Chinese Community and Ancestral Altars, Toamasina, Madagascar马达加斯加图阿马西纳华人社群与祖先坛

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Madagascar · Atsinanana Region · Toamasina (formerly Tamatave) · The east-coast port of Toamasina; another center is in the capital, Antananarivo

First built

Chinese arrivals from 1862 · A Chinese school was established in 1938; the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise had 398 students in 2008.

Overview

The Chinese community of Madagascar numbers roughly 70,000 to 100,000 (2011 estimate), the third-largest Chinese community in Africa. The first documented Chinese immigrant arrived in 1862 at the east-coast port of Tamatave (present-day Toamasina); early immigrants were mostly from Guangxi, with those from Guangdong predominating thereafter. This community is remarkably homogeneous in origin: about ninety-eight percent come not merely from Guangdong but specifically from the single county of Shunde, and the Cantonese community actively discouraged Hakka settlement, forming a rare instance overseas of a community drawn from a single county. In 1938 two schools were established: a Kuomintang-affiliated Sino-French school at Fianarantsoa and a coeducational Chinese school at Toamasina; in 2008 the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise had 398 students, teaching both Cantonese and Mandarin. It should be honestly noted that Madagascar's Chinese, like the local Malagasy urban population, are predominantly Catholic, and no record has been found of an independent Chinese temple building; Chinese popular religion continues in the form of family ancestral altars, a privatized practice within a context of religious blending.

Highlights

• The third-largest Chinese community in Africa
• First immigrant arrived at Tamatave in 1862
• About ninety-eight percent trace their origin to Shunde county, Guangdong
• The Cantonese community discouraged Hakka settlement
• No independent temple found; worship conducted at family ancestral altars