Author: Yoon-Ngan CHUNG (130.95.128.---)
Date: 06-08-02 20:25
The Luxuriant Tree (003)
The year was the eighth year of the reign of Emperor Xian Feng (咸豐皇帝)
of the Qing Dynasty (1644AD to 1912AD) or 1858AD, that my grandfather,
Chung Pin-Yuan (鄭品源), was born in the village where, for many generations,
his ancestors had lived. His parents were poor peasants who had no land of
their own - instead they rented about an acre of land from the landlord in the
village. By planting rice and some cash crops in the field they managed to
escape starvation.
The following year his mother gave birth to a baby boy who was called Pin-Sheng
(品勝). Now, the produce from the rented acre of land had to support a family of
four, including the rent, in the form of produce, to the landlord. Life was a constant
struggle for them, but somehow they managed to scrape through year after year.
They must have been working very hard to sustain themselves, lest they could have starved. This was the adverse environment under which Pin-Yuan and Pin-Sheng
grew up.
Although Pin-Yuan and Pin-Sheng had never had any formal education they knew that life was tough, and as peasants, they could not rid themselves of the fate of poverty. By the time they were in their teens, the brothers had already begun helping their parents toiling in the fields. However, although they disliked farming, they had no choice because they were too young to do anything else.
At the age of about twenty Pin-Yuan got himself a job as an assistant to a
businessman who lived in the same village. Pin-Yuan followed his boss travelling
from village to village to buy pigs and cows after which they transported the animals and sold them to the butcher in the town, not far from the village. Although he was young, tough and strong and had no problems of carrying the animals, Pin-Yuan discovered that life was not much better doing this job than being a farmer.
One day, when Pin-Yuan was in town he heard many strange tales about the lands across the ocean. Occasionally he saw one or two " Hong Mao Ren 紅毛人" Europeans wearing tight costumes with a piece of colourful clothe tied to their necks. There were a few rich men who had returned to the town to live after working many years in a faraway foreign land called Jiu Jin Shan (舊金山) and the country was called Hua Ji Guo (花旗國) [California U.S.A.]. Pin-Yuan wished he could go there too and to make a lot of money. He would then return to the village and buy
some land for his parents.
Not long after, Pin-Yuan heard that there were people coming to the town to recruit workers to work in a place called Xin Jin Shan (新金山) [Melbourne, Australia].
They would offer to pay for all the expenses and passage en route to the foreign
land. The stories of Xin Jin Shan were unfamiliar to him, having only heard about Jiu Jin Shan.
Pin-Yuan went home and told his parents about going to work in a foreign land and also told them the stories he heard on how the rich men made their fortune by working in foreign lands. To his surprise his parents allowed him to go. They even
asked him to take his younger brother along. His parents must have been sick of their poverty stricken lives.
When the contractors arrived in the town the two brothers signed up or put their thumb prints on the marked dotted lines on the contract, not knowing that they had signed away their freedom for three years. Under the conditions of the contract
they had to work for the contractors for three years without any pay, but food, shelter and clothing would be provided. The contractors would pay for their
passage to get to Xin Jin Shan. They would be free to embark upon their own undertakings after they had given three years of free labour to their contractors:- indentured labourers. For their sons, Pin-Yuan's parents received twenty silver-coin dollars from the contractors, ten dollars for one son.
A month later, the two brothers bade farewell to their parents and promised to
send home money regularly, after which they and many others followed the contractors on their journey to the strange land.
The contractors took them to Hong Kong, then a British territory, and from there
they embarked on a British steamer and sailed for Australia. On board the steamer
they were treated like slaves.
After sailing for several weeks they arrived at Port Melbourne and were
immediately transported to Bendigo, which was about 150 kilometers northwest
of the city of Melbourne. They were sheltered in tents which were to become their homes for a few years.
The records of indentured labour or "human pigs 豬仔" could go back to 1519AD.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans who kidnapped Chinese for use on their vessels and also sent them to work in their tiny colony in Goa in India. They made raids along the sea coast from India to China. They sold off the surplus of kidnapees to the Dutch who needed labour for their colonies in the East Indies (present day Indonesia). The Dutch organized the Chinese "pigs" system of contract to recruit Chinese labourers. At that time the Qing Government did not allow any Chinese to leave China without permission. If any Chinese were caught leaving China without permission he would be put to death. However, due to poverty and suppression by the Qing Government many Chinese men risked their lives leaving China. After the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天國)
in 1864, the Hakkas, especially the remants of the Taiping revolutionists, were desperately wanted to leave China.
In 1860 the Western Powers forced the Qing Government to sign a treaty allowing Chinese to leave China. After this treaty the trade of "human pigs" flourished. In the 1850s the cost to recruit one indentured labourer was forty silver dollars, including payment to his family and his transport. The man signed a contract which stated that he would work for three years. Most of these "human pigs" were illiterate and they just simply put their thumb marks on the contracts. To redeem himself an indentured labourer had to work for three years for the contractors. Food, shelter and clothings would be provided for by the contractors.
Pin-Yuan and Pin-Sheng began their lives as indentured labourers in a new and strange land, Australia. Life was harsh - they panned for gold throughout the day and often into the night. There were many thousands of Chinese miners digging
for gold in that region. In the small colony of Victoria, in Eastern Australia, it was estimated that at that time there were 9,377 Chinese in a population of 1,150,000.
"In Victoria" stated Professor Pearson, "a single trade - that of furniture-making was taken possession of [by the Chinese] and ruined for white men within the space of something like five years." In his book An Australian in China on page
223 Dr R. Morrison said that the Australian could not compete with the Chinese. The Chinese were working animals and they could easily outwork the Englishmen. The Chinese could work for seven days a week with no amusements, enjoyments
or comforts of any kind.
Pin-Yuan and Pin-Sheng worked and lived among the Chinese who were aliens
in language, thought and customs, without coming into contact with the Europeans. They maintained their Chinese way of life.
Although Pin-Yuan and Pin-Sheng did not receive any wages they managed to
borrow some money from their bosses and sent them regularly to their parents
who were overjoyed to receive their remittances.
Soon after, the two brothers' three year contract was over and they were free from the slave bondage. They continued to pan for gold. However, this time the gold they obtained did not go to the contractors but to themselves. Pin-Yuan and Pin-Sheng worked hard and very indusrious, making significant sums of money. They sent some of the money to their parents.
Somehow, Pin-Sheng married an English girl by the name of Mary. As far as Pin-Yuan was concerned he was quite happy to remain single. But after ten years
of marriage Mary bore no children and Pin-Yuan began to worry bacause their parents in the Old Mountain of the Ancestors (China) were longing for grandchildren. Pin-Yuan's parents urged him to return to Tang Shan (唐山)
to get marry since the Hong Mao (紅毛 red hair) daughter-in-law was 'barren'. Pin-Yuan's parents sent him a message that they had already match-made him
a young and beautiful Hakka girl from the neighbouring village. As a filial piety
son Pin-Yuan agreed to go home.
In 1903 Pin-Yuan left Australia for home after twenty five years in the profession
of gold digging. He was through and through an Aussie gold-digger. Several months after he had returned to his village Pin-Yuan married a beautiful Hakka girl called
Chen Er Mei (陳二妹). Pin-Yuan was 45-year-old and his bride was only 21. Er Mei
was willing to marry Pin-Yuan because her family was poor. Er Mei's parents died when she was only a lass. She had an elder brother, an elder sister and a younger sister. The three sisters and a brother lived with their uncle and aunty. Pin-Yuan, a
Kim Shan Hak (金山客) or a returnee from the New Gold Mountain, was supposed to have brought home a lot of money from Australia. With the money Pin-Yuan bought a few mus (畝 mu= a Chinese land-measuree of area) of fertile land and built a big house (which was being used as a primary school by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution). The next year Pin-Yuan became a father and he named his first born son Guan Lin (觀鄰). Pin-Yuan's parents were very happy as their dreams had come true - they saw their first grandson before they died.
Guan Lin was the 24th generation of his family.
Pin-Sheng and his Hong Mao Po also returned to the ancestral village. It was very hard for the 'red-hair' lady as she had to adopt the Chinese way of life. However,
she was happy because she loved her husband very much and Pin-Sheng loved
her too. Love indeed is a many-splendoured thing which conquers everything.
Pin-Yuan's father died in 1907 and his mothere passed away in 1908. Since he
was a teenager Pin-Yuan disliked tilling in the fields. Pin-Yuan did not want to become a farmer, but he did not have the know-how to do business. With nothing much to do, Pin-Yuan became restless and wanted to go back to Australia with his family. However, permission was not granted, as under the White Australian Policy Pin-Yuan was not allow to return to Australia with a Chinese wife. Instead, Pin-Yuan went to Nanyang (南洋 Malaya) promising his wife that he would send for her and their son, soon.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan
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