In 1727 Dr. Engelbert Kämpfer described "coolies" as dock laborers who would unload Dutch The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany merchant ships at Nagasaki Nagasaki ( listen (help·info)) is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the 16th century. It was formerly part of Nishisonogi District. It was a center of Portuguese and European influence in the 16th through 19th centuries. Nagasaki was home to a.[2][3] According to the Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is a dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. As of December 2008[update], the editors had completed one quarter of a third edition, the word dates to the mid-17th century. The word coolie can be traced back to the Urdu Urdu (Urdu: اردو, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ) is a standardised register of Hindustani. It is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and one of 22 scheduled languages of India, as an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Turkic, and Pashto[citation word qulī (क़ुली, قلی), which means "(day-)labourer". This Urdu Urdu (Urdu: اردو, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ) is a standardised register of Hindustani. It is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and one of 22 scheduled languages of India, as an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Turkic, and Pashto[citation form has an initial uvular velar (a sound alien to Indic languages like Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to various Indo-Aryan languages, dialects, and language registers spoken in northern and central India, Pakistan, Fiji, Mauritius, and Suriname. Standard Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, the official language of the), which clearly indicates its foreign origin. It is probably a borrowing from a Turkic language (via Persian), possibly a shortening of Arabic ghulam "servant". Alternative suggestions, viz. from Kulī The Koli community is an ethnic group found throughout India. Kolis are found in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and rest of India. In Maharashtra they are found in the coastal regions of Maharashtra. They are also one of the original inhabitants of Greater Mumbai, which comprises the seven islands of Bombay . In Gujarat, the Koli community, an aboriginal tribe in Gujarat Gujarat (Gujarati: ગુજરાત, Hindi: गुजरात, Gujǎrāt, - [ɡudʒɾat]( listen)) is a state in India. Its capital is Gandhinagar, while its largest city is Ahmedabad. Gujarat is home to the Gujarati speaking people of India. The state encompasses major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization such as Lothal and Dholavira[4][5] or to the Tamil Tamil (தமிழ் tamiḻ; [t̪ɐmɨɻ] ) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore. It is one of the twenty-two scheduled word kuli கூலி ("wages") (Encyclopædia Britannica) are therefore less likely. Another form closely related to the Hindi qūlī is the Bengali Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the kuli. It is also closely related to the Urdu Urdu (Urdu: اردو, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ) is a standardised register of Hindustani. It is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and one of 22 scheduled languages of India, as an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Turkic, and Pashto[citation term "qulī" or "kulī", meaning slave, which was possibly influenced by the unrelated Ottoman Turkish "qul" or Turkish "köle", also meaning slave.[6]

The Chinese word 苦 力 (Pinyin Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin (标准普通话 / 標準普通話). Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or ": kǔlì) literally means "bitterly hard (use of) strength". The most commonly used cultural Chinese term is 咕 喱 (Pinyin: gū lí / Cantonese: Guu Lae).

Connotation

East Indian East India, or more properly Eastern India, is a region of India consisting of the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. The states of Orissa and West Bengal share some cultural and linguistic characteristics with Bangladesh and with the state of Assam. Together with Bangladesh, West Bengal formed the ethno-linguistic region of coolies on a Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the country of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just 11 km (7 miles) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of 4,768 km² (1,864 sq. mi.) it is also the sixth largest in the West Indies cacao Theobroma cacao , also cacao tree and cocoa tree, is a small (4–8 m or 15–26 ft tall) evergreen tree in the family Sterculiaceae (alternatively Malvaceae), native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. Its seeds are used to make cocoa powder and chocolate. There are two prominent competing hypotheses about the origins of the estate, circa 1903. 19th century United States illustration An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically showing a racist depiction of the Chinese The Qing Dynasty , also known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 (with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917). It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China now called "the coolie stereotype A stereotype is a commonly held public belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. Generally speaking,".

When it first entered the English language, "coolie" was a designative term describing a low-status class of workers rather than a pejorative term for them. However, in the wake of centuries of colonialism Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism is a process whereby sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole and social structure, government and economics within the territory of the colony are changed by the colonists. Colonialism is a certain set of unequal and the social inequalities thereof, it has taken on not only the characteristics of a slur A pejorative , as a noun, means a word or phrase that implies disapproval or contempt and is meant to be insulting, impolite, or unkind: "A belittling or disparaging word or expression." When used as an adjective, pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, dyslogistic, and contemptuous. Standards of politeness limit the use of in the general sense but also that of a racial epithet The following is a list of ethnic slurs that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or to refer to them in a derogatory (critical or disrespectful), pejorative (disapproving or contemptuous), or insulting manner in the English-speaking world. For the purposes of this list, an ethnic slur is a term. In this last sense, it has been applied to Asian people regardless of their professions or socio-economic standing with obviously insulting intent.[citation needed]

For example, by the 1850s in Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the country of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just 11 km (7 miles) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of 4,768 km² (1,864 sq. mi.) it is also the sixth largest in the West Indies, the annual Muharram Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year in which fighting is prohibited. Since the Islamic calendar is lunar, Muharram moves from year to year when compared with the Gregorian calendar. Muharram is so called because it is unlawful to fight during this month; the word is derived from the or Hosay festival that came over from India was being called "the Coolie Carnival". Through the Caribbean The Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts. The region is located southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and to the north of South America, as well as in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and known as Ceylon (/sɪˈlɒn/) before 1972, is an island country in South Asia, located about 31 kilometres (19.3 mi) off the southern coast of India, South Africa Coordinates: 29°02′46″S 25°03′47″E / 29.046°S 25.063°E The Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a 2,798 kilometres coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an independent, and elsewhere, the word soon came to denote any person of Indian origin or descent.[7]

By the mid- to late 19th-century in the United States, the term "coolie" and other trappings of the "coolie stereotype" were already being used to mock (for example) Chinese-American launderers or restaurateurs who owned their own businesses.[8][9]

History

The term coolie was applied to workers from Asia, especially those who were sent abroad to most of the Americas The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total, to Oceania Oceania is a geographical, and often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term "Oceania" was coined in 1831 by French explorer Dumont d'Urville.[dubious – discuss] The term is also sometimes used to denote a continent comprising Australia Continent and proximate and the Pacific Islands The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. Those islands lying south of the tropic of Cancer are traditionally grouped into three divisions: Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, and to Africa (especially South Africa and islands like Mauritius Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius (French: République de Maurice) is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres (560 mi) east of Madagascar. In addition to the island of Mauritius, the Republic includes the islands of Cargados Carajos, Rodrigues and the and Réunion Réunion (French: La Réunion, IPA: [la ʁeynjɔ̃] ; previously Île Bourbon) is a French island of about 800,000 population located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) south west of Mauritius, the nearest island). It was also applied within Asian areas under European control such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia ^ b. The current terminology as per government policy is Bahasa Malaysia but legislation continues to refer to the official language as Bahasa Melayu (literally Malay language). English may continue to be used for some official purposes under the National Language Act 1967, Shanghai Originally a fishing and textiles town, Shanghai grew to importance in the 19th century due to its favorable port location and as one of the cities opened to foreign trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. The city flourished as a center of commerce between east and west, and became a multinational hub of finance and business by the 1930s. After 1990, and Hong Kong Hong Kong is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China; the other is Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven million.

Slavery had been widespread in the British empire, but social and political pressure led to its being outlawed by the Slave Trade Act 1807 The Slave Trade Act was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on 25 March 1807, with the long title "An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade". The original act is in the Parliamentary Archives. The act abolished the slave trade in the British Empire, but not slavery itself; that remained legal until the Slavery Abolition; within a few decades many other European nations had outlawed slavery.[citation needed] But the highly intensive colonial labour Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism is a process whereby sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole and social structure, government and economics within the territory of the colony are changed by the colonists. Colonialism is a certain set of unequal on sugar cane Sugarcane is any of six to thirty-seven species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum (family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae). Native to warm temperate to tropical regions of Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six meters (six to nineteen feet) tall. All sugar cane species interbreed, or cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant. The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Pakistan, India and Africa. The fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, which is the most widely plantations, in mines Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash. Any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or or railways Rail transport is the means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on. Track usually consists of steel rails installed on sleepers/ties and ballast, on, required cheap manpower[citation needed].

Experiments were carried with Malagasy Animism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Japanese The Japanese people are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries are referred to as nikkeijin (日系人?). The term "Japanese people" may also be used in, Breton The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who settled the area from south western Great Britain in two waves from the 4th to 6th centuries. The traditional language of Brittany is Breton and is spoken by approximately 365,000 people, of whom about 2, Portuguese 1st row: Afonso I • St. Anthony • Álvares Pereira • Vasco da Gama , Yemeni Yemen , officially the Republic of Yemen (Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya al-Yamaniyya) [[Media:Ar-al Gumhuriyah al Yamaniyyah.ogg|]] (help·info) is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. It has an estimated population of more than 23 million people and is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the and/or Congolese laborers. Ultimately the "ideal coolies" were the Indians India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the, shipped to many Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian subcontinent; on the west by East Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean . It is the only ocean to be named islands, East and South Africa, Fiji Fiji /ˈfiːdʒiː/ (Fijian: Matanitu ko Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी), officially the Republic of the Fiji Islands (Fijian: Matanitu Tu-Vaka-i-koya ko Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी द्वीप समूह गणराज्य,[citation needed] fiji dvip samooh ganarajya), is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean, Guyana Guyana (pronounced /ɡaɪˈænə/ gye-AN-ə), officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is a state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana has been a former colony of the British, Dutch and for a brief period, the French. It is the only state of, Martinique Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of 1,128 km2 (436 sq mi). Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados. As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the, Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada, and Panama to name only some of the lands where 'Taylorization' was applied as a means of increasing productivity worldwide.[citation needed]

Chinese coolies were also sent to the New World. They worked in guano pits in Peru, in sugar cane fields in Cuba and built the railways in the United States and British Columbia (Canada). The coolie trade became regarded as "a new form of slavery".[citation needed]

Recruitment and trade

After slavery was abolished there was a severe lack of labour in many European colonies. Although labourers were supposed to be recruited by voluntary negotiation, it is evident that trickery and deceit were common and outright kidnapping occurred as well.[10]

Most Indian indentured labour was recruited for the British colonies through "Colonial Agents" who travelled to India. In India they engaged the services of arkatias or recruiters who knew the places to find likely enlistees. A male to female ratio of 10:4 was sought, but women proved difficult to recruit for overseas and allegations of deception and kidnapping seem plausible. "Emigration Depots" were set up in Kolkata, Madras and Bombay although the latter was closed rather quickly when abuses were made public in India.[citation needed]

Many voluntary émigrées came from among the very poor people of Madras, Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. Once established, this system gained momentum as British policies destroyed domestic or cottage industry, crafts and family farms through taxation and the zamindar system. Famines continued to flow out of India for decades.[11]

Around 1845, after the end of the first Opium War (1840–1842), a center for emigration at Shantou organised a network for transporting Chinese from Guangdong, Amoy, and Macau to the Americas, especially to the silver mines in Peru and the sugar plantations of Cuba and other West Indian islands. Most of them would have been kidnapped from Guangdong province.[12]

Indentured labourers from Indochina were recruited primarily by France and sent to other French colonies.

The coolie trade was criticised for unfairness to workers, and for being de facto slavery.[citation needed] Labourers would be transported aboard packed vessels to be sent to their destinations, and many would die enroute due to malnutrition, disease, or other mistreatment. Mutinies were also known to occur during transportation[12]. The Dea del Mar which had set sail to Callao from Macao in 1865 with 550 Chinese on board, arrived in Tahiti with 162 of them still alive.[12]

This movement of labour population, the first form of wages in the wake of slavery, was referred to as a trade as it reminded one of the status applied to the slave, who was considered as a piece of furniture, which one could inherit legally.[citation needed] Though coolies were typically classified as indentured servants with a five-year contract, the remnants of slavery remained, and there was often a considerable gap between the law and its application.

Many investigators of the coolie trade reported dire and inhumane conditions, with flogging, sexual abuse and restrictive confinement being commonplace.[citation needed] Many workers were not able to regain their freedom after serving five years for a planter, as was stated in the contract. The same situation prevailed in the West Indies and Mauritius.

In the British Empire, coolies were indentured labourers who lived under conditions often resembling slavery. The system, inaugurated in 1834 in Mauritius, involved the use of licensed agents after slavery had been abolished in the British Empire. Thus, indenture followed closely on the heels of slavery in order to replace the slaves. The labourers were however only slightly better off than the slaves had been. They were supposed to receive either minimal wages or some small form of payout (such as a small parcel of land, or the money for their return passage) upon completion of their indentures. Unlike slaves, these imported servants could not be bought or sold.

Indian female "Coolie woolwashers" in 19th century South Africa.

A massive number of Tamil coolies were shipped to Sri Lanka by the British for the coffee and tea plantations. It was also used to augment the minority populations of Sri Lanka. This was the second wave of settlement after the Tamils settled in Jaffna by the Dutch as laborers for tobacco cultivation. This tactic of demographic alteration was used by the British to suppress the native Sinhalese of Sri Lanka who had revolted numerous times against the British. A similar settlement also took place in Malaysia.

In India and South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi led a campaign against such indentured servitude. Many of the servants who had gone to Africa remained there permanently, effectively becoming immigrants.

The permanent settlement of formerly indentured Indians created problems, particularly in Africa. The Natal province of the Union of South Africa and Kenya amassed clusters of such immigrants. In the Transvaal, after the conclusion of the Second Boer War, the deficiency of native African labor in the Rand mines led to the enactment of an ordinance in February 1904 that provided for the import of Chinese laborers.

The Boer element in the Transvaal was bitterly opposed to this ordinance, alleging it would introduce a new factor into the already serious racial tensions of South Africa. This issue was largely responsible for the Liberal triumph in the United Kingdom general election, 1906, by which time over 50,000 Asian labourers already had been imported.

The decision to put an end to indentured servitude first affected Natal and Mauritius in 1910. Other regions followed in 1917.

In the Americas

Chinese immigration to the United States was almost entirely voluntary, but working and social conditions were still harsh:

In 1868, the Burlingame Treaty repealed the century old prohibition law of the Chinese government and opened a floodgate of Chinese immigration. But a mere decade later, the American economy was in a slump and Chinese laborers were hired as scabs when white workers went on strike. During these years of unemployment and depression, anti-Chinese sentiment built around the country, fueled by demagogues such as Denis Kearney of San Francisco, who would rail in front of crowds that "To an American, death is preferable to life on a par with the Chinese."[13]

Chinese immigrant workers building the Transcontinental Railroad.

Although Chinese labor contributed to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad in the United States and of the Canadian Pacific Railway in western Canada, Chinese settlement was discouraged after completion of the construction. California's Anti-Coolie Act of 1862 and the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 contributed to the oppression of Chinese laborers in the United States.

Notwithstanding such attempts to restrict the influx of cheap labor from China, beginning in the 1870s Chinese workers played an indispensable role in the construction of a vast network of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. These levees opened up thousands of acres of fertile marshlands for agricultural production.

According to the Constitution of the State of California (1879):

The presence of foreigners ineligible to become citizens of the United States is declared to be dangerous to the well-being of the State, and the Legislature shall discourage their immigration by all the means within its power. Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this State, and all contracts for coolie labor shall be void. All companies or corporations, whether formed in this country or any foreign country, for the importation of such labor, shall be subject to such penalties as the Legislature may prescribe.[14]

Newly arrived Indian coolies in Trinidad.

Indentured Chinese servants also labored in the sugarcane fields of Cuba well after the 1884 abolition of slavery in that country. Many scholars debate whether the Chinese coolies of Cuba should be called "slaves", the authoritative scholars of Chinese labor in Cuba, Juan Pastrana and Juan Perez de la Riva, substantiated the horrific conditions of Chinese coolies in Cuba and unreservedly stated that coolies were slaves in all but name. Before the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Havana had Latin America's largest Chinatown.

In South America, Chinese indentured laborers worked in Peru's silver mines and coastal industries (i.e., guano, sugar, and cotton) from the early 1850s to the mid-1870s; about 100,000 people immigrated as indentured workers. They infamously participated in the War of the Pacific, looting and burning down the haciendas where they worked, subsequent to the fall of Lima to the invading Chilean army in January 1880.

Between 1838 and 1917, at least "238,909 Indians were introduced into British Guiana, 143,939 into Trinidad, 42,326 into Guadeloupe, 37,027 into Jamaica, 34,304 into Suriname, 25,209 into Martinique, 8,472 into French Guiana, 4,354 into Saint Lucia, 3,206 into Grenada, 2,472 into Saint Vincent, 337 into Saint Kitts, 326 into Saint Croix, and 315 into Nevis. Belize also received Indians, but they did not come under the indentureship scheme, some where exiled [Sepoy] soldiers and families. In Although these were incomplete statistics, Eric Williams (see references) believed they were "sufficient to show a total introduction of nearly half a million Indians into the Caribbean" (Williams 100).

Champions of the coolies

While black slavery was abolished in 1848, coolies in Guadeloupe, the French West Indies, were brought from 1854 to 1889, but they were not to be recognised as French citizens until 1923, as a result of the 9-year court struggle of self-made Henri Sidambarom with the French Government.

Another man was to champion the cause of the coolies in Mauritius: Adolph von Plevitz, who denounced the inhuman treatments inflicted on those poorly educated labourers.

Modern use

In Media

Film

Coolie DVD cover.

In Stephen Chow's 2004 action-comedy Kung Fu Hustle, former Shaolin monk Xing Yu plays a character named Coolie, who does hard labor in a multi-floored apartment-block village called "Pig Sty Alley". However, when a petty thief (Stephen Chow) and his side-kick pose as members of the infamous "Axe Gang" and accidentally bring upon the wrath of actual members, Coolie is the first of three retired martial artists who come to the village's aid. He is a master of the 12 Kicks of the Tam School (十二路潭腿), a leg-oriented boxing style. He is later beheaded by assassins hired by the Axe Gang to kill the village's landlords.

Coolie is an 1983 Indian film about a coolie, Amitabh Bachchan, who works at a railway station and has a lover. His lover's father once murdered a girl's father in an attempt to force her to marry him, but she did not give in. After 10 years of imprisonment, he flooded her village (injuring her new husband) and causing her to wake up with amnesia. It starred Amitabh Bachchan and Waheeda Rehman.

Guiana 1838 is a 2004 docu-drama that explores the unknown world of indentureship and slavery in the British Colonies of the West Indies. It reveals the trials and tribulation of both the resilent African slaves and the unsuspecting Indians from Calcutta who were sold on the golden dreams of "El Dorado" only to find themselves on a slave ship to hard labor in an unforgiving land. [4]

The film Romper Stomper shows a white power skinhead named Hando (played by Russell Crowe) expressing distress about the idea of being a coolie in his own country. Also, the gang he runs makes frequent attacks at gangs of working class Vietnamese Australians.

Television

The phrase was used repeatedly in the 1993-1994 Fox weird west series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.–set in the 1890s–in reference to Chinese workers.

In Donnie Yen's 1994 martial arts mini-series "Hung Hei-Gun: Decisive Battle with Praying Mantis Fists" (洪熙官: 决战螳螂拳, a.k.a. "The Kung Fu Master"), a flood causes a large section of a heavily traveled bridge to collapse. A supernaturally strong coolie named Tung Chin-gun builds a make shift section and charges people to cross it while he holds it above his head. At one point, he supports the combined 1,000 lb (450 kg) weight of a merchant's retinue and live stock.

He later sets up a sign that reads "power for sale" and charges people to lift them to the top floor of a famous restaurant on a chair strapped to a long bamboo ladder. A rackish Manchu prince has two of his men ride the chair to the top, but as it nears the edge, they dig their feet into the ledge and push back with their legs, making it harder for Tung. Then the prince punches a heavy food cart at the coolie. He stops the cart with one hand and then pushes on the ladder with the other, overpowering the two men and sending them and the ladder flying into the restaurant.

When the prince challenges a fellow suitor to fight Tung over the right to marry a girl, legendary martial arts hero Hung Hei-Gun (Donnie Yen) opts to fight in the suitor's stead. (Hung later visits Tung at home and discovers he is competing in the fight in order to save up enough money to support his elderly blind mother). The battle takes place on a three-sided lei tai draped with a red cloth that reads "The Supreme Master in the world of martial arts". Despite the coolie's inhuman abilities, he lacks the Kung Fu training of which Hung is a master. Hung aims for a vital spot under Tung's arm and then unleashes a series of kicks that sends him flying from the fighting stage.

The coolie later befriends Hung and they escape to the Shaolin Monastery to hide from Qing Dynasty forces and to learn Shaolin Kung Fu.[17]

Literature

Literature and culture reflected the dereliction of the indentured, who created baitkas or village centres to learn or uphold their tales, religions, sacred texts and start a nucleus of political awareness.[citation needed] Yet the 1930s négritude movement, focusing on the plight of the Blacks, failed to chart the cultural suffering of the coolies. Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, for instance, spoke of the "Hindu man from Calcutta" in his Cahier d'un retour au pays natal,[citation needed] reflecting the perception he had of the coolie, as still exterior to the West Indian community.

Gilbert Gratiant was among the first writers of this region to give some presence to this citizen in limbo. A new awareness was expressed by Marcel Cabon, Loys Masson and Malcolm de Chazal in Mauritius.

Most recently, poet Khal Torabully's Cale d'étoiles-Coolitude (Azalées éditions, 1992) introduces the neologism, "coolitude". Torabully defines coolitude as a postcolonial and postmodern aesthetics, anchored in otherness, that goes beyond the specific condition of Asian migrant labor.

See also

References

Constructs such as ibid. and loc. cit. are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (), or an abbreviated title.

Notes

  1. ^ Most current dictionaries do not record any offensive meaning ("an unskilled laborer or porter usually in or from the Far East hired for low or subsistence wages" Merriam-Webster) or make a distinction between an offensive meaning in referring to "a person from the Indian subcontinent or of Indian descent" and an at least originally inoffensive, old-fashioned meaning, for example "dated an unskilled native labourer in India, China, and some other Asian countries" (Compact Oxford English Dictionary). However, some dictionaries indicate that the word may be considered offensive in all contexts today. For example, Longman's 1995 edition had "old-fashioned an unskilled worker who is paid very low wages, especially in parts of Asia", but the current version adds "taboo old-fashioned a very offensive word ... Do not use this word".
  2. ^ Kämpfer, Engelbert (1727). The History ofk,o Japan.
  3. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Dictionary, Arts, Sciences, and General Literature (9th, American Reprint ed.). Maxwell Sommerville (Philadelphia). 1891. pp. 296. Volume VI.
  4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
  5. ^ Ask oxford
  6. ^ Oxford English Dictionary 2008.
  7. ^ Specifically, Trinidad Sentinel 6 August 1857. Also, Original Correspondence of the British Colonial Office in London (C.O. 884/4, Hamilton Report into the Carnival Riots, p. 18).
  8. ^ McClellan, Robert. "Heathen Chinee: A Study of American Attitudes Toward China, 1890–1905". Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 1971. pp. 272
  9. ^ a b [1] Los Angeles Times April 19, 2002.
  10. ^ [2] Journal of Asian American Studies 2004
  11. ^ Ibid.
  12. ^ a b c Macao, Illustrations of China and Its People, John Thomson 1837-1921, (London,1873-1874)
  13. ^ University of Arkansas
  14. ^ [3] The Chinese in California, 1850-1879
  15. ^ Humanitarian Movement Against Child Oppression & Others Living in Exploitation
  16. ^ Straattaal Straatwoordenboek: Definitie
  17. ^ The Kung Fu Master movie review

Further reading

External links

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