TALKS ON THE CLC

A number of talks on the Chinese Labour Corps were given at our project events covering such diverse subjects as China’s motive in supporting the Western Allies, reasons why the Chinese wanted to join the labour corps, how and why they were recruited by the British Army, their reception by the local populace in Flanders and the post-war tasks they undertook at the Front.

To watch recordings of these talks, please click on the relevant image below.
 
The Shandong Problem
by Frances Wood, formerly Curator of Chinese Collections at the British Library and author of Betrayed Ally: China in the Great War

For Country, for the Entente or for Livelihood
by Zhang Yan, who has carried out extensive interviews with labourers’ descendants in Shandong

Some Paradoxes of the Chinese Labour Corps Recruitment
by Gregory James, author of The Chinese Labour Corps (1916-1920)

The “tsjings”: Myth and Reality in Post-war Lore on the Chinese Labour Corps in the West-Flemish Front Zone
by Dominiek Dendooven, historian and researcher at In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres, Belgium

The Chinese Labour Corps and the CWGC
by Andrew Fetherston, Archivist at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission