Representing the Chinese Labour Corps at the annual service of remembrance for Armistice Day

On the 11^th November 2024, Dr Kan Qian, Director of the Online Confucius Institute (OCI), was honoured to attend the annual service of remembrance for Armistice Day in London alongside a small group of 40 Chinese participants representing the Chinese Labour Corps.  The Chinese Labour Corps has been officially recognised for at the annual Armistice Day service for the last three years.  This was largely due to a project on the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC)  led by Peng Wenlan on behalf of the Meridian Society. 

After the service, Dr Kan attended an exhibition showing the history of the Chinese Labour Corps organised by Ming-Ai (London) Institute and heard talks from various speakers including Mr ZHANG Zezhi, the grandson of a member of the Chinese Labour Corps, and Dr Francis Wood who talked about how the labourers were recruited for the war effort. The service and exhibition were a reminder of the courage and sacrifice of the Chinese Labour Corps during the war and stories which were often left untold and forgotten by history.

Last year, we invited documentary filmmaker Peng Wenlan to give a public talk at The Open University as part of the OCI public talks series where she discussed the underreported history of the Chinese Labour Corps in WW1. The oral history film ‘Forgotten Faces of the Great War: Chinese Labour Corps’ produced for the BBC and a recording of her public talk are available on our website here.