Iron Road Analysis

Great Essays
“Iron Road” is a Chinese-Canadian, co-production film, taking place during the
1880s.The movie revolves around the perspective of Little Tiger, and the struggles she encounters. It consists of engaging illustrations that effectively explain the push and pull factors compelling the Chinese to leave China as well as demonstrated the many struggles endured in Canada. The film displayed many different perspectives of the Chinese, through the filthy setting, and each of their individual financial struggles and conflicts. This also explains the sudden compulsion to move to Canada, as the income was better, the environment was cleaner and they would be properly fed and tended to. China was not the best place to live in during the 1880s. Due to
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Throughout the movie, we could see the Chinese were very poor, without much food, constantly being dressed in rags. This displayed immense famine, and poverty across China with all the poor and hungry citizens lingering around. Many of the farms were destroyed, resulting in lack of crops, meaning no food was being produced, this inevitably led to famine where many poor people were forced to starve. To make it even worse the salary was so low they could barely feed themselves let alone their own family and with the food supply being limited, prices went up. Working conditions were dangerous and hours were long, many Chinese workers were too poor to support themselves and their resources were slowly depleting.In the movie, there was a $1 a day sign, this was utilized as an incentive for people to emigrate to Canada, as $1 was a lot of money for the Chinese. Unfortunately, unbeknown to the Chinese, the $1 a day pay was much less than the local white labours and they also had to pay for food; hence, leaving them not much money to send home(The kid’s site of Canadian settlement, Explore the communities, Chinese, History section). Furthermore, the filthy environment and the awful pollution made ailment quite common in China, and the crowded population only increased the chances of an epidemic outbreak. Unfortunately many citizens were too poor to hire doctors to cure themselves and, so the inhabitants were forced live unhealthy daily-lives. In addition due to war and rebellion, social instability continues where robbers and bandits were everywhere, vandalizing all parts of the city (Ties that bind, Chinese railroad workers, Conditions in China section).China consisted of many different gangs, each having their own small possession of land. These gangs were not affiliated with the government but more like local people attempting to form

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