Very interesting exerpts, and they sound quite accurate. I might want to add though that after living in these horrendous conditions for 5-10 years they will return to Fujian, build huge mansions, retire, and live a lives of relaxation, money, and women…oh and so will their relatives who lent them the money to pay off the snake heads.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1181

..”there is this huge population of Fujianese immigrants, some of whom are undocumented. All these people are occupying the same sidewalks and not really aware of each others’ existence.

J.W.: What did you learn about the Fujianese immigrants?

R.P.: They’ve got it really tough. Historically, the Lower East Side had the highest population density in the world circa 1900. Forget Calcutta. And that was mostly Eastern European Jews. But the Fujianese are living just like that, cheek and jowl, while in the next building are yuppies with a floor-thru that cost two million bucks. The burden that these guys have, that nobody before them had down there, is that they have to pay somebody to smuggle them into the country. So the minute they step off the boat they are $70,000 in the hole to the snakehead who got them over. On top of everything else, working seven days a week, they’ve got to pay off a mammoth debt.

J.W.: You describe what we might politely call “overcrowding” in their buildings.

R.P.: Everybody’s doing menial labor. Everybody’s working seven days a week. They have to divide up an apartment with maybe 20 other guys. I’ve seen apartments where someone basically rents a plank of wood to sleep on for a month for $150. And if he’s being taken by van to upstate New York to work in a Chinese restaurant three or four days a week, he is going to sublet that plank of wood.”

Fujian is arguably the most linguistically diverse province in China, and possibly one of the most linguistically diverse places on the planet. Throughout a majority of the province if you were to travel 100 miles in any direction and speak your native dialect, the locals wouldn’t understand you. However, one of the reforms brought on by the CCP starting in the 1950’s was to implement Mandarin as the national language. (This had been attempted at other times in Chinese history, but without as much success). So for most Fujianese born after the CCP came to power, their first language they would their local dialect, and they would continue speaking it in the home and with relatives and friends. However, starting from their first day of kindergarten, they would be instructed in Mandarin. The fact that 99% of all TV and radio broadcasts are in China are in Mandarin doesn’t hurt either.

Today in Fujian, the vast majority of the population speaks both Mandarin and their local dialect with native proficiency. The only people I ever encountered in Fujian who did not speak Mandarin were well all over 60, and lived in remote rural areas.

As for the Fujianese you met who don’t speak Mandarin, I would guess that it’s probably more of a matter of their Mandarin being both rusty, as well as heavily accented. While most Fujianese speak Mandarin with native fluency, their pronunciation of the language is a far cry from what Chinese would describe as “standard Mandarin.” I have also found that here in the US, I have heard some incredibly difficult-to-understand Mandarin, mainly from Cantonese and Fujianese. My hypotheses is that here in the US, they speak (and are exposed) a lot less Mandarin than they would in China. Since many associate mainly with Chinese who speak the same dialect (and us “laowai) there is less of a need to speak any Mandarin. Thus I have found the average Mandarin of a Chinese Southerner in the US to be considerably more difficult than the average Mandarin of a Chinese Southerner in China….so it might be them getting rusty on their Mandarin instead of you.

Ben – I hope you don’t mind me asking, but with all the dialects in Fujian how do you do the translations? I presume a lot of them understand mandarin but I’ve met more than a few Fujianese who don’t seem to (or maybe it’s just me getting rusty).Props for doing medical translation, I worked on patents but I have to admit that that was only one way most of the time (Chinese to English) and I had the help of engineers most of the time – doing it two ways must be a lot more difficult, especially if the patient doesn’t know anything about medecine.

I actually ran across this article on the danwei blog today. It’s part of the “daily digest” written every so often and is accompanied by an article about Beijing’s first private restaurant. I read the article about Little America and immediately thought of you. Good to know you had some input. Oh yeah, thanks for the email response and medical term list the other day! Much appreciated. Paul

I’ve also noticed that most of the random little Chinese restaurants in cities without Chinatowns, as well as small towns across the US, are run by Fuzhou people. Chances are, that random little Chinese restaurant next to the highway in the middle of Iowa (or Alabama, or Wyoming) has illegal workers from Fuzhou cooking your food. Also, New York City, which has the largest Chinese population in the Western Hemisphere, also now has an enormous Fuzhou population.

I’ve always given the rough (very rough) estimate that 40% of the Chinese in the US are from Guangdong, 40% from Fujian, and 20% from everywhere else. Of course, with the lack of reliable statistics on illegal immigration, this would be impossible to prove. While it is quite likely there are more Cantonese in the US than those from Fuzhou, many of the Cantonese have been in the US considerably longer, are more established, and work jobs other than restaurant labor. I would still estimate there are far more cooks, dishwashers, and busboys from Fuzhou. Anybody else have any thoughts or info on the matter?

This must be a bit of exaggeration. I am a Chinese living in North America. Yes, there are lots of restaurant workers from Fuzhou area. But majority of the people working in Chinese restaurants in the US are still Cantonese (people from Guangdong). In a decade or so, Fuzhou area people may be the majority, but not yet.