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Waves of Chinese emigration (also known as the Chinese diaspora) have happened throughout history. The mass emigration known as the Chinese diaspora, which occurred from the 19th century to 1949, was mainly caused by wars and starvation in mainland China, invasion from various foreign countries, as well as the problems resulting from political corruption. Most immigrants were illiterate peasants and manual labourers, called "coolies" () by analogy to the same pattern of immigration from India, who emigrated to work in countries such as the Americas, Australia, South Africa and Southeast Asia. According to Lynn Pan's book ''Sons of the Yellow Emperor'', the Chinese coolie emigration began after slavery was abolished throughout the British possessions. Facing a desperate shortage of manpower, European merchants looked to replace African slaves with indentured labourers from China and India. A British Guiana planter found what he was looking for in the Chinese labourers: "their strong physique, their eagerness to make money, their history of toil from infancy". Labour recruiters sold the services of large numbers of unskilled Chinese in the coolie trade to planters in colonies overseas in exchange for money to feed their families; this type of trading was known as ''Mai Zhu Zai'' () to the Chinese. The labourers' lives were very harsh. Some labor recruiters promised good pay and good working conditions to get men signed onto three-year labor contracts. It was recorded on one pepper estate, fifty coolies hired, only two survived in half a year. Most coolies were treated badly, and many died en route to South America and South Africa because of bad transport conditions. Usually, they were cheated of their wages and were unable to return to China after their contracts expired. == Chronology of historical periods of Chinese emigration == * 210 BCE: Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇) dispatched Xu Fu (Chinese: 徐福) to sail overseas in search of elixirs of immortality, accompanied by 3,000 virgin boys and girls. Records suggest Xu Fu's expedition settled in Honshu, Japan. * From the Han Dynasty onwards, Chinese military and agricultural colonies (Chinese: 屯田) were established at various times in the Western Regions, which in the early periods were lands largely occupied by an Indo-European people called the Tocharians. * 661 CE: under the Tang dynasty, Zheng Guo Xi of Nan An, Fujian was buried at a Filipino island.〔(Spice Route (Sea Route) and ancient Chinese Migration 海上丝路与中国古代的海外移民 )〕 * 7–8th century: the Arabs recorded large numbers of Tang traders residing at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and they had families there. * 10th century: Arab trader Masuoti recorded in his ''Golden Ley'', in the year 943 AD, he sailed past Srivijaya and saw many Chinese people farming there, especially at Palembang. These people migrated to Nanyang (Chinese: 南洋) to evade chaos caused by war during the Tang dynasty of China. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chinese emigration」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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