Lawrence Chinese Camp gets Joss House back

[nzbc]

The Joss House will be moved from its current Maryport St address to its original Lawrence Chinese Camp location on Friday.

A piece of Lawrence history will be returned to its rightful place on Friday.

A small weatherboard cottage, known as the Joss House and once an integral part of the town's Chinese settlement, will be shifted from Maryport St to its original site at Lawrence Chinese Camp, just outside the Clutha District town.

It's been a long-term project, Lawrence Chinese Camp Charitable Trust chairman Jim Ng, of Dunedin, said.

"We had the finance, but it took three years to get resource consent. We had two kinds to get, a heritage set and the ordinary set."

READ MORE:
* Lawrence Chinese Camp given funds for information panels

Used as a place of worship and fellowship for Chinese miners, the building dates back to 1869 and the Otago gold rush.

The last resident of the camp, Chow Shim, died in 1945, and the land was put to grazing.

The Joss House was moved from the site in 1947, and used as a private residence within the Lawrence township.

In 1990, the trust bought the land, and in the past 10 years had appointed the Southern Pacific Archaeological Research team to excavate the site, and establish where the most recent of the two previous joss houses had stood.

Nearly 70 years on, the Joss House will be loaded onto the back of a Fulton Hogan truck, and taken just a few kilometres to Lawrence's western end, and placed on pre-prepared foundations and piles next to the only remaining building, the brick-clad Chinese Empire Hotel.


Of the 33 buildings in the thriving Chinese settlement that supported 100 people at its height in the 1880s, the Joss House was the most significant, Ng said.

"It was very important both culturally and spiritually and as a meeting place for Chinese people."

They would burn incense for their gods and ancestors, and as the population aged, many old Chinese people died there.

The Joss House's homecoming was a major step in the development of the site, he said.

"We know the great majority of people have been waiting for it [with anticipation]. We also know that Chinese tourists have been stopping at the camp in private cars, which is why we are establishing information panels in Chinese to complement the ones in English."

In the short term, the development will include renovating the house and duplicating some of its original Chinese features, and long term, establishing a visitor centre, museum and a reconstruction of parts of the original village.
www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/86926163/lawrence-chinese-camp-gets-joss-house-back

[nzbc]

Lawrence Joss House returns to its physical and spiritual home
awrence Chinese Camp Charitable Trust chairman Dr James Ng pictured at the newly relocated Joss House with interested supporters, left, Anne Cheng and Anne Benington, of Lawrence.


Lawrence Joss House's physical journey may have ended, after it was loaded onto a truck and taken back to the town's Chinese camp on Friday.

But it's spiritual re-induction onto the site has only just begun, Lawrence Chinese Camp Charitable Trust chairman James Ng says.

The Dunedin Chinese aficionado looked on with satisfaction and not a little anxiety while the humble weather-board building and holder of ancestral spirits, was gently laid back on its piles on the spot it vacated nearly 70 years ago.

"There's the ordinary emotion of knowing this was going to happen, but then I think it's relief more than anything, that it's finally happened."

Years of fundraising and $22,000 later, the Joss House, as it was called by Europeans to describe the ritual and worship that went on in the building, has finally returned home.

In the coming years, and during the renovation of the building, Ng hopes the trust will unlock the Joss House's secrets.

One of the initial tasks will be uncovering the original colour.

According to Chinese tradition, it may have been painted red, the colour of good fortune, or perhaps even a dignified yellow. It's unlikely that it was painted the white, the Chinese colour of mourning, as it is now.

Ng said he had seen other Joss Houses on Australian gold field towns, which were more prominent, and with Chinese features, because of the large number of Chinese miners who were lured by gold.


"But here there was a much smaller population [of Chinese people] so it would make sense to make their Joss House as unobtrusive as possible."

Such was the anti-Chinese sentiment of the time that people were banished to Lawrence's outskirts, where they prospered, with a population of 100 at the camp's height towards the end of the gold rush.

Generally, Joss Houses, like most Chinese dwellings, were built facing the sun.

The trust also wants to ascertain whether or not the building was actually the first Joss House, or a second built on the same site.

As they watched the little house lowered by hydraulics, Ng and his wife Eva said a few quiet words for the ancestral spirits and souls of the Chinese people who had lived and died within the Joss House's walls.

Their respectful sentiments were echoed by an unexpected source, a new found friend Anne Cheng, who recently moved from Auckland to live in Lawrence. Originally Hong Kong Chinese, by one of those uncanny co-incidences, Cheng and the Ngs discovered that their ancestors had come from the same village, Shek Ki, of Zhongshan, in China.

"When I first visited in April, I immediately felt an association with this place. No matter how affordable it [Lawrence] was, you've got to feel comfortable in a place, and I immediately felt a connection."

Other little historical snippets came to light, as locals gathered around to talk about their history with the site.

Lawrence farmer John Benington, remembers as a 10-year-old his father moving the Joss House by skids and traction engine on the gravel road into the Lawrence township, in 1947.

Contractor Fulton and Hogan heavy haul manager Pete Harrison of Dunedin said moving the building back was no mean feat either.

"It was a challenge because of its age, height and fragility, but when we picked it up, I was pleasantly surprised as she seemed quite sturdy."

The first test was getting the 6.2 metre-high building under power lines that crossed State Highway 8. Most had to be lifted out of the way by the electricity company and escort crew with a pole.

The building also stood-up well to the mechanical maneuvering it took to set it on newly-built piles.

Fundraising will continue to pay for the Joss Houses's renovation.
www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/87103297/lawrence-joss-house-returns-to-its-physical-and-spiritual-home

[nzbc]

Lawrence's first lantern parade shines a light on Chinese heritage
Organisers Jenny Bird and Anne Cheng, right, hang up the community's handiwork at the Lawrence Chinese lantern parade.

Nearly a week on from the hugely successful Lawrence Chinese lantern parade, organiser Anne Cheng is still beaming like one of the lanterns her community made for the inaugural event held on Friday night.

She expressed her pride Lawrence's achievement, in an event that looks set to become a fixture on the south Otago town's calendar.

"Friday's event was a resounding success. I was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic community participation. We had around 160 lanterns made – about 100 from the Lawrence Area School, 40 from a community workshop, 11 from the kindergarten, and the rest from informal sessions."

More than 120 people turned out for the event.

READ MORE:
* Lawrence Chinese Lantern Festival farewells the full moon
* Lawrence Joss House returns to its physical and spiritual home
* Lawrence Chinese Camp gets Joss House back

"I am still grinning like the Cheshire cat."

She thought the initiative had set a high benchmark for an annual event to acknowledge the Chinese heritage of Lawrence through celebrating important cultural festivals.

The town, which played an integral part in the discovery of gold in Otago, has a bitter-sweet connection with Chinese people who came out to New Zealand as gold miners, because of racial attitudes in the 1860s.

The Lawrence Chinese Camp, which will be a recipient of any donations resulting from the lantern parade, is an example of how the Chinese were pushed to the fringes of society, by having to live on the outskirts of town.

However, a place of banishment has become a place to acknowledge their contribution to the settlement of the area, with redevelopment of the site.


In the past few weeks, locals had got busy making lanterns to mirror the northern hemisphere Chinese mid-autumn lantern parade, which was held mid-spring in the southern hemisphere on October 5. Also known as Lantern Festival or Moon Festival, the event is the second most important event on the Chinese cultural calendar.

It was funded from the Clutha District Creative Communities Scheme and a grant from the Lawrence Athenaeum Mining Institute.

Cheng recently moved from Auckland to live in Lawrence, and is originally from Hong Kong Chinese.

She recalled a feeling an "immediate association with this place" and a connection.

www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/97715780/lawrences-first-lantern-parade-shines-a-light-on-chinese-heritage

- Stuff