​Stories Told, Stories Found
In the Archives' collection, there is a folder of "cuttings and ephemera on Chinese people" [LCX10199] with newspaper clippings and leaflets about Limehouse's Chinese community. Although the materials span from as early as 1813 to 2010, most clippings date from the early 20th century and come from British tabloid newspapers reporting on Limehouse. These reports were quite sensational, primarily depicting crimes, opium dens, gambling, police raids, street fights, and similar incidents. A few records documented the disappointment of people who came seeking adventure in Limehouse but encountered nothing more than law-abiding residents going about their daily lives.
One clipping that caught my attention was a 1934 Daily Sketch feature titled "Street of Weird Memories." It opened on a celebratory note: "Limehouse Causeway is to go in the interest of a better London," thanks to plans for building another main road to relieve traffic congestion on Commercial Road. The article quoted Charlie Brown, who shared his father's name—old Charlie had run the legendary Railway Tavern and was widely regarded as the Uncrowned King of Limehouse—recounting the "weird memories" of the area. He spoke about Tongs identified by different coloured scarves and how they had fought each other twenty years earlier. Additional "weird" memories were shared by local Irish surgeon H.J. O'Brien and two riggers whose names were not mentioned. Together, these accounts painted a vivid picture of Limehouse through its stereotypical representations: the Chinese, the opium, the degenerate, and the ships. It emerges as a fascinatingly strange neighbourhood with unimaginable stories found nowhere else.
What’s muted in these representations was the Limehouse as a site of everyday life, as a site of minor figures in the lens of histories seeking belongings and self-determination. These so-called streets of weird memories have indeed all gone, along with its communities, leaving only the street signs marking the changed geographies. I often take walks on these streets, photographing their street signs - some of them were hiding under overgrown bushes. In this work, I overlaid the newspaper clipping with photos of the street signs I took, as well as a photo of Amoy Place which used to be lined with Chineses laundry shops.