Small Family from South China Who Were Facing Problems with Their Nation

STARTING         OVER

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                  BASED ON A TRUE story

                                                               BY PRAT TYAGI

Introduction

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      This story is based on a small family from South China who were facing problems with their nation. In 1843 and 1898, South China population had jumped from 16 to 28 million people. Meanwhile, no new ways had been found to increase harvests in the region, so the land could not feed everyone and farmers were heavily taxed. It was a struggle for most farmers to survive, let alone make a decent living. So, when railway construction in British Columbia began in the 1850s, thousands of Chinese farmers came to Canada to make their fortune.

                                                Chapters

                  Chapter 1,        LIFE

Chapter 2,    Journey

                  Chapter 3,    problems

                  Chapter 4, starting over

Life

         This is a story about a man named Zhang Wei. He was born in a village near Beijing, the capital city of China. His village was small; there were few opportunities here for young men to work and make a living. He was married in the winter of 1850, and he was not able to provide for himself and his wife. The winters of 1850, a man from Beijing came to Zhang village. He spoke to all the young men who were without work, and he told us of a marvellous place across the ocean. He said this new nation had plenty of opportunities to succeed in life.

       There, he said, a man could gain his fortune, if he was prepared to work hard. The work he described sounded very difficult, but he promised us wages of one dollar for every day that we worked. He said that the man that he represented would pay for our passages to his place, and that we could be working for at least 7 years. My fellow villagers calculated that a man who accepted this offer could easily make $2555 in those 7 years. In our village, such a sum would make us wealthy and allow us to buy a good-sized farm. So we accepted his offer and followed him, first to Beijing, and then to Japan, where we boarded the ship that would take us to Canada.

Journey

     Immigrants from China spent over a month on the ship. The ocean was frightening place for men who have never travelled on it. The ship is very crowded, and the air below decks. Where they were staying was very foul. The food was not good, but many of passengers were sea-sick. Along with his friends, he wonder if they had made the right choice, after almost 2 month later, they arrived at a place the Europeans called “British Colombia.” There are many people already living there, but few Chinese. Their people called out angrily at us as they passed through the town on our way to the riverboat, which would take us to where immigrants could find labour job. The Chinese did not understand their language, and they were frightened because all the people were staring of them and calling them fresh man.

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Problems

      After 2 days the Chinese immigrants had been placed in a building called bunkhouse. It was a long, wooden structure, with a door, one window iron stove in the centre of the big room gives them some heat. The stove was also used to cook rice and fish. The land was very strange to them because Beijing was warm place. In Canada it was much colder.

        After a day they met a white man, who hired them. He looked like mean guy with bald head, his name was Bob. Bob is not a very friendly man… He just tells the men to work… He doesn’t even explain them what to do. They asked another white worker but he does not understand them… they found another Chinese man so they could understand to work on the railway. Their job was to carry away rocks from the tunnels, which were being built there.