A $150,000 gift to Auckland plagued by numerous setbacks has found a home in the Auckland Domain.
Unveiled yesterday by Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, the stainless steel Millennium Tree sculpture nearly died after trustees could not raise enough money for the project, which was first proposed in 1999 as a gift from Chinese New Zealanders to the city.
Then last October, when a site was approved in the Parnell Rose Gardens, residents formed a protest group to stop the work, citing a lack of consultation and the aesthetic clash with the gardens' Victorian and Edwardian atmosphere.
At its permanent home next to the Winter Gardens, the sculpture stands 6.5m high on a raised platform surrounded by large phoenix palms.
Wellington artist Guy Ngan's work was inspired by the wand of the Monkey King of Chinese legend - the fabled staff could dispel all obstacles.
"I'm sure he had something to do with it," Ngan said.
The artist, who has 35 other public artworks in Australia and New Zealand, was delighted with the work's final location.
XXXIXXX
CCID: 33175 | adwidth=300 | type=RM
Click here to find out more!
"It picks up all the beautiful trees. I can't think of a better place in the world.
"We started this project in the last millennium, and we have had to overcome one hurdle after another.
"It's been a very slow beginning, but we've not at any time really been disappointed. We've always had enough support to keep it alive. Finally we've got it built."
During the unveiling, Ron Sang, trustee of the Chinese New Zealanders Millennium Trust, paid tribute to the 150 sponsors who kept the project alive.
He said the Millennium Tree was not a monument to the past, but one that celebrates the contributions the Chinese have made to New Zealand since the 1860s.
Meanwhile, Auckland City is set to get another public sculpture on Thursday when the Prime Minister and Arts Minister, Helen Clark, unveils a work by Denis O'Connor, Raupo Rap, in Viaduct Harbour Ave.
- additional reporting Bernard Orsman
By Bernard Orsman and Errol Kiong | Email Bernard By Bernard Orsman and Errol Kiong
5:00 AM Wednesday Nov 2, 2005
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Engineer's career reaches dizzy heights
You could say Greg Sang has reached the peak of his profession. The Kiwi is in charge of building Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building, in the frantic heart of the United Arab Emirates.
This Middle Eastern monster has already reached a breathtaking 160 levels or 650m. But still it grows terrifyingly, already twice the height of Auckland's SkyTower and four times as tall as the Vero office block in downtown Auckland. No one knows where the Burj will finish.
"The height is confidential," Sang said on the phone from Dubai this week. "At the top, you look down on everything. It's quite neat and it does feel really tall.
"It's like being in an aeroplane. Some people get scared but for the people who work there, it's run-of-the-mill."
Thousands of people are working on the US$1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) building which will be finished next year and home to one of the first hotel and spas by Giorgio Armani. The multi-use tower will be part-hotel, part-apartment block and part-offices.
"The lower zone will be a hotel designed by Mr Armani. We'll also have about 140 apartments by Mr Armani, another 900 luxury apartments and the top zone will be offices," Sang said.
Level 124 will be a public observatory, chosen because Sang said that with existing technology, this was the highest reached by an elevator in one continuous run. Viewers will be able to get to that floor in a non-stop 90-second adrenalin rush.
The Burj will have 56 lifts travelling at 40km/h and its penthouses are expected to fetch tens of millions of dollars each.
Sang is a former Aucklander who looks Asian, speaks with a Kiwi accent and has a New Zealand passport.
The great-grandfather of his mother, Joana Sang, emigrated from Canton to Auckland. Len Sang, Greg's father, had a more circuitous route here. Len's father emigrated from China for Fiji but come 1942, the family's concern about World War II and lack of schooling choice in the islands saw Len shipping to Auckland to stay with family and get a New Zealand education.
Greg's brother, Ant Sang, is a graphic artist who works on the television series bro'Town. The other brother, Richard, works in the technology sector in London. Award-winning Auckland architect Ron Sang is Len Sang's cousin. Ron is creating a dragon sculpture for the New Zealand Olympic team to sit within our village athletes' compound in Beijing.
In 1977, the Orient called the Sang family back. Len, an architect who spent many years at the Education Department, took them to Hong Kong after he got a public works job there. Greg has strong memories of the shift.
"I was 11 and it was a bit of a family adventure. I remember the heat of Hong Kong because it was summer when we arrived. I remember the excitement of staying in a hotel for the first six months while we were looking for accommodation."
Greg returned in 1984 and spent a few months at Auckland Grammar before enrolling in civil engineering at Auckland University.
But he finished in 1989, grim times for property professionals.
"I tried to work in New Zealand but the crash of '87 was still being felt."
So he worked for a short time as a building labourer and later at the then-Takapuna City Council on drains and water mains.
Len remembers worrying about Greg's career direction and encouraging him to shift to Hong Kong where he had connections and thought there were better opportunities.
So Greg moved to Hong Kong and worked for giant Japanese contractor Kumagai Gumi, for Britain's Maunsell Group and Ove Arup & Partners, eventually specialising in high-rise development. His masterpiece is Hong Kong Central's giant International Finance Centre, a HK$40 billion ($6.8 billion) 500,000sq m four-tower project which dominates the area's skyline.
The project, completed in the late 1990s, is Hong Kong's tallest office development and has a luxury shopping mall, cinemas and hotel.
"I was wrapping up the Hong Kong project when I got a call from Emaar Properties in Dubai about building the tallest building in the world. They asked if I could help because I had experience in tall buildings. So I came to have a look and after two or three months, I moved here," Sang said.
That was October 2004 and he has been working on the Burj ever since. He does not plan to return here but says life in Dubai is excruciatingly busy. Weekends are Fridays and Saturdays but international time differences mean Sang often finds himself working seven days a week, his BlackBerry phone constantly beeping.
"I find it difficult to imagine what I would do workwise if I returned to New Zealand, which is a great place to live but I like working, and I like working on big projects. I would not be able to work on projects of the same scale in New Zealand."
What he misses most is the pace of life here. Dubai is an intense and somewhat frantic city, its famously daredevil motorists forcing Sang to become a fanatically defensive driver.
One of his most loved places in the world is the wide expanse of Auckland's west coast beaches, one in particular.
"My favourite place is Piha, to be body-boarding there and eating some great hamburgers!"
In the meantime, it's Dubai for Sang and building the globe's biggest castle in the sand.
GREGORY PAUL FONG SANG
Age: 42
Position: Director, projects, Emaar Properties PJSC
Lives: Emirates Hills, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Schools: Meadowbank Primary, Remuera Intermediate, Auckland Grammar
Tertiary: University of Auckland
Qualification: Civil engineer
Family: Married to Julia
Children from first marriage: Zachary, 11, Erin and Jessica, both 9
By Anne Gibson
5:00 AM Saturday May 17, 2008
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10510671&pnum=0
This Middle Eastern monster has already reached a breathtaking 160 levels or 650m. But still it grows terrifyingly, already twice the height of Auckland's SkyTower and four times as tall as the Vero office block in downtown Auckland. No one knows where the Burj will finish.
"The height is confidential," Sang said on the phone from Dubai this week. "At the top, you look down on everything. It's quite neat and it does feel really tall.
"It's like being in an aeroplane. Some people get scared but for the people who work there, it's run-of-the-mill."
Thousands of people are working on the US$1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) building which will be finished next year and home to one of the first hotel and spas by Giorgio Armani. The multi-use tower will be part-hotel, part-apartment block and part-offices.
"The lower zone will be a hotel designed by Mr Armani. We'll also have about 140 apartments by Mr Armani, another 900 luxury apartments and the top zone will be offices," Sang said.
Level 124 will be a public observatory, chosen because Sang said that with existing technology, this was the highest reached by an elevator in one continuous run. Viewers will be able to get to that floor in a non-stop 90-second adrenalin rush.
The Burj will have 56 lifts travelling at 40km/h and its penthouses are expected to fetch tens of millions of dollars each.
Sang is a former Aucklander who looks Asian, speaks with a Kiwi accent and has a New Zealand passport.
The great-grandfather of his mother, Joana Sang, emigrated from Canton to Auckland. Len Sang, Greg's father, had a more circuitous route here. Len's father emigrated from China for Fiji but come 1942, the family's concern about World War II and lack of schooling choice in the islands saw Len shipping to Auckland to stay with family and get a New Zealand education.
Greg's brother, Ant Sang, is a graphic artist who works on the television series bro'Town. The other brother, Richard, works in the technology sector in London. Award-winning Auckland architect Ron Sang is Len Sang's cousin. Ron is creating a dragon sculpture for the New Zealand Olympic team to sit within our village athletes' compound in Beijing.
In 1977, the Orient called the Sang family back. Len, an architect who spent many years at the Education Department, took them to Hong Kong after he got a public works job there. Greg has strong memories of the shift.
"I was 11 and it was a bit of a family adventure. I remember the heat of Hong Kong because it was summer when we arrived. I remember the excitement of staying in a hotel for the first six months while we were looking for accommodation."
Greg returned in 1984 and spent a few months at Auckland Grammar before enrolling in civil engineering at Auckland University.
But he finished in 1989, grim times for property professionals.
"I tried to work in New Zealand but the crash of '87 was still being felt."
So he worked for a short time as a building labourer and later at the then-Takapuna City Council on drains and water mains.
Len remembers worrying about Greg's career direction and encouraging him to shift to Hong Kong where he had connections and thought there were better opportunities.
So Greg moved to Hong Kong and worked for giant Japanese contractor Kumagai Gumi, for Britain's Maunsell Group and Ove Arup & Partners, eventually specialising in high-rise development. His masterpiece is Hong Kong Central's giant International Finance Centre, a HK$40 billion ($6.8 billion) 500,000sq m four-tower project which dominates the area's skyline.
The project, completed in the late 1990s, is Hong Kong's tallest office development and has a luxury shopping mall, cinemas and hotel.
"I was wrapping up the Hong Kong project when I got a call from Emaar Properties in Dubai about building the tallest building in the world. They asked if I could help because I had experience in tall buildings. So I came to have a look and after two or three months, I moved here," Sang said.
That was October 2004 and he has been working on the Burj ever since. He does not plan to return here but says life in Dubai is excruciatingly busy. Weekends are Fridays and Saturdays but international time differences mean Sang often finds himself working seven days a week, his BlackBerry phone constantly beeping.
"I find it difficult to imagine what I would do workwise if I returned to New Zealand, which is a great place to live but I like working, and I like working on big projects. I would not be able to work on projects of the same scale in New Zealand."
What he misses most is the pace of life here. Dubai is an intense and somewhat frantic city, its famously daredevil motorists forcing Sang to become a fanatically defensive driver.
One of his most loved places in the world is the wide expanse of Auckland's west coast beaches, one in particular.
"My favourite place is Piha, to be body-boarding there and eating some great hamburgers!"
In the meantime, it's Dubai for Sang and building the globe's biggest castle in the sand.
GREGORY PAUL FONG SANG
Age: 42
Position: Director, projects, Emaar Properties PJSC
Lives: Emirates Hills, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Schools: Meadowbank Primary, Remuera Intermediate, Auckland Grammar
Tertiary: University of Auckland
Qualification: Civil engineer
Family: Married to Julia
Children from first marriage: Zachary, 11, Erin and Jessica, both 9
By Anne Gibson
5:00 AM Saturday May 17, 2008
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10510671&pnum=0
It is all about the pictures
Ron Sang's white shirt sleeve is splattered with drops of orange and red, surely more by design than slovenliness. The architect, collector and publisher loves colour. He sits at his dining room table drinking coffee, carefully positioned in front of a large painting by Ralph Hotere that features the same brilliant oranges and reds. It is a favourite from the painter Sang insists is "the only artist who is a living national treasure in this country."
A copy of the same painting, authorised by the artist, graces the study floor. "Ralph [Hotere] said to me, 'You own the painting, you can do what you like with it'," says Sang, gazing down at the inferno-red rug he had specially woven.
The entire house, as with all Sang-designed buildings, is built for art. Walls are white and wide without too many windows, the proportions gracious yet cosy. Carpets are pearl grey. Everything, from the massive bright blue front door, is larger than life. And then there's the art: several energetic Pat Hanlys, a massive Philippa Blair, from her Heart series, interspersed with Peter Siddell and a gleaming stainless steel dragon by Guy Ngan on the wall just outside the kitchen window.
Add in hundreds of pieces of pottery crammed into every corner and shelf - including the loo: enormous vases, some decorated, others gleaming with glaze, every variation imaginable of Len Castle's volcano series, an entire shelf of exquisite John Parker bottles - every collection complemented by enough glass to fill an art gallery.
But despite the numbers, there is a sense of grace and orderliness. Paintings are given plenty of wall space. And the impact takes your breath away.
This is only half of Sang's collection. "I love pottery," he says. "But there were so many comments saying the place looked like a junk shop we put away 50 per cent."
Now, rather than in the Parnell and Newmarket offices Sang Architects occupied for 18 years, Sang works from home in a light-filled room upstairs with spare desks for his two children who contract for the family business. He likes to invite clients back to the house so they can see a living example of his work. "It's quite, quite different from what they imagine," he says cheerfully. "A bit of a shock!"
"But don't worry about all this," adds Sang. "This is about the book!"
He is talking about the Ralph Hotere book due for release next week. It is a large, elegant publication with Hotere's unmistakable signature rolled across the frontispiece, and page after page of large, heart-stopping photos presented on thick 150g paper.
This is the latest offering from Sang's Montana award-winning publishing empire. He started Ron Sang Publications in 2002 with Len Castle Potter which won a Montana Book Award. Two years later came Michael Smither Painter which was a finalist. Now four years later - and a good 12 months behind schedule - comes Ralph Hotere.
Why Hotere? "Because he is the greatest painter in this country," says Sang. "That's not only my view, but also that of the art community. And there have been only minor books published about him."
Until now. The publishing, stresses Sang, is a part-time hobby. Which for a perfectionist who also works full-time as an architect, sounds near-impossible.
The Hotere book has taken three years to prepare. First Sang, in collaboration with Hotere, had to identify which of the artist's hundreds of paintings from a 46-year career would make the cut. In the end they chose 257, bringing together the biggest and most balanced collection ever of the artist's work. For months Sang travelled between Hotere's home and studio at Port Chalmers near Dunedin, identifying his most important works. Next came the task of tracking down the paintings. Some were in museums and galleries and reasonably accessible, the rest in private collections. Sang worked through Hotere's dealer, Sue Crockford. "She would contact the owners and ask them to call me. It took ages."
The good part, he says, was getting into houses you don't normally see - and seeing other peoples' collections. "I loved it - like getting into private galleries."
Although Sang's first two books were works of art in themselves, and had done brilliantly at the Montana Book Awards - but earned little money for either publisher or the artist involved - some owners of Hotere's paintings were wary. While most were excited at the prospect of being in the book, others asked for a fee for allowing their painting to be photographed.
Once they had permission, Sang and his photographer, Simon Harper, were reluctant to move them, making it complicated to capture the perfect image. "The black-on-black surfaces of Hotere's paintings are notoriously difficult to photograph," says Sang. "But Harper's technology and techniques have captured their textures and contrasts with a clarity of detail often not possible in reproductions."
Next came the printing. For the third time in six years Sang travelled to Everbest printers in Nan Sha, near where his parents were born in Southern China, to oversee printing. "Accuracy of colour is absolutely essential," he says. "Eighty per cent of the prints had to be adjusted and 50 per cent of those done again."
Sang and designer Kelly Farrimond worked 12-hour days, 9am to 9pm, alongside the factory workers. "It's a modern plant but it's noisy and dirty. The weather was hot, 31 degrees and 80 per cent humidity, but they give you very good service."
That service extended to lunch and dinner with the boss of the factory for the 12 days it took to perfect every print. Then they flew home and waited for the first book to arrive.
And there it is - sophisticated, impressive and, as Hotere wanted it, all about the pictures. "A picture book," says Sang. Apart from nine chapter introductions, complete with nine iconic Marti Friedlander photographs of Hotere himself, there are two essays - one by Kriselle Baker, written around Hotere's famous Godwit/Kuaka 18m mural which hung in the arrivals hall at Auckland airport from 1977, and now forms a five-page foldout in the book. The other essay, which chronicles Hotere's career, is by poet, novelist and short story writer Vincent O'Sullivan.
Both writers were nominated by Hotere himself, presumably because they understand his personal philosophy and loathing for cant. O'Sullivan puts it crisply: "His well-known distaste for `art talk', his deep reservations on highbrow theoretical chatter, is at base, a dislike for elitism," he writes. "He [Hotere] insists that what he is famous for is no more distancing between himself and non-artistic friends than any other kind of job. And that's the way it's to be."
Hotere, published by Ron Sang Publications, is released on Monday; standard edition (3000 copies) $195; limited edition with stainless steel cover, 170gm paper, rimu presentation box and signed by the author (100 copies) $1965. Available from bookshops or direct from Ron Sang Publications, ph (09) 638 6898 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (09) 638 6898 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
By Carroll du Chateau | Email Carroll
By Carroll du Chateau
4:00 AM Saturday Nov 22, 2008
A copy of the same painting, authorised by the artist, graces the study floor. "Ralph [Hotere] said to me, 'You own the painting, you can do what you like with it'," says Sang, gazing down at the inferno-red rug he had specially woven.
The entire house, as with all Sang-designed buildings, is built for art. Walls are white and wide without too many windows, the proportions gracious yet cosy. Carpets are pearl grey. Everything, from the massive bright blue front door, is larger than life. And then there's the art: several energetic Pat Hanlys, a massive Philippa Blair, from her Heart series, interspersed with Peter Siddell and a gleaming stainless steel dragon by Guy Ngan on the wall just outside the kitchen window.
Add in hundreds of pieces of pottery crammed into every corner and shelf - including the loo: enormous vases, some decorated, others gleaming with glaze, every variation imaginable of Len Castle's volcano series, an entire shelf of exquisite John Parker bottles - every collection complemented by enough glass to fill an art gallery.
But despite the numbers, there is a sense of grace and orderliness. Paintings are given plenty of wall space. And the impact takes your breath away.
This is only half of Sang's collection. "I love pottery," he says. "But there were so many comments saying the place looked like a junk shop we put away 50 per cent."
Now, rather than in the Parnell and Newmarket offices Sang Architects occupied for 18 years, Sang works from home in a light-filled room upstairs with spare desks for his two children who contract for the family business. He likes to invite clients back to the house so they can see a living example of his work. "It's quite, quite different from what they imagine," he says cheerfully. "A bit of a shock!"
"But don't worry about all this," adds Sang. "This is about the book!"
He is talking about the Ralph Hotere book due for release next week. It is a large, elegant publication with Hotere's unmistakable signature rolled across the frontispiece, and page after page of large, heart-stopping photos presented on thick 150g paper.
This is the latest offering from Sang's Montana award-winning publishing empire. He started Ron Sang Publications in 2002 with Len Castle Potter which won a Montana Book Award. Two years later came Michael Smither Painter which was a finalist. Now four years later - and a good 12 months behind schedule - comes Ralph Hotere.
Why Hotere? "Because he is the greatest painter in this country," says Sang. "That's not only my view, but also that of the art community. And there have been only minor books published about him."
Until now. The publishing, stresses Sang, is a part-time hobby. Which for a perfectionist who also works full-time as an architect, sounds near-impossible.
The Hotere book has taken three years to prepare. First Sang, in collaboration with Hotere, had to identify which of the artist's hundreds of paintings from a 46-year career would make the cut. In the end they chose 257, bringing together the biggest and most balanced collection ever of the artist's work. For months Sang travelled between Hotere's home and studio at Port Chalmers near Dunedin, identifying his most important works. Next came the task of tracking down the paintings. Some were in museums and galleries and reasonably accessible, the rest in private collections. Sang worked through Hotere's dealer, Sue Crockford. "She would contact the owners and ask them to call me. It took ages."
The good part, he says, was getting into houses you don't normally see - and seeing other peoples' collections. "I loved it - like getting into private galleries."
Although Sang's first two books were works of art in themselves, and had done brilliantly at the Montana Book Awards - but earned little money for either publisher or the artist involved - some owners of Hotere's paintings were wary. While most were excited at the prospect of being in the book, others asked for a fee for allowing their painting to be photographed.
Once they had permission, Sang and his photographer, Simon Harper, were reluctant to move them, making it complicated to capture the perfect image. "The black-on-black surfaces of Hotere's paintings are notoriously difficult to photograph," says Sang. "But Harper's technology and techniques have captured their textures and contrasts with a clarity of detail often not possible in reproductions."
Next came the printing. For the third time in six years Sang travelled to Everbest printers in Nan Sha, near where his parents were born in Southern China, to oversee printing. "Accuracy of colour is absolutely essential," he says. "Eighty per cent of the prints had to be adjusted and 50 per cent of those done again."
Sang and designer Kelly Farrimond worked 12-hour days, 9am to 9pm, alongside the factory workers. "It's a modern plant but it's noisy and dirty. The weather was hot, 31 degrees and 80 per cent humidity, but they give you very good service."
That service extended to lunch and dinner with the boss of the factory for the 12 days it took to perfect every print. Then they flew home and waited for the first book to arrive.
And there it is - sophisticated, impressive and, as Hotere wanted it, all about the pictures. "A picture book," says Sang. Apart from nine chapter introductions, complete with nine iconic Marti Friedlander photographs of Hotere himself, there are two essays - one by Kriselle Baker, written around Hotere's famous Godwit/Kuaka 18m mural which hung in the arrivals hall at Auckland airport from 1977, and now forms a five-page foldout in the book. The other essay, which chronicles Hotere's career, is by poet, novelist and short story writer Vincent O'Sullivan.
Both writers were nominated by Hotere himself, presumably because they understand his personal philosophy and loathing for cant. O'Sullivan puts it crisply: "His well-known distaste for `art talk', his deep reservations on highbrow theoretical chatter, is at base, a dislike for elitism," he writes. "He [Hotere] insists that what he is famous for is no more distancing between himself and non-artistic friends than any other kind of job. And that's the way it's to be."
Hotere, published by Ron Sang Publications, is released on Monday; standard edition (3000 copies) $195; limited edition with stainless steel cover, 170gm paper, rimu presentation box and signed by the author (100 copies) $1965. Available from bookshops or direct from Ron Sang Publications, ph (09) 638 6898 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (09) 638 6898 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
By Carroll du Chateau | Email Carroll
By Carroll du Chateau
4:00 AM Saturday Nov 22, 2008
Kiwi back to earth after tallest skyscraper completed
The New Zealander in charge of putting up the world's tallest skyscraper leaves the Dubai developer this week.
Greg Sang, director of projects at Emaar Properties PJSC, said his role had ended with the completion of Burj Khalifa, the 828m tall glittering glass and steel structure named after Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi.
"When I arrived in Dubai in October 2004, Burj Khalifa was a hole in the ground. Today the tower is open and making money so my work is done and it is time for me to move on," he said.
The controversial tower has had its share of problems.
Panic hit in February after a lift broke down and 15 people were trapped for 45 minutes until rescuers managed to pry open the doors.
Sang said the view from the tower's top was "like being in an aeroplane. Some people get scared but for the people who work there, it's run-of-the-mill". His last day is tomorrow and Sang said he was holding a small farewell event at night.
Sang's great-grandfather migrated from Canton and Greg Sang went to Auckland Grammar School before enrolling in civil engineering at Auckland University.
For a short time, he was a building labourer and later worked at Takapuna City Council on drains and water mains.
He then moved to Hong Kong and the giant Japanese contractor Kumagai Gumi. He worked for Britain's Maunsell Group and Ove Arup & Partners, eventually specialising in high-rise development.
Sang said he had enjoyed working on Burj Khalifa and it had been an exciting journey.
He is returning to Hong Kong where he said he would take a lower-profile role.
By Anne Gibson | Email Anne By Anne Gibson
4:00 AM Wednesday May 12, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10644277
Greg Sang, director of projects at Emaar Properties PJSC, said his role had ended with the completion of Burj Khalifa, the 828m tall glittering glass and steel structure named after Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi.
"When I arrived in Dubai in October 2004, Burj Khalifa was a hole in the ground. Today the tower is open and making money so my work is done and it is time for me to move on," he said.
The controversial tower has had its share of problems.
Panic hit in February after a lift broke down and 15 people were trapped for 45 minutes until rescuers managed to pry open the doors.
Sang said the view from the tower's top was "like being in an aeroplane. Some people get scared but for the people who work there, it's run-of-the-mill". His last day is tomorrow and Sang said he was holding a small farewell event at night.
Sang's great-grandfather migrated from Canton and Greg Sang went to Auckland Grammar School before enrolling in civil engineering at Auckland University.
For a short time, he was a building labourer and later worked at Takapuna City Council on drains and water mains.
He then moved to Hong Kong and the giant Japanese contractor Kumagai Gumi. He worked for Britain's Maunsell Group and Ove Arup & Partners, eventually specialising in high-rise development.
Sang said he had enjoyed working on Burj Khalifa and it had been an exciting journey.
He is returning to Hong Kong where he said he would take a lower-profile role.
By Anne Gibson | Email Anne By Anne Gibson
4:00 AM Wednesday May 12, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10644277
Chinese audiences treated to NZ films
A New Zealand film festival to screen in China next month is aimed at showing Chinese audiences that anyone in New Zealand can be a successful film-maker.
Boy, a box office hit directed by Taika Waititi, and Take 3, a short film by New Zealand Chinese director Roseanne Liang, will be among the films to screen at the festival - which organisers hope will encourage more Chinese investment in joint movie projects with New Zealand.
The festival will precede the signing of a film co-production agreement between the two countries in July, said Jim He, chairman of the Pacific Culture and Arts Exchange Centre.
It is understood the agreement will ease temporary immigration and importation of equipment between the two countries, to make it easier for screen production companies from China and New Zealand to work together.
New Zealand has film co-production agreements with Australia, Canada, France, Italy and Britain.
"The movies selected for the festival will show that New Zealand is more than just Peter Jackson," Mr He said.
XXXIXXX
CCID: 33175 | adwidth=300 | type=RM
Click here to find out more!
"We are a multicultural nation, and even non-European film producers can be successful here."
The centre has taken NZ films to China since 2002, and will this year host the festival in five Chinese cities: Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo and Hang Zhou from June 7. Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey will lead the delegation.
Other films featuring include Gaylene Preston's Home By Christmas, based on her father's World War II experiences, Simone Horrocks' After Waterfall and Adam Strange's Aphrodite's Farm.
"There will be no blood and violence, because the Chinese love family-themed movies," said Mr He. "The selection of movies will give the Chinese audience a window to the beautiful New Zealand landscape, and also the wide options for filming in New Zealand."
Mr He said the Chinese were big movie fans, watching between 10 and 16 films a year on average, and films at the festival often played in theatres that were 90 per cent full.
Prime Minister John Key, in his message for the festival, said the Chinese communities here played an important role in shaping New Zealand's future.
"We have many Chinese communities in New Zealand, all of which have an important role to play in shaping the future of our country," Mr Key said.
"The Government is committed to ensuring their voices are heard.
"This is helped by the leadership of our first Asian Cabinet minister, the Minister of Ethnic Affairs, Pansy Wong."
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln By Lincoln Tan
4:00 AM Monday May 3, 2010
Boy, a box office hit directed by Taika Waititi, and Take 3, a short film by New Zealand Chinese director Roseanne Liang, will be among the films to screen at the festival - which organisers hope will encourage more Chinese investment in joint movie projects with New Zealand.
The festival will precede the signing of a film co-production agreement between the two countries in July, said Jim He, chairman of the Pacific Culture and Arts Exchange Centre.
It is understood the agreement will ease temporary immigration and importation of equipment between the two countries, to make it easier for screen production companies from China and New Zealand to work together.
New Zealand has film co-production agreements with Australia, Canada, France, Italy and Britain.
"The movies selected for the festival will show that New Zealand is more than just Peter Jackson," Mr He said.
XXXIXXX
CCID: 33175 | adwidth=300 | type=RM
Click here to find out more!
"We are a multicultural nation, and even non-European film producers can be successful here."
The centre has taken NZ films to China since 2002, and will this year host the festival in five Chinese cities: Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo and Hang Zhou from June 7. Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey will lead the delegation.
Other films featuring include Gaylene Preston's Home By Christmas, based on her father's World War II experiences, Simone Horrocks' After Waterfall and Adam Strange's Aphrodite's Farm.
"There will be no blood and violence, because the Chinese love family-themed movies," said Mr He. "The selection of movies will give the Chinese audience a window to the beautiful New Zealand landscape, and also the wide options for filming in New Zealand."
Mr He said the Chinese were big movie fans, watching between 10 and 16 films a year on average, and films at the festival often played in theatres that were 90 per cent full.
Prime Minister John Key, in his message for the festival, said the Chinese communities here played an important role in shaping New Zealand's future.
"We have many Chinese communities in New Zealand, all of which have an important role to play in shaping the future of our country," Mr Key said.
"The Government is committed to ensuring their voices are heard.
"This is helped by the leadership of our first Asian Cabinet minister, the Minister of Ethnic Affairs, Pansy Wong."
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln By Lincoln Tan
4:00 AM Monday May 3, 2010
Chinese Lifeline at risk of closing
A funding crisis is threatening to shut down a popular telephone counselling service for Chinese residents on the North Shore and across Auckland.
Chinese Lifeline is a free Cantonese and Mandarin language service that is part of Lifeline Auckland. It caters for distressed members of the Chinese community and provides affordable face-to-face counselling.
Lifeline manager Sunday Tsoi says the service helps not only new migrants struggling to settle into Kiwi life but also those who have been in New Zealand for some time and unable to cope.
She says it is now in danger of being suspended because of funding problems.
"There is a real need for Chinese Lifeline and it is heart-breaking to think it may be suspended.
"The service saves lives – we have had people write in and tell us Chinese Lifeline has been their lifeboat, it has given them strength to carry on," Mrs Tsoi says.
The service is appealing for donations to continue helping migrants on the Shore.
To help raise funds, Lifeline volunteers have organised a charity screening of two top-grossing Chinese films.
The love story Hot Summer Days will be screened at the Highland Park SkyCity Cinema on Wednesday, May 12, at 6.30pm.
The action-packed Bodyguards and Assassins will screen at St Lukes SkyCity Cinema on Monday, May 17, from 6.30pm.
To book tickets or make a donation go to the Chinese Lifeline website www.chineselifeline.org. nz or call Grace on 909-8753.
BY JODEAL CADACIO - North Shore Times
Last updated 10:31 06/05/2010
Chinese Lifeline is a free Cantonese and Mandarin language service that is part of Lifeline Auckland. It caters for distressed members of the Chinese community and provides affordable face-to-face counselling.
Lifeline manager Sunday Tsoi says the service helps not only new migrants struggling to settle into Kiwi life but also those who have been in New Zealand for some time and unable to cope.
She says it is now in danger of being suspended because of funding problems.
"There is a real need for Chinese Lifeline and it is heart-breaking to think it may be suspended.
"The service saves lives – we have had people write in and tell us Chinese Lifeline has been their lifeboat, it has given them strength to carry on," Mrs Tsoi says.
The service is appealing for donations to continue helping migrants on the Shore.
To help raise funds, Lifeline volunteers have organised a charity screening of two top-grossing Chinese films.
The love story Hot Summer Days will be screened at the Highland Park SkyCity Cinema on Wednesday, May 12, at 6.30pm.
The action-packed Bodyguards and Assassins will screen at St Lukes SkyCity Cinema on Monday, May 17, from 6.30pm.
To book tickets or make a donation go to the Chinese Lifeline website www.chineselifeline.org. nz or call Grace on 909-8753.
BY JODEAL CADACIO - North Shore Times
Last updated 10:31 06/05/2010
NOT BOTHERED: Baker Maurice Piner has been working alongside what may be the ghost of a Chinese immigrant who hanged himself in 1891 on the site of
NOT BOTHERED: Baker Maurice Piner has been working alongside what may be the ghost of a Chinese immigrant who hanged himself in 1891 on the site of what is now Phil's Bakery on Gresson St, Greymouth.
The tragic tale of a Chinese thief may explain the ghostly goings-on at a West Coast bakery.
Baker Maurice Piner has been bothered by mysterious voices, creeping shadows and things going bump at Phil's Bakery in Greymouth.
"When I was working on my own in the morning, I would see shadows going around the bakery and ovens and that," Piner said.
"Sometimes you could hear banging and crashing upstairs, and sometimes you can hear whispering and talking in the bakery.
"You look around to see if there's anyone there, and you can't."
However, a Greymouth tourist operator believes he can shed some light on the mystery.
Paul Schramm, manager of Wild West Adventures, has been researching a new tourist attraction where visitors are guided around the town by an audio device that uses GPS positioning to tell stories as they enter different areas.
During his research, Schramm came across the tale of Ah Shing, a Chinese miner, who hanged himself in the boarding house that used to stand on the site of the Gresson St bakery.
On October 17, 1891, the Grey River Argus reported that Ah Shing's body was found early in the day hanging from a rafter in the boarding house.
It said Shing had earlier pawned a "silver lever watch and chain" that he stole from a friend, Bernard Gallagher.
Julia Bradshaw, author of a book on the history of the Chinese on the West Coast, said it was likely Shing was driven to the crime by debt.
"When the Chinese came out here, they would usually have a debt from the journey and sometimes run up a debt in stores or take out loans to send money home," she said.
The area around Gresson St became known as Chinatown in the 1890s because of the many Chinese living there, she said.
Bradshaw believed Shing may have been overcome by guilt after stealing from his friend.
Piner said it was interesting to have a theory to explain the whispers and shadows, but it would not put him off working alone.
By GILES BROWN - The Press
Last updated 05:00 05/05/2010
The tragic tale of a Chinese thief may explain the ghostly goings-on at a West Coast bakery.
Baker Maurice Piner has been bothered by mysterious voices, creeping shadows and things going bump at Phil's Bakery in Greymouth.
"When I was working on my own in the morning, I would see shadows going around the bakery and ovens and that," Piner said.
"Sometimes you could hear banging and crashing upstairs, and sometimes you can hear whispering and talking in the bakery.
"You look around to see if there's anyone there, and you can't."
However, a Greymouth tourist operator believes he can shed some light on the mystery.
Paul Schramm, manager of Wild West Adventures, has been researching a new tourist attraction where visitors are guided around the town by an audio device that uses GPS positioning to tell stories as they enter different areas.
During his research, Schramm came across the tale of Ah Shing, a Chinese miner, who hanged himself in the boarding house that used to stand on the site of the Gresson St bakery.
On October 17, 1891, the Grey River Argus reported that Ah Shing's body was found early in the day hanging from a rafter in the boarding house.
It said Shing had earlier pawned a "silver lever watch and chain" that he stole from a friend, Bernard Gallagher.
Julia Bradshaw, author of a book on the history of the Chinese on the West Coast, said it was likely Shing was driven to the crime by debt.
"When the Chinese came out here, they would usually have a debt from the journey and sometimes run up a debt in stores or take out loans to send money home," she said.
The area around Gresson St became known as Chinatown in the 1890s because of the many Chinese living there, she said.
Bradshaw believed Shing may have been overcome by guilt after stealing from his friend.
Piner said it was interesting to have a theory to explain the whispers and shadows, but it would not put him off working alone.
By GILES BROWN - The Press
Last updated 05:00 05/05/2010
Movie takes the Chinese out of Aussie war hero
By Kathy Marks
4:00 AM Wednesday May 12, 2010
Billy Sing, a Queenslander of Anglo-Chinese ancestry, earned himself the title of Australia's deadliest sniper during the Gallipoli campaign, killing 201 enemy soldiers.
He received the Distinguished Conduct Medal, second only to the Victoria Cross.
But now the World War I hero is at the centre of a row, centring on a mini-series about his life by an Australian director, Geoff Davis. Australians of Chinese descent are furious that Davis cast his son, Josh, in the lead role, rather than a Chinese actor.
Sing's father is played by Tony Bonner, who came to fame as the blonde helicopter pilot in the Skippy television series.
The president of the Chinese Australian Forum, Tony Pang, said: "I'm very sorry to learn that somebody is trying to whitewash a Chinese-Australian face with a white face. It's a disgrace. To see this distortion of historical fact, it's sad."
Davis has defended his choice, saying his problem was finding a 60-year-old Chinese actor to play Sing's father in The Legend of Billy Sing, which is still in production.
But Australians of Chinese descent called it a betrayal of their heritage.
"We'll now have people growing up thinking Billy Sing was white," said Bill O'Chee, a former National Party senator.
Sing, who had an English mother and a father from Shanghai, enlisted as a trooper in the 5th Light Horse Regiment. He became known as "The Assassin", and the Turks sent their champion sniper, "Abdul The Terrible" to hunt him down; however, Sing shot Abdul first.
Pang said: "The question I ask myself is, what if John Howard is being played by a Pakistani? It's ridiculous. It's just not appropriate."
- INDEPENDENT
By Kathy Marks | Email Kathy
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10644305
4:00 AM Wednesday May 12, 2010
Billy Sing, a Queenslander of Anglo-Chinese ancestry, earned himself the title of Australia's deadliest sniper during the Gallipoli campaign, killing 201 enemy soldiers.
He received the Distinguished Conduct Medal, second only to the Victoria Cross.
But now the World War I hero is at the centre of a row, centring on a mini-series about his life by an Australian director, Geoff Davis. Australians of Chinese descent are furious that Davis cast his son, Josh, in the lead role, rather than a Chinese actor.
Sing's father is played by Tony Bonner, who came to fame as the blonde helicopter pilot in the Skippy television series.
The president of the Chinese Australian Forum, Tony Pang, said: "I'm very sorry to learn that somebody is trying to whitewash a Chinese-Australian face with a white face. It's a disgrace. To see this distortion of historical fact, it's sad."
Davis has defended his choice, saying his problem was finding a 60-year-old Chinese actor to play Sing's father in The Legend of Billy Sing, which is still in production.
But Australians of Chinese descent called it a betrayal of their heritage.
"We'll now have people growing up thinking Billy Sing was white," said Bill O'Chee, a former National Party senator.
Sing, who had an English mother and a father from Shanghai, enlisted as a trooper in the 5th Light Horse Regiment. He became known as "The Assassin", and the Turks sent their champion sniper, "Abdul The Terrible" to hunt him down; however, Sing shot Abdul first.
Pang said: "The question I ask myself is, what if John Howard is being played by a Pakistani? It's ridiculous. It's just not appropriate."
- INDEPENDENT
By Kathy Marks | Email Kathy
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10644305
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Tombstones and Takeaway
Tombstones and Takeaway
Amanda Bolch
Chinese migrant Jackie Or saw a lively business opportunity in creating Auckland's first private cemetery
PHOTO: BRUCE JACKSON/SOUTHERN STUDIOS
A migrant entrepreneur shows he can turn his hand to anything
Jackie Or is a success story in New Zealand's food industry. At shopping centres around the country, his Chinese food chains sit alongside McDonald's and KFC.
Magic Wok, Crazy Stirfry and Crazy Noodlebar are names synonymous with high quality fast food for thousands of New Zealand shoppers.
Or has a knack for finding a niche market at the right time (something he has proved a second time around with his latest venture - Auckland's first privately owned cemetery).
Or moved to New Zealand in 1982 - his knowledge of the country limited to the fact that it had lots of sheep. However, as a chef, he also believed there would be plenty of work opportunities. He spent the first two and a half years in his adopted country working at the New Orient Restaurant in downtown Auckland.
In 1985 he started out on his own. "Most of the Chinese food here was being adapted to Kiwi tastes, but I wanted to have something really Chinese, really authentic, with meals such as chicken feet, pig's trotters and salted fish."
Another restaurant later, he decided the restaurant business was "too hard and the hours too long", so opened up a takeaway in a shopping centre. "The concept was good quality food, freshly cooked in front of the customer. At that time it was a new concept and we found it was really accepted by the Kiwis."
Today he has nearly 20 shops from Auckland to Dunedin, in the south of the South Island. He employs about 40 staff, most of them ethnic Chinese. "I never dreamed it would become this big," he says.
While he believes there are still such opportunities for new business migrants, he admits it would be a lot harder for them today. "When I first stared 15 years ago, there were only a few fast food outlets. Today there are many - McDonald's, Burger Kings, KFCs and Wendys. Auckland is a very competitive market now. We have got more fast food and restaurant outlets per person than Sydney and Melbourne."
It may seem like a clich�, but it is true that many Chinese migrants - and Asians in general - set up restaurants. Or estimates there could be as many as 600 Asian food outlets in the city. "I guess the capital involved in such a venture is not that big and because some Chinese don't speak English well, which is a disadvantage for them, starting up something like a Chinese restaurant is a lot easier."
But he says one problem was that many people did not do the right research. "They come here, set up a restaurant and do not compare the turnover of their neighbour.
So they are spending NZ$400,000-$500,000 (US$164,400-$205,500) without an estimate of turnover. Many people do that and because of that, many restaurants fail."
Rental costs, which he says are higher than a lot of people think, and a shortage of skilled Chinese chefs and waiting staff are other problems to be considered.
While Or has seen much growth in the Chinese business community since he first became a part of it, he says business is not his prime reason for coming to New Zealand. "People do not come here for business reasons. They come here more for the lifestyle and their children's education. Here there is lots of space and there is fresh air and the weather is pretty good.
"Because we only have a very small population, it is very hard to make a business very profitable. But saying that, I am one of the lucky ones and there are opportunities for enterprising people." And his latest venture shows just how enterprising he is. About six years ago, a staff member was telling Or how she wanted to bury her father next to another Chinese person, but was unable to find anywhere to do that.
After getting together four partners, including the head of one of New Zealand's top clothing chains, and finding the right land - which took two years - the result is a very special cemetery. "The Oakfield Memorial Park is set on 39 acres and is the first private cemetery in Auckland. While it available to the whole community, it is also the only cemetery with a Chinese section."
What also makes the cemetery special is that it is has been designed with the right feng shui - it features a landscaped garden, with two lakes and sea views. "We have been marketing the cemetery for about 15 months now and have already sold about 150 plots, the most expensive one so far being NZ$128,000, which is a plot for an extended family"
Amanda Bolch
Chinese migrant Jackie Or saw a lively business opportunity in creating Auckland's first private cemetery
PHOTO: BRUCE JACKSON/SOUTHERN STUDIOS
A migrant entrepreneur shows he can turn his hand to anything
Jackie Or is a success story in New Zealand's food industry. At shopping centres around the country, his Chinese food chains sit alongside McDonald's and KFC.
Magic Wok, Crazy Stirfry and Crazy Noodlebar are names synonymous with high quality fast food for thousands of New Zealand shoppers.
Or has a knack for finding a niche market at the right time (something he has proved a second time around with his latest venture - Auckland's first privately owned cemetery).
Or moved to New Zealand in 1982 - his knowledge of the country limited to the fact that it had lots of sheep. However, as a chef, he also believed there would be plenty of work opportunities. He spent the first two and a half years in his adopted country working at the New Orient Restaurant in downtown Auckland.
In 1985 he started out on his own. "Most of the Chinese food here was being adapted to Kiwi tastes, but I wanted to have something really Chinese, really authentic, with meals such as chicken feet, pig's trotters and salted fish."
Another restaurant later, he decided the restaurant business was "too hard and the hours too long", so opened up a takeaway in a shopping centre. "The concept was good quality food, freshly cooked in front of the customer. At that time it was a new concept and we found it was really accepted by the Kiwis."
Today he has nearly 20 shops from Auckland to Dunedin, in the south of the South Island. He employs about 40 staff, most of them ethnic Chinese. "I never dreamed it would become this big," he says.
While he believes there are still such opportunities for new business migrants, he admits it would be a lot harder for them today. "When I first stared 15 years ago, there were only a few fast food outlets. Today there are many - McDonald's, Burger Kings, KFCs and Wendys. Auckland is a very competitive market now. We have got more fast food and restaurant outlets per person than Sydney and Melbourne."
It may seem like a clich�, but it is true that many Chinese migrants - and Asians in general - set up restaurants. Or estimates there could be as many as 600 Asian food outlets in the city. "I guess the capital involved in such a venture is not that big and because some Chinese don't speak English well, which is a disadvantage for them, starting up something like a Chinese restaurant is a lot easier."
But he says one problem was that many people did not do the right research. "They come here, set up a restaurant and do not compare the turnover of their neighbour.
So they are spending NZ$400,000-$500,000 (US$164,400-$205,500) without an estimate of turnover. Many people do that and because of that, many restaurants fail."
Rental costs, which he says are higher than a lot of people think, and a shortage of skilled Chinese chefs and waiting staff are other problems to be considered.
While Or has seen much growth in the Chinese business community since he first became a part of it, he says business is not his prime reason for coming to New Zealand. "People do not come here for business reasons. They come here more for the lifestyle and their children's education. Here there is lots of space and there is fresh air and the weather is pretty good.
"Because we only have a very small population, it is very hard to make a business very profitable. But saying that, I am one of the lucky ones and there are opportunities for enterprising people." And his latest venture shows just how enterprising he is. About six years ago, a staff member was telling Or how she wanted to bury her father next to another Chinese person, but was unable to find anywhere to do that.
After getting together four partners, including the head of one of New Zealand's top clothing chains, and finding the right land - which took two years - the result is a very special cemetery. "The Oakfield Memorial Park is set on 39 acres and is the first private cemetery in Auckland. While it available to the whole community, it is also the only cemetery with a Chinese section."
What also makes the cemetery special is that it is has been designed with the right feng shui - it features a landscaped garden, with two lakes and sea views. "We have been marketing the cemetery for about 15 months now and have already sold about 150 plots, the most expensive one so far being NZ$128,000, which is a plot for an extended family"
Asians ditch identities in hunt for jobs
Desperate job-seeking Asians are not only taking on Anglicised first names but also officially ditching their traditional surnames for European-sounding ones in the hope that will help them find work in New Zealand.
One Chinese woman even changed her name to Brenda Jones in an attempt to get a job interview in the tough economic climate.
About 21,000, or 9.2 per cent, of the Asian population are without jobs, and experts say their foreign-sounding names have contributed to their unemployment woes.
Massey University researcher Paul Spoonley says New Zealand employers, especially in small and medium-sized businesses, tend to eliminate Asian applicants very early in the process through surname discrimination.
"We have a lot of research and anecdotal evidence that New Zealand employers are reluctant to employ Asians, so changing surnames is a novel way of getting a CV read," he said.
Last year, people born in Asia formed most of the overseas-born people who sought to have their names changed with the Department of Internal Affairs.
CCID: 30518
Since March last year, 2029 immigrants have registered to change their names, with the top five countries of origin being Samoa (291), China (264), India (152), Iraq (98) and Malaysia (97).
Although Samoans topped the department's name-change register, the Weekend Herald understands many of these were to add chiefly titles rather than adopt Anglicised names.
Other countries with significant numbers include Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore.
Asian immigrants told the Weekend Herald they changed their names in a desperate attempt to find work.
Most did not want to be identified because they thought it could jeopardise their job hunt.
The Chinese immigrant who changed her name to Brenda Jones said she did so after failing to get a single job interview when her former classmates, European New Zealanders who graduated from the same IT course, were getting employed.
"I was feeling very desperate and very small," she said. "Changing my name is not something I am proud of doing, but I really didn't know what else to do."
Another, who changed her surname from Teoh to May with an English first name, said a job interviewer at Work and Income advised her to do so.
"She told me that with an Asian surname, employers will automatically think that I cannot speak English," said Miss May, a former retail manager.
A University of Auckland School of Business survey in 2005 found anti-Asian discrimination to be significant among employers.
It found that even without immigration status consideration, having a Chinese or Indian name significantly raised chances of being considered unsuitable.
Chinese applicants with Anglicised first names were considered slightly less unsuitable than those with traditional names.
Justin Treagus, director of Omega, a programme which uses a mentoring scheme to help immigrants find employment, says the recession has aggravated discrimination.
"I think the economic recession has brought many Kiwi employers back to their old habits, and maybe even made it worse."
One Asian immigrant, who changed his surname from Wang to King, believes it has worked for him.
Lai Ming Wang, now Terence King, says it got him an interview that eventually landed him a bank job.
"I got that job interview only after submitting my CV with my new surname, and getting that interview meant I could prove that I am well versed in English and have the ability to do the job," he said.
An Internal Affairs spokesman says only those who are New Zealand citizens or permanent residents with indefinite visas can register for an official name change - but others are still free to use Anglicised names unofficially.
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres says it is unlawful under the Human Rights Act to refuse immigrants a job or an interview because of their ethnicity or race.
"It takes away someone's chance to be judged on their merits and it goes against the idea of New Zealand as a fair society."
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln 4:00 AM Saturday Apr 3, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10636001&pnum=0
One Chinese woman even changed her name to Brenda Jones in an attempt to get a job interview in the tough economic climate.
About 21,000, or 9.2 per cent, of the Asian population are without jobs, and experts say their foreign-sounding names have contributed to their unemployment woes.
Massey University researcher Paul Spoonley says New Zealand employers, especially in small and medium-sized businesses, tend to eliminate Asian applicants very early in the process through surname discrimination.
"We have a lot of research and anecdotal evidence that New Zealand employers are reluctant to employ Asians, so changing surnames is a novel way of getting a CV read," he said.
Last year, people born in Asia formed most of the overseas-born people who sought to have their names changed with the Department of Internal Affairs.
CCID: 30518
Since March last year, 2029 immigrants have registered to change their names, with the top five countries of origin being Samoa (291), China (264), India (152), Iraq (98) and Malaysia (97).
Although Samoans topped the department's name-change register, the Weekend Herald understands many of these were to add chiefly titles rather than adopt Anglicised names.
Other countries with significant numbers include Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore.
Asian immigrants told the Weekend Herald they changed their names in a desperate attempt to find work.
Most did not want to be identified because they thought it could jeopardise their job hunt.
The Chinese immigrant who changed her name to Brenda Jones said she did so after failing to get a single job interview when her former classmates, European New Zealanders who graduated from the same IT course, were getting employed.
"I was feeling very desperate and very small," she said. "Changing my name is not something I am proud of doing, but I really didn't know what else to do."
Another, who changed her surname from Teoh to May with an English first name, said a job interviewer at Work and Income advised her to do so.
"She told me that with an Asian surname, employers will automatically think that I cannot speak English," said Miss May, a former retail manager.
A University of Auckland School of Business survey in 2005 found anti-Asian discrimination to be significant among employers.
It found that even without immigration status consideration, having a Chinese or Indian name significantly raised chances of being considered unsuitable.
Chinese applicants with Anglicised first names were considered slightly less unsuitable than those with traditional names.
Justin Treagus, director of Omega, a programme which uses a mentoring scheme to help immigrants find employment, says the recession has aggravated discrimination.
"I think the economic recession has brought many Kiwi employers back to their old habits, and maybe even made it worse."
One Asian immigrant, who changed his surname from Wang to King, believes it has worked for him.
Lai Ming Wang, now Terence King, says it got him an interview that eventually landed him a bank job.
"I got that job interview only after submitting my CV with my new surname, and getting that interview meant I could prove that I am well versed in English and have the ability to do the job," he said.
An Internal Affairs spokesman says only those who are New Zealand citizens or permanent residents with indefinite visas can register for an official name change - but others are still free to use Anglicised names unofficially.
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres says it is unlawful under the Human Rights Act to refuse immigrants a job or an interview because of their ethnicity or race.
"It takes away someone's chance to be judged on their merits and it goes against the idea of New Zealand as a fair society."
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln 4:00 AM Saturday Apr 3, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10636001&pnum=0
Changing tastes put squeeze on ethnic restaurants
Ethnic restaurants in Auckland are being forced to think beyond sweet and sour pork, fried won tons and sushi - and those which do not keep up with the times are facing the curtain.
Auckland's oldest Chinese restaurant, the New Orient, closed this month after nearly 40 years in business.
This follows the closure of the city's oldest Japanese restaurant, the Ariake Restaurant and Sushi Bar, which folded in the same week after 30 years.
Operators of the two restaurants say changing expectations from Kiwis and new migrants have largely contributed to their demise.
"It used to be enough to have sweet and sour pork and fried won tons on the menu to make it an exotic restaurant to Kiwis, but times have changed," said director David Lam, who has been involved with the New Orient since 1973.
"We have just not been able to keep up with the new restaurants, and it is sad that we have to close."
Mr Lam also blamed the tough economic times, and the lack of carparking in the central city for the closure.
He said about 70 per cent of the restaurant's clientele were Kiwis or local-born Chinese. Few patrons were recent migrants.
Retired seaman Ricky Wallace, 75, remembers the New Orient as a fixture in the Auckland dining scene. It was one of only about three Chinese restaurants in Auckland in the 1970s.
"I've lived in Malaya in my younger days and love eating Asian food. This place used to be the only place where we could get a decent rice meal, and it's eat all you want for one price with live entertainment" he said.
Mr Wallace hasn't been to New Orient in the past 10 years, preferring instead to dine at the food halls or restaurants serving more "exotic" meals set up by more recent immigrants.
"One amazing thing that has happened with immigration is the fabulous food, and Kiwis are just spoilt for choice now," he said.
With increasing migration from Asia and Kiwis more well-travelled, Chinese restaurant operators in Auckland have to think outside their noodle boxes to draw customers.
Many also include "live" fish and crayfish tanks, to emphasise the freshness of what's on the menu.
Jacky Orr, who operates the China Yum Char Restaurant on Beach Rd, this month also started Red Guard Cafe, a Chairman Mao-inspired cafe and restaurant in the city - where staff wear Chinese military outfits.
SkyCity has also renovated and rebranded its Chinese restaurant, Ming Court - now called Jade Dragon.
Ariake manager Miyuki Sakairi said the restaurant suffered because it tried to keep things too traditional.
"To survive in Auckland restaurants needed to give diners good food and new experiences," she said.
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln 4:00 AM Tuesday Apr 6, 2010
Auckland's oldest Chinese restaurant, the New Orient, closed this month after nearly 40 years in business.
This follows the closure of the city's oldest Japanese restaurant, the Ariake Restaurant and Sushi Bar, which folded in the same week after 30 years.
Operators of the two restaurants say changing expectations from Kiwis and new migrants have largely contributed to their demise.
"It used to be enough to have sweet and sour pork and fried won tons on the menu to make it an exotic restaurant to Kiwis, but times have changed," said director David Lam, who has been involved with the New Orient since 1973.
"We have just not been able to keep up with the new restaurants, and it is sad that we have to close."
Mr Lam also blamed the tough economic times, and the lack of carparking in the central city for the closure.
He said about 70 per cent of the restaurant's clientele were Kiwis or local-born Chinese. Few patrons were recent migrants.
Retired seaman Ricky Wallace, 75, remembers the New Orient as a fixture in the Auckland dining scene. It was one of only about three Chinese restaurants in Auckland in the 1970s.
"I've lived in Malaya in my younger days and love eating Asian food. This place used to be the only place where we could get a decent rice meal, and it's eat all you want for one price with live entertainment" he said.
Mr Wallace hasn't been to New Orient in the past 10 years, preferring instead to dine at the food halls or restaurants serving more "exotic" meals set up by more recent immigrants.
"One amazing thing that has happened with immigration is the fabulous food, and Kiwis are just spoilt for choice now," he said.
With increasing migration from Asia and Kiwis more well-travelled, Chinese restaurant operators in Auckland have to think outside their noodle boxes to draw customers.
Many also include "live" fish and crayfish tanks, to emphasise the freshness of what's on the menu.
Jacky Orr, who operates the China Yum Char Restaurant on Beach Rd, this month also started Red Guard Cafe, a Chairman Mao-inspired cafe and restaurant in the city - where staff wear Chinese military outfits.
SkyCity has also renovated and rebranded its Chinese restaurant, Ming Court - now called Jade Dragon.
Ariake manager Miyuki Sakairi said the restaurant suffered because it tried to keep things too traditional.
"To survive in Auckland restaurants needed to give diners good food and new experiences," she said.
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln 4:00 AM Tuesday Apr 6, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Jade Taniwha - Maori Chinese
Jenny Bol Jun Lee
Jade Taniwha: Maori-Chinese Identity and Schooling in Aotearoa is an insightful and often deeply personal account of Maori-Chinese identity in Aotearoa New Zealand.
At the heart of this book are the accounts of four Maori-Chinese recollecting experiences of identity through the lens of schooling.
Jenny Bol Jun Lee reveals that Maori-Chinese draw strength from their different traditions, taking pride in their unique identity while moving between the different worlds of Chinese, Maori and mainstream New Zealand.
Generously illustrated with b&w photographs
Rautaki, Auckland
2007 s/c 179 pages
Jade Taniwha: Maori-Chinese Identity and Schooling in Aotearoa is an insightful and often deeply personal account of Maori-Chinese identity in Aotearoa New Zealand.
At the heart of this book are the accounts of four Maori-Chinese recollecting experiences of identity through the lens of schooling.
Jenny Bol Jun Lee reveals that Maori-Chinese draw strength from their different traditions, taking pride in their unique identity while moving between the different worlds of Chinese, Maori and mainstream New Zealand.
Generously illustrated with b&w photographs
Rautaki, Auckland
2007 s/c 179 pages
Diggers Hatters and Whores.
Diggers Hatters and Whores. The Story of the New Zealand Gold Rushes. Stevan Eldred-Grigg. 2008 1st edition. Auckland
A very comprehensive and interesting book with masses of unusual and repros of old paintings, engravings and drawings.
Gold rushes around the world
The NZ gold rushes
Very detailed information about the diggings
Names of Maori diggers in Golden Bay
Rights of landowners. Laws governing the diggings
Women who followed the camps. Chinese diggers
Shanty towns, drinking, incidents, fights, crime, murders
Life and death on the diggings
Wonderful illustrations and repros of paintings incl: Miners in the Sierra 1851; a lynching in San Francisco 1851; Diggers at Ballarat 1851; Coromandel Diggers 1852; Dunstan diggings c1862; Skippers gold claim 1865; transalpine road to the diggings of the West Coast; Grey Valley Diggers c1867; Hokitika c1865; Queen of Beauty and Bright Smiles Mines, Thames 1874; quartz crushing battery, Thames; Karangahake goldfield 1897; Kaniere diggings 1866; Macraes Flat, Otago; digger huts Hauraki 1864-67; diggers pig hunting, West Coast 1868
Maps incl gold rush areas NZ; Otago 1866; Marlborough.
545pp; black/white and coloured photos and illustrations; maps; repros of old adverts; index; bibliography; very thick hard covered book with illustrated dust jacket; both excellent condition brand new.
A very comprehensive and interesting book with masses of unusual and repros of old paintings, engravings and drawings.
Gold rushes around the world
The NZ gold rushes
Very detailed information about the diggings
Names of Maori diggers in Golden Bay
Rights of landowners. Laws governing the diggings
Women who followed the camps. Chinese diggers
Shanty towns, drinking, incidents, fights, crime, murders
Life and death on the diggings
Wonderful illustrations and repros of paintings incl: Miners in the Sierra 1851; a lynching in San Francisco 1851; Diggers at Ballarat 1851; Coromandel Diggers 1852; Dunstan diggings c1862; Skippers gold claim 1865; transalpine road to the diggings of the West Coast; Grey Valley Diggers c1867; Hokitika c1865; Queen of Beauty and Bright Smiles Mines, Thames 1874; quartz crushing battery, Thames; Karangahake goldfield 1897; Kaniere diggings 1866; Macraes Flat, Otago; digger huts Hauraki 1864-67; diggers pig hunting, West Coast 1868
Maps incl gold rush areas NZ; Otago 1866; Marlborough.
545pp; black/white and coloured photos and illustrations; maps; repros of old adverts; index; bibliography; very thick hard covered book with illustrated dust jacket; both excellent condition brand new.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants
Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants
by John Jung
Sweet and Sour examines the history of Chinese family restaurants in the U. S. and Canada. Why did many Chinese immigrants enter this business around the end of the 19th century? What conditions made it possible for Chinese to open and succeed in operating restaurants after they emigrated to North America? How did Chinese restaurants manage to attract non-Chinese customers, given that they had little or no acquaintance with the Chinese style of food preparation and many had vicious hostility toward Chinese immigrants?
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?AuthorID=102493
by John Jung
Sweet and Sour examines the history of Chinese family restaurants in the U. S. and Canada. Why did many Chinese immigrants enter this business around the end of the 19th century? What conditions made it possible for Chinese to open and succeed in operating restaurants after they emigrated to North America? How did Chinese restaurants manage to attract non-Chinese customers, given that they had little or no acquaintance with the Chinese style of food preparation and many had vicious hostility toward Chinese immigrants?
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?AuthorID=102493
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Chinese New Year 2010
Many Chinese couples are rushing to get married before the start of the Year of the Tiger, to avoid any misfortune associated with the inauspicious year.
The Year of the Tiger begins on February 14, and many who do wed before then will wait until 2011 to have a baby.
Fortune teller Peter Chan, who is also a Waitakere City councillor, said this Tiger year was considered really bad because of the absence of spring, or Lichun.
Chinese New Year, which is based on the lunar calendar, falls after the first day of spring in China and ends on February 2 next year, which is before the next Lichun.
A year without spring is also known as a "widow year" or a "blind year".
"It is a very bad year for marriages and it is possible that the relationship of those who get married in the Tiger year to be full of turmoil and trouble," said Mr Chan, originally from Hong Kong.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10623159&pnum=0
The Year of the Tiger begins on February 14, and many who do wed before then will wait until 2011 to have a baby.
Fortune teller Peter Chan, who is also a Waitakere City councillor, said this Tiger year was considered really bad because of the absence of spring, or Lichun.
Chinese New Year, which is based on the lunar calendar, falls after the first day of spring in China and ends on February 2 next year, which is before the next Lichun.
A year without spring is also known as a "widow year" or a "blind year".
"It is a very bad year for marriages and it is possible that the relationship of those who get married in the Tiger year to be full of turmoil and trouble," said Mr Chan, originally from Hong Kong.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10623159&pnum=0
Saturday, January 16, 2010
NZ residency gives Chinese sex appeal
By Lincoln Tan
4:00 AM Saturday Jan 16, 2010
International students from China want New Zealand residency and passports not only for ease of travel, but also as a way to get into a good university back home and attract the opposite sex.
To get Kiwi passports, some are even prepared to marry New Zealand citizens who may be total strangers, several students from the Chinese mainland told the Weekend Herald.
China's top university sets higher admission standards for domestic candidates, but enrolment requirements are much lower for foreign students as many universities want more foreigners to foster an international environment on campuses, according to a Chinese news report.
"I don't want a New Zealand passport to stay here. I don't think there is a future for me here," said an 18-year-old language student from Shanghai, who spoke on condition she was not named.
"But when I get a Kiwi passport, it means I would almost certainly get into a good university back in China because of the lower standard for foreigners, and also be able to travel around the world more easily."
Last week, the Global Times in China reported that students there were paying around $40,000 to buy fake foreign passports to gain entry into these universities, but the Education Ministry is now demanding proof from foreign students that they have lived in their purported countries of origin for at least four years.
One 15-year-old Auckland high school student from China, who did not want to be named, said reading the Chinese report online had made him more determined to work towards residency.
"Of course, my first choice will be to get a New Zealand degree, but if I cannot, then at least the passport will give me a second chance to get a degree from a top China university."
Another teenager from China, Amy, 19, who is studying graphic design, said: "Hooking up with a Kiwi partner is still the easiest way to get residency, which is the first step towards getting a New Zealand passport."
A language student, Luke Liu, 18, said becoming a New Zealand resident was also a way for young Chinese males to "attract" Chinese girls.
"Let's face it, Kiwi girls don't fancy Asian guys, and Chinese girls here are spoiled for choice because Kiwi guys want to date them," said Luke. "These girls come from rich families, so money means nothing to them. But being able to offer them the chance of becoming a Kiwi is another thing."
The editor of the Mandarin Pages Chinese newspaper in Auckland, David Soh, says the practice of "marriage for convenience" is not new, nor is it exclusive to the Chinese community. "It also happens with the Russians, the Filipinos ... It is impossible to stop."
The Herald on Sunday reported in 2005 that Mandarin Pages carried an advertisement from a Chinese man with New Zealand residency advertising for a wife. When contacted, the advertiser demanded $10,000 up front, more after one year of marriage and a final $10,000 after two years when the buyer would have permanent residency in New Zealand, and the couple could divorce.
But Mr Soh says such ads no longer appear in his paper, which still carries an average of 10 personal advertisements daily from New Zealanders seeking Chinese wives.
"It would be impossible for us to say how many of these marriages are for immigration purposes."
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln http://www.nzherald.co.nz/chinese-in-nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=147&objectid=10620509
4:00 AM Saturday Jan 16, 2010
International students from China want New Zealand residency and passports not only for ease of travel, but also as a way to get into a good university back home and attract the opposite sex.
To get Kiwi passports, some are even prepared to marry New Zealand citizens who may be total strangers, several students from the Chinese mainland told the Weekend Herald.
China's top university sets higher admission standards for domestic candidates, but enrolment requirements are much lower for foreign students as many universities want more foreigners to foster an international environment on campuses, according to a Chinese news report.
"I don't want a New Zealand passport to stay here. I don't think there is a future for me here," said an 18-year-old language student from Shanghai, who spoke on condition she was not named.
"But when I get a Kiwi passport, it means I would almost certainly get into a good university back in China because of the lower standard for foreigners, and also be able to travel around the world more easily."
Last week, the Global Times in China reported that students there were paying around $40,000 to buy fake foreign passports to gain entry into these universities, but the Education Ministry is now demanding proof from foreign students that they have lived in their purported countries of origin for at least four years.
One 15-year-old Auckland high school student from China, who did not want to be named, said reading the Chinese report online had made him more determined to work towards residency.
"Of course, my first choice will be to get a New Zealand degree, but if I cannot, then at least the passport will give me a second chance to get a degree from a top China university."
Another teenager from China, Amy, 19, who is studying graphic design, said: "Hooking up with a Kiwi partner is still the easiest way to get residency, which is the first step towards getting a New Zealand passport."
A language student, Luke Liu, 18, said becoming a New Zealand resident was also a way for young Chinese males to "attract" Chinese girls.
"Let's face it, Kiwi girls don't fancy Asian guys, and Chinese girls here are spoiled for choice because Kiwi guys want to date them," said Luke. "These girls come from rich families, so money means nothing to them. But being able to offer them the chance of becoming a Kiwi is another thing."
The editor of the Mandarin Pages Chinese newspaper in Auckland, David Soh, says the practice of "marriage for convenience" is not new, nor is it exclusive to the Chinese community. "It also happens with the Russians, the Filipinos ... It is impossible to stop."
The Herald on Sunday reported in 2005 that Mandarin Pages carried an advertisement from a Chinese man with New Zealand residency advertising for a wife. When contacted, the advertiser demanded $10,000 up front, more after one year of marriage and a final $10,000 after two years when the buyer would have permanent residency in New Zealand, and the couple could divorce.
But Mr Soh says such ads no longer appear in his paper, which still carries an average of 10 personal advertisements daily from New Zealanders seeking Chinese wives.
"It would be impossible for us to say how many of these marriages are for immigration purposes."
By Lincoln Tan | Email Lincoln http://www.nzherald.co.nz/chinese-in-nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=147&objectid=10620509
Monday, January 11, 2010
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
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
Friday, January 01, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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."
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."
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, October 26, 2009
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.”
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.”
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
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
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
Thursday, October 01, 2009
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.
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.
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."
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.
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. . .
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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
Home » News » Dunedin
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.
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.
, 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)