Single day and WWI: the forgotten faces of the Chinese labour
Singles' Day (the 11th of November) is a shopping festival celebrated in China since 1993. Since then, the event has grown in popularity not just in China, but around the Western world as well. In Europe, this day is also remembered as Armistice Day, signed on 11 November 1918, which ended World War I.
However, few people remember, even in China, the influence of China to WWI, few people know about the sacrifice of more than 140 000 Chinese workers during WWI: under an agreement signed between the French, British and Chinese governments, starting in 1916, Chinese Workers are sent by thousands to France and Great Britain to remediate the issue of workforce shortage. They worked in factories, shipyards, and farms, but also in the front lines, to carry munitions and bury dead bodies. They were low-paid, suffered from awful conditions, diseases, and risked their lives between bullets. Around 20 000 lost their lives in a war that was far from their home.
Even after the war, many of them stayed in Europe to rebuild the countries, formed one of the first Chinese communities in Paris. Their contribution also allowed China to seat on the side of the Allies during the Paris conference, hoping to claim the territories occupied by Germany (Shandong Peninsula), which however transferred to Japan by the Versailles treaty. The outrage and disappointment of the Chinese people led to the May Fourth Movement and later the revolution to give birth to the Republic of China.
?The contribution of the Chinese workers during the WWI is not insignificant, neither for Europe nor for China. With their hands they built houses, with their legs they save lives, with their eyes they witness different cultures, and transmitted different values, which was the starting point of a new world. They shall not be forgotten.
To learn more about their stories:
Wikipedia: the?Chinese Labour Corps