Born Then
1845–1913

Life during the Chinese emigration from Guangdong and Fujian

Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.

What it meant for ordinary people

Between the 1840s and 1940s millions of men left southern China for Southeast Asia, the Americas and Australia. Many went on credit-ticket or indenture contracts and worked in mines and plantations; the money they sent home rebuilt villages. The probability here is a national average; in parts of Guangdong and Fujian it was much higher.

How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.

Around the same time