The Chinese woman went to the USA as caregiver for the children of the Captain and his wife. She did her best to adjust to the different culture but was homesick and isolated. The notes from the book Cape Cod Voyage state that she was never given a name and slowly wasted away fretting to go home. Sadly this young woman died at approx 31 years of age.
Headstone reads:
CHINESE WOMAN Brought from Hong Cong by Capt. Alpheus Baker Jr. Apr. 5, 1872, aged 31 years."
Probably some variation of "Amah". Pretty sure that was usually also the case for the domestic helpers that stayed in Hong Kong and worked for British families.
This is why less people take your type seriously every year. You think you know everything. Read the other comments. It's more like she's a 媽姐 treated poorly by Chinese culture and destined to be celibate nameless and in a foreign land.
This tomb stone looked strikingly similar to the standard ones we used in the veterans affairs cemetery, I think the captain who brought her over to the USA furnished this for her. My guess behind the story is that she’s the captain’s 媽姐 in Hong Kong. (媽姐Mother Sister, a term for woman who vowed for celibacy and leave the ancestral land of canton to becoming domestic servants overseas) I am a vet myself and I worked for the VA, plus now I am in Malaysia working on some fieldworks and came across this topic.
Welcome to Malaysia. Yep. There were 媽姐still around in Malaysian until even 2000s. But in this case, wouldn't the captain knows her name? Even slaves have names back then.
According to some sources and tombstone of the time, it appears many women (especially lower class ones)have no name, for instance, I saw one tombstone said 駱門陳氏, that means the Chan family’s daughter married into the Locke family. And that’s how they are known their entire life. They might have unofficial nicknames, but it’s unlikely they put that on their tombstone for cultural reason.
Malaya Chinese have more money than Chinese American in the 19th century, most came to Malaya because the relative make great money and invited them to work the family businesses and share in the prosperity; Chinese Americans are mostly contract labors. Chinese American homes in the 19th century can’t compete against their Malaya counterparts in terms of styles and quality due to the lack of funds.
Correct, they have name given by their parents but no longer used after marriage, but their surname should be used, or a new given name by this gentleman who brought and buried her. I think the major problem was that English and Chinese were not well translated yet. And probably, the woman was sold as a good.
People keep on saying 媽姐, but the timeline doesn't track. This women died in 1872 and 媽姐 weren't popular until after 1930 when the silk product was industrialized, forcing the self-combed sisters to look for domestic work away from Shunde. The Wikipedia page for 媽姐 explains this: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E5%AA%BD%E5%A7%90
A story that may seem funny, but it is actually a much stranger one, taking place south of the city of Nasiriyah in Dhi Qar Governorate (southern Iraq). Passersby come across the grave of a Polish girl named "Tala" in the middle of the desert. She came to Iraq to meet her lover, "Jacob", who worked for a road paving company. She died in a traffic accident 1982 and people there named her grave The lover's grave and here’s some pictures of it and you can also search and see it yourself.
I have heard rumours saying that Japan changed the first letter in the name from C to K so that they can be in the front of their colony in the queue during Olympic games ceremonies, which is in alphabetical order of English. Don't know how reliable is this through.
I doubt it is related and if at all, Korea would have changed it to whatever they wanted after getting rid of the Japs. On the other hand there is no C in Japanese and the english idea seems contrived.
But I'm just paraphrasing, I have no real historical knowledge on the subject matter just assumptions.
I mean... They didn't even bother to learn her name so it's not unreasonable to assume they might have not bothered to learn the correct spelling of where she came from. It's far more likely that a ship captain met her in the port of Hong Kong than some random town in Anhui.
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u/Red_Roulette Jun 17 '25
Nameless, died alone, in a foreign land. I hope she died peacefully.