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Post by NZBC on Apr 13, 2009 1:07:38 GMT 12
www.dnzb.govt.nz/DNZB/alt_essayBody.asp?essayID=3V4Homemaker, storekeeper Van Chu-Lin was born, probably in 1893 or 1894, in Zengcheng county in south China, in a small village a short distance north-east of Canton (Guangzhou). The only daughter of an oil vendor, Van Poy Wah, and his wife, Ah Day, Chu-Lin was well known for her beauty. Her parents promised her to Chun Yee Hop, a store proprietor who had returned from New Zealand with the explicit aim of seeking a young secondary wife who could give him an heir. He was many years her senior. Van Chu-Lin was about 21 when she arrived in Wellington on 2 August 1915 on the Ulimaroa ; the couple's marriage had been formally registered on 19 July after the ship docked in Sydney. Chu-Lin joined only about 120 women in New Zealand's small and marginalised Chinese community, which had been moulded by the highly restrictive immigration acts introduced since 1881.
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