The new wave of Chinese nationals currently repainting the ethnic and cultural canvas of Trinidad follows the migration of their countrymen who began coming here some two centuries ago.
Many early Chinese who are now settled Trinbagonians came from the ethnic group known as the Hakka.
The Hakkas (pronounced haggas) lived in the motherland provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong, and lifted themselves out of poverty by settling in Europe, North America, South East Asia, South America and Trinidad and Tobago.
In Trinidad, they excelled in business, as shopkeepers and as restaurateurs. Those fast food entrepreneurs began selling chow mein and sardine sandwiches.
And many of these businesses flourished with the financial support in the 1900s from one of their fellow countrymen, John Lee Lum, owner of several agricultural estates in Trinidad.
Lee Lum was largely responsible for the establishment of several retail shops throughout Trinidad.
One of the areas where they settled was a village in La Brea that came to be known as Chiney Village, a strange name now, because there are no more Chinese or their descendants living in the village today.
But in the first half of the 20th century, there were three Chinese shops to serve the small population of 300 residents.
’The owners were all known as Chin because their real names were hard to pronounce,’ recalled village elder Charles Forde.
’Chin’ was an important person in the village. He loaned the residents money and charged a small interest. He also extended credit to most of the known families in the village, and carried out a sou sou which was aimed at developing thrift among people not known for saving.
Forde remembered the type of service the Chinese provided in the village
’Chin got up early on mornings and opened the door of his shop to sell to his customers and he was always present behind the counter asking customers, ’Who next?’’
Captain Smith, a Baptist minister who runs a healing centre in Chiney Village, said he did not know the Chinese, but his parents had handed down unforgettable stories of them to him.
’In addition to grocery items, the Chinese prepared sardine and cheese sandwiches for sale. I think a sandwich was just about three cents, and if you insisted, Chin would put some butter to make the sandwich tastier,’ Smith said.
’In those days, for one cent you could get 12 biscuits with some salt butter pasted over them,’ he added.
La Brea was then a thriving industrial area.
’We had the pitch, some oil from Brighton and many ships came to La Brea to buy crude oil.’
Smith said the site on which his ’House of Praise’ is located was once a Chinese-owned shop. He said over the years, ownership of the properties in the area changed hands and by the late sixties there were no Chinese living in Chiney Village.
In fact, the only evidence of their existence now is an old shop on the road leading to La Brea, which is now owned by Agustina Debellot.
Forde said, ’The Chinese moved out of here a long time and the last set to leave was during the Black Power demonstrations of the 1970’s.’
Forde recalled that ’there were 40 Chinese shops in La Brea and Chiney village. The larger shops got into the marketing of cacao and coffee for export in a big way’.
Forde said the shops in Chiney Village were leased from Lee Lum and the occupants paid him a sum of $100 a month. If you look at the old Chinese shops the design is the same, he said.
A member of the Hakkas, who moved out of La Brea to begin a new life in Canada, said, ’My family is the product of generations of shopkeepers. My great-grandfather had a shop, so did my parents and my wife’s parents. The younger generation did not want to be shopkeepers, so we moved out.’
When the Chinese moved out from the village, a large number of Grenadians and Dominicans moved in.
Michelle Jackie Browne said, ’Most of them were employed either in the Pitch Lake or with Kern Oilfields.’ She has been living in Chiney village since 1984.
’When I went to live there it had just about 500 people. We knew each other as one big family. Now people from different places have come to live in the village.’
Still, however, the past is close.
The lone standpipe on the main road that provided water to the village remains a community meeting place,
or a place to wait for the bus that cost five cents to San Fernando.
This new surge in Asian migration may mean, some villagers say, a return of the Chinese to Chiney Village.
