Abstract
Anthony Smith suggests that an “ethnic group” is a group of people who have a collective proper noun, a myth of common ancestry, collective historical memories, one or more differentiating elements of common culture, an association with a “homeland,” and a sense of solidarity among significant sectors of its population. 1 According to historical experience, it seems to be a rule that political entities consist of different ethnic groups. Different ethnic groups in a nation or a larger community do not always coexist peacefully, because they are inevitably caught in the struggle for social, economic, and political resources. Those who are bigger in size, more coherent, and politically or militarily better organized usually prevail over the others. War, invasion, and changes in the political boundaries continue to produce privileged as well as underprivileged ethnic groups. Peoples subdued by foreign invaders are likely to be politically, economically, and culturally marginalized. Ethnic groups possessing immense wealth and social resources such as the Chinese in twentieth-century Southeast Asian countries, though small in size, can play a key role in the domestic affairs of the host-state.
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Notes
This chapter is a revised version of an article, “The German Community in 19th Century Hong Kong,” published in the Asia Europe Journal, vol. 2 (2004), pp. 237–55.
Anthony Smith, National Identity (Reno, Nev.: University of Nevada Press, 1991), p. 21.
Wolfgang Bergem, “Culture, Identity and Distinction: Ethnic Minorities between Scylla and Charybdis,” in Stefan Wolff, ed., German Minorities in Europe: Ethnic Identity and Cultural Belonging (New York: Berghahn, 2000), p. 1.
Ernst Baasch, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Deutschen Seeschiffbaues und der Schiffbaupolitik (Hamburg: Lucas Gräfe & Sillen, 1898), p. 10.
Robert B. Asprey, Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1986), pp. 572–73.
Thomas Brysch, Marinepolitik im Preuischen Abgeordnetenhaus und Deutschen Reichstag 1850–1888 (Hamburg: Verlag E.S. Mittler, 1996), pp. 41–43.
According to Philippe Dollinger, The German Hansa, trans. and ed. D. S. Ault and S. H. Steinberg (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), the cooperation between Belgian, Dutch, English, and German traders in the North Sea can be dated back to the twelfth century. London, Antwerp, Brugge, and Amsterdam were all founding members of the early Hanseatic organization. See especially pp. 85–92.
Karin Bartsch, Hamburgs Handelsbeziehung mit China und Britisch- Ostindien (Ph.D. diss., University of Hamburg, 1958), p. 22.
For statistics of German ships visiting the above cities in the midnineteenth century, see Bernd Eberstein, Hamburg-China (Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde, 1988), p. 388.
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Wong Man Kong, Christian Missions, Chinese Culture, and Colonial Administration: A Study of the Activities of James Legge and Ernest John Eitel in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong (Ph.D. diss., Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996), pp. 21–22.
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For a short discussion of the German missionaries in Hong Kong, see R. G. Tiedemann, “The Early German Protestant Missions in the Hong Kong Region,” paper presented at the international conference on “Church History of Hong Kong,” University of Hong Kong, 1993.
Schlyter, Karl Gützlaff als Missionar in China, pp. 68–77.
Timothy M. K. Wong (Wong Man Kong), “The Limits of Ambiguity in German Identity in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: With Special Reference to Ernest Eitel (1838–1908),” in Ricardo K. S. Mak and Danny S. L. Paau, eds., Sino-German Relations Since 1800: Multidisciplinary Explorations (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), p. 84.
Wong, Christian Missions, Chinese Culture, and Colonial Administration, pp. 217–27.
For a short discussion of Wilhelm Lobscheid’s contribution to education in early Hong Kong, see Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Interactions of East and West: Development of Public Education in Early Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984), pp. 26–31. Wilhelm Lobscheid’s observation of Hong Kong education in the nineteenth century was summed up in his A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: China Mail Office, 1859).
Material from the name lists of directors given in The Board of Directors 1970–1971, ed., One Hundred Years of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals 1870–1970 (Hong Kong: Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, 1971), pp. 62–64.
For instance in Hao Yen Ping’s brilliant study, The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China: Bridge between East and West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), the compradores working under Germans are briefly mentioned twice.
Colonial Office Records, Series CO 129, no. 169, pp. 263–70, Public Records Office, Hong Kong.
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Colonial Office Records, Series CO 129, no. 166, pp. 196–211, Public Records Office, Hong Kong.
Smith, “The German Speaking Community in Hong Kong, 1846–1918,” pp. 9–10; Hänisch, Jebsen & Co. Hong Kong, pp. 33 and 444–45.
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Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 116–18.
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Udo Ratenhof, Die Chinapolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1871 bis 1945: Wirtschaft-Rüstung-Militär (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1987), pp. 100–01.
According to Eberstein, the number of steamers from Hamburg to China increased from 16 in 1871 to 100 in 1913. More significantly, in 1862 Hamburg ships unloaded 1,351 cargoes in Chinese harbors, but in 1895 the weight of cargoes from Hamburg increased to 55,000 tons. See his Hamburg-China, p. 160.
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© 2005 Cindy Yik-yi Chu
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Mak, R.K.S. (2005). Nineteenth-Century German Community. In: Chu, C.Yy. (eds) Foreign Communities in Hong Kong, 1840s–1950s. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980557_4
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