Post by NZBC on Aug 15, 2007 20:12:48 GMT 12
Early Chinese, circa 1860, in search of a better life:
I was born in a village in P¡¯oon Yu county. My father was a gold-miner in Otago¡I came out to NZ to join my father in 1914 after he gave up mining and opened a fruit shop in Palmerston North. My father never accomplished his goal of becoming rich, and he died an old man in 1946.I have not been back to China since a short visit in 1935, the only visit I had made since 1914. Due to a shortage of available women and a shortage of money, I never married and have no sons. This bothers me. What a mess the world is in.¡I am totally against it [intermarriage]. I could have married a European or Maori, but I wouldn¡¯t. It¡¯s disgraceful all this intermarriage. ¡.I am not happy about that [changing customs] either. Chinese should remember their past with pride (Greif 1974)
Jenny -3rd generation Chinese New Zealander
I was born in Wellington, where I work as a secretary in a solicitor¡¯s firm. I earn good money¡My parents¡want me married. ¡I want to be choosy, because I don¡¯t want to end up old before my time working sixty hours a week in a fruit shop, like my mother helping my father. I want to marry somebody like my boss¡You should see his car..and his home. ¡.I am going to limit myself to Chinese blokes only. It would kill them if I ran off with a Europeans¡ [My Chinese] is not too good. We only use it to talk to real old people and not even then sometimes. My father can read and he says that I am losing a lot, not knowing much about Chinese and Chinese culture. But I can cook. Everyone says what a good cook I am.
History
From Guangdong
Spoke 3 varieties of Cantonese not well-educated
immensely proud of their language and culture
Studies of Language Maintenance
Roberts, Mary. 1991. The New Zelaand-born Chinese community of Wellington: aspects of language maintenance and shift. In Holmes & Harlow (eds) Threads in the Tapestry of Language.Auckland Linguistics Society.
Sun, Susan. 1999. The New Zealand-born Chinese Community of Auckland. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 7: 99-106
Factors that attributed to inter-generational transfer
Regular social interaction
spoke language at home
positive attitudes towards the language
strong association between language and culture
residential contiguity
community language schools
Roberts¡signs of shift
Slow language shift
Literacy all but dead
Language not a core value
Language shift from childhood to current home
Language use (parents..Cantonese/children..English)
Factors of Relevance
Age
Gender
Childhood language use
Attendance at language schools
Positive Attitudes
Identity
Chinese New Zealanders
Essential part of cultural identity
www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/online/index.cfm?P=4902