Digging out the truth from Chinese gold rush legends
Known as the Gold Mountain sojourners – or gum saan haak – they embarked on their journey dressed in traditional Chinese clothes, wearing long Qing braid hairstyles and carrying little more than a rattan suitcase filled with clothes, food and a few personal belongings.
The exhibition "Sojourning in Gold Mountain – Hong Kong and the Lives of Overseas Chinese in California" at the Hong Kong Museum of History in Tsim Sha Tsui takes a deeper look at the stories of these sojourners.
The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals – which, founded in 1870, is the oldest charitable organisation in Hong Kong – played a significant role in such repatriation.
The Tung Wah Museum provided for the exhibition a bone container from the early 20th century, used to repatriate the remains of the deceased to their hometowns via Hong Kong.
Digging out the truth from Chinese gold rush legends
