Pioneering spirit lives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr Wong Doo III says such behaviour was not uncommon.

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

North Shore Times

Supermarket change marks end of an era

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NZ Herald

"Eggs came in paper bags" - wow

New play explores early Kiwi-Chinese heritage

A dramatic historical shipwreck is the starting point for The Bone Feeder by Renee Liang. Liang, a postgraduate student at the University of Auckland’s Drama department, is directing and producing her second play at the Drama Studio in late September. The Bone Feeder is a contemporary exploration of the consequences of the sinking of the SS Ventnor, which was chartered to take the remains of 499 Chinese men from Otago, Westland and Wellington to their final resting places in Canton (now Guangzhou), China.

“Back in 1902, when the Ventnor sailed, it was considered important for Chinese to return to their home villages,” Liang explains. “So the Chinese which had migrated to New Zealand to work (mainly in the gold fields), considered themselves only temporary visitors. They always intended to return home once they had made the money they set out to earn. Of course, life being harsh at that time, many of them didn’t make it. So they were buried in temporary graves while their descendants and friends raised enough money. It was believed that the bodies needed to return to their home villages in order to watch over their descendants and in return, have their graves looked after and spirits nourished.”

Unfortunately, the Ventnor struck a rock and subsequently sank near the Hokianga Harbour. The coffins and bones were lost, along with the lives of 13 crewmen. But some of the coffins and bones were washed ashore where, local stories reveal, they were found by local Maori and buried in family urupa.

“It’s a piece of NZ history which very few people have known about until now,” Liang says. “But recently some of the descendants of those lost on the Ventnor have started looking for ways to honour their ancestors.” That project, known as The Ventnor Project and led by prominent Chinese community figures in consultation with local kaumatua, is looking at ways to commemorate the incident, with appropriate ceremonies and possibly a memorial. But in the meantime Liang, a second generation Chinese New Zealander, became interested in the story.

“My family only came to NZ in the 1970s, so we’re relatively recent migrants,” she says. “None of the men who were lost with the Ventnor were my ancestors. But the story resonated within me as soon as I heard it. I started thinking about how we are all migrants one way or another, how we adapt to changing circumstances and how we all have to figure out where we fit in.”

Read the rest at Scoop

Robber bashes elderly woman

An elderly Chinese woman with no English stood frozen in darkness as a man demanded cash from her family takeaway shop.

He had tampered with the powerbox before entering Ming Takeaways in Mangere - about 1am on Wednesday - so the 70-year-old could not see him and did not understand what he was saying.

When she did not comply he struck her round the head with a weapon, knocking her to the ground.

The woman called out to her 38-year-old son in Cantonese "the guy is hitting me" and he rushed out from the back of the shop. He found his mother lying on the ground with a deep gash in her forehead and a bleeding, swollen eye. She was taken to Middlemore Hospital with blurred vision and discharged that morning.

"It was very scary. Somebody came into the shop and used something to hit my mum, but because she couldn't see anything and couldn't speak English ..." the son said.

He and the chef chased the man down the street, but lost sight of him and called police.

The man did not get any cash.

Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Pizzini said police believed the man tampered with the shop's powerbox so it was dark when he entered the shop.

He warned business owners to beware of the new style of robbery.

"Our advice is for shop proprietors to check power boxes if accessible from public places and make sure they are secured by padlocks so this can't happen," said Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Pizzini.

The man sought by police is 18 to 20 years old, about 178cm tall, wearing a blue bandanna over his mouth, a baseball cap and a light-coloured hooded sweatshirt.

NZ Herald

Auckland's Chinese Heritage - Auckland Heritage Festival Sep 19 - Oct 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Chinese also opened laundry and fruit shops.

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

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

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

For more details on the festival, which runs until October 4, click here Auckland Heritage Festival

New Zealand Herald

Going Bananas International Conference 17 July -19 July

MAKE WAY FOR DRAGONS AND BANANAS
Registrations are now open for our popular and iconic Going Bananas Conference, returning to Auckland, New Zealand on July 18 and 19 after opening events on 17 July. We currently have a special offer for a limited time for registrations of three or more individuals together - at the Earlybird rate of NZ$150.00 per individual. To take up this special offer, please contact Kai Luey by phone +64 9 522 1840 or fax +64 9 522 1842, or by email to kailuey@xtra.co.nz

Our promotional brochure, full programme (including ISSCO Breakout sessions),and map of conference venue are available for download. Please help build interest in the conference by spreading the word through your networks.

This year’s conference, Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas, is presented by the New Zealand Chinese Association Auckland Inc. in association with the International Society for the Studies of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO).

Our event is set to challenge perceptions of what it means to be Chinese and peel open the journeys, stories and identities of leading Chinese personalities making an impact in New Zealand and on the global stage. A highlight of the ISSCO breakout sessions will draw on experiences from Chinese communities worldwide.

Extensive carpark facilities are available under The University of Auckland Business School at a flat rate of $5.00 (incl. GST) for Friday evening after 5.00pm, and all day Saturday & Sunday. Entry is from Grafton Road. Internal access is avaiable by the carpark lifts directly to Level O where the conference is being held.
Kai Luey Chairman New Zealand Chinese Association Auckland Inc.

http://www.goingbananas.org.nz/