Chinese Heritage Given Boost

by Paul Titus
Ah Lum's store in the Chinese settlement at Arrowtown. Photo: Chris Jacomb
Our modern lifestyles make it hard for us to comprehend the gruelling work under extreme conditions miners had to endure to prospect for gold in Otago.
The 10 Chinese gold rush-era sites the Historic Places Trust proposes to add to the Register will reflect some of the conditions of that time. They will also make up for a significant shortcoming in the number of publicly recognised Chinese places.
Only four Chinese sites are on the Register for Otago - two buildings in the historic reserve in Arrowtown (Ah Wak's lavatory [CatII] and Ah Lum's Store [Cat I]), the Sew Hoy and Sons building in Dunedin and "Chinatown" at the Chinese settlement in Arrowtown.
Historian Heather Bauchop was responsible for reducing the original list of 18 possible sites and providing background research to support those she selected for inclusion on the register.
A Chinese goldminer's cottage at Arrowtown. Photo: Melanie Lovell-Smith
"We chose sites for which it was possible to get sufficient historical information. Some sites are very remote, and historical material for them is difficult to bring out. We also tried to pick places people can get to without much difficulty and see things they can relate to when they get there," Bauchop says.
"We asked what each site would illustrate. Did it represent a particular aspect of the Chinese experience? These could be mining technology, residences and orcharding, for example. We picked sites that told a range of stories."
Among the sites slated for the register is the Chinese camp outside Lawrence. In its day, it housed 60 to 70 residents in a complex settlement with five stores, an immigrants‚ hostel and a "Joss House" (or club house for benevolent societies). The only buildings remaining from the Lawrence camp are the former Chinese Empire Hotel, now a private residence, and an outbuilding. The remnants of the others are under a sheep paddock. Archaeologist Peter Petchey, who has surveyed the site, believes it has never been ploughed, which makes it extremely valuable from an archaeological point of view.
A stone hut and a group of Chinese mine workings at Conroy's Gully, Alexandra, remain from one mining site. True to its historic interest, the site served as the set where the movie Illustrious Energy about Chinese goldminers was filmed. Other mining sites are Choie Sew Hoy's dredging operation on the Shotover River near Queenstown and his hydraulic sluicing operation at Nokomai, including major water races, one 42 km long and another 34 km.
Other sites demonstrate life after gold mining and were selected for registration because they were part of the enterprises through which Chinese worked their way into local economies. These include Lye Bow's orchard near Alexandra (an early commercial orchard) and Wong Gong's terrace near Skippers.
Some of Lye Bow's original apricot trees are still present at the site of the orchard along with a stone wall and the remains of his stone store. Wong Gong's terrace was a market garden and store complex and the structures that remain there include a dam and reservoir he used to store water as well as a water race.
Bauchop says all the sites selected for registration underline the point that, although they were to an extent ostracised, the Chinese were also integrated into the European economy. Chinese and European miners made use of some water races and dams while Chinese businessmen such as Lye Bow and Wong Gong sold goods to Europeans as well as Chinese.
Heritage researcher with the Historic Places Trust's southern region Melanie Lovell-Smith is co-ordinating the registration process for the 10 sites. She says their applications are at different stages of completion. The historical research on all of them has been completed and archaeologist Petchey is now completing surveys of some to determine their extent.
Lovell-Smith says that, except for the Lawrence Chinese camp, all the sites will be submitted for registration at the same time, hopefully at the end of this year. The proposal for the Lawrence Chinese Camp site was publicly notified in July. The proposal was notified earlier than the others because the property is currently for sale. Given the current pressure of development in CentralOtago, concerns were raised about the site's future.
Paul Titus is the principal in Titus Writes , a network of freelance writers, photographers and graphic artists