Three hundred years ago, colonial powers including England and Holland, looking to develop the rubber plantations and tin mines of southeast Asia, sought workers among the densely packed, poverty-stricken Chinese populations of Fukien and Kwangtung along the southeast coast of China. This created a huge wave of economic migration.
三百年前，英、荷等殖民國家為了開發南洋的橡膠及錫礦，在中國人口稠密、生活貧苦的福建、廣東沿海招募工人，造成一批大規模的經濟性移民。