The Making of a Chinese New Zealander

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The first Chinese people that came to this country endured discrimination, loneliness, and hardship - a situation that would continue for them, their descendants, and new Chinese immigrants for over a century. But they would experience triumphs and happiness too.

After Polynesians and Europeans, Chinese are New Zealand's largest ethnic community. New Zealand's first-known Chinese settler was Wong ah Poo Hoc Ting ('Appo Hocton'), who arrived in Nelson in 1842 as a steward on a migrant ship. Later, the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce invited Chinese from the Victoria goldfields in Australia to work in the Central Otago goldfields. Many of the European miners had abandoned these 'exhausted' fields in favour of new goldfields on the West Coast, and local businesses saw hardworking Chinese as a way of reviving their now depressed local economy. In 1866, twelve Chinese miners landed in Dunedin. By the end of 1866, there were 1219 Chinese in Otago.

All of these Chinese were either single men, or married men who had left wives at home. Their aim was to dig enough gold at 'New Gold Hill' - their name for the goldfields of New Zealand and Australia - so that they could return to China and lead prosperous lives in their home villages. The home region for most of these men was the Pearl River delta area of Guangdong Province.

Chinese who came here encountered a hostile environment. Anti-Chinese sentiments became widespread towards the end of the 1800s. Despite this, some Chinese, such as Choie Sew Hoy and Chew Chong, did well in New Zealand society.

World War II started for China when Japan attacked in 1937. The New Zealand Chinese Association was quick to organise a national campaign of donations to help 'Save the Motherland.' By late 1945, New Zealand Chinese had donated over ?30, 920, a rate of giving per person that was exceeded only by American Chinese.

Chinese New Zealanders got involved in the nation's war effort in many ways. Chinese market gardeners were encouraged by the Government to grow vegetables with maximum efficiency to supply troops fighting in the Pacific. Individuals such as Alex Ah Chee enlisted in the forces and took a direct part in the war. Within New Zealand, Chinese people came to be viewed no longer as 'aliens' but as 'allies'.

In 1939, Chinese women and children came here as war refugees. They were only allowed to stay for two years, but the war didn't end for another six. Permanent residence was granted to war refugees in 1947, but only after considerable pressure was brought to bear on the Government by the Presbyterian Church and the New Zealand Chinese Association.

Prior to the entry of this first large group of Chinese women into New Zealand, the Chinese here consisted of isolated men whose stay was intended to be temporary. When women came, settler families were established. It was these families who began the process of developing a true Chinese community within New Zealand.

In 1952, Chinese people who could prove their assimilation to New Zealand ways could become naturalised. Only a few took up the opportunity; some older people were reluctant to abandon their Chinese citizenship, and others had difficulties in proving that their way of life was more 'New Zealand' than 'Chinese'.

Despite this block to citizenship, many Chinese New Zealanders recall the 1950s and 1960s as a time of racial harmony and general prosperity. At this time, Chinese assimilation into New Zealand society seemed to be well under way - both the use of Chinese language and observance of traditional festivals were declining.

In 1966, of the 10,000 Chinese in New Zealand, half were under twenty-five.

With such a young community, there was a marked growth of sports teams. The 1960s and 1970s were also the time when young Chinese New Zealanders began getting tertiary education in significant numbers, and started to enter the professions. Chinese New Zealanders became known as the 'model minority'. Making up only 0.6 per cent of the total population, they had a reputation as a law-abiding, hard-working, and well- educated group.

The Immigration Act of 1987 brought a radical change to New Zealand's immigration policies. Admission to this country was now based on personal merit, qualifications, and proven business skills rather than on nationality or ethnic origin. The 'business entry' category attracted Chinese people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The 'old' New Zealand Chinese are now heavily outnumbered by the recent arrivals, most of whom have settled in Auckland. People of Asian origin now comprise 5 per cent of New Zealand's population. (1)

The Government hoped that these 'business migrants', many of whom had substantial cash savings and significant investment proposals, would help kick- start New Zealand's sluggish economy. Many of the new Chinese migrants had chosen to come here in preference to the much larger and wealthier societies of the USA and Canada because of New Zealand's reputation for racial tolerance. However, a lack of familiarity with New Zealand's business culture, language problems, and expressions of hostility from some elements of New Zealand society, have tended to limit the potential of the 'new' Chinese.

The increased numbers of New Zealanders of Chinese descent is a pointer to this country's collective future as a multicultural Pacific-rim society.

Reference
(1) New Zealand official yearbook 1998 Te pukapuka houanga whaimana o Aotearoa. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand and GP Publications, p 122.

More information

Some of the following publications may be found on the Discovery Centre bookshelves or in Te Aka Matua Library and Information Centre on Level 4. Photographs of Te Papa collection items may be ordered from Images on Level 4.
Greif, Stuart W. (1995). Immigration and national identity in New Zealand: one people, two peoples, many peoples? Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.
Ip, Manying. (1996). Dragons on the Long White Cloud: the making of Chinese New Zealanders. North Shore City: Tandem Press.
Ip, Manying. (1990). Home away from home: life stories of Chinese women in New Zealand. Auckland: New Women's Press.
New Zealand Immigration Service website: www.immigration.govt.nz
New Zealand official yearbook 1998 Te pukapuka houanga whaimana o Aotearoa. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand and GP Publications.
Ng, James. (1993-1999). Windows on a Chinese past. Dunedin: Otago Heritage Books. Vols 1-4.
Statistics New Zealand web site: www.stats.govt.nz
Beal, Tim and Sos, Farib (1999) Astronauts from Taiwan, Wellington: Asia Pacific Research Institute.

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tpo.tepapa.govt.nz/ViewTopicExhibitDetail.asp?ExhibitionID=past_cg&ExhibitID=0x000ae1c1&Language=English

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Until the 1970s, virtually all the Chinese residents in New Zealand came from Canton, an area in the South East of China. Most could trace their ancestry to the countryside around the Pearl River delta. thingyyu County and the area known as 'Seyip', which includes Taishan, Xinhui, Kaiping, and Enping counties, has particularly strong associations with migration to New Zealand during the nineteenth century.

All the villages in the region with New Zealand connections are clustered together. This is a result of the phenomenon known as 'chain migration', where people from a particular place migrate and others in the neighbourhood follow, creating a trend of migration from the particular area.

The photograph shows one of the 'home villages', Sun Gai village in the Jung Sing County, Guangdong province, 1898. The village pond was an important feature, used for breeding fish, and for firefighting.

References
Ng, James. (1993-1999). Windows on a Chinese past. Dunedin: Otago Heritage Books. Vol 1, pp 11-12
Ip, Manying. (1990). Home away from home: life stories of Chinese women in New Zealand. Auckland: New Women's Press.

More information

The following publication may be found on the Discovery Centre bookshelves or in Te Aka Matua Library and Information Centre on Level 4. Photographs of Te Papa collection items may be ordered from Images on Level 4.
Ng, James. (1993-1999). Windows on a Chinese past. Dunedin: Otago Heritage Books. Vols 1-4.

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tpo.tepapa.govt.nz/ViewTopicExhibitDetail.asp?TopicFileID=0x000ae203

Finding refuge

Japan invaded China's Zhujiang Delta region in 1938. Understandably, this caused a great deal of anxiety for the Chinese men who were living permanently in New Zealand. The Chinese Consulate and the New Zealand Chinese Association urged the New Zealand Government to allow the wives and children (sixteen-year-olds and under) of these men to come here as war refugees.

But the Government made conditions - the men had to provide adequate housing for these refugees and give a sizeable bond - 200 pounds - towards the cost of repatriation after the war. And that wasn't all - any New Zealand-born children of the refugees would have to return to China after the war, with no right of re- entry to New Zealand.

A total of 249 wives and 244 children came here. The scheme was ended early in 1940 following complaints from European fruiterers - they were angered at the employment of Chinese women and children in the shops of their Chinese competitors'.

The photograph shows some of a party of thirty refugee women and children from the Canton area who arrived here in 1939.

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Assimilation

Until recently, immigrants to New Zealand were expected to blend into the culture they found here. One reason for this attitude is that, for well over a century, New Zealand was ethnically very uniform. In 1945, 'Europeans', or P¨¡keh¨¡, made up over 93 per cent of the population. Most of these people either came from the United Kingdom or Ireland, or were descended from people who had come from there.

Only 5.8% of the 1945 population identified themselves as 'M¨¡ori'. And a tiny 0.63% were classified as 'aliens by race' (Chinese, Indians, and Pacific Islanders). The pattern of public and cultural life that had developed in New Zealand was Anglo-Saxon and, generally, Protestant. This photograph shows Kathleen Pih-Chang at the age of 85 at her home in Tauranga. Kathleen was the adopted child of a missionary and came to live in New Zealand with her new family in 1908. Kathleen went on to become the first Chinese to gain a medical degree in New Zealand at the University of Otago, Dunedin. However for much of her early childhood living in Otago, Kathleen found it difficult to be accepted because she was Chinese. She was embarrassed and sensitive about her Chinese heritage. It was not until her return to China to practise medicine in the 1930s, that she accepted her Chinese identity.

After World War II, New Zealand suffered a labour shortage. Immigration was seen as a way to deal with this problem. As much as possible, immigration was restricted to people of 'British stock from the British Isles'. When it wasn't possible to get enough British people to emigrate, the possibility of getting immigrants of similar 'racial stock' from Northern and Western Europe was considered.

The assumption of immigration policy makers was that such people would be readily 'assimilable' - they would blend in, socially and culturally - to the way of life in New Zealand. The opposite assumption was made about people of Southern and Eastern European origin, and the possibility of large-scale migration of Asians was dismissed out of hand. A 1953 internal memorandum of the Department of External Affairs states:

Whereas we have done much to encourage immigration from Europe, we do everything to discourage it from Asia. (1)

The Department was working on the principle that New Zealand should be a 'country of European development', and that New Zealanders' way of life was essentially 'British' - the closer an immigrant's cultural match to this way of life, the better. As late as 1970, the Department of Labour maintained that 'the greater and more obvious the differences between the immigrant and the average New Zealander, the longer and more difficult the period of assimilation and the greater the tendency of immigrants to hive off into little colonies.'

A strategy that was designed to further assimilation was the scattering of small numbers of newly arrived migrants all over the country. This strategy was employed with Dutch migrants who came here in large numbers in the 1950s. The idea was that the scattering would prevent the formation of urban 'ghettoes' of alien immigrants.

Between 1945 and 1965, about 200,000 people migrated to New Zealand. Most were British. Of the non-British arrivals, the Dutch were by far the largest group - the population had a net gain of about 24,000 permanent Dutch residents between 1951 and 1968. About 5000 'Displaced Persons' came from various countries in Southern and Eastern Europe between 1949 and 1953, followed by about 1100 Hungarian refugees after 1956. These numbers made up less than 2 per cent of the total New Zealand population in the 1961 census. Asians and Pacific Islanders not born in New Zealand accounted for less than 1 per cent of the total population.

Despite their small numbers, some migrants were criticised during these years by xenophobic New Zealanders for a supposed unwillingness to assimilate.

Many older immigrants can recall being berated in public for not speaking English, and many Asian and Pacific people found themselves targets of racist abuse.

It was very difficult for ethnic communities to maintain a strong sense of identity during the 1960s and 1970s. Their numbers were small, and open expressions of ethnic and cultural differences were discouraged. It even seemed to some observers in the late 1970s that the 'assimilationist' goal had been achieved. But at about this time, policy began to move away from promoting assimilation. Public attitudes were changing, and there was a wide acknowledgement that diversity would enrich rather than weaken New Zealand society.

A major review of immigration policy in 1986 overturned the emphasis on nationality and culture. The new Immigration Act of 1987 ensured the selection of immigrants on the basis of personal merit. This was a significant departure from the bias in favour of the British and West Europeans that had shaped New Zealand migrant flows for almost a century. The new legislation gave priority to migrants whose skills and business expertise would benefit New Zealand, allowing many new immigrants of Chinese ethnic background to enter the country.

Reference

(1) Brooking, T. and Rabel, R. (1995). Neither British nor Polynesian, a Brief History of New Zealand's Other Immigrants, in Grief, S. (ed), Immigration and National Identity in New Zealand. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. p 39.

More information

Some of the following publications may be found on the Discovery Centre bookshelves or in Te Aka Matua Library and Information Centre on Level 4. Photographs of Te Papa collection items may be ordered from Images on Level 4.


Brooking, T., and Rabel, R. "Neither British nor Polynesian, a Brief History of New Zealand's Other Immigrants", in Grief, S. (ed.) (1995). Immigration & National Identity in New Zealand. Dunmore Press.

Ip, Manying. (1990). Home away from home: life stories of Chinese women in New Zealand. Auckland: New Women's Press.

Lochore, R.A. (1951) From Europe to New Zealand, An Account of Our Continental European Settlers. Reed.
Roy, W.T. "Immigration Policy and Legislation" and Thomson, K.W. "The Dutch", in Thomson, K.W. and Trlin, A.D. Immigrants in New Zealand Massey University.

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Asian Races. The gold rushes of the sixties introduced the first considerable number of non-British immigrants, especially Chinese. These came initially from Australia but later direct from China, the census in 1874 recording 4,814 Chinese residents. Prejudice against Chinese immigrants resulted in special restrictions on their entry to New Zealand, including a poll tax introduced in 1881 and not removed until 1944. Because of these measures Chinese immigration was very slight for some 60 years, but there has been a resumption on a small scale in the past 20 years, especially of women and families of local Chinese. At census date in 1961, 66 per cent of overseas born Chinese women had arrived in New Zealand since 1946, compared with 38 per cent of Chinese men. Forty-one per cent of immigrant Chinese men had been in New Zealand for 30 years or more, and among the overseas born, men outnumbered women by more than three to two. In 1956 the figures had been almost four to two. More than half the Chinese now in New Zealand have been born here.