Research On The Qingtian Overseas Chinese Community In The Period Of The Republic Of China

The bad natural environment of Qingtian led to the poverty of Qingtian people,there were more mountain and less soil in this area, meanwhile, the poor soil and thevarious and frequent natural disasters were the important informance of the badnatural environment; The frequent chaos was the characteristic of times in Republicanperiod, what increasing the degree of their poverty. In the natural and social pressures,the county people suffered unspeakably, going out was the only way to survive in thatsituation.The rich regional culture and Qingtian stone carving guided the countypersons to find another way out, mercantilism, immigration tradition and the volatilepersonality were the deep reason of their making a living abroad. The Qingtianoverseas Chinese, having some nice dream, stepped out of the country and walkedinto a completely strange society. They were mainly distributed44countries andregions in the world, mainly concentrating in France, Russia, Italy, Germany andAustria in the Europe, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia in Asia, the UnitedStates, Brazil in America.Making a living by going abroad was not a simple action, which needed to havea certain economic conditions, for poor Qingtian persons, they could only set familyof force for a person to go abroad, even so many people also did not have enoughtravelling expenses of going abroad, they had to rush (ahead) into danger and tookillegal way to go abroad, the situation happened occasionally. The European countriesrecruiting Chinese labors in the First World War (1914-1918) provided a goldenopportunity of going abroad for the people of Qingtian country. Most of the Qingtianlabors continued to stay in France after the war, what laying a solid foundation for thelater people’s living abroad. The modes of going abroad made the Qingtian overseasChinese to care each other and help mutually. The old overseas Chinese helped the new overseas Chinese to find a job and shelter, providing financial support also was amatter of frequent occurrence.As the people of Qingtian living abroad was more and more, the group ofQingtian overseas Chinese gradually formed. Seeing from the sex structure, thegender of the Qingtian overseas Chinese was male mostly and female rarely, onlyseven women in the group in the republic of China, what was determined by themen’s characteristics and the objective social environments. Seeing from the agestructure, most of the Qingtian overseas Chinese were young adults, there were notold and minor people, what was determined by the risk of making a living overseas.Seeing from the knowledge structure, the cultural level of the Qingtian overseasChinese was generally low, but many people had professional skills. Seeing from thevocational structure,some of the Qingtian overseas Chinese sold goods as pedlars,some of them opened restaurants and laundry,and so on, what was determined by thecomprehensive conditions of the Qingtian overseas Chinese.In the overseas fighting, Qingtian overseas Chinese took up level lower career inthe beginning, with the capital accumulating, they began to took up more advancedcareer after having a certain economic base, for example, the transformation fromitinerant vendor to the shopkeeper. What needs to be stressed was that the changefrom level lower career to senior vocational career, didn’t required the same time fordifferent people, generally speaking, most of the Qingtian overseas Chinese neededlong time, and even many people didn’t reach the transformational conditions fromabroad to return; others became the top of Qingtian overseas Chinese, because theyfinished the transformation soon. Throughout the Republican period, the Qingtian ofoverseas Chinese were engaged in level lower career mostly, because there were agreat number of people among them, who was not completed the transformation;meanwhile, there were few among the transformational people, who really had biggerand stronger career.Because the Qingtian overseas Chinese were in level of original accumulation,their material life was very miserable, showing up the basic food, shabby clothing andbad living environment, meanwhile they had no spirit entertainment, if any, they were single and boring, such as drinking and play cards, and so on, this was the generalstate of the Qingtian overseas Chinese, there were a few Qingtian overseas Chinese,who gambled or went to whore at the same time. Certainly, some rich Qingtianoverseas Chinese had superior material life and spiritual entertainment, but it was rare,they lived in the mainstream society of the country of their residence, they acceptedthe local culture and maintained their own Chinese culture at the same time, so itcould be said that their entertainment presented the nature of combining of east-weststyle.It could be said that the marriage life of the Qingtian overseas Chinese wasdiversity, seeing from the marriage form, there were local marriage and foreignmarriage, the same time, there were still no married people, and the number of localmarriage far more than the number of foreign marriage. Seeing from the marriage life,the bitterness of local marriage life is the most significant features; some people’sforeign marriage life was satisfactory, and there were also intermediary burst.Essentially, the condition of local marriage life was the direct result of the old society;meanwhile, there were personal factors in the formation of the foreign marriage status,and also the objective social cause, but it made the Qingtian country and the worldtogether, what making the Qingtian country really tostart to contact with the world.Since the marriage form of most of the Qingtian overseas Chinese was local marriage,the marriage life of the whole Qingtian overseas Chinese was bitter.At the same time, their development limited by discrimination, oppression andunfair treatment from the host country. They set up all kinds of communities in orderto change this situation, uniting together to resist injustice and oppression. Thecommunities really played a certain role at that time, but they couldn’t fundamentallychange the situation. The experience of "Weak no diplomatic", made the Qingtianoverseas Chinese having more patriotic consciousness. They went to the front line tofight the enemies or made donations to support the front war in the situation of thenational distress, they made an enormous contribution to the victory of the war againstJapan. To a certain extent, a large number of Qingtian overseas Chinese went abroad,what drived the economic development of hometown of overseas chinese, the rise of remittances business was an illustrative example, it could be said that this wasunconscious contribution to the hometown of overseas Chinese.