Page 122 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
P. 122
GFA – A Different Drumbeat 122
shipping companies by causing trouble for foreign companies as it was to advance
the interests of Chinese seamen. In the event, I think the Union found that British
shipping companies and especially Swires, were the best people to deal with. For
day to day contact the Union’s representative, Yang, would bring in representatives
of whatever section of the Union had a complaint such as firemen, teaboys or the
stewards on deck. Yang would thump the table, GFA would listen sympathetically
and the group would depart. Back would come Yang, and he and GFA would then
resolve the dispute as far as possible. Sometimes GFA would take up an individual
seaman’s case with the Marine Superintendent or the Superintendent Engineer, and
this may well have given a seaman the feeling that there was at least one foreigner
in the Firm who understood his problems and his way of thinking. GFA used to
remark ‘the Chinese are a very reasonable people providing the reasoning is
Chinese’.
Return to Table of Contents
shipping companies by causing trouble for foreign companies as it was to advance
the interests of Chinese seamen. In the event, I think the Union found that British
shipping companies and especially Swires, were the best people to deal with. For
day to day contact the Union’s representative, Yang, would bring in representatives
of whatever section of the Union had a complaint such as firemen, teaboys or the
stewards on deck. Yang would thump the table, GFA would listen sympathetically
and the group would depart. Back would come Yang, and he and GFA would then
resolve the dispute as far as possible. Sometimes GFA would take up an individual
seaman’s case with the Marine Superintendent or the Superintendent Engineer, and
this may well have given a seaman the feeling that there was at least one foreigner
in the Firm who understood his problems and his way of thinking. GFA used to
remark ‘the Chinese are a very reasonable people providing the reasoning is
Chinese’.
Return to Table of Contents
