A different view on current affairs & history
Providing part of the cosmopolitan mix of Port Elizabeth was the Chinese community. They were scattered throughout Port Elizabeth, particularly in the city centre as well as Sidwell, Korsten, South End, Sydenham, Perkin Street and Dassie Kraal. Their status in South Africa of yore was ambivalent; not black enough yet not white.
This is their story in Port Elizabeth.
Main picture: Chinese School in North End
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Lawrence Green’s book Harbours of Memory sketches what the port cities of South Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s were like. It provides a vivid depiction of life in those days. This blog covers excerpts of his musings and prognostications on early Port Elizabeth’s harbour and shipping activities, its different communities, its highways and byways and the characters that inhabit it.
Main pictures: Baakens Valley in the 1860s
