6 Family, Everyday Life, and the Making-up of Society

Home in Chinese (jia 家), means more than just a living space for human beings, it is where a family belongs. This chapter examines how ‘families’ of Overseas Chinese, who started coming to Yokohama from 1860 onwards, created living space in the city, and how their jia became core components of its Chinatown. This paper introduces the connection between families, everyday life, and the making-up of an Overseas Chinese society in Japan. By taking the Cantonese Xie family as a case study, it shows how the life experiences of three generations, and their family restaurant, Shatenki, have played an important leadership role, and how the family’s active participation in Chinese culture-related activities demonstrates that jia has contributed to the development of Yokohama’s Chinatown.