Pacific Crossing – California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong
Posted: December 8th, 2012 | No Comments »I feel Elizabeth Sinn’s Pacific Crossing is worth a plug…
“During the second half of the nineteenth century, Hong Kong provided a transpacific outreach for enterprising Cantonese to leapfrog the region, the first Great Leap in the Chinese people’s passage to the new world. Elizabeth Sinn’s scholarly study tells the story of how the colony became the pivot in modern Chinese migrations. Her book traces the myriad ways that made Hong Kong not only a major trading center but also the indispensable second home for diasporic Chinese. This is an excellent work of history that tells a compelling story.” — Wang Gungwu, Chairman, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore  Â
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-Â Charts the rise of Chinese Gold Mountain firms engaged in all kinds of transpacific trade.
-Â Challenges the traditional view that the Chinese migration was primarily a “coolie trade”, and foregrounds Hong Kong’s vital and multiple connections with California after the gold rush.
-Â Shows how the political, legal, economic and social infrastructure enabled early colonial Hong Kong to develop into a space of flow for people, goods, capital, ideas and information.Â
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Elizabeth Sinn is the author of Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong.   Â
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