The Chinese Problem: Ireland

The Chinese Earthquake Appeal Network in Ireland

Introduction
Two thousand and eight was a special but uneasy year for China due to a series of events, including
the snow storm in southern China in February, the widespread pro-Tibet demonstrations in preparation for
the 2008 Olympic Games in April, the SiChuan earthquake in May, and culminating in the Beijing
Olympics in August. As the world seemed to zoom in on China, for Chinese people all over the world it
was a good year to be Chinese. The Chinese in Ireland made a collective public appearance in response to
these events; in particular they appeared publicly at the April pro-Beijing Olympic protest on O’Connell
Street and the May candlelight vigil in Dublin’s Smithfield Square in support of the SiChuan earthquake.
Although the 25 May candlelight vigil was the result of the largest scale cooperation to date between
twelve Chinese-led organisations and Chinese individuals in Ireland, it was not the first time Irish-based
Chinese-led organisations collaborated: some 2,000 Chinese people, mostly Chinese migrants, came
together for the April 2008 Pro-Beijing Olympics protest on Dublin’s O’Connell Street. However, the
coming together on the occasion of the earthquake appeal – the focus of this paper – was the largest ever
public demonstration of Chinese presence in Ireland.
This paper, based on ethnographic research, begins with a brief background discussion of Chinese
migration to Ireland, with specific focus on the nature of Chinese-led organisations. After discussing the
usefulness of theorising Chinese-led organisations as networks, the paper describes the process of
networking in relation to the earthquake appeal.
The Chinese in Ireland
One of the longest established migrant groups in Ireland, Chinese people have been living in
Ireland in significant numbers since the 1950s, according to one of the interviewees, whose relatives
came to Ireland in the 1950s. According to the Dictionary of Overseas Chinese (1993), in 1986 there
were 1,000 Chinese people in Ireland. In the 1996 census the population has risen to 10,000 (Ma, 2003,
Table 1.1). The 2006 census recorded 11,161 Chinese people (the census records Chinese people as the
fifth largest non-Irish national group). However, the exact number of Chinese migrants is not easy to
define for several reasons. Firstly, census figures are unreliable; as noted by O’Leary and Li (2008), one
of three of their respondents did not fill the 2006 census forms. As many of their respondents were legally
registered students, they concluded that ‘the level of non-inclusion in the census would be considerably
higher among Chinese migrants who did not hold or no longer held legal immigrant status’.
Indeed, estimates as to the number of Chinese migrants in Ireland tend to vary and different sources
give much higher figures of Chinese migrants in Ireland than those recorded by the 2006 census, some as
high as 50,000 or 60,000. A 2004 article claimed ‘As many as 60,000 Chinese now live in Ireland,
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao noted during a visit to Dublin in May’ (Business Week, 2004). 1
 The Chinese
1 Embassy, on the other hand, estimated that in 2008 there were 30,000 Chinese people in Ireland, of whom
3,000 were students in Irish third level institutions (O’Leary and Li, 2008). O’Leary and Li’s estimation
that the population stands between the embassy’s 30,000 and the media’s 60,000 might be plausible
especially given that in 2004 15,933 student visas were issued according to the Garda National
Immigration Bureau (GNIB) (Wang and King O’Riain, 2006).
The Central Statistics Office (CSO)’s ‘profile of nationalities’ based on the 2006 census provides an
interesting snapshot of people of Chinese origin in Ireland, 97 per cent of whom described themselves as
‘Chinese’ in response to the ‘ethnic and cultural identity’ census question. According to this profile, 54
per cent of Chinese respondents were males, 46 per cent females; 95 per cent lived in urban areas, mostly
in Dublin city and suburbs; most lived in rented accommodation and 70 per cent were aged between 20
and 40 years; 43 per cent were students and the same percentage were at work, mostly in the hotel and
restaurant industry; 91 per cent were employees and 8 per cent were self employed; 71 per cent were
single and 80 per cent had no religion (CSO, 2008: 48-51).
There is general agreement among researchers that there are two main waves of Chinese migration
into Ireland. Nicola Yau, who studied second generation Chinese in Ireland, writes that as Chinese
immigration to Northern Ireland has been taking place since the late 1950s and early 1960s, there is a
substantial history of Chinese immigrants to the island of Ireland. From the 1950s to the 1970s the
majority of Chinese immigrants originated from Hong Kong. The 1950s saw migration from the villages
of the New Territories. The indigenous rice economy was undermined by rising urban labour costs and
could not compete with cheap imported rice. As Commonwealth citizens, residents of the New Territories
were allowed free access to Britain. The post-World War Two economy in Britain saw a rise in demand
for takeaway food and many young people went there to work in relatives’ restaurants. However, the
1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act was introduced a decade later to restrict immigration of colonials
to Britain. Many Chinese immigrants first travelled to Britain before travelling to the Republic of Ireland
(as is the case with some of Yau’s participants’ parents). During the 1980s Malaysian Chinese came to
Ireland primarily as students, while present migration flows originate from Mainland China (Yau, 2007).
If the first wave of migration came mostly via Britain from Hong Kong, the current, second wave,
originates mostly from the People’s Republic of China, as confirmed one of the interviewees,
businessman Howard Pau, a member of the first wave: ‘The Chinese Community in Ireland can be
divided into two. The older, settled immigrants like me, and the younger Chinese who are coming here to
study’ (www.Ireland.com, 31 July, 2002). Members of the first wave tend to run their own businesses,
mostly in the food and catering sector, and most have settled permanently in Ireland. Their main reason
for relocating from the UK to Ireland was the saturation of the UK Chinese food sector (Watson, 1977:
183) and the low level of competition for jobs and the relatively safe environment in Ireland (personal
communication). Many Chinese-owned catering businesses brought over family members as employees
(O’Leary and Li, 2008: 2).
Various groups of Chinese migrants came to Ireland between the two main waves. Firstly, in 1979
the Irish government took in a group of Vietnamese Programme Refugees (O’Regan, 1998). Between
1979 and 2000, 803 Vietnamese Programme Refugees were admitted (Prospectus, 2008). These
Vietnamese refugees ‘consisted of Chinese-Vietnamese people, which indicated that the Hanoi
government was following a definite policy of expelling people of Chinese descent from Vietnam’
(Maguire, 2004: 24). Though at first these Chinese-Vietnamese migrants were dispersed to a variety of
locations (e.g., Tralee, Tuam and Dundalk), most of them now live in the greater Dublin area through
their own personally arranged settlement and mutual assistance strategies (Maguire, 2004). Secondly,
2 during the 1980s small numbers of students from Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong came to
Ireland to pursue their studies in Irish third level institutions (Yau, 2007), but due to Hong Kong’s
economic development and the high unemployment rates in Ireland during the 1980s, most of them
returned to Hong Kong after their graduation (personal communication). According to Zhou (2005),
during the 1980s and early 1990s several Hong Kong residents emigrated in response to the fears
surrounding the 1997 return of the colony to Chinese sovereignty. Thirdly, a small number of Chinese
people from ‘the mainland’ came to Ireland during the early 1990s, including students and scholars who
came under the Chinese government state-sponsored programme – they are termed ‘state sponsored
migrants’. During the same period increasing numbers of Chinese migrants came to Ireland through their
own overseas contacts; termed ‘privately sponsored migrants’, many of them came via the UK. Even
though the Chinese government had implemented the 1978 reforms, ending its global isolation, until the
1990s restrictions on immigration continued to prevail.
The second wave of Chinese migration to Ireland began in earnest in the late 1990s and resulted,
firstly, from the Chinese government lifting its strict emigration restrictions, secondly, from the Irish
economic boom. Thirdly, the large inflow of Chinese students from mainland China was the result of
state level education cooperation between the Chinese and Irish governments. The Irish government’s
new ‘Asia strategy’ encouraged Irish third level institutions to reach out to the Chinese student market
(ICOS, 2002). Some Irish third level institutions participated along with Enterprise Ireland in Irish trade
delegations to China in 2006 and 2008. Finally, Chinese students were theorised as ‘target learners’
(Wang and King-O’Riain, 2006), as the majority of young people in China seeking undergraduate
education in the west opted for English speaking countries (ICOS, 2002).
As a result, most of the second wave migrants hold student visas, yet quantifying them accurately
seems impossible. In 2004, Frank O’Connor, manager of education services at Enterprise Ireland, the
Irish Development Agency, said ‘The number of Chinese students in Ireland has mushroomed from a few
hundreds in 1997 to more than 30,000 now. Each year more than 200,000 international students come to
Ireland to study’ (Business Week, 2004). However, ’it is difficult to get accurate figures of international
students as there seems to be no one central place where these statistics are collated. The International
Education Board only collects data from 50 institutes of higher education and these do not include any
English language schools’ (Prospectus, 2008). Based on research by Failte Ireland, the total number of
English language schools in Ireland in 2007 was between 130,000 and 140,000 (Prospectus, 2008). This
figure includes EU students and non EU students. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Chinese students
make up a large proportion of students in English language schools; indeed they have been actively
recruited by Enterprise Ireland who participated in Irish trade delegations to China in 2005 and 2008
(Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/innovation/2008/1103/1225321601203.html).
Chinese citizens have to hold a valid visa to enter Ireland irrespective of the length of stay. Changes in
Irish immigration legislation directly affected Chinese migrants’ experiences in Ireland. Like other
foreign students, Chinese students are legally permitted to work part time, up to 20 hours per week – a
major attraction (www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/print/Student_Visa_Guidelines). 2
 Chinese students attend
private language schools and Irish third level institutions. A smaller number of second wave Chinese
migrants are work permit holders. Work permits issued to Chinese labour migrants peaked in 2001 at
5,748, decreasing to 1,685 in 2008, and a mere 106 in 2009 up to the end of March
(http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Topics/PPSN/Pages/ppsn_all_2008.aspx). 3
 Furthermore, after the EU
expansion in 2004, when Ireland was one of the three EU member states accepting workers from the ten
accession states, many Chinese migrants – both student visa holders and work permit holders, have lost
3 their jobs and become undocumented.
Due to their participation in the Irish labour market, particularly in the service sector, Chinese
migrants seemed ubiquitous until very recently. This paper suggests that despite their ubiquity, Chinese
migrants remain an invisible and distant group, becoming collectively visible only during Chinese New
Year, celebrated mostly in Dublin. The May 2008 candlelight vigil in Smithfield Dublin, in response to
the SiChuan earthquake, was the first time Chinese-led organisations got together in a public show of
strength.
Chinese-led organisations emerged in Ireland after 2002, with the setting up of the Chinese Society
of Ireland and the Irish-Chinese Information Centre, the latter set up in response to the need to support
Chinese migrants following the racist killing of the Chinese student Zhao Liu Tao (McVeigh and Lentin,
2002). The then director of the Chinese Information Centre Dr Katherine Chan Mullen told The Irish
Times: ‘There has always been a traditional small core Chinese community in Dublin who have managed
well. But with the huge increase in younger Chinese coming here to learn English there was a need for an
organisation such as ours which is the first real effort to help them’ (www.Ireland.com, 31July, 2002).
Other organisations followed. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association in Ireland was
established in 2003; the Association of Chinese Professionals was set up in 2004, as did the Chinese Irish
Cultural Academy. The most recent associations are the Southside Chinese Residents Association and the
Overseas Chinese Organisation in 2007. To date our research has identified twelve Chinese-led
organisations and two Chinese media organisations (Ireland Chinese News and Sun Emerald Chinese
Newspaper).
Chinese-led associations in Ireland can be categorised into four main types:
1. Commercial organisations such as the Chinese Society of Ireland, The Association of
Chinese Business in Ireland and The Irish Fujian Business Association.
2. Advocacy organisations such as the Overseas Chinese Organisation, the Irish-Chinese
Information Centre and the Southside Chinese Residents Association.
3. Professional organisations such as the Association of Chinese Professionals in Ireland and
The Chinese Students and Scholars’ Association in Ireland.
4. Cultural/social organisations such as the Chinese Irish Cultural Academy and the Irish
FuJian Association.
These categories are not clear cut as some organisations have more than one function. For example,
the Southside Chinese Residents Association offers its members advocacy services while also organising
social activities related to Chinese New Year. The Chinese Society of Ireland was originally set up as a
business association, but it has been the leading association in promoting the Chinese language among
the second generation Chinese and Chinese-Irish.
These organisations represent different constituencies and have different objectives, as the
following quotes illustrate:
I was not the founder. At that time, there were a number of Chinese students and scholars in Ireland.
The Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in UK provided advice and help in setting up
this association. The Chinese Embassy gave the association some support. The association protects
members’ rights, entitlements and benefits. We organised some social events in traditional Chinese
festivals to enrich Chinese students’ social life after college. The association is the bridge to
connect Chinese culture and Irish culture (interview with the Chairperson of the Chinese Students
and Scholars Association in Ireland, 2008).
4 The objective of the Association of Chinese Professionals in Ireland (founded in 2004) was
celebrating Chinese culture, enhancing personal skills, increasing Chinese migrants’ influence in
Ireland and helping them integrate into the mainstream (chairperson of The Association of Chinese
Professionals in Ireland, 2008).
The Chinese Information Centre, chaired by a settled Chinese migrant from Hong Kong, aims to
support both waves of Chinese migrants. However, as many first wave Chinese are economically
relatively stable, its main target group are second wave Chinese migrants who are younger and less
economically settled. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association in Ireland represents members
studying in Irish third level institutions. Most members are younger and better educated than members of
the other associations apart from the Association of Chinese Professionals in Ireland, most of whose
members used to belong to the Students and Scholars Association. The majority of the members of
Association of Chinese Professional are Mandarin speakers in their twenties or thirties. They come from
various cities in China and members are mostly work permit holders and many of them have been
working in the finance and IT sectors. The members of the FuJian Association, by contrast, are all from
the same province and speak the similar dialect. The Chinese Irish Cultural Academy’s members are
those Irish born Chinese children or adopted Chinese children aged between 5 and 15.
Despite their heterogeneities and the different constituencies they serve, Ireland’s Chinese-led
associations got together in response to the May 2008 SiChuuan earthquake. Before turning to describing
the networking process that led to the earthquake appeal, I briefly discuss the network concept and ask
whether the Irish Chinese SiChuan Earthquake Appeal Committee in Ireland can be theorised as a
migrant network.
The Earthquake Appeal Committee – a migrant network?
Although the terms ‘association’ and ‘network’ are used interchangeably in the migration literature
to denote an ethnically bounded community with a uni-functional role, my study of the Earthquake
Appeal Committee leads me to preferring the network concept, which though theoretically complex,
seems to offer a flexible and complex pattern of connectivity, better suited than the term ‘association’ to
understanding its formation and development.
According to Hannerz (1992), networks can be used to describe systems at all level of analysis.
Network analysis emerged in Anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s, and was developed from the
‘anthropology of social ties and the micro level sociology of small group interaction’ (Holton, 2005: 210),
though it has not been a ‘formal, tightly organised and well defined set of categories’ (Holton, 2008:
77-78). Network signifies a complex form of connectivity and mutual engagement which stands for a
‘matrix of simultaneously connecting and disconnecting’ (Bauman, 2004: xii).
In migration studies, the concept refers to both informal networks and formal migrant associations.
In the pre-migration phase, these affect the decision to migrate by providing financial support, shelter, job
information and contacts, information about social services, recreation, and emotional support, and in the
post-migration phase, migrants settling and re-creating homes in the countries of diaspora (De Tona and
Lentin, forthcoming). At the same time networking functions as a form of community development, civic
participation and grassroots politics, and is especially meaningful for migrants who are denied full
citizenship rights (Fanning and Mutwarasibo, 2007; De Tona and Lentin, forthcoming). As no research
has yet been done on the networking processes involved in the motivation of Chinese migrants to move to
5 Ireland, my analysis deals with networking during the post-migration stage. In particular, this paper
focuses on the coming together of members of the Earthquake Appeal Committee, all of whom have been
working and living in Ireland for some time prior to the establishment of the network under study.
Networks, both a metaphor and an analytic tool, are open and fluid structures, and although
multi-functional and multi-source, networks, Holton suggests, drawing on the work of Thompson (2003),
are ‘assemblages of people, institutions and social practices, interactions and bodies of knowledge
oriented to “problems”’ (Holton, 2005: 212). The Earthquake Appeal Committee – made up of twelve
migrant-led Irish-based Chinese associations – was clearly a direct response to a specific ‘problem’ – the
8.0 magnitudes earthquake which killed 69,185 people in China by 24 June 2008. However, beyond the
immediate response to an identified ‘problem’, the Committee had another, unintended purpose, that of
constructing a coherent Chinese presence in Ireland. According to Committee member Logan Raju ‘the
earthquake finally brought all the Chinese organisations together’ (interview, 2008).
 Theorising networks as ‘a set of interconnected nodes’, Castells (2000: 251) points to the fluidity
of such nodes which may be actors such as persons, groups, or organisations, or other entities. Network
ties can take on various forms, from physical linkages to personal relationship (Scott and Davis 2007:
278). In the case of the Earthquake Appeal Committee, the participant groups and individual members
can be understood as nodes, interconnected through the meetings held in preparation for the appeal events
and through the events themselves. However, while at the beginning, as the Committee aimed to provide
immediate disaster relief action, the network was thought to be temporary and ephemeral, through
working together the network kept developing beyond the immediate response to the earthquake
‘problem’. In achieving the Committee’s goal, each organisation used its own resources, its members and
its connections with various people or institutions in Ireland.
Every organisation participating in the Appeal Committee was assigned tasks which were discussed
and agreed upon during the initial meetings. The Chinese Student and Chinese Scholars’ Association was
in charge of organising volunteers from various universities for the vigil service. The Chinese Irish
Information Centre liaised with Dublin City Council regarding the application for the venues for the press
conference and vigil service. The Chinese Irish Cultural Academy acted as the PR team to link with the
Irish media. Two media experts were the stage directors of the candlelight vigil and looked after renting
the equipment and the vigil programme. The two Chinese media companies (Sun Emerald Chinese
Newspaper and Ireland Chinese News) followed the work of the Committee and updated their readers
(mostly Chinese migrants in Ireland).
Though oriented towards a specific ‘problem’, as in this case, networks often become
multi-functional. The Committee’s main function was disaster relief through raising funds within
Ireland’s Chinese communities and the general Irish public. As this was the largest scale cooperation of
Chinese-led organisations to date, the Committee, as this study shows, divided its activity into phase I,
dedicated mostly to direct disaster relief, and phase II, aimed at community building, unifying 10 out of
14 Chinese-led organisations in Ireland. Prior to the establishment of the Earthquake Appeal Committee,
there were limited links between these organisations. Thus, for example, Ireland Chinese News organised
a karaoke competition among Chinese migrants in Ireland in 2008 and on the final day of the competition,
it invited the chairpersons of various organisations such as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association
in Ireland, the Southside Chinese Residents Association, and the Irish FuJian Association, to watch the
competition and prize giving. But such cooperation was infrequent. In response to the earthquake, the
Appeal Committee managed to bring together a diverse group of Chinese-led organisations and,
moreover, managed to continue its work after May 2008, setting up the United Chinese Federation, even
6 though not all Chinese-led organisations ultimately greed to be part of that united Chinese organisation.
 My observation of the process of networking is that despite this less than complete united front,
and despite the withdrawal of two organisations after the Earthquake Appeal, the network not only
fulfilled its mission of informing the Irish public about the severity of the Chinese earthquake, but also
succeeded in presenting a solid and collective image of Chinese migrants in Ireland.
According to Holton, networks fulfil a social function: ‘networks may arise because social actors
seek to pursue a certain course of action, but there is no guarantee that inter-personal networks will
perform required functions well, as judged by their participants or wide social observes’ (Holton 2008:
105). The candlelight vigil was held during college exam time, so many Chinese students were unable to
help or attend the service. Despite this, and although the applications for venue permission took time, and
although Committee members were not certain about the actual effect of the vigil, the high turnout of
Chinese migrants and other people (5,000 in all) and the extent of the public donations (€105,850.57 by
the end the May 2008), proved that the Committee has fulfilled its dual aim of providing disaster relief
and building up a positive image of Ireland’s Chinese communities.
As indicated above, Chinese migrants in Ireland are not homogenous; Chinese migrants who came
to Ireland in different periods have different characteristics, and various groups represent different
constituencies. Yet the Committee succeeded in unifying twelve Chinese-led organisations, including the
two main Chinese media organisations. The network approach explains the process of bringing these
different interest groups together to work on a common goal.
Networks are flexible and ‘open structures, able to expand without limits, integrating new nodes as
long as they are able to communicate within the network’ (Castell, 2000: 501). But networks also tend to
shift and reshape themselves as part of their changing relationships with local governments larger global
forces (Hamilton and Waters 1997 in McKeown 1999: 320). Such shifts were evident when, due to the
success of phase I, the Appeal Committee moved into Phase II, addressing the need to rebuild the affected
areas in China, not all the Phase I committee members participated (two organisations withdrew). During
the preparations for the fundraising event the representatives of the participant organisations attended
regularly, while individual members’ attendance was fluid because of their working commitments and
personal arrangements. These shifts were another reflection of the flexibility of this network.
As transnational arrangements, post migration network analysis helps to ‘understand micro-macro
connections in social life’ (Degenne and Forse, 1999: 3; Van Mater 2005 in Holton 2008: 30). Li’s study
of Chinese voluntary associations in Europe found there are ‘a vast but loose-knit web of Chinese
voluntary associations across the world, providing numerous possibilities for communication, mutual
help and organized activity among Chinese migrants’ (Li: 1998: 21). Hometown associations ‘depend on
the willingness and availability of volunteers to donate time, energy and cash in the interest of some
public good’ (Waldinger, et al 2007: 851). Indeed hometown associations are often the foundation of
migrant networking, hence, ‘the concept of social network paves the way to an understanding of the
linkage between different institutional spheres and different systems of groups and categories’ (Srinivas
and Beteille 1964: 165-166, in Hannerz, 1992: 40). The connections constructed by the Appeal
Committee, while based on the willingness of migrant associations to donate their time and energy, went
beyond hometown networks, combining a variety of Chinese-led associations, different in membership
and objectives, and united through function and diasporic location. As a middle range theory, network
theory as fluid, multi-functional, multi-source seems to fit the process of networking as engaged by the
Appeal Committee.
In order to further understand the process of networking by Chinese-led organisations, we also have
7 to consider the Irish context, where interculturalism policies were seen as ‘a third way alternative to
failures of assimilationism and multiculturalism’ (Lentin, 2008: 3). In the spirit of Irish interculturalism,
the Dublin City Council has been sponsoring the Chinese New Year celebrations, the most important
festival in the Chinese calendar, promoting a homogenised notion of Chinese ‘culture’ without
necessarily promoting the immigration of Chinese people beyond Ireland’s perceived labour needs. The
Dublin City Council started organising Chinese New Year celebrations in 2008 and it appears that it
intends to continue organising it as a Dublin cultural brand, which, at the same time can also serve to
showcase the integration of Chinese migrants into Irish society. I now turn to a description of the
networking process which I observed while serving as an individual Appeal Committee member.
The Irish Chinese Sichuan Earthquake Appeal Committee
I joined the Appeal Committee through attending its meetings. According to my research notes:
I heard about this appeal committee by chance from talking to one participant. He told me about his
participation in a meeting about setting up an Appeal Committee. I asked the participant if I could
join the second meeting later that day. He said that as I knew most of the members there, he
couldn’t see why I shouldn’t attend the meeting. So I did attend the second meeting that day and
stayed for the following meetings. Through attending all those meetings, the committee counted me
as an individual committee member. I recorded the process and the development of the committee
and worked voluntarily as a stage manager for the candlelight vigil night. I have met some of the
participants in various Chinese New Year celebrations in February 2008 and had conducted
interviews with them about their associations.
Based on participant observation, the paper derives from my membership in the Committee and
from semi-structured interviews between July and October 2008 with six individuals who represent
different Chinese-led organisations, with the aim of finding out participants’ opinions regarding the
formation and process of the Committee’s work up to the end of June, 2008. The fieldwork continued
during the Committee’s phase II work, which was aimed at building a united Chinese organisation to
represent all the Chinese in Ireland. The interviewees all agreed to be interviewed.
Before setting up the Appeal Committee on 14 May 2008, Chinese individuals and organisations
reacted to the 5 May SiChuan earthquake separately by handing their donations to the Chinese Embassy
in Ireland, and by donating money online to the Red Cross Society of China. The Chinese Irish Cultural
Academy held a public fundraising event in the Newbridge shopping mall, and the Association of
Chinese Professionals in Ireland worked with the Irish Red Cross to organise fundraising on Grafton
Street, Dublin. Other fundraising events were staged by Irish organisations and individuals, such as
football matches and Irish music gigs.
The idea to form a Committee was first proposed by Mr. Li, Mr. Chan and Mr. Luk, members of the
Chinese Society of Ireland, when discussing a fundraising strategy for the earthquake victims. Previously,
the Chinese Society of Ireland, as the society composed of the most economically stable and successful
Chinese business people mainly originating from Hong Kong, had already been active in various charity
events such as fundraising for the Hope School in HuNan Province (one of China’s poverty-stricken
provinces). This initiative was prompted by the realisation that if they relied only on members of their
own societies they would not be able to raise sufficient funds, and that urgent action was needed. Mr. Li
contacted key members of other organisations as well as some individuals he knew to investigate the
8 possibility of working together. The feedback was positive and the first meeting was held in the office of
Asia Market Warehouse on Wednesday 14 May 2008. Committee members speak about the setting up
stage:
The committee was formed in response to the earthquake. Chinese migrants and the Chinese-Irish
knew about it, they were all worried about the people in China. When they found out the extent of
the devastation, they started to fundraise. For example, we in the ACPI (Association of Chinese
Professionals in Ireland) organised fundraising events. Doing it separately may be efficient, but it
won’t be as efficient as doing it together. We would like to see not only Chinese people in Ireland
but also Irish people and other people from other countries participate (member of the Association
of Chinese Professional in Ireland, 2008).
Because it was such a big disaster, we thought we should unite all the others to gather all the
strength and focus. Then Mr Pau (the owner of Asia Market, and president of the Chinese Society
of Ireland) was not in Ireland. We contacted him about our plan. He replied that whatever we
thought we should do, do it immediately. So after our meeting we contacted all the other
organisations/associations. We sent out our notice on 13 May, and held our first meeting the next
day (Member of the Chinese Society of Ireland ).
The first two meetings (14and 15 May) were crucial to setting up the framework of the Committee.
It was decided then that a candlelight vigil would be the key fundraising event of the national appeal plan.
A press conference would be held to inform the Irish public about the bank account details and vigil
service through the major Irish media. In both meetings, there were about 20 people representing
different organisations. Issues such as safety, venue permission application, official poster for the
committee, money transfers were all discussed and agreed upon at these first meetings.
With a total audience of 5,000 people, mostly Chinese migrants, the vigil service was a historic
moment for the Chinese in Ireland. On the day of the vigil the networking process was evident not merely
among the member associations but also between all the individual participants in the vigil night. Those
individual participants who study in different institutions and work in different companies, were brought
together by the disaster in China. They leant about the service through the posters in major Chinese shops
and restaurants, Chinese Newspapers, emails from friends and through the Irish media. They came with
friends or on their own, all connected by the vigil service. On that night, people met people with whom
they may have lost contact over the years. The social function of this network was on the one hand to
provide participants with a platform to show their sympathy for the affected people in China. On the other
hand, the gathering was also a positive show of strength reflecting the collectivity of Chinese migrants to
the Irish public.
During the initial committee meetings in May 2008, no long term plan was mentioned. Some
participants proposed the idea of ongoing work for SiChuan during an evaluation meeting when
Committee chairperson Howard Pau invited all committee members to thank them for their efforts a week
after the vigil service. Meanwhile, some participants noticed the potentials and benefits of forming a
united Chinese-led organisation. From then on, the Committee’s work was divided between phase I – up
to end of June, and Phase II thereafter. The fundraising remained the main goal for the community
support project. Following the preparation meetings between June and November, 2008 the United
Chinese Federation of Ireland, comprising of eight Chinese-led organisations and two Chinese media
companies, was formally registered in the Companies Registration Office in Ireland. The Federation’s
9 first charity fundraising dinner party was held on 4 November 2008 in Stilllorgan Park Hotel, Dublin. At
this stage, the networking of all the participant organisations became a more formal structure even though
some Phase I participant organisations withdrew. Interviewees explained the need for a united front:
It is necessary to unite the organisations. The business people who came from Hong Kong, are
getting older now. They know that without a united organisation, anything they raise goes to the
(Irish) government, but the (Irish) government won’t help you. When you have a united
organisation, with a large member base, with more members and requests, the government has to
listen to you, the strength is more focused. All the interests are generalised (Secretary of the
Chinese-Vietnamese Association of Ireland, 2008 )
At first, when the earthquake occurred, all we thought was how to rescue the people there. Now
there is no rescue work, this is about how to help them return to normal life. That is how we can
help them in Phase II (chairperson of the Chinese Society of Ireland,2008)
Firstly, how about the perspective of the ongoing fundraising? The money was effectively sent back
home to build schools. There will be many people joining in. So I think the perspective is positive,
but meanwhile some will withdraw as they are too busy. So it needs ongoing development. It
should be able to go on existing. However, the perspective of the united Chinese organisation in
Ireland is uncertain. I believe that from 2007 there would be further cooperation from Dublin city
council. We need to ask other organisations to work together or look for sponsors. Overall, it is
different now; in the past, every organisation minded its own business, which laid a good
foundation for the cooperation with different organisations (Member of the Association of Chinese
Professional in Ireland, 2008)
Although this was not the first time Chinese-led organisations in Ireland worked collaboratively –
both in 2007 and in 2008 several groups collaborated for the Chinese New Years celebrations – the
Appeal Committee was significant in a number of ways.
Firstly, this was the largest scale collective action by Chinese-led associations in Ireland to date.
The Appeal Committee was a Chinese-led network with the largest number of participants (12 Chinese
organisations, 14 individual committee members and 150 volunteers from various schools and
universities in Ireland – see the appendix for a list). Individual members included Chinese community
activists, media experts, Chinese academies, and one woman who came from the SiChuan Province with
her husband who was working on the rescue project in SiChuan at the time of Phase I. This collaborative
action signals the professionalisation and institutionalisation of Chinese-led associations in Ireland.
Secondly, the Appeal Committee, even though founding members had not envisaged it, has shifted
to a more formal united organisational format, ensuring its long term existence. By comparison, the
Chinese New Year Celebration Board only existed ephemerally during the New Year period.
Thirdly, the Chinese New Year celebrations – although attended by some members of the Irish
public – were mostly targeted at Chinese migrants. This time, in planning its campaign, the Committee
targeted the general Irish public, not merely Chinese migrants. Despite the low media attendance at the
pre-vigil press conference, due to the last minute venue and date changes, the event was covered by
several Irish media outlets, including the Irish Times, the morning paper Metro, and the RTE website,
leading to greater visibility.
Finally, the idea for the Appeal Committee originated from Chinese-led migrant organisations,
10 rather than the Chinese government. The Committee invited the Chinese ambassador to the vigil service,
though the ambassador did not address the meeting. By contrast, the first Chinese collective action – the
2007 New Year Celebrations – was originated by the Chinese Embassy. The Embassy’s plan was to
connect all the organisations in celebrating the New Year, and promote solidarity among the organisations
through this celebration. In 2008, the New Year programme was discussed between Dublin City Council
and participant Chinese organisations, yet Dublin City Council had the final say in shaping the
celebrations as the main funder and facilitator. By contrast, the Earthquake Appeal was the first public
event initiated and organised by Chinese-led organisations, networking with each other and taking the
lead in running the events, and this work is ongoing in term of the community support project as well as
uniting the Chinese organisations, marking a potential future direction for Chinese-led organisations in
Ireland.
This paper outlines the net-working process of various Chinese organisations, resulting in a flexible
network which not only performed a fundraising role but was the driving force in creating unity and
consolidation of Chinese migrant organisations. As an unintended consequence, the network also served
as a showcase for the general Irish public, projecting a positive image of Chinese migrants. Though not
planned as such, through the process of networking, the characteristics of this migrant-led network
emerged through the committee’s work, helping to link Chinese migrants, protect them against social
isolation and highlight the Chinese in Ireland, because ‘hometown associations exemplify the emergence
of “transnational communities” linking here and there’ (Waldinger et al., 2007: 845).
Despite the success of the vigil service, some problems emerged along the process, demonstrating
that the process of net-working is still fragile. If these weaknesses are not ironed out the united
organisation may not develop smoothly and may remain a united society/organisation only in name,
without actual collaboration between all the participant organisations for the benefit of Chinese migrants
in Ireland. The following are some drawbacks I observed from Phase I work – some functional, others to
do with internal struggles, not openly articulated, but there all the same.
The first drawback was the lack of proper long-term strategies and organisation skills needed for a
complex cooperative event, especially the absence of fundraising experience. Most committee members
had not worked on this sort of event which requires solid fundraising experience.
The second drawback was the over-representation in associational activities of an immigrant elite
(Waldinger et al, 2007: 854) as was found in Escala Rabadan’s research on Mexican hometown
associations in California. The question of ‘who represents who’ often underpins the politics of migrant
networks. As Waldinger et al caution: ‘the greater the mutuality within the members, the greater the
incentives for friendly conflict resolution’ (2007: 855). Interviewees attested to some tensions among
members: ‘it is great that all the organisations worked together, this is the first time we all worked
together, there are always different voices’ (Chairperson of Chinese society of Ireland, 2008)
Thirdly, due to the less than effective alliance with different state departments, the time and venue
of the press conference kept changing until the last minute, and this affected the accredited press turnout.
My observation was that ‘the press conference was the English version of usual committee meetings
while during the normal committee meetings the language was either Mandarin or Cantonese’. Also,
during Phase I, meetings were held too often, were too long and unstructured.
Overall, the network is still in its infancy. In order to succeed in the long run, members will need to
work to a clearly agreed agenda and get their voices heard. As one interviewee said, the committee has to
be more transparently run in order to benefit all members and target groups: ‘It should be transparent. It
has to be crystal clear.…. The transparency has to be monitored’. (Chairperson of Chinese Society of
11 12
Ireland)
Conclusion
The poet Iqbal states that ‘A community is ‘born’ when it reaches a state of ‘self-consciousness’. It
is born when it ‘creates its own history’ out of a ‘thousand images’ (Iqbal, The mysterieis of Selflessness in
De Bary 1958). Chinese people in Ireland created their own history through their reaction to the SiChuan
earthquake, which provided the platform for Chinese-led organisations in Ireland to work together and
enable individual Chinese migrants to get together, signalling the beginning of networking between
diverse groups of migrant-led Chinese organisations in Ireland. Based on my observations, there were
two networks operating in parallel within the Appeal Committee, one made up by the participant
organisations and the other by the individuals who participated in the vigil service. The candlelight vigil,
the largest ever Chinese gathering in Ireland to date, showcased a caring image of Chinese migrants and
for the first time Chinese migrants in Ireland became publicly visible:
We have the opportunity to do the same thing, which did not happen in the past. In fact, we don’t
want disaster to happen again in order to gather people together. Next time we will gather together
to organise a cultural event and other happy events, not for donations for disasters. This time there
was no other choice; we had to do something for the victims in SiChuan. This cooperation was
good, even though it was a response to the disaster. Thinking of this, I feel a bit sour (Member of
Chinese Society of Ireland)
To conclude, the networking focused on constructing social meaning rather than on practical issues
such as working conditions, accommodation and rights for Chinese migrants. Although some vulnerable
Chinese migrants were left out of this networking, the cooperation was a big step forward for the
development of network of Chinese migrants in Ireland. Significant despite its immaturity, the network
occasioned a different type of cooperation than any other previous efforts.
Notes
1
 Some media reports tend to portray Chinese migrants as a ‘problem’, particularly in relation to criminality. In an
answer to a Daíl question regarding the cost of deporting Chinese nationals on 9 March 2006, the Minister for
Justice, Equality and Law Reform said: ‘Thirteen adults, 11 males and two females, were deported to Beijing in
China by charter flight on 21-22 February 2006 at a total cost of €255,539... Of the 13 returnees, four had criminal
convictions of various types. This charter was arranged principally to facilitate the removal of a number of persons
who had frustrated previous attempts to remove them on commercial flights through violent and disruptive
behaviour’ (http://www.ciarancuffe.com/Questions/2006/Q060309J.Issues.Chinese.Nationals.htm)
2
 People on a student visa in Ireland must register as full-time students with the Garda National Immigration Bureau
(GNIB) to be permitted to work part-time in Ireland (up to a maximum of 20 hours a week and full-time during vacation periods) (http://www.iceireland.com/student-visas.aspx).
3
 These figures have to be set against the general trend, according to which 102,756 work permits to non-Irish
nationals were issued in 2000, 221,956 in 2001, 215,536 in 2002, 191, 565 in 2003, 219,954 in 2004, 271,202 in
2005, 311,850 in 2006, 305,610 in 2007, 247,325 in 2008, but only 17,532 in 2009 to date. It must also be
remembers that some PPS were renewals, so the figures do not necessarily represent new work permits
(http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Topics/PPSN/Pages/ppsn_all_2008.aspx).
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