Between racism, crime and a sense of discomfort, the plight of the Chinese immigrant has been disheartening to the minority group in Jamaica.
In fact, according to Andy Au, a Chinese Jamaican, several members of the Asian community have closed their businesses, packed their bags and left Jamaica.
This comes despite what is seen islandwide as a growth in businesses operated by Asian nationals, mainly those from China, in recent years.
“I left my business with my parents, which they are still running. But apart from my own, I know of at least four groups of families that have sold their businesses and left the country and went back to different parts of Asia and United States,” Au, who has since moved, temporarily, to Australia, revealed. He suggested that it was unlikely that he would return to Jamaica.
“While some of the other businesses are still operating, they are also investing and making migration plans in an effort to make a connection or bridge, so that they can have an easy retreat and a place to settle down when the time comes,” Au said.
According to Au, the Chinese community is heavily targeted by criminals, which is crippling to business. As a business operator, he said he felt “trapped in a jail cell, worried about outside troubles as well as inside troubles”.
“It is true that we get robbed very often, [held at] gunpoint, [involved in] hostage situations and get tied up at home. We actually had a meeting with the Chinese community and a JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) superintendent relating to the crime problems, and we were on the verge of closing down all the businesses in Jamaica and leave because it was getting way out of hand,” Au, who lived in Jamaica for over two decades, stated in an e-mail.
Noting the veracity of the article published in the Jamaica Observer on October 23 titled ‘Don’t call us Chiney’, Au sought to shed light on how the difference between the Jamaican and Chinese cultures impacts relations.
He explained that, unlike Jamaicans who are outgoing, the Chinese tend to be more conservative, hence the reason they resort to sticking together.
“I think people need to understand the cultural difference between Chinese in Jamaica and locals. Like I see it, all Chinese are more conservative in different ways, like with language, especially in a public setting with people they don’t know. But Jamaicans are generally more outgoing, outspoken and enthusiastic people that are just too much and, quite frankly sometimes, make a bad first impression,” he said.
“Another cultural difference is that it’s more respectable to acknowledge people in Asian cultures, and you see it more defined in Japanese cultures, with their family names. So when you constantly call Chinese people Chiney or Mr/Miss Chin and it’s not their actual last name, it’s really annoying and disrespectful,” the expatriate continued.
“It’s not that we, on a whole, hate or dislike Jamaicans, it’s just that for the older generation who came here without being exposed at a young age to the cultural differences, it is hard for them to understand and adapt to it. Older-generation Chinese are generally more narrow-minded and stubborn in their ways, especially with culture,” Au added.
He also underscored the fact that Chinese continue to contribute to Jamaica.
“We employ a big chunk of the workers at the minimum -wage level. We have built businesses that import goods into the country and if you don’t know which products we bring in, then let me tell you, it’s almost everything. All the toys and knick-knacks you see on the street that people sell to make a living? We import it. Shoes, clothes, crockery, tissue, toothpicks, beauty products, perfumes, slippers, equipment, electronics; you name it, we have it,” he stated.
“We [also] work with local companies to supply them with products. We work with Jamaicans to give them good deals as suppliers and provide them with products that they can sell on the street and turn a profit. In turn, what we earn we spend here to help develop Jamaica and provide jobs to people who build houses, food businesses, schools and other things. It’s not like every time we need to have dinner or buy anything or need a plumber we need to fly back go China,” the Chinese native told the Sunday Observer.
With regards to the notion that they only help themselves and stick together, Au said: “We have to stick together as Chinese people and protect each other, and nothing is wrong with that. If Jamaican people go abroad, they would also flock together with people that have similar background for sense of trust and security. It is very hypocritical for people to put it that way, to say that we only help ourselves and not Jamaican people.
“If there is no sense of trust then how can we hold a hand out and expect not to get bitten? How do you ask someone who has been robbed at gunpoint in a foreign country to just feel welcomed, accepting and caring to others when he/she can’t even trust them?” he questioned.
“I think if the people of Jamaica want the Chinese community to be more ‘helpful’ then you need to integrate us into the community. You need to make us feel welcomed and understand us as a people coming from another country, and give us the respect so we can trust you. You need to give us a sense of security so we are willing to reach out and not feel like we will get attacked any minute,” he said.
Safety, he insisted, was one of the main reasons for their departure from Jamaica.
“The main reasons why [Chinese] people leave Jamaica in their retirement age most of the time is because they don’t feel safe, they don’t feel welcomed and they don’t feel that the health care system in Jamaica is going to benefit them in the long run. There are no benefits for paying taxes in Jamaica compared to China, or other countries,” he said.
Another Chinese national, who declined to be identified, said that the lack of love shown to people born in China by Jamaicans had forced him to leave the north Caribbean island for the United States.
“I am now living and running a business in Florida, almost like the grocery store that I ran when I was in Kingston, and the people here treat me better. In Jamaica, all the people want was your money, and when you report them to the police, the police themselves turn around and stick you up for money. It just did not work out in Jamaica,” said the Shanghai-born man who now operates from Hialeah in Miami Dade county, a section of the city that is dominated by Hispanics.
After five years of paying no taxes they would have made millions to move on anywhere in the world.Please give the diaspora the same opportunities to invest in their country.I will agree that the crime situation is out of control.
I blame Jamaicans for this blatant disrespect the f**k u come into somebody’s house n be racist to their cultural differences while raping them?
I always say don’t borrow ppl things if u know u can’t afford to pay it back. That’s what Jamaica did when they borrowed money from China & can’t pay it back. Look at the results. They have to take in Chinese immigrants, give them free land, businesses etc. Plus China want the best of the land that Jamaica have. Sorry to say but this is not going to end until Jamaica give dem back dem money in full & we know that’s never gonna happen. So brace yourselves for more Chinese immigrants & businesses.
By reading it appears that they feel like they doing you a favor, by opening up business and employing Jamaicans at minimum wage. I go one chiney wholesale dung a town and hear how the chiney man talk to him employees, it never nice atall.
And you still make the purchase, Sweet?
I nah buy a no goddam chinny prison shop! If a no some family from 50 yrs ago me nah buy from dem!
Shoppers fair or downtown parade…me NOT buying nothing from behind no chicken wire cage wid missa chin!
Unu fi stop go in a dem place!
Good fuking riddance to these wandering genal merchants. As a negro a Jamaica me know as home and me nah gi no foreigners room fi push me out!!!
A lot of these Chinese are Jamaican born themselves so regardless of what their last name is and what they look like they should be treated as such … btw don’t our motto says “out of many one people”
This as nothing to do with born a Jamaica Chinese whose family history expand beyond 30 years and more. This is about the arrivals of 10 years and less, and the same to the Indians/nigga pakis.
yes dem rite jamaica dung dah tan too bad d ppl dem a help build d country dem.love distespect ppl too much kmdt
Jamaicans are every where in this world every country you go you can find a Jamaican so u uh must stop gwaan like nuh naw invade odda people place to kmt …same way un inna odda people born land and wanting to be treated with respect and stick together why can’t the Chinese people ask fi di same treatment to unuh too damn hypocritical.
So Jamaican natives should just rally back and have new arrivals treat them like shit in their ancestral land?
Fus me hear we de a people country a treat then like shit and sell dem nasty food and set up shops were we paying the natives little and nothing. Thank god me passport say CARICOM so me not guilty of your charge :ngakak :ngakak :ngakak
I think you’re missing the point. They only do cash transactions so that they dont have to pay their fare share of taxes (govt take 1/4 from us before we even see $1). they collect NIS, NHT etc and when you go there for benefits them never hear about you.
Most of their goods are substandard and they are the biggest flouters of copyright laws.
They flout Ja labour laws and do not treat their workers with even common decency.
Not to mention the mystery meat that they selling people. The slave owner thought they were helping slaves too, by supplying clothes & food.
Most of them cant leave from China straight to the US so they use Ja as a gateway to foreign. Dem can galang
Well, whenever I visit Jamaica and I go to a shop, and see how the Chinese owner is towering over the employees, I feel like there is still slavery working its way back Jamaica. It’s an uneasy feeling, seeing them watching us, as f we are criminals. It’s a sad situation. I know everyone needs a job but I couldn’t find myself working for them. So if they are leaving. Good reddens to bad rubbish.
@Needle
We (Jamaicans & Black folks in general) must be careful how we’re welcoming these people because majority if not all is not in it to help us but to take over.
I can list countless Black neighborhoods that the Chinese spread out in and even though you spend your life savings with them they will NEVER let you owe a penny!
Not only that, they will not, I repeat, WILL NOT spend a dollar in our neighborhood; mi si Black/Jamaican store owners support Chinese restaurants but the favor is never returned.
That’s the biggest issue w/ Black folks, we come in like dogs, ppl kick wi an run wi but we run up to dem later on w/ wagging tails but quick fi bite a next dog.. Jamaicans are everywhere yes but where, when we find these Jamaicans that behave like the Chinese???
Wonderful Sunday afternoon Met and Metters
The Chinese are fleeing to places like Jamaica and Black neighborhoods in the US because them can make a loot from us with nothing in return…. Chinese money nuh circulate ina Black folks neck of the woods, it guh home guh bank.
Now take a walk in the white neighborhoods and tell mi how much chiney deh deh… not much a’tall because every odda race sticks together.
The products chiney sell wi dem demself nuh use or eat. Next time yuh walk by “Nissan chin” and him and his kids eating just look if he’s eating what he’s selling
A now mi know how wi end up in slavery because we welcomed any and all with the right melanin.
First and foremost Y’L big up yourself, your post is right on the money!
All these things that these Chinese leeches are bytching about in this article can be remedied through assimilation into the culture; however they typically stop short of doing that. These Chinese people, only want to inter-mingle with Jamaicans (blacks) when it comes to making a buck, or if one of the perverted chinese man dem have a slave girl fetish and wants to sexually exploit the Jamaican black female dem, but otherwise most of them will totally isolate themselves socially in all other aspects of society. I observe Indians and other groups in Jamaica to have that attitude as well, but because they don’t dominate commerce or any other entity in Jamaica like the Chinese, so their bigoted attitudes is a little more subtle. Jamaica is 90% black with ancestry coming from sub-Saharan Africa, so in my opinion, the people who should be dominating commerce in this island should be reflective of the population. Spend your dollars with people who look like you, so the black race can thrive and prosper and stop going out of your way to support people who only want to exploit you financially. Jamaicans residing from abroad can work hand and hand with the Jamaicans living in the island and supply goods and services to the people and at the same time keep the black dollar strong.
Go home
Exactly! Most of them don’t treat their workers with any respect so I’m not sure why some of them complaining about respect.
Dem can meck a loot without nothing return…..soh wah u wah fr dem?
@H. GoNe
Big up yourself as well!
I left Jamaica when I was a child but I do visit and it didn’t take long to realized those people ain’t doing us any damn favors besides treating us like crap and paying us such…
We welcomed them but they don’t welcome us; can WE go to China and treat dem like teef? Do we get the same 5 year tax break? Can we hire ONLY our kind in high positions but hire them ONLY fi di lower than minimum wage positions?
From I live in the US I NEVER seen a Black holding a position of value in any Chinese establishment and that goes for Pakistan, Indians, Jews, down to di Puerto Ricans behave like wi a charity.
Where’s our self love? Self esteem? Self pride? And self respect?!!!!!!
I stayed in Jamaica for few days earlier on in the year and I was almost in tears because the average Jamaicans (not the lazies) can barely find food much more jobs or decent paying ones but guess what?! All those none Jamaicans living it up Uptown, own restaurants, clubs, farms, beeches and soon to be ganja farms while sum a unuh will ONLY own a stall because y’all cannot get a break to own a store…. Good luck settling for mediocrity!
Jamaicans suffa violence daily, from dog, baby, women, men, and senior citizens, now how many of these Asians, Indians, and Jews living in fear?
When in rome do as the romans do. How in the world do you expect to go to a foreign country (Jamaica) and want Jamaicans to change their ways to fit with your chinese cultural norm?! YOU should try to fit into Jamaican culture not Jamaicans trying to fit into your culture. Absolutely absurd.
PP, I never buy from them, I remind mr chin that mind them get a repeat of what happen in 1965, when due to lack of respect for a Jamaican woman that one chiney man box dung. It start a riot.
The observer is anti black.