Chinese History in New Zealand

The second group of Chinese Refugees brought to Auckland by relatives in New Zealand, has arrived here. The party, comprising 30 Chinese, is one of the largest to have land at Auckland in recent years and is composed of 10 families. Twenty of the group are women, 13 of whom are married.

On arrival the families were greeted by the secretary of the Auckland Chinese Association, Mr Andrew Chong, who has been a leading figure in the move to allow his fellow-countrymen to bring their wives and young children from war zones in China into New Zealand. All the refugees were from the Canton area, in South China. The members of the party appeared cheerful and showed no signs of the privation which attended their departure from China shortly before the fall of Canton.

The refugees have been admitted for two years, subject to the signing of a 500 pound bond and the payment of a deposit of 200 pound, to be forfeited if conditions laid down are broken.

- from an article "New Zealand Herald, 11 October 1939, Page 13"

The Taranaki Chinese began coming in the early 20th Century, but by the 1960s the numbers had declined in South Taranaki.

My Grandfather came to Stratford at the age of 11, and records show he returned again from China in 1904.

A Hawera Star article seeking help in the research.

The Chinese Of South Taranaki 1890s-1950s

Chan Sheen Chong (aka Chan Sin Cheung) from Sa Chuen village, Canton arrived in New Zealand in 1904, as a 21 year old. He was know to have lived in Stratford, Manaia and Hawera between 1904 and 1957.C S Chong and sons (Jack and Kenneth) operated fruit shops and market gardens in Hawera - under the management of Kenneth and May, until 1957; while the Manaia shop was run by Jack and Lily until the 1970s. He also had a daughter Mary who lived her married years in New Plymouth, and another son Joseph who was a motor reconditioner.

Research shows that there were many other Chinese living in the area during this time. These included Jik Hing (aka Jack Hing) Eltham / Hawera 1913. Louis Kitt and family in Manaia from1930s - children Nellie, Jackson and Watson Kitt. Fruiterers at Sincere and Co, in High Street, Hawera in the 1950s were Chan Lum Wing and Jock Tung. Lai Kee Sue was a fruiterer, of Patea up to mid 1960s. Willie Yep was a businessman in Hawera in the 50s-60s.

I am keen to hear from people who remember any Chinese in their community - the businesses they were in, when they were there located. Any anecdotes would really be appreciated.

I also seek information for these 2 Sun Gai villagers, both men buried in Taranaki. Does anyone know who they are?

1. Chan Pakk Yue, mentioned in Rev Don's Roll as being in Hawera in 1913, and in the Poll Tax database as Chan Pak Yew, 4 May1920. He is buried in Hawera, but there is no information of his interment.
2. Chan Lai Chun, mentioned in the Poll Tax 1941 - arrived 12/9/1906. He was aged 41 at the time of death in 1918. He is buried in Opunake. The council records were burned around 1920, so there is no further information for him.

If you have any information, contact focuson21@hotmail.com.

The History of Chinese Growers in New Zealand 1870-2006

Contact the Researchers if you have not been contacted yet

Lily Lee lily@rautaki.co.nz
Ruth Lam mcrats@clear.net.nz
Nigel Murphy nmurphy.ngel@gmail.com

http://www.stevenyoung.co.nz/chinesevoice/family/marketgardening.htm

Steven Young

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/photo_shows/Guangzhou_Jan04/GuangzhouJan04.html

I went to Guangzhou to visit the Institute of Geochemistry (with Zheng Mei) and the Foreign Language Teaching and Training Center, School of Medicine, Zhongshan University. The formalities of the second visit didn't work out, although I did get to meet Mr. Ni Xiaohong of that center, who is interested in learning more about teaching scientific writing in English. He and his wife Hong Jianwen accompanied me during nearly my whole time there, and we became very good friends. Enjoy the pictures

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/prisons/the_leper_of_somes_island.htm

This is the story of a poor unfortunate.

A middle-aged Chinese man thought to have leprosy was sent to live on an island in the middle of Wellington Harbour. No, not Matiu or Somes Island but its tiny northwest neighbour, Mokopuna.

You can see it driving round the bays. A large cone-shaped rock partly covered in low-lying scrub. There is apparently a cleft in a rocky wall off a sloping beach of gravel. It was in this cleft that Kim Lee, a 56-year-old fruiterer from Newtown lived, and after a short three months, died. Not much is known about his life, except that he was living in Adelaide Road and, at the time of his death in 1904, had been in New Zealand 18 years.

Book examines historic Maori-Chinese bonds
5:00AM Tuesday March 25, 2008
By Lincoln Tan

Manying Ip says Maori-Chinese relationships are one of the least- documented pieces of New Zealand history.
The Chinese men wanted the Maori women for sex, and the women went to them for the money - but it was more than a commercial arrangement, because they did have a relationship - just not the conventional husband-and-wife type.

This little-known facet of New Zealand's history is revealed in a new book by University of Auckland academic Manying Ip.

The men, who were mostly market gardeners, had wives and children in China, she says, but they never saw their families, and had children with the Maori women who worked in their gardens.

And some Maori families encouraged their daughters to be with the Chinese because they were seen as "financially secure".

Maori-Chinese relationships were complicated, and are one of the least understood and documented pieces of New Zealand history, says Dr Ip.

Her book, Being Maori-Chinese, aims to give an insight into the complexities of this cross-cultural alliance.

"Maori-Chinese are hardly featured in mainstream New Zealand history, and strangely, it is a topic that has also been largely ignored by both Maori and Chinese historians here," said Dr Ip, an associate professor of Chinese at the Auckland University, explaining why she decided to investigate the topic for her book.

But the complexities, and sensitivities surrounding it could be reasons local historians have shied away from it.

One Maori elder at the Otaki campus of Te Wananga-o-Raukawa concluded that Professor Ip would get nowhere with her research, because Maori-Chinese would be very sensitive and would not share any in-depth information.

"Are you sure you want to pursue this study on Maori-Chinese relations? I don't think people will tell you much," he said in a letter to Professor Ip.

"Actually, between the Chinese and the Maori, often there weren't marriages as such. There were relationships, yes. After all, the Chinese men lived here without their women for years and years.

"But often the Maori girls wouldn't expect marriage ... I mean, those were very hard times. The girls did as they were told. More often than not, there's no marriage, not even long-term relationships"

But having Maori-Chinese friends, whom she met through her work as a community advocate, writer and someone devoted to fostering better race relations, gained Professor Ip the much-needed acceptance among the group to enable her to conduct the in-depth research that would form the basis of her book.

Today, the younger Maori-Chinese may be confident with their multiple roots and the cultural advantages they possess, but it was a very different story in the past, she said.

"Trying to establish a positive Maori-Chinese identity when both Maori and Chinese were considered undesirable was an ongoing struggle for each one of them," said Professor Ip, who described Maori and Chinese as marginalised communities in New Zealand.

"Sharing memories of one's past is never easy, but for the interviewees it is that much harder because their stories are not just about struggles against social discrimination, but often of family disapproval."

Over five years, she worked closely with seven Maori-Chinese families, whose stories are featured in the book.

"I guess this book is not just about who they are, but it would also help us with looking at who we are and what New Zealand society will become in the future," Professor Ip said.

Manying Ip was born in Guizhou, China, and raised in Hong Kong. She came to New Zealand in 1974 and gained an MA in Chinese literature and a PhD in history at Auckland University.

She has been a long-time researcher on Chinese New Zealanders and Asian immigrants.

Her other books include Aliens at My Table: Asians As New Zealanders See Them (2005), Unfolding History, Evolving Identity: Chinese in New Zealand (2003) and Home Away From Home: Life Stories of Chinese Women in New Zealand (1990).

Being Maori-Chinese is published by Auckland University Press and will be available in bookshops next month.

http://www.tungjung.org.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=15&Itemid=32

Cantonese Migration to New Zealand

Guangdong (Kwangtang) is a province of South China. Virtually all of the early migration (late 19th/early20th Centuries) from China to New Zealand came from a number of Guangdong counties, mainly Jung-sing (also known as Tsengshing, Zengcheng, or Jung-sen), Se-yip and Poon-yue. China was in the grip of anarchy, banditry, poverty and overcrowding. The gold rush of North America was first heard about in China, in Guangdong. This represented a "golden" opportunity to escape poverty. America became known as the "gum san" (gold mountain). The later gold rushes of Australia, then New Zealand, represented the new "gum san".

The earliest sojourners became gold miners in the countryside. They were virtually all male in that they intended to return to China.

As the gold ran out, the Chinese moved to the cities, turning to independent businesses such as fruiterers, laundry and market gardening. Merchants such as Wah Jangs in Auckland and Yee Chong & Wing in Wellington often provided security and jobs for later migrants until they could establish themselves.

There was a huge anti-Chinese (Yellow Peril) sentiment in New Zealand during the turn of the century. This was legislated via Immigrant (read Chinese) Restriction Acts, and other barriers to Chinese migration.

The local Chinese community remained "marginalized" and never really took on the essence of a community until the Second World War when China became allied to the "Allied" countries. New Zealand eased its anti-Chinese stance and allowed 249 wives and 244 children of Chinese men in New Zealand to come here as war refugees. It was because of the protracted and ongoing Sino-Japanese wars and a changing sentiment towards Chinese that they were later granted residency status. A Chinese family community was fortuitously seeded. These men and their families were not sojourners anymore; they became true migrants.

http://www.cityofdunedin.com/city/?page=chinese_garden_artis

Our Garden
The Dunedin Chinese Garden is an example of a late Ming, early Ching Dynasty Scholar's Garden, surrounded by a four metre perimeter wall.

The Scholar's Garden was traditionally the focal point of a family compound, which sometimes gathered several hundred family members and servants into a kind of 'gated' community.

It was in the Scholar's Garden part of the compound where guests and important visitors were received and entertained, and where the Scholar himself (a highly regarded member of Chinese society) lived and worked.

A Chinese Garden is, therefore, more than just a garden in the European sense, where rocks, water plants and buildings are important, symbolic, elements.

The Dunedin Chinese Garden uses authentic Chinese materials crafted by a team of artisans/craftsmen for Dunedin's sister city of Shanghai

In addition to the hand-made wooden buildings the Garden features hand-made tiles, bricks and lattice-work and granite paving stones, which have been hand-finished.

In particular the use of 'lake stone' - 900 tonnes of it - represents an essential element of Chinese art form since the Tang Dynasty (600-900 AD).

Throughout the nineteenth century many groups were concerned about who should settle in New Zealand and about the racial composition of the population. In particular, there was rising hostility among Europeans towards Asian immigrants which resulted in restrictive immigration legislation
The Chinese gold miners were the objects of prejudice from their arrival in the 1860s. Reasons for this prejudice were:

They looked and acted differently. Their community style of living set them apart.
The mining techniques the Chinese used were innovative
Europeans' belief in their civilisation's superiority
The Chinese were hard workers
Their use of leisure (eg. gambling and opium smoking)
Workers and politicians saw Asians as a threat to their jobs, claiming they had a much lower standard of living and would work for next to nothing.

Increasingly restrictive legislation was aimed at keeping Asians out and protecting New Zealand's European identity. The effect of these laws was to reduce the number of Chinese arriving, and in particular, Chinese women, who found it hard to meet the new restrictive requirements.

By 1896 there were 14 Chinese women compared to 3700 Chinese men in new Zealand
Belich comments that restricting women more than men was an important way of getting useful labour without any long term risk to ethnic homogeneity.
Chinese moved to the edges of Otago towns to start market gardening as gold mining declined in the 1880s. This move intensifies the anti-Chinese hysteria amongst Europeans.
Not all Chinese were the object of hostility and prejudice - Chew Chong, the Chinese pioneer of the Taranaki dairy industry, had status among, and respect from, the people of Taranaki.
Source: Hasler, J., Langton, G. & Taylor, B. (2000). History - New Zealand in the 19th Century. Year 13 Study Guide pp 229-231. Auckland: ESA Publications (NZ) Ltd.

Think about:

Chew Chong arrived in 1867 and became a naturalised New Zealander in 1873. He went on to become a successful businessman and mixed in both Chinese and European communities.
How would his life been different if he had arrived thirty years later? What laws would have restricted the life he was able to enjoy?

How fair is this?
Lily Groogan arrived in Auckland at the age of 17 to be married. Of Chinese extraction, she had to pay the poll tax of 100 pounds to enter despite the fact she had been born in Sydney, Australia - a British colony. She was also fingerprinted, in the manner of a criminal. Lily could not become a naturalised New Zealander until after 1952 - before that it was illegal for Chinese to be naturalised. Her husband had a fruit shop and went hawking his fruit to country towns and villages. He put a bucket over his head as protection against stone throwing.

Damage to records accumulated by you or your family members which contain information of interest or evidential value can arise either through neglect or misguided intervention.
The best advice is always to:
Avoid or minimise risks from fire, flood, theft or pests or from unsuitably hot or damp conditions. In particular, avoid storage in attics or cellars where threats to the survival of papers may go unchecked and cannot easily be monitored.
Stabilise and protect papers in your care by keeping them in suitable files and boxes (aside from bound volumes) while preserving their original order or arrangement
Avoid attempts to repair damaged documents. The use of self-adhesive tape, such as sellotape is highly damaging as it causes chemical reactions to records on paper or parchment.
If in doubt, contact your local record office for advice.
Simple preservation measures you can take include:
Using brass clips (clips made of other metal tend to rust) to hold single documents or small numbers of related papers together
Carefully removing metal paper clips, staples and pins, and rubber bands where this can be done without damage. Unbleached archival tape made of cotton or linen can be used to preserve original bundles of papers.
Keeping all papers flat and unfolded, preferably in archival-quality folders and boxes of appropriate size
Ensuring that direct sunlight or powerful artificial lighting does not fall on manuscripts, typescripts, or other records which should be suitably protected by blinds or boxing as appropriate.

Try to keep records in a stable environment which is not too hot or humid: this will promote their long-term preservation. Temperatures rising significantly above 19°C on a regular basis or relative humidity significantly exceeding 60% can be particularly damaging to paper or parchment documents and should be avoided. In a domestic situation, records are best kept in a cool damp-free room where the air can circulate.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/caringrecords/

Always ask permission if you want to record your interview, and respect the wishes of your subject if they seem uncomfortable talking about a particular subject. It helps if you have prepared a list of questions in advance, as you can steer the conversation towards safer - or perhaps more interesting - territory. You may also need to make more than one visit as new information comes to light, especially if you want to tackle a particular story or family myth.

It is a sensible idea to compare accounts of an event as remembered or described by as many members of your family as possible; memories can fade over time, and it is always tempting to play up the importance of a particular episode in the past. Where accounts of events overlap, and there is agreement, it is likely that you have a kernel of truth to chase down in archives.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/films/oralhistory.htm

(From the Daily Telegraph.)
This lentleinan, who for a good number of years held a prominent position among Chinese merchants iv Victoria, and who died on the 4th Nov., was interred at the Melbourne Cemetery on the 7th. Those who understand the feelings and customs of the Chinese will know that it is among them an object of the highest import, engendered and fostered by their religious training, that their bodies should ultimately rest in the soil of their own land. The body of Ping Kee was, therefore, interred | yesterday with all the precautions necessary to enable it to be lifted and carried to China eighteen months hesice. Ping Kee arrived in Melbourne early in 1856, and joined the well-known Chinese firm of Kontj Mcug, and Co., remaining a partner there until about three years ago, when he retired, and continued business on his own account. Froni the lime of his arrival until his death he bore' a high character for probity in commercial matters, and amongst his own countrymen he was noted for kindly and unostentatious, generosity. The feeling with which he was regarded by his kindred, and people and dependnts was manifested at his grave yesterday. The preparations for the funeral were of a character so foreign to the preparations of Europeans that it will not be uninteresting to mention them. The body of Ping Kee, after lieing dressed in a complete walking suit of beautifully embroidered satin, was placed in a lead coffiin. A fan was placed in his right hand, and a handkerchief in hio left, and beside the body was deposited a quantity of gold and silver, the Chinese evidently thinking, from their keen commercial instincts, that gold and silver would only cease to be useful when their friend had fairly arrived in the spirit land. Over all was tin own a heavy maroon-colored satin cover, the whole being enclosed by the coffin lid. This leaden coffin was placed in a heavy case of polished cedar, mounted heavily with solid brass. The cedar case bore the inscription, "Ping Kee, died 4th Nov. 1871, aged 42 years. The ftineral procession, which was under the charge of Mr Sleight, of Collinns-street east, started from the house of the deceased in Flinders-gtreet. It consisted of a hearse bearing the body, ten mourning coaches, twelve private carriages, and several other private Vehicles, numbering in all forty conveyances. On the front seat of the hearse was seated a nephew of the deceased, who scattered broadcast, as the procession advanced, oblong sheets of yellow colored paper. The grave was an underground Ijrick sarcophagus, lined with cement and imprevious to water, and when the coffin was placed in it stone slabs were placed on the top, also made watertight. Amongst those present were Kong Meng, Ah Ching, Chun Hoo, Kong Lee, Ah Goon, Hang Hi, Hi Kee, Ah Foou, Honw Kee, On Kee, Moong Loong (from Ballurat) aud about
200 other Chinese. Mr k. L. King ILL. A , Mr F. Hunt (of the Victorian Customs), add many other European*, were also attendants on the funeral cortege. When the procession arrived at the ground the ceremony of interment commenced. The chief mourners were the wife and five children of deceased, together with his brother and nephew. Miss Mann, an adopted daughter of Ping Kee, was also present. Mrs Ping Kee ancl Miss Mann were very much affected ; and standing round the grave also were many of the countrymen of deceased crying bitterly. The eldest son was led forward, and he threw three handsful of earth on the coffin and all the other children were led forward to imitate his example, the grave was theh closed, and those present kindled a fire, in which were thrown joss sticks and joss papers. Candles of various colors and sizes were also lit, and those present cast into the fire their white hatbands. The Chinese wear white as a sign of rejoicing^ that their dead have entered into a better world, and those left are supposed to mourn only because they have not been chosen first. After the closing of the grave gift? were distributed. Little neatly constructed paper envelopes were handed to everyone who had attended the funeral, when these packets were opened they were found to contain ten shillings. Over £60 in silver was thus distributed. Cigars and candied sugar were also distributed liberally, and the ceremony concluded.

Mr Ping Kee

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=WCT18711201.2.7.3&cl=search&srpos=6&st=1&e=-------en--1----0ching+kee-all

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Search.aspx?page=10&term=Chinese+collection

http://www.csaa.org.au/newsletters/news06.08.pdf

I have just come across this newsletter - Page 19 and 20 -

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/12302.Chopsticks_in_the_Land_of_Cotton

genre: History
description:
The story of how Chinese immigrants found their way to the Mississippi River Delta in the late 1800s and earned their living operating small family grocery stores in neighborhoods where mostly black cotton plantation workers lived. What was their status in the segregated black and white world of that region? How did this small group maintain their culture and ethnic identity? What has happened to these merchants and their families over the years?