Phantom spaces

In the seventh lunar month of the Chinese calendar the gates of hell are opened and ghosts are released to roam the world. Those who died a wrongful death – Diao Sǐ Guǐ – or those who passed away far from home – Gū Hún Yě Guǐ – are oft en restless and vengeful, seeking recompense. It is a dangerous month to be out and about in Johannesburg for nearly 3 200 Chinese mine workers died on the Witwatersrand in the short period between 1904 and 1910. Faced with primitive conditions in the mines and prison-like conditions in the compounds in which they were housed, the lives of mine workers were ended by ‘execution, disease, opium overdoses, accidents, homicide and suicide’ (MacLellan 2008: 78). The dying suffered the terrible loneliness of being 7 000 miles away from home.

Around 63 000 Chinese were brought from the northern provinces of Henan and Shandong after the South African War to work on the gold mines as indentured labour. It was a move that restored production to the mines that had been closed during the war but provoked near hysteria among Johannesburg's white citizens and helped bring down Lord Arthur Balfour's government in the United Kingdom. By 1910 all the surviving Chinese workers had been repatriated except for the handful that had absconded and avoided capture (Kynoch 2005).