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From Melbourne
Just around the corner of Melbourne Chinatown is a the
Chinese Museum which documents the Chinese historical migration to Australia beginning in Taishan, Guangdong, China.
From this exhibit in conjunction to other overseas Chinese museum exhibits around the world, parallel experiences can be drawn that the migration out-of-Southern China pattern was the very same catalyst involving a series of catastrophic events in the mid 1800's which caused an exodus of the Taishan people out of Guangdong to the USA, Canada, Singapore, & Australia... the Hakka people to India, Malaysia, & Indonesia...& the Zhongshan people to Hawaii & Peru. It's really difficult to say who suffered more & who suffered less under the foreign ruling governments of the time but nonetheless...legal discrimination patterns against early Chinese settlers seem to standard where-ever they went in the Western "democracies"...with the exception of Peru & perhaps India where Chinese seem to integrate & assimilate with ease at a price of losing cultural homogeneity and perhaps Chinese identity. Sadly, I had a conversation with a Hakka lady in Mandarin in Kolcotta about the health of the Chinatown community...and it seems to be on it's last breath. :-(
The Chinese Museum of Melbourne credits a Taishanese:
Louey, Ah Mouy as the one that triggered the Taishanese exodus to Australia with the discovery of gold. What I find interesting is that his
obituary identifies him as Mr. Ah Mouy when it should be corrected as Mr.
Louey. This surname mix up is also a problem for Chinese descendants in the Philippines.
From Melbourne
