EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 141 Alexeeva Olga (Université du Québec à Montréal) Forgotten Hands with Picks and Shovels: Chinese Contract Workers in Europe duringWorldWar I Key words: China, France, World War I, colonial labour, Chinese overseas When the First World War broke out in Europe, China was in a semi-colonial state. All major foreign powers had carved spheres of influences out of its national territory where they claimed special rights and privileges and where the Chinese government had no authority. Although China decided to stay neutral in the conflict, thousands of the Chinese were transported to Europe where mobilization and casualties had created a severe shortage of labour. Between 1914 and 1917, the Allies have recruited over 300,000 Chinese labourers to toil behind the front lines in France and Russia. They rebuilt roads and railways, worked in powder factories and arsenals,dug trenches and cleared corpses from the battlefield. Western powers had used the Chinese labour long before the war, within the large-scale slavery-like trade in indentured workers, known as “coolie trade”. This system of indenture was driven and funded by the important demand for labour in European colonies, whose economies were threaten by the suppression of the slavery. How the Allied recruitment during WWI was different from the 19th century’s practices? Did the Allies consider the Chinese as a colonial labour, or as an allied workforce? Were there any new regulations created to accommodate them in Europe? What role the use of Chinese labour during WWI has played in the creation of a new analytic and legal framework for understanding labour migrations in Europe? This paper will try to answer those questions by analysing the recruitment and the use of the Chinese during the First World War within the larger history of Chinese overseas labour. Based on the research in French archives, this paper will be focused on the practices and policies adopted by the French officials in regard to Chinese labour but will also provide some parallels with Russian and British experiences of war recruitment in China. Bai Limin (Victoria University of Wellington) An East-West Interaction through Literacy Education: the New Method of Teaching & Learning Chinese in Early Twentieth-Century China Key words: East-West interaction, literacy textbooks, Protestant missionary education in China, knowledge transmission, new pedagogy The New Method of teaching and learning Chinese refers to a progressive teaching-learning process, in contrast to the traditional Chinese rote learning. The method was introduced into China from the West at the end of the nineteenth century and became popular during the late Qing campaign for literacy education. A close textual examination of selected literacy textbooks of the time is used to investigate how Protestant missionary educators, native Chinese Christian and non-Christian teachers incorporated this new pedagogy in their teaching and textbook composition. It aims to demonstrate a mutual understanding of what com- prised “useful knowledge” and the method for knowledge transmission through literacy education among missionary educators (including native Chinese Christian teachers) and non-Christian Chinese reformers and educators. Through this East-West intellectual interaction the relevance of Christian education to the building of a modern China is also discussed.