'Neutral' Chinese stayed put in Belfast during Troubles

During the 30 years of the Troubles, few people in Britain - or Europe - dared to come to Belfast. But one group who remained throughout was the army of thousands of restaurateurs, nearly all from Hong Kong.

As bombs were exploding and marchers were hurling expletives around them, they kept their heads down and their doors open, offering takeaways and banquets to Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries, lazy housewives, courting couples and laughing drunkards alike.

'Where there is danger, there is opportunity,' Symon Wong, associate pastor at the Belfast Chinese Christian Church, says. 'They had little competition and kept on working hard.'

Many had to pay protection money to the paramilitaries who controlled their neighbourhood but, seen as neutral in the conflict, were not the target of either side. No Chinese was killed or injured by the warring factions. Dr Simon Au, a Hong Kong-born consultant physician who has been in Belfast since arriving at Queen's University in 1988, says Northern Ireland has 30,000 Chinese, two-thirds legal and one-third illegal.

Of these, 80 per cent are in catering, 15 per cent are students or work part-time and 5 per cent professionals like him, he says. 'The second generation do not want to run restaurants,' he said. 'They become doctors, lawyers and other professionals. The restaurant business is more profitable - an income three times higher than that of a professional, and little tax.'

The best known Chinese person in Ulster is Hong Kong-born Anna Lo, who was elected in March 2007 to serve as a member of the Legislative Assembly for South Belfast for the moderate Alliance Party. She was the first ethnic minority politician to be elected at a national level in Northern Ireland and the first Chinese member of the European Parliament to be born in China.