Black and Asian histories are a vital part of England’s story. Yet in our books, at our historic sites and in our records they're not well represented.
Yellow Earth Theatre Explores Forgotten Stories of the British Chinese
By Kumiko Mendl, Artistic Director, Yellow Earth Theatre
I am one of the five founder members of the British East Asian (BEA) theatre company, Yellow Earth. We were five actors who came together fed up with the paucity of roles available to us and keen to make our own work to change that.
Exploring forgotten and unheard stories and voices
Over the 22 years the company has undergone many changes. I am now the Artistic Director and as a theatre company our business is always to deal in stories. That has led me to explore and unearth the overlooked, forgotten and unheard stories and voices of the British Chinese and East Asian communities.
British Chinese sailor James Robson
In 2011 we won a commission to create a new character interpreter for the Traders Gallery at the National Maritime Museum. His name was James Robson a British Chinese Sailor. He was found as a baby floating in the South China Seas. Rescued by a Captain and his wife and brought up in Poplar East London, he was the longest serving crew member alongside Captain Woodget on the Cutty Sark serving for 10 years between 1885 and 1895.
Chinatown in Limehouse and Poplar
Whilst researching James Robson I became increasingly fascinated with the area around Limehouse and Poplar that was once the site of a small but significant 'Chinatown' with restaurants, Sunday schools and grocery shops.
It began when Chinese sailors arriving at the London docks in the 1800's as part of the new trade between China, East Asia and Britain, were left waiting to work their passage back. There they met the local women who clearly showed a preference to the Chinese men over the local men and quite a number ended up staying, marrying and having families.
Today there is little to suggest such an area ever existed save for a few street names such as 'Amoy Place', 'Ming Street' and 'Canton Street' and a dragon sculpture, easily missed.
Inspiration and fear
Slum clearances in the 1930s and the Blitz pretty much destroyed everything, but not before the place had caught the imagination of writers such as Sax Rohmer who spawned the popular evil genius Fu Manchu.
At the time Rohmer wrote, there was a lot of racism, fear and mistrust of the Chinese in the media fuelled by the idea of the 'Yellow Peril'. Limehouse represented to the British public all that was alien, sordid and fearful about the Chinese with its dark alleys and smoke filled opium dens.
A new play: 'The Last Days of Limehouse'
We wanted to debunk those myths and present the real lives of those that had once lived there so we commissioned a new play, 'The Last Days of Limehouse' by Jeremy Tiang.
If you want to find out more, here is a great resource I worked on. Explore the key locations of the old Chinatown in Limehouse Chinatown Rediscovered and you can take an audio tour of the area voiced by characters from our play.
‘Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kowk’ opened in Manchester on 22 March 2018.
In Autumn 2018 the Yellow Earth Theatre and Moongate Productions commemorate the end of World War 1 with a new play, ‘Forgotten 遗忘’ by Daniel York Loh at Plymouth Theatre Royal (17-20 October) and Arcola Theatre London (23 October - 17 November). ‘Forgotten 遗忘’ is inspired by the little-known story of the 140,000 Chinese Labour Corps who left their homes and families to travel half way around the world to work for Britain and the Allies behind the front lines during World War One.
