Overseas Chinese: PNG and Pacific - Part 1

PAPUA New Guinean’s call them “Kong Kong’s”. Unfortunately, they do not understand that these “Kong Kong” brothers and sisters are not only from China but other Asian countries.

They came in different waves before 1975 for various reasons. But recently, there has been anti-Chinese momentum in PNG.

This commentary would like to provide basic facts about the Chinese or Asian’s in PNG in a series.

This will drive some sense and understanding into the minds of Papua New Guineans.

Tetsu Ichikawa, a research fellow at Tokyo University partly contributes. He studies the Chinese migrants in Papua New Guinea, especially those who have arrived since 1975.

The series of articles will give some insight as to how the Chinese came to PNG and Solomon Islands, when did they arrive, what have they done so far, where are they now and what are they doing today.

Most importantly is the new group of Chinese entering PNG and Pacific.

Many publications have discussed appropriate terms for addressing Chinese overseas. These include hua-qiao (overseas Chinese), huaren (ethnic Chinese), huayi (Chinese descendants), huashang (Chinese merchants), huagong (coolies), huazu (Chinese people), huamin (Chinese folks) and so on.

In particular, huaqiao and huaren are often used to describe the degree of localization of Chinese people outside China.

Huaqiao literally means Chinese (hua) sojourners (qiao). Usually this term is used to denote Chinese who hold Chinese citizenship while living abroad.

On the other hand, huaren means Chinese (hua) people (ren), and indicates Chinese who have acquired local citizenship and do not intend to return to China.

Many Chinese people, especially those in Southeast Asia, tend to avoid calling themselves huaqiao. Because the word qiao connotes temporary residence, calling themselves huaqiao would arouse the suspicion by others that they do not consider the host country as their own, and as such are still attached to China.

Therefore, most of the locally born generations who do not intend to return to China prefer to call themselves huaren because huaren is more neutral in the political sense than huaqiao.

This preference reflects a change in the status of the ethnic Chinese from sojourners to settlers.

Scholar Wang Ling-chi (1998) proposes two Chinese phrases to describe the changing nature of Chinese migrants from sojourners to settlers: from “luoye guigen” to “luodi shenggen”.

Literally “luoye guigen” means “falling leaves returning to their roots” and refers to Chinese immigrants abroad returning to China after making enough money.

On the other hand, “loudi shenggen” means putting down roots in the soil of countries other than China, or Chinese immigrants and their descendants looking upon their host country as a place of permanent residence, without thinking of repatriating to China.

This framework is based on a presupposition that the Chinese people outside China will localize gradually.

Used in a neutral sense, it can avoid the premise that Chinese society outside China is the same as the one in mainland China.

Rather, it suggests that ethnic Chinese societies can be understood in the context of the host countries.

Therefore, this framework is adopted by many scholars to avoid seeing ethnic Chinese societies abroad as extensions of mainland China, and instead to recognize the diversity within ethnic Chinese in the world.

However, there are other patterns of Chinese migration and settlement besides the “from sojourners to settlers” one. Some Chinese migrants are born outside China and migrate to other countries.

These Chinese do not follow the “from sojourners to settlers” pattern because their transnational activities and social spaces are not confined to their places of birth.

There is another type of Chinese who are born in mainland China, leave for a foreign country, and re-migrate to other countries. Such successive and frequent mobility illustrates some contemporary features of the international movement of the Chinese.

It has been noticed that Chinese society outside China becomes localized gradually, at the same time that the Chinese are migrating internationally.

Wang Gungwu has examined Chinese international migration from the 18th to 20th centuries and suggests four migration patterns.

First, there is the huashang (traders) pattern, referring to merchants and artisans. This was the dominant pattern from early times in various parts of Southeast Asia.

It was first established within China, extended abroad, and became dominant from the 18th century to the 1850s.

The second is the huagong (coolies) pattern which was not significant until the 1850s. The migrants of this pattern consisted of normally men of peasant origin, landless laborers, and the urban poor.

This pattern of migration gained tremendous impetus from the gold rush in North America and Australia; it was also significant, without the gold rush, in Southeast Asia.

The third one is the huaqiao (sojourners) pattern which included not only huashang and huagong but also teachers, journalists and other professionals who went abroad.

This pattern developed at the end of the 19th century and was dominant up to the 1950s.

It is not marked by the occupational character of the migrants but is indicative of the political, legal and ideological level of nationalist development in mainland China.

The fourth one is the huayi (descendants of re-migration) pattern. This is a relatively new phenomenon and includes foreign nationals of Chinese descent.

Those who are categorized in this pattern are born and naturalized in foreign countries. Often they re-migrate to another foreign country.

There are several reasons for the migration of ethnic Chinese. Chinese immigrants who have become localized in host societies and re-migrated after generations do so for different reasons arising from different situations in different host societies.

Sojourning is qiaoju in Chinese and the term usually means temporary residence in a foreign country, usually referring to longer visits and extended periods of stay which sometime lead to the decision not to return home, but to be naturalized in the country of residence.

In this situation Chinese migrants do not necessarily make a conscious decision on whether to settle down in the host country or return to their homeland.

Sojourning is a prelude to eventual migration. Investigating the concept of sojourning provides us with a useful premise in studying the history of Chinese migration in Southeast Asia before the 1940s and global migration today, because it is important to look into an ambiguous status of Chinese migrants, instead of assuming that they are either moving or settling.

Researching on the Chinese immigration in and emigration from PNG will enable us to understand the nature of Chinese migration and settlement.

Some scholars researching on ethnic Chinese society in PNG have pointed out its sojourning and diasporic character.

David Wu who has studied the PNG Chinese community before independence reports that the Chinese in PNG had not assimilated into native New Guinean society but maintained their Chinese identity despite having resided there for generations.

He observes that in spite of acculturation and intermarriage with the local people, the Chinese in PNG did not loose their ethnic identity.

He also notices their emigration to Australia: “In short, the Chinese of PNG have remained sojourners - or eternal diaspora - despite 100 years of presence”.

Although his main concern is with the Chinese old comers who have resided in New Guinea since the colonial period, his view throws light on the peculiarity of the Chinese new comers in contemporary PNG.

Christine Inglis who also researches on the PNG Chinese takes note of both the locally born Chinese and the new arrivals.

She advocates the need to re-examine the nature of Chinese identities, and suggests that the Chinese population of PNG is transforming from settlers to sojourners.

We first look at the early Chinese migrants to PNG. The early history of the Chinese migrants in the South Pacific is not well known.

Chinese pioneers in this part of the world could be engaged in the trading of sandalwood and collection of marine products; they were primarily traders.

But they tended not to settle in the South Pacific. The beginning of Chinese settlement in the South Pacific coincided with the Western colonization of the area when Chinese were engaged in various occupations such as plantation workers, traders and artisans.

The Chinese migrants in New Guinea also started in the colonial era.

Before the Europeans colonized New Guinea, Chinese traders might have visited New Guinea Island and hunted birds of paradise for their trade.

But these early Chinese arrivals did not stay for long and did not establish permanent settlement.

Like in the other countries in Oceania, Chinese settlement in New Guinea started during the colonial period.

After Germany colonized the northeastern part of New Guinea Island in 1884, it entrusted Neuguinea Kompagnie with the administration and economic development of the New Guinea area.

The company started plantations for tobacco and copra in mainland New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago by recruiting Chinese laborers.

Those Chinese who came during this period were indentured laborers mostly from Singapore and Sumatra . Working conditions on the plantations were harsh.

In 1895, 28 percent of those laborers died and were buried in Mainland New Guinea. After the indentured period, most of the laborers left New Guinea Island to return home.

Beginning in 1898 when the German colonial government took over the administration from Neuguinea Kompagnie, Chinese free immigration, instead of indentured labor, was promoted.

Chinese workers were engaged as carpenters, ship builders, engineers, tailors, shopkeepers and managers of plantations.

Some of them began to settle and establish communities in towns, such as Rabaul, Kokopo,
Kavieng, Lae and Madang.

Rabaul, which became the capital of German New Guinea in 1910, received an especially large number of Chinese settlers.

The number of Chinese in the New Guinea area in 1890 was estimated at around 200, and the Chinese population grew to 1,427 in 1913.

In Rabaul and Lae, where the residence of Chinese was restricted to certain areas, Chinese immigrants established Chinatowns.

During this period, Chinese immigrated not only from Singapore and Sumatra, but also from
Hong Kong and mainland China.

These Chinese came from particular areas in Guangdong province, such as Siyi and Huiyang . Siyi literally means four counties.

The Siyi area consists of the four counties of Kaiping , Taishan, Enping and Xinhui. These counties have sent Chinese emigrants to various foreign countries since the 19th century.

Besides these Cantonese, there are some Hakka people in the Chinese community of PNG, most of them mainly from the Huiyang area in Guangdong. They used to speak Cantonese or Hakka as their common languages.

This period of German New Guinea colonization was the time when the Chinese community changed its character from a society of temporary immigrants to one of permanent residents.

In 1914, when World War I began, Australia acquired the New Guinea region after a battle with Germany.

Beginning in 1920, New Guinea fell under the control of Australia as a Mandated Territory of the League of Nations.

Australia adopted the “White Australian Policy” and restricted Chinese immigration into
New Guinea.

New immigrants had to take a dictation test conducted in European languages which was actually impossible for Asians to pass.

Those Chinese who stayed in New Guinea, therefore, could not easily invite their relatives in China to join them freely.

All Chinese who had settled in New Guinea before 1922 were acknowledged as permanent alien residents, and those who came after that date were considered temporary residents and were allowed to stay only for certain periods.

Travel within the New Guinea area and abroad to the Papuan area was restricted. As a result, Chinese communities developed only in the New Guinea area, and not in the Papuan area.

Even though Chinese immigration was restricted in New Guinea under Australian control, the Chinese kept contact with relatives in their home villages in China.

Most of the early Chinese immigrants were unmarried men, and some of them married local women. The children of mixed blood Chinese were brought up in the Chinese community and educated as Chinese.

Later on the Chinese in New Guinea tried to bring their relatives from China who were allowed to enter New Guinea temporarily.

Before the Pacific War began, the Chinese population in New Guinea was over 2,000.

Business with the Australians in this area was mainly conducted by Chinese tailors and owners of a variety of trade stores.

Note: Part two of this series will continue next Sunday. E-mail on m_yakai@hotmail.com for queries. This column acknowledges Tetsu Ichikawa for his contribution.