Students honor ‘unsung’ volunteers
School hopes to raise awareness of sacrifice made by WWI laborers
The sacrifice and unsung contributions by members of the Chinese Labor Corps during World War I was marked by students in London on Monday.
The corps, recruited by the British and French armies, consisted of about 140,000 Chinese volunteers. They provided behind-the-lines support, such as the digging of trenches and building of transport links.
As many as 20,000 of the men were believed to have died during the war, yet there are few tributes to them among Britain’s 40,000 war memorials.
Li Chunlei, manager of the Confucius Classroom and international office the Kingsford Community School in the Beckton area of London, said it was important to teach people in the UK about the corps.
“We would like to let all the young people in the UK learn about the war and learn about the Chinese Labor Corps, to respect them, to commemorate them,” he said.
100th anniversary
“Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the end of the war and we’re going to try our best to organize as many students as possible in the UK to launch this activity to commemorate the Chinese Labor Corps in the World War I.”
More than 400 students from Kingsford Community School held up the names of some of the Chinese people who lost their lives.
Every student learns Mandarin at the school and a small group of them expressed their feelings in the language. thing if this could be integrated into the curriculum for history, not just in Kingsford, but make it be a part of the national curriculum.”
William Bolton, chairman of the governing body at Kingsford Community School, said the memorial reminded him of his father, who encountered the Chinese laborers while serving in the military in France.
“He told me about these Chinese people, we couldn’t talk to them, and they couldn’t talk to us, and they got all the nasty jobs to do but they made a very big contribution in the war. To have this labor force of people who were strong and able to do things was quite important and we felt very blessed to have them with us.”