Scratchy start to Year of the Tiger as Chinese events clash

Failure to bring two of Auckland's biggest Chinese New Year festivals into one grand event has resulted in a spat between the organisers of the two events meant to usher in the Year of the Tiger next month.

For the first time since World Television organised its first Chinese New Year festival and concert in 2008, the event will clash with the 22-year-old Auckland Chinese Community Centre's Chinese New Year Festival and Market Day.

Both are scheduled for February 13, which is Chinese New Year's Eve.

The community centre says that WTV, by holding its event on the same day, is snatching away some of its regular market stall-holders.

"Some stallholders who had previously booked four stalls are taking just one this year," said Kai Luey, vice-president and event organiser.

"And some who had changed their minds and wanted to participate in our market day could not do so because WTV has a no-cancellation policy in its contracts.

"The folk at WTV are just hard-headed commercial people. I've suggested to them when we met at the [Chinese] consular office that we ...talk about organising a common event, but they never responded."

The community centre charges $140 a stall, but WTV charges more than $300 - and sometimes up to $50,000.

Two years ago, the centre also accused WTV of claiming its inaugural event was to replace the centre's longstanding festival. The centre felt forced to pay for print advertisements to say its festival was still running, because WTV refused to promote it.

"We were stabbed in the first year," said Mr Luey, "and now that their event is more established they are treating us like poor country cousins. That's arrogant."

The community centre holds its market festival at the ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane during the day, while the WTV event runs at the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau from the afternoon until late.

"While it's possible for the crowd to be part of both events, it is impossible for many of the stallholders to have the resources to do the same," Mr Luey said.

But WTV chief executive Henry Ho told the Herald it was impossible for the two groups to work together to organise a common event because "we have different directions".

"We are a commercial media organisation and any public show we put on has to be more professional than a festival that is being organised by a community group," said Mr Ho.

"We also have to make a profit or pay for the losses from our own pockets. Our event is not organised to just make every Chinese community leader happy."

Mr Ho said the clash in dates was also inevitable, because Waitangi Day falls on the weekend before Chinese New Year's Eve and it was inappropriate to hold the festival after New Year.

He says no one from the centre's leadership would be officially invited to attend WTV's festival because it was not the firm's policy to do so.

Nor would it promote the community centre's festival through its television stations, radio channels and magazine unless the centre paid for advertising.

"If the ACCC wants to pay for advertising we will be happy to put their ads on, but they cannot expect us to do it for free."

YEAR OF THE TIGER

* Begins on February 14 and ends on February 2, 2011.
* The Tiger is the third in the cycle of the Chinese Zodiac, which consists of 12 animal signs.
* It is a sign of courage, and revered as the sign that wards off the three main disasters of a household - fire, thieves and ghosts.
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln
By Lincoln Tan
4:00 AM Monday Jan 11, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10619462&pnum=0

Wrangle over site for Chinese garden

Councillors knock back donors' preference for Auckland Domain or Western Springs

An $8 million traditional walled Chinese garden planned for Auckland has become a political headache instead of a place of spiritual escape.

The Auckland Chinese Garden Steering Committee's preferred sites of the Domain or Western Springs have been knocked back by the Auckland City Council.

The steering committee is made up of 12 prominent Chinese representatives and is co-chaired by architect Ron Sang and community leader Kai Luey.

The council's arts, culture and recreation committee likes the idea of a central 3000sq m to 4000sq m Chinese garden on park land, just not at the duck pond area in the Domain or at Western Springs.

Gaining resource consent for the Domain, an archaeological and geological site of significance, is considered extremely problematic. Western Springs is thought to be too heavily used informally and for events such as Pasifika.

On the recommendation of open space planner Joseph Zou, the councillors have suggested a site on the 4.5ha headland park at the Tank Farm that is still 10 to 15 years away; a 2700sq m site in Cook St, bought by the council in 2008 and leased to Placemakers; or the western side of Victoria Park once the tunnel to widen the Northern Motorway bottleneck is completed by 2013.

Mr Sang said support from Auckland's 110,000-strong Chinese community for a garden had been excellent, but the council had given the steering committee something it was not happy about.

"I don't want to go to all this effort and find they give me a site that is not very good."

Mr Sang said the committee would consider the council's position and get back to it. "Anything to do with the council takes time."

The project, he said, would probably require five years of fundraising and three years of construction. A preliminary budget of $8 million includes $1 million from the Chinese community, $1 million from local government, $4 million from central Government, $1 million from community trusts and $1 million from Auckland City's sister city in China, Guangzhou, and overseas Chinese.

It is envisaged the garden would be on a similar scale to the Dunedin Chinese Garden, which opened last year to commemorate the contribution of Chinese people to the city, from the days of the Central Otago gold rush in the 1860s.

The Dunedin garden, covering 2500sq m and costing $7 million, was designed as a late Ming/early Ching scholar's garden, largely prefabricated in Shanghai and reassembled on site. It is centred on a large lake surrounded by several structures with an elaborate archway and 4m perimeter wall.

4:00 AM Wednesday Dec 23, 2009 By Bernard Orsman http://www.nzherald.co.nz/arts/news/article.cfm?c_id=544&objectid=10617126

Dream getaway lodge open for business

Luxurious Pakiri Point Lodge, which overlooks stunning Pakiri Beach in Rodney, was the subject of a long-running planning battle.


A luxury lodge has finally opened in Pakiri after a storm of protest over its prominent position on the cliff top overlooking the iconic beach.

The house, which is understood to have cost more than $5 million to build, drew objections from the public and the Auckland Regional Council which had spent $20 million buying the surrounding land for a new park.

The ARC claimed the house would spoil iconic views of the park.

However, Rodney District Council planning commissioners disagreed, saying the house was in an approved rural-residential subdivision, was appropriately designed and that landscaping and bush planting would avoid significant adverse affects.

After five years in the making and the battle through the resource management process, the house is now finished. It has six bedrooms, covers 600 sq m and sits among 4ha of young bush.

Its chiselled limestone pillars were chosen to harmonise with the white sands of the 24km-long wilderness beach below.

The lodge is owned and operated by catering supremo Rae Ah Chee and Fruitworld director Billy Chong and his wife Evelyn.

Mr Ah Chee said yesterday that he was enthusiastic about providing "a quality experience" for up to 10 guests after 40 years of catering at huge venues including Eden Park.

He said Pakiri Point Lodge was tastefully decorated and furnished in a "fusion of quality".

It won a gold award for the Auckland region "House of the Year" - for homes over $1 million.

A finalist for the national award, it also collected regional awards in the sustainability and best kitchen categories of the Registered Master Builders' competition.

Mr Ah Chee said dozens of Rodney-based tradesmen had worked on the two-year project and he hoped that, as business grew, up to six residents would be employed running the lodge. Its location, with its commanding view over the beach and the ocean, was a point of difference to many other luxury lodges in Rodney.

"It's a 70-minute drive from Auckland and 20 minutes by helicopter over stunning water scenery," he said.

The lodge's website says ensuite rooms are priced from $550 to $650 per couple per night, including breakfast.

Mr Ah Chee said the lodge would compete for guests from overseas but he had also had inquiries from Aucklanders planning a wedding anniversary or birthday. Other luxury lodges in Rodney District have nightly rates from $300 to $695.
By Wayne Thompson | Email Wayne
4:00 AM Wednesday Nov 18, 2009 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10609938

Pioneering spirit lives

PROUD DESCENDANTS: Grandsons of early Chinese immigrant Thomas Wong Doo, from left: Selwyn Wong Doo, Thomas Wong Doo III, and Dennis Doo.
Thomas Wong Doo
MADE A DIFFERENCE: Thomas Wong Doo helped a number of Chinese into New Zealand in the early 1900s.


The descendants of a 19th century immigrant have flocked to the North Shore 125 years after his arrival.

Up to 100 descendants of Thomas Wong Doo, some from as far as New York, celebrated their Kiwi and Chinese heritage with a reunion lunch at New Dragon World Restaurant in Birkenhead.

Thomas Wong Doo joined his brothers in the "New Gold Mountain" of New Zealand in 1884 when he was about 15.

"He came over in virtually his shirt and pants and took over the market garden," grandson Thomas Wong Doo III says.

Mr Wong Doo eventually returned to China and married, later bringing his wife Unui to New Zealand where she was one of the first female Chinese immigrants.

He loaned others £100 for the poll tax Chinese immigrants had to pay – the equivalent of a year’s wages, his grandson says.

Mr Wong Doo even sponsored a large group of people to migrate in the lead up to the closing date for Asian immigration in the early 1900s.

"He helped the Chinese when they came in, fed them, housed them, helped them look for jobs. The Chinese live in clans. Thomas looked after the Wong clan."

Even now family members still offer their help to new immigrants through the Kwong Cheu Club which Mr Wong Doo founded in 1923.

"To further the dynasty we’ve got to do good in this world, charity, not just looking after ourselves. It’s good for the whole family."

After making their fortunes and the family were established, the couple returned to China but were forced to come back after the Japanese invasion, Mr Wong Doo III says.

Their Chinese properties and land was lost in the Japanese invasion, civil war, and take over by communism in 1949.

The market gardens where Mr Wong Doo worked in Grey Lynn were named Chinaman’s Hill after him.

His son Norman Wong Doo went on to be Auckland Grammar School’s first Chinese student during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Norman’s son, North Shore resident Dennis Doo, says.

"He used to tell me he had his shirt ripped off his back because of racial discrimination."

Mr Wong Doo III says such behaviour was not uncommon.

"When you’re an immigrant in any country you’ve got to prove yourself, you’ve got to put up with all these things. This is what the Doo family have done – work hard, get integrated into society, get involved with charities."

Asian input critical to city's future, says Huo

4:00AM Wednesday Nov 04, 2009
By Lincoln Tan

Despite being voted down in Parliament, Labour's Chinese MP Raymond Huo says he will be continuing his fight to have an Asian advisory board on Auckland's new Super City Council through a private member's bill.

"The Asian population is projected to hit 400,000 in Auckland within seven years, and the council will not be representative of the people if it did not have an input from this community," Mr Huo said.

Mr Huo's push to get an Asian advisory board included in the Super City was voted down in Parliament by 64 votes to 58.

Prime Minister John Key has ruled out the possibility of having Maori seats on the new council, but Mr Huo said he wasn't seeking an Asian seat, although the Asian population will be growing at a much faster rate than Maori because of immigration.

"We are not seeking an Asian seat, simply a statutory link to the governing body that will advise on issues that affect the Asian community."

He said Auckland is the "seventh largest city with people of Chinese origin outside China" - in percentage terms - and that will continue to accelerate because of current immigration policy.

Under the parent policy New Zealand Immigration defines a family's "centre of gravity" as "the number of their adult children lawfully and permanently in New Zealand being equal to or greater than those in any other single country", making it eligible for nearly every immigrant from China to sponsor his or her parent because of the country's one-child policy.

The Asian population in Auckland is third only to European and Maori, and is projected to grow by 51 per cent up to 2016, compared with 46 per cent for the rest of New Zealand, he said.

"Auckland absorbs a disproportionate share of this growth, with about two-thirds of all new Asian migrants settling in the region," Mr Huo said.

"Ethnic minorities have also always been under-represented on Auckland's councils, with only 4 per cent being Asian, 4 per cent Pacific, 9 per cent Maori while 84 per cent are European. We need a more balanced representation if Auckland is truly to become a Super City."

Auckland University Professor of Asian Studies Manying Ip says the move to get Asian representation was "sensible" and something "policymakers cannot ignore" because Asians made up 13 per cent of the Auckland population.

She said many born under China's one-child policy were taking advantage of New Zealand's parent policy to sponsor their parents and even grandparents here, bringing new challenges in health, housing and socio-economic issues which will be better understood by members of the Asian community.

"Everything is legal, this is the New Zealand Government's policy and people are making full use of it.

"It is an inevitable trend, and it is up to everybody to get used to it. We cannot turn the clock back," Professor Ip said.

In Chinatown, Sound of the Future Is Mandarin

He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.

Paul Lee, a longtime resident of Chinatown, near his home on Mott Street. He said that Cantonese “may be a dying language.”

Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.

The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as China’s influence grows in the world.

But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.

Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”

Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” Mr. Wong said, “it will be totally different.”

With Mandarin’s ascent has come a realignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.

“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.”

The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.

In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.

Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.

In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.

“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”

Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart.

For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese three to one, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal, Kin S. Wong.

Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.

“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer Ng, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.
“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.

Kindergarten students at the New York Chinese School, where Mandarin classes now outnumber Cantonese three to one.

At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.

“No matter what,” he added, laughing, “you have to admire my courage.”

But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College.

Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.

“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.”

But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.

Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.

“They said, ‘Where you from?’ “ he recalled. “ ‘Why you speak Cantonese?’ ” They were from Taishan, he said, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy.

“And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”

Master brews clean green Waikato tea

4:00AM Monday Oct 05, 2009
By Andrea Fox
Ming-Hsun Yu has the same expertise for his product as a wine master has for his.
Unsmiling, intense, Master Yu swirls steaming water to pre-heat the delicate white green tea pot and miniature china beakers with the absorbed concentration a master of wine, would swirl shiraz to judge its colour.

Respectfully addressed as "Master" by the staff at Waikato's oolong green tea farm company Zealong, where he has come from Taiwan to further school in tasting and presentation, Ming-Hsun Yu is dressed in green theatre scrubs and presides over an ornate Chinese heavy stone tea platform that would be at home in an art gallery or museum.

The scrubs are because Master Yu has come to this traditionally designed teahouse at Zealong's plantation at Rototuna, north of Hamilton, from the nearby sterile environment of the tea processing plant.

The comparison with a master of wine is valid, says Kiwi Mark Levick, co-founder of leading New Zealand organic certification agency BioGro who is supervising the full conversion of this plantation to organic status.

Master Yu is Zealong's tea processing manager and for 18 years has been involved in producing the world's finest oolong teas for Chinese markets. Grown in Taiwan, south China, Vietnam and now on 50ha in the heart of the Waikato, premium oolong tea can sell for up to $11,000 per kg.

Master Yu is here to train staff as Zealong, founded in Hamilton 13 years ago by the Taiwanese immigrant family Chen, counts down to the November world launch of its premium tea, with its branding connotations of purity as a clean, green, New Zealand-grown safe food.

Estimated revenue from the first 2009 export crop to high-end Chinese markets is $16 million, with annual harvest revenue expected to be around $56 million in five years when plants at a second plantation at nearby Gordonton mature.

The Chen family have invested more than $10 million in the venture. They were inspired when new immigrant Tzu Chen, who was developing a housing subdivision in Rototuna in the 90s, saw how camellia trees flourished in the Waikato's rich pasturelands. Tea comes from a species of camellia.

In 1996 Tzu Chen and son Vincent propagated 130 premium quality seedlings from Taiwan, and purchased 3ha nearby as a nursery.

Zealong deputy general manager Gigi Crawford said the venture had created employment for 100 New Zealand contractors and consultants, and 32 tea pickers and plantation workers. The company paid $800,000 in wages last year, 85 per cent of which went into the Waikato economy, she said.

By 2014 the picturesque plantations, which will have three 20-day harvests a year, will need 130 workers.

Zealong plans to invest another $18 million in a tourist attraction at the Gordonton plantation next year.

It will include a tea-house for visitors, cafe, conference centre, tea processing factory and eventually, a hotel, set around a lake and gardens.

This project is awaiting local authority approvals. But for Zealong the most challenging aspect of the venture has been getting skilled workers for the highly labour-intensive picking and processing stages, Crawford said.

"We need the specialised skills of overseas, experienced tea pickers and workers to transfer the technical know-how to our local workers, particularly in the first five years. "It is also important the Asian markets know New Zealand-grown Zealong tea is made the traditional way."

The brand was due to be launched in June, but Zealong has only in recent days, supported by politicians and business agencies, won approval from immigration officials for 15 specialist Taiwanese pickers to enter the country for the November harvest. Next year, the company must apply again.

Crawford said using machinery to pick tea leaves would turn the first $1000/kg Zealong crops into a $10/kg product. "To maintain the quality of this tea and to respect the unique environment it is grown in we cannot do this. We talk to the plants all the time - to use a machine on them is just not right."

* Tea tips

Oolong tea consumption in Taiwan in 2008 - 1200g per person. China 600g per person.

Chinese market expected to double within 10 years.

Fine oolong plays important role in Chinese health, business and social structures.

80 per cent of Zealong to be exported - balance domestic through specialist tea shops.

Zealong tea farming produces no effluent, uses no chemical sprays.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10601288&pnum=0

Beginner's guide to Chinese resources

Central City Library
Wednesday 30 September, noon – 1pm
This workshop will get you started if you’re keen to search for your Chinese roots. It’ll help you identify information and resources available in New Zealand such as databases, websites and recommended reading. We’ll also cover several case studies of Chinese families in New Zealand. Bookings essential – call on 307 7771 or use our online booking form.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 100 Years Ago

In conversation with a Wellington pressman, Mr Yung Liang-Wang, Consul-general for New Zealand, said that the Chinese do not live so cheaply as is generally supposed.

They spent more money on food and drink than other men of their class in this country.

It was their custom to go out on Sundays nicely dressed, and to meet together at a social feast, where they would have eight or 10 courses, with Chinese wines, which paid a high import duty, and were rather expensive.

Wed, 9 Sep 2009 100 Years Ago

A Morton Mains correspondent writes to the Southland News: "Quite a Chinese colony is springing up in the vicinity of Invercargill.

Lately several farmers in the Morton Mains and Edendale districts have shown a marked preference for the Celestials, and it is given out on good authority that some farmers intend to introduce Chinese labour into their milking sheds.

The experiment will be watched with interest as marking a new departure in the dairying industry."

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 100 Years Ago

Quite a large number of Europeans attended the funeral of Tommy Ah Joe at Cromwell (says the Argus), and the ceremonies at the grave as carried out by the Chinese would rather astonish those not accustomed to the Chinese funeral rites.

During the burial the clothes of the deceased were burned, and food placed round the grave, and the Europeans were treated to a glass of spirits, and were also presented with two pennies.

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 100 Years Ago

Auckland: Speaking at the banquet given in his honour last night, the Chinese Consul (Mr Yung Liang Hwang) had some interesting remarks to make.

He did not know the meaning of the words "Yellow peril."

There would never be anything to fear from China.

All she wanted was fair play.

China had no aggressive ideas, and no desire to seize what was the bread and butter of other nations.

Did the cry of a yellow peril mean peril commercially? He did not think so.

As long as the Chinese merchants remained true to their traditions of honesty, impartiality, friendliness, and generousness she would never be a trouble to the world in this respect.

The term "Yellow peril" was one which he regarded as very unreasonable.

China was a moral country, and its motto was "A Country of Purity."

In regard to what had been said about the cost of living amongst the Chinese, he would remind them that as their civilisation advanced so the cost of living would advance.

China was making many mistakes, but she was gradually working her way through.

The people of China were at all times loyal and honest.

The Chinese in New Zealand were obedient to what the Mother Country had taught them - to be peaceful, honest, industrious, humble and kind.

That was what they were taught to do.

They did not contribute to the Mother Country as far as money was concerned, but they had that good sense of loyalty, and so it was through all parts of the world.

The Chinese had proved that there was nothing to fear in this cry of a yellow peril. . .

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 100 Years Ago

The Vincent County Council has written to the Otago Charitable Aid Board, as follows:

"With reference to the quarterly list of those in receipt of aid, this council would advise that the whole of the Chinese in this county be struck off the list, the council having reliable information that the sums received by them, in most instances, are being improperly used. Should renewed or fresh applications be received by the council on their behalf, this council will recommend that every applicant be received into the Benevolent Institution, and, failing to accept this, aid be withheld; the other names on the list are in order, and in this council's opinion should be renewed.''

A telegram of later date from the council read: "Considerable distress among Chinese owing to stoppage of supplies. County chairman suggests that you instruct storekeepers to continue supplies to end of May.''

The Aid Board members then questioned the board chairman's action in stopping supplies in line with the county's initial request.

Mr Mosley (Bruce County) pointed out that the Benevolent Institution Trustsees had declined an increase for Chinese in Bruce from 3s to 4s a week, but then took the Chinese into the institution at 6s 6d a week.

Therefore if they could get over the difficulty by keeping these Chinese where they were, they should not burden the country with their upkeep in the institution.

It was resolved that supplies be continued to Chinese in Vincent and that the finance committee should report on the whole matter.

Tue, 1 Jul 2008 100 Years Ago

The Chinese Immigrants Restriction Act of last session, which has just received the Royal assent, provides that no Chinese shall land in New Zealand until it has been proved that he or she is able to read a printed passage of not less than 100 words of the English language selected at the discretion of the Collector of Customs or principal officer at the port of landing.

The right of appeal to a magistrate is provided.

Any master of a ship who lands or permits to land in the Dominion any Chinese who has not fulfilled the requirements of the act is liable to a penalty not exceeding 50.

The act will not apply to any teacher of the Christian religion duly accredited to the Minister of Internal Affairs.

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 100 Years Ago

• Mr Yung Liang Hwang, Consul for China in the Dominion, arrived in Dunedin by the first express on Saturday, and was welcomed at the station by a number of countrymen.

Yesterday afternoon he spoke to 186 Chinese in the Chinese Church at Walker Street, and in the evening spoke at the Dunedin Central Mission.

The service in the afternoon was conducted by the Chinese missionary (the Rev. A. Don) and Mr F. L. Law.

The Consul, on rising to speak, was greeted by the whole congregation standing and saluting in Chinese style.

He said he would not preach a sermon to them, but would give them "a straight talk about practical Christianity", talking to them as his brothers and because he loved them, so that they should not take offence at what he would say.

He then asked his countrymen some very searching questions as to the reasons for their being despised and hated by Europeans, and gave them wholesome advice in detail regarding cleanliness, education, gambling, and opium-smoking.

The congregation took the address remarkably well, and when a vote was taken to request the Consul to prolong his stay so that a banquet could be tendered on Wednesday, every man rose and held up his hand.

The Consul, however, could not agree to extend his stay.

Heritage trail a gold mine

By Glenn Conway on Sat, 5 Jul 2008
The Regions: Otago

Otago's mayors will this month be asked to embrace plans for a Chinese heritage trail that has the potential to bring hundreds of thousands of visitors into the region and provide a modern tourist gold mine.

Organisers of the proposed trail want to see it in place for the Lawrence 150th anniversary celebrations in 2011.

The trail would link the Chinese garden in Dunedin, the goldfields of Lawrence-Tuapeka and the Cromwell Mining Centre as key drawcards for visitors from China.

Exact details of the trail, how it would work, what it would include and the price tag have yet to be determined.

Dunedin historian Dr Jim Ng, who is also behind plans to recreate the Lawrence Chinese camp, will present the gold trail concept to the Otago Forward meeting on July 18.

This group of Otago leaders will be asked to endorse the idea in principle so Dr Ng and others can prepare a feasibility study and detailed costings.

A paper on the concept, prepared by Morgan GR Tourism Management, said several factors suggested Otago had significant potential for Chinese tourism.

Those factors included the recent signing of a free-trade agreement between both countries, Dunedin's sister city relationship with Shanghai, the Chinese garden, and joint pushes by Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand into the Chinese market.

Talks with tourism heads suggest there was a dearth of "Chinese-specific tourism products" which could lead to the development of Chinese tourism to New Zealand over the next decade.

"The conjunction of the Chinese history in Otago, current relationships between the Otago community and China, a milestone in the Lawrence sesquicentenary in 2011, the presence of New Zealand's leading tourism resort in Otago and the macro signals in the closer trading relationship between the two countries suggest the time is right for a [tourism] project to develop a Chinese heritage trail in the Otago region," the paper said.

The aim of the trail would be to provide a specific focus for the development of Chinese tourism to New Zealand, offer an economic return to the region and its communities, and enhance the identification, protection and interpretation of Chinese history in the region, it said.

The first three steps involve presenting the proposal, a feasibility study and then implementing the trail.

Clark pays tribute to Chinese at garden blessing

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By Dene Mackenzie on Tue, 10 Jun 2008
News: Dunedin


The Prime Minister , Helen Clark, is followed by Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin on a tour of the Dunedin Chinese Garden today. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
Prime Minister Helen Clark today attended the blessing of the $7 million Dunedin Chinese Garden and paid tribute to the work that had been carried out to bring the project to fruition.

The Chinese had a long history in the province after they trekked into Central Otago in search of gold. Some had returned to set up businesses in Dunedin or start their market gardens.

Their important contribution to the region had been recognised through the new gardens, she said.

Also attending the blessing, carried out by the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin, George Connor, were Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin, the Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand, Zhang Yuanyuan,
Madame Wang, representing the Shanghai Museum, Chinese Gardens Trust deputy chairman Peter Sew Hoy and trust secretary-treasurer Malcolm Wong.

The blessing started with the lighting of traditional Chinese Crackers.

Chinese garden is in Oamaru's Public Gardens

Sat, 12 Apr 2008
, Yvonne Cox, who found a way of celebrating the Chinese community.

Dunedin's authentic ‘‘scholar-official'' Chinese garden, Lan Yuan, is getting its final polish before opening next month.

It is the newest in a series of Chinese-style gardens throughout New Zealand. All except one celebrate sister-city friendships.

New Zealand's first Chinese garden is in Oamaru's Public Gardens. It is a symbol of the friendship between Oamaru and the large Chinese community in the Waitaki district, most of them descendants of the Central Otago gold miners.

The creation of this garden in 1988 is an inspiring, little-known story.

Right from the start, the catalyst for the garden's creation, and still working on its development, is an extraordinary Oamaru woman.

Yvonne Cox is 86, a tall, stylish and handsome woman. She has worked 38 years as promotions consultant for the Otago Daily Times in Oamaru and continues to go to her office.

In the 1980s, her husband was a public accountant working from home. Some of his clients were local Chinese; they would bring gifts of vegetables for Mrs Cox.

She found herself thinking about the big community of Chinese market gardeners at Totara, just south of Oamaru.

‘‘I was aware of three generations of Chinese in the district, and I wondered why these people had never been recognised within the community.

‘‘I thought, there will come a day when the sons and daughters of these market gardeners will all be educated professionals, and we won't have a Chinese settlement there any more. Somebody needs do something about it.''

That somebody, not surprisingly, was Mrs Cox. In 1987, she spoke to Jimmy Kong, a leader in the Chinese community at that time, regarding an idea she had.

He, in turn, called a meeting in the Totara School hall. About 40 Chinese men attended, ‘‘with two women in the kitchen making tea''.

Mrs Cox spoke of her idea, thinking a weekend festival might be an appropriate celebration, ‘‘but I needed to have the support of the Chinese community so that I could ask for advice as to what was culturally acceptable''.

Two weeks later, representatives of the Chinese community came to her with a proposal for opening night: they would provide a Chinese chef and a team of young people dressed in black and white to work as waiters.

They envisaged a 10-course banquet for 400 people at $40 a head to be held in the new recreation centre in Oamaru.

Three days later, with not a single advertisement, all the tickets had been sold. Half the profits went to the Totara School for equipment and the other half was held in trust by the Waitaki District Council; there were already ideas for a celebration garden.

‘‘What was to be the Whitestone Chinese Festival weekend in May 1988 turned out to be a nine-day event, and it paid for itself,'' Mrs Cox said. ‘‘People from all over the South Island brought ideas and artefacts - a man came from Central with articles from the Chinese huts in the gold fields; they were on display in the Brydone Hotel.''

In the two years after Mrs Cox first approached the Chinese community, three Chinese came on to the 1990 sesquicentennial celebration committee.

‘‘Never had there been a single Chinese person on any public committee in Waitaki. They simply said they had never been invited.''

In 1990, the Waitaki district offered 53 sesquicentennial festival events, the largest number for a town of its size in New Zealand. Mrs Cox suggested a Chinese festival, and again the Chinese Association offered another $40 banquet for another huge sellout crowd.

Once more, money went back to the Totara School, but this time half the profits were added to the previous trust fund to make a beginning on a commemorative Chinese garden.

A local architect, Bruce Parker, was consulted, as was New Zealand Chinese historian Dr James Ng, in Dunedin.

Graeme Hall, then parks and reserves manager, visited the Chinese Friendship Garden in Sydney and came back enthused with ideas. The garden committee consisted of Mrs Cox, Waitaki Mayor Duncan Taylor, Mr Hall, and four Chinese from the Totara community: Wing Yee, Bill Lee, Martyn Tonkin, and Jim Kong.

The first step was designing a gateway and procuring appropriate roof tiles from China.

Immediately behind the entrance is a wall designed traditionally to deflect evil spirits, which, in Chinese lore, move only in straight lines.

‘‘In my mind,'' Mrs Cox said, ‘‘I could see a dragon on that 14ft wide, 7ft high wall, so I got in the car and drove to Dunedin, found the man at Otago University in charge of ceramics and asked if there was a Chinese ceramic artist in any of his classes. He burst out laughing and said no, he hadn't.''

Three weeks later, however, there was a fax on her desk recommending Christine Black, the previous year's ceramics honours student.

Mrs Cox sent her to Dr Ng, ‘‘for guidance as to the correct dragon''. Eventually the design and cost came in: not much short of $10,000.

‘‘So I got in my car again and went down to Nick Smith at the ODT. I said I would like to know if the company could sponsor this dragon. He said, ‘You give me one good reason why we should spend $10,000 on a Chinese dragon to go on a wall in Oamaru, the week we're buying a new printing press'.''

Mrs Cox had more than one good reason, and today the dragon can be seen at the entrance to the Chinese garden.

For the most part, the design for the garden has come from the local Chinese community. The first stage involved building the gateway and enlarging a small pond to create a little lake.

The excavated soil and truckloads of local boulders created the mountainscapes essential to any Chinese garden design.

Initial planting included bamboo, and the mature weeping willows by the lake, Salix babylonica, that had their origins in China.

The second stage involved expanding the lake and preparing the site for the final features, now in the planning stage: a tea house by the lake and an Oamaru stone wall to separate the Chinese garden from the 1960s Oriental garden beyond.

On November 18, 1995, at the completion of the first stage, the Chinese Garden was officially opened by Mr Huang Guifang, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China.

He planted a Chinese tree; Paulownia tomentosa is native to east Asia and known to the Chinese as the elephant tree.

In a nice coincidence, Mrs Cox's son Laurence now works in China. He came home for a visit late last year with his Chinese wife, Ming, and her mother came too.

Naturally, they visited the Chinese garden and immediately recognised the thriving elephant tree.

Mrs Cox's best Christmas present arrived on December 18, when her Chinese granddaughter, Davina Yvonne, was born in Dunedin.

That would make it just 20 years since her first move to salute the Chinese community in the Waitaki District.

AS THE EARTH TURNS SILVER

Masterpiece first novel by Wong


Gavin McLean reviews As the Earth Turns Silver.

AS THE EARTH TURNS SILVER
Alison Wong
Penguin, $37, hbk

Poet Alison Wong's first novel is quite simply a masterpiece.

The framework is deceptively simple, the story of three outsiders.

Two are Chinese vegetable sellers, the brothers Shun and Yung, drawn to the "New Gold Mountain", as they called New Zealand, to make their fortune, only to occupy the social and economic fringe of settler society.

The other, also an outsider, is white, but in pre-social welfare New Zealand sudden widowhood was enough to reduce people like Katherine McKechnie and her young children to poverty.

I won't surprise anyone by revealing that (a) Katherine falls in love with Yung and (b) that the star-crossed lovers' relationship is doomed to fail.

That predictable ending won't harm your enjoyment of the book.

In this novel Wong uses a deceptively conventional narrative form to explore racism, cross-cultural relationships and a woman's role in society, in new and satisfying ways.

A lesser writer might have made a heartfelt but predictable rant about all three.

Wong makes her points, but with a beguiling lightness of touch.

Subtlety, solid research and fine writing are her great strengths.

So, although Lionel Terry struts his stuff as the cardboard racist loner, converting Katherine's late husband, Wong shows the corrosive power of racism more tellingly through a few comments from Katherine's son.

There, you say, that's how it regenerates.

She also catches the city's racism in her description of wealthy Oriental Parade under moonlight.

"The most beautiful street in Wellington. The Chinese street where no Chinese lived."

Historical Wellington is the fourth "character" of the book.

Apart from one short chapter set in China to show the loved ones the brothers left behind, As the Earth Turns Silver is set in the early-20th-century "Empire City", centred on Haining St, the tiny Chinese enclave shunned by respectable Europeans, and in working class Newtown.

Some historical novels go overboard with period detail. Wong does not.

She's done her research, but brings the city's impoverished working-class suburbs alive convincingly without burying the plot and character development under a landslide of detail.

When Katherine and Yung make their clandestine night-time assignations, you can almost hear those new-fangled trams clanking their way around the Basin Reserve, but you don't lose track of what's going on between them.

Wong's greatest strength, though, is her writing style.

She can make peeling an onion profound: "She peeled the skins, held the naked onion in her hand. For a moment she saw a lopped-off globe with no continents or seas, a world that had lost its shape. And all its boundaries. Perhaps intelligence was not a blessing, More a test of character."

The book's final strength is its lyrical writing.

A wonderful book.

- Gavin McLean is a Wellington historian and reviewer.

Lantern

Lantern is all about reflection, human nature and family, regardless of race or culture.

Set in present day Auckland, the play which kicks off on Monday follows the fictional Chen family.

But what gives this play its lustre, is that as the story unfolds whole audiences recognise not just facets of themselves, but also snippets of their own stories played out on stage.

Lantern’s writer is Remuera-based Renee Liang, who is a poet, a playwright, and – surprisingly – a paediatrician. She is also working on her first novel.

While medicine is her calling, writing is her passion.

She is one of the organisers of Poetry Live, Auckland’s long-running weekly poetry gig and admits that she is always trying to get more people to write and read poetry.

A member of the Guerilla poets – who etch words in chalk on Auckland pavements – she’s done everything from random poetry readings at bus stops to chairing the poetry session at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

Nor does she shy away from real things, and this trait contributes to her work’s fearless honesty and insights.

"I gave 18 years of my life solely to medicine, and then something happened. My partner died. I was in shock and couldn’t do anything for two days.

"What I eventually did though, was pick up a pen – and write a poem for him.

"And it was like that unleashed the floodgates. I wrote for about a year, poems to him," she says.

"Then one day, I was writing about other things. And then came the first love poem I wrote, that wasn’t for him, but was for my current partner.

"I believe very much that one thing leads to another, and with writing in particular that is the case. I’m still exploring fields, genres, formats – all the ways there are to express feelings, thoughts, ideas," she says.

She says her training in medicine has taught her to look at what’s beneath the surface, and that’s what she does in her writing.

"I’m curious about people and I let that show, and in their response to me, they give me insights into what’s really there, under all the surface stuff.

"What is really interesting is the disconnection that so many people feel, which has nothing to do with race or culture.

"Sometimes our isolation is what we actually share," she says.

Miss Liang has immersed herself in all aspects of play writing, a wide range of genres of artistic expression and collaborations and involvement in a dizzying variety of artistic groups from fringe festivals to Read Raw to Flip the Script, Smack Bang and other private collaborations.
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She says Lantern is at its heart, a play about family.

It involves two actors who play 10 characters over 85 minutes.

The actors are two of New Zealand’s best-known Chinese actors, Shortland Street’s Li-Ming Hu and Andy Wong from Ride with the Devil and No 2.

Audience members are invited to add their own poetry to a lantern installation in the foyer.

Lantern runs from Monday to June 13 at The Basement, lower Greys Ave, Auckland.

For ticket information go to www.the-edge.co.nz or call 357-3355.

Paediatrician's play all about the family

By KAREN KOTZE - East And Bays Courier
Last updated 05:00 05/06/2009

BUDDING SCIENTIST: Palmerston North student Jenny Wong

t was an extraordinary science trip for Palmerston North Girls' High School student Jenny Wong, 17, who was awarded a scholarship to the 2009 Professor Harry Messel International Science School.

Miss Wong, who plans to study medicine, spent two weeks in Sydney at the end of July learning at the School of Physics.

Only five scholarships were awarded to New Zealand students and 145 students attended the two-week-long trip.

Students were from all around the world including America and Japan.

Miss Wong said the trip was a great experience for her.

"I'm really into science. I know it is something I want to do. And I had never been to Australia."

Biology is her favourite science and although she went on a more physics-based trip everything she learnt can still be applied.

"Everyone is born being curious and science allows us to know more about life on earth and gives us a new and better approach to things."

Lectures were given by professors from Australia, someone from NASA and a French university lecturer.

One of the things Miss Wong liked the most about the experience was the people she got to meet and learn from.

"You definitely know that the people that are going are intelligent and work hard to get there. From some of the countries students had to take an exam."

Social activities were also included during the two weeks and Miss Wong was able to see the harbour bridge and the Opera House as well as attend the Beauty and the Geek disco.

Miss Wong received her $3000 scholarship through the Royal Society of New Zealand and was also given funds from her school.

By CAITLIN MADDEN - Manawatu Standard
Last updated 12:00 11/08/2009

Tony Wong-Kam. Fishing king lands more excitement

Fishing is far from peaceful for champion angler Tony Wong-Kam.

The newly crowned King of the Coromandel has often been in the headlines.

And he claims shots have been fired at him in the past by jealous rivals.

Even his latest success was marred by an incident which could have cost lives, he says.

"On the drive home from the Coromandel I had to stop six or seven times.

"The rig carrying my boat didn’t feel right, it weaved when I turned."

He says he found four bolts on his towbar were loose.

"On the motorway, that’s a life and death situation," he says.

Wong-Kam, 48, of Torbay says checks were carried out on his vehicle before the journey and he suspects that the fastenings were undone deliberately.

"A complaint has been made with the police," he says.

"I have a history with things like this, I’m a target."

With Mike Hiskens the pair dominated the annual King of the Coromandel competition bagging thousands of dollars in prizes in the process.

"Fish we caught on the first two days won first, second and third overall," says Wong-Kam.

"We didn’t go out on the third day to give someone else a chance."

Wong-Kam estimates a total prize haul, which included a new car, to be worth at least $30,000.

"We brought home two of the top three kingfish we caught. But the biggest one was stolen from the ice bins."

Excitement is never far from Wong-Kam. In December 2006 his face was slashed by a stingray while diving off Great Barrier Island and in March 2008 he claimed to be the first person to catch a manta ray in New Zealand waters.

Wong-Kam says he does not understand the negative attention and will remain undeterred from fishing

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/north-shore-times/2382820/Fishing-king-lands-more-excitement


By SIMON PLUMB - North Shore Times
Last updated 05:00 05/05/2009

Raymond Wong Tong: Green grocer had a twinkle in his eye

Raymond Wong Tong had a passion for China, but always returned to Wellington, and will be remembered for his fondness for a chat.

Raymond Wong Tong was always sociable. He loved flirting with the ladies who came into the family fruit and vegetable shop in Cuba St and even after his retirement he readily chatted with people he met on his walks or bike rides around Miramar.

Always cheerful, polite, considerate and well dressed, he was able to converse fluently in English, Cantonese and the Mandarin he continued to study in his later years.

Mr Wong Tong was born at 259 Cuba St above the shop set up by his father who had come out to New Zealand in the 1800s to work the Otago goldfields.

The oldest of seven - six sisters and a brother - he went to Mt Cook School and Wellington Technical College. He attended the Anglican Chinese Mission Church in Frederick St and learnt to play the violin.

When he was 16 the family returned to China to ensure the children had a Chinese education.

Mr Wong Tong signed on as a radio telegrapher with the British- owned China Navigation Company and sailed on the company freighters which plied the coast, up the Yangtze River and as far south as Singapore.

During this time he was introduced to and fell in love with Betty Chang, a New Zealand-born girl who had been raised in China since the age of three.

"I fell in love with her lovely dimples immediately and when she smiled at me, I knew I had to have her," Mr Wong Tong once recounted, remembering courting her on the cosmopolitan pre-war Shanghai waterfront.

They married in 1935, and their honeymoon was their voyage back to New Zealand on the Union Company Ship Taniwha.

Back in Wellington he rejoined the family at their second shop - Wong Tong and Sons - at 168 Cuba St (this is still a greengrocer but was sold by the family more than 50 years ago).

The extended family lived on the second and third floor above the shop and everybody contributed to the business.

During the war, Mr Wong Tong served in the home guard and every Sunday would get dressed in his army uniform and head out for training at Lyall Bay, but fortunately his appalling marksmanship never had to be put to the test.

For a time during the war, when Japanese invasion was feared, the women and children were sent over to Carterton while the men manned the shop.

As the children grew up they helped out in the shop if they weren't at school, attending Chinese classes or taking music lessons.
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Mr Wong Tong and his brother Ivan would go to the markets in Allen St each weekday morning where he would concentrate on vegetables while Ivan's specialty was fruit and flowers.

The shop's supplies were supplemented by spring onions and radishes grown on a small family plot in Nairn St and later from the large garden behind the home Mr Wong Tong bought in Puriri St, Miramar.

When his father sold the business in 1953, Mr Wong Tong moved the family to Nelson and opened another fruit and vegetable shop in Trafalgar St.

He and his wife sold the shop in 1966 after all the children left home and began what was to be their retirement with a two-year overseas holiday taking in Hong Kong and the United States, before returning and settling again in Miramar.

But Mr Wong Tong was just 55 and started working again - an office job with Philips Electrical in Lyall Bay, where he stayed on for about 10 years before finally retiring after suffering a mild heart attack. In 1983 he travelled back to China for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Mr Wong Tong - who was brought up to support the Chinese nationalists - later accepted that his homeland had become a communist state and he accepted invitations to functions put on by the Taiwanese as well as the Chinese diplomatic representatives in Wellington.

He was a stalwart of the Fung Tung Association which his father had helped found, and the Chinese Anglican Mission.

His only extravagance was the odd flutter on the horses and mahjong with his pensioner friends where losing $5 was a big deal.

Mrs Wong Tong died in 2006 and he spent his last few years in a rest home. He is survived by his four children, eight grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

Raymond Wong Tong, green grocer: born Wellington, March 6, 1911; married Betty Chang 1935, 2 sons and 2 daughters; died Wellington, July 21, 2009, aged 98.

Sources. Ronald, Beverley, Mervyn and Fiona Wong.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/obituaries/2732503/Raymond-Wong-Tong-Green-grocer-had-a-twinkle-in-his-eye

The Press
Last updated 23:11 29/02/2008

Festival light shines on patriarch

Percy Chew Lee has never shied away from a challenge.

The 96-year-old arrived with his family from China to an unfriendly welcome in New Zealand 88 years ago.

All Chinese arriving in the country then were subject to a hefty poll tax.

The 100 tax (the equivalent of nearly $8000 today) reflected the discriminatory attitude against Chinese arrivals, but Lee did not let it slow him down.

Yesterday, the Christchurch resident was checking preparations for this weekend's Chinese New Year lantern festival to welcome in the Year of the Rat, an event which reflects how far his adopted country has come.

"Ninety years ago the Europeans looked down on the Chinese," Lee said. "In those days you had to learn to fight for yourself to prove you could do as much as anyone."

Lee's colourful life certainly proves his point.

After becoming the first Chinese student in a European school in Christchurch, his list of achievements included becoming a South Island 80km cycling champion after training nearly 100km every day before breakfast.

He was the first Chinese person to take up competitive wrestling and became a South Island runner-up.

He also took up training racehorses, and won the Westport Cup two years running.

In the 1930s he was the first Chinese man to fly an aeroplane in Christchurch, although his father would not let him gain his licence.

But perhaps his proudest achievement was designing and building the large pagoda-style house where he lives with family in Cashmere.

From there he continues to sell vegetables from the family market garden. He gave up riding the tractor just last year.

Lee has nine children, 21 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

This year his services to the Chinese community were recognised with a Queen's Service Medal in the New Year Honours, and he is looking forward to going to Wellington -- where he arrived as an eight-year-old -- to collect the award.

Lee put his longevity down to no smoking or drinking, working hard and never saying he could not do it. "The main thing in life is you have to prove things for yourself, just like me. I had to learn," he said.

LANTERN FESTIVAL

Hundreds of lanterns will light up Victoria Square this weekend in celebration of the Year of the Rat. Thousands of people are expected to enjoy the evening entertainment with special performers from China and ethnic food stalls. The event starts at 4pm today and tomorrow, but dusk is the optimum time for lantern viewing.

Chinese Moon festival

Chinese Moon festival: 3 October


The Chinese Moon Festival, also known as the mid-autumn Festival, is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese. It is celebated in 2009 on 3 October. It is also celebrated by the Vietnamese, though they celebrate it differently.

There are many variations on the legendary stories around the moon festival. Legend says that Chang Er flew to the moon, where she has lived ever since. You might see her dancing on the moon during the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions.

Moon cakes are often eaten at the festival. The Chinese eat the moon cake at night with the full moon in the sky. Lovers spend such a romatic night together tasting the delicious moon cake with some wine while watching the full moon. Even for a couple who can't be together, they can still enjoy the night by watching the moon at the same time so it seems that they are together at that hour.

Supermarket change marks end of an era

4:00AM Tuesday Sep 22, 2009
By Beck Vass
The first Foodtown supermarket was opened by Tom Ah Chee in Great South Road, Otahuhu, in 1958. Photo / Supplied


* Grocer marks 50 years of ringing tills

The legacy of Foodtown - the small South Auckland supermarket that energised the grocery trade in Australasia - is set to become lost in a rebranding exercise that will see all Foodtown and Woolworths stores renamed as "new generation" Countdowns.

The first Foodtown, opened in Otahuhu by Tom Ah Chee on June 28, 1958, was the first American-style supermarket in New Zealand.

Mr Ah Chee's widow, Molly Ah Chee, could not be reached for comment yesterday but a family member said the rebranding marked the "end of an era".

The original Foodtown, owned by Mr Ah Chee and his friends Norman Kent, John Brown and Brian Picot, opened to so much excitement that traffic blocked the main road and the street was shut off. Radio announcers appealed to would-be customers to come back the next day, but that only attracted more interest.

The store, which also had the first automatic doors and air-conditioning, proved so popular that a second one was opened nearby in Takanini in 1961.

supermarket change marks end era retailing consumer information shopping history progressive enterprises legacy foodtown small south auckland energised grocery trade australasia set lost rebranding exercise see woolworths stores renamed generation

By last year, 50 years later, New Zealand had more than 30 Foodtowns.

When Foodtown first opened, supermarket trolleys were a new concept. Specials included a 6lb (2.7kg) bag of Chelsea sugar for the equivalent of 49c, an 11oz bottle of Watties tomato sauce for 27c and toilet rolls for 14c.

A large package of Weet-Bix was 31c, a 26oz can of spaghetti was 20c and Choysa teabags (8oz) were 33c.

Eggs came in paper bags and boys took customers' shopping to their cars.

Chinese reflect on colonial roots

Chinese reflect on colonial roots
4:00AM Friday Sep 18, 2009
By Bernard Orsman
David Wong (left) with Barry Wah Lee, whose grandfather opened a store around 1900. Photo / Brett Phibbs



Most Aucklanders associate the Wah Lee general store in Hobson St with fireworks for Guy Fawkes. What they probably don't realise is that the store is owned by one of the four founding Chinese families in Auckland.

Barry Wah Lee's grandfather opened the store in about 1900 at the old Chinatown in Grey's Ave, or Grey St as it was then known.

The area became home to boarding houses, opium dens and gambling houses.

Auckland's first and only Chinatown was replaced by multi-storey flats and later the Auckland City Council Civic Building, and Wah Lee's moved to Hobson St in 1966.

The history of the Chinese community in colonial Auckland is the subject of a talk tomorrow by a member of the Chinese community, David Wong, as part of the Auckland Heritage Festival.

The festival, the sixth held by the Auckland City Council, starts tonight with a display of historical images projected on to Shed 10 at Queens Wharf.

There will be a public viewing from behind the "Red Gates" on Quay St from 6.30pm.

The theme of this year's festival is living heritage and features more than 100 diverse and interactive events. They include an Auckland Heritage pub quiz night, cruises on the historic William C Daldy steam tug and a concert celebrating the 40th anniversary of the liberation by university students of Albert Park in 1969.

Mr Wong said the first Chinese arrived in Auckland from the Otago goldfields in the 1860s. Among them was Thomas Quoi who had a stall in the city markets behind where the Civic Theatre was later built.

Early Chinese settlers turned their hand to market gardening, among them Mr Wong's great-grandfather who named his area at Carlaw Park "the garden of prosperity".

The Chinese also opened laundry and fruit shops.

Mr Wong said the Chinese population throughout New Zealand in 1900 was about 3000, of which there were only eight or 10 women. Auckland's Chinese population was between 112 and 120.

Today, there are more than 130,000 Chinese in Auckland, of which about 25,000 were born in New Zealand.

Mr Wong will be giving two talks at the Auckland Art Gallery tomorrow - at 1pm in English and 3pm in Mandarin. Bookings can be made on 307-7700.

For more details on the festival, which runs until October 4, go to: www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/events

20 November 1908

20 November 1908 - Ten Chinese were charged at the Auckland Police Court "that on Sunday, October 18, at Avondale, they did work at their trade of market gardening." The men were not doing ordinary gardening, but pulling carrots for supplying a ship next morning. They admitted that there had been a technical breach. Sergeant Hendry, who appeared for the prosecution, said that at Avondale there were European as well as Chinese gardeners, and the former were in the habit of working six days per week and the latter seven days per week. The Chinese had previously been cautioned, and he submitted that the Court should "show these aliens that they must comply with the laws of the Dominion." The Bench fined each defendant £1, and costs 13s - "Papers Past Hawera & Normanby Star"

More on Chinese Winemakers in NZ

More on Chinese Winemakers in NZ

Received an email from Raymond Chan, a New Zealand-born Chinese and wine judge, wine retailer and wine palate extraordinaire. Raymond has been juding wines in New Zealand since 1989.

"We have a family story when we first started getting interested in wine in the late 1970s. Then, Totara SYC was of course highly respected for its white wines – Riesling Sylvaner and Chenin Blanc especially sought after, being medal winners. My Dad said that one of the Thames family came to our family living in Dunedin, asking if he could board with us while studying at university, our family names being the same, and that our families came from the same area of China. Dad, and our family not having the room turned him away. So our vinous journey could have possibly had an earlier start!"

Raymond also said, "Don’t forget Albert Chan". Albert Chan was the younger son of Stanley Young Chan and sometime after his primary and high school education in Thames he went to Australia to study at Roseworthy. He became Chief Winemaker at Lindemans in 1983 and went on to become one of Australia's most respected white wine winemakers. Albert met an early and tragic death, but his memory lives on with the Albert Chan Memorial Trophy for Best White Wine of the Show, presented at the Sydney Royal Show each year.

Who was really NZ's first Chinese winemaker?

Who was really NZ's first Chinese winemaker?

Followed a newslink today that took me to an article about New Zealand's first Chinese winemaker. According to the article at the Indian Wine Portal, his name is Johnny Leung - and he is alive and kicking and working at Twilight Vineyard* in Clevedon.

"New Zealand's first Chinese winemaker - that ain't right," I thought. "There have been Chinese winemakers in New Zealand before him".

One who had a lot of media attention is CP Lin - not so much because he is Chinese, but because he is blind. For a long time CP was winemaker at Mountford in Waipara but he is now making wine in the Hunter Valley in Australia.

There is also Johnny's name sake, Edward Leung, whose wines bear the label, Ma Maison.

But the one that immediately sprang to mind is Stanley Young Chan. His initials were part of the name of his winery, Totara Vineyards SYC, at Totara, between Kopu and Thames (click for map) in the Waikato. We called into the winery many times on summer holiday trips to the Coromandel Peninsula, not only for wine but for his famous Totara Kiwifruit Liquer. The winery buildings, winery shop and vineyard are still there. Cuisine magazine lists Gilbert Chan as the current winemaker.

But a quick search tells me that Stanley wasn't the first either. That honour goes to Joe Ah Chan (Chan Hock Joe), who, according to the Dictionary of New Zealand Bibliography, was not only the first Chinese winemaker in New Zealand to make wine, but quite probably the first in the Southern Hemisphere.

Joe (1882 - 1959) arrived in New Zealand around 1905, working in Wellington selling fruit and vegetables. He returned to China for a short time in 1916 but came back to in New Zealand in 1917 to settle in Matamata. In 1925 Chan began to grow grapes at Totara near Thames, the first Chinese New Zealander to do so, and in 1929 he produced his first batch of wine. He was reputed to be the first Chinese wine-maker in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1950 the vineyard was sold to a distant cousin, Stanley Young Chan, who changed the name to Totara Vineyards SYC.

The Encyclopedia of New Zealand records the first man from China arriving in Nelson in 1842. By the late 1860's Chinese were working the Otago goldfields. There have waves of Chinese immigration ever since. Many new Chinese immigrants arrived from 1987 onwards but there are also Chinese New Zealanders who parents and possibly grandparents were born here. So if you know any other Chinese winemakers in New Zealand, please email me.

*Actually the Twilight Vineyards website doesn't make the claim that Johnny is the first Chinese winemaker in NZ. Perhaps an over-exuberant reporter simply got the facts wrong.

http://www.wineoftheweek.com/blog/blog200906.htm#20090629

Dragons rose and bananas soared at conference

Dragons rose and bananas soared at a conference celebrating the past, present and future of Chinese in New Zealand and overseas.

The fourth Going Bananas conference, entitled Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas (www.goingbananas.org.nz), was held over the weekend of Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 July and saw scholars and artists from around the country and as far afield as Russia, Hong Kong, and the US discussing the role of the Chinese throughout the globe.
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New Zealand Chinese Association Auckland Inc chairman Kai Luey was sure the last conference in 2007 would be the final one but a strong demand proved otherwise.

The conference itself has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2005. From one room at AUT to three at the University of Auckland’s Business School with over 40 international speakers and, as always, a host of local stories from a New Zealand perspective.

Stories from high-flying bananas such as real estate mogul Don Ha, commercial entrepreneur Rodney Wong and former kiwi Olympian Robyn Wong inspired and amused an audience happy to witness success within the Chinese community.

The conference no doubt celebrated the Chinese, but also raised questions about the difficulties of being Chinese in New Zealand today.

Questions about whether to teach your child their native tongue in a time when China is becoming increasingly important within New Zealand and on the global stage and the growing economic importance of Chinese business were prominent throughout the weekend.

The latter question was answered in a presentation by Professor Paul Spoonley on the back of a recent Asia NZ Foundation report about Chinese businesses in Auckland.

Among the findings, the report found a lack of attention given to this area of Auckland’s economy in the Royal Commission’s report on Auckland governance.

These businesses are becoming a major source of interest as Chinese immigrant communities play an important role in business innovation, entrepreneurial activities and international trade.

Once again the conference challenged perceptions of what it means to be Chinese and, according to Professor Manying Ip, was an opportunity for the community to reflect on “where we’re positioned in society, in politics and in history”.

As for the next conference, Mr Luey was reluctant to repeat history saying another one may not be ruled out.

Scoop was a media sponsor of the Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas International Conference. Friday, 31 July 2009, 9:59 am
Press Release: Simon Wong

28/07/09
By Simon Wong

Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas

I was intrigued by the soaring bananas but quite afraid to ask.

Since when could a banana even think about getting airborne?

One of the first speakers at the Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas conference soon answered the question in my head.

The aforementioned fruit was a derogatory term for someone who was 'yellow' on the outside, but 'white' on the inside, often applied to Chinese by people both within and outside the community.

Hence the clever title of the conference - surely the best way to defuse a potential insult is to embrace it?

As a forum it aimed to "celebrate the journeys, stories and identities of leading local and overseas born Chinese personalities".

Across the weekend there was a huge variety of sessions to attend from the standard "Yellow Peril - Early Chinese In New Zealand" and "Cracking The Glass Ceiling" to the unexpected like "The Unique History Of Chinese In Cuba" and "Chinese Immigrants In Equatorial Guinea".
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There was even the slightly bizarre "Chinese Culture And Dental Behaviour In Wellington" and "Manipulating Loyalty - Chinese Americans And Taiwan's Canned Mushroom Export".

There was plenty of inspiration to be had over the weekend, but it was always accompanied by a fair degree of sadness.

On the periphery

A fifth generation Chinese New Zealander told of a tough childhood where she always felt an outsider, completely on the periphery of all things 'Kiwi'.

At the age of 23 she visited China for the first time and felt an immense sense of pride in her ancestral home and culture.

But the feeling of social dislocation and isolation remained, as she couldn't speak Mandarin and struggled to relate to her relatives.

This appeared to be a common thread that ran through the entire conference.

People who felt too Asian to be a 'real' Kiwi and far too European to ever feel accepted as a local in China.

But such dissonance, confusion and isolation can produce remarkable drive and resilience as was epitomised in some of the tales.

Prominent public lawyer Mai Chen told of arriving in 1970's Christchurch along with her three other sisters.

The marching quartet caused a car crash on the very first day, so astounded was the male driver at the novel sight of these Asian faces.

Years of struggle

Chen spoke of years of struggle, desperate to fit in despite knowing she probably never would.

It was only when she stopped trying to be like everybody else, and started to see her ethnicity as a potential strength that she began an incredible journey that now has her as one of the most well-known legal faces in New Zealand.

This was a story with a happy ending, but Chen was quick to dispense lavish doses of realism into her presentation.

She reminded the audience that their ethnicity will continue to be a disadvantage in New Zealand and they will have to work harder, be better and more persistent than everybody else if they want to succeed.

Real estate mogul Don Ha shared his classic rags to riches tale, delivered with an engaging personal style.

He came to New Zealand (from Vietnam, via China) as a 12-year-old in 1980 and spent the first few months in a Refugee camp.

The young Don had an amazing work ethic and a real entrepreneurial streak.

Noticing a local liking for Watercress he collected it from a nearby creek and sold it by the bunch to a nearby New World. When the Council cleaned out his supply he began a lawn mowing round, later taught Karate (elevating 35 people to Black belt level) before going to work in the family bakery.

Tiring of the 72-hour weeks, he got a start in Real Estate and was soon the top salesperson at the branch, before opening his own company which quickly began to dominate the local market and now employs 100 agents.

Ha seems to constantly be looking for new challenges - recently he bought a $2 million racehorse "to see what it felt like" - while also being aware there would be a major publicity payoff.

He is constantly striving to improve and sees potential in everybody to be better, happier and more successful.

To sign off he broke a roof tile with his bare hands which certainly added some real punch to his 'nothing is impossible' message.

Self-awareness

Across the weekend the level of self-awareness, and willingness for self-analysis by the various delegates was quite pronounced.

The speakers told of constantly questioning who they are, who they should be and who they would be.

It is a fight that the vast majority of Kiwis never have to contemplate but one wonders if we are poorer for not having embarked on such a crusade.

There was a sense, through the pain, confusion and struggle, that the Chinese are richer for the journey.

There is no doubt that as a race they have developed an incredible resilience and an ability to thrive, to survive and to flourish in communities in every corner of the globe.

While it is common to reflect on your culture and national values when living overseas it is hard to envisage Anglo-Saxon Kiwis anywhere managing this level of introspective honesty and self awareness - at least without the help of alcohol!

At one point it was seriously debated as to whether Chinese in New Zealand should be doing more to gain an understanding of Te Reo Maori - as well as English and Chinese.

Surely this is not a realistic question until somewhere close to the majority of Maori and Pakeha exhibit a propensity to learn Maori.

But the willingness to think outside the square, to question and to challenge accepted wisdom was an overriding theme of this conference where Dragons roared and Bananas definitely soared.

Published: 6:31PM Thursday August 06, 2009 by tvnz.co.nz's Michael Burgess
Source: ONE News http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/rising-dragons-soaring-bananas-2891142#

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.