Memories. On the westward journey of Chinese migrants from Zhejiang to Europe in the 1920s

This is the main essay in a book that resulted from a collaboration with the artists Ciaj Rocchi and Matteo Demonte, with whom the author has participated to a call for projects promoted by the University of Padua and the Royal Holloway University of London. Our project, entitled "Pearls from China", won a grant to carry out research on the early years of the Chinese migration from Zhejiang to Europe, which was started by itinerant peddlers of fake pearls who travelled to Germany, France, Spain and Italy in 1925-1926. Many of them had actually migrated from China to Japan a few years earlier, as we were able to show thanks to records found in Japanese, Chinese and European archives, as well as documentation and oral testimonies gathered among the descendants of the earliest Chinese migrants to Italy. The book is thus an innovative mixture between an academic essay, written by the author and a graphic essay, illustrated by the splendid artwork of Rocchi and Demonte. The early mobilities of Zhejiang migrants across Eurasia have been documented graphically by sourcing contemporary maps and illustrations, which have been the prime source materials for the volume's artwork.