Zimbabwe watcher Chan set for Mugabe's end
5:00AM Saturday October 27, 2007 By Chris Barton
Stephen Chan insists Robert Mugabe isn't mad. But he understands why many think the 83-year-old president of Zimbabwe has lost the plot.
"It does seem so because he's let go and sabotaged the whole foundation of the economic well-being of the country," says the professor of international relations and dean of law and social sciences at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
"Anybody who does something like that has to seem as if he's not completely balanced."
Chan was there when Mugabe came to power in 1980 and is determined to be in Zimbabwe again at the next elections to bear witness to the machinations he believes will bring about the tyrant's end.
Here to deliver the 2007 Chapman Lectures at Auckland University, Chan argues Mugabe is clearly extreme, but not mad. He points to the president's masterly diplomatic tactics that have out-manoeuvred the likes of Tony Blair and other Western leaders who have wanted him removed. And how, despite the country's atrocious situation - in the midst of perilous food shortages, an Aids pandemic and economic meltdown resulting in an estimated 3500 deaths every week - Mugabe is still able to garner "an awful lot of pan-African sympathy". Hence the title of Chan's lecture yesterday - "The Perplexing and Complex Enigma of Mugabe: Rightly Atrocious or Atrociously Right?"
But if Mugabe is an enigma, so is the 58-year-old Chan. Born in New Zealand to immigrant parents, he rose to fame in the 60s and early 70s as a student activist. He was president of the Auckland University Students Association in 1973 and editor of Craccum in 1971. Of his many protest efforts, the storming of the American Consulate for a sit-in in 1969 is one of the more memorable - the event required synchronisation of the building's lifts so 33 protesters could storm the premises at the same time.
The same year he stood as an independent Labour candidate in New Lynn. He was at university with Helen Clark and Phil Goff and while he admires Helen as "one of the best prime ministers in the world", their political path was not for him.
"By God, they were straight down the line - I didn't want to be like that."
After university he edited the arts newspaper New Argot and, in 1975, the weekly newspaper City News. He also battled the literary establishment of the day, negotiating a place for avant-garde, beat generation poetry among guru figures like James K. Baxter and the "controlled and polished" Karl Stead. "A great deal of the ethos was to try and introduce at least a little bit of anarchy into the whole proceedings." And then, in 1976, the poetry-writing activist with anarchist leanings and a brown belt in karate left, vowing to stay away for at least 10 years.
Was he angry with New Zealand? "Angry is too strong a word. I was a little bit pissed off - frustrated perhaps," says Chan on the phone from London. "I was frustrated that it had been relatively easy to do a very great deal in a short space of time - what I was looking for when I went overseas was to find harder tests."
Which is what he did, gaining another MA and a PhD in London and then making a career out of Africa - first as civil servant with the Commonwealth Secretariat, then in a variety of academic and advisory posts in Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In preparation for this trip Chan weighed the pluses and minuses of an eventual New Zealand return.
"I think I'm going to stay out. I'll come back without the ambivalence of the past - I think I have grown out of that now."
Not that he doesn't have feelings for the place. When the All Blacks crashed out the Rugby World Cup he watched the game in South Africa and had to retire to his room with a bottle of whisky. And when he saw Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - in Croatia where his wife, Ranka, is from - the landscape got to him. " It was beautiful and really nostalgic. I got very sentimental and people wondered why this mad Chinese person was blubbering in the middle of a Zagreb cinema."
But Chan cannot live on good scenery alone. "I like going to great orchestras of the world and being involved with great philosophical debates." He likes the intellectual and cultural life he now has: Europe on his doorstep, 100 universities he can "dip in and out of" and the ability to engage with the life of emerging nations in Africa.
"I don't identify myself as a New Zealander. I'm grateful for what it gave me but I see myself far more these days as a cosmopolitan type." Despite his quietly-spoken, cultured British tones, Chan doesn't see himself as particularly British either. But he does admit to European tendencies - strongly advocating the European Union as vital for the international relations of tomorrow. His Chinese heritage is problematic too.
"I certainly see myself as Oriental - when you look like me you can't get away from that." But at a recent meeting in Beijing he overheard his host describe him as "sort of Chinese".
A strange hybrid. It's a phrase Chan uses to describe the work he does - like the tripartite talks between Africa, America and China - "an interesting cocktail". He was with the African delegation - "the chemistry is a fun gig". The Americans - "scared shitless about how much power Chinese might have in the future" - thought he ran the Africans, something, he hastens to add, isn't true. The Chinese used him as an avenue to sweet talk the Americans, and the Africans - many of whom were Chan's friends - were quietly amused. "They're enjoying it, because finally they get to play one off against the other - so they've actually got some muscle to flex."
CHAN has been a Mugabe watcher for some time. One of his books, Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence, published in 2003, chronicles the path of the freedom fighter turned despot. " ... if before it had been possible to speak both well and ill of Mugabe, after the 2000 election it was possible to speak only overwhelmingly ill of him. Complexly bad - not mad - but complexly bad."
In 1980, as a civil servant with the Commonwealth Secretariat, he was part of reconnaissance team sent to what was then Rhodesia to oversee its transition to independence. But while Chan has a long involvement in Zimbabwe, he has never actually met Mugabe.
"I think he knows who I am - I'm told my book was hand-delivered to him and to every member of his politburo but we have never actually exchanged greetings and I'm not really sure that I'd want to right now."
Chan says Mugabe sees himself as a Chairman Mao-like figure who wants to go down in history as a great pioneer of nationalism and who regards the hardship he's caused as something that will eventually bottom out.
"This is very much the case where the grand vision causes so much chaos and so much hurt and hardship to his people that the vision isn't worth it and I don't think it is, quite frankly."
But while Mugabe's farm invasions have been a disaster, what may play out over the coming months to allow the aging megalomaniac a dignified exit is going to cause more outrage.
Chan expects an announcement at the coming African-European summit in December to signal the beginning of the end for Mugabe.
He says a formula has already been brokered by South Africa which will allow for the four million-plus Zimbabweans in exile to vote at the next elections in March. There are also plans for changes to public order legislation and how the vote should be conducted - vital because previous elections were widely viewed as rigged. Chan says the South Africans are hoping they can twist Mugabe's arm enough to make him play along.
"Despite all his tactical brilliance he is running out of options," he says, noting Mugabe is being treated for cancer. "Not even the great Mugabe is immortal."
The bargaining point is what "basket of immunities" Mugabe might be granted. Chan says behind-the-scenes lobbying is under way not to pursue calls to have Mugabe indicted before the Hague for crimes against humanity.
"Most of the people [in Zimbabwe] are struggling to survive - all they want is for an end to this nightmare." Getting their lives back on track in exchange for Mugabe getting to live out the rest of his life in his palatial retirement home is a price Chan claims many are prepared to tolerate.
The scenario he paints is Mugabe winning the election then "going out in a blaze of glory" by handing over to a successor and retiring to a package. His party - the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front - would still be in power, but the new president would magnanimously bring opposition parties such as the Movement for Democratic Change into coalition. "If opposition parties and Mugabe's own party come to an agreement about what they are prepared to tolerate, that's probably about as good as you're going to get."
Chan agrees it's an unsavoury and cynically pragmatic solution. With South Africa in the driving seat, Zimbabwe will, at least, get infrastructural reinvestment it so desperately needs. "In the long run South Africa will be the major beneficiary - they are going to wind up owning Zimbabwe, their engineers and infrastructural experts will lead the way in investment."
As for Mugabe's legacy, Chan says that will be left to history.
Today, Chan still writes poetry and is an 8th dan in Shorin ryu karate and similarly seriously graded in several other martial art forms. He regularly teaches his skills for free to poorer communities in Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Whenever he goes to Zimbabwe, he's aware of being monitored, but he says he'll be there next year. "It would be being untrue to not go back - I'm quite determined, having played a small part in his [Mugabe] getting to power in the first place, that I'm bloody well going to be there when the man goes."
Stephen Chan lectures at Auckland University on October 30 and November 1 - more information at www.auckland.ac.nz.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=467&objectid=10472411&pnum=0
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Unearthed - first supermarket
5:00AM Saturday October 06, 2007
By Mathew Dearnaley
Project archaeologist Dr Hans Bader with pieces of 19th century Chinese pottery that were unearthed in the remains of an old house at Carlaw Park. Photo / Martin Sykes
Archaeologists have unearthed remains in Auckland's Carlaw Park of the house of a Chinese market-gardener believed to be an ancestor of Foodtown supermarkets co-founder Tom Ah Chee.
"You could say we are standing in Auckland's first Foodtown," archeological consultant Hans Bader said yesterday, at the site he is excavating for developers of the former league ground.
A man called Ah Chee is recorded on Government land registry records as having leased the site in 1882, and a map drawn 14 years later shows several buildings, including what is believed to be his original home.
Tom Ah Chee, who died in 2000 aged 72, built the first Foodtown supermarket in 1958 with business partners Norm Kent and John Brown.
Dr Bader and his team have unearthed a brick courtyard and fireplace on the site of the house, and have assembled what he says is potentially the largest collection of Chinese ceramic remains found in Auckland from the late 19th century.
These include fragments of vases and crockery, bearing what National MP Pansy Wong said was "very old-style Chinese writing".
Pieces of European crockery have been found, and hoes and a digging fork likely to have been used in the original Mr Ah Chee's adjoining gardens at the southeastern end of Carlaw Park.
After Mr Ah Chee moved to Parnell, the site, which previously supported an 1840s-era flour mill, remained a food-bowl for Aucklanders until being turned into the home of Auckland rugby league in 1919.
Dr Bader said the gardens were surrounded by New Zealand's most heavily-industrialised area of the time, its neighbours including a foundry, sheepyards and a rope-making factory.
Auckland Rugby League has retained half the Carlaw Park site for a retirement village and has sold the other half, where the historical remains have been found, for a mixed-use development of offices, shops and a hotel and car-parking building.
Although the Ah Chee building remnants would have to be removed, they would be thoroughly catalogued for reports required by the Historical Places Trust as a condition of modifying an archeological site.
Mrs Wong said she hoped Auckland Chinese could offer more information about the site, and she would try to contact descendants of Mr Ah Chee, who may even have photographs of his house.
Visit the site open days, October 13 and 14
By Mathew Dearnaley
Project archaeologist Dr Hans Bader with pieces of 19th century Chinese pottery that were unearthed in the remains of an old house at Carlaw Park. Photo / Martin Sykes
Archaeologists have unearthed remains in Auckland's Carlaw Park of the house of a Chinese market-gardener believed to be an ancestor of Foodtown supermarkets co-founder Tom Ah Chee.
"You could say we are standing in Auckland's first Foodtown," archeological consultant Hans Bader said yesterday, at the site he is excavating for developers of the former league ground.
A man called Ah Chee is recorded on Government land registry records as having leased the site in 1882, and a map drawn 14 years later shows several buildings, including what is believed to be his original home.
Tom Ah Chee, who died in 2000 aged 72, built the first Foodtown supermarket in 1958 with business partners Norm Kent and John Brown.
Dr Bader and his team have unearthed a brick courtyard and fireplace on the site of the house, and have assembled what he says is potentially the largest collection of Chinese ceramic remains found in Auckland from the late 19th century.
These include fragments of vases and crockery, bearing what National MP Pansy Wong said was "very old-style Chinese writing".
Pieces of European crockery have been found, and hoes and a digging fork likely to have been used in the original Mr Ah Chee's adjoining gardens at the southeastern end of Carlaw Park.
After Mr Ah Chee moved to Parnell, the site, which previously supported an 1840s-era flour mill, remained a food-bowl for Aucklanders until being turned into the home of Auckland rugby league in 1919.
Dr Bader said the gardens were surrounded by New Zealand's most heavily-industrialised area of the time, its neighbours including a foundry, sheepyards and a rope-making factory.
Auckland Rugby League has retained half the Carlaw Park site for a retirement village and has sold the other half, where the historical remains have been found, for a mixed-use development of offices, shops and a hotel and car-parking building.
Although the Ah Chee building remnants would have to be removed, they would be thoroughly catalogued for reports required by the Historical Places Trust as a condition of modifying an archeological site.
Mrs Wong said she hoped Auckland Chinese could offer more information about the site, and she would try to contact descendants of Mr Ah Chee, who may even have photographs of his house.
Visit the site open days, October 13 and 14
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Ride With The Devil,
:00AM Wednesday September 05, 2007By Francis Grant
The Auckland tribe known as central-city office workers might like to take a look at new Kiwi drama Ride With The Devil (last night, TV2, 11pm), if only for the nostalgia.
There was a time when Queen St was not a bombsite packed with earth-moving machinery, demolished buildings, plastic pedestrian barriers and ringing with the soothing sound of pneumatic drills.
Once upon a time, the premier street in the nation's leading city offered easy access to its wealth of American coffee franchises and $2 shops. Yes, it was a vibrant strip, also home to that other tribe, the boy racers, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights.
Ride With The Devil captures Queen St in all its bogan, late-night glory and gets instant merit points for surely being the worst nightmare of mayoral candidate and anti-hoon campaigner John Banks (anti-hooning on tarmac, at least - the high seas and jetskis being another matter).
Apart from that obvious appeal, this is a minority drama, reflected in its unfriendly time slot, although you'd think the audience for grunty cars and fast chicks might actually be out indulging in their passions at the time of screening.
Those of us tucked up with our cocoa can experience the vicarious thrill: you can fairly smell the testosterone, the petrol fumes, the smoking rubber. And then there's the acrid odour of all those expletives burning up the script, which is probably the prime reason for that night-owl time slot.
The show is billed as fast-paced and high-octane and it's certainly that. So much so that protagonist Lin (Andy Wong), a performance-car-crazy Chinese student, had the Kiwi accent even before he stepped on the plane to New Zealand from Beijing.
The chrome and mags-mad Lin isn't too fussed on business school and all that droning on about equity, management practice and human resources. Within seconds of arrival, it seems, he's found the late-night petrol-head scene and sold his soul to the man who can make his hot, throbbing car dreams come true, an ex-con called Kurt (Xavier Horan).
Ride With The Devil is also being hailed as the first local drama to feature an Asian lead character, although Lin and his cousin Amy (Caleigh Chung) - a paragon of demure Chinese studiousness by day, skanky ho' and driver of a mean machine named "Ikandi" by night - aren't terribly believable characters. Still, improbability is a small price to pay for a valiant attempt at breaking cultural stereotypes. Shame the giggling Maori mobile phone shop owner and the Polynesian rap dude aren't so lucky.
It's not clear yet who the Devil of the title is, although Amy could be a contender.
She's a devil who embraces diversity, however: her gang of slags include a blonde, brunette and a brown babe. Other candidates are Kurt's controlling policewoman sister and those South Auckland loan sharks circling round his struggling car-modification business. And as former local soap watchers know, it wouldn't pay to rule out mum, played by former Shortland Street dragon-lady Lynette Forday.
Speaking of whom, there's another cultural subtribe being well served by this drama: the cache of former Shorty stars it's let back out on the streets.
The Auckland tribe known as central-city office workers might like to take a look at new Kiwi drama Ride With The Devil (last night, TV2, 11pm), if only for the nostalgia.
There was a time when Queen St was not a bombsite packed with earth-moving machinery, demolished buildings, plastic pedestrian barriers and ringing with the soothing sound of pneumatic drills.
Once upon a time, the premier street in the nation's leading city offered easy access to its wealth of American coffee franchises and $2 shops. Yes, it was a vibrant strip, also home to that other tribe, the boy racers, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights.
Ride With The Devil captures Queen St in all its bogan, late-night glory and gets instant merit points for surely being the worst nightmare of mayoral candidate and anti-hoon campaigner John Banks (anti-hooning on tarmac, at least - the high seas and jetskis being another matter).
Apart from that obvious appeal, this is a minority drama, reflected in its unfriendly time slot, although you'd think the audience for grunty cars and fast chicks might actually be out indulging in their passions at the time of screening.
Those of us tucked up with our cocoa can experience the vicarious thrill: you can fairly smell the testosterone, the petrol fumes, the smoking rubber. And then there's the acrid odour of all those expletives burning up the script, which is probably the prime reason for that night-owl time slot.
The show is billed as fast-paced and high-octane and it's certainly that. So much so that protagonist Lin (Andy Wong), a performance-car-crazy Chinese student, had the Kiwi accent even before he stepped on the plane to New Zealand from Beijing.
The chrome and mags-mad Lin isn't too fussed on business school and all that droning on about equity, management practice and human resources. Within seconds of arrival, it seems, he's found the late-night petrol-head scene and sold his soul to the man who can make his hot, throbbing car dreams come true, an ex-con called Kurt (Xavier Horan).
Ride With The Devil is also being hailed as the first local drama to feature an Asian lead character, although Lin and his cousin Amy (Caleigh Chung) - a paragon of demure Chinese studiousness by day, skanky ho' and driver of a mean machine named "Ikandi" by night - aren't terribly believable characters. Still, improbability is a small price to pay for a valiant attempt at breaking cultural stereotypes. Shame the giggling Maori mobile phone shop owner and the Polynesian rap dude aren't so lucky.
It's not clear yet who the Devil of the title is, although Amy could be a contender.
She's a devil who embraces diversity, however: her gang of slags include a blonde, brunette and a brown babe. Other candidates are Kurt's controlling policewoman sister and those South Auckland loan sharks circling round his struggling car-modification business. And as former local soap watchers know, it wouldn't pay to rule out mum, played by former Shortland Street dragon-lady Lynette Forday.
Speaking of whom, there's another cultural subtribe being well served by this drama: the cache of former Shorty stars it's let back out on the streets.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
A menace on the road, gripping on the screen
:00AM Monday September 03, 2007By Lincoln Tan
I normally try to have little to do with boy racers. Perhaps it was because the first time I experienced the death of a friend, it was due to street racing.
A mate took up a challenge to race from another group while we were having supper at the esplanade in Malacca, and that was the last time I saw him alive. It happened almost 25 years ago, but I still find it hard to erase the image of my friend's lifeless, bloodied body lying on the side of the road after the crash.
Since then, my job as a journalist notwithstanding, I would try to avoid anything to do with street racing.
My experience with boy racers in New Zealand hasn't been very pleasant either. In 2003, following a crash in Christchurch involving boy racers which seriously injured four Thai boys, my role at the Asian Youth Trust there took me to the streets to talk to some of the other Asian kids in the street racing circle who were supposed to be friends of these boys.
But instead of showing concern for the crash victims, all they cared about was how to get around the law if the same thing happened to them. And they were boasting about how much more "invincible" their own Subaru WRXs and souped-up Toyota Starlets were compared with the cars the Thai boys were driving.
Probably the combination of youth and sniffing too much petrol fumes have contributed to giving this lot of petrolheads a false sense of immortality. Any mention I made to them to consider the possibility of giving up racing on the streets was greeted with the finger salute and the request to f-off. "We have the car, we have the power," one of them said.
When Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove started a campaign to call for tougher laws against boy racers, I was therefore not at all surprised that the reaction from these hoons was a death threat.
"If you see him on the road, he should be killed," a posting on a website started by a group of boy racers said. For the really hard core racers, no law can ever be tough enough to keep them off the streets.
Some of the recalcitrant ones I spoke to saw their brushes with the law and police as badges of courage collected en route to becoming king of the road.
The only way to stop them is to take away their toys when they break the law, which is why I would support Cosgrove's move to give police and judges more power to impound vehicles.
Maybe he should even take it a step further, and do it LA-style, where the cars of young hoons who break road laws are not only confiscated, but crushed.
So I wasn't exactly thrilled when an email from the publicist of a new local drama about a young Asian student and Auckland's street racing culture landed in my inbox last week. Neither was I jumping with excitement when he dropped off the DVDs of the series.
But, I had been engaged as the cultural adviser for the series and was involved during the scripting stages of Ride with the Devil, so I thought it was just right for me to watch the end product.
I wanted to just put it on, watch a little, fast-forward the rest and then email the publicist and producer that I had seen the series. But 10 minutes into episode one and it gripped me, so much I couldn't stop watching till I had finished all six discs.
To be honest, when I had been told by the series producer Rachel Jean at the start that local Asian actors were to form the core cast, I didn't think she'd be able to pull it off.
But I thought all three, Andy Wong, who plays Lin Jin, an international student and boy racer from Beijing, Lynette Forday who plays his aunt and Caleigh Cheung as her daughter Amy put up sterling performances in the series.
The drama's totally politically incorrect portrayal of the world of international students and street racers made the series seem real, almost. Heck, they didn't even get the spelling of my name right in the credits.
Ride with the Devil is controversial, but in a good way. I think Rachel is right to say that Ride with the Devil will help provoke the kind of dialogue we need to understand the changing face of our nation.
The series starts tomorrow on TV2 - pity about the 11pm time slot though. lincoln@iballmedia.co.nz
I normally try to have little to do with boy racers. Perhaps it was because the first time I experienced the death of a friend, it was due to street racing.
A mate took up a challenge to race from another group while we were having supper at the esplanade in Malacca, and that was the last time I saw him alive. It happened almost 25 years ago, but I still find it hard to erase the image of my friend's lifeless, bloodied body lying on the side of the road after the crash.
Since then, my job as a journalist notwithstanding, I would try to avoid anything to do with street racing.
My experience with boy racers in New Zealand hasn't been very pleasant either. In 2003, following a crash in Christchurch involving boy racers which seriously injured four Thai boys, my role at the Asian Youth Trust there took me to the streets to talk to some of the other Asian kids in the street racing circle who were supposed to be friends of these boys.
But instead of showing concern for the crash victims, all they cared about was how to get around the law if the same thing happened to them. And they were boasting about how much more "invincible" their own Subaru WRXs and souped-up Toyota Starlets were compared with the cars the Thai boys were driving.
Probably the combination of youth and sniffing too much petrol fumes have contributed to giving this lot of petrolheads a false sense of immortality. Any mention I made to them to consider the possibility of giving up racing on the streets was greeted with the finger salute and the request to f-off. "We have the car, we have the power," one of them said.
When Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove started a campaign to call for tougher laws against boy racers, I was therefore not at all surprised that the reaction from these hoons was a death threat.
"If you see him on the road, he should be killed," a posting on a website started by a group of boy racers said. For the really hard core racers, no law can ever be tough enough to keep them off the streets.
Some of the recalcitrant ones I spoke to saw their brushes with the law and police as badges of courage collected en route to becoming king of the road.
The only way to stop them is to take away their toys when they break the law, which is why I would support Cosgrove's move to give police and judges more power to impound vehicles.
Maybe he should even take it a step further, and do it LA-style, where the cars of young hoons who break road laws are not only confiscated, but crushed.
So I wasn't exactly thrilled when an email from the publicist of a new local drama about a young Asian student and Auckland's street racing culture landed in my inbox last week. Neither was I jumping with excitement when he dropped off the DVDs of the series.
But, I had been engaged as the cultural adviser for the series and was involved during the scripting stages of Ride with the Devil, so I thought it was just right for me to watch the end product.
I wanted to just put it on, watch a little, fast-forward the rest and then email the publicist and producer that I had seen the series. But 10 minutes into episode one and it gripped me, so much I couldn't stop watching till I had finished all six discs.
To be honest, when I had been told by the series producer Rachel Jean at the start that local Asian actors were to form the core cast, I didn't think she'd be able to pull it off.
But I thought all three, Andy Wong, who plays Lin Jin, an international student and boy racer from Beijing, Lynette Forday who plays his aunt and Caleigh Cheung as her daughter Amy put up sterling performances in the series.
The drama's totally politically incorrect portrayal of the world of international students and street racers made the series seem real, almost. Heck, they didn't even get the spelling of my name right in the credits.
Ride with the Devil is controversial, but in a good way. I think Rachel is right to say that Ride with the Devil will help provoke the kind of dialogue we need to understand the changing face of our nation.
The series starts tomorrow on TV2 - pity about the 11pm time slot though. lincoln@iballmedia.co.nz
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Rebuilding China Town at Lawrence
The Press Saturday, 12 May 2007
These days, Lawrence is happy to celebrate its early Chinese residents, but it wasn't always that way in the South Otago goldrush town.
Lawrence is to get a pig oven.
That may not sound a big deal, but residents of the South Otago town are pleased. Some have donated bricks made at the local brickworks in the 1800s to build it.
Plans have been prepared, based on a pig oven at the Ashburton market garden where Dr James Ng grew up.
Ng is a Dunedin historian and author of Chinese descent. He is chairman of a charitable trust that plans to rebuild the China Town that stood at the western edge of Lawrence during the gold era.
The pig oven will replace one believed to have stood at the rear of the Chinese settlement, where the land slopes down to the Tuapeka Stream.
The settlement contained hotels, stores and cafes where Chinese miners, who lived and scavenged for gold in the Tuapeka hills, would come for meals and companionship. Chinese butchers would submerge a whole pig in the brick oven, which was like a large bread oven with a fire underneath.
Lawrence is proud of its China Town. People like the idea of it being rebuilt and becoming a tourist attraction. But feelings were not always so positive. Through the 1860s and '70s, Europeans deplored the alien settlement.
Diggers engulfed the Tuapeka area in 1861, after prospector Gabriel Read dug his shovel into earth and found grains of gold "shining like the stars of Orion in a dark sky". More finds were quickly reported farther up in Central Otago, luring many diggers away in the hope of easier pickings. The Otago goldrush was on.
Chinese miners arrived at Lawrence from 1866. Most were content to stay and rework the previous diggings. Almost immediately, racism reared its ugly head. The Chinese were banned from Lawrence and forced to set up camp outside the town limits.
Local newspaper The Tuapeka Times branded the Chinese settlement "a nest of Chinese putrefaction" and its inhabitants "a filth-begrimed, opium-besotted horde of Mongolian monstrosities".
However, by the 1880s Europeans were more accepting of the Chinese. Many even visited the settlement socially and on business. Sam Chew Lain's wise leadership of the Chinese community and positive involvement in the wider business scene did much to break down barriers. His Chinese Empire Hotel is the only building remaining, although a former joss house (social and cultural centre) that was moved into Lawrence still stands.
Lain was respected by all. His stature is reflected in a gaunt concrete mausoleum that dominates the main part of Lawrence's hillside cemetery. From its lofty position it gazes down on a shady gully at one end of the cemetery where remnants of the rude graves of Lain's countrymen can be seen.
They lived apart; they lie apart.
The Chinese section of the cemetery was lost in long grass and brambles when I lived in Lawrence, in the early '70s. Now it has been cleared, revealing about 20 stone plaques inscribed with Chinese characters. Some have collapsed, others tilt at crazy angles. Simple wooden headstones have rotted into the ground.
Chris Jacomb, of Otago University's anthropology department, is jointly leading archaeological excavations of the Chinese settlement for clues to the sites of buildings, streets, wells and drains. Three major digs and scanning with a magnetic flux machine, which Jacomb describes as "like a fancy metal detector", have uncovered a large amount of material. The findings, matched to an 1882 map and old photographs, indicate that 30 to 40 buildings once stood along well-formed streets.
The information gained will help the trust build an authentic recreation of the camp.
Plans include a tourist hotel nearby. Ng is confident the site will attract visitors, especially Chinese travellers, to what was New Zealand's largest Chinese settlement.
The last resident of the settlement died in 1945. Old-timers remember the area about then as an abandoned cluster of decaying wooden buildings. By the 1970s, all signs of it, except the brick Empire Hotel, had vanished. Sheep grazed on the grassy site.
People were aware of the former settlement beside the road that leads "up Central", but Lawrence had other problems and few could afford to bother about its history.
Lawrence's problems were evident in a main street of empty shops and banks, of deserted railway sheds, of government buildings no-one wanted, of grand homes falling into disrepair on unkempt sections.
The town had grown too big, too quickly. Dismantling of gold-sluicing systems from early last century signalled a long, slow decline.
But you can't keep a beautiful town like Lawrence down. New enterprises and an increased awareness of heritage have sparked a resurgence.
Cleaning up the cemetery was a start. Restoring Anthem House, home of God Defend New Zealand composer John Woods, was another step. Recreation of the Chinese settlement will be the biggest boost.
Mike Crean has been travelling the South Island for decades, and is the journalist behind the long running Crean's Country series published in The Press
These days, Lawrence is happy to celebrate its early Chinese residents, but it wasn't always that way in the South Otago goldrush town.
Lawrence is to get a pig oven.
That may not sound a big deal, but residents of the South Otago town are pleased. Some have donated bricks made at the local brickworks in the 1800s to build it.
Plans have been prepared, based on a pig oven at the Ashburton market garden where Dr James Ng grew up.
Ng is a Dunedin historian and author of Chinese descent. He is chairman of a charitable trust that plans to rebuild the China Town that stood at the western edge of Lawrence during the gold era.
The pig oven will replace one believed to have stood at the rear of the Chinese settlement, where the land slopes down to the Tuapeka Stream.
The settlement contained hotels, stores and cafes where Chinese miners, who lived and scavenged for gold in the Tuapeka hills, would come for meals and companionship. Chinese butchers would submerge a whole pig in the brick oven, which was like a large bread oven with a fire underneath.
Lawrence is proud of its China Town. People like the idea of it being rebuilt and becoming a tourist attraction. But feelings were not always so positive. Through the 1860s and '70s, Europeans deplored the alien settlement.
Diggers engulfed the Tuapeka area in 1861, after prospector Gabriel Read dug his shovel into earth and found grains of gold "shining like the stars of Orion in a dark sky". More finds were quickly reported farther up in Central Otago, luring many diggers away in the hope of easier pickings. The Otago goldrush was on.
Chinese miners arrived at Lawrence from 1866. Most were content to stay and rework the previous diggings. Almost immediately, racism reared its ugly head. The Chinese were banned from Lawrence and forced to set up camp outside the town limits.
Local newspaper The Tuapeka Times branded the Chinese settlement "a nest of Chinese putrefaction" and its inhabitants "a filth-begrimed, opium-besotted horde of Mongolian monstrosities".
However, by the 1880s Europeans were more accepting of the Chinese. Many even visited the settlement socially and on business. Sam Chew Lain's wise leadership of the Chinese community and positive involvement in the wider business scene did much to break down barriers. His Chinese Empire Hotel is the only building remaining, although a former joss house (social and cultural centre) that was moved into Lawrence still stands.
Lain was respected by all. His stature is reflected in a gaunt concrete mausoleum that dominates the main part of Lawrence's hillside cemetery. From its lofty position it gazes down on a shady gully at one end of the cemetery where remnants of the rude graves of Lain's countrymen can be seen.
They lived apart; they lie apart.
The Chinese section of the cemetery was lost in long grass and brambles when I lived in Lawrence, in the early '70s. Now it has been cleared, revealing about 20 stone plaques inscribed with Chinese characters. Some have collapsed, others tilt at crazy angles. Simple wooden headstones have rotted into the ground.
Chris Jacomb, of Otago University's anthropology department, is jointly leading archaeological excavations of the Chinese settlement for clues to the sites of buildings, streets, wells and drains. Three major digs and scanning with a magnetic flux machine, which Jacomb describes as "like a fancy metal detector", have uncovered a large amount of material. The findings, matched to an 1882 map and old photographs, indicate that 30 to 40 buildings once stood along well-formed streets.
The information gained will help the trust build an authentic recreation of the camp.
Plans include a tourist hotel nearby. Ng is confident the site will attract visitors, especially Chinese travellers, to what was New Zealand's largest Chinese settlement.
The last resident of the settlement died in 1945. Old-timers remember the area about then as an abandoned cluster of decaying wooden buildings. By the 1970s, all signs of it, except the brick Empire Hotel, had vanished. Sheep grazed on the grassy site.
People were aware of the former settlement beside the road that leads "up Central", but Lawrence had other problems and few could afford to bother about its history.
Lawrence's problems were evident in a main street of empty shops and banks, of deserted railway sheds, of government buildings no-one wanted, of grand homes falling into disrepair on unkempt sections.
The town had grown too big, too quickly. Dismantling of gold-sluicing systems from early last century signalled a long, slow decline.
But you can't keep a beautiful town like Lawrence down. New enterprises and an increased awareness of heritage have sparked a resurgence.
Cleaning up the cemetery was a start. Restoring Anthem House, home of God Defend New Zealand composer John Woods, was another step. Recreation of the Chinese settlement will be the biggest boost.
Mike Crean has been travelling the South Island for decades, and is the journalist behind the long running Crean's Country series published in The Press
Friday, August 31, 2007
Bananas Conference Short Story competition
http://www.goingbananas.org.nz/story_competition.php
The Organising Committee wish to thank those persons from throughour New Zealand who submitted
a total of 40 entries for our NZCA / The Listener Short Story Competition held in conjunction with the
Bananas NZ Going Global International Conference.
Our panel of three eminent and experienced judges announced the winning entries at the conference as follows:-
Overall Winner and First Prize of $1,000 "The Stove" by Renee Liang of Auckland
Joint Runnersup with Prizes of $250 each "Astray" by Chris Tse of Lower Hutt
"Peas" by Suzanne Gee of Auckland
"Predicting the Weather" by Christine Chan-Hyams of Wellington
New Zealand Chinese Association (Auckland Branch) Inc and The Listener wish to congratulate all the above authors for their excellent winning entries. These are hereby available to download for your reading pleasure.Click to download :
The Stove
Astray
Peas
Predicting the Weather
The Organising Committee wish to thank those persons from throughour New Zealand who submitted
a total of 40 entries for our NZCA / The Listener Short Story Competition held in conjunction with the
Bananas NZ Going Global International Conference.
Our panel of three eminent and experienced judges announced the winning entries at the conference as follows:-
Overall Winner and First Prize of $1,000 "The Stove" by Renee Liang of Auckland
Joint Runnersup with Prizes of $250 each "Astray" by Chris Tse of Lower Hutt
"Peas" by Suzanne Gee of Auckland
"Predicting the Weather" by Christine Chan-Hyams of Wellington
New Zealand Chinese Association (Auckland Branch) Inc and The Listener wish to congratulate all the above authors for their excellent winning entries. These are hereby available to download for your reading pleasure.Click to download :
The Stove
Astray
Peas
Predicting the Weather
Monday, August 20, 2007
Laundry Warrior,
The Dominion Post Monday, 20 August 2007
Kiwi actors and extras with a knack for martial arts, kick-boxing, acrobatics and gymnastics are being sought for a joint Korean and American big-budget action movie to be shot in New Zealand this year.
The film, Laundry Warrior, will star leading Chinese actress Ziyi Zhang, best known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Memoirs of a Geisha, and Don-Gun Jang from Korea. The two are regarded as Asian cinema's Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The producers include American Barrie Osborne, best known for producing Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. The film mixes fantasy and martial arts and is set in the pioneer days of the American West.
An e-mail from Auckland agency Kam Talent Management said the actors and extras of all nationalities would be needed between October and December for the film.
The agency was also seeking unusual looking people, jugglers, fire- eaters, dwarfs and stilt walkers for circus scenes.
The film is likely to be shot in Auckland at Henderson Valley Studios, which has New Zealand's largest sound stage.
Kiwi actors and extras with a knack for martial arts, kick-boxing, acrobatics and gymnastics are being sought for a joint Korean and American big-budget action movie to be shot in New Zealand this year.
The film, Laundry Warrior, will star leading Chinese actress Ziyi Zhang, best known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Memoirs of a Geisha, and Don-Gun Jang from Korea. The two are regarded as Asian cinema's Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The producers include American Barrie Osborne, best known for producing Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. The film mixes fantasy and martial arts and is set in the pioneer days of the American West.
An e-mail from Auckland agency Kam Talent Management said the actors and extras of all nationalities would be needed between October and December for the film.
The agency was also seeking unusual looking people, jugglers, fire- eaters, dwarfs and stilt walkers for circus scenes.
The film is likely to be shot in Auckland at Henderson Valley Studios, which has New Zealand's largest sound stage.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Frank Chin - Bananas Conference Auckland
GUIDE TO THE
FRANK CHIN PAPERS
1940-2001
Collection Number: Wyles, MSS 103.
Size Collection: 67.2 linear feet (112 Document Boxes; 3 oversize containers; located in Del Norte oversize rack).
Acquisition Information: Acquired from Frank Chin, 2003.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Frank Chin is a UCSB graduate (1965) and is widely recognized as the most influential Asian American dramatist and writer (novels, short stories, essays) in the country. He is one of a handful of top literary figures in Asian American literary and cultural communities, and he is distinguished as being the first Asian American playwright produced in New York City. He founded the Asian American Theater Workshop in San Francisco which later evolved into the Asian American Theater Company (AATC). In discussing the value of the papers, Chin remarked, "I hope that my collection of research, letters and experimental manuscripts will stimulate a more traditional study of Asian American literature, beginning with an introduction to the Asian children's stories shared by China, Korea, and Japan since pre-historic times, and the "vernacular novels" developed to spread Chinese heroic tradition of the Ming, as a conscious expression of the myth of civilization throughout Asia.” “By making my papers available to the public, I hope that my efforts to treat knowledge of Asia and America as equally important will be seen and used.”
Born February 25, 1940, Frank Chin describes himself as a fifth generation Chinaman. His great-grandfather helped build the Southern Pacific Railroad and his grandmother was a steward. He worked as a brakeman for the line before he began writing. Frank Chin’s work broke new ground in the exploration of Chinese and Chinese American mythology, iconography and cultural misconception. At a time when most writers and scholars were merely examining the way that Chinese Americans experienced stereotypes, Frank Chin was confronting and destroying the perceived foundations from which those stereotypes evolved. In 1975 Frank Chin described his efforts as an activist for Chinese-American identity to Stanley Eichelbaum for the San Francisco Examiner, to fight what he described as “anti-yellow, love-em to death and extinction racism”, which he believed was still widely practiced here in the United States. “Not Chink-hating racism but a more subtle form that deprives us of identity and locks up our seven generations of history and culture in America.”
Growing up in Oakland California, Chin attended UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara and joined the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa. He is both prolific and varied in his output, having produced documentaries, written novels, short stories, comic books, essays, plays and Hollywood scripts, as well as teaching classes in Asian American literature. Chin co-edited one of the marquee Asian American Anthologies entitled Aiiieeeee!, published in 1974, and a second volume entitled, The Big Aiiieeeee!, published in 1991. Among Frank Chin’s many contributions to Asian American literature and Asian American literature studies, is his tireless effort to fight against the emasculation of the Asian and Asian American male identity. In a letter to Margaret Chew for her term paper for Holy Family Academy, Chin clearly defines his views on his own writing and his views on cultural identity.
“My ideas on Asian America aren’t radical. What makes my ideas seem radical is that they are no longer popular. Whites wiped out the Chinese truth about China. The radical new idea is the current popular one about Chinese culture being passive, humble, docile, non assertive. That’s all bullshit. In schematic, here’s the old, the traditional, the classical vision of Chinese America.”
Chin believed, and continues to believe, that the cultural identities of the “Confucian” Chinese man or the serene and peaceful “oriental mind” are externally produced stereotypes, first introduced by white observers as a way to further dehumanize that which they could not understand. Because of his efforts, he has been criticized by many scholars as being misogynistic or homophobic, claims which Chin has boldly and outspokenly confronted in many of his writings, earning him notoriety and grudging respect. In Gunga Din Highway (1994), Chin articulates a visionary rejection of centuries of Chinese emasculation through stereotype, by presenting protagonists who identify with the warrior spirit of legendary Chinese figures such as Kwan Kung. It is no small sign of his prescience that his ideas are becoming more widely accepted in the modern American popular culture.
http://cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu/chin_frank_toc.html
Chinese channel's eye on language buffs
5:00AM Tuesday August 14, 2007By Maggie McNaughton
World TV chief Henry Ho hopes Auckland's 100,000 Chinese people will tune in every day. Photo / Martin Sykes
New Zealand's first free-to-air, 24-hour Chinese television channel, CTV8, hopes to attract viewers wanting to learn Mandarin as well as local Chinese people.
The channel, which went to air on August 1, was officially launched in Auckland yesterday.
It broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese and is available in the greater Auckland region, featuring variety shows, dramas, documentaries and news.
World TV chief executive Henry Ho said yesterday that although the channel was UHF at present, it had plans to broadcast digitally next year through telecommunications company Kordia.
Mr Ho had been surprised at the interest from non-Mandarin speakers in the channel's breakfast show.
"We have Kiwis phoning in to the breakfast show saying they enjoy the channel. They say they are learning Mandarin and this helps them learn quicker, which is quite unexpected."
World TV broadcasts 10 Asian television channels through Sky. CTV8 is available on channel 62 but is so named because it is World TV's eighth Chinese channel.
Mr Ho said it would give people who didn't have pay TV a chance to view Chinese programmes.
He said 30 per cent of the content would be locally produced.
He hoped it would satisfy the demands of the Chinese community and appeal to New Zealanders learning Chinese.
He said 7 per cent of Auckland's population was Chinese, which amounted to around 100,000 people, and he hoped all those people would tune in every day.
Media research group AGB Nielsen said viewer numbers would be available in a couple of months.
At the launch yesterday, Minister of Ethnic Affairs Chris Carter said, in a speech read out by Minister for Auckland Issues Judith Tizard, that New Zealand had come a long way since the days of having only one, then two channels to choose from.
"It's a great milestone for New Zealand's Chinese community and non-Chinese New Zealanders ... Let's look forward to the day when Mandarin and Cantonese are official languages in New Zealand," he said.
"We are all different and it's this diversity that gives us strength."
Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey said the new channel was unique and exciting.
CTV8 LOWDOWN
* Available in greater Auckland.
* Shows include documentaries from China and Taiwan; a joint morning broadcast with radio station AM936, news from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, dramas with both Mandarin and Cantonese soundtracks; Mandarin language lessons; and late-night youth programmes.
* The new channel is available on channel 62, but is called CTV8 because it's World TV's eighth Chinese channel.
* It is a UHF channel, but there are plans for digital channels next year.
World TV chief Henry Ho hopes Auckland's 100,000 Chinese people will tune in every day. Photo / Martin Sykes
New Zealand's first free-to-air, 24-hour Chinese television channel, CTV8, hopes to attract viewers wanting to learn Mandarin as well as local Chinese people.
The channel, which went to air on August 1, was officially launched in Auckland yesterday.
It broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese and is available in the greater Auckland region, featuring variety shows, dramas, documentaries and news.
World TV chief executive Henry Ho said yesterday that although the channel was UHF at present, it had plans to broadcast digitally next year through telecommunications company Kordia.
Mr Ho had been surprised at the interest from non-Mandarin speakers in the channel's breakfast show.
"We have Kiwis phoning in to the breakfast show saying they enjoy the channel. They say they are learning Mandarin and this helps them learn quicker, which is quite unexpected."
World TV broadcasts 10 Asian television channels through Sky. CTV8 is available on channel 62 but is so named because it is World TV's eighth Chinese channel.
Mr Ho said it would give people who didn't have pay TV a chance to view Chinese programmes.
He said 30 per cent of the content would be locally produced.
He hoped it would satisfy the demands of the Chinese community and appeal to New Zealanders learning Chinese.
He said 7 per cent of Auckland's population was Chinese, which amounted to around 100,000 people, and he hoped all those people would tune in every day.
Media research group AGB Nielsen said viewer numbers would be available in a couple of months.
At the launch yesterday, Minister of Ethnic Affairs Chris Carter said, in a speech read out by Minister for Auckland Issues Judith Tizard, that New Zealand had come a long way since the days of having only one, then two channels to choose from.
"It's a great milestone for New Zealand's Chinese community and non-Chinese New Zealanders ... Let's look forward to the day when Mandarin and Cantonese are official languages in New Zealand," he said.
"We are all different and it's this diversity that gives us strength."
Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey said the new channel was unique and exciting.
CTV8 LOWDOWN
* Available in greater Auckland.
* Shows include documentaries from China and Taiwan; a joint morning broadcast with radio station AM936, news from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, dramas with both Mandarin and Cantonese soundtracks; Mandarin language lessons; and late-night youth programmes.
* The new channel is available on channel 62, but is called CTV8 because it's World TV's eighth Chinese channel.
* It is a UHF channel, but there are plans for digital channels next year.
Chinese communities come from far and wide
5:00AM Monday August 06, 2007 By Lincoln Tan
A press release announcing "Make Way for the New Mainstream" landed in my inbox last week. I thought it was about Don Brash starting a new political party.
Instead it was about the Banana Conference next weekend. For the third consecutive year, the New Zealand Chinese Association is organising a forum to bring Chinese communities in New Zealand together to talk about identity.
The release said: "The Chinese have a long association with New Zealand. This dates back to the 19th century. Our vision is to see local and overseas Chinese communities connecting in New Zealand without barriers and borders."
This vision statement sounds grand. But even calling it ambitious would be an understatement. It is probably closer to mission impossible.
Just before I moved from Christchurch to Auckland last year, a Pakeha friend, after a barrage of anti-Auckland sentiments, told me that it was a move for the better. "There are a lot more Chinese there," he said. His assumption was that by being surrounded by fellow Chinese, we would feel at home in Auckland. Oh, how wrong he was.
Although often lumped together as one, the 100,000-plus Chinese community in Auckland is far from that. It is an agglomeration of many fragmented communities, from the New Zealand-born "Bananas" (see definition below), to the immigrant Chinese communities from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. The groups are as different as chalk and won tons.
For me, the first hint of being different from the majority of the Chinese here came when I started writing for the Herald. "You are from Singapore, stop calling yourself Chinese," was one of the first emails I got from a Chinese reader. For describing myself as Peranakan (a Singapore Straits-born Chinese), I was called a "liar" by another Chinese reader who asserted there was no such thing as a Peranakan clan in China.
That was topped by several Chinese journalists who wrote a petition to the Herald asking for me to be removed as a columnist because I was not representative of the Chinese community.
Neither do I fully fit in with the Bananas. Although ethnically Chinese, the fact that I was born in Singapore and don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese accentuates my feeling of being different.
This was reinforced when I recently went out with a New Zealand-born Banana Chinese friend for drinks and dinner. While he was expertly sipping his wine and describing what matches what, I struggled to even tell the difference between a chardonnay and a pinot noir. I did not appreciate the Western fish dish he ordered which he said was "superb and excellent". I found the dish, well, fanciful looking but bland.
I said to him that I would far rather have had a plate of char kwey teow (fried rice noodles) with ice lemon tea. He shook his head and said that I was still a long way from becoming Kiwi. So I could hardly call myself a Banana.
In some places, calling someone a Banana is not something you would do in polite conversation. In my school days, it was a title conferred on those who tried to be too Western in their ways or regarded everything Western as superior, an insult for their lack of pride in being Asian.
However, the NZCA press release said the term is used here to describe Chinese living outside Asia who celebrate and embrace a blend of Eastern and Western cultures and influences.
There exists a strong disconnect and feelings of disparity between the New Zealand-born Chinese and new immigrants, and being somewhere in between, I hear stories from both sides.
"The Chinese migrants are just show-offs and keep to themselves," say my local Chinese friends.
"They don't know their roots and can't even speak guo yu [China's language]," counter the Chinese new immigrants.
One of my first assignments as a journalist in Auckland was to attend the launch of a Chinese film festival. When I asked the organisers if the NZCA, which comprised mainly New Zealand-born Chinese, was part of it, his reply was: "No, because they're not real Chinese."
The differences between the Chinese communities in New Zealand are huge, and I truly doubt there will ever be a time when they can connect without barriers or borders, as hoped by the conference organisers.
But I think the Banana Conference plays an important role in bringing the different Chinese communities, who would otherwise have little to do with each other, together, to talk about these barriers and borders.
For those wanting a glimpse of the fascinating complexities within the New Zealand Chinese communities, go to this conference. Rarely will you get a chance to attend something so Chinese - conducted fully in English.
* lincoln@iballmedia.co.nz
A press release announcing "Make Way for the New Mainstream" landed in my inbox last week. I thought it was about Don Brash starting a new political party.
Instead it was about the Banana Conference next weekend. For the third consecutive year, the New Zealand Chinese Association is organising a forum to bring Chinese communities in New Zealand together to talk about identity.
The release said: "The Chinese have a long association with New Zealand. This dates back to the 19th century. Our vision is to see local and overseas Chinese communities connecting in New Zealand without barriers and borders."
This vision statement sounds grand. But even calling it ambitious would be an understatement. It is probably closer to mission impossible.
Just before I moved from Christchurch to Auckland last year, a Pakeha friend, after a barrage of anti-Auckland sentiments, told me that it was a move for the better. "There are a lot more Chinese there," he said. His assumption was that by being surrounded by fellow Chinese, we would feel at home in Auckland. Oh, how wrong he was.
Although often lumped together as one, the 100,000-plus Chinese community in Auckland is far from that. It is an agglomeration of many fragmented communities, from the New Zealand-born "Bananas" (see definition below), to the immigrant Chinese communities from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. The groups are as different as chalk and won tons.
For me, the first hint of being different from the majority of the Chinese here came when I started writing for the Herald. "You are from Singapore, stop calling yourself Chinese," was one of the first emails I got from a Chinese reader. For describing myself as Peranakan (a Singapore Straits-born Chinese), I was called a "liar" by another Chinese reader who asserted there was no such thing as a Peranakan clan in China.
That was topped by several Chinese journalists who wrote a petition to the Herald asking for me to be removed as a columnist because I was not representative of the Chinese community.
Neither do I fully fit in with the Bananas. Although ethnically Chinese, the fact that I was born in Singapore and don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese accentuates my feeling of being different.
This was reinforced when I recently went out with a New Zealand-born Banana Chinese friend for drinks and dinner. While he was expertly sipping his wine and describing what matches what, I struggled to even tell the difference between a chardonnay and a pinot noir. I did not appreciate the Western fish dish he ordered which he said was "superb and excellent". I found the dish, well, fanciful looking but bland.
I said to him that I would far rather have had a plate of char kwey teow (fried rice noodles) with ice lemon tea. He shook his head and said that I was still a long way from becoming Kiwi. So I could hardly call myself a Banana.
In some places, calling someone a Banana is not something you would do in polite conversation. In my school days, it was a title conferred on those who tried to be too Western in their ways or regarded everything Western as superior, an insult for their lack of pride in being Asian.
However, the NZCA press release said the term is used here to describe Chinese living outside Asia who celebrate and embrace a blend of Eastern and Western cultures and influences.
There exists a strong disconnect and feelings of disparity between the New Zealand-born Chinese and new immigrants, and being somewhere in between, I hear stories from both sides.
"The Chinese migrants are just show-offs and keep to themselves," say my local Chinese friends.
"They don't know their roots and can't even speak guo yu [China's language]," counter the Chinese new immigrants.
One of my first assignments as a journalist in Auckland was to attend the launch of a Chinese film festival. When I asked the organisers if the NZCA, which comprised mainly New Zealand-born Chinese, was part of it, his reply was: "No, because they're not real Chinese."
The differences between the Chinese communities in New Zealand are huge, and I truly doubt there will ever be a time when they can connect without barriers or borders, as hoped by the conference organisers.
But I think the Banana Conference plays an important role in bringing the different Chinese communities, who would otherwise have little to do with each other, together, to talk about these barriers and borders.
For those wanting a glimpse of the fascinating complexities within the New Zealand Chinese communities, go to this conference. Rarely will you get a chance to attend something so Chinese - conducted fully in English.
* lincoln@iballmedia.co.nz
'Bananas' add their own flavour to cultural mix
5:00AM Saturday August 18, 2007
It speaks volumes for the strength of New Zealand Chinese that those who organised the third in a series of "Banana" conferences at Auckland University this weekend have happily embraced that description of their cultural mix. Leaders of their homeland who cannot be exposed to the slightest protest on state visits can leave an impression the Chinese personality is impossibly thin-skinned.
It would be easy to assume that it is the "white" inside the Banana that has enabled the immigrant community not to take itself too seriously, but that is unlikely. It's pride in their distinction that gives any minority its confidence. Many are several generations removed from their ancestral roots today but they want to be called New Zealand Chinese not, as others say in a spirit of inclusion, Chinese New Zealanders.
The 150,000 Chinese in New Zealand at last year's census have come in several waves and from different parts of East Asia, as gold miners in the 1860s, Colombo Plan students a century later, as professional and business migrants encouraged by the needs of an open economy since the 1980s, and as students looking for education in English and a Western lifestyle.
Their conference today addresses the strains and successes of their experience. The tone seems to be positive, constructive, but aware no doubt that China's rising economic power and contrived currency peg are creating tensions.
But it would be a foolish country that failed to appreciate an immigrant people with ethnic or ancestral links to that vast region and its still greater potential prosperity.
They cannot find business easy in an economy of our scale, but we are richer in every sense for their presence and celebrate the strength of their identity here.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10458430
It speaks volumes for the strength of New Zealand Chinese that those who organised the third in a series of "Banana" conferences at Auckland University this weekend have happily embraced that description of their cultural mix. Leaders of their homeland who cannot be exposed to the slightest protest on state visits can leave an impression the Chinese personality is impossibly thin-skinned.
It would be easy to assume that it is the "white" inside the Banana that has enabled the immigrant community not to take itself too seriously, but that is unlikely. It's pride in their distinction that gives any minority its confidence. Many are several generations removed from their ancestral roots today but they want to be called New Zealand Chinese not, as others say in a spirit of inclusion, Chinese New Zealanders.
The 150,000 Chinese in New Zealand at last year's census have come in several waves and from different parts of East Asia, as gold miners in the 1860s, Colombo Plan students a century later, as professional and business migrants encouraged by the needs of an open economy since the 1980s, and as students looking for education in English and a Western lifestyle.
Their conference today addresses the strains and successes of their experience. The tone seems to be positive, constructive, but aware no doubt that China's rising economic power and contrived currency peg are creating tensions.
But it would be a foolish country that failed to appreciate an immigrant people with ethnic or ancestral links to that vast region and its still greater potential prosperity.
They cannot find business easy in an economy of our scale, but we are richer in every sense for their presence and celebrate the strength of their identity here.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10458430
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Supermarket owners have a reshuffle
Big changes have been happening in supermarket ownership in Stratford and Hawera.
Hawera's $18 million Pak 'n Save has already been sold, only seven months after it opened last December.
For a few months this supermarket's petrol station had the cheapest retail prices in the country: 21c a litre discount if you bought $40 worth of groceries.
In Stratford, New World has been bought by former Oakura Four Square owners Jimmy and Jackie Lim.
The Kovaleski family operated Pak 'n Save, after selling their Hawera New World operation to Rachel and Mike Clayton, the former Write Price operators.
The Kovaleskis have sold out to Peter Arthur, who has appointed Kevin Jones as manager. He says he intends to sell the business to him eventually, "... provided he performs."
Palmerston North-based Mr Arthur says he had a call from the Foodstuffs Group after managing director Tony Kovaleski announced the store was for sale.
Mr Arthur does not envisage an early return to the big petrol discounts of the brief Kovaleski era.
"In this game things change from day to day and it depends what the competition is doing, but we won't be giving it away, that's for sure," he says.
Mr Kovaleski and his wife, Sam, have bought a beachfront home at Paraparaumu and are looking at business opportunities in the greater Wellington area. He declined to say why they decided to sell.
Mr Arthur's entry into the grocery business began when he worked as a schoolboy at the Ngaere Store, which his parents owned. He was the fourth generation of the family in that store.
Here is the sequence of events since then, as described by Mr Arthur. "In 1977 I left school and we bought the old Stratford New World from John Hedditch. In 1986 we bought the old Hawera New World and two years later built a new store on the same site. In 1991-92 my father and myself rebuilt the Stratford New World. In 1998 the Kovaleskis bought Hawera New World and I bought the Palmerston North Pak 'n Save, which I still own.
"In 2000 my brother John bought my interest in Stratford New World and later became the sole owner when our father died."
John Arthur has sold out to Jimmy and Jackie Lim. Mr Lim was born in Stratford in 1944 to Chinese immigrant parents. They started a fruit and vegetable shop which stayed in family ownership through to 2005, when it was closed on the retirement of his brother, Kevin.
In 1994 Mr and Mrs Lim left Stratford and bought the Oakura Four Square, which they sold in May this year to buy the New World business. Mr Lim says his son and son-in-law are also involved in the business and it will provide careers for their children.
"Foodstuffs will be enlarging the carpark and improving access this year and two years further out they plan to enlarge the store," he says.
Hawera's $18 million Pak 'n Save has already been sold, only seven months after it opened last December.
For a few months this supermarket's petrol station had the cheapest retail prices in the country: 21c a litre discount if you bought $40 worth of groceries.
In Stratford, New World has been bought by former Oakura Four Square owners Jimmy and Jackie Lim.
The Kovaleski family operated Pak 'n Save, after selling their Hawera New World operation to Rachel and Mike Clayton, the former Write Price operators.
The Kovaleskis have sold out to Peter Arthur, who has appointed Kevin Jones as manager. He says he intends to sell the business to him eventually, "... provided he performs."
Palmerston North-based Mr Arthur says he had a call from the Foodstuffs Group after managing director Tony Kovaleski announced the store was for sale.
Mr Arthur does not envisage an early return to the big petrol discounts of the brief Kovaleski era.
"In this game things change from day to day and it depends what the competition is doing, but we won't be giving it away, that's for sure," he says.
Mr Kovaleski and his wife, Sam, have bought a beachfront home at Paraparaumu and are looking at business opportunities in the greater Wellington area. He declined to say why they decided to sell.
Mr Arthur's entry into the grocery business began when he worked as a schoolboy at the Ngaere Store, which his parents owned. He was the fourth generation of the family in that store.
Here is the sequence of events since then, as described by Mr Arthur. "In 1977 I left school and we bought the old Stratford New World from John Hedditch. In 1986 we bought the old Hawera New World and two years later built a new store on the same site. In 1991-92 my father and myself rebuilt the Stratford New World. In 1998 the Kovaleskis bought Hawera New World and I bought the Palmerston North Pak 'n Save, which I still own.
"In 2000 my brother John bought my interest in Stratford New World and later became the sole owner when our father died."
John Arthur has sold out to Jimmy and Jackie Lim. Mr Lim was born in Stratford in 1944 to Chinese immigrant parents. They started a fruit and vegetable shop which stayed in family ownership through to 2005, when it was closed on the retirement of his brother, Kevin.
In 1994 Mr and Mrs Lim left Stratford and bought the Oakura Four Square, which they sold in May this year to buy the New World business. Mr Lim says his son and son-in-law are also involved in the business and it will provide careers for their children.
"Foodstuffs will be enlarging the carpark and improving access this year and two years further out they plan to enlarge the store," he says.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Welcome to Bananas NZ Going Global
Our dynamic conference connects local and overseas personalities and stories to highlight the journeys and leadership of Chinese people in New Zealand and throughout the world. NZCA Auckland Branch was inspired to organise this milestone event following on from the overwhelmingly positive response to our two earlier Going Bananas initiatives in 2005 and 2006.
We are privileged to be able to hold this year’s conference in a stunning world class facility, The University of Auckland Business School. We trust that all attendees will enjoy the proceedings, the discussions and the networking in this state-of-the-art environment.
The success of any event results from the efforts, commitment and support of many people. I wish to express my sincere thanks to the speakers, the sponsors, the volunteer helpers and the Organising Committee whose hard work and planning over the past 12 months have made this conference possible.
In addition, I wish to make a special note of appreciation to Ants Sang for again providing a stunning cartoon logo which brilliantly captures the innovative theme of this Conference.
Kai Luey Chairman of NZ Chinese Association (Auckland Branch) Inc.
We are privileged to be able to hold this year’s conference in a stunning world class facility, The University of Auckland Business School. We trust that all attendees will enjoy the proceedings, the discussions and the networking in this state-of-the-art environment.
The success of any event results from the efforts, commitment and support of many people. I wish to express my sincere thanks to the speakers, the sponsors, the volunteer helpers and the Organising Committee whose hard work and planning over the past 12 months have made this conference possible.
In addition, I wish to make a special note of appreciation to Ants Sang for again providing a stunning cartoon logo which brilliantly captures the innovative theme of this Conference.
Kai Luey Chairman of NZ Chinese Association (Auckland Branch) Inc.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Unfolding History, Evolving Identity
Unfolding History, Evolving Identity THE CHINESE IN NEW ZEALAND
edited by MANYING IP
The Chinese have since the 1860s been the largest non-European and non-Polynesian ethnic group in New Zealand. A visible minority, they did not fit into the colonial image of a 'better Britain' and were harshly excluded from political discourse, socially marginalised and often victimised. Unfolding History, Evolving Identity provides a comprehensive overview of the history and experience of the Chinese in New Zealand up to the present day. The contributors offer different perspectives according to their expertise or according to their background. Topics range from the Chinese on the goldfields to a study of Wellington's 'Chinatown' to studies of settler families; later chapters study aspects of recent Chinese immigration such as transnationalism and the underemployment of skilled people; a final section discusses political strategies adopted by the Chinese, including an analysis of the search for an apology for the wrongs inflicted by the historical poll tax.
Fascinating reading, this very topical book also provides much fruit for reflection in a society proud of its devotion to egalitarianism.
Unfolding History, Evolving Identity was launched by the Rt Hon Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, on 28 March 2003.
edited by MANYING IP
The Chinese have since the 1860s been the largest non-European and non-Polynesian ethnic group in New Zealand. A visible minority, they did not fit into the colonial image of a 'better Britain' and were harshly excluded from political discourse, socially marginalised and often victimised. Unfolding History, Evolving Identity provides a comprehensive overview of the history and experience of the Chinese in New Zealand up to the present day. The contributors offer different perspectives according to their expertise or according to their background. Topics range from the Chinese on the goldfields to a study of Wellington's 'Chinatown' to studies of settler families; later chapters study aspects of recent Chinese immigration such as transnationalism and the underemployment of skilled people; a final section discusses political strategies adopted by the Chinese, including an analysis of the search for an apology for the wrongs inflicted by the historical poll tax.
Fascinating reading, this very topical book also provides much fruit for reflection in a society proud of its devotion to egalitarianism.
Unfolding History, Evolving Identity was launched by the Rt Hon Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, on 28 March 2003.
Eating Pork'n'puha With Chopsticks
Eating Pork'n'puha With ChopsticksTuesday, 17 July 2007, 11:25 amPress Release: Maori TV PUBLICITY RELEASE TUESDAY JULY 17 2007
Eating Pork'n'puha With Chopsticks - On Maori Television
The story of New Zealand's unique Maori-Chinese community through the experiences of one Auckland family is the subject of a new documentary, EATING PORK'N'PUHA WITH CHOPSTICKS, screening on Maori Television for the first time.
The hour-long film - headlining the New Zealand Documentary slot, Pakipumeka Aotearoa, on Wednesday August 1 at 8.30 PM - is produced by Coromandel-based Freckle Films Limited.
Director and executive producer Alison Carter says the documentary follows three generations of the Lee family with the story beginning in the market gardens of South Auckland in the 1920s.
As well as featuring footage of trips back to China, the Lee family share with viewers what it is like to be both Chinese and Maori - when the Maori treat you as Chinese, the Chinese treat you as Maori, and Pakeha do not know what you are.
EATING PORK'N'PUHA WITH CHOPSTICKS examines questions of identity and racism, and illustrates the shared values and differences between the two races, Carter explains.
"By following an extended family through the stories of three generations, we look at what it meant to be Chinese Maori in the past and what it means today.
"The documentary focuses not only on their struggle to cope with their dual identity but on the positive things they share as cultures, strong family ties, respect for elders, the honouring of the dead, and manaakitanga.
"It provides a rich story of a people who although not large in number have played a special part in New Zealand's history."
EATING PORK'N'PUHA WITH CHOPSTICKS screens in Maori Television's New Zealand Documentary slot, Pakipumeka Aotearoa, on Wednesday August 1 at 8.30 PM.
Ends
Eating Pork'n'puha With Chopsticks - On Maori Television
The story of New Zealand's unique Maori-Chinese community through the experiences of one Auckland family is the subject of a new documentary, EATING PORK'N'PUHA WITH CHOPSTICKS, screening on Maori Television for the first time.
The hour-long film - headlining the New Zealand Documentary slot, Pakipumeka Aotearoa, on Wednesday August 1 at 8.30 PM - is produced by Coromandel-based Freckle Films Limited.
Director and executive producer Alison Carter says the documentary follows three generations of the Lee family with the story beginning in the market gardens of South Auckland in the 1920s.
As well as featuring footage of trips back to China, the Lee family share with viewers what it is like to be both Chinese and Maori - when the Maori treat you as Chinese, the Chinese treat you as Maori, and Pakeha do not know what you are.
EATING PORK'N'PUHA WITH CHOPSTICKS examines questions of identity and racism, and illustrates the shared values and differences between the two races, Carter explains.
"By following an extended family through the stories of three generations, we look at what it meant to be Chinese Maori in the past and what it means today.
"The documentary focuses not only on their struggle to cope with their dual identity but on the positive things they share as cultures, strong family ties, respect for elders, the honouring of the dead, and manaakitanga.
"It provides a rich story of a people who although not large in number have played a special part in New Zealand's history."
EATING PORK'N'PUHA WITH CHOPSTICKS screens in Maori Television's New Zealand Documentary slot, Pakipumeka Aotearoa, on Wednesday August 1 at 8.30 PM.
Ends
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Body of Lonely Planet writer found on Chinese mountain
Body of Lonely Planet writer found on Chinese mountain
3:37PM Wednesday July 25, 2007
SYDNEY- One of Lonely Planet's most experienced travel writers, Clem Lindenmayer, has been found dead on a Chinese mountainside, three months after he was reported missing.
Mr Lindenmayer, 47, had set out to climb Mount Gongga, in a remote area of south-west China, telling his family that he expected to complete a circuit in six days.
When they failed to hear from him, his relatives posted messages on travellers' websites.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported that villagers found his body last Thursday.
The Australian-born writer had been based in Switzerland "on and off" for nearly 20 years, according to Lonely Planet.
He was not on assignment for the guide book publisher in China, but the company had said that it was aware of the situation and was in touch with his family.
Mr Lindenmayer, author of Trekking in the Patagonian Andes, published in 2003, and Walking in Switzerland, was a highly experienced hiker who had undertaken many similar treks.
His family last heard from him on May 2, when he emailed his wife from Kangding to tell her that he was preparing to hike around the nearby mountain range, in Sichuan province.
Mount Gongga, also known as Minya Konka, is the highest in the area, with more than 20 peaks above 6,000m and a 7,556m-high summit.
The mountain range, situated in a rugged region that was once part of Tibet, is said to be notoriously dangerous for climbers.
More than 20 people have died trying to scale Mount Gongga since 1957, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Only twenty-four have reached the peak.
Mr Lindenmayer's family became alarmed when they had not heard from him by the end of May.
One of his relatives posted a missing notice on Thorn Tree, a Lonely Planet internet forum.
She described him as "a 47-year-old, very fit Australian male with a ready smile", and "a seasoned traveller with many years trekking experience".
As fears grew for his safety, the family offered a reward for information that could help locate him.
It was advertised on numerous websites.
Early last month his brother, Peter, and nephew, Tim, left Australia for China, to conduct their own search for him.
His father, Graeme, said: "He was going to go for a walk for about six days around the mountain ..
he was just going to do what was a pretty standard hike." He added: "It's known to be a trip where you need experience and common sense before you undertake it. This area is an extension of the Himalayas."
According to Xinhua, rescuers searching for Mr Lindenmayer had earlier found a body believed to be that of a Japanese mountaineer who disappeared 26 years ago.
Mr Lindenmayer, who was from Melbourne and spoke Mandarin, German and Spanish, had written for Lonely Planet for more than a decade.
In addition to the two books that he researched and wrote, he had helped to update guides to China, Malaysia, Germany and Sweden.
Lonely Planet said he had "developed a special affection for the Swiss Alps".
His mother told Australian Associated Press that she had been told of the discovery of his body - at Riwuqie Peak, 4,600m above sea level - last weekend.
The ABC reported that he would be cremated on the mountain where he was found, and his ashes brought back to Australia.
- INDEPENDENT
3:37PM Wednesday July 25, 2007
SYDNEY- One of Lonely Planet's most experienced travel writers, Clem Lindenmayer, has been found dead on a Chinese mountainside, three months after he was reported missing.
Mr Lindenmayer, 47, had set out to climb Mount Gongga, in a remote area of south-west China, telling his family that he expected to complete a circuit in six days.
When they failed to hear from him, his relatives posted messages on travellers' websites.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported that villagers found his body last Thursday.
The Australian-born writer had been based in Switzerland "on and off" for nearly 20 years, according to Lonely Planet.
He was not on assignment for the guide book publisher in China, but the company had said that it was aware of the situation and was in touch with his family.
Mr Lindenmayer, author of Trekking in the Patagonian Andes, published in 2003, and Walking in Switzerland, was a highly experienced hiker who had undertaken many similar treks.
His family last heard from him on May 2, when he emailed his wife from Kangding to tell her that he was preparing to hike around the nearby mountain range, in Sichuan province.
Mount Gongga, also known as Minya Konka, is the highest in the area, with more than 20 peaks above 6,000m and a 7,556m-high summit.
The mountain range, situated in a rugged region that was once part of Tibet, is said to be notoriously dangerous for climbers.
More than 20 people have died trying to scale Mount Gongga since 1957, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Only twenty-four have reached the peak.
Mr Lindenmayer's family became alarmed when they had not heard from him by the end of May.
One of his relatives posted a missing notice on Thorn Tree, a Lonely Planet internet forum.
She described him as "a 47-year-old, very fit Australian male with a ready smile", and "a seasoned traveller with many years trekking experience".
As fears grew for his safety, the family offered a reward for information that could help locate him.
It was advertised on numerous websites.
Early last month his brother, Peter, and nephew, Tim, left Australia for China, to conduct their own search for him.
His father, Graeme, said: "He was going to go for a walk for about six days around the mountain ..
he was just going to do what was a pretty standard hike." He added: "It's known to be a trip where you need experience and common sense before you undertake it. This area is an extension of the Himalayas."
According to Xinhua, rescuers searching for Mr Lindenmayer had earlier found a body believed to be that of a Japanese mountaineer who disappeared 26 years ago.
Mr Lindenmayer, who was from Melbourne and spoke Mandarin, German and Spanish, had written for Lonely Planet for more than a decade.
In addition to the two books that he researched and wrote, he had helped to update guides to China, Malaysia, Germany and Sweden.
Lonely Planet said he had "developed a special affection for the Swiss Alps".
His mother told Australian Associated Press that she had been told of the discovery of his body - at Riwuqie Peak, 4,600m above sea level - last weekend.
The ABC reported that he would be cremated on the mountain where he was found, and his ashes brought back to Australia.
- INDEPENDENT
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Four extracts from a novel in Sport 23: Spring 1999
Alison Wong
Four extracts from a novel
The Wife
Red Silk
When a woman is young, she follows her father When she marries, she follows her husband And when she is old, she follows her son.
Confucius
My father was a shipbuilder and his father before him. They built the large riverboats that plied the Pearl River with their cargoes of salt, and the seafaring junks that sailed from Canton to Amoy and Formosa. My father had three hundred men who worked in his yards, and we lived in a red-columned mansion in the eastern hills of Canton.
Father was an enlightened man. Although I was only a daughter, he made sure I was educated, almost like a son. We had a private tutor who taught us calligraphy, painting and poetry. I read the Five Classics, the Four Books, the Book of Filial Piety. And I dreamed of Muk Lan, the daughter who dressed as a man and saved her father from battle.
But I never wore the clothes of a man. I could not go out like my brothers, to watch the street theatre, or sit in tea-houses with pearl-faced women—the red dust of their cheeks, their lips painted rose-bud vermilion. Sometimes I'd go out in a sedan chair and watch the world from behind its curtains, but mostly I stayed at home, reading The Dream of the Red Chamber, Journey to the West, or doing needlework.
I was a good girl, respectable. Until I was fifteen, no one outside of the family knew of my existence. Then my father's elder sister arranged my marriage. She enquired after all the good families with eligible sons. There was the eldest son of Magistrate Chew, but although his father was known as a fair man, the son was renowned for his foul temper and lack of respect for the ancestors. There was the second son of the Lees, the wealthiest family in Canton—ah, but he was a spendthrift and a gambler. There was the third son of the Kwoks, who had a thriving silk business, but he was born with not enough breath—they say he had beautiful blue-white skin, a gentle man waiting to expire.
Read the rest of the extracts - http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Ba23Spo-t1-body-d26.html
Alison Wong
Four extracts from a novel
The Wife
Red Silk
When a woman is young, she follows her father When she marries, she follows her husband And when she is old, she follows her son.
Confucius
My father was a shipbuilder and his father before him. They built the large riverboats that plied the Pearl River with their cargoes of salt, and the seafaring junks that sailed from Canton to Amoy and Formosa. My father had three hundred men who worked in his yards, and we lived in a red-columned mansion in the eastern hills of Canton.
Father was an enlightened man. Although I was only a daughter, he made sure I was educated, almost like a son. We had a private tutor who taught us calligraphy, painting and poetry. I read the Five Classics, the Four Books, the Book of Filial Piety. And I dreamed of Muk Lan, the daughter who dressed as a man and saved her father from battle.
But I never wore the clothes of a man. I could not go out like my brothers, to watch the street theatre, or sit in tea-houses with pearl-faced women—the red dust of their cheeks, their lips painted rose-bud vermilion. Sometimes I'd go out in a sedan chair and watch the world from behind its curtains, but mostly I stayed at home, reading The Dream of the Red Chamber, Journey to the West, or doing needlework.
I was a good girl, respectable. Until I was fifteen, no one outside of the family knew of my existence. Then my father's elder sister arranged my marriage. She enquired after all the good families with eligible sons. There was the eldest son of Magistrate Chew, but although his father was known as a fair man, the son was renowned for his foul temper and lack of respect for the ancestors. There was the second son of the Lees, the wealthiest family in Canton—ah, but he was a spendthrift and a gambler. There was the third son of the Kwoks, who had a thriving silk business, but he was born with not enough breath—they say he had beautiful blue-white skin, a gentle man waiting to expire.
Read the rest of the extracts - http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Ba23Spo-t1-body-d26.html
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Alison Wong - Radio Interview July 2007
Lynn Freeman, of Radio NZ National's Arts on Sunday programme,interviewed me today together with Laura Kroetsch (Montana Poetry Dayorganiser) & Renee (playwright, fiction writer, and now poet) and it'llbe broadcast on Sun about 2:30pm or 2:35pm. It's pretty much aboutwhat's happening on Montana Poetry Day around the country - nothinglike what I was expecting - it was originally going to be with James Brown (finalist in main Poetry category at the Montanas) but he's Playing Favourites with Kim Hill on Sat morning so they suddenly changed it all and I didn't know until I walked into the studio. I get to read apoem tho'.The interview will be available online for a month
from
:http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/artsonsunday
Ali
from
:http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/artsonsunday
Ali
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