This looks interesting, I'll head along tomorrow:
On Friday, 11 November there will be a talk by Prof Xu Guoqi titled: Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Labourers in the Great War. The talk begins at 6.30 pm and will be held in the City Hall High Block, Extension Activities Room. The room will be open for admittance at 6.00 pm. There is no charge for this talk and seating is on a first come basis.
During World War I, Britain and France imported workers from their colonies to labour behind the front lines. The single largest group of support labour came not from imperial colonials, however, but from China. In this lecture, Professor Xu Guoqi, a professor of History at the University of Hong Kong, tells the remarkable story of the 140,000 Chinese men recruited for the Allied war effort. The labourers, mostly illiterate peasants from north China, came voluntarily and worked in Europe longer than any other group. Professor Xu explores China’s reasons for sending its citizens to help the British and French (and later, the Americans), the backgrounds of the workers, their difficult transit to Europe — across the Pacific, through Canada, and over the Atlantic — and their experiences with the Allied armies.
In recounting this fascinating story, Professor Xu will highlight the Chinese contribution to World War I and illuminate the essential role these unsung labourers played in modern China’s search for a new national identity on the global stage.