Chinese expoiting Chinese
I don't know how you felt when you read about the conviction and jailing of the Chinese gangmaster found responsible for the death of his fellow Chinese cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay. I do not understand how an immigrant can exploit fellow immigrants the way that this callous young man did. My father also emigrated from south China to Singapore many years ago. Famine and poverty where he lived drove him to take that long arduous and dangerous journey to Singapore. I think his elder sister had already arrived in Singapore then. He was young and strong then and worked in all kinds of jobs so long as they paid for his sustenance and a little bit more which he remitted back to his family still left in China. This is the pattern of most economic migrants. There was, and is, no welfare system in place in Singapore and there were no handouts. But he did have a supportive network of 'family' from the same vicinity of his origin. There were what is known as tongxianghui (village