Descendants of the Dragon

Kim Johnson

The year 2006 marks the bicentenary of the arrival of the Chinese in Trinidad. Their presence has been an encounter of opposites. On the one hand was the arrival of men from the oldest continuous civilization in the world and on the other the receiving land was one of the New World's newest outposts. The outcome has been a happy one resulting in a fruitful combination in all spheres: economically, culturally, socially and politically. In most other countries outside Asia where the Chinese have settled, they have remained strangers isolated in their Chinatown enclaves.

Not so in Trinidad where the Chinese have been allowed to follow their inclination to work hard, study long, live abstemiously, make money and indulge their talent for the arts and commerce and their social conscience.

In this story, the emphasis is not exclusively or even mainly on people of purely Chinese blood; rather it is a story of culture and hybrids. Being scattered throughout the country, the Chinese were sexually and geographically integrated into the national community and thus comfortably lent their talents to the development of Trinidad and Tobago in a more all-embracing way than almost anyone or anywhere else.

Kim Johnson cleverly mixes chronological historical narrative with vignettes of Chinese life experiences often amusingly told by the characters themselves to capture in these pages the 200 years of Chinese life in Trinidad.

Category: History
Publication Date: 2006
Extent: 172 pages
Size: 11 x 8 1/2
ISBN 978-976-637-289-7/976-637-289-6 (Hardback)
Price: US$50.00