Heed the Chinese ghosts of Morecambe Bay

‘Since Dad went to work in England, Mum and I have been missing him all the time. Dad isn’t young anymore and he’s alone in a foreign country. It’s all because of me. What an unworthy daughter I am! Dad wants me to go to university and have a good life. He’s making money for me. We haven’t been in a photo together for five years. That’s how long he’s been gone. When the families have reunited over the New Year, we have only sorrow, and worries for Dad.’

This was written by a 17-year-old girl in China at the last Chinese New Year. A year later, nothing has changed. Her dad is still away and there is still no photo. Indeed, there will be no family photos for hundreds of thousands of Chinese children whose parents have ventured to ‘seek their fortune’ in Britain. The tragedy is that the parents are illegal immigrants whose destiny it is to be blackmailed by Snakeheads, exploited by ‘labour agencies’, mired in destitution, and, in some cases, to make the ultimate sacrifice of death; and even then, ignominious death.

As a Chinese Anglophile, I have recently become incensed by the way in which some of my compatriots, though illegal, are being treated in this country that I love. I am hugely saddened by the fifth anniversary of the Morecambe Bay incident (on 5 February), in which 23 illegal Chinese cockle-pickers drowned. They were forced to do a filthy job and they died a foul death. It has made me think how wrongly complacent the British are about the Chinese population. We Chinese have this reputation of being reticent, rather inscrutable, but minding our own business, excelling in our professions, and beavering away making money.