The mixed fortunes of Eurasians: how Hong Kong, China and US viewed intermarriage

In her book Eurasians, MIT professor contrasts attitudes towards interracial marriage in three jurisdictions, and how mixed-race families in Hong Kong were able to grow wealthy despite facing discrimination

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Author and professor Emma J. Teng. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 6:30pm, 31 Jan 2017Updated: 5:35pm, 1 Feb 2017

It’s hard to miss the hillside sprawl of Pok Fu Lam’s Chinese Christian Cemetery. Far less noticeable is nearby Mount Davis’ private Chiu Yuen Cemetery, whose locked gates hide intriguing insights into the social mores and attitudes of old Hong Kong.

A grave at the Chiu Yuen Eurasian cemetery in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: James Wendlinger

“The colonial cemetery at the time barred Chinese from being buried there – just as Chinese were barred from living on The Peak – so Eurasians also couldn’t be buried there,” says Emma Teng, a Eurasian and professor of Asian civilisations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. “Nor could they be buried in the Chinese cemetery because it’s all based on Chinese lineage.”

So the Hotung family established Chiu Yuen in 1897 for the city’s Eurasian community.

Interestingly, although influential Eurasian businessman Sir Robert Hotung was one of the key founders of Chiu Yuen – he and several family members went to London to petition for a Eurasian burial ground in Hong Kong – he wasn’t buried there. Instead, Sir Robert – the first person with

Chinese blood allowed to live on The Peak – was interred at the Colonial Cemetery in Happy Valley, now known as Hong Kong Cemetery, alongside his first wife. But all of his other direct family members, including his second wife, were buried at the Eurasian cemetery.

Teng was in Hong Kong this month to give talks at The Helena May and the Asia Society – based on research for her 2013 book, Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China and Hong Kong, 1842-1943.