 1760 to 1840.2 This commercial venture brought news of American current events, such as the California gold rush, that stimulated the imaginations of adventuresome Cantonese. The confrontation of two civilizations determined the future of many Chinese who found themselves toiling in factories, mines, chophouses, laundries, and building the first railroads in North America.
In the nineteenth century floods, typhoons, droughts, and general poverty were the endemic forces on the Pearl River delta of which Kwangchow was the city center. Besides insufficient protection from natural catastrophe, further insecurity stemmed from the loose and faltering central government in Peking, twelve hundred miles north of Kwangtung,3 an abundance of local bandits roaming the hills, ethnic disputes among the three main districts (Hakka, Punti, and Tanka), local official corruption, heavy taxes which drained a large portion of meager earnings, and unparalleled population density.