i Femmes si frêles et pourtant si fortes du silence de leur devoir. Elles ont quitté Meixian, la ville de leur enfance, comme en s'excusant. Elles ont foulé une île bavarde, étourdie de bruit et de chaleur, souriant des moqueries faites à leur manière de marcher, de manger, de parler. […] Elles ont presque toutes vécu, à l'ombre de leur époux, brodant une vie faite de sacrifices, d'humilité, de révoltes et de larmes étouffées. Pour leurs enfants. Sans rien dire, sans rien reprocher.

Paula Lew-Fai iii

INTRODUCTION

I came up with the idea of doing a study on the contribution of Hakka women in the social integration of Chinese immigrants into Mauritian society when I was listening to the life story of my eighty-five-year-old mother of Hakka ethnicity. After listening to her story of hardship, courage, struggle and perseverance, I keep asking myself how my mother as well as all the Chinese women at that time, were able to survive in a country which was completely foreign to their culture and language. These women never spoke of their past, of their trials and tribulations. Their own personal stories of their life-long struggle for a better life have remained silent. These women never thought that one day they would be leaving their home country. They took the ultimate risk of boarding a ship with their husbands or sometimes alone to join their husbands to an uncertain destination.

Chinese immigrant women have generally been under-represented in many historical records and little is known about them. The first two waves of Chinese immigration to Mauritius were predominantly male in the first half of the nineteenth century and many Chinese were forced to leave their wives and children behind (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 261). It was only at the beginning of the 20 th century with the lifting of the imperial decree forbidding women from leaving China and the proclamation of the new emigration laws in 1860, that many Chinese wives, most of whom were of Hakka origin began to brave the arduous voyage across the Indian Ocean to join their husbands who had already settled as small-scale shopkeepers in the rural and urban regions of Mauritius (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 262). Courageous and resilient, these pioneering women blazed a trail for those who followed. The arrival of these women played a crucial role in the shaping of the social and economic setting of the island. Most studies on Chinese immigrants have focused mainly on Chinese men's involvement in and contribution to the economic development of the host country.

By the end of 1960s and early 1970s, the new women historians became aware of the absence of women from academic histories. On this issue, Matthews (147) notes that "Women have been absent from history -that absence matters -therefore women must be restored to history". Yau noted the invisibility of Hakka women in written sources in the patriarchal society until the early nineteenth century (166). The construction of Hakka women's images became visible in Chinese writings in the early nineteenth century and in English publications in the mid-nineteenth century. However, these characteristics were historically constructed, stereotyped and exploited for different purposes by various agents along with the Hakka elites, Western missionaries, museum administrators and heritage preservationists (Yau 165). It was not until the 1990s that historians like Nicole Constable and Hung Hsin-Lan, considered Hakka women's own views on their lives worthy of scholarly attention (Yau 167). The patriarchal social system during the nineteenth century deemphasized the role of women and the majority of women were not literate enough to record their own stories. Few women have been encouraged to articulate their own experiences and views through writing, at least until recently.

Recent years have witnessed a few novels written by Chinese Mauritian women themselves, for example, Mémoires espiègles by Salette Siao, The Coral Heart: A shopkeeper's journey by Peggy Lam Po Tang, and a collection of semiautobiographical short stories Dancing on a Wave: Reveries of a Shopkeeper's Daughter on Tiny Island by Joyce and Marie Lyne Ng Cheong Tin-Leung. A biography "Madame Laurent. De l'autre côté du comptoir" was recently published by Serge Ng Tat Chung on September 2019 which gives a life testimony of Cécile Tsin Ah Vi, the wife of a shopkeeper who found herself raising three very young children and running the business alone after her husband passed away. Despite all the ups and downs and adversities in her life, she remained strong and brave, without ever giving up her fight for her children's education and future and at the same time keeping the family's business running as many of her customers depended strongly on the credit system facilities to survive. Other testimonies of family members from a Hakka family can be found in 'The Lim Fat family book:

The Journey Beyond' (The Story of Lim Fat Voon and His Children) and they provide a valuable insight into the lives of Hakka women. The pioneering analysis of James Ng Foong Kwong on Les hakkas à l'île Maurice and Marina Carter's and James Ng Foong Kwong's Abacaus and Mah Jong: Sino-Mauritian Settlement and Economic Consolidation make valuable contribution with regard to the history of the Chinese community and the settlement and remarkable progress and success of Chinese immigrants in retail trade in Mauritius.

However, these studies were mainly focused on men's involvement and contributions to the economic development of Mauritius.

Although much work on the Chinese community has been done, few writers have addressed the issues that have shaped Chinese women's lives and affected their daily experiences completely from the women's perspective. The majority of historical studies in the field of immigration in Mauritius have focused largely on Chinese male immigrants, Indian immigrants, African and Indian women, slavery and indentured labourers, while the lives of Chinese women which are the primary interests of this research, have remained understudied.

According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, the essential role played by these Chinese women in the remarkable progress of Chinese dominance in retail trade in Mauritius should never be overlooked (175). The lives and hard work of these Chinese women immigrants have been absent in written Mauritian history despite the fact that they have been in Mauritius since the early 20 th century. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to fill that gap by drawing attention to these silenced women who have remained an invisible entity, and to understand their resilience, hard work, and patience in the host country. Who were these Hakka women? If they could speak for themselves, what would they say about their lives? This study set out to explore how these Hakka women participate in the family's economic activities which was vital and indispensable for the survival of their families. The use of oral history methodology in this research presents an opportunity for these Hakka women to describe their own life stories in Mauritius during the 1930-70s and to shed light on their living conditions in the process of participation in social life, and discover the important contributions of these Hakka women to the Mauritian society in different life stages. This paper is composed of three themed chapters and the first two chapters present four key topics and the last chapter presents five key topics.

The first chapter is concerned with the historical context of the different stages of Chinese settlement in Mauritius, the arrival of the Hakkas, the arrival of Chinese women in Mauritius and who the Hakka women are. The second chapter examines the economic and social integration of Chinese immigrants. The abolition of slavery in Mauritius in 1835 created favourable conditions for the rapid integration of free Chinese immigrants who, through the establishment of their small-scale shops commonly known as "Laboutik Sinoi" (the Creole term for Chinese shop) over the island to cater for the needs of the local community and of Indian indentured labourers, played an essential role in the process of transformation of the Mauritian society (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 59). The following topic of this chapter moves on to the adaptation and perseverance of Chinese immigrants to describe how the Chinese families struggled hard and managed to make ends meet at the end of the day. The next two topics present the solidarity which existed within the Chinese community and then examines the intermarriage with Creole and Indian women who played an important role in helping their Chinese husbands to integrate into Mauritian society before the arrival of Chinese women. The first section of the last chapter draws on existing literature about Chinese women's positions in the family in China's patriarchal culture in order to understand how Chinese women immigrants were still greatly influenced by traditional Chinese ideas in relation to their status and role in the family. The last three sections of this last chapter present a thematic narrative analysis of the life stories shared by the Hakka women in this study. It uncovers the unheard voices of Hakka women and their silenced contributions, their resilience and hard work, their changing role in the family, their responsibilities as daughters, wives, daughters-in-law and mothers, their participation in the family's economic activities for the survival of their families, their conversion to Catholicism in order to get access to education for a better future, the transmission of the Chinese values, beliefs, traditions and cultures, their devotion to their families and to others, and their generosity.

METHODOLOGY

In order to restore the visibility of these Hakka women in Mauritian and Chinese historiography, this study uses a qualitative case study approach by collecting life histories through in-depth interviews to make the voices of ordinary Hakka women heard because sources of Chinese women's writings or documentation on these Chinese women's lives from that period are limited.

Between April 2020 and May 2022, I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 6 Hakka women of the first-generation of Sino-Mauritians and 3

Hakka daughters and 1 son of the second-generation of Sino-Mauritians.

Participants' year of birth ranged from 1935 to 1969 and their ages at the time of interviews ranged between 53 and 85 years of age. Qualitative data regarding the older-generation women was collected in the form of the first-and secondgeneration of Sino-Mauritian participants recalling the stories of their mothers or grandmothers during the 1930-70s. Interviewing the older-generation women was not possible because many of them have passed away. There are also some respondents who are too old to converse and were affected by dementia. It is acknowledged that the recollections of the experiences of the older generation (mothers and grandmothers) are recalled from the daughters' or son's perspectives (they are not first-hand accounts) and with the passing of time, in some cases of recollections when events took place more than thirty years ago, the interviewees may have trouble remembering the exact details of their experience. The aim of this research is to enable the respondents to recall and voice their experiences.

Finding interviewees, carrying out fieldwork research and conducting faceto-face interviews were difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, my initial plan to travel to Mauritius to do fieldwork research and to conduct face-toface interviews had to be cancelled because of the lockdowns, social distancing and travel restrictions that were put in place. The use of virtual communication tools for qualitative interviews as encouraged by Sah et al., was a good alternative method for me and the accessibility of voice/video calls through WhatsApp has enabled me to connect to my interviewees. It was also a safe way to safeguard and support both the researcher and participants from COVID-19.

A snowball sampling technique was used from my friends and relatives to suggest possible contacts and I managed to conduct all interviews through video calls on WhatsApp. Some participants also declined my request because they did not wish to unfold their lives. Each interview lasted about one and a half hour to two hours. The interviews were mostly conducted in Mauritian Creole, French, with some Hakka dialect and one in English. The interviews were then transcribed and translated into English. At the beginning of each interview, interviewees were requested the permission to record their testimonies on a smartphone and that they have the right to refuse to answer any question or questions which might make them uncomfortable, and they can refuse the interview or withdraw from the research at any time. They were also informed that all information which they chose to share would be used solely for completing the academic research of this study and would be treated as strictly confidential. All the interviewees gave their verbal consents and they were assured of anonymity, so the names of the individuals interviewed are not reported herein, they are identified by letters in alphabetical order of appearance in the text, e.g. A.B, A.C., A.D., etc. An interview guide was prepared and it was only meant to keep me on track and to ensure that I cover all the relevant topics needed to answer my research questions. The interviews were also open-ended and flexible. The themes were prepared according to their life experiences in their different life stages including their childhood, youth, schooling, adulthood, and working experiences. Chinese migrants arrived from Southern China, initially as indentured labourers 1 and later as free merchants and traders (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 5). Historians identify three waves of Chinese immigration to Mauritius based on several documents related to the immigrants' place of birth, biographical data and acquired property during their settlement in Mauritius (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 20). The first two waves of Chinese settlement in Mauritius were male 1 Following the abolition of slavery in 1835, indentured labourers were recruited to replace the slaves as a source of cheap labour to work in the sugar cane plantations. They were bound by contract to work for a period of five years or more, with low wages, and to pay off their travel and subsistence expenses over the contract term, after which they would be freed. dominated with the arrival of the Fukienese as traders and artisans from the Fujian province, followed by the Cantonese migrants from the Guangdong province in the first half of the 19 th century. As from 1860, the third wave of Chinese immigration was the arrival of the Hakka immigrants from Meixian (Siew et al. 33). This period coincided with the arrival of the first few Hakka women who braved the strenuous sea voyage to join their husbands who already established as small-scale shopkeepers in the rural and urbans regions of the island (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 142). Hakka women did not follow the general Chinese practice of foot-binding because of their robust outdoor life by working side by side with men in the fields. They are known to be resilient and hardworking.

-CHINESE IMMIGRATION TO MAURITIUS

-CHINESE DIASPORA IN MAURITIUS

Walton Look Lai in his article entitled "Chinese Diasporas: An Overview" defines the term overseas Chinese as "anyone of Chinese descent who personally or whose ancestors migrated from China to a foreign country within or beyond Asia, and who now considers himself/herself a citizen or permanent resident of the host country" (1). The existence of Chinese immigration in Mauritius dates back to the last decades of the 18 th century during which Mauritian merchants started to develop their trade in China (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 67). In 1783, Charles de Constant, a trade agent based in Canton sent a group of 132 men from Canton including 19 craftsmen as shoemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters and in the previous year some agriculturists and sugar manufacturers onboard a vessel chartered by M. Darifat, a trader in Mauritius. However, the arrival of Chinese free immigrants really took shape in 1826 when the British Governor Farquhar, a great supporter of Chinese immigration into British colonies paved the way for the integration of Chinese immigrants in the social structure of the island (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 67-68). This will be further developed in the section of 'Free immigration'.

According to Carter and Ng Foong Kwong, the Malay or Chinese seafarers were probably the first people to have visited Mauritius while criss-crossing the Indian Ocean during their naval expeditions to eastern Africa in the fifteenth century before the arrival of the Europeans on the island (4). Chinese immigration in Mauritius began towards the end of the 18 th century and became a constant flow which progressively gained momentum after 1835 when slavery had been abolished throughout the British colonies and colonists needed indentured labourers from China and India to replace African slaves (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 59). According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, five attempts were made to import Chinese agricultural labourers to Mauritius between 1760 and 1920, to replace the slaves to work on sugar cane plantations (150).

Forced labour (1760)

The first attempt in the use of Chinese agricultural labourers was by means of forced settlement of a group of Chinese merchants. In 1760, the Count D'Estaing, a French admiral, captured three hundred Chinese with their wives and children from the Sumatran port of Benkulen and forcibly brought them to Mauritius. D'Estaing thought that they would be of great benefit to the island because they were known for their thriftiness and industriousness. However, given the traumatizing loss of their families suffered during the journey across the sea, the Chinese refused to work. Moreover, they were forced to cultivate the land when they were "not labourers, but merchants" . In addition, they were not allowed to practice their religion and to develop their culture and this made them feel that they were aliens in a foreign country (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 70). Consequently, this prompted them to persistently ask for repatriation to Benkulen, which was finally granted in the following year (Pan 28 ;.

Indentured labour (1829)

At the beginning of the 19 th century, the abolition of slavery in British colonies hastened the search for new sources of labour from India and China which were then needed for the development of the sugar industry. The Mascarenes islands were the first to set up the contract labour system to replace the slave institution. The number of Chinese migrants to Mauritius was relatively small in the eighteenth and nineteenth century compared to the migrations from India. At that time, the recruitment of contract labourers by foreign agents in China was illegal due to the imperial decree of 1799 which forbade Chinese subjects from leaving their homeland (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 2). Moreover, emigration from China was a crime sanctioned by the death penalty, and the first migrants had to cautiously conceal their place of origin and the circumstances in which they had left their country (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 59). It was therefore from the European territories of Macao island (administered by the Portuguese), Hong Kong, Singapore or Penang and even Calcutta, that most Chinese contract labourers boarded ships to Mauritius to bypass the law banning emigration .

Another attempt at the employment of Chinese agricultural labourers was not directly from China, but from Penang and Singapore in 1829 under British rule when the time for the liberation of the slaves was imminent. At that time, the first British Governor of Mauritius, Robert Townsend Farquhar, who had gained a profound knowledge about Chinese immigrants in Penang, while working in Singapore, approved the project. It was thought that the Chinese labourers would benefit the Mauritian sugar industry as they were reputed to be skilled sugar planters. However, the Chinese migrants were subjected to the same ill-treatment and bad working conditions of slavery, since the main purpose of the plantation owners was to make profits at any cost. Consequently, the Chinese labourers protested and deserted the fields and the Government was forced to repatriate them. . Between 1840 and 1843, several thousand Chinese agricultural labourers arrived from Penang and Singapore. However, they were unwilling to renew their contract at the end of their first indenture period and this led Mauritian planters to ask the Indian Government to cancel the laws banning the emigration of Indian labourers to Mauritius. In 1842, an agreement was signed between Governor Lionel Smith and the Indian authorities to authorize the resumption of Indian indentured labour migration on condition that each batch of 100 Indian contract labourers would include 10% women. The immigration of Indian contract labourers continued until 1910 with the introduction of 346,145 Indian men and 105,896 Indian women into the island (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 240) . This explains why the number of Chinese indentured labourers was relatively small compared to those from India. However, the introduction of this mass influx of Indian indentured labour resulted in a remarkable expansion of sugar plantation and brought favourable conditions for the arrival of free Chinese traders and artisans.

The last two renewed attempts at recruiting Chinese agricultural workers also met with the same failure as the previous ones. They took place in 1857 when the Indian Government prohibited Indian immigration following reports of poor treatment and in 1920 with the collaboration of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce when indentured immigration from India discontinued . According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, the failure of all these attempts at using Chinese indentured labourers could be attributed to the fact that in addition to the harsh living and working conditions the Chinese contract labourers had to endure, they could not have any possibilities of family life as recruiting agents were unable to persuade Chinese women to accompany the migrants at that time (240). However, Carter and Ng Foong Kwong observe that this failed attempt seemed to be connected on one hand to their urban and artisanal background, and on the other hand to their integration into the current Chinese population on the island (13). Hence, unlike the African and Indian labourers, the Chinese's contribution to the expansion of the sugar industry was relatively small but they contributed to the agricultural sector with the cultivation of fresh vegetables (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 164).

Free immigration (1826)

Although all these attempts to recruit Chinese indentured labourers for the sugar industry failed, the voluntary arrival of Fujianese, Cantonese and Hakka traders and artisans would prove successful and prosperous for the colony. It was the British Governor Farquhar who introduced the first group of free Chinese from the province of Fujian into Mauritius. He was helped by a wealthy Fukienese merchant, Hahime or Hayme Choisanne (European transcription of his Chinese name or Liog Choi Sin in Fukienese dialect or Log Choisanne in Cantonese dialect) who had been living in the island since 1816. Hahime was appointed by Farquhar as the first 'Kapitan' or leader of the Chinese and was authorized to introduce his compatriots into Mauritius at his own expense. As a result, he came back in 1826, onboard the ship Belle Alliance with five compatriots, namely Whangoo, Hankee, Nghien, Hakkhim and Ahim 2 who were to become his associates and collaborators for the setting up of the foundations of Chinese commerce in Mauritius. As Hahime was highly respected by the British authorities, he became the spokesman and official guarantor of many Chinese immigrants until his return to China in 1872 .

From 1840 onwards the main immigrants in Mauritius were the Cantonese, also called "Nam-shun" who originally migrated from the districts of Nam Hoi and Shuntack, in the Guangdong province (formerly spelled "Kwangtung" province whose capital is Canton) of Southern China (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 95).

It was after the Treaty of Nanking3 in 1842 that Chinese contract labourers, merchants and artisans had begun to board ships from Canton to British colonies . The Cantonese have their own language and customs and they were welcomed by the Fukienese. They opened their shops next to those of the Fukienese on the Royal Road, in Chinatown. They implanted new types of business in the northern section of Chinatown such as restaurants, spice shops, pharmacies, antique shop and were specialized in Chinese goods .

The frequency of sea communication between Mauritius and India after 1850 and the regular steamer services between the ports of Canton, Amoy, Swatow and Port Louis via Hong Kong and Singapore established by maritime companies at the end of the 19 th century largely facilitated Chinese immigration to Mauritius (Siew et al. 14). Chinese immigrants easily obtained a passage on ships transporting Indian indentured labourers from Calcutta to Mauritius. This had created great opportunities for the Chinese immigrants in the setting up of a wide retail trade network near the large sugar estates in the rural and urban regions of the island in order to meet the needs of the indentured Indian labourers (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 22).

Most of the Chinese arrived as free immigrants although every immigrant had to have a guarantor and had to pay a caution of 1,500 dollars as imposed by the proclamation of the British Governor Farquhar on 17 th December 1817 and that bail remained in force until 1877 85).

-THE ARRIVAL OF THE HAKKAS IN MAURITIUS (1860)

The Hakka immigrants in Mauritius came mainly from Meixian or Mei-hsein (Moiyean in Hakka), a mountainous uncultivated district in the North East of Guangdong and belonged to the Hakka ethnic group whose name literally means "guest people" or "strangers" (Constable 3) Constable, from the seventeenth century until the nineteenth centuries, the Hakka people who were mostly from Guangdong agricultural communities, emigrated to Taiwan, Malaya, Southeast Asia, Africa, Oceania, Europe, the Caribbean, and North and South America for economic and political reasons.

Many of them worked as manual laborers in the colonies of Western powers, built railways, worked in mines or plantations, as farmers or established businesses (4-5).

Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat note that the Hakkas are known for their physical strength, self-reliance, hard work, self-motivation, and frugality, and they have the ability to fight economic pressure with patience and resilience (126-127).

The first groups of Hakka immigrants arrived in Mauritius in 1860 in order to escape famine, poverty and political repression following the Hakka-led Taiping Rebellion between 1841 and 1865 . Their arrival was also in the wake of the Treaty of Peking in 1860, which was imposed by the British and the French, and thus gave freedom to Chinese citizens to sign labour contracts with foreigners, and to emigrate with their families (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 39). Consequently, the European contractors became recruiters of Chinese labourers for the development of colonial territories (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 22). In addition to labourers, the Western Indian Ocean attracted considerable numbers of free merchants and traders (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 51).

According to Carter and Ng Foong Kwong, the first group of Hakkas arrived in Mauritius on 27 July 1860, onboard the vessel Ville de Paris from Singapore and they were Chan Heyou, Tan Chow, Chan See, Ong Hassan, Le Bow, Chan Buck and Chi Ton, all aged between 31 and 40. 7 The Hakkas were to give a new dimension to Chinatown with their own dialect, the Hakka language, their own cuisine, and they diversified their commerce by importing European products and adopted the European way of doing business (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 127). In 1877, the British liberalised immigration and the Chinese community continued to grow (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 85). By the end of the nineteenth century, the Hakkas rapidly outnumbered Fukienese and Cantonese to become the dominant Chinese community in Mauritius . The outgrowing number of the Hakka groups led tensions with the Cantonese and many Cantonese re-settled in the neighbouring islands of Reunion and Madagascar. This rivalry was due to the historical conflicts which already existed between the two communities in mainland China (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 107). Today, the Sino-Mauritian population constitutes about ninety percent of Hakkas and the rest represents the Cantonese and Fukienese of the Chinese community (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 126).

-THE ARRIVAL OF CHINESE WOMEN IN MAURITIUS

The presence of two Chinese female slaves namely Pauline and Gratia is recorded in the Mauritius National Archives, as declared in the will of a French sea captain, Louis Vigoureux on 22 December 1745 (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 22,25). The latter wished to make sure that these two women would finally be freed after his death, in return for their many years of loyal service, especially for having taken care of his property during his long sea voyages (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 25). As a result of the enfranchisements like those granted to Pauline and Gratia, a free Chinese community came into existence with the right to become themselves slave owners. For instance, Gratia Vigoureux was recorded in the 1776 census as a 40 years old seamstress and owner of 3 slaves, living in Port Louis. Moreover, in May 1777, Marie, daughter of a Mozambican slave was recorded as being baptized and being the property of Gratia as a free Chinese woman (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 25).

It is uncertain when the first Chinese women immigrants were introduced to Mauritius from China. According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, the arrival of the first Chinese woman from China is recorded in the Port registers of 1860, in the name of Bway (174). She was 22 years old and came from Amoy. It is further indicated that she must have left China clandestinely, being disguised as a man and posing as a trader among the other 40 men being part of the same voyage (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 174; Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 143).

However, Carter and Ng Foong Kwong found an article dated January 1858 in Harpers Weekly, which reports "a beautiful Chinese girl seen in Mauritius who had been brought there by her elderly husband" "from one of the northern provinces". 8 Prior to the new emigration laws in 1860, Chinese citizens were not allowed to emigrate and no woman took the risk of by-passing the law and of bearing the consequences of the heavy penalty (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 142). It was only after the lifting of the imperial decree and after the proclamation of the 1860 emigration decree which enabled Chinese women to emigrate and allowed migrants to take their families with them, that the first few Hakka Chinese women arrived in Mauritius (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 142-143).

Nevertheless, the number of Chinese women on the island remained relatively small until the first quarter of the 20 th century as shown in Table 1.

During this period, Chinese immigrants to Mauritius were mostly male and there was a disproportionate number of men and women. The presence of two Chinese women was registered in the 1861 census and a third one in 1871. Until 1891, only 9 women had immigrated from China and it was only 10 years later that the 1901 census recorded an increase in the number of arrivals of Hakka women with a significant number of 58 women. From then on, the immigration of women displayed a steady upward trend. The majority of the immigrants were wives who came to join their husbands who had already set up small-scale shops in the island. Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat note that Chinese dominance in retail trade coincided with the considerable increase of China born women in Mauritius during the period 1911 to 1921 when their number rose from 355 to 1,512 and to 2,580 in 1931 (175). The number of Chinese women continued to rise progressively and significantly in the 1940s and 1950s. The number of women in the 1960s and 1970s evened out the sex ratio in the community and reached a notable number of 11235 women in 1972 (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 114). As a result, the significant inflows of Chinese women contributed greatly to family formation, to the commercial success of their families and to the evolution of settled Chinese communities.

Table 1: The Chinese Population in Mauritius, 1861-1972Source: Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo, Huguette. Chinese Diaspora in Western Indian Ocean. Éd. de l'Océan Indien Chinese Catholic Mission, 1985, pp 114. 1901 1911 1921 1931 1944 1952 1962 1972 The Chinese Population in Mauritius, 1861-1972

Men Women

-WHO ARE THE HAKKA WOMEN?

A Hakka historian Hsieh T'ing-yu describes the character traits and qualities of the Hakka and especially the Hakka women as follows:

…Fundamentally the Hakka is a farmer, forced by poverty to struggle with the unproductive soil. …They usually occupy the hilly and less fertile districts, while the Punti remain in possession of the fertile deltas and plains. …The sexes are not so strictly separated in domestic life as in the case with some of the other Chinese. The women folk are strong and energetic, and have never adopted foot-binding as a custom.9

It has also been observed by Westerners during a trip in the Hakka areas of China in the nineteenth century that gender segregation did not exist in agricultural work as Hakka women were seen working laboriously in the fields and doing work which was usually assigned to men by the non-Hakka (Constable 25). This explained on one hand, why unlike other Chinese women, Hakka women were less likely to have their feet bound and on the other hand, they also had to meet to the huge demand for agricultural labour particularly in the regions where they lived and which was highly affected by poverty. Even women who were married into richer families, continued to contribute to the agricultural labour outside their homes (Constable 25). Similarly, Sabrina Ardizzoni observes that in spite of the fact that Hakka women did not have to follow the custom of footbinding, they still had to adhere to the customs of their major occupations, that is, "[t]hey mind the field and the soil, the pot and the hearth, the needle, the home and education." 10 Wolf and Ying-Chang point out that all women worked but the difference between the Hakka women and the women of other groups lies in the fact that "Hakka women worked outside the home; they worked in the fields alongside men", they took part in productive labour .

Mary S. Erbaugh in his article entitled 'The Secret History of the Hakkas:

The Chinese Revolution as a Hakka Enterprise', gives a description of the characteristics of Hakka women in a paragraph, as being strong women who used their physical endurance and self-determination to adapt to their way of life (950). She further adds that these women also customarily saved an important amount of money from their dowries, looked after their children, and worked outside the home to earn a living. She cites the example that even nowadays

Hakka women are seen in Hong Kong working in markets and on construction sites. Poverty was usually the driving force of Hakka males to look for work overseas, the women were therefore left behind to cultivate the home fields and to manage the money. In accordance with Hakka tradition, monogamy was exhorted whereas daughter-selling, concubinage and prostitution were discouraged (Erbaugh 950).

As reported by Stockard11 , Hakka women were known for their independence, industriousness and their economic contributions to their households were significant. For instance, Ellen Oxfeld noted that there is a broad recognition of the typical characteristic of Hakka women in Calcutta for their hard work and important economic contribution to the tanning industry (Constable 26). It was also observed by Sharon Carstens, that Malaysia Hakka women were actively involved in extra-household production such as tin mining and rubber tapping (Constable 27). She further added that Hakka women in Pulai continued to be actively involved agricultural work and are considered as having "strong backs" and "strong wills".

Sabrina Ardizonni refers to the definition of Hakka women given by Luo Xianglin12 in chapter 7 of his writings on "Hakka Nature", Kejiade texing, as "hardworking and resistant to hardship", "extremely independent and selfsufficient", and well-renowned for their major contribution to family life and to the country (42). Likewise, Luo Xianglin cited an article taken from "Notable Hakka

Women from Guangdong" published by Xin Geng in the biennial journal Funü gongmin 13 which describes the status of Hakka women in the family and society, "their economic and production roles, their relationships with their husbands and their attitudes towards life" (Ardizzoni 43). According to his findings, it was customary for men to emigrate to seek their fortunes, and leave behind their wives in the village to look after the household, the elderly, the children and the fields (Ardizzoni 34).

When men emigrate and do not return for more than ten years, as is very often the case, they [the women] manage easily. It they have fields to farm, they farm them; if they do not, they will rent a few mu of land, as much as necessary to feed the family all year round.14

During the men's absence, the women therefore became the actual head of the family in their traditional rammed-earth tulou 15 by taking care of all the family members, handling the work in the fields and construction work to the terracing of the hill slopes, building roads, and managing the family finances (Ardizzoni 43).

When women have to farm, they farm. When there is no farming, in the day they take goods to the market, or do some tailoring jobs for third parties, whereas in the evening they weave at the loom… Thus, not only are they able to provide for the family's basic support, but manage to make what is needed for their sons and daughter's education. The Hakka woman is the mainstay of the family. 16 Moreover, Ardizzoni suggests that Luo Xianglin's description on the importance of the role of Hakka women in society is particularly noteworthy ( 43):

She has also an important role in society. She shares in the costs incurred for annual feast-days, fertilizer, and buying farm appliances, and partakes in the economy by making money circulate and depositing her savings. She is fully competent about everything that regards traditional farming practices, in which she is quite knowledgeable and experienced, and this allows the Hakka woman to expand economic activity and attain a higher social status. 17

Furthermore, Luo Xianglin points out that Hakka women: "[…] are frugal in dress and meals, save food and money for their family and for when their husband returns home". 18 He also accentuates the indefatigable and strong female paradigm of Hakka women:

The Hakka woman is very proficient in her work, she wakes at day-break, goes to bed late at night. In the daytime she doesn't shirk from any chore… Even when she is advanced in years she keeps up her commitment to household affairs and farming, she takes an interest in every family member, is a good example, is never idle, just like when she was young and strong. 19 All these features of the Hakka women are found in the daily lives of the Hakka women in Mauritius and they will be depicted in Chapter 3, Sections 2-5. 19 Ibid.

-ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF CHINESE

IMMIGRANTS

-DEVELOPMENT OF 'LABOUTIK SINOI'

The introduction of Indian indentured labour for the development of the sugar industry after 1842 enabled the most recent group of Chinese immigrants, the Hakkas, to set up their small-scale shops known as 'Laboutik sinoi' (the creole term for Chinese shop) in a new market place, that is, in the rural regions of the island to provide essential goods and services to the agricultural labourers nearby the sugar estates and the developing inland villages, and to the fishermen living in coastal regions . As the purchasing power of his customers was small, the Chinese shopkeeper had to adjust his sale according to the amount of money available to his customers. Many articles could be bought for the value of one cent to five cents because the shopkeeper went through a long and arduous process and lots of patience to fraction most goods in tiny quantities in order to enable his customers to buy goods affordable to their purchasing power (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 77; Teelock 318). For instance, bread was halved, cigarettes were sold one by one instead of the whole tin, salted fish and Kraft cheese were cut in slices (Teelock 318;Siew et al. 72). Consequently, this process expanded the shopkeeper's variety of customers and also increased his profit margins (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 77). The credit sales practice entailed certain risk as it was unfortunately common that the clients found themselves penniless or furtively left the area, the range of profit therefore helped to cover the costs (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 79).

Laboutik sinoi was also an important social meeting place in the village where the men came to drink rum or relax after work in the late afternoon. The shopkeeper behind his counter sometimes offered a sympathetic ear to his customers' daily difficulties, joined in their discussions and even gave advice to some of his clients by helping them financially in their artisanal enterprises and by selling their products . In the 1960s, Laboutik sinoi, being the first place to be equipped with a television, a telephone or even a car was also a provider of television entertainment programmes, of transport, and of financial assistance for its loyal customers especially during difficult times like death, sickness or unemployment (Siew et al. 75).

-ADAPTATION AND PERSEVERANCE

Life was not easy for new Chinese village shopkeepers and their Chinese wives but they gradually adjusted to their new environment while preserving their own identity, language, traditions, habits and culture as encouraged by the British Governor Farquhar (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 68-69). To overcome the language barrier, they both had to learn the local language, that is the Creole in order to be able to converse with their customers and even learnt the Bhojpuri dialect spoken by the Indian labourers (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 184).

As described by Carter and Ng Foong Kwong, the work of a shopkeeper

was not an easy one and the image of the Chinese shopkeeper incessantly behind his counter was not overstated (92). This is illustrated by an account of the daily life of a Chinese village shopkeeper which started early morning in the morning at 5 a.m. to receive the delivery of bread as follows:

Work was hard, very hard. One rose at dawn, and did not go to sleep until after 10 pm. The labourer wanted to purchase goods before going off to work had to be satisfied. After closing the shop at 7 pm, the shopkeeper would tidy up before taking a light meal and preparing for bed. If, for example, a customer had run out of matches, the door would have to be opened to supply his wants … […] The job was 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and it was rare for a 'commis' to offer himself any kind of luxury, such as going down to Port Louis. 20 This depicts the long working days of the shopkeeper which often went beyond the closing hours where he had to serve and meet the urgent needs of his clients through a small window protected by a screen or bars (Siew et al. 75).

Before the arrival of his wife, the shopkeeper worked many years to save the money needed to start a family. He would usually start working at the bottom of the ladder as a 'commis' (clerk) or shop assistant before being promoted to 'chef- commis' (head clerk) or right-hand man of the owner and lastly becoming his own boss (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 68;. The clerk's tasks consisted in undertaking the domestic chores, preparing and serving the meals to the other employees, dividing the goods into small packets, preparing the cornets (paper cones) and cleaning the counter and the scales (Siew et al. 66).

The head clerk's duty was to order goods, hire and pay the employees, follow up client credit records, and handle the administrative formalities such as shop license renewal and rent payment. During the owner's absence, he would also be expected to run the shop alone (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 68). Whereas the boss made decisions regarding discipline issues and was active in dealing with wholesalers (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 69). The Chinese wife would take on the job of the shop assistant and right-hand woman by working side by side with her husband and this will be illustrated in Section 3.1.

The free Chinese had better work opportunities than the Indians who were bonded by the long-term contracts under the indenture system. However, unlike the Africans and the Indians who were considered as British citizens and had access to land ownership at the end of their contract, the Chinese were viewed as aliens and not British subjects and by the virtue of the law of 1842, they were not allowed to buy or inherit land (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 82). This law which remained in place until 1970, upset their plan at that time when they aspired to strengthen their position on the island. They were also prevented from working in government offices (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 222;85,(240)(241). Disadvantaged by such restrictions and hindered by the language barrier, they had no other alternative but to begin with small-scale commerce (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat xxiii).

Nevertheless, the Chinese immigrants found ways to overcome these obstacles and they earned a secured position by developing the activity of retail trade at that time in the island. They started to develop mutual beneficial co-operation with the white wholesalers, estate proprietors and Indian landowners. The Chinese leased property from the rural property owners in order to set up their shops without having to renounce their Chinese nationality (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 222).

The location and size of the shops on the estates were controlled by the plantation owners. As described by Carter and Ng Foong Kwong, the Chinese shops were generally built of wood and corrugated iron, and were small in size, measuring about 25 by 20 feet (66-67). They further explain that the small space was partly due to taxes chargeable according to the size of the shop. A description of the shop is quoted from the account of one Chinese shopkeeper21 as follows:

The shop was generally very small in size, those who worked there also generally lived in the boutique, sleeping behind the shop, between the sacks of rice, or even on the shop counters.

This shows that the family and clerks had to adapt to the restricted living space of the shop premises. The family life had little privacy, given the limited space of 1 or 2 small rooms in which they lived at the back of the shop (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 175).

Prior to the arrival of the Hakka women, the success of Hakka traders' enterprises relied on the inter-community support networks in Mauritius. For instance, in the second half of the 19 th century, Hakka traders invested into the distillery business and for their rum production, they were able to obtain their molasses under a private agreement with the owners of local sugar estates . Cigarette-making enterprises were also launched by Chinese businessmen and the tobacco was provided by the Indian planters. The Chinese economic progress resulted from the fruitful commercial relations established between different areas of business based on mutual trust and inter-dependence (Teelock 317). Some Chinese chose to become naturalized and formed partnerships with members of other communities in order to buy property whereas some Chinese traders chose to marry Creole women and bought properties in their name for the purpose of obtaining the necessary shop licenses (Siew et al. 39).

Chinese immigrants found in Mauritius tolerably good conditions for their social and economic implantation not only with the help of the economic boom of the 19 th century but also with the defence of some British governors (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat xxii; Siew et al.11). For instance, they were encouraged by the British Governor Farquhar to preserve their own identity, their culture and traditions and most importantly they had complete freedom to practice their religion (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 68-69). Moreover, when Mauritius's economy went into decline, it was feared that the Chinese community who lived mainly on trade would become a burden to the colony. However, Governor Sir John Pope-Hennessy rushed to their defence before the colonial assembly in 1885 and explained:

We all know that at almost all the crossroads of the island are to be seen the well-built stone residences and shops of the Chinese that have sprung up within the last few years; and those Chinamen undoubtedly manage to sell the poorer classes of this community cheap and simple goods which the poor people wish to buy… 22During that time, the poorest classes of the island benefited from the credit facilities offered by the small Chinese shops which helped them to face hard times (Selvon 389). Furthermore, Sir Pope-Hennessy added that the fear was completely groundless as the statistics revealed that it was the Chinese who contributed the most to the revenue compared to the other races and classes in the colony (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 87). He knew that the Chinese honoured their tradition of collective responsibility and that they would not intentionally become a burden to the host country. This was proved by the Chinese's generous response of their willingness to pay an additional levy of 5%

on their trade licence to compensate for the Government 's use of public funds to pay for the repatriation of Creole women who were abandoned by their Chinese husbands in Hong Kong. However, the suggestion of Chinese traders was rejected as it was considered unfair by the Council (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 87-88). Until 1945, the institution also served as a consulate to issue passports and visas for the Chinese community. It coincided with the time during which China was under Japanese occupation and many Chinese immigrants chose not to go back to their ancestral village and decided to settle permanently in Mauritius (Siew et al. 88). In the early 20 th century, it also played an important role by replacing the leader of the Chinese community and welcomed all Chinese immigrants irrespective of their ethnic groups. The leadership responsibilities were therefore shared between the Hakkas and the Cantonese on a rotating basis and this brought solidarity among the ethnic groups and converged them to a solid sense of belonging to one community only (Siew et al. 89). Nowadays, the Chamber continues its yearly distribution of gifts to meet the needs of the Sino-Mauritian community.

-SOLIDARITY WITHIN THE CHINESE COMMUNITY

-INTERMARRIAGE WITH CREOLE AND INDIAN WOMEN

Up to the first quarter of the 20 th century, Chinese immigrants to Mauritius were mostly male and Chinese women were absent from their group. Due to the shortage of Chinese women, it was not unusual for the married or single men to (Teelock 317). He reports that Chinese men were committed to the slave women whom they bought under slavery and those women subsequently became their concubines and housekeepers 24 . After slavery, the Chinese men continued to co-habit with their freed female companions and to provide food and shelter for their children. This relationship was mutually beneficial for both the Chinese immigrants and their Creole partners in the sense that it enabled the latter to climb the economic ladder rapidly and provided financial security for the family (Teelock 317). It also gave the Creole women access to financial means which gave them an opportunity to engage in their own retail business (Carter et al. 101). At the same time, Creole women

were British subjects, who on the one hand, were able to apply for shop licences by using their names to the businesses which were to be run successfully by the Chinese men. On the other hand, the latter believed that their marriage to them would help to regularise their own status as Chinese traders and would also facilitate their administrative procedures with the local government (Carter et al. Hence, when the licence was obtained, the Chinese husband was able to recruit his relatives or acquaintances in his business and this also allowed the immigrants to acquire resident permits and a backdoor entry into trade (Carter et al. 102). Obviously, this caught the local authorities' attention when in 1843, they noted that 56 licences were granted to Chinese immigrants and 11 licenses were issued to Creole wives or partners of Chinese men and this led them to the suspicion of the main economic motives for marriages (Carter et al. 102).

Consequently, in 1847, new requests for licences were refused by the Commissioner of Police and renewals of licences became more and more difficult (Carter et al. 103). In spite of these obstacles, it was reported in June 1849 that the Chinese immigrants continued to receive the assistance of Creole women to establish their own commercial businesses in Mauritius and they also received the help of Creole men in the management of their businesses Hereafter, he practised both Chinese and Catholicism religions .

James Ng Foong Kwong finds that in the mid-nineteenth century, in spite of the fact that the Mauritian society was not yet prepared to openly accept the notion of Creole women and Chinese men living together, many couples happily formed lasting relationships and managed to overcome the religious and cultural barriers to find their place in "respectable society". He also observes that marriage was also for some couples, just a way to formalise and legitimise the children born of their long-term relationships (Carter et al. 100,105). Moreover, many of these wives were literate and they not only played an active role in the running of the shops but also provided valuable assistance to their husbands in their correspondence and administrative formalities with the local government (Carter et al. 105). Those wives succeeded both in managing their shops and also in bringing up their children. In addition, when they finally contributed to the commercial success of their families, they subsequently had the privilege to be part of the inner circle of wealthy and prestigious members of the Chinese community in the 19 th century Mauritius (Carter et al. 106).

According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, the happy blend of Chinese and Mauritian cultures could be seen through the education of the children as the father ensured that his children, especially his sons, were to be raised according to Chinese traditions and be taught the Chinese language in order to continue the family lineage 25 , whereas the Christian mother emphasized that all the children be baptized and educated according to the Roman Catholic faith (173).

It was also a traditional practice to send male children to China for their education (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 179). However, Ng Foong Kwong 26 finds that the daughters were more likely to follow their mothers' customs and they adopted the European style clothes whilst the sons were given Chinese first names, wore

Chinese clothes and wore their hair pulled back in a pig tail. He also points out that even if the young Creole-Chinese girls were educated in the western way, they would often get marriage proposals from Chinese traders or young Sino-Mauritian men. It is also interesting to note that it was common for fathers to give away their daughters to marriage at the age of 13 or 14 and they would seek approval from the Governor as the legal age of marriage in the 19 th century was 15.

As Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat put it, the harmony of these two cultures

-FROM INVISIBILITY TO VISIBILITY

Before moving on to next four sections on the thematic narrative analysis of the lives of my participants, this first section will first provide a better knowledge of Chinese women's positions in the family in Chinese patriarchal culture in order to understand how Chinese women immigrants were still greatly influenced by traditional Chinese beliefs in relation to their status and role in the family.

-STATUS AND ROLE OF CHINESE WOMEN IN THE FAMILY

Before 1949, Confucianism provided an ideological structure for the Chinese family which was patrilocal, patrilineal, and patriarchal. Family relations were structured on the principles of filial piety and the five relationships with their corresponding virtues28 : parents and children (affection and filial piety), ruler and minister (righteousness, loyalty and filial piety), husbands and wives (distinction and harmony), older and younger siblings (hierarchy and affection), friends and friends (trust and honesty) (Lu 210). Sons were preferred to daughters to continue the patriline, daughters married out to join their husband's family, men and senior members had authority over women and the junior, male offspring inherited familial property (Lu 210). According to Stacey, a Chinese woman lived in two clearly different families throughout her life, that is her natal and her marital homes (67). The author further added that the Chinese woman was never in her whole life, a full member of any family's lineage because her name was not at all registered in her father's genealogy and it was only after her death that her family surname was listed in the genealogical charts of her husband's family, and still her remains had to wait for her husband's demise to have a final resting place 51 (Stacey 67). She also cited the idea of the woman's family as the "uterine family" as described by Margery Wolf: "[…] a contemporary group that comes into existence out of a woman's need and is held together insofar as she has the strength to do so […]

The uterine family has no ideology, no formal structure, and no public existence. It is built out of sentiments and loyalties that die with its members, but it is no less real for all that" (Stacey 67). 29 Similarly, Lu reported that the principle function of marriage is to continue the patriline. Marriage for a woman designated "marrying off" (jia) or "returning home" (gui), which indicates that her natal home was a temporary home and her marital home was her final destination. She thus formed part of her husband's patriline and an ancestor of that lineage after death whereas for a man "taking a wife" (qu) is required to fulfil his duties of keeping on the ancestral sacrifice and to continue the descent line (Lu 212).

Nineteenth-century Chinese society was governed by Confucian ideology that stressed on feudal loyalty and filial piety according to the principle of social order and women were destined to occupy a subordinate position to men in the Confucius social order. The moral duty of a Chinese woman at that time was based on the Confucian principle of the 'Three Forms of Obedience and Four Virtues'. She was expected to obey to her father before marriage, to her husband during marriage, and to her son during widowhood and the four virtues required of her were moral discipline, proper speech manner, modest appearance and diligence (Stacey 68; Tan 268). The yin-yang philosophy was integrated into

Confucianism by Chinese philosophers after Confucian where yin represents the female as the inferior and subservient or subordinate and yang represents the male as the superior and dominant (Yu 655). Yu highlights that under this philosophy, the wife is completely judged on the grounds of her relationship to her husband where she is destined to obey, serve and please her husband, and it seems that this persistent patriarchal ideology was used in the course of Chinese History in order to realize and maintain a family harmony (655).

In addition to being subordinated to men, women were separated from men in their social roles during life. According to Lu, men and women performed different but complementary roles in separate social spaces, where men's responsibilities were in the "outer" sphere and women's responsibilities were in the "inner" sphere (208). Similarly, Ardizzoni found that there is a strong contrast between the women's sphere and the men's sphere and also a sharp distinction in their roles as described by Luo:

The (adult) men of the household might also take part in household activities, but their most important role does not lie there, it lies in society. …Husbands, who

do not know about household affairs, do not ask too many questions and their wives, on their part, are not pleased if they interfere with house chores. 30Ardizzoni also made reference to male/female differentiation and the Amidst her busy workload, she never missed a beat and would never hesitate to lend a helping hand when need to the less fortunate of her "clients la boutique"32 .

Retail shops in urban and rural areas were generally owned by one person and run by the Chinese shopkeeper himself and his wife, and if the children were grown up, they would also help in the shop (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 253).

The average Chinese village shopkeeper could only survive and earn a living if the whole family were willing to work without pay. The Chinese wife with the help of the children took on the tasks of the shop assistant:

As soon as the shop opened at 7 o'clock, they were busy until 9 at night. In those days shops opened seven days upon seven. When the shop closed at nine, everybody worked for more one more hour until 9 at night. When the shop closed at nine, everybody worked for one more hour until 10 o'clock. Children made paper bags for rice, salt, sugar and so on, and the parents prepared all sorts of candies:

coconut and barley sugar candy, "gâteaux cannette". //The children went to school but gave a helping hand at the shop after school. Everybody was busy doing something and nobody felt unhappy. There was practically little time for recreation and games. (Lim Fat 26).

According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, the Hakka women played a major role in their contribution to the remarkable progress of Chinese dominance in retail trade in Mauritius by working tirelessly side by side with their husbands, in addition to their daily household duties (175). They assert that "[t]he role of Chinese women in this remarkable progress was crucial and should never be overlooked". Furthermore, a detailed description was given in one whole paragraph of the daily lives, hard and laborious work of these Chinese women.

Life as the wife of a shopkeeper was not easy. When her husband was away for 1 or 2 days to Port Louis in order to renew the weekly stock of goods, the wife was thus left alone to manage the running of the shop and look after the family, do the cooking, feed the children while having to serve the clients from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 175). Even after the return of her husband to the shop, "she was continuously on her feet 14 hours a day looking after the family and cooking the cakes to be sold in the shop, for practically 360 days a year". This shows that she enduringly committed herself to her responsibilities as wife, mother and worker during the absence of her husband. In addition to the domestic workload and taking care of their numerous children, the Chinese women had to serve the clients and carry out the daily tasks in the shop. It is important to note that during their pregnancy, they would continue to work as usual, fourteen hours daily until they would give birth at the last minute with the help of a midwife, in the adjoining room at the back of the shop which was the family's only private area (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 175). It was only after many years of hard work and sacrifice that many shopkeepers could manage to live in a small house away from the shop or in a rented room in Port Louis (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 177). The above description of typical daily life recounts exactly the oral testimonies of the life experiences that I have heard from my interviewees.

The above paragraph demonstrates that behind the success of these small shops commonly known as 'Laboutik sinoi', lay the relentless efforts and hard work of the Hakka women who worked days and nights with their husbands to create a booming business in the most distant villages. As Siew et al. put it, the husbands put their absolute trust in their wives who would become the foundation of the small family-run businesses and would prove themselves to be tireless workers (42).

It also illustrates that the roles undertaken by women were different from that of their male counterparts. Although they worked for long hours in the same business as co-breadwinners, women also had to uphold their roles and responsibilities as daughters, wives, mothers and workers in the family and home. Furthermore, the husband was the head of the family as the manager and chief decision maker in spite of the fact that the wife executed a central role in her family life (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 175). However, in the absence of their husbands, Chinese women became the heads of their households as described above when they were left alone in the shop. They also made decisions, assumed responsibility and handled the family income like they had done for their aged in-laws when they were left behind in China by their husbands who had gone overseas. During that time, the wives found themselves alone to manage all the daily activities in the family even if they received financial support from their husbands and those who received no funds from the latter, were forced to turn into breadwinners for their families (Zhao 41). My mother usually stayed at home taking care of her numerous children and doing the housework. She was helped by a maid who came to wash and iron the clothes. She also managed to go to the market to buy fresh vegetables and meat products and she cooked all meals for the family. My elder sister and I also helped our mother with household chores and taking care of our younger siblings. At that time, there was no electricity, we had to use kerosene lamps. Our mother had to boil water and cook food on a wood burning stove. Sawdust was used instead of wood because it was cheaper.

Responsibilities as a daughter

In addition to her housework and child care responsibilities, our mother would manually sew up to a dozen of school uniform shorts at home to be sold in my later and he was raised by his father's elder brother and his wife. At that time, Chinese school was not free. In order to pay his school fees, he did a part-time job in rearing pigs in the afternoon. He was therefore able to study up to Form 5 at secondary school. After his studies, he opened a tavern-restaurant in Plaine Verte.

After a few years, he decided to start a pig farm business with his uncle. He then went with his elder cousin to rent a stall at the market to sell fresh pork meats. This was the place where my mother met my father. My grandmother used to send my mother to buy pork meat at the market, and she was surprised that each time her daughter would come back with an additional quantity of pork. My father fell in love with my mother.

Soon after they got married, my father offered the flourishing pork business to his uncle and cousins, and also rebuilt his uncle's house. It was a way for him to express his thanks and appreciation to his uncle and his aunt who had raised him since childhood after the death of his father. During the day, my father continued to work with his cousin and in the afternoon, he worked as an agent for an insurance company, Anglo-Mauritius Assurance Society Ltd. He used his earnings to invest in an import-export company in partnership with a Tamil. He then became a horse racing bookmaker at Champ de Mars in 1960. When I was about twelve years old in 1975, my mother and I helped our father at home, we had to stamp the receipts to be given to customers for their bets, prepare the betting slips and count the money.

My mother would accompany my father to the horse racing in Champ de Mars on Saturdays, and when there were too many customers, she would help to deal with betting slips and cash payments from and to customers. My mother's main duties were at home, she managed the household, she was helped by a maid for the household chores, took care of her children and cooked for the family. My mother was Catholic, my brother and I were both baptized and educated according to the Roman Catholic faith. We also attended Catholic school for our primary and secondary education. My mother had attended only a few years of primary education in Chinese school. My mother had always wanted to be a veterinarian, but she could not realize that dream because of poverty. (A.D.)

Responsibilities as a wife, mother and worker

My mother was twenty-seven years old and my father was thirty-six when they got married in 1966. They had three children, their two eldest daughters were born in 1968 and 1969, and their son was born in 1971. They were all born at home with the help of a midwife in Plaine Magnien. After her marriage, my mother continued to cook the morning, midday and evening meals for the whole family and also for the shop assistants. In addition to her cooking duties, she looked after her children and she was helped by two maids for the household chores. By the time she had finished all the household chores, she went to help my father, serving the customers at the front counter of the shop. When my father went to take care of his sugar cane field or went to the capital to buy goods for the shop, my mother had to handle the shop on her own during his absence. (A.B.)

Responsibilities as a daughter-in-law

One of the respondents recalled how life was hard for her mother and for the family when her mother-in-law came to stay with them.

My mother was engaged at sixteen and a year later, she married my father who was twenty-six years old. It was an arranged marriage. It was very hard for my mother who had never been away from home and she was for the first time in her new extended family. She had to live with her mother-in-law and her three brothersin-law. Her daughter-in-law was the eldest child and was already married. Her husband was not the oldest son but was the first son to get married. My mother had never attended school and had learnt to cook and do the household chores since she was seven years old. She told me how it was extremely difficult for her, her new family was very hostile and she had to undertake all the daily chores and responsibilities, serving her mother-in-law, her brothers-in-law, taking care of her spouse and doing all the household chores. At the same time, she also had to work in the family shop. It was a long life of sufferings and hard work for my mother. Even when my father took over the family shop to work on his own and moved to a new home with my mother, the mother-in-law also came to live with us. My mother suffered a long-term conflictual relationship with her mother-in-law as she was often dominated by her mother-in-law and it was difficult for my father to take the side of my mother as he was also bound by strong emotional and filial ties to his mother. It was not until many years later, when I became an adult, that I had the courage to tell my mother "enough is enough", that it was time for her to hold a family meeting with her brothers-in-law and her sister-in-law, it was time for them to take in and look after their mother in their home. I had great admiration for my mother's courage after all these years of silent sufferings, to stand up and to speak out. It was such a great relief for my mother and for all of us. (A.E.)

Strength, resilience, courage and resourcefulness for survival

A.B. recalled how her maternal grandmother had to find an alternative source of income by working outside the home in order to provide for her family's needs.

Alternatives to make ends meet

My maternal grandfather worked with his elder cousin in a bakery in Curepipe.

Both my grandfather and my grandmother had to work hard in order to make ends meet. They also reared pigs in their backyard to help the family meet its expenses.

My maternal grandmother also worked as a housemaid for the 'white' ('blan' commonly used for Franco-Mauritians33 ) families while her husband worked in the bakery. In addition to household chores, she was also hired to breastfeed babies when the white mother could not breastfeed her child. After many years of hard work and savings, my grandfather was encouraged by my grandmother to buy a plot of land to build their own shop. Both my paternal and maternal grandmothers were my loving role models for their resilience, determination and resourcefulness. They also taught me how to cultivate certain Chinese vegetables in the backyard of the house.

A.F. remembered a painful event which made her mother cry:

Even as owner of the shop, the family struggled hard to make ends meet and just managed to have a 'bowl of rice' because the credit system did not guarantee profits at the end of the year. I remember my mother pleading with the head of a family to whom she had supplied provisions for the whole year, he refused to pay the year debt with insolence, that made my mother cry.

In the past, many Chinese shops in the rural areas were usually built of wood and corrugated iron and they could be easily destroyed by natural calamities such as cyclones. Two respondents in this study remembered how the devastating cyclone Carol in 1960 deeply impacted their families.

Starting from scratch again and again

My mother told me that they lost everything, their shop was completely destroyed by the devastating cyclone Carol in 1960. Everything was gone, all the rice, all the flour were gone. And the problem was not only having to start again from scratch, the problem was also that they did not have any money available as they had given credit facilities to their customers. Where were they going to seek help? They had no other choice than to stand on their own two feet. (A.B.)

The male respondent recalled that frightening event in 1960 when Cyclone Carol hit Mauritius and completely destroyed their home. I still remember. It was a very traumatizing experience when we lost everything in the cyclone. I was ten years old. We were nine children in the family and we went with our parents to seek refuge in a school. There were no beds in the refuge shelter and we had to sleep on chairs. (A.G.)

Another respondent recalled how her family was enormously affected by the loss of their shop and home during the race riot of 1968 in Mauritius when several violent ethnic clashes between Muslims and Christian Creoles took place in the Port-Louis areas of Cité Martial and Plaine Verte during ten days, six days before the country's declaration of independence on 12 March 1968. 34I was under five years old. It was in January 1968 when the race riot occurred in the neighbourhood area of Plaine Verte where my father's shop was located. My parents, my elder sister and I had to flee this area. At that time, my mother was five months pregnant with her third child. All our furnitures were distributed to friends and relatives in different places. We went to stay at my maternal grandparents' home which had only one room and was too small to accommodate all of us. My father therefore went to stay with a couple of friends where some of our furnitures were kept. My youngest sister was born in May and my father had no job. Our family was in great financial difficulties. My father had to pay back a bank loan which was used to build our concrete house at the back of the shop. In December 1967, that is one month before the race riot, it was the month when sales were generally at their highest. It means that with the credit system facilities, many customers bought on credit. As a consequence, we got in serious financial difficulties when the race riot occurred in January because our customers had not paid us yet. We also had to pay our suppliers for the goods purchased on credit. Therefore, my father had no choice but to sell the shop at a loss. (A.H.)

Getting back on our feet after losing everything

Thanks to the financial help of my maternal grandfather, my parents started all over again. They were able to buy a new home in Curepipe and a small shop in Port-Louis. My parents started to raise chickens for egg production. My mother looked after the chickens with the help of an assistant and my father looked after the small shop.

A.H. recalled how her parents worked very hard after having lost everything in the race riot of 1968. It was a long and arduous journey for her parents to attain financial stability. At the beginning, they hardly had any money to buy goods to be sold in the shop. The shop was there but it was empty. She remembered how hard it was for her father to carry by hand two baskets full of eggs in his daily trip by bus to his shop in Port-Louis in order to sell the eggs. It was also laborious for my mother to hand carry two baskets loaded with eggs and to walk to a local shop in order to sell them. She used to cut through a steep path which goes down a small river and goes up in order to reach the shop. She would also be asked by her mother to go with her and she was always afraid to fall down because the path was quite slippery. They also had to deal with stray dogs on their way. The respondent also remembered when she was six years old, she witnessed how her mother had to chop a mountain of 'brèdes patates' (vegetables from their backyard garden) which was as tall as her height at that time. It was her mother's daily task in order to save money on the costs of crushed maize which were needed to feed the chickens. She would never let her daughter to help her to chop the vegetables in order to avoid the risk of injury.

For many Chinese families, money earned from the shop was not enough to feed the families, they just managed to have a bowl of rice. It was therefore necessary for them to seek alternatives to improve their financial situation in order to survive.

My mother was inventive and resourceful

A.H.'s mother had never been to school. She was a good dressmaker. She never took any sewing lessons. She was a self-learner. In the evening, she used to sew her daughters' and sisters' clothes. A.I. sewed doll clothes which sold very well during the Christmas season. A.J. and her mother made slippers at home as an alternative source of income to make both ends meet. Many of them had to cook food to be sold to the customers.

In many Chinese families, the oldest children especially the eldest daughters are expected to take more responsibilities. Older daughters tend to take care of younger siblings, take on household chores, and tend to have more expectations placed on them for their behaviour.

My responsibilities as the eldest daughter of the family

At a very young age, many children were fully conscious of several challenges, they had to help their parents in the shop after school as well as doing their homework until late at night. The following narrative describes A.B.'s responsibilities from childhood as being the eldest daughter of the family.

We are three siblings, I am the eldest daughter, my sister who is a year younger than I am and the last born is my brother who is three years younger than I am. My father has told me that he would have liked to have a son as the eldest. As I grew up, he trained me in the same way he would have done for a son. My parents taught me about responsibility at an early age and raised me to be confident and well-equipped to approach tasks and challenges.

In my childhood and my youth, I unceasingly juggled between school and my parents' shop. Since I was a child, I have started to help in the shop. From the time I knew how to count when I was 7 and was in primary school in Standard three, I started to carry out the duties assigned to me by my father. For example, dealing with suppliers when they delivered the goods such as cigarettes and other products, serving the customers and helping at the cash desk. When I came back from school around three-thirty in the afternoon, I did not have time to change my clothes, I had to help my parents at the shop. The shop had also a tavern for the selling of rum and 'gajacks' (snacks). Life was hard at the shop and I was busy with performing the many tasks which my parents delegated to me. For example, I helped them to make egg noodles which customers already ordered. I would start by mixing ten pounds of flour and eggs, and my hands would get tired easily while kneading the dough. I also helped to make roasted eggs, fried eggs, fried chicken livers and snacks to be sold in the shop. In addition to the work in the shop, my father was also a small-scale sugarcane farmer. I was four years old when he bought the sugarcane field in 1972.

During the harvest season, my father used to take me with him and I learned by watching the sugarcane field workers. My father has always transmitted to me the importance of such values as integrity and uprightness. On looking back with gratitude to my parents for my upbringing, I remember the joyful and happy experience of my childhood and my youth, I feel privileged to have worked with my parents, to have helped them to make both ends meet.

Another respondent, A.H. remembered that during the school holidays in December, it was necessary for her and her two siblings to help their parents in their shop in Port-Louis.

It was only after many years of hard work and sacrifice that the shopkeeper was able to employ a shop assistant or a maid to help with the housework (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 175). A large majority of Chinese shopkeepers struggled hard and managed to make ends meet at the end of the day. The maid plays an important role in the family by helping the mother in the household chores, looking after the children and taking the children to school during the first few years of primary school when their parents are busy in the shop. A.B. is very grateful to her maid who has looked after her.

My mother hired two maids to help her in the household chores and to look after us when our parents were working. They were our nannies and I learned my first lesson of leadership with L. when I was four years old. I accompanied her when she went to the river to wash our clothes and she taught me how to wash my clothes separately. She also showed me how to behave correctly.

Who was the decision-maker in the family?

One of the respondents said that her mother was the decision-maker in the family. Her father who bought the goods. There were also peddlers who came to sell their goods to the shop. However, it was her mother who was good at business. She used to say that the family business would not be successful without her contribution. Most of the time she cleaned the shop, she displayed the goods on the shelves and she knew which products sold best.

Another respondent said that her mother had always expressed her opinion and participated in the decision-making process related to family and business matters. My father would always talk to my mother about his business plans and would always seek my mother's advice before negotiating a contract with a new partner in business. It turned out that my mother was always right when her intuition told her that the person was untrustworthy.

The Chinese shopkeepers gradually left the exhausting work of retail trade and many of the younger generations worked their way up into other better professions such as education, banking, and other businesses while their parents who were well beyond retirement age, continued to look after the retail shops because there were no children around to take over the business. An 80-yearold Hakka daughter born of first-generation of Chinese immigrants, A.F., in reminiscing about her late mother who has worked all her life in the shop:

-BEING CATHOLIC AND ANCESTOR WORSHIP

As illustrated in Chapter two, Chinese men were the first converts to Catholicism when they married Christian Creole women. The Christian mother stressed that all children be baptized and educated in the Catholic faith. There are also some Chinese who were baptized in the Anglican faith. Two of the respondents in this study are Anglican whereas the remaining eight are Catholics.

It is known that some Chinese men converted to Catholicism in order to marry.

Becoming Catholic to get married

A.B. shared how her father became Catholic:

My father was Buddhist and he used to say that religion was a business. When he learned that my mother was Catholic, he asked to be baptized so that they could be married in the Catholic church. When we were kids, all three of us were not baptized, our mother wanted to give us full freedom to choose a religion. My brother is Buddhist because he married a Chinese woman from China, my sister is Christian and I am Catholic.

The Chinese were also converted to Christianity because of the social benefits of being Catholics. According to Carter and Ng Foong Kwong, the Chinese in the rural areas were exposed to Christianity as the whites were the shop owners of their shops and sometimes became the godparents of their children (166). It was also reported that the Hakka village shopkeepers were converted to Catholicism by their neighbours and customers (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 167). Moreover, the Roman Catholic faith was introduced in local schools and Catholicism was a sure way to get access to the Catholic secondary school . Furthermore, the similarities between the Catholic rituals and those of Chinese religion gave them a sense of 'familiarity' . The main reason for their conversion to Catholicism is that the Catholic church allowed the Chinese Maryknoll Sisters who came from Meixian and spoke Chinese. Between 1951 and1956, they gave Chinese and catechism classes to the Hakka Mauritians . In 1953, along with André Lee from Hong Kong, a Chinese evening school was set up at the Ecole de la Salle (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 168). "The 1962 statistics showed that, for the first time, the number of Chinese Catholics was greater than the number of adherents to traditional Chinese religions. This trend was substantiated again later, and in 1972, the number of Chinese Catholics was almost double that of the Chinese professing traditional beliefs" as reported by Huguette Ly Tio-Fane-Pineo35 and cited by Wong-Hee-Kam in the same article (44). The latter also added that the number of Christians increased significantly forty-years after the creation of the Chinese Catholic Mission. By the 1980s, it was estimated that 66% of the Chinese population in Mauritius was Catholic and a small amount of the Chinese Christians became Protestants through their contact with the small community of Anglicans on the island (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 171). And in 1991, it was assessed by Jean Ah Chuen36 that 75 to 80 percent of the Chinese population was Catholic (Wong Hee-Kam 44). There is a minority of Sino-Mauritians who follow Buddhism.

Wong-Hee-Kam observed that despite that fact that many Chinese were baptized, it is acknowledged by the ecclesiastical authorities "that most of them are not practising. They only go to church for special occasions, but it seems they remain Catholic at heart" . The dual religion system practiced by the Sino-Mauritians to preserve their special traditions, including the traditional practice of ancestor worship as part of their daily lives, is recognized by the Catholic church (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 173).

Religiously, the Chinese people are very tolerant. They accept ancestor worship which is a religious practice based on a belief of the continued existence of the deceased. Ancestors are venerated and their well-being ensured by means of prayers and offerings, in the hope that they will intercede in the spirit world on behalf of the living and bring them good fortune (Ancestor Worship in Taoism -Chinese Customs). Two respondents of the first-generation of Sino-Mauritians still go to Chinese pagodas, keep up the traditional practice of ancestor worship and celebrate Qingmingjie or Tomb Sweeping Day. One respondent continues the traditional practice of ancestor worship at home once a year before Chinese New Year. Tomb Sweeping Day falls around the same time as Easter and is a day to remember and honour one's ancestors at graves sites when traditionally Chinese people clean the tombs, make offerings of food, tea, wine, incense and pray (Seitz 51).

Ancestor worship for my late paternal grandmother

According to Chinese traditions of ancestor worship, commemorating the death anniversary is especially important in the first years after a person's death.

A.B. recalled:

After my paternal grandmother passed away at the age of 92 in 1992, our family went to her homeland in Moiyean to do her funeral rites in order to fulfill her vow.

It is very important for many Chinese families to pay tribute and bring honor to their deceased relatives as they believe that their loved ones will respect and protect them along with future generations of the family. Loved ones are given offerings of ceremonial incense, paper monies, and even a food tray to the deities in the next levels of life.

Ancestor worship before Chinese New Year

It is important for Chinese families to pay respect to the deceased ancestors. Incense will be lit and while holding the incense, one will bow three times before placing the incense in the incense holder. Offerings to the ancestors consists of various plates of food, cakes, fruits and cups of tea.

Filial duty

In Chinese families, from ancient times until now, children are raised inculcating the Chinese value of filial duty, which calls on growing children to take care of their aging parents. In Confucianism, filiality is a moral obligation and it is essential for Chinese descendants to express gratitude to their parents and grandparents for their existence in the world (Lim 99). During the 19 th and early 20 th century, a great number of elderly persons of the Chinese communities lived with their married child, usually their son (Bedford and Yeh 3) 37 . Physical, emotional, and financial support were given to them by their sons, daughters-inlaw and grandchildren, whereas daughters gave the same support to their own parents until they got married and their main responsibility shifted to their husbands' parents (Bedford and Yeh 3-4). Confucianism puts stress on "the children's obligation and responsibilities in caring for their parents as a means of reciprocating the love and care they have received during their upbringing" (Ma 158).

The traditional beliefs of the Chinese society and Confucian values were deeply rooted in Chinese family as they established the women's role in the family. For instance, it was a moral obligation for each individual to care for his or her family. Married women left their natal family and joined their husband's family, 37 Cited by Bedford and Yeh. See Ikels, Charlotte. Filial piety: Practice and discourse in contemporary East Asia. Stanford University Press, 2004 resided with his family, paid respect to his parents, and worshipped their ancestors. They were also expected to produce male offspring to continue the patriline .

According to Luo Xianglin, a Hakka woman's central identity role was most importantly performed in her family throughout her life (Ardizzoni 43):

The Hakka woman is the most important reference point for the whole family, that relies on her for its cohesion: her children depend on her for their education, her husband for support of his activities, and all of Hakka-kind for the continuation of the lineage.38

-EDUCATION FOR A BETTER FUTURE

Education was the main concern for many parents in this study in order to give a better future to their children.

I think it was also because Chinese people were very practical people, they were very pragmatic, they knew that education is an essential asset and they knew that the children would not be able to live on the shop like they were compelled to do. They knew that education is very important. I think they were wise enough to accept us to be baptized in the Roman Catholic faith so that we could get into proper schools and have godparents of a certain status. Many priests used to stop by our shop to chat with my father when they came to the playground at Les Salines near the Kwan Tee pagoda to buy some 'gâteaux piment' and 'pistaches' with an Indian She would take us to choose our books in two bookstores in Curepipe, Librairie Le Trèfle and Librairie Allot, who were well-known at that time and their customers were mostly Franco-Mauritians. Despite the fact that my parents never studied beyond the few years spent in primary school, they believed that education was crucial for a better future for their children.

Most of the Hakka women of the first generation of Chinese immigrants were illiterate and did not have access to education before their arrival in Mauritius. This study shows that most of the daughters and sons of the firstgeneration of Sino-Mauritians did not receive equal educational opportunities.

Most girls went to Chinese schools and many of them did not complete their primary studies, while many of their brothers attended local Catholic or State schools because at that time, parents believed that it was important for boys to have a Western education (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 187). Consequently, these boys at that time, were more likely to finish their six years of primary school and some years of secondary school. It was the second-generation of Mauritianborn girls and boys as illustrated in the above testimony, who were given equal access to educational opportunities. Many of these children were able to complete their primary and secondary studies and a few of them had the opportunities to pursue higher studies abroad with the State scholarship system.

According to Carter and Ng Foong Kwong, the creation of a scholarship system in 1926 facilitated the integration of the Chinese community and many of the Sino-Mauritian children were successful in their studies by entering the state school system (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 187). During that period, many of the Chinese students from the rural areas had to stay with relatives settled in the towns to be able to attend classes in these State schools. The male respondent, B.C. in this study, who at that time lived in the rural areas in Flacq (situated in the east of the island), remembered staying with his grandfather in Port-Louis, the capital city of the island, where he attended state primary and secondary schools. In Cécile's biography, we read that she was raised by her grandmother in Port-Louis and they were very poor. Her grandmother successfully convinced the Sisters of Loreto Convent of Port-Louis and Cécile was granted a scholarship for her achievement, which thus enabled her to pursue her secondary studies (Ng Tat Chung 19). Joyce also wrote in her "collection of semi-autobiographical short stories Dancing on a Wave: Reveries of a Shopkeeper's Daughter on Tiny Island" that she and her sister stayed for one year at their relatives' place in Port-Louis, to complete their primary studies at the Loreto Convent of Port-Louis.

-PUTTING THE FAMILY AND OTHERS FIRST

Raising numerous children means greater financial burden on parents' shoulders. This study shows that mothers were frugal with themselves but generous with their children and other persons in need. They did not hesitate to sacrifice themselves for a better future for their children and for the poorer people.

A.F. recalled the unfailing love and generosity of her mother:

No matter how little we possessed, my mother was always willing help the needy. I remember she did not hesitate to pay for a taxi for a boy who had been severely burned or for the woman who had to be rushed to the hospital or else would have bled to death. She was also attentive to the education of relatives and friends' children offering to pay their private tuition. My mother used to say that she did not feel the poorer for having given away something. Her heart was always full of goodness, always filled with the desire to do good for others. My mother though not exposed to Christianity herself had lived what we call "Gospel" values of compassion and kindness. I consider it a blessing to have inherited these values from her.

My mother's focus was always on providing a better future for her children

In her giving, my mother never thought of herself, she provided us everything with unconditional love and emotional support. She worked hard and relentlessly in order to enable us to attend the best school and receive the best education. What give my parents the strength to persevere in life in spite of the difficulties, hardships, obstacles, and trials is the will to survive and to focus on the well-being of their children in the hope of giving the next generation a better future. This trait of endurance is built in their DNA! My father was 91 years old when he died and my mother passed away at 96. (A.F.)

A.H. recalled how her mother was attentive to her education. Her mother had not been to school because her parents were too poor and could not afford the school fees. Her mother could not help her in her studies but she was always present during her studies. Although her mother was exhausted with the daily workload, it was important for her to spend time and to look after the education of her children. She would sit next to her daughter and made her say the alphabet and recite multiplication tables. She sat down daily with her and ensured that she learned, revised and did her homework. During the weekend, it was her father who would spend time with his three children with the two younger ones sitting on his knees. He would use a children's dictionary with colorful images to teach the children to read the words.

A.H. also remembered that her mother did not express her love for her children and her love was often better expressed through action. There may not be big hugs and open praise, but she would prepare the whole family's daily meals and lunch basket. She would always make sure that there was something to eat, something to drink and there were also some fruits, snack cakes or cookies in the basket. She would continue to do so even when her children have grown up. Shortly after her mother's death, A.H. learnt from one of the next-door neighbour's sons how her mother would daily prepare a sandwich for his father after the demise of her mother. And that family would always be thankful to her mother's generosity which had helped the widowed father to keep going. The respondent also recalled when her mother came to fetch her and her two sisters at primary schools, she would once in a while, unexpectedly bought them some special crisp butter cookies which were very expensive and considered as luxury goods at that time, the cost was 50 cents for three cookies, they were more expensive than the bus fee which was 25 cents.

A. G. recalled how her mother lovingly looked after her nine children.

We were nine children in the family, 7 boys and 2 girls. I was the second eldest son. We were all born at home with the help of a mid-wife. Looking after nine children was not an easy task for her but my mother never complained. Her entire life was filled with laborious long days of taking care of us and accomplishing all the household duties. At that time, the area where we lived was not yet connected to electricity and we had to use petrol lamps. She had to boil water and cook food on charcoal burners. There was no bathroom at that time. It was in the kitchen where she used a big wash-basin filled with hot water which she mixed with cold water. We lined up and one by one she poured some water on us, gently rubbed us with soap.

At that time, there were not enough bedrooms for all of us, but we were happy to sleep together on a mattress which was placed on the floor.

A.G. added that although her mother had only a few years of primary education, she took care of her children's education at home. She was very patient and she loved spending time with her children. She taught her children "sirandanes" (riddles) and also to sing songs such as "Au clair de la lune" and "Frère Jacques". Later in her life, his mother once told him: "I often dream of a better future". Family outings with her children were rare because of the shop which was opened 7 days a week. One of the rare outings that gave her mother an opportunity to spend a day with her children outside the shop once a year was the big event at the Maiden horse race at the Champ de Mars in the capital city of Port-Louis. She would take five of her nine children as she could not take all of them to travel by bus. It was a wonderful and unforgettable day that filled her and her children with joy at the horse race where she would buy wooden toys and goodies like 'calamindas' (cotton candy) which her children enjoyed the most.

A.B. recalled the rare moments when the family would be sitting together for a family meal as their parents had to work in the shop the whole day and had no time to eat with them. During the whole week, the children first helped their parents after school until seven o'clock in the evening. Only then they were able to take a shower, to have dinner and to do their homework before going to bed.

Even if the shop was closed at seven, their father had to serve the customers at the tavern until nine, sometimes ten o'clock in the evening. The only day when the family could sit together to have a family meal was on Sunday when the shop closed around one o'clock in the afternoon. After lunch, the children and their mother would go by bus and spend about two Sunday afternoons a month at their maternal grandparents' place while their father would prefer to stay at home for rest.

A.G. also remembered how hard it was for them while they were doing their homework late at night, that even the closed door of the shop did not keep some customers from pounding at the shopkeeper's door in the middle of the night for a cigarette.

Chinese New Year was the only day of rest for the whole family

For many respondents, the Chinese New Year was the only time of the year when Chinese families were brought together and got to relax. The Chinese New Year is the most important celebration in the Chinese tradition and it is all centered around family, gathering all of the family together for a family meal.

Meals are typically "family style" with shared common plate and dishes. Many respondents recalled that special festive day where special dishes were served: "slightly sweet Chinese sausages served with a garlic sauce", "century-old" preserved eggs served with shredded ginger mixed with vinegar and sugar, "belly pork cooked in wine and red dried fermented rice", pork braised with sun dried mustard leaves called 'Kon Ham Choy', and 'Foo Yung', "a soft omelet with Chinese mushrooms, bamboo shoots, prawns and spring onions." 39 According to Joyce Ng Cheong Tin-Leung, "before dinner was served, a small table was placed on one side of the dining room from which offerings were made to the deities and the ancestors as required by tradition" and "everybody participated by lighting joss sticks, bowing three times before offering them to the ancestors." 40 The food offerings to the ancestors consisted of various plates of "steamed chicken (B'hak Tsam Keh) , slices of pork" 41 , cakes and fruits. The author also shared that these 'consecrated' foods would then be served at dinner to receive ancestors' blessings. 42 The visits of relatives during the Chinese New Year were particularly significant to renew family ties as most shopkeepers did not see each other frequently, because they had to work more than six days a week and for thirteen-fifteen hours per day (Ng Cheong Tin-Leung 4). Moreover, the solidarity shared among the Chinese created a very close-knit community. cakes, sweet delicacies and treats such as tian yenneh, voo yan, gato-la-cire, gato-cravattes, gato-gingelis, cipekes, sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds were served with tea (Ng Cheong Tin-Leung 4). All these traditional delicacies would also be shared on the next day with the neighbours. The adults played Mah-Jong and chat in Hakka (Ng Cheong Tin-Leung 4). The children were excited to receive a foong pow (a red envelope with money) from the relatives and they were happy to play with their cousins. The Chinese New Year's celebration was one of rare moments to reunite the family and relatives, a time of family reunion and of great treats.

The 'commis' (shop assistants) also celebrated the Chinese New Year with the shopkeeper's family, as many of them were so far from their families. They were also Chinese immigrants from Meixian and they lived with the shopkeeper's family and they were considered as their extended family. They shared the same meals prepared by the shopkeeper's wife. They helped in serving the customers at the counters and doing other chores in the shop. They also worked hard to earn a living and to save money to send back home to their families who were left in their home village with the hope of bringing their families with them and opening their own shop on the island.

A.B. reminisced how her parents were full of generosity. Back in those days when Mauritius had only one TV station, it was in black and white then and many people did not have a television set. Two respondents shared how their parents happily opened their home to their Indian neighbours on Thursday nights to watch Indian movies.

Opening our home to our Indian neighbours

Every Thursday night, my parents happily invited our Indian neighbours to come into our home to watch Indian films. My mother would serve milk and biscuits to our guests. (A.B.)

CONCLUSION

The aim of the present research was to investigate on the lived experiences of Chinese Hakka women. It has shown that the arrival of these Hakka women immigrants in the early twentieth century had played an important role in the successful evolution of small retail trade in Mauritius and in the economic development through their participation in the business of their spouses or parents. The findings based on the qualitative interview data reveals that they were fully dedicated to their families and they became providers for their families. Their participation in the family economic activities were essential and indispensable for the survival of their families.

The current study is limited by the small sample of participants. In spite of its limitations, the study certainly gives us an insight into the lived experiences of these Hakka women fulfilling their dual responsibilities to the home (inner sphere) and to the family business (outer sphere), that is, they served the clients, carried out chores in the shop, managed the shop during the absence of their husbands, in addition to their domestic chores and looking after their often-numerous children. This study shows that female roles were different from their male counterparts. Women assumed the role of homemaker, fulfilling the tasks of care work and housework, and they were highly dependent on their husbands for subsistence. They not only raised children, but also shared with their husbands the responsibility for earning a living to support their family. For many respondents, men still had an important hold on family decisions, especially those related to the family business. In this way, most of the women were still considered to be secondary in family decision-making and were under the double burden of housework and work at the shop and the double dependencies on men for economic and emotional support. In rare cases, the husbands would seek advice from their wives on business matters. The information from this research has also shown that most Chinese immigrant women still respected the male authority, regardless of the fact that immigration raised the woman's status in her family as she became also the head partner and co-breadwinner when she was left alone to run the shop while her husband was away to renew the stock of goods.

Moreover, this study shows that women of the first-generation of Hakka Sino-Mauritians in the age group of 79 to 86 had an average of three to five years of primary school education. These women were given household and caring responsibilities at an early age and they were limited by lack of access to education that would prepare them for better working opportunities outside of the home and in the public sphere. They never neglected their responsibilities as daughters, wives, daughters-in-law, mothers and workers in all stages of their life. The family economic condition had a significant effect on their life and they became increasingly centered around the survival of their family. They had to resort to helping their husband in the shop and by being inventive to find alternative sources of income to be able to survive and feed their big families.

Their dual laborious roles at work and in the household left them exhausted and with little time for them. However, they would always find time for their children's education. They were kind-hearted and were always willing to help anyone in need and their generosity often knew no limits.

This study has also shown that even as owner of the shop, the family often struggled to make both ends meet and just managed to have a 'bowl of rice' because the credit system did not guarantee profits at the end of the year. Furthermore, they had to face unexpected natural calamities or social unrest and they had no choice but to stand on their own two feet and they had to be strong mentally to start from scratch again and again. Most of these Hakka women's only aspiration was to be a good mother to their children and a good wife to their husband, their main focus was on giving a better future, better education and better lives than they had had and they did everything possible to raise their children into successful adults.

Many Hakka women shared that it was thanks to their good management of the household and of the family business, that they were able make savings, they were mindful of money and food, they never wasted. They assumed a crucial role in their daily household tasks and they fought to survive and continued to move forward in their lives though they could not see the destination and despite the hardship and poverty they found themselves in. From daybreak till nightfall, they accomplished all the household chores and duties as daughters, wives, daughters-in-law, mothers and workers without ever complaining. These Hakka mothers were full-time housemakers and workers while fathers were very often absent in the inner sphere due to their work-related commitments to the shop. Quality family time was rare. Their goals for a better future entailed savings and sacrifices for many years, making thrift and careful money management for the families. The temporary absence of the husband who went to the city centre to renew their stock of goods could allow women to find new opportunities for socializing with the customers and neighbours, and could also sometimes facilitate great autonomy for these women. The evidence from this study suggests that these Hakka women were good managers of both the household and the family business.

The number and age of children determined the care burden on women and the financial situation would affect their feelings of financial anxiety and domestic worries. All the household chores were transferred on to the women's shoulders whereas men remained in the outer sphere. It was a life of hard work centered around the counters of the shop and domestic chores. This study has also shown how women had to juggle between family and work roles as their daily lives which were still anchored in Confucian traditions. They had to work out of necessity as life was difficult at the shop, they had to sacrifice themselves in order to make ends meet and to feed their families. Furthermore, this strong commitment to the work role was also to ensure financial security of the family which was considered more important than their individual interests. This finding has also demonstrated that the Chinese women were willing to sacrifice their personal interest for the interests of their families. They showed love by working hard, sacrificing their own comfort in order to give a better future to their children. One of the special characteristics of those Hakka women was that they never complained in front of their children no matter how exhausted they were, they just continued to do whatever they needed to do. According to one respondent, "Hakka women were so discreet, so strong, strong-minded, they would never complain and would really give whatever energy they have to survive, they were able to stand up and fight for their children and this is a big tribute to these women in general."

This study indicates that Chinese immigrant women's own voices have largely been ignored by history. Therefore, the results of this research support the idea that the historical roles and contributions of Chinese women can be restored through life stories and oral histories of these 'invisible' Hakka immigrant women. The history of Chinese immigration to Mauritius would be incomplete without describing the important contributions of these Chinese Hakka women in the successful evolution of small retail trade and in the economic development by working unceasingly side by side with their husbands and for all they had accomplished invisibly at the back of their family business. The survival of their families was primarily attributed to their courage, strong sense of duty, selfsacrifices, extraordinary abnegation, inventiveness, resourcefulness, selfdetermination, "strong backs" and "strong wills". With the passing away of most of the first-generation of Chinese women immigrants and the first-generation of Hakka women Sino-Mauritians, it would be interesting to be able to carry out fieldwork research and conduct face-to-face interviews for further research on the economic success of the second-and third-generation of Hakka women Sino-Mauritians during the 1980-90s.

32. Would you like to share any photographs or writings which I can use in my dissertation?

Closing the interview

Thank you very much for your trust and co-operation, for spending time with me and for sharing with me all this valuable information about your life stories. Is there anything else you would like to add before we end? 8,11,18,23,24,25,37,39,44,[48][49]76,33,48,[71][72]75,83 , 9, 15, 25, 29, 37, 45-47, 50, 52, 56, 82-83 women 6-9, 11, 14, 17-18, 24-25, 27-32, 34, 40-41, 44-56, 69, 73, 82-86, 88, 101 World War II 32, 44 Y yin-yang 51

"

  The journey is always difficult and long for the passenger. Life is always hard in any place" Wang Mian This chapter outlines the historical context of Chinese presence and their different stages of settlement in Mauritius. Mauritius island has a multi-ethnic population composed of European, African, Indian and Chinese descendants of migrants from different continents due to its past colonial history. Between 1638 and 1710 the Dutch made two unsuccessful attempts at colonizing the uninhabited island, followed by the French colonization from 1721 before the British conquered the island in 1810 and Mauritius became independent in 1968 (Selvon, Historical Dictionary of Mauritius). African slaves were brought from Africa and Madagascar to work in the sugar cane plantations during French rule. The abolition of slavery in 1835 led the former slave masters under British administration to have recourse to cheap migrant labour from India and China in the form of indentured labour. During the same period, China, like India was forced to comply with the need of Western imperialism to supply its share of the manpower necessary for the exploitation of the British colonies (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 1).

  This failed attempt led Mauritian planters to turn to the recruitment of Indian labour. In 1834, Arbuthnot, owner of the sugar estate "Belle Alliance" at Pamplemousses, became the first British planter to recruit 36 Indian labourers from Calcutta for a period of five years. Subsequently other Mauritian planters recruited 160 Indian indentured labourers accompanied by 61 women in 1835. However, in 1839, the Government of India halted the emigration of Indians to Mauritius due to the high mortality rate during the sea voyage. As a result, Mauritian planters turned their hope to Chinese agricultural labour again. (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 153).

  They also contributed greatly to the development of the country through the taxes they paid (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 80). The following map of South China depicts the different places from which the Fujianese, Cantonese and Hakka immigrants to Mauritius originated. As shown on the map, at the beginning of the 19 th century, the first wave of Chinese immigrants were the Fukienese or Hokkien, from the main districts of Xiamen, Furzhou and Quahzhou of the Fujian province (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 122). As from 1840, the second wave of Chinese immigrants were the Cantonese from the San Yap province south of Canton in the principal districts of Shuntak, Namhoi, Punyew and the Sze Yap province, including the districts of Seenwui, Kaiping, Yanping and Toishan, all located in the Pearl River Delta on the coast land close to Macao (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 123). In 1860, the third wave were the Hakkas from Meixian (Meishien or Moiyean).

Illustration 1 :

 1 Map of South China showing regions from which the Chinese of Mauritius originated. Source: Pan, Lynn. Sons of the Yellow Emperor: The Story of the Overseas Chinese. Mandarin Paperbacks, 1991.

  . Who are the Hakkas? The Hakka people are considered by most scholars and Chinese people to be the descendants of Han Chinese people who migrated southward from north central China before the fourth century C.E.(Constable 9). Until today, the specific place of origin, dates and stages of migration of the Hakka people are still highly debated among academics. The well-known Hakka historian, Luo Xianglin, was a strong advocate that the main body of the Hakka people came from the north central China and this view is supported by other Hakka scholars. 4 Basing his research mostly on genealogical records, Luo Xianglin 5 , identified five historical waves of Hakka migration from the north to the south, forming the southern based Hakka population. However, Mary S. Erbaugh 6 identified four mass migrations which started between the Tang and Song dynasties (907-959 A.D.) when the Hakkas left Henan and Shandong to escape the turmoil of the Jurchen attacks and settled in the less populated highlands of the Fujian-Jiangxi border near Changting (Tingzhou). The second wave occurred during the transition period from the Song to the Yuan dynasty (1127-1279) during which the Hakkas settled in the areas of Meixian (Meizhou) and the North River highlands. The third migration took place during the early Qing (1644-1800), many Hakkas moved to the uncultivated land on the coast of the south-east Guangdong and Hunan-Jiangxi border. By the year 1800, many of them had also settled definitively in Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan and the area of Sichuan which was depopulated by famine. The fourth wave happened in the mid-19 th century after the death of many Hakkas in the land wars between the Hakka and the Punti (Natives, Cantonese) and in the wake of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) which led many Hakkas to move away from Guangdong to Sichuan, Hong Kong and overseas. According to Nicole

  Chinese immigrants contributed greatly to the economic and social development of Mauritius and the arrival of Chinese women at the start of the twentieth century would provide a massive support to the progress of Chinese retail trade. Until the beginning of World War II, most Chinese were involved in retail shops in urban and rural areas and the success of their implantation relied entirely on the inter and intra-community support networks in Mauritius Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 191). They were about 81.3% of the Chinese population to be traders in 1901, but the percentage gradually decreased to56% in 1921, 45.1% in 1931 and 33.2% in 1944. This was due to the fact that the large majority of Chinese shopkeepers just managed to work for a mere "bowl of rice" and they always got out of trade once they gained the skills for another sector of activity (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 80). Prior to 1945, the majority of Chinese sought to live in Mauritius only temporarily, with an intention to return to China someday and they thus sent remittances to China for their future business and family (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 253-254). But after the end of the Chinese Civil War between the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the nationalists, that is the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China (ROC), and also after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Chinese immigrants considered Mauritius as the only safe refuge left to them. For that reason, many of them chose to become naturalized and sought to integrate the Mauritian society by adopting the lifestyle developed in the island and by sharing the social life of Mauritians. Those Chinese born in Mauritius or who had acquired the British nationality were entitled to own land (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 241). Instead of sending their sons to China to complete their education, many parents decided to enrol their children in Mauritian schools before sending them to Europe to complete their higher education (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 208). The children of immigrants became gradually fluent in French, English andCreole and gave up their Chinese nationality to take British citizenship. Moreover, in 1946, the 10-Year Development and Welfare Plan adopted by the British authorities would not only benefit the majority of the population but also the Chinese immigrants from social services provided from the State(Siew et al. 90).They chose to settle in Mauritius and opted for a more Western education for their children and they would increasingly turn to Catholic or public schools in the hope of providing a better future for their children and obtaining scholarship for their tertiary studies abroad(Siew et al. 100). After the Independence of Mauritius in 1968, the Chinese born in Mauritius acquired the status of citizen which encouraged them to fully integrate themselves into the Mauritian society. Social differentiation within the community disappeared progressively and the Sino-Mauritians fraternized regardless of ethnic origin, language or culture (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 179).

Illustration 2 :

 2 Interior of a Laboutik sinoi Source: Ly Tio Fane-Pineo, Huguette, and Edouard Lim Fat. From Alien to Citizen: The Integration of the Chinese in Mauritius. Éditions de l'océan Indien, 2008, pp 132.As a result, the Hakkas progressively and successfully dominated the retailing market of Mauritius by the turn of 1860 and this coincided with the legalization of emigration authorizing women to emigrate and permitting migrants to bring their families with them (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 73).Laboutik sinoi played a crucial role in the socio-economic life of the island.At the beginning, the Chinese had to face problems of acceptance by the local community, but they managed to integrate progressively and assiduously by winning the trust and acceptance of the locals with the setting up of small-scale shops all over the island. The Chinese village shopkeeper started to build contact with his customers by creating a system of barter and exchange with them. He accepted their local produce and exchanged them against other basic necessities(Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 77). For instance, vegetables, eggs, poultry were exchanged for staple goods like cooking oil, flour, rice, and paraffin oil for lighting (Siew et al. 70). According to Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat, the Chinese shop thus became a key collecting point, a point of sale and exchange for the locally grown products (77). During these important years, this business relationship was mutually beneficial for both the Creole villager and the Chinese shopkeeper. As a result, the latter became familiar with the local community and had a good relation with the villagers which was a positive aspect of development in the social structure of village life. He was therefore able to establish a relationship of trust with the local community and soon became well-known in the village (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 77). Chinese shopkeepers were also famous for providing the basic necessities on credit to his customers during the intercrop season. This credit system, also called 'roulement' ('rolling system') was developed by the Chinese shopkeeper to respond effectively to the pace of life on the sugar estates. (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 78-79; Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 69). During the harvesting season, locally known as 'la coupe', the tempo of work was very fast and the work load was at its highest, causing field labourers to work over time. This period thus enabled the labourers to gain more money which would be spent without moderation on food and clothing in the nearby Chinese shop (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 78). However, the plantation season, known as 'l'entre-coupe' (intercrop season) which follows, required only a minimum amount of labour to maintain the fields in good condition. During that period, many labourers were unemployed and it was a difficult time especially for those who had no savings as the State unemployment benefit scheme did not exist at that time (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 78). Through the use of this credit system, customers were therefore able to buy goods on credit during the intercrop season and to pay what they owed when they received their wages during the following harvesting period (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 79). A relationship based on mutual trust and reliability was made possible due to the already acquired social standing of the Chinese shopkeeper in the village (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 77). The shopkeeper kept track of all the weekly or monthly credit purchases of his customers by means of a carnet rouz or carnet Laboutik (red or shop notebook),which would be settled on Saturdays, payday or by the end of the month. The shopkeeper also benefited credit facilities up to 4 credit purchases from his wholesalers. As Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat put it, sale on credit became the driving force of the economic progression of the community (79-80).

Family

  and solidarity played an active role in Chinese community in taking care of the newly arrived immigrants. Most Chinese immigrants received financial help for their sea voyage and during their early phase of settlement from family members who had already settled down in Mauritius(Siew et al. 66). In 1895, the already established Chinese community in Mauritius provided food and shelter to the growing number of immigrants from the Guangdong province of China who escaped the social unrest, political repression and revolutionary agitations and came to seek refuge in the island. The Mauritius Archives Series Z/2D registered an arrival of more than 7,000 Chinese in Mauritius during the years1895-1900 (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 45).Most Chinese businesses were small-scale and family enterprises and the immigrants started from scratch. They began to work based on the hierarchy of tasks as commis or clerks in laboutik sinoi for a year or two in order to pay back their benefactors(Siew et al. 66). They were provided with accommodation and food on the trade premises by their guarantor and their work consisted in doing the household duties, preparing meals for other employees, making paper bags, fractioning the goods into the small paper bags, and cleaning the counter and scales(Siew et al. 66). The living conditions did not enable them to found a family right away. Besides, they received no regular salary and it was only at the end of their contract and apprenticeship period that they would receive the necessary funds. With the acquired experience they were therefore able to start their own small business and to start a family life (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 168-169). Carter and Ng Foong Kwong refer to the Chinese migrant as initially being part of a Clan network and being helped by his relatives who had already settled on the island (115). The Clan Associations or 'kwons' are Chinese associations with members who share the same line of descent, surname or have come from the same dialect group and they were officially legalized in Mauritius in 1904 (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 183). Until 1941, 25 Chinese Mutual Aid Associations existed on the island and the major kwons today are owned by the Lees, Wongs, Chans, Ngs, Chungs, Lims and Cheongs (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo andLim Fat 183). They serve as a mutual aid society and as a social centre and their aim is to provide help to each member in distress(Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 115;. They also make sure to provide a pension to widows and orphans of the clan members and medical care to the sick, to provide work to the unemployed, to offer a return trip to China to the old and finally a decent burial for their deceased members (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 181). In addition to providing assistance to the newly arrived immigrants, the clan premises served as headquarters of the clans, as gathering and meeting places, by providing food which was prepared from their own kitchens and accommodation and leisure activities such as mah-jong, cards and chess for their members.(Siew et al. 144). The Chinese retailers used to come to the kwons once a week from rural areas to the capital to purchase their stock of goods needed for their shops and at the same time this enabled them to meet other shop owners to exchange information, opinions and experiences, get advice and financial support, and to receive news from the newcomers about their families back in China (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 182;Siew et al. 145). The country shopkeepers would stay for about 2 to 5 days and were able to store their goods, and they would get together with other shopkeepers to hire a railway wagon to transport their stock to their shops Siew et al. 145). This shows the solidarity that existed among the shopkeepers.The success of the Chinese immigrants in retail trading not only relied on their skill, competence and assiduity but essentially on the close family spirit which existed among the first immigrants (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 79).The elders believed that it was their responsibility to help newcomers in establishing their shop by raising some of the funds needed to start the business by means of a traditional form of credit association among a group of Chinese or by providing goods on credit in order to make up an initial stock of goods(Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 115; Pan 137).Each ethnic group of the Chinese community created its own association and pagoda. In 1842, Hahime Choisanne, the leader of the Chinese community built a place of worship for the Chinese known as the Cohan Tai Biou or more commonly known as the Kwan Tee pagoda, on his own land in Les Salines in honour of the god of war and protector of traders and every year the festival is still celebrated on the 13 th day of the fifth lunar month (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 332).The pagoda functioned not only as a place of worship, but also as a civil administrative centre consisting of an assembly room, a court of justice where Hahime Choisanne acted as president of the pagoda and as arbitrator to settle the disputes between Chinese immigrants, and there was also a community centre which provided assistance to the poor (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 186).In the last part of the 19 th century, other clan "pagodas" or social centres were developed in the island (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 186). The Hakkas also created their Hakka Kwon from 1874, known as the Heen Foh or 'Humanity and Harmony' Society at Salines in order to promote the cultural traditions of Hakka community, for instance, they had a section for the education of Hakka children (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 127). The Chinese Chamber of Commerce was created by some Chinese traders in December 1908 in order to help the first generations of Chinese immigrants in their settlement in Mauritius and to protect and promote the interests of their businesses. For instance, they helped the Chinese immigrants and their families in all their administrative formalities with the British administration by issuing them the necessary arrival certificates (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 100-101; Siew et al. 87). During World War II, the shortage of food led the government to impose the regulation of food supply by rations to the population as from 22 nd of June 1943. During that period, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce played a crucial role in the redistribution of the permits to the individual shop owners for the distribution of basic foodstuff like maize, sweet potatoes and rice, and also the household necessities such as kerosene, soap and clothes to the population (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 200). In 1944, about 4000 women were part of the 10,000 Chinese members of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (Siew et al.88).

  co-habit or get married with Coloured and Creole women. The Chinese custom allowed a man to have as many concubines as he could financially support. However, most of the Chinese immigrants had already been married to girls chosen by their parents before they left China and the main problem for those who found themselves with a "double family" was financial, as they had the duty to support the family members left in China and to visit them as frequently as possible (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 169-170). Moreover, Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat note that in these situations, on one hand, the wife left behind in China often showed no resentment at being without her husband for she was brought up to believe that the principal duty of a married woman was to serve her parents-in-law (170). On the other hand, the Mauritian wife who accompanied her husband to visit the family in China was considered as a foreigner and was therefore rejected by the parents-in-law. Consequently, the dutiful son had no other alternative but to abandon his wife and children in Hong Kong for repatriation by the British government (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 171). This issue was resolved in 1889 between the Colonial Secretary, Sweet Schott and the leader of the Chinese community Affan Tank Wen in collaboration with the Chinese community to prevent it from happening again (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 171). In most cases, the unions between the Chinese immigrants and Creole wives were stable. James Ng Foong Kwong 23 , in his article entitled "The Role of Creoles in Chinese Settlement" demonstrates how Creole women played an essential role in the development of their Chinese male partners' commerce and contributed to their commercial success. Similarly, Teelock stresses on the important contribution of Creole wives in helping their Chinese husbands to integrate into Mauritian society

  101). According to the Annual Report of the Civil Status Department for 1883, the number of mixed marriages legally contracted by Chinese or Indian immigrants with Creole women was 415. However, this number of legally married Chinese remained low as most of these Chinese immigrants had already been married to girls chosen by their parents just before they left China (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 169).

  would become evident in the first generation of.They also observe that the faithfulness of the Mauritian women soon increased the number of Catholics in the Chinese community, from 203 in 1901 to 520 in 1911 27 and from 207 in 1911 to 520 in 1921. The 1921 census report reveals that in 1921, 386 children were born from the union of Chinese men with Creole women and 148 children were born from the union of Chinese men with Indian women (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 173-174). This part has shown the crucial role played by Creole women in the social integration of Chinese immigrants by contributing 25 See Carter, Marina, et al. Colouring the Rainbow: Mauritian Society in the Making. Centre for research on Indian ocean societies CRIOS, 1998, pp. 108. 26 Ibid., pp. 106. 27 Ibid., pp. 107. greatly to their settlement in the retail business, in founding families and in their conversion to Catholicism. With the arrival of Chinese women immigrants at the beginning of the 20 th century, mixed marriages would become less frequent as the Hakkas became unwilling to intermarry with other ethnic group members and began to look for a spouse from his native village in China who was used to nearly the same hard life, farming the land, feeding the farm animals and at the same time running the household (Ly Tio Fane-Pineo and Lim Fat 177; Siew et al. 42). However, I have the testimony of a daughter whose Hakka mother married a Sino-Mauritian of Cantonese ethnicity which will be illustrated in the following chapter. These Chinese women would change the community's demographics and contribute to the growth of the Chinese community. They would also provide an impetus to Chinese trade, and would enhance the transmission of Chinese values within the community.

  separation of spaces and spheres of action between what lies inside (nei) and what lies outside (wai), she quoted "Men are positioned on the outside, women in the outside" and "Men do not talk about what refers to the inside (of the household), women do not talk about what refers to the outside" (47) 31 .The following four sections of this chapter present the thematic narrative analysis of the lives of 9 Hakka women. It focuses on interview data that was thematically associated with their familial and economic contributions in different Hakka women actively contributed to make their families economically successful by participating directly in the daily operation of the family business.As Constable put it, Hakka women participated actively and visibly in their economic in the public domain (20). For instance, according to the Mauritius Chinese Association of Ontario Newsletter, a centenarian Hakka woman who was born in Mauritius shared that: She was born in Mauritius and spent most of her life in Piton where she raised 9 children and took an active part in the daily running of her "La Boutique L'Etage".

  My mother was the fourth child in a family of five children, with 2 eldest brothers, 1 elder sister and one younger brother. The oldest son was the only one to have a Chinese name and the other four children were baptized as Catholics and had a Christian name. All children attended Chinese school. With only primary education in Chinese school, my mother could speak a little French. Her daily interactions with the Franco-Mauritian community in Curepipe where she lived, had enabled her to communicate fluently in French. Before getting married, my mother was responsible for cooking and cleaning at the back of the shop with her mother whereas her elder sister and her two eldest brothers were at the front counter of the shop with their father serving the customers. My mother's daily responsibilities consisted of cooking for a family of seven, morning, midday and evening meals, doing all the housework, cleaning, washing and ironing. My grandmother went back and forth between the kitchen and the shop to help whenever there were too many customers whereas my mother was mostly working at the back of the shop. At that time, they could not afford to pay for a maid.(A.B.) Not all Chinese immigrants were shopkeepers. One respondent's father opened a tailor shop in the China Town of Port-Louis.My father first came to Mauritius in the 1920s, he started to work as a cook and later on as a 'commis' (shop assistant) in a shop in the rural areas. After many years of hard work and after having saved enough money, he was able to travel back to his home village in Meixian to find a wife. My parents got married in Meixian and they arrived in Mauritius in 1930 with their first child, a son who was about one and a half years old. They rented a room and lived in Port-Louis. There were four other families living in the same house with a central courtyard, sharing a common kitchen, a toilet and a bathroom which were separated from the house. My father rented a shop and opened his own tailor shop in China Town. He was responsible for making shorts and shirts pattern and cutting out the fabric which he then gave to two assistants who worked in the sewing workroom at the back of the shop. He also sold a range of fabrics. He found it easier to earn enough money to support his family as a tailor than a 'commis'.My mother gave birth every two years from 1929 to 1943, we were a family of 5 boys and 3 girls. We were all born at home with the help of a midwife. I am the fourth child, with 2 oldest brothers, 1 elder sister, 3 younger brothers and 1 younger sister. Our rented room was not big enough to accommodate all of us, therefore my two eldest brothers stayed with the shop assistants in the sewing workroom at the back of the shop. My mother, like most of the Hakka women of her generation never attended school and spoke the Hakka dialect most often at home, sometimes a few words of Creole. She always wore the traditional 'cabayes chinois' (traditional set of Oriental jacket and pants).

  father's shop. From a very young age, my older sister and I helped our mother to manually sew three buttonholes on each short, there were no zippers and no sewing machine at that time. Many years later, my father was able to purchase two footoperated Singer sewing machines which were used in the sewing workshop at the back of his tailor shop. (A.C.) Illustration 3: A foot-operated Singer sewing machine used in a tailor shop for the manufacturing of shorts and shirts. Source: Photo courtesy of one of the respondents.

  My parents are both Hakka from Meixian. My father worked very hard for many years in Mauritius until he saved enough money to go back to his native Chinese village in the 1930's to look for a spouse and start a family. He had started to work in laboutik sinoi from the bottom of the ladder as a 'commis', then 'chefcommis' before working on his own. I am from a family of five children, with three daughters and two sons. My mother spent almost all her life in laboutik sinoi in the village of a sugar estate. Around the age of eighty due to health reasons she left the shop reluctantly. She had spent 60 years serving the inhabitants of the village where she knew almost everyone by name.

  lady. During our teenage years, we have always been in involved in the Church activities at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Port-Louis. (A.K.) A.B. shared how her mother invested in the education of her children in order to give them a better future: I actually received both my primary and secondary education in Catholic schools. When I was sixteen years old, I chose to be baptized in the Catholic church just before I completed my secondary education at the Loreto Convent of Curepipe, which was run by the Loreto Sisters Congregation. Half of my classmates wereFranco-Mauritians and they would not mingle easily with other ethnic groups. From the first years of secondary schooling, that is, from Form 1, I was doing very good in my studies and I received many prizes for my academic success. That's how my white classmates started to befriend me. I gradually broke down these social barriers and I successfully promoted mutual acceptance by helping them with their homework. I liked to share and transmit my knowledge. I acquired this intellectual knowledge thanks to my parents. My sister and I loved reading, and my mother would not hesitate to spend money on books which was lots of money at that time.

  . Hahime Choisanne, the leader of the Chinese community lived with a Creole wife, Eleonore Curaux and had a son named Tianne Fate and he

	also benefited from his close collaboration with Mauritians of other ethnic groups
	(Carter et al. 105, 108). After Hahime's return to China in 1872 and after his death
	in 1874, Affan Tank Wen, a Cantonese who arrived in Mauritius on 31 August
	1861 at the age of 19, became his successor according to the revised
	Constitution in 1886 (Ly-Tio-Fane-Pineo 332). On 12 June 1872, he was one of
	the first Chinese to convert to Catholicism and got baptised in the name of Louis,

in order to marry Marie Elizabeth Athow, a Creole-Chinese and Christian woman.

  Tasty traditional 39 See Ng Cheong Tin-Leung Joyce. 'Chinese New Year'. MCAO (Mauritius Chinese Association of Ontario)

	Newsletter, Issue 2 -Spring 2017, pp. 4
	40 Ibid., pp. 3
	41 Ibid., pp. 3
	42 Ibid., pp.3

MA Z2D, Arrival Register 1826. See Carter, Marina, and James Ng Foong Kwong. Abacus and Mah Jong: Sino-Mauritian Settlement and Economic Consolidation. Brill, 2009, pp 51.

The Treaty of Nanking was signed between Great Britain and China on August 29, 1842. It ended the first opium war and forced China to open five commercial ports to the activities of British traders, including Hong Kong and Shanghai, Canton (Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen), Foochow (Fuzhou), Ningpo (Ningbo).

(Myron L. Cohen 1968, Constable 1994, Hsieh 1929, Kiang 1991, S.T. Leong 1985, Lo Wan 1965, Luo Xianglin 1933, Moser 1985, Jerry Norman 1988, Ramsey 1987). This list can be seen inConstable, Nicole. 'Introduction: What Does It Mean to Be Hakka?' Guest People,1996, pp. 9.

See Luo, Xianglin 1933. Kejia yanjiu daolun (An introduction to the study of the Hakka in its ethnic, historical, and cultural aspects) Xingning, Guangdong: Xishan Shucang.

See Erbaugh, Mary S. 'The Secret History of the Hakkas: The Chinese Revolution as a Hakka Enterprise'. The ChinaQuarterly, no. 132, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 946-947.

MA Z2D Arrival Register, 1860. See Carter, Marina, and James Ng Foong Kwong. Abacus and Mah Jong: Sino-Mauritian Settlement and Economic Consolidation. Brill, 2009, pp 66.

Anon, 'Life in Hong Kong', Harpers Weekly, 30 Jan. 1858, p. 68, Qtd. in Carter, Marina, and James Ng Foong Kwong. Abacus and Mah Jong: Sino-Mauritian Settlement and Economic Consolidation. Brill, 2009, pp 143-144.

See Hsieh, T'ing-yu, 1929. "Origins and Migrations of the Hakkas." Chinese Social and Political Science Review 13 (220): pp 203-5. Cited in Constable, Nicole. 'Introduction: What Does It Mean to BeHakka?' Guest People, 1996, pp.10.

Quoted in Ardizzoni, Sabrina. 'The Paradigm of Hakka Women in History'. Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1, Jan. 2021, pp.41. Citation taken from Xie, Chongguang, 2005a. Kejia wenhua yu funü: 12-20 shiji Kejia funü yanjiu(Hakka Society and Culture in Fujian and Taiwan). Fuzhou: Fuzhou People's Publishing House.

See Stockard, Janice E.,1989, pp.175. Daughters of the Canton Delta: Marriage Patterns and Econonic Strategies in South China, 1860-1930. Standford: Stanford University Press. Cited in Constable, Nicole. 'Introduction: What Does It Mean to Be Hakka?' Guest People, 1996, pp.26

Luo Xianglin or LuoHiang-lin (1906Hiang-lin ( -1978) ) was one of the first and renowned Hakka historians and educator in Hakka language, culture and genealogy in 20 th century. http://bdcconline.net/en/stories/luoxianglin

 13 See Funü gongminNo.2/2, pp.22-30 February 1993, cited in Ardizzoni, Sabrina. 'The Paradigm of Hakka Women in History'. Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1, Jan. 2021, pp.

42. 14 Quoted in Ardizzoni, Sabrina. 'The Paradigm of Hakka Women in History'. Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1, Jan. 2021, pp.43. See Luo, Xianglin. (Introduction to Hakka Studies -Added: A Study on Hakka Origins). Canton: Guangdong Peoples' Publishing House, 2018, pp

. 191.15 "A fortified Chinese rural dwelling made from earth, unique to the Hakka in the mountainous areas in southeastern Fujian" https://www.wordsense.eu/tulou/

Quoted in Ardizzoni, Sabrina. 'The Paradigm of Hakka Women in History'. Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1, Jan. 2021, pp.43-44. See Luo, Xianglin. (Introduction to Hakka Studies -Added: A Study on Hakka Origins). Canton: Guangdong Peoples' Publishing House, 2018, pp.

SeeCarter, Marina, and James Ng Foong Kwong. Abacus and Mah Jong: Sino-Mauritian Settlement and Economic Consolidation. Brill, 2009, pp 92.

See Pan, Lynn. Sons of the Yellow Emperor: The Story of the Overseas Chinese. Reprinted,Mandarin, 1992, pp61-62.

See Carter, Marina, et al. Colouring the Rainbow: Mauritian Society in the Making. Centre for research on Indian ocean societiesCRIOS, 1998, pp. 97-118.

Ibid., pp. 99.

https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln275/5%20Relations.htm

Cited by Judy Stacey. See Wolf, Margery. Women and the family in rural Taiwan. Stanford University Press, 1972. See also Wolf, Margery. Uterine Families and the Women's Community. https://www.sweetstudy.com/files/wolf.uterinefamilies.pdf, pp. 214.

Cited by Sabrina Ardizzoni. See Luo, Xianglin. Kejia yanjiu daolun -wai yi zhong (Introduction to Hakka Studies -Added: A Study on Hakka Origins). Canton: Guangdong Peoples' Publishing House. pp.191

Cited by Sabrina Ardizzoni. See more details in Ardizzoni, Sabrina. 'The Paradigm of Hakka Women in History'. AsianStudies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 47. revije.ff.uni-lj.si, https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2021.9.1.31-64.

Mauritius Chinese Association of Ontario Newsletter, Issue 2 -Spring 2017, Celebrating 3 Centenarians by Priscilla Lam/Jean Jacques Hian-Cheong/Nathalie Limyin

See more details on different ethnic groups in Mauritius. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 'Common Denominators: Ethnicity, Nation-Building and Compromise in Mauritius'. Common Denominators Ethnicity,Nation-Building and Compromise in Mauritius, Berg. 1998.

'1968 Mauritian Riots'. Wikipedia, 28 May 2022. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1968_Mauritian_riots&oldid=1090329991.

Cited by Edith Wong Hee-Kam in "Religious Beliefs of the Chinese in the Mascarenes". See "De la religion traditionnelle au christianisme," Congress on Evangelization of the Chinese, O.I.Occidental, 1983. (Chinese Catholic Misison, ed., Port Louis, 1983,) p.69.

Cited by Edith Wong Hee-Kam in the same article. See "La mission catholique chinoise" in Aurore. No. 25, January 1991, p.5. Jean Ah-Chuen died a few years ago. He was a remarkable figure in the world of economics and politics in Mauritius. Huguette Ly-Tio-Fane Pineo has written his biography in her work, Chinese Diaspora in Western Indian Ocean, Presses de G.I.S. Méditérannée,Aix-en-Provence, 1981.

Quoted in Ardizzoni, Sabrina. 'The Paradigm of Hakka Women in History'. Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1, Jan. 2021, pp.43-44. See Luo, Xianglin. (Introduction to Hakka Studies -Added: A Study on Hakka Origins). Canton: Guangdong Peoples' Publishing House, 2018, pp. 191.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I especially wish to thank all Hakka women who so generously gave me their time, who entrusted me with their life stories, thoughts and feelings and to their children who were willing to talk to me about their mothers' lives, without whom this project would not have been possible. I would like to express my gratitude and my deepest appreciation to my supervisor Mrs. Renée Tosser, Professor in the English Department at the University of Reunion for her continued guidance and support. I would like to give a special thanks to Mr. Live Yu-Sion, Sociologist, Researcher and author of numerous books and articles on Chinese diaspora in France and in the Indian Ocean islands for his advice and support. I am immensely grateful to my mother, husband, family members and friends for their continuous encouragement. iv

life stages that were vital to the survival of their families. Their lived experiences and contributions will be cited in the first-person narratives, in the respondents' own voices. Four common themes were developed: Resilience and Hard Work, Being Catholic and Ancestor Worship, Education for a Better Future, Putting the Family and Others First.

-RESILIENCE AND HARD WORK

Many of the first generation of Chinese women immigrants in Mauritius were illiterate. After their arrival in Mauritius, these Hakka women had to face various difficulties such as the language barrier, feelings of isolation and adaptation to their new environment. At the beginning of their settlement, language barrier was the most important obstacle that limited them to converse with the local community and to be involved in society. However, the Hakka women, with their husbands, managed to speak Mauritian Creole (the local language) with an accent and also some Bhojpuri or Hindi spoken by the Indian labourers, which they learnt from their customers and their neighbours so as to adapt to their new cultural environment (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 184) .

A.B. reminisced about the strong wills of her illiterate grandmother who was immediately absorbed and adopted the local language by being actively involved at the back and in the front of the shop.

My strong-willed paternal grandmother to overcome the language barrier

When my paternal grandmother came back from Moiyean, Guangdong province of China to Mauritius in 1975, she was 75 years old and Hakka dialect was the only language she could speak to us. Within three years, she successfully overcame the barriers of language and she was able to speak Creole. Her hands were deformed by arthritis and this did not stop her from helping in the shop, by serving clients, and preparing food for us. She was strong. She passed away at the age of ninety-two.

Helping our mother when our father had a stroke

One respondent recalled how she and her elder sister helped their mother in making manioc flour to earn some money to support the family when their father had a stroke.

I was about twelve years old and my sister was older than me by two years when our father had a stroke. He was partly paralyzed and had to stay in bed during two years before he was able to walk again. My two oldest brothers looked after the shop during the difficult times of my father's illness. Half of the rented space of the shop was given back to the owner as there were only small quantities of goods.

During that time, my sister and I stopped going to Chinese school where we had done our primary education and I had just completed my first year of secondary education. At that time, school was not free and it was at a long walking distance from our home. In order to help make ends meet, we helped our mother to make manioc (cassava) flour. It took us long hours of hard work to be able to produce and sell just a few pounds of manioc flour. We had to peel, grate several hundred pounds of manioc, press them through a cloth and let them dry. (A.C.) Interestingly, another respondent's father and grandfather were not in the retail business.

My mother got married with a Cantonese from the Guangdong province of China. My mother was twenty-two years old and her husband was five years older than her. My mother's parents were very happy for their daughter even if my father was a not a Hakka. My maternal grandparents were Hakka immigrants from Meixian, Guangdong province of China. My maternal grandfather was a bookkeeper while my grandmother stayed at home to take care of their ten children, 4 boys and 6 girls. My mother was the family's ninth child. My mother gave birth to two children, one daughter in 1953 and one son in 1956. We were born at home with the help of a midwife.

My father was seven years old when he left Canton with his father to come Mauritius in 1939. He was the eldest son and his siblings stayed with their mother in Canton. His father had an elder brother who had opened a shop with his wife from Rodrigues and they had two sons and one daughter. His father passed away a year converts to continue the ancestor worship which was considered as a cultural practice instead of a religious practice (Carter and Ng Foong Kwong 167). Participation in this study is voluntary, you have the right to refuse to answer any question or questions which might make you uncomfortable, and you can refuse the interview or withdraw from the research at any time. All information which you choose to share will be used solely for completing the academic research for my Master's dissertation and will be treated as strictly confidential.

Memories of my baptism

Your anonymity will also be safeguarded in the publication of the results of this research. Thanking you in advance for your valuable time, co-operation and contribution for this research.

Family

C

Canton 14,[19][20][28][29][30]52,59,74 Cantonese 14,[18][19][20]22,24,44,47,49,59,70 carnet Laboutik 35 Catholic 26,33,48,53,60,[69][70][71][74][75]87 Catholic school 60 , 9, 23-24, 40-41, 43-45, 47-49, 76 Chinese free immigrants 14

Chinese immigrants 6, 8, 9, 14, 16, 19-20, 25, 32-33, 38, 40-41, 43-46, 48, 57, 68, 75, 81, 86 Chinese 9,12,[33][34]37,[40][41][44][45][46][47][48]53,58,69,87 Creole women 44,46,48 Curepipe 57,62,64,70,75 cyclone Carole 63 daughters 9, 11, 48, 50, 56, 61, 65-66, 68, 73, 75, 83 daughters-in-law 9, 73, 83 decision maker 56 distillery business 39 double burden 82, 101 dual religion 71 education 7, 10, 27, 30, 32, 43, 47, 56, 59-60, 68, 70, 74, 75, 77, 78, 83

D

E

H

Hahime 18,43,47 Hakka 5,iii,[6][7][8][9][11][12]14,18,[20][21][22][23]25,[27][28][29][30][31]39,43,49,52,[53][54][55][56][57]59,[68][69][70][74][75]80,[82][83][84][85][86][87]91,96,101 Hakka immigrants 14, 20-21, 23, 59

Hakka traders 18, 39

Hakka women iii, 6-9, 11, 14, 25, 27-31, 39, 52-57, 75, 82-86, 101 hard work 8-9, 23, 28, 55-57, 59, 61-62, 67, 84

ABSTRACT -RÉSUMÉ

The lived experiences and contributions of Chinese Hakka women immigrants have been largely overlooked in Mauritian history. Most studies have focused mainly on the contribution and essential role of Chinese male immigrants in the success of retail trade in rural and urban areas of the island. The aim of this study is to fill this gap by drawing attention to these silenced women who have remained invisible and to understand their resilience and hard work. This study uses the qualitative interview information of Hakka women to investigate their lived experiences during the 1930-70s.

The findings show that their double burden of household and work responsibilities was vital and indispensable for the survival of their families and for their social integration into Mauritian society.

KEYWORDS: Hakka women, lived experiences, contributions, small retail trade, qualitative interview, double burden, survival, social integration, Mauritian society.