A bronze plaque on the wall of a Paris railway building and a modest monument in a small park are the only reminders of a remarkable but forgotten story of the first world war - 150,000 Chinese volunteers who cleared mines, removed the dead and made munitions, and became the first wave of Chinese to settle in Europe.
'In memory of Chinese workers and fighters who died for France in the Great War', reads the inscription on the park monument, in Chinese and French. It pays tribute to up to 10,000 workers killed by German bombing raids, disease, accidents and mine explosions.
Each year, on Ching Ming festival, the Chinese community in Paris leaves wreathes at the monument and the plaque, and at cemeteries in northern France where the men are buried.
The park is in the centre of the 13th district of Paris, the Chinatown that was born when several thousands of the workers decided to remain in France after the Great War, forming the first Chinese community in Europe. The community today numbers more than 500,000, according to official figures, and may be double that if illegals are included.
The bustling district is home to thousands of Chinese-owned factories, trading companies, shops and restaurants, whose number swelled with the arrival of the thousands of Chinese refugees from Indochina after the communist conquest of Vietnam in 1975. Among the biggest businesses is a giant supermarket owned by the Tang brothers, who arrived from Thailand in the 1970s and whose president, Chen Ke-guang, is an advocate of official recognition of the workers. Mr Chen is the secretary-general of the Association for the Advancement of Chinese in France.
'The history of the workers had been forgotten,' said an official of the association. 'The community pushed for recognition but nothing happened until 1988. I don't know the reason for the change, from the city or central governments. They put up the plaque [in 1988] and gave awards to two of the workers who were still alive.'
