Chinatown(S) of London

The Mid-Autumn festival, Diwali, Yule, Hanukkah, Christmas … All these celebrations of light, that helped us forget that the nights were getting long and dark, are gone by now.

Candles, lanterns and decorations have been put away for one year…

The nights are still long though, as we are left to enter the dull tunnel of grey days before flowers, colours and proper daylight come back into our lives.

Not my favorite time of the year, you guessed it!

But thankfully there is still one beacon of joy and colours waiting around the corner:

Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year falls on the 22nd of January this year.

It is China’s most important traditional festival, but it is celebrated by many other countries around the world, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei.

*Photo: Angela Kek – Singapore, Gardens by the Bay* –

And as China’s culture has spread to all corners of the world, many countries in the West also have Chinese New Year decorations and celebrations.

London is no exception, being home to the largest Chinatown in the UK.

*Trafalgar Square, London – Click on the picture for this year’s celebrations programme*

But how did that happen?

A Little History Of Chinatown(S)

Chinatown is now located in the heart of Soho, on Gerrard Street, with Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus just a few minutes away.

But Chinatown as we know it is actually relatively young…

Chinatown, Londinium

People from all over the world have been arriving in London and leaving London for more than 2,000 years.

Evidence has been found that people of East Asian ancestry already lived in London in Roman times.

It appears that these people formed part of a diverse community, living in the southern part of Londinium as early as the second century.

Over 40% of the individuals studied had results consistent with an African or Asian ancestry.

But we need to wait a bit – 1300 years more or less – to see the beginnings of a real London ‘Chinatown’.

Chinatown, Limehouse

Chinese sailors started settling in London as early as the 1780s: they travelled on ships of the British East India Company, importing popular Chinese commodities into London, such as tea, ceramics and silks.

In the 1880’s, one century later, London saw a steady flow of Chinese sailors arriving and settling in Limehouse, in East London: men from Shanghai settled around Pennyfields Lane, while a Cantonese community lived on Limehouse Causeway.

These Chinese sailors were often paid less and discriminated against, and thus began diversifying their incomes by setting up laundry services and restaurants.

Although the number of Chinese people who settled in the neighbourhood only amounted to around 300 or 400 people, their presence tickled the imagination of many novelists and journalists.

They described Limehouse as a ‘’den of vice’’: a lawless area of violence, gambling, opium (*) and prostitution.

(*) Ironically, Chinese opium-smoking was also demonised in the press, even though it was Britain which waged war against China for suppressing the opium trade in the country, to alleviate addiction amongst its people.

Many novels like ‘Limehouse nights’, by Thomas Burke, or ‘Dr Fu Manchu’, by Sax Rohmer, contributed to sealing this seedy reputation, and the travel agent Thomas Cook even organised tours of the area for daring visitors.

But this unfortunate reputation also hastened its fate : police raids, work restrictions, deportations and slum-clearance schemes eventually dispersed the Chinese population of Limehouse in the 1930s.

All remnants of Limehouse Chinatown were destroyed during the Blitz or erased by post-war development schemes.

Photo: Imperial War Museum – V2 ROCKET BOMB INCIDENT AT CHINATOWN, LIMEHOUSE, EAST LONDON, MARCH 1945 (HU 44973) Damage caused by the V2. In the foreground, a man inspects the propulsion unit of a ‘V’ rocket bomb. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205019013

The only memories are a handful of Chinese street names, such as Ming Street, Pekin Street, and Canton Street.

Chinatown, Soho

The ‘concept’ of Chinatown only avoided extinction in London because British people, primarily the British soldiers returning from the Far East, had developed a taste for the delightful flavours of Chinese foods.

After WWII, London’s Chinese community desperately needed a new place to live.

Soho, by then, had gained a poor reputation as the ‘West End den of vice’ (great nightlife though), and that meant cheap commercial rents, so Asian supermarkets and restaurants started to open in this area.

Their success attracted more Chinese entrepreneurs, and by the late 1960s Chinatown was in full swing, with the population now numbering in the tens of thousands.

A Far Eastern travel agency has even been set up to deal with the huge number of restaurant workers arriving from China and Hong Kong.

In the 1980’s the area was decorated in true Chinese fashion, with red lanterns, elaborate gates built in the traditional Qing dynasty style and the pedestrianisation of Gerrard Street, parts of Newport Place and Macclesfield Street.

And this week Chinatown is getting ready for the year of the Rabbit:

Give me some red!

One legend about the origin of the Chinese New Year tradition is that thousands of years ago, in ancient China, lived a fierce monster named Nian. (年, Nian, is the Chinese word for ‘year’).

It lived at the bottom of the sea, but would go ashore to feed once a year, attacking both people and cattle on the last day of the lunar calendar.

So, on that day every year, people would lock their livestock gates tightly and flee into the distant mountains to avoid being eaten.

Then one year, the villagers discovered that the monster was frightened by loud noises, bright lights, and the color red, so they used these things to ward off the beast.

Since then, celebrations to usher out the old year and bring forth luck and prosperity for the new one always involve fireworks, firecrackers, and red clothes and decorations.