What is the mindset of the older generation of immigrants?
To use an analogy, just like now young people go to work in different cities for many years, even if they live in peace, it is difficult to have a sense of home, and they find that they cannot go back to their hometown and cannot integrate into the city where they are located.
From the tide of migration, immigrants can be roughly divided into three generations:
The first generation of immigrants, the early Chinese workers, the generation that went to Western countries to build railways or go to pan for gold, especially the Guangdong people in Fujian, so speaking Cantonese and Hokkien overseas will be more common than Mandarin;
Second-generation immigrants: After the first generation of immigrants settle down, their families follow the immigrants;
Third-generation immigration: After countries have raised the immigration threshold and the quality of immigration, investment immigration and international student immigration, this generation is basically rich.
Although the first and second generation immigrants have settled down abroad, most of them live a simple life, basically in their own Chinese circles. Of course, there are also figures who are in the political and business circles. The power of donating money and materials from overseas during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression should not be underestimated.
Now we often see that many old overseas Chinese want to return to their hometowns, whether they have fallen leaves and return to their roots, that kind of nostalgia, maybe people who work in other places want to go home but can't go back.