Avondale Auckland

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ROMANCE IN CABBAGE GARDEN Dainty Oriental Damsel Lures Rival Yellow Sheiks Into Cave-Man Battle For Her Favor SECRET PASSION OF ALMOND-EYED VALENTINO

JUST such a dainty daughter of the orient was Lai. How Pee, and though past the flippant stage of flapperdom, Lai had the choice of all the market gardeners on the Ah Chee cabbage estate at Avondale. To a man, these Auckland Chinese yearned to laytheir Hearts (and their cabbages) 'at the feet of their beloved little lotus a fluttering m Oriental bosoms when Lai walked abroad in Avondale. But the blandishments of Ah For, who was a hawker, finally won the day. There were at least two disappointed rivals, however, who, yearned for their lost love, and behind their masks of habitual impassiveness they nursed a fierce hatred against the successful suitor to the hand of the demure and dainty little Lai. . . Each day, as Soo .Bing Poy and King- Hong Jong (a distant rela-. tive of the famous Chinese philosopher, Mah Jong) coaxed their cabbages from the soil, they swore vengeance and waited patiently for the day of its fulfilment. At last it came. In her excitement at the. prospect of becoming Mrs. Ah For, Lai had gone off from the Ah Chee household minus the greater part of her wardrobe, so back she came one day with Ah For to collect her belongings, and for reasons best known to herself she left her future husband on the roadway, and told him to stay there while she went In to pack. King Hong Jong, away down the garden somewhere, was wielding a hoe and thinking of what .he would do to Ah For when next he saw his yellow face, when— chancing to look towards the house— he saw Ah For himself outside on the road. With a gleam of triumph m his almond eyes, Jong charged towards his foe, hoe in hand, calling to Soo Bing Poy to follow.

Soo had been busy cutting cabbages, and he waved his knife in the air as he raced: towards the road to cut off Ah For in his early youth. -Ah For evidently decided that it was no place for him, having due regard for the life of the future husband of his little Lai, and promptly disappeared up the road m a cloud of dust, with Jong and Soo m hot pursuit,,waving their weapons and jabbering their opinions of him in breathless Chinese. From the neighboring gardens other Orientals turned out to watch the fun. A motor-van was coming down the road, and towards it Ah For raced for sanctuary. One wild leap, and he was mixed up with the driver, gear lever and steering-wheel, .so .that the van was brought to a standstill. Ah For's Flight With a whoop of joy, Jong jabbed at his unfortunate foe who struggled in vain to wriggle but of the reach of his tormentor. Soo Poy was not to be left out of the fun. Up onto the lorry he Jumped, waving, his cabbage, knife, but Henry Slade, who was riding on the back, grabbed him by the wrist. "Nottee you, nottee you!" shrieked Soo Poy excitedly. "That man there," indicating the wriggling An For; The persecuted Chinaman came to the conclusion that the van was too hot a place to be comfortable, so— in the words of Leonard Charles Vincent, the lorry-driver— he went aloft," climbing on top of the roof of the van.
Here the long-handled hoe and the cabbage knife could not reach him, but King Hong; Jong was not a man to be so, easily outdone. . There was an ample supply of road metal about, and he proceeded to bombard the luckless Ah For with it. For a Chinaman, his aim was not half bad either as, Ah For will testify. To him, the time he spent on top of the motor-van seemed like an age— Half an hour, at least — but m his agitated state of mind it might only have been half a minute. k A motor-car came v on the. scene and Ah For jumped into it and drove away. He doesn't know to this day where he werft, nor at that particular moment did he care, so long as he put a few miles between himself and his vindictive foes. The Dainty Lai How When the story of the fight and flight was told in the Auckland Police Court last week, Magistrate Orr- Walker had a complicated Chinese puzzle to solve. To begin with, Ah For's memory was so affected by the jabs he received, with the hoe that he had completely forgotten tbe name of his wife-to-be. In voluble Chinese he explained, through an interpreter, that he had received a blow on the hip and one on the head. In reply to Lawyer A. C. Steven's cross-examination, Ah For said that he had only been to the place once before, arid that was with a cart to get Lai's belongings. He -didn't, know either of the accused. Chinese memories must be very short. The dainty Lai How Pee stepped into the box with a you-can't-put it-over-me look-in her dark eyes as she faced Police Sergeant Colwell.' The solution of the Chinese puzzle wasn't helped along at all when the interpreter announced, much to the amusement of the Court, that Lai didn't understand his Chinese. She got along quite well in English, however. King Hong Jong also had a curiously defective memory. His version of the story- was in effect that he didn't know Ah For from any other yellow son of Canton. There was a large sum of money m the house — the market gardeners' payroll, as a matter of fact — and seeing this strange man coming out of the house, tie naturally concluded that he was up to no good. Magistrates Suspicion He yelled out to Poy: "Thief, stop him!" and Poy raced towards the road to cut him off. He admitted striking Ah For with the hoe, and also that he had thrown a piece of "hard soil" at him. That he wasn't going to reveal his inner pangs of passion for Lai was evident, for he denied even knowing her. She had no right at the house, he said. He saw her out on the road afterwards. Soo Bing Poy was likewise innocent of any intention to harm Ah For, (so he said). He simply tried to stop him to ask him, quite politely, what he was doing on the place. He had the knife on his hip, and being- afraid that it might stick into him, he drew it. No doubt. "I've a shrewd suspicion that it wasn't the fact of him stealing the money, but that he was taking the lady away from someone that led to the assault," said the S.M., as he fined .the relative of Mah Jong £2 with' £2 17s 6d costs, and Soo Poy £1. The services of the interpreter cost each of them half a guinea. NZ Truth , Issue 1093, 11 November 1926, Page 7

[NZBC]

EXCITING MOMENTS CHINESE ATTACK FELLOW countryman

ESCORT TAKEN FOR THIEF, (By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day

An exciting incident at Avondale on' 20th September resulted in the appearance-in the Police' Court yesterday of King Hong Jong and See Bing Poy on a charge of assaulting Ah For. Ah For, a hawker, said that he accompanied a Chinese woman to a market garden at Avondale, where she wished to buy something. He did not know her name. Sergeant Caldwell: "But he said he was going to marry her. The interpreter said that "the witness reiterated that ho intended to marry the woman, but did not know her name. Ah For said that he waited while the woman entered a house. Jong appeared with a hoe and looked threatening. He was joined by # Poy, who had a knife, and witness fled. Jong struck him with tho hoe, _u the pursuit continued until the witness jumped on a lorry. Li How Peo said she was leaving the house when she saw the defendants attack Ah For, who had been waiting for her. A motor-driver said he was driving a lorry when Ah For hailed him excitedly. Nearly a dozen Chinamen were following him, with the defendants in the lead. Ah For took refuge on the lorry, but had to climb on to the canopy roof to keep out of the.reach of the "assailants. "A knife was uncomfortably close, so I gave way and let them have the truck," said the witness. > Counsel said that the defendants had mistaken Ah For's purpose in visitjng the premises. Jong had called out the equivalent of "Stop thief!" and Ah For took to his heels. Jong was convicted and fined £2. A -fine of £1 was imposed on Poy.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 111, 6 November 1926, Page 11

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FROST AND HAIL AUCKLAND CROPS DAMAGED (By Telegraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post.")
AUCKLAND, This Day.

Market gardeners in parts of Avondale and Mangere suffered heavily from frosts on Sunday and Monday, and' reports from New Lynn show that orchards in that district were badly damaged by the hailstorm that occurred just before the-cold snap. Many gardens were a poor sight after being cut clown during the week-end, and on one side of one road at Avondale it was reported that some of the individual losses were heavy. The eastern side of the road practically escaped, and the contrast shown by patches o£ ruined crops> on the west and those untouched on the east was very marked. Chinese growers at Mangere, where some of the largest gardens are, stated that pumpkins, potatoes, marrows, cucumbers, and beans had all suffered; large areas were affected, and acres would have to be replanted. A report from the Waikato states that early crops, such as English gooseberries, have not been much damaged, and the growers are therefore fortunate compared with those of Greyfcown, in the Wnirarapa district, where the frost a fortnight ago spoiled half the crop. New Lynn growers, though unaffected by the frosts, had an unenviable experience' on Saturday, when a heavy local hailstorm destroyed whole fields of tomatoes, plum trees, peach trees, and all fruit trees in blossom or just beginning to set their fruit were stripped. Sweet peas were cut by the heavy hail, and ordinary pea-, and beans. were severely bruised. The owner of a large glasshouse remarked that the hail was a heavy test for glasshouses, and it was only the heavy wind which caused the hail to glance off the glass that saved his own from destruction. Many districts have not reported upon the condition of their crops, and it is not known whether the potato crops of the more distant growers have been affected. Pukekohe^ experience has already been a severe one this year, and as far as early crops of potatoes are concerned the district has failed. It is from suburban and other growers nearer to Auckland that the early potatoes now on the market have been coming during the past few weeks. These are of good quality, and there is no fear of a shortage. Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 115, 11 November 1925, Page 6 paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19251111.2.64&srpos=3&e=-------100--1----0mangere+gardens--

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Nine Chinese Gardeners were charged at tho Auckland Police Court with workingl in their gardens at Avondale on Sunday. Defendant's contended that it was a work of necessity, and the case was dismissed. Ashburton Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 6516, 10 March 1905, Page 2