Please click on a photo to learn more about these events. Also, you can click here to visit Lisa See’s website for a more in-depth timeline, tracking major events in the World, California, Los Angeles Chinatown, and the See Family.
“These were times of terrible unrest in China. When he was a young man and just married, there had been the first Opium War of 1840. His country and paid six million taels of silver to Great Britain to redeem Canton, as well as thirty-three-million-tael indemnity payment. Hon Kong had been given to the British, and other ports had been forced open. Opium had flooded the market. Over the years, Fong had seen what this did to rich and poor alike. The Second Opium War, which had ended only six years ago, in 1860, was even worse: another huge payment had been made to the British; missionaries had been permitted to come and preach about their one god; more ports had been opened; and cheap, mass-produced items had begun to be imported, destroying his country’s small industries. It was unfair, but China’s weapons–spears, swords, arrows, and outdated canons–were no match for British artillery, rifles, and ships” (OGM, page 5).