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In 2004 23 Chinese were caught by the tide and drowned while collecting clams in Britain's Morecambe Bay. Aside from the tragic deaths, the incident served to shed new light on the secretive Chinese communities in Europe, communities where illegal immigrants work under slave-like conditions, controlled by organized crime syndicates known as "Snake Heads".
Police investigations revealed that all 23 unfortunates from Morecambe Bay were indeed illegal Chinese immigrants. They had paid large sums of money to be smuggled into Britain, but instead of the better life they had travelled so far to find, they instead found themselves indentured to the very people who had brought them to the West. The cost of travelling clandestinely from China to Europe is enormous for an average Chinese citizen, and the common way for illegal immigrants to payoff the inevitable debt is by accepting whatever work is forced upon them by the Snake Heads. Many illegal immigrants end up working in Chinese food businesses across Europe as little more than slave labourers.
The Taiwanese journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai recently published her book 'Chinese Whispers' in which she recounts her undercover experiences as an illegal-immigrant kitchen worker in London's Chinatown. On the subject of the Chinese businesspeople who employ their own illegal countrymen without asking questions, another illegal immigrant told Ms. Pai that: "Just like in China there is a lack of conscience here. The restaurateurs want to make money no matter what. They've probably been exploited themselves at one time, and been stepped on by their bosses and their new homeland."
Hsiao-Hung Pai claims that the incident in Morecambe Bay has heightened awareness of the situation within the Chinese communities, but that the probabilities of it having any consequences remain slim: "The Chinese communities know full well that a lot of unregistered Chinese work in Chinese-owned businesses. But many people don't worry much about it."
The Chinese communities in many European countries remain more or less closed to the societies around them. Racism and bias in the early part of the 20th century forced many Middle Kingdom immigrants to adopt the philosophy of 'if we don't bother them, they won' bother us' and that school of thought continues to prevail in many places.
In Denmark the case of a Chinese boy that was kidnapped earlier this year also revealed the existence of an almost 'parallel society' in that country. For a short time the media spotlight shone intensely on the Chinese community, revealing an extensively self-reliant society that chooses to follow its own rules, without involving itself much in the general society. But the fickle attention soon moved on to other things, leaving many people with one question in mind: What really transpires among some of the Chinese citizens of Europe?
Full story in Danish
News category: China
Published on this site: Aug. 5, 2008
Source:kristeligt-dagblad.dk
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