Caversham Otago - Early Chinese

http://caversham.otago.ac.nz/resource/oral/Caversham_NUDIST/Chinese.txt

IN THE SOUTH DUNEDIN AREA WHERE YOU LIVED, WERE THERE ANY OTHER GROUPS - I MEAN I KNOW THERE WAS THE CHINESE THERE. 912JB: Oh there were CHINESE there.
SB: WHAT ABOUT CHINESE? DID YOU HAVE ANY CONTACT AS A KID WITH THE CHINESE AT ALL?

: Oh yes I did. Yeah. Yeah. Sing Wah - they had the fruit shop in St Kilda and they were great friends of mum and dad's, and they used to give the rice for mum. Mum used to have that pure Siam rice - or whatever it was, you know - Siam rice - it was CHINESE rice anyhow. And mum would repay them by giving her some of the cooking. They wouldn't take money for the rice. But mum would repay them; every time she'd do some she'd send some round to them. And Walter, me eldest brother, he got great mates with them, yeah. He used to go down there and play cards. 930JB: Yeah. Me second eldest brother, Walter. Yeah. He used to go there. And that's how we got to know a few of the CHINESE community was through SingWah and his family and their relations. And we'd go up - Abe and I, we might be walking past and say: "hey Sing!". And he'd go: "hey, how'ya? come on!". And we'd go in there and he'd give us a banana or give us an apple, whatever was going, you know. He was great with mum and dad.Mum and dad were good - liked to make friends - you take the Massettis in the hotel - the St Kilda Hotel. They're Italians, and of course their meals - there's just about, something about ours, you know, well, some of them are. Then they used to come down every now and then, not all the time, and they'd have a meal with mum and dad - Lebanese meal. They loved the meals.