Police make arrests in boyracer death crash
6:10AM Tuesday November 20, 2007
By Martha McKenzie-minifie
Two men have been charged with reckless driving causing death, after a delivery man was killed in an Auckland street race that went terribly wrong.
A 28-year-old man and a 35-year-old man have been charged with reckless driving causing the death of Aaron Chan, a 21-year-old from Manukau.
Witnesses said Mr Chan went through the windscreen of a blue Nissan Skyline, which was chasing a white Subaru WRX along West Coast Rd just before 6.30pm.
Anand Kumar, of Aj's Superette on West Coast Rd, said it appeared the cars were racing and touched when one tried to overtake the other.
The Skyline apparently hit the truck first, then the man - described as an "innocent bystander".
"He got hit, taken up, went through the windscreen and he was inside the car," said Mr Kumar.
It is understood two people were in the Subaru and four in the Skyline. Police said five people from both vehicles were taken to hospital.
Patrick Hunt, of BTS Gym in West Coast Rd, said he and a client saw the cars racing before the crash.
"We just heard burnout noises down at the lights - that's what got out attention - and we looked up. We heard a loud bang."
Mr Hunt said there was little he could do at the crash scene.
"I saw him just lying there - pretty much every single bone in his body was broken." he said.
"The windscreen was broken but it wasn't broken going out, it was on impact, it was obviously something from the outside."
The road was closed for several hours as crash investigators studied the scene.
Earlier, Inspector Ian Brooker said police had both cars and were interviewing the drivers. Investigators wanted to speak to anyone who saw the crash or noticed how the two vehicles were being driven beforehand.
Boy-racer legislation introduced in May 2003 gives police the power to automatically impound cars for 28 days if they are being driven with unnecessary speed or acceleration or are doing burnouts. Scores of cars have been taken off the roads.
In South Auckland alone police have seized as many as 50.
Staff in the Waitemata district, which covers West Auckland, North Shore and Rodney, had impounded 933 cars by May this year.
But some road policing managers have called for more powers, saying the legislation means they have to wait until the drivers have committed an offence before they can act.
Authorities in Tauranga have gone a step further, introducing a bylaw last month that means boy racers face $500 fines if they are caught in the city's industrial areas.
It bans vehicles under 3500kg from entering dozens of industrial streets in the city between 9pm and 5am.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Aotearoa Indians
Indian settlement in Aotearoa Indians have been living in New Zealand for over 100 years and for the first time there's a book that tells the story of their settlement in this country. The first gold discovered in Otago that led to the rushes of the 1860s is believed to have been found by an Anglo-Indian from Goa named Edward Peters but the permanent Indian community traces its origins to two Sikh brothers who arrived about 1890. Most subsequent settlers were from the Punjab or from Gujarat. Until 1945, most of the settlers were men, some intermarrying with local women - Maori and Pakeha. Indian Settlers, published by Otago University Press, is an authoritative book of the story of Indian settlement in New Zealand. Its author Jacqueline Leckie is programme coordinator of social anthropology at the university. For more information or a copy of Indian Settlers, contact Donelle Karagedikli at Otago University Press at .
Chinese Cinemas
Nine films out of China To celebrate 35 years of diplomatic relationship between China and New Zealand, New Zealanders have an opportunity to see some recent examples of Chinese cinema featuring work by some of China's top filmmakers. The nine films are The Knot, Courthouse on Horseback, Seven Swords, Prince of the Himalayas, The Go Master, Beautiful Homeland, The Forest Ranger, Crazy Stone and Fearless. The festival has screened in Auckland and Hamilton and moves on to Wellington (November 16-18) and Christchurch (November 23-25). More information is available at and .
Wellington Oral History Project
Wanted: Personal stories about Wellington Members of Wellington's Chinese community are invited to volunteer their stories for the Chinese Oral History Project to be broadcast on Wellington Access Radio. Project coordinator Sonia Yee says the project involves making a six part series for radio and for the Wellington Access Radio website (). The programmes will also be broadcast on other access radio stations around New Zealand. Ms Yee says she is looking for six to eight charismatic participants who would like to talk about their experiences of living and growing up in Wellington. Integral to the project would be candidates who can remember the Haining Street days of Wellington's old Chinatown. There will be an initial workshop meeting for everyone who wants to be involved. Contact Sonia Yee at or call 04 385 7210 before the end of November.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
NZ Listener Articles 3-9 November 2007
This week's Listener has a few good articles
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3521/artsbooks/9910/gee_hongs_war.html
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3521/artsbooks/9907/immigrant_song.html
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3521/features/9898/o_zimbabwe.html
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3521/artsbooks/9910/gee_hongs_war.html
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3521/artsbooks/9907/immigrant_song.html
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3521/features/9898/o_zimbabwe.html
Monday, November 05, 2007
Migrants need to hold on to Identity
Lincoln Tan: Migrants need to hold on to identity in new home
5:00AM Monday November 05, 2007 Lincoln Tan
One of the upsides to having this column is that it has allowed me to meet some really nice and interesting people.
A couple of weeks ago, one such person, Joan, invited me to afternoon tea at her Karaka Bay beachfront cottage, where I had an enjoyable time listening to her perspective on life in New Zealand and sharing mine with her.
Since she retired as a surgeon, Joan had spent time working with refugees and migrants, and it was really refreshing talking with someone who has a good knowledge of Asia and Asians.
Unlike her, at least three readers who responded to my column last week referred to Singapore as part of China in their emails, and I still find it hard to believe the level of ignorance some people have of Asia.
Before I left, she loaned me a book titled Guests of the New Gold Hill.
In this novel, author Jye Kang, a former sociology lecturer at Massey University, talks about the plight of the early Chinese; their fleeing the poverty of China and their struggles to survive the hardships in the New Gold Hill, New Zealand (California was the Old Gold Hill). The book described New Zealand as hostile, inhospitable and often cruel to the new guests.
The first few chapters in the book did enough to open my eyes to the wide divide between the early settlers and the new Chinese immigrants, as is reflected by two letters sent to me last week.
A local-born Chinese, who said he was a third generation New Zealander, had this to say: "The early Chinese came here and were ready to accept that with their decision, comes the need to abandon their culture and adopt the one of their new home. (Although) we were brought up eating rice, we enjoyed rugby, went fishing, tramping, things that normal Kiwi families do. As the saying goes, when in Rome do as Romans do. Therein lies the problem with immigrants like yourself, who are unable to shrug off your Chinese culture or Singapore mindset.
"We kept our heads low because we recognise that we are just visitors to this land. I do not speak any Chinese and feel appalled that new migrants continue to speak their native languages at the expense of learning the language of their adopted country."
In contrast, a new arrival from China asked in her letter: "Why should I learn to be Kiwi? I'm Chinese."
She wrote: "Other parts of the world now want to be more Chinese by learning the Chinese language and understanding the Chinese culture. There is more value to me to be Chinese than to become Kiwi."
The early Chinese, who had to raise the equivalent of two years of wages to pay the poll tax to earn their right to come in New Zealand, came under a backdrop of a poor and impoverished China.
Some were even ashamed to be called Chinese and wanted their future to be with New Zealand. To gain acceptance they tried to become as un-Chinese as possible, and I have recently worked on a story where local born Chinese ditched their family names for European ones to help them with assimilation.
But times have changed and tables turned. Some Asian countries, which once received handouts from New Zealand, have become economic power houses in their own right, and it is New Zealand which is now seeking business and trade opportunities with them.
China has risen to become the world's biggest and fastest growing economy and Asia the fastest growth region, and everyone, including New Zealand, wants a piece of the Asian pie. This was clearly spelt out in a paper titled Our Future with Asia launched by Prime Minister Helen Clark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters a fortnight ago.
With China's economic growth comes a renewed sense of pride among the Chinese.
Under this new backdrop, it would be that much harder to convince new immigrants that they should stop being Chinese and become Kiwi.
Why should they? Being Chinese is no longer something to be ashamed of and unlike the early Chinese who see their future tied with New Zealand, many of these new immigrants regard themselves as global citizens.
The local Chinese man, in his letter concluded with this suggestion: "When we are in New Zealand, we must do as New Zealanders do. Maybe its time you changed your love for soccer for the love of rugby, and you may find that its not so bad after all."
This was what his ancestors did to integrate, he said.
Well, they probably did not have Sky television or the internet then.
With the realities of this changing world, it would make more sense to abandon this traditional inward looking, self-contained approach and become more outward looking.
5:00AM Monday November 05, 2007 Lincoln Tan
One of the upsides to having this column is that it has allowed me to meet some really nice and interesting people.
A couple of weeks ago, one such person, Joan, invited me to afternoon tea at her Karaka Bay beachfront cottage, where I had an enjoyable time listening to her perspective on life in New Zealand and sharing mine with her.
Since she retired as a surgeon, Joan had spent time working with refugees and migrants, and it was really refreshing talking with someone who has a good knowledge of Asia and Asians.
Unlike her, at least three readers who responded to my column last week referred to Singapore as part of China in their emails, and I still find it hard to believe the level of ignorance some people have of Asia.
Before I left, she loaned me a book titled Guests of the New Gold Hill.
In this novel, author Jye Kang, a former sociology lecturer at Massey University, talks about the plight of the early Chinese; their fleeing the poverty of China and their struggles to survive the hardships in the New Gold Hill, New Zealand (California was the Old Gold Hill). The book described New Zealand as hostile, inhospitable and often cruel to the new guests.
The first few chapters in the book did enough to open my eyes to the wide divide between the early settlers and the new Chinese immigrants, as is reflected by two letters sent to me last week.
A local-born Chinese, who said he was a third generation New Zealander, had this to say: "The early Chinese came here and were ready to accept that with their decision, comes the need to abandon their culture and adopt the one of their new home. (Although) we were brought up eating rice, we enjoyed rugby, went fishing, tramping, things that normal Kiwi families do. As the saying goes, when in Rome do as Romans do. Therein lies the problem with immigrants like yourself, who are unable to shrug off your Chinese culture or Singapore mindset.
"We kept our heads low because we recognise that we are just visitors to this land. I do not speak any Chinese and feel appalled that new migrants continue to speak their native languages at the expense of learning the language of their adopted country."
In contrast, a new arrival from China asked in her letter: "Why should I learn to be Kiwi? I'm Chinese."
She wrote: "Other parts of the world now want to be more Chinese by learning the Chinese language and understanding the Chinese culture. There is more value to me to be Chinese than to become Kiwi."
The early Chinese, who had to raise the equivalent of two years of wages to pay the poll tax to earn their right to come in New Zealand, came under a backdrop of a poor and impoverished China.
Some were even ashamed to be called Chinese and wanted their future to be with New Zealand. To gain acceptance they tried to become as un-Chinese as possible, and I have recently worked on a story where local born Chinese ditched their family names for European ones to help them with assimilation.
But times have changed and tables turned. Some Asian countries, which once received handouts from New Zealand, have become economic power houses in their own right, and it is New Zealand which is now seeking business and trade opportunities with them.
China has risen to become the world's biggest and fastest growing economy and Asia the fastest growth region, and everyone, including New Zealand, wants a piece of the Asian pie. This was clearly spelt out in a paper titled Our Future with Asia launched by Prime Minister Helen Clark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters a fortnight ago.
With China's economic growth comes a renewed sense of pride among the Chinese.
Under this new backdrop, it would be that much harder to convince new immigrants that they should stop being Chinese and become Kiwi.
Why should they? Being Chinese is no longer something to be ashamed of and unlike the early Chinese who see their future tied with New Zealand, many of these new immigrants regard themselves as global citizens.
The local Chinese man, in his letter concluded with this suggestion: "When we are in New Zealand, we must do as New Zealanders do. Maybe its time you changed your love for soccer for the love of rugby, and you may find that its not so bad after all."
This was what his ancestors did to integrate, he said.
Well, they probably did not have Sky television or the internet then.
With the realities of this changing world, it would make more sense to abandon this traditional inward looking, self-contained approach and become more outward looking.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Zimbabwe watcher Chan set for Mugabe's end
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
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
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
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