 Hwylch am yma go iawn. Fy hoed yn brydol, rydyn ni'n gweithio i chi. Mae'r tyfnid yn wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud yn brydol. Fy hoed yn brydol i'r Bibliotru'r Brithwyr i'r tyfnid, y cyfraith llyfrant i'r Gweithfyrdd Cynatown, ymrwynt hefyd, sydd wedi gwych yn fwy mwy o'r ysgol i'r llyfridd Cynwyr, a yna'r brithwyr. Rydyn ni'n gweithio i'r cyfraith. Ieithaf wedi eu chlas yw'r llwyddiad, mae'n cymdeithasol, gweithio'r ddweud o'r amser a'r amser i'n dweud. Rydyn ni'n Llywodraeth Llywodraeth, rydyn ni'n Llywodraeth Llywodraeth yng Nghymru, ar y ddechrau Llywodraeth, a'r llwyddoedd yna'r llwyddoedd yng nghymru o'r llwyddoedd yna'r llwyddoedd a'r Brytish. Mae'n gweithio'r event ar y dyfodol, ac yn ymdweud yn ymddangos 4 o'r Chino Tynau i gael yng Nghreifftrwyr. David Yyp, Siomar James Wong, Leesi Yum, a mae wedi ei ddaeth gyda'i gael eich leidio o'r Chyno Twyr. Rwy'n cael ei gweithio o'r ffordd o'r exibisiwn, rydych chi'n gyfer y context yw'r unrhyw. Chynes a Brithys ymgyrch yn rhan o'r 23 april. Felly mae eich exibisiwn i gael iawn i gael eu ddau'r jei, i gael newydd Cymru Dr Alex T'e Cal o'r Gwyrdraedd Open mae'r cwmniadau cyfanol yw'r Brydgrifedd. Mae'r exfysiwn maen nhw'n meddwl am dylwn i'r cynllun o ddechrau Cynlluniaeth Cymru. Rydyn ni'n golygu bod y Diasferol Cynlluniaeth Cymru yn cyfnodol iawn i ddechrau cyfanol a'r cyfnodol iawn, The British Library, as the Nations Library, is the ideal institution in the UK to represent Chinese experiences all across the regions. So we worked really, really hard with community groups up and down the country to put people, their voices and the places where they struggled and thrived at the very heart of this exhibition. Apart from books, of course, it's the British Library after all. We've got personal items, a whole host of interviews, artworks, and they very much convey people's unique and collective voices. So please stop by the exhibition if you can. So once again a very, very warm welcome to all of you here today. It's a pleasure to see so many of you in person. We'd also like to extend a very special welcome to those of you joining us online. We hope that you enjoy the evening. Welcome also to those of you joining us from across the country via the Living Knowledge Network, the British Library's UK-wide partnership of national and public libraries. We'll be taking questions from our online and in-house audience towards the end of the event. If you're watching online, please submit your questions using the question box below the video. For our audience on site, raise your hand and the microphone will make its way to you. So I'd just like to briefly say a little bit about today's event and how it will unfold. And just one more thing quickly. If you're watching online, you can use the menu above to provide us with feedback on the event and to donate to the library and to find out more about our guest speakers. So we're going to begin with very brief presentations from each of our speakers who I'll introduce before they speak. David will be speaking about Liverpool, James about Birmingham, Siomar about London and Lisa about Manchester. They'll each be talking about the unique characteristics of the Chinatowns they represent, the particular migrant communities and their experiences, any historically defining moments and current challenges faced by these communities today. So the presentations will then be followed by an open discussion between five of us for about half an hour and then we'll open things up to you, the audience here and online as well. So thanks so much once again for joining us. We'll begin with David with a very brief talk or presentation and then we'll move on from there. Thanks so much. Just to say, you said about eight minutes, so give me a warning because I'll talk for Britain. I just need a nudge as they'll tell me to start to shut up. Hi everyone, nice to see you all here. I'm talking about Liverpool, my hometown and the Chinatown there. I've got this rather smart looking cards here because I can talk about Liverpool Chinatown till the cows come home, but I don't know many of the facts and figures. So I've got to thank Walter Fung for some of the wonderful articles you've wrote. And today I spent a good couple of hours going through them going, oh 1907 he did that old thing. So I may not use them, I may, but I've got to say any quote or any figure I quote tonight is down to Walter. So thank you Walter. I was born in Liverpool in 1951. My mum was English, a local girl, and my dad was a mainland Chinese seamen on the blue funnel line, the Alfred Holt Line. He came over in 1942. That was not unusual. The very fact that the Alfred Holt Company existed, the blue funnel line, the great steam line, had these connections with China and the rest of the world. They brought the Chinese from China to the world. They started off from the southern part of China, the Canton area, and one of the facts I did look at, I didn't know before, is that basically take Go 50 miles west of Hong Kong and you've got this thing they call the Four Counties. I was fascinated to know this because I was just going to give you the names of these. The Four Counties, excuse my Canton, I don't speak Chinese, forgive me if I mispronounce these. The Four Counties were Toy Sun, Hoping, Sunway and Yang Ping, and let's say this is the very southern Guangdong area, the Canton area. My dad followed in the footsteps of the historic guys because the English were not stupid, the British were not stupid. They got these ships going from various places. They had their own officers like that, but they needed really cheap labour to keep going. That's where they brought in the Chinese. They knew the Chinese were good workers, so my dad followed in the footsteps of those. What China Towns, as far as I know, and I'm going to talk specifically, Liverpool is no different from the rest around the world. China Towns happened because these guys were on ship. They were paid reasonably better than they would have been in China, but their conditions were pretty grotty. When they got to a certain country, the employers were meant to give them accommodation, feed them and wait until they got onto their next ship and they were off. The best-laid plans never worked that way. What would happen is the guys would be so tired they'd sleep in, or they didn't like the food they were getting. The enterprise in Wands had made a little restaurant, a little laundry where they'd clean their clothes, or a place where they could do some gambling, or something like that. That's how China Towns basically started, from the seamen coming in, needing certain things. Then after many years, maybe one guy would go, I've had enough sailing, I'm going to stay here, and I'm going to open a little bit of a cafe, but just for the Chinese guys. I think the Liverpool one started way back in the 1907, but there weren't many people. The big time of Liverpool China Town was pre-Second World War, and then the Second World War itself, because my dad came over in 41, he was 16 years old, and he was bought a place on a blue funnel ship, because he was only 16. To get out of Hong Kong as the Japanese were arriving. So he arrived in Liverpool, war-torn Liverpool, and then in six months he was an Atlantic convoy. I think he was sorry he ever came out, but there you go. The numbers of Chinese seamen in Liverpool at that time was about 20,000, because they needed all these men, and they were constantly on these amazing journeys. Of course also the local men were fighting the war. A lot of them had gone to the Far East, and they'd learnt about Chinese food and things like that. So when the war ended, there was this appetite in this country for the non-Chinese, the local people, who got some guys quite like Chinese food. To be fair, they got egg fried rice and something else. It wasn't the great cuisine that we have, but it started off. So people realised actually that Chinatowns were viable to other people, other than the Chinese themselves. My dad came over, as I say, he met my mum. Now again, war situation, most men in Britain were out fighting the war. They were in uniform, they were in gas. So there was a great shortage of men, and the women were working in factories and things like that. My mum and her mates used to go to things called tea dances during the day, and the Realtiff theatre used to hold these tea dances in the afternoon. That's where my mum and many of my and her mates met Chinese seamen, because they were the guys around. As would happen, things happened, they got together slowly but surely. They had eight kids, eventually. It may sound very rosy over there, but it was not easy for my mum and my dad, and having a mixed-race family in that time. Liverpool has always been an amazing place, because it's a port, it's used to having foreigners coming in and out, but when you start marrying them and having kids and all that, they got worried. But it is one of the oldest Chinese communities in Europe, and it's still very much where it was to start off with. Pitch Street, the original Chinatown, went from Pitch Street right down to the docks, Cleveland Square, literally on the waterfront, and then you came back up and you hear the thing called St George's Square, you turned left and that's Nelson Street. The Germans joined the war, blitzed most of Pitch Street, so that disappeared, but they still had Nelson Street, and so it was able to carry on. So that's why, even though London sometimes says that they are, we're just as old, no, you were in Limehouse, you moved from Limehouse to West End, we stayed where we were, and so we've got that. So there's a great history, there's a great history. They are part of Liverpool, yet they are not part of Liverpool. If you go back now, and I was there about a month ago, doing a bit of filming, there's a couple of plaques on wall saying, it's where the blue funnel ship was, and this is where this is, but it's not enough to tell you about the real history of the Chinese and the contribution they made not only to Liverpool, but to this country, both in the war, but also afterwards with businesses and everything else. And that's partly down to the government as they are, but also to our own mindset in a way. The Chinese communities are very hardworking, but they wanted their children, like my father, he had eight children, he wanted his children not to work on ships, he wanted them to have education and do this and that and the other, and that's true. But we lost out a little bit, although we're getting there with younger generations, to have a social context. One of the questions that was asked to say about our communities, how are they different? After the war, or during the war, the Chinese seamen, I say, were on the Atlantic convoys, but the difference was with the white guys, they were paid about a quarter of their salary, and they were not given what was called a war bonus, because your life was in danger, you got this bonus. So in 1942, the seamen, the Chinese seamen, went on strike. And there's no doubt about it, historically, it was the Shanghai Communist Party who had people guys in Liverpool who actually got the guys to say, come on guys, we've got to stop this. And they did, and they won a small battle. They didn't get this parity of wages, but they got a rise in the pay, and they got the war bonus. The war ended, and in 1946, I'm sad to say, it was the Labour government under athlete and the trade unions movement in Liverpool, which is a red-hot union country. But they turned around and said, we're worried about these Chinese guys in Liverpool. And also the government said, we're worried about the guys who founded the strike because of the communist connection. And in 1946, they decided that there had to be a forced repatriation of the Shanghai seamen. And we're talking up to 1,300 people or more. And literally overnight, they had this plan, they had some ships in the Mersey, and they told them they had to report to this ship, or they literally grabbed them off the streets. And Yvonne Foley, who is a wonderful academic, her mother was married to a Shanghai seamen. She was pregnant with Yvonne. Yvonne never knew her father, as far as I remember, but her father went out one day and never came back. And as far as her mother was concerned, this man had deserted her. And she, like many other wives, believed that. And she never knew what had happened to her. And Yvonne did not know that she had a Chinese father until many years later when she was informed. Also, just a small fact, that when a local woman married a Chinese, she lost her British citizenship. She became an alien. So a lot of these women whose husband had suddenly disappeared, their bread when it had gone, there wasn't much social service, but there weren't anything, because they were not classes of British citizens. So it was a terrible scar, not only on the government, but also on this country. And it was Yvonne in 2006, I believe, after a long-fought battle. Once she found out about her father and being the academic she is, she has not stopped. She's got a wonderful website, and she finally got a plaque put up at the pier head acknowledging these guys. And the government of this country have not done an official apology, but there has been an acknowledgement. David. I'll shut up now. Yvonne's interview is in the exhibition, so I'm so glad you've got to introduce her and her experiences as well. Thank you so much for that, David. A wonderfully evocative beginning, and also just that historically defining year in 1946, when the Chinese sailors were repatriated. So thank you so much for that. Next we have Xiao Ma, speaking about London's Chinatown. Thank you so much, Xiao Ma. I have some slides to help me with the story. So my name is Xiao. I'm the first generation immigrant. I have been calling London my home for 10 years. So it's really my honour come here today to tell you a little bit more about our Chinatown. I'm wearing two hats tonight to tell you a little bit more about Chinatown. I work for a charity called China Exchange, which is based in London's Chinatown, and I co-produced several heritage-making projects in Chinatown to encourage people to learn more about our Chinatown's history. And I'm also doing a research about Chinatown, more focused on its cultural complexity as a doctoral researcher. So today, I actually, before I tell a little bit more about Chinatown, I want to say something. I think like any place, our Chinatown is also associated with very diverse lived experience and conflict views. And I think it's impossible for one person to speak for our Chinatown and I'm not going to try to do that tonight instead. I'm going to invite you to explore this neighbourhood with me through from the perspective of its cultural representation. So our Chinatown is located in southern part of Soho. Have you been to London's Chinatown? Put your hands up if you have been to. Wonderful. Everyone has been to Chinatown. So this is a very dynamic commercial centre that welcomes over 50 million visitors from all over the world every year. And this is very vibrant. And the London Chinese New Year celebration, also known as the Lunar New Year celebration, organised by our London Chinatown Chinese Association, has been described as the largest celebration outside Asia by Visit London. Soho, this place has always been a centre for immigrant life since the 19th century. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, Soho has already been a residential and business home for many French, German, Polish, Italian, Londoners. And it was since the 1950s, a southern part of Soho saw a steady increase of restaurant businesses opened by immigrants from the new territories of Hong Kong. And they were attracted to this area because it's affordable commercial rent. And since the 1950s, this area has been a home for many migrant pioneers of diverse backgrounds who created the original Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, the first Peace Express restaurant, the first Chinese printing shop, and the first supermarket that imported petrol into the UK. There are so many examples. I don't have time to tell you all. But why and how would this part of Soho transformed into a Chinatown? Well, I need to take you back to the 1980s. Oh, I don't see the title. The title says the making of Chinatown from the 50s to present. So London's Chinatown as both an urban concept and a reality were socially produced by both Chinese people and non-Chinese people. And what happened is at the beginning of the 1980s, JR Street and its surrounding area already had more than 40 businesses opened by people of Chinese heritage from very diverse geographical locations, including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, etc. But that area was not exclusive to Chinese. So in 1985, that area was officially designated as a Chinatown by Westminster City Council. So these were a result of a direct collaboration between the council and the local Chinese business leaders. And the main aim was to attract tourists. Both sides conceived the idea of Chinatown as a place of ethnic difference. And the idea of celebration of difference was used as a tool for urban regeneration. And actions were taken and money was invested to turn this area into a Chinatown to make it look like Chinatown by exoticizing and the self exoticize its space. But who actually had the power to define Chinatown at that time? I'll give you an example. Here you can see a photo of the iconic welcome gate on JR Street. Many visitors today assume that these gates were created by Chinese people, but actually they were not. Although Chinese business leaders proposed the idea to the council to view the gate in Chinatown, but they were not included in the final designing process instead. Those gates were created as western interpretation of Chinese style of Python gates. And they have been standing in our Chinatown for almost 40 years. So people have very different views about the institutionalization of Chinatown in London in the 80s. Definitely this transformation has brought economic benefits to the local businesses, including Chinese businesses. And some people also think that was a sign that Chinese people were recognized in London. But at the same time, some people think, you know, actually this kind of Chinatown symbolism created very narrow images of Chineseness and reinforced stereotype. And some scholars also argue that this transformation was based on a very problematic understanding of Chinese ethnicity and culture, which see them as fixed entity, and it doesn't directly promote racial equality. Well, different people have different views, but we can be sure that this kind of representation of Chinese people and Chinese culture has had a very long-term impact. Well, in the past 20 years, our Chinatown has seen significant changes. Many historical Cantonese family restaurants have closed down, while many new businesses founded by investors have come in and introduced new trends to this area. And we also saw an increase of mainland Chinese people working in this area. Our Chinatown is very diverse, associated with multiple stakeholders' communities, but in media representation, this area is still often be described as the Chinatown community. Well, I'm going to show some statistics about Chinatown, let's see whether you agree. So one of the most distinctive characteristics of London Chinatown is that our Chinatown is a primarily commercial district. Majority of the property are owned by Shaftborough PLC, and this is the area heavily relies on visitors of all backgrounds. There are about 150 businesses operating this area in terms of the brand positioning created by business themselves. Around 70% of them are Chinese, the remaining 30% of them are other East Asian, Southeast Asian or European. Workers in Chinatown are culturally and linguistically extremely diverse. Although majority of the workers in Chinatown are ethnically Chinese, but they have culture ties to many places in East Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and India, and also there are a great number of people of European heritage and the Southeast Asian heritage working in our Chinatown, they are also part of our Chinatown. Another hidden aspect of London Chinatown is that they are actually four community organisations operating this area. I have the logos here. They are providing very important services to different people. As you can see, our Chinatown is associated with multiple communities, different interest groups, and it's also not an enclosed place. It's a vibrant commercial district that is open for people to come to work and visit. To me, in Chinatown, border crossing or inter-cultural exchanges are part of people's area encounter. But many people still imagine our Chinatown as a bounded urban container of a Chinese community. This brings me to the next slide about the challenges facing our Chinatown. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis and the COVID-related prejudice and racism have had a very huge impact on these communities. Since the first case was reported in China, our businesses in Chinatown saw a dramatic drop in food for. My office is based in Chinatown. I saw the huge contrast between Chinatown and its surrounding areas for example Covent Garden, Leicester Square. It feels like people were just avoiding Chinatown. It seems like some people think Chinatown is just somehow so essential or different that it is more dangerous than other places in central London. In some people's mind, they see Chinatown as a racialized Chinese space. This really made us rethink how should we talk about the difference, how should we talk about the difference in the nuanced way without reinforcing imagined ethnic boundaries and without dividing people, without segregating people. Our business in Chinatown faced many challenges. For example, the vulnerability of a visitor economy, the rising operating cost, the lack of skilled chefs and workers. The COVID-19 crisis has just made the situation way worse. There are also other challenges facing our London Chinatown as a whole. For example, racism has been a historical challenge for many racially minoritized workers and the visitors in Chinatown. There is also a lack of community building and the plural voices representing Chinatown. Currently, there is only one community group and one organization that is acting as the official voice for Chinatown, but our Chinatown is associated with multiple interest groups. As a heritage practitioner, we also face a challenge that is how can we bring together different voices, different groups, to explore Chinatown in a more nuanced way, to encourage a more nuanced understanding of our Chinatown. I'm afraid actually we find more questions than answers and I'm going to propose two questions for us together to reflect on today. The first question is, should we reclaim Chinatown in relation to the cultural representation of Chinese and the East and Southeast Asian people in the UK? Why and how? The second question is, how do we represent Chinatown as a space for everyone without neglecting the racial inequality and the social injustice faced by people of Chinese and the East and Southeast Asian ethnicities in the UK? Thank you. Thank you so much, Xiao. I really like the fact that you underscored the need to kind of challenge essentialist images of Chinatown, which is something the exhibition also very much tries to do through not only highlighting obviously the history of early industries, the Chinese were committed to laundries and seafaring and so on, but also to highlight that the Chinese have contributed across science, technology, sport, fashion and across all forms of artistic expression as well. So that's really, really key. I think Chinatown's not just associated with the restaurant and catering trade that is, it's so much more than that. Thank you so much for that. And our next speaker is James Wong, who's been talking about Birmingham's Chinatown. Does it work? Oh, sorry. Thank you, James. You've seen all my slides now. Hello, my name is James Wong. I am the MD of Chongying Restaurant Group and also I arranged Chinese New Year. I was the Southside Bid Chair a couple of years ago, so that encompasses the whole of Chinatown and the gate quarters and Theatre Land in Birmingham. I'm also the patron of the Chinese Community Centre and the Governor of the School. So I do a lot of things with Chinatown. So when they came and gave me an opportunity to talk about Chinatown, well, obviously I jumped at an opportunity to come over and thank you everyone for coming over. So this year, this is some of my highlights this year. I know it's a bit of a self-emotion, but hey, here we go. It's going down to internet, why not? So this year, I was a charity Commonwealth Torch, which I was very proud. We won two awards in the Million Food and Drinks Award, which is a local award. We went down to London and the Golden Chopsticks Award a couple of months ago and picked up the Dumpling of Year Award, and I was made an honorary doctorate at Aston University. Now, all these things seem to be blowing myself, blowing my own trumpet, but it's not. I'm trying to encourage the younger generation because I, a second-generation Chinese, can achieve all this. Everyone else can. And for too long, I think the second generation, the third generation has been hidden themselves. And it's a conversation I have quite often to say, why is our... Why are we so underrepresented? Why is there no Chinese... Well, often it's a one Chinese MP, a handful of councillors. Why are we not in position of power? And when you see, we have now got Asian Prime Minister. I've got to think, and how can we push out forward to people? You know, we break the boundaries. Do I class myself as one of us or one of them? Because I don't. I don't see colour ever to be an issue. I feel I'm one of the persons growing up in England. I support England in football, in the World Cups, so I'm missing the World Cup to come here, so which is fantastic to see you guys and which you guys are as well. So I'm just kind of thinking. Obviously, I want to talk about Birmingham Chinatown, and, you know, I can... We cannot compare to Manchester, Liverpool or London, where they have got much bigger Chinese population, much greater heritage, much greater history. Birmingham have won the smallest Chinatown, and, you know, it's not something we're going to not address about. But I could say it's the only Chinatown that can grow. How can we grow? These are all the plans going ahead with Smithfield site, where you've got acres of site, just literally down the road from where Chinatown is, which is going to be... Soon they're going to encompass this south side bit. So you're talking literally 3,000 new homes and even an area for performance for 3,000 people with a lot of different businesses, offices and residential living, a lot of green spaces. You've seen the towers just by the ringway, five towers, that's all kind of in planning building. So it's the only Chinatown that's actually building, because we can build south towards Birmingham, where Dick Berf and all the area, regeneration, and I believe in time, 20, 30 years time, it will be the Chinatown of the future. And when you look at Liverpool, when you look at trying to move into somewhere else, Manchester, you know you're encompassed because I've studied in Manchester for three years. And London obviously is, you know, nobody can compare to London Chinatown with visitors and heritage and everything else. But if you look to the future, people are coming to Birmingham. And why are people coming to Birmingham? Affordability, plain and simple, affordability, flats, accommodation, everyone else is so much cheaper than everywhere else like Manchester and London. Not quite sure about Liverpool, so David, I can't compare his statistics. But if Wing Yp, as we were talking earlier, can set his headquarters in Birmingham back in 1970s, as Wing Yp said to me, people don't talk about distances, they talk about time. How far is it to go to each destination? So in Birmingham it takes two hours to go to London, one-half hours to go to Manchester, one-half hours to go to Liverpool. We understand everything, so the chance to grow is so much more. The Chinatown is within the close proximity of the city centre. And at the moment we have got a growth plan, which is the whole city centre area, it's going to be, I think, not going to be very car-friendly, but it encourages people to come into the city and actually live. And you see at this moment in time, explosion, the Hong Kong BNO is coming over. I'm sure it's exactly the same with every other city that you have. But we see a lot of it and people are coming to Birmingham. Because there's opportunity. There's opportunity. They could buy a house, you could buy a house £250,000, £300,000. You could buy a apartment for £200,000, £250,000. So if you think about all of that, and also we've got great university networks all around the area, so we feel like we're going to be attracting a lot of investments. We also got a lot of section 16 money, which are the funds that's going towards making public highway, public arts. We have not got a Chinatown arch yet. It's something that we could push it forward in time. I'm ahead of the London Chinatown project as well. So hopefully we will deliver arch sooner or later, but it's one of the dreams that we all wanted to have. That's the uniqueness of Birmingham. We talk about the migrant routes. I think it's very similar to David. You just touched about it. I think it's all the cities. Obviously, I think Liverpool is about 1911 or something like that in the ports. But Birmingham, I think the first kind of recorded history is probably about 1950s. You know, when you got a lot of Hong Kong people, it's about the hacker communities. And a lot of Vietnamese spoke people came as well. We call it Y Llanwakil. They speak Chinese and Vietnamese. So we got a huge population in Birmingham. 1980s, we saw a lot of predominantly Hong Kong people coming over. My mum was one of those people that came over. Actually, no, my mum came in the 70s, but a lot of people came over that side. 2005 is when I saw the switch, because I don't speak Mandarin. And then all of a sudden, lots of Chinese migrant people coming into the restaurant in the East. And there was a lot of migrants, especially in Fujian province. And then we noticed that. 2008 is when I first noticed a lot of university people coming over. Our restaurant wasn't catered to looking after Mandarin mainland speakers, because nobody spoke Mandarin in my restaurant. So people coming to my restaurant, we couldn't cater for them. So then from 2008 onwards, every new front house has to speak Mandarin. I'm the only one in my restaurant that doesn't speak Mandarin. So I always said I have to learn, but it's just one of those things. So now, 2022, Hong Kong, BNO, absolute influx in thousands and thousands of them. They're all going towards the affluent areas, the solid hole where HS2 is going to come up, the Compass, Sutton Coldfield, which is a very nice area. But we've also seen in the suburbs, mostly the edge bass and the harbonds, where the more affluent people will find, where there's a lot of great schools. But we noticed there's a place in Northfield and Longbridge. There seems to be a huge amount of influence of change, because of the affordability of people coming over. We talk about historic defining moments, and it's something that... Chunying, my restaurant, my parents. So my parents opened Chunying in 1981. So why is it historic? Because back then in Chinatown, there's nothing. There's sporadic. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, it's more in the Spart Hill area. So it's more in the suburb. And then in the 70s, they decided to move towards the B5 area. So where Chinatown is, where Chinatown is, there's the Chinese Community Centre. Is it not this one? We'll get into that later. So when Chunying came in 1981, it's because on the back of the Hippodrome Theatre, our national theatre, where it's the biggest theatre in the country, it's the major refurbishment. And then my father came in from London, my mother came in from Manchester, met in the Midlands, and then the next things they got together. And the next thing was Chunying. And a lot of people are asking me, Chunying. If you're Chinese, you understand what Chunying means? China, England? But it's actually my dad. My dad's called Chunying, and my mom's called Ying. So that's why it's called Chunying. And a lot of people didn't know that. So 1981, when Chunying was opened, there was no Chinese restaurant all around that area. And then next thing was the explosion of different restaurants. There was all around there, there was just warehouses, dishes, warehouses. There was actually bombsites. So where you see Arcadian, where you go to the Chinese New Year's celebration. It was a bombsite. There was nobody there. So our restaurant was a shoe factory. Then it was a synagogue before that. So all that area, so the explosion from growth of the catalyst in the middle is all from Chunying. As the spread around was far out wide, now as I said, it's just absolutely growing strong. Every new unit is now being taken over by Chinese people. Straight away, buying it out. Actually, the gay community, which is next door to it, is slowly, slowly being forced out. So we talk about challenges. I think one of the things that I'm talking about are challenges that are historic and current. I don't want to go down the racism route. I think it's one of the things, it's a touchy subject. I think we don't have that much in Birmingham because I feel like we are a very diverse city. We've got a lot of different multicultural people. I think nowadays it seems to be everyone's growing up in multicultural race and I don't think it's such a big problem in Birmingham. I'd rather look at the business because obviously I'm a businessman. I feel the energy crisis is a big problem. The supply issues is always a massive issue. Again, a problem. Employment and employment shortage. I think every Chinese restaurant is going through trying to grab each other's staff just to try and get to every place that's having a problem. Other traffic issues, all the city centres are going green. Nobody wants cars to be driven in. Parking, everything else is going to be a problem. Another problem I see is actually people. Our own people, segregation. Chinese people, you only go with Chinese people. You don't mingle, you don't integrate. This is always a problem. So now it's not just that, not the Chinese integration. The Chinese subsection integration. They've got the China-Chinese with one lot, the Hong Kong people coming out and also the, what we call the BBC, the British one Chinese is a separate group. And now the Hong Kong BNO is a separate group. We are all Chinese and at the moment nobody is mixing with each other and it seems to be all separating. I'm not, I won't be able to solve this question at this dilemma, but it's something that I do see that when I try to go into each different section it seems there's a reluctancy to try and to integrate, to actually find out even like you're going over to say hello. After a while you see certain just migrate back to their own side. So when I studied in Manchester I made sure that I didn't join in any Chinese organisation because I don't want to be just mixed on, maybe I'm racist to my own kind. It's just quite funny. So this is the thing, the support, maybe what we can do, I don't know, it's language, maybe it's a language barrier, maybe it's a cultural barrier. But I think at the moment England, well in Britain, I think British people love Chinese and how can we integrate more. So through my Chinese New Year's celebrations I was talking to you earlier about what we do. So instead of just doing, I know Manchester and London and Liverpool have big Chinese celebrations in Chinatown. I do it differently. I do Chinese New Year's celebrations at multi-locations. So I did it at, so we do it at a boving, we do it at a Chinatown, and also we visit schools. And this is a very integral thing. If you're able to introduce Chinese culture to children at a young age, I think this will eliminate what a big, big problem that we have. Anyway, thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad you kind of followed on from Sal's point about the kind of anti-essentialist image of Chinatown that's not necessarily need to discuss. That's not just a homogenous Chinese-ness and that there are different waves of migration which present different problems and challenges and obviously opportunities as well. So thank you so much for that. And our final speaker is Lisa from Manchester and she'll be discussing Manchester's Chinatown with us for a little bit. Thank you so much Lisa. Hi everybody, I'm Lisa Yam, I'm from Manchester. I'm here today to talk about Chinatown, not football. So Manchester Chinatown is the second largest Chinatown in the UK and the third largest in Europe. The first Chinese settlers arrived in Manchester in the earlier days of the 20th century choosing Manchester as an alternative location to Liverpool where a Chinese community had already settled and was beginning to grow. Many arrived alone and were engaged in the traditional trade of laundries but it wasn't until the 1940s that larger numbers arrived and in 1948 the first Chinese restaurant in Manchester the Ping Hong on Moorley Street opened. Over the following decades or sold another 16 restaurants were established. The first significant wave of Chinese immigration ranked through the 1940s and into the 1950s following the Second World War during that this time Chinese restaurants again multiplied in numbers and by the 1970s other Chinese businesses had opened including the Medicines Shop, Supermarkets and Finance and Legal Services. Today Manchester Chinatown is centered around the impressive main dynasty-styled Imperial Arch which was delegated in 1987 with many shops and restaurants sit around the Necklos Street, Folkner Street and George Street. At the time of its completion in 1987 the arch was the largest in the UK but was subsequently overtaken by Liverpool. Chinatown's archway in 2000. Manchester Chinatown is perhaps unique in not having only an arch but also two pagodas and a significant Chinese style street decoration. In recent years however we suffer from a problem with antisocial behavior perpetrated by individuals from outside the community. Indeed earlier this year the pagoda was severely damaged and nearly destroyed. When it was attacked by a young man who is known to be a troublemaker in the city Manchester Chinatown is a living Chinatown where people work and run their businesses. Although it is a major tourist attraction there are very few souvenir shops or stores trying to sell to tourists the typical touristy t-shirt and fridge magnex. Maybe because of this it is an authentic feel that attracts tourists. You can always see tourists storing in Chinatown and almost everyone stops by the archway to take a few photos. The area continued to grow and developed throughout the 1990s and early 2000 with a further influx of migrants from Hong Kong around the time of the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. After this period we also saw a significant number of migrants arriving from mainland China. Generally these people arrived in one of two ways either as business investor or by initially coming to the city as a student and choosing to remain and make the city their home. The second of these routes have probably proven to be most significant as local universities have in recent years played host to many thousands of students from China. Manchester is home to two significant universities, Manchester University and Manchester Portramolitan University. Along with Salford University which is also located very close by these universities have actively encouraged students from China and have undertaken marketing campaigns designed at promoting their courses on the Chinese mainland. This group have served to deepen trade link with China and this has lead to a larger number of Chinese owned logistics and trading companies being established in the city. Whilst most of these companies are located outside of Chinatown their inference is still felt for example in the membership of local Chinese community groups based in Chinatown where the numbers of Mandarin speaker are now significant. We are currently seeing the third significant wave of the immigration from Hong Kong and many thousands of people arriving over the last few years. Manchester has proven to be a particularly popular destination for these latest groups of arrivals as it has viewed as significantly cheaper than London whilst still offering the benefit of a large existing Chinese population and many other benefits of a large city. The most recent immigration has lead to the local Chinese population increasingly significantly over the period but has also lead to tensions developing. Manchester Chinese community has long enjoyed a close and friendly relationship with the Consulate of People Republic of China when it's located in the city. The consulate has always for example been supportive of the local community associations that arrange celebrations of major Chinese festivals such as Chinese New Year and offers assistance by for example providing materials and costumes. They also provide a larger quantity of PPE and other medical supplies when the COVID pandemic was impacting the city. As a result, a significant number of the most recent arrivals especially those that are active in the Hong Kong independence movement have been quick to label local Chinese people pro-China and have made an active effort not to integrate into the existing society. This is unfortunate as the different Chinese ethnic groups in Manchester have long enjoyed harmonious and peaceful relationships has experienced none of the tensions which have been present in Hong Kong in recent times. Couple with this, I think that is fair to say that Chinatown in recent years has played a less significant role within the Chinese community many Chinese businesses now choose to locate outside Chinatown and the community no longer feels is necessary to limit themselves to this small part of city. Many second and third generation Chinese have less of connections of their Chinese heritage than their parents did an even recent arrive arrivals filled confidence enough to set their sites wider. This hasn't been helped by the difficulty in obtaining commercial space within Chinatown itself with a large number of properties in the ownership of a small number of people who seem to have little intention of using or developing themselves. We have also seen a significant trend to work once entirely commercial properties being in part converted to residential units. I think that this is a significant change and will hopefully bring new life into the area provide. We just have to hope that the retentions of the commercial units to the lower floors of these buildings will enable the area to retain its unique Chinese characteristics whilst the Chinese community in Manchester as a whole continue to grow and develop in significance and I have no doubt that it will continue to do. It is likely that Chinatown itself has challenges ahead if it is to maintain its role and important within community The community in Chinatown is strong and so I feel confidence that it will face these challenges. Thanks for listening to me today. Thank you so much Lisa. We'll now have about 15 minutes where I'm hoping that the five of us could have a conversation about what you've discussed. There's so much actually that spans all four of the brief presentations today and I was wondering perhaps if we could pick up on David's phrase about being part of Liverpool and not part of Liverpool and kind of thinking through the way in which the Chinese communities in these different Chinatowns feel part of their cities and not part of their cities but more expansively perhaps part of British society and not part of British society and to the extent to which they perhaps want to be more part of the city but are facing barriers to do so. Perhaps we could go back to David when we haven't heard from him in a little while. I think just historically when the first Chinese came over and started businesses of course they didn't know the culture they were sitting in and there was quite right or not quite right but there was a reaction to them and it was quite racist and so they kept very quiet and kept themselves. The thing that struck me was what James said about the community in Birmingham how in actual fact if you're not careful you can have a Chinese element which goes we must be careful about not going outside but even within that you get the Mandarin speakers or the Southern speakers or the Hong Kong thing like that and if you're not careful it becomes more difficult to go outside yourself and in actual fact it's a generation thing because when I first as an adult went back to Liverpool, Chanitown and I was speaking to James' father's generation their vision was very narrow they had a vision but they wanted to make money they wanted to do well and they wanted their children to have education and to do something really different become doctors and things like that because that's great but they had no real social conscience and that's what James said again and to me when I look at the younger people and my grandchildren all the local Chanitowns and all the Chinese people in this country have to achieve more of a social conscience as well we are going to achieve all those other things anyway we could do that in our sleep but it's the other things and I'm a non-Chinese speaker and it's understanding that I'm very excited the fact that in this country today we have many problems but one of the things we do have if you really want to, we have a wonderful cultural diversity and it's only going to grow because the younger people they don't want to separate and that's how I see Chanitowns growing not Chanitown but the Chinese communities Great, thank you so much David Siow, James and Lisa what are your thoughts about the extent to which the Chinese communities you work with feel part of the city and not part of the city and maybe part of Britain and not part of Britain I don't mind to go first so if I may just use the creation of Chanitown as an example to address what you just shared this kind of included exclusion so a lot of people say the creation of Chanitown is a form of included exclusion sounds inclusive it sounds like we're celebrating ethnic difference but actually it does not directly promote racial equality it's missing out the point that Chinese people are people too so some people also argue Chanitown, this idea this urban concept of Chanitown itself actually minorities Chinese people tying Chinese people with a specific place but thing is in fact people Chinese heritage have been diversifying all aspects of UK life people working all sorts of you know fields and not only restaurants catering industry but the cultural representation of Chinese people are still kind of very close associated with the catering industry not saying it's not right but you know our early Chinese immigrants has really established themselves in this catering industry provides for the next generation for better life but it's kind of this overrepresentation it's a form of included exclusion and if we talk about people Chinese heritage as a whole I think if I may just draw on cultural representation a lot of people I interviewed and we together as a charity we interviewed we feel like a lot of people saying particularly the second generation they were saying they found like the differences between ethnic minority and the ethnic majority has become what defines ethnic minority so in this way we were not so so in a very narrow way our culture has been defined so I think what is important is to really emphasising individual agency to craft our own understanding of our history and what we want to be how we want to be represented in this country Great, thank you thank you very much Sarah James could we have a few thoughts from you about this question about Birmingham I think there's a lot of people in the second generation nowadays especially my friends and things like that they don't care about Chinese heritage because all my friends don't even speak Chinese to each other we all speak English what do we do, we go to the pub go to the club and actually integrate in non-Chinese activities it's almost we are now westernised if you just said to speak I wonder a few people that kind of think we've got to embrace our Chinese heritage and it's very important to teach our second generation you've fallen to this category where probably like say look America we've got like 5th and 6th generation Vietnamese and Chinese don't actually believe they're Vietnamese or believe they're Chinese because you're only for the colour of your skin that you are that race but when you also think about the whole diversity of different people that come over when you talk about different sort of so white people Europeans and things like that when you talk about Irish people coming over back in the 70s or 1800s or whatever it is you know when people coming over it's exactly the same it's only the fact that at the moment we think it's the colour of our skin that we think we are of that heritage but I believe in the future this won't happen I'm positive about this but not to say that we should not forget about a heritage and this is where I come in trying to do a lot of things to be proud of heritage but actually I see non-Chinese people coming up to me that knows far more Chinese heritage than me they're actually more Chinese than me they're speaking much better Cantonese and Mandarin than I could ever do and whereby like my child my son 5 years old fluent in English doesn't speak a word of Chinese maybe it's just the fact that I think it's important at that stage so the 2nd generation the 1st generation sometimes they feel maybe not so important as education I think some of you touch on education finding business, you know everyone wants to make sure they go to good school or make sure they have a good understanding of bringing, be polite and everything I work hard parents, everyone say oh be a doctor be a accountant, be a solicitor and that we all fall into that that kind of category but then you know I'm one of these guys that come out and say you know what dad I want to understand and take some burden out of you dad I want to when I've taken over the restaurant then understand all the different problems that he was facing staff issues and everything else and next things I realise I love the associations up and down the country they're run by quite elders we call them elders when you come to meetings and things like that and the next thing is that nothing really changes nothing really they don't want change when I propose certain things to people people are like saying to me you English guy, you don't know anything I'm almost 50 I'm still a little bit cool and then you know I'm very proud Chinese yes I am and I do want to make sure the second generation will continue with this Chinese heritage and then when we talk about the segregation within the Chinese yes of course there's a way that I want to pull them all together in time and hope by being in British that we can pull them together great, thanks so much and Elisa you talked about Manchester being the third largest Chinatown in Europe so it obviously has a significant Chinese population to what extent does the Chinese population in Manchester feel part of the very vibrant city and also maybe part of the region the north west along with Liverpool as the other significant north western city is it do they consider themselves part of the region as well yes we are I think the majority of the Manchester Chinese we don't call ourselves Manchester Chinese we call ourselves the Mincunian so then we are so integrated to the mainstream society and we all love football and we all watch football and then we all go to the pub to get drunk together so it is just we also of course we will never forget where we come from our ancestors come from this is your native you really can't wipe out of that so that's why we have so many Chinese Sunday schools in Manchester to teach the generation to speak Chinese but to teach them to learn Chinese to write Chinese is not because we want them sort of to go to China or we want them to do something in China but we just want them to know the native in Chinese so I feel so proud and sometimes I can write something like the calligraphy and you guys don't understand so I feel very funny to my husband in Chinese and he doesn't understand so then I feel really pretty cool but the society or I can say the Manchester Chinese that we are very friendly and we because I think it's the because of the city it's so diversity so you know that we have it's like very close by gay village just not far from Chinatown and we have lots of lesbian and then different people we also have huge populations of Asian and Manchester is just so diverse compared to the other maybe the other city of course that we are the second largest and it depends on how you work the way out Birmingham is the second city put down to context the second largest of Chinese community so I think it's because we are very friendly to everyone although we do have some tension but they do feel like for a while and they do feel we love them we not push them away so we just need to be a little bit more patient that one day then we will get it together that's all we hope well peace Thanks so much for that really positive note Perhaps one question before we move on to any comments and discussion points and questions from you and the audience as well as from the online audience I'm aware that there are generational differences like very significant ones in all the Chinatowns could you say a little bit about those differences and perhaps also what do the younger generations in these different Chinatowns what are their futures looking like are they hoping as you mentioned James in rare cases to in fact continue the kind of restaurant catering trade most as you know diversify from the trades of their parents so what is the younger generation of Chinatowns what are their kind of futures going to be to be like cos I'm aware that the 1960s that first significant wave of restaurateurs are now kind of in some ways dying out aren't they should we go back to you David It's an interesting question I can't answer it from a personal point of view cos I don't live in that Chinatown I don't think it's a Chinatown it's not necessarily a Chinatown thing it's a national thing of generations I mean you're doing well I can only think of my grandchildren now and they're not Chinese my grandchildren but the fact is that we've done their grandparents have done a certain amount their parents have done a certain amount and they're reaping the benefits of that as you said I don't think they should never lose the fact that they have a Chinese culture I am British born Chinese I am more British than I am Chinese cos I don't speak Chinese but I'm incredibly proud of the bit of Chinese culture that I can hold on to and I think that will continue to the line I don't see every one of them wanting to run a restaurant but they can still want to see good Chinese restaurants as much as anything else they might not necessarily all happen in one place called a Chinatown and I hope they're out there doing many thousands of different things great, thank you thank you so much thank you for this wonderful question this is actually a really big topic often emerged from our our history interviews so the first thing I want to say is Chinese Londoners don't live in Chinatown so some people Chinese heritage or East Southeast Asian heritage who work in cater industry might be working in London Chinatown and in terms of older generation our history interviews we did we learned a lot of the older generation they chose to establish business in the cater industry was for survival purely for survival and also Chinese cater industry in this country as Estiganish was created as a negation between structure and agency it was a lot of research has been done about this area actually so a lot of research has argued actually it was two piece of immigration policies largely shaped this ethnic niche and the people lots of this Hong Kong immigrants in the 60s 50 had no other options in terms of job, career they were channeled into Chinese cater industry of course there was also a gap in the restaurant market and immigrants identified this market and established themself and what they did was they were trying to work hard and provide for the next generation make sure the next generation has more options can work in other professions and in our Chinatown this is really echoing our Chinatown and we do have a younger generation of restaurant owners in Chinatown and according to our history interviews we learned a lot they are running restaurants as a hobby as a passion and they are trying to express their culture identity through flavours through the culinary experience they curated for customers and I remember one of the interview I did this restaurant owner she was telling me she has transnational experience she grew up in China she was born in Southern China but she grew up in North America and came to the UK study she opened a restaurant as a hobby and she said I'm never trying to do anything traditional I'm never trying to do anything authentic and this is not about what you think my food should be this is what I want you to eat my food this is my own way of cooking and they are delicious so we see this younger generation very confident they want to reinvent Chinese food they want to influence the trend they want to educate they want to influence the market that's very exciting that's fantastic that's a really good summary of what's happening visually you see that change but it's really good to hear from the inside as well to understand those changes that's great James any thoughts? nowadays a second and third generation Chinese don't really want to get into Cajun trade you can see the amount of Chinese takeaway dying down all across the city because there's nobody working because all the parents they're all retired we've got a huge skill shortage at the moment where wages are put up really extremely high so try and find skill set at the moment it's very difficult so I thought at the beginning when Hong Kong BNO don't be a lot of people coming over no the first couple of years that can speak English and that makes sense because if you go into another country to live if you don't speak English and go over to somebody to try and self-new so actually the explosion growth in China in Birmingham is through mainland China so the amount of hot pot restaurants at UMBC, everywhere around it's almost too much hot pot restaurant too much of one type of particular cuisine but when you talk about Cantonese cuisine where the British are educated to eat the duty relationship with Hong Kong back in the Hong Kong rule a lot of people don't understand a palate so if you go to different areas like Europe and Holland it's a little bit different in Germany but Hong Kong food and English so you get very authentic Cantonese food in England that's the reason why their palate changes towards that side so the new generation, the second, third generation I can tell you now a lot of people don't really want to work in this industry whether they're proud they're not trained in that skill set they don't want to work that kind of long hours they want to spend more time with families when I grew up and a lot of us grew up with not really seeing their parents so much because my father worked seven days a week and all ours grew up not really knowing my father and my mother had to work out education at times and so I went to Hong Kong I was looked after by my grandparents and a lot of people were like this so now when we grow up we don't want our children to go through what we've been through so that's why I think it's a cultural shift it's that the new generation as in from the foreign investment the immigrants coming in they're the one that's going to be dominating the scene of Chinese cooking in the future OK thank you, thanks so much James and Lisa Ernie well I think the oldest generation when they came they really don't have many choice for their career but now the younger generation because of better education and then they can speak the language and there's a lot more option they can choose whatever they want to do so it's difficult to say whether it's better or it's difficult to say so you work in a restaurant or whatever then you work or you work long hours or you work short hours but it's your choice but before probably you don't have any choice because if you don't speak the language and you have no choice but need to work 15 hours a day but now then you're highly educated and then you can do whatever you like so it's just the same the younger generations in terms of the career-wise it's no different from local people and that kind of speaks to that first question about the extent to which integration has kind of happened so that's why I said that if you've grown up here you have your friends here so how can you say that you're not integrated to the society great, thanks so much so if you could join me to thank our speakers tonight thank you so much David and Salma, James and Lisa it's brilliant, a really wide-ranging discussion there I'd just like to open things up to the audience here and online as well we've got a mic, a roving mic that's coming around and James would you mind passing me the iPad where the questions from online audience would be so I'll yes shall we begin with sorry if I didn't see your hand first do go ahead ok thank you that was really fascinating and great to have all the different perspectives I was just wondering that Britain has a lot of different cultures from all around the world and many of the other cultures were faced with similar issues like catering being the big business we see Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi restaurants none of those cultures have branded themselves in the way that the Chinese culture have branded themselves as China towns is there something about Chinese, however you define it culture that has led to that or was it in a defensive response to the way the Chinese community were treated when they arrived thanks so much for that question would anyone like to respond I think you're right in that sense and I think I said earlier the one skill that they had when it started off it was feeding each other they couldn't get the food they wanted and I think I read somewhere years ago that they said the big thing about the Chinese populations in the west is that they are incredibly successful but they only reach a point where the success level gets to the point where they can't go outside of the family everything has to be family run if you suddenly the next step is to go on to the stock market they found it very difficult now I'm sure that the generational thing will change but this was the past and I think you're right if you're in a strange place and you've got Fred and Mary down the road doing something similar because it's not only the catering it becomes your social life as well and many of the region was didn't speak English or didn't speak it very well their children did and yet you make a very good point you have India towns you have wonderful curry row in Manchester I quite often frequented but you did it in point so I think there is that there is something in that very much thank you so much for this wonderful question I agree there are lots of ethnic minority in this country also had a similar experience concentrating at the beginning in the catering industry why there is a Chinatown but no Indian town I think we need to look at Chinatown as a brand Chinatown is really a global brand this global brand at least has over 100 years history so the name of Chinatown actually was not given by Chinese people there are a lot of resources where were the first Chinatown many resources say first Chinatown was created in the Philippines by Spanish colonists but there are a lot of resources also say different things but going back to the point is I remember when we did an interview with those elderly members who were involved in the creation of Chinatown in London, Chinatown, they were saying at that time we knew that in New York, in San Francisco they had Chinatown, they are branded they have Lantern, they have those archway they actually brought visitors it worked, it's really good for the local economists, we wanted the same thing so they followed the North American Chinatown brand model as a business model in London localised this brand in London concept if you look around the world so many Chinatown in many many countries even in Singapore Singapore over 70% of the population in Singapore are ethnic Chinese but they also have a Chinatown why? because the government the tourism department they kind of adopted this idea of Chinatown as a way for cultural heritage representation heritage preservation and the tourism economy so Chinatown in different countries has a different meaning they are geographically very specific it is a brand I think that's such an important point that it's an economy in and of itself is self-generating self-perpetuating can I just add it a little bit of course originally at the beginning Chinatown was a product anti-Chinese racism cultural modernisation in North American Chinese people were segregated they had to live together then Chinatown was created in that sense people from outside looking into this as a Chinatown but after World War II many modern Chinatown were created then Chinatown this ideal Chinatown has changed it's more like a multicultural asset economic asset to the city where it is located so the meaning of Chinatown is ever changing thank you so much perhaps James and Lisa you could maybe respond to this question which is from Jennifer it is interesting because it kind of echoes the earlier question and Jennifer asks it seems that lots of Chinatowns share the same aesthetic where did this imagery come from and is it a problem that this is what springs to mind when people think of China so I suppose it's a question about that point about self-exoticisation the aesthetics of Chinatown the gate for example does it then reduce Chinese people and Chinese culture to cliches you were talking about the shops that sell I don't know the lucky cat which is not even Chinese and the various tourist trappings that you see in the Chinatowns does that kind of perpetuate stereotypes or certain cliches about Chineseness James and Lisa I think you should answer this first answer this first so what exactly is the answer I guess the question is Chinatowns have a certain aesthetic they sell certain things not only food other things that you've mentioned in your talk is it a problem that Chinatown continues to kind of depend on those that iconography, that imagery that aesthetic well I think that the Chinese food is the most cultural stuff that we think that we should bring to everybody so the food is so delicious of course that China is so big I can't just say Cantonese is better than Sichuan or Shanghai so obviously we have the Chinatown and then we have varieties of food there so it is a place that for everybody to enjoy is a folk point so if you imagine that the Chinatown for us is like a town hall so we just go there and then we gather together so it's not something that it is also quite difficult that if you it's like if you imagine that the Chinatown is like a commercial business centre or maybe you can import the loss of Chinese clothing or all sorts of different kinds of things but it is not the local Chinese people that they do the business traditionally because they came here and then they bring their food they are all very good chef and this is the business that they are doing passed down with generation and generation so I don't see I will not say that in the future that maybe the Chinatown, you come to Chinatown you will see more other businesses than in Chinatown or maybe artists because we are thinking that when we generate Manchester Chinatown we are thinking to open like a different art gallery surrounding the car park so hopefully then this plan it will pass by our local council if they agree with that then you will see the contemporary art then displayed in Chinatown then you will see something different it's not just food food is also at art but apart from that then you will also see contemporary Chinese art Thank you Deliberally passed it on to somebody else because Birmingham Chinatown is unique in itself because we don't have a Chinatown arch so when the question came why is all the Chinatown the same? Birmingham Chinatown is not because there's only a few buildings that's got Telcota and the red green and marks Birmingham Chinatown is very young Birmingham Chinatown is quite modern Birmingham Chinatown is growing we've got a unique plant we've got a pagoda island we've got no particular landmark and when we talk about the Chinatown arch project the council comes up to me and says James when we build an arch they're pushing for the arch more than us for the point that I rather have different points of interest I point of a different style of maybe a point of interest I said to people why do you have to have a Chinatown gate to say we are Chinatown but it's the local Chinese they said we should have a gate it's the council I propose different ideas I can't have different display of arts different pagodas, different statues different whatever it is why do we have to stereotype to picture ourselves to one particular thing so all I can say like Chinatown everywhere around the world we're near theatre land we're near the gay village we are pretty close to the city centre where exactly sorry I apologise but what I'm saying is Birmingham is not the same but sometimes it's different pressures that push into us we are expected to look like this and to answer a question before when you're talking about the different communities coming over you still have the Baltic triangle where you have a road of all Asian restaurants and shops and things like that every part is Polish different communities you've got a career town people naturally want to congregate they talk their own language people want to say coming over to the country my father came over in the 60s he didn't speak the word of English where else could he go to the dying day he didn't speak English but he lived in Chinatown he lived a full life he didn't speak English it set up a successful restaurant but not speaking English a lot of people used to comment to me, how could you do that in Britain you could do that and Chinatown it could do in Chinasquadre that's an important point just the diversity really and not cedding to the pressure of having to be a certain type of person ..y gael yng nghyd-dwyllfa yng nghyd-dwyllfa yng Nghymru... ..Yng Nghymru, Chynau a Indio... ..y'r unig yn rhan o'r entod... ..y'r unig yn y ddechrau. Mae'n mynd i'n ddod o'r cilomialism... ..y'r unig yn ddechrau... ..y'r... ..yng nghymru... I'm not just an Indian, I'm a Goan, and as a Goan, very different from a Bengali, you know. Hunan hua is very different from Cantonese, Hunan food is very different from, but actually people understanding in Britain, there is a clear understanding of the difference between Bengalis and different Indian communities, then I sense that people have of different Chinese communities, and I find that very, this is 2022, and I find that very bizarre that people still have this entity Chinese. It's much more rich, it's much more diverse, it's much more rich, and yet that hardly comes through in terms of what people understand in this country. Thanks, I do think that that point was kind of addressed in terms of the changing landscape of cuisine, you were talking about the hot pot, that's a very different type of cuisine from Cantonese food, so people are aware of those differences through unfortunately food culture, but I'm not sure that they're much aware of these different cultures beyond the food, so there is much to be done in terms of diversifying people's knowledge about different Chinese communities, that's one of the things the exhibition really tries to do as well, that the Chinese, the diaspora especially come from all over the world, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and even the Caribbean, so thanks so much, we've got one love. I think that's very interesting, so when I do Chinese year festivals to Chinese community and all around, so I'm from Hong Kong heritage, so we have a lion, we don't have a lion around, you've got to have to have symbols and that noise and everything else, China said to me, you don't have a lion, that's not how we celebrate Chinese year, why do you do that, and they query me, and I said to well tell me how you celebrate Chinese year, well we don't have the lion, we don't have this, and I was like okay fine, but then after they made that point, we love the lion, they like to see the lion, they want to embrace that culture, so when you've got different people, like students coming out, seeing the lion, they want to take a picture, then you know when you contradict me, but you like the culture, and they want to be that part, so when you talk about different parts of China, it's the interpretation of Chinese that we have because Britain rule Hong Kong, so that's why it's for Donald and the Cantonese. That goes back to the point about colonialism as well. One very last question from the LKN, which I'd really like to mention, so thank you so much to Katie via the LKN for this question, do you think that new Chinatowns will appear in the UK today and where, maybe with the new Hong Kong migrants, so in some ways there's a resurgence of Hong Kong culture with the more recent Vienna visa opportunities for Hong Kong migrants. Any thoughts about new Chinatowns in other cities? Scotland? I mean surely the future will be, and we talk about generation, is that actually you don't need this centre which says Chinatown, you take Chinese food out anywhere, and actually wouldn't it be great, if one of the best Chinese restaurants turns out to be run by non-Chinese, but the people who run it really know how to cook Chinese food. A Chinese food has also gone way into our culture as well, the wok and everything else. So my personal vision is I hope that you'll be able to go anywhere in Britain and find a really good Chinese meal, whoever cooks it. OK, that's brilliant, thank you so much. I think we might end our event this evening there. And I'd like to thank all our speakers once again, David Yip, Salma James Wong and Lisa Yum. Thank you so much. We would love to welcome you back to the British Library for more lectures, conversations and performances. So do please keep an eye on the what's on pages of our website for more events that will support our main exhibition. So once again Chinese and British runs until the 23rd of April. Please do have a look at the exhibition. It's free and encourage your friends and family to come along. There will also be a series of events all day to celebrate Chinese New Year at the end of January. You can also watch past events held at the library on the British Library player. So thanks again to everyone here and thanks again to everyone watching us online. And I hope you have a very good rest of your evening. Thanks so much.