In which treaty of 1842 was Hong Kong ceded to the British ?

In 1839, Britain invaded China to crush opposition to its interference in the country’s economic and political affairs. One of Britain’s first acts of the war was to occupy Hong Kong, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. In 1841, China ceded the island to the British, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed, formally ending the First Opium War.

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lucasmats

Growing up, Chinese food was Cantonese. I remember asking Restaurateur Mr Quon if that huge picture was of Hong Kong. He answered "No, Hong Kong is English. It's a view of Kowloon, the peninsula on the other side of Victoria Harbor." I learned later that Mainland Chinese couldn't come to America because of President Arthur's Chinese exclusion Act. But Hong Kong Chinese were English subjects. I'm somewhat aware that the Treaty of Nanking permitted European merchants to come and go. So the treaty allowed German Jews to escape to Shanghai during the 1930's. I always wondered if Shanghai Jews escaped to Hong Kong after World War II.

Sheldon Burnston

lucasmats, Many of the German Jewish refugees who fled to China later emigrated to Israel. Others made their way to the U.S. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, our local Chinese restaurant was owned by 2 Jewish brothers from Shanghai. When their father died in Shanghai, their mother married a Chinese businessman who had no children, so he adopted them. Later they all moved to NYC where their stepfather opened the restaurant, which they inherited on his death. It was fun watching them speak to the cooks and waiters in Chinese, and then with my parents and grandparents in Yiddish.