Tea Pot Shanghai

Ching Ming April 5 2009 - Wellington Tung Jung Assn

A picture of the Tung Jung Memorial at Karori Cemetery in Wellington where we congregate for the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals. In the 1950's, the Tung Jung Association bought about 50 grave sites near this memorial for the use of their members. This memorial was erected in their honour in 1965 as it was far more practical to congregate in one place to pay homage than to go from grave to grave!
I have all the names of the TJ members who are buried near here but all
names are only in English spelling.

The Makara location has been in use since the 1980's as Karori is fully
occupied!!

"Ellis Island" reopens February 15, 2009

Our "Ellis Island" reopens February 15, 2009, after more than three years of restoration and preservation work.

You might find their website of great interest and might be moved to donate to help further restore the site.
On this page of their website are three YouTube interviews of men who were detained on Angel Island when they first came to America many years ago.

http://www.aiisf.org/?option=com_content&view=article&id=85:detainee-stories&catid=64:about-articles&Itemid=85

Year of Ox welcomed

East And Bays Courier | Wednesday, 14 January 2009


The Auckland Chinese Community Centre is holding its Chinese New Year Festival and Market Day to welcome in the Year of the Ox.

The event is on Saturday from 9.30am to 3.30pm in halls one and two at the ASB Showgrounds, 217 Greenlane West.

Prime Minister John Key will open the annual celebration at 10am.

There will be special acts by a troupe of folk art performers, traditional Chinese dances and songs.

A modern Chinese pop band will perform and there will be demonstrations of martial arts, tai chi, lion dances, hip hop dance and diabolo tricks.

More than 200 stalls will be selling traditional and exotic Chinese hot delicacies.

Arts and crafts will be for sale and there will be free games and rides for children.

No admission charge.

Handwriting more than a work of art

Years of hard work and skill are behind every brush stroke made by Chinese calligrapher Jingzhi Zhu.

Ms Zhu, who also goes by the name Julie, will be demonstrating her art at the Chinese New Year Festival in Greenlane tomorrow.

The city-based artist started doing calligraphy in China when she was seven years old with her father’s encouragement.

"My father was my very first teacher, he loved it very much."

He taught her for a year, before sending her to a professional calligraphy class.

From there, she studied under several famous calligraphy artists in China.

"I made huge progress and entered many national and international competitions and won many gold and silver medals."

Her work has been exhibited overseas and she is about to have her first solo show at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in west Auckland, which opens on Thursday and runs until March 1.

Ms Zhu moved to New Zealand two years ago to study a master’s programme at Auckland University, where she also teaches Chinese language and hopes in the future to also teach English.

At first it was hard to integrate her love of calligraphy with her new life because many people don’t know what Chinese calligraphy is.

"These days, many young people don’t like it. They think it is really boring because you have to practise every day and many have lost interest.

"Luckily I found the New Zealand Chinese Calligraphers Association and joined."

Members meet once a month and exchange ideas about the way they practise calligraphy.

Ms Zhu’s work has been shown at the Aotea Centre as part of a group exhibition and last year she was offered the chance to demonstrate her art at the Chinese New Year Festival.

She translated people’s names into Chinese and wrote them in calligraphy or wrote blessing words like "longevity" and "lucky" on special red paper.

Her art was so popular, she ran out of red paper and her friends had to dash out and buy more.

This year she is stocking up on paper before tomorrow’s festival.

For the new year, she writes special couplets for people to hang on their doors, welcoming the year and the good luck it brings.

Ms Zhu is going to visit her family in China next week to write their couplets.

The festival also includes a dragon dance, a troupe of performers from Hebei in China, Chinese pop group Lulu and the Puppets, and demonstrations of various martial arts.

Organiser Kai Luey says up to 20,000 people are expected to attend the event, which has attractions for all ages.

The free festival will be held tomorrow at the ASB Showgrounds from 9.30am to 3.30pm

By JANIE SMITH - Central Leader | Friday, 16 January 2009.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

The Lunar New Year dates from 2600 BC, when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the Chinese zodiac.

Because of cyclical lunar dating, the first day of the year can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February. On the Chinese calendar, 2009 is Lunar Year 4706-4707.

On the Western calendar, the start of the New Year falls on Monday, January 26, 2009 — The Year of the Ox. If you were born in 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985 or 1997 - you were born under the sign of the ox.

2009 - The Year of the Ox. HAPPY NEW YEAR

The second animal who arrived was the serious, enduring and hard-working Ox.The coming 2009 year of the earth Ox also called 2009 year of the Bull or Buffalo is around the corner. It looks like we've got honest, candid and open natured year ahead. As you might guess, coming 2009 year of the earth Ox is dependable, calm and modest.

The ox person is not extravagant, and the thought of living off credit cards or being in debt makes him/her nervous. The possibility of taking a serious risk could cause the ox person many sleepless nights. These people are truthful and sincere, and the idea of wheeling and dealing in a competitive world is distasteful to them. It would be right to mention that people born in the ox years are rarely driven by the prospect of financial gain. These people are always welcome because of their honesty and patience. They have many friends, who appreciate the fact that the ox people are rather introverted and wary of new trends, although every now and then they can be encouraged to try something new. It is important to remember that the ox people are sociable and relaxed when they feel secure, but occasionally a dark cloud looms over such person and he/she takes on the worries of the world and tries to find solutions.

Sandwiches, Taiwanese style

4:00AM Wednesday Dec 31, 2008
By Lincoln Tan


Raymond Njoto says rice rolls are a cross between sushi and a Subway roll. Photo / Martin Sykes

You can do with rice what you do with bread, says Raymond Njoto, who holds the master franchise of Taiwanese rice roll chain QQ Rice for Australia and New Zealand.

"When people think about making a sandwich, they always think of bread, but you can actually make a rice sandwich as well," Mr Njoto says.

He describes the rice rolls as a cross between the Japanese sushi and the Subway sandwich, but says it is a traditional Taiwanese meal.

The rice rolls - which seem to be uniquely Taiwanese - could have been inspired by the sushi during the time when Taiwan was a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945.

"Just picture Subway, but instead of bread, think of it as having rice as a base," says Mr Njoto.

So instead of different types of bread, you can choose from white, purple, red, brown, wheat-germ or wild rice, and fillings such as smoked salmon, spicy radish, barbecued pork and teriyaki chicken.

These are then rolled into a rice ball and, depending on your choice of grains and filling, it could well be a very healthy meal.

Taiwanese immigrant Jessie Chiang says the rice roll is a popular "picnic food" there, because it can be eaten hassle-free without the need for fork or chopsticks.

"To prepare, all we need is a plastic bag."

Rice is lined at the base of the plastic bag, the filling such as braised minced pork is added, and then it is all squeezed into a compact rice ball.

* Where to try

QQ Rice, 15-31 Wellesley St West. Rice rolls are priced from $5.20.

* Make your own

Ingredients: Steamed or boiled rice, fillings and sauces of your choice.

Method: Spread rice over a plastic wrap, add fillings and cover it with rice. Roll it tightly with the plastic wrap or plastic bag into a ball, and it's ready to be eaten. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10550083

Weijun Collins.

:00AM Monday Dec 22, 2008
By Alanah May Eriksen
Weijun Collins.

* Our lost children: Child abuse and the charities campaigning to end it

Weijun Collins has experienced abuse first hand - she was a slave for 10 years during China's Cultural Revolution.

So after reading the Herald's Our Lost Children series, the 64-year-old felt compelled to donate $1000 to a charity working to combat child abuse.

Mrs Collins, who studied early childhood education at the Auckland University of Technology in 1997, also wants to donate her time helping new parents in their homes.

Her donation will go to Barnardos, which runs a programme called Footsteps to Feeling Safe teaching children how to escape abusive situations.

Northern region spokeswoman Jenny Corry said of Mrs Collins' donation: "I think that's fantastic. It's so generous.

"We want her to know we will certainly put the money to good use. It will go directly to the children.

"If she's interested in working with us I'm sure we can use her in some capacity."

Mrs Collins was born in China into a prominent and well-educated family. When she was 10, her father, once a high-ranking official, was condemned as an enemy of the Communist Party and banished to a labour camp where he was tortured and starved to death.

Mrs Collins struggled to continue her education but her father's crime eventually rebounded on her and she was sent to the Gobi Desert in north-west China for 10 years farming wheat, maize and opium.

Forced to live in a cave with little food and minimal clothing, she laboured in sub-zero temperatures under heavy guard.

"I was humiliated, outcast," Mrs Collins said.

"No one would talk to me because of my father. I was given the heaviest work to do.

"No one wanted to be my friend. They would hold meetings just to criticise me."

But she managed to find an English textbook which she used to teach herself the language in secret. The only books allowed during that time were books written by Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong.

When she felt she was able to speak English well enough, she biked eight hours into the closest city to look for a job as a teacher, telling soldiers she had back pain and needed to see a doctor.

She was eventually offered a job teaching English as a second language in a small village and, after a battle with her minders, was permitted to work there.

She came to New Zealand in 1986 to study English after a Kiwi tourist, whom she had taken in in China, paid for her tickets.

She returned to China after a year working at a university teaching English before settling back in New Zealand in 1995.

She has since written an autobiography - Desert Rose - and married an English professor working in the engineering school at Auckland University.

She is currently writing a book on parenting skills.

The two daughters she had with her first husband also live in New Zealand and are married.

As a result of Our Lost Children, a research project into minimising brain damage to children on life support has received a $50,000 donation from Mercury Energy.

And an Auckland couple are sponsoring two families associated with Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, which has also had offers of food and clothing.

Presbyterian Support has also received donations.

New Zealand Chinese Association (Akld Br.) Inc.
2008 Winter Newsletter
P.O.BOX 4 8 4


Gwa Leng (Gualing) Family Publication
.
Following the successful launch in 2006 of the Tung Jung Association of NZ publication, Zengcheng NZ’s, which profiled
the various Jungseng villages and families that originated from there, a number of Gwa Leng family profiles were not
able to be included due to the limitations on content on the book.
Consequently the Gwa Leng New Zealand Family History Group was established with the following aims:
to produce a contemporary historical record of Chinese New Zealanders tracing their roots back to Gwa Leng
to promote and encourage families to develop their own family histories and family trees as a record for future
generations.
A number of family profiles and family trees have already been submitted and this is a request to target those families
from Gwa Leng that we are not aware of and have not been contacted.
If you have family roots from Gwa Leng, have an interest in your genealogy, have a story to tell and are comfortable to
have it published along with other Gwa Leng families, please urgently contact Mike Wong 06 8775085.
This project is supported by the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage