4 June 2014
In Western spheres of influence, WWI is also known as The Great War for Civilization, but it’s unlikely that the Chinese men recruited to supplement the French, British and American war efforts would have viewed it as such. These destitute but hardy men labored in factories, digging trenches and maintaining equipment for foreign powers in what was, to them, an utterly alien landscape.
Mark O’Neill’s slim volume The Chinese Labour Corps explores their experiences. China’s involvement in that thoroughly European conflict is sketched out swiftly, but in detail, and is essential to understanding why the toil of the laborers was a tragic affair on a national as well as a personal level.
Though the work was hard, filled with shell shock and other traumas of war, O’Neill also emphasizes the simple luxuries the men enjoyed. In the French CLC contingent, for example, many men could spend their free time in the museums and cafés of French towns, mingling with the local community, and, on occasion, forming romances.
O’Neill’s analysis of the national implications of the CLC’s European adventure is illuminating, particularly because of its relevance to China’s current relationship with Japan, and yet it is overwhelmingly in the description of the men’s everyday lives that the book’s real value lies, as it is, quite simply, a remarkable tale which badly needs more telling.
The Chinese Labour Corps is available on Amazon.com
From:http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/blog/reviews/book-review-the-chinese-labour-corps/#.U55tVRSL5ew.twitter