AUCKLAND’S CHINATOWN

[nzbc]

AUCKLAND’S CHINATOWN

PEACE-LOVING PEOPLE. OLD HOUSES BUT CLEAN CONDITIONS A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES. Although New Zealand is more east than west, yet it is of the west, and the somewhat hackneyed quotation “East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet,” is applicable so far as the people of the Dominion and the Chinese within its gates are concerned. Comparatively the Chinese residents in New Zealand are few, and their reserve and peace-loving dispositions make them a silent factor in our midst. On the surface and probably actually so, their existence in exile is drab in the extreme. That it is not always so one learns on seeing the portrayal of the character of “Mr Wu” or “East of Suez,” that sordid play with a Chinese setting. Again one is not likely to find in New Zealand the high class Chinese household to which Mr Sen took his English wife on his final visit to his native land. An Auckland Star reporter a day or two ago had a peep into Auckland’s Chinatown.

Something of a fallacy has always obtained among a certain section of the public that these men of the Orient in our midst live in filth and squalor. A visit to a house or two where live these aliens would quickly dispel any misconceptions that have been harboured in the minds of those who do not know. It is an unfairness to regard them as dirty people who live in filth, and a strange combination of smells. They are not men who put bananas under their beds to ripen or who breath on apples to make them shine. Just as it is with every other race in the world, there are some who prefer to join the ranks of the great unwashed, but the greater part of the Chinese residents here are staunch believers that “cleanliness is next to godliness.” EATING HOUSE DELICACIES. Auckland’s Chinatown—if such it can be called—extends over a wide area. In every suburb is the Republic of China represented. But it is in Grey street, and around that district that the largest number of these Celestials are congregated. It is here that we find a Chinese eating house run by Chinese. It is a strange place. The red, yellow, blue, white and black flag of the Republic of China spreads itself across one of the walls of a large assembly hall of sorts. There are photos of Chinese masonic societies and weird Oriental prints of birds of the air. Down a narrow staircase is the restaurant proper, and here a meal full of Chinese luxury can be obtained for 2s. (Such a meal, if prepared by Europeans, would cost double the amount). An elaborate menu is presented. “Long soup” heads the long and extragavant list of eatables. It contains pork rolled in a special Chinese preparation. It is eaten with chop sticks and a china sthingy, and is regarded as a real delicacy. The cooks are adepts at making cakes, fancy scones, and buns with a jam of sorts made from burnt peas, and a strange preparation it is. “Lovely,” one of .the diners told the reporter, who was many times invited to try one of their numerous delicacies. After the soup, duck, fowl or pork is served. These are cooked in Chinese fashion, hnd it is doubtful whether they would titillate the palate of the European. The fowl is suspended in the ‘oven by a hook. Oil is frequently poured over it, and so it cooks. Tea is served, but again, it is not the tea that would be relished by the Englishman. They use neither sugar nor milk. A big pot of tea is made in the morning, and is kept warm by enclosing it in a basket lined with a thick padding. Sometimes one brew will last all day long. When a diner wants a drink he goes to the pot, pours out about a quarter of a cup and drinks that. No more; that is enough. Although old and sbmewhat tarnished, it is a clean and wholesome place, and all the cooking is done in full view of the diners. The food is protected in glass cases, and there are fly screen doors.

It is a strange place, this Chinese restaurant. The atmosphere is so different. The diners eat with chop sticks, and it is astounding the facility with which they use these long pieces of ebony. HOW THEY SLEEP.

Upstairs are the sleeping quarters. Not long ago we would find a couple of boxes, with two wide planks stretched across. On this would be placed a thick blanket, and on this they would sleep. Now we find in all their homes comfortable and up-to-date beds and bedding. All day the top sheets and blankets are neatly folded back the whole length of the bed, so that when night comes they sleep in well-aired bedding. In one house the occupant and his wife showed a bedroom which was like that of an expensive hotel. Thickly carpeted with a richly coloured rug, with beds of expensive wood and with attractive paper on the walls, the room presented quite a bright contrast to the usually sombre settings of a Chinese household. In a youth’s bedroom there was something of a barber’s shop. An array of hair oils, perfumes, powders, shaving creams and sundries decorated his room. The latest cut American suit was hung on a coathanger and carefully covered by a sheet of brown paper. All these belonged to a lad of sixteen. He showed a high intelligence. He had been in New Zealand only one month, he averred, but had spent two years in Fiji. There he had learned the art of working tortoise-shell, and made for himself, among other things, a wrist band for his watch. He told, in almost perfect English, something of his short life, and made great speculation as to the visit of the “stranger with the notebook.” A touch of loyalty to the land of their adoption was shown by some of the colonialborn Chinese. In a couple of rooms there were photographs of the King and Queen, and in another a splendid photograph of the Prince of Wales looked down from the walls. Nearly all the young men showed a love of English beauty, for in many of the rooms there were photographs and prints of English girls, and they displayed a rare choice in their selection of prints. An autographed photograph of a vaudeville artist was seen in one room. One young man, in displaying his tidy little room, proudly produced a photograph of a Celestial lady arrayed in the elaborate apparel of the Orient. THEY LOVE THEIR HOMES. Life at the back of a Chinese shop has probably been painted on the canvas of the average man’s mind in many mysterious colours, but after a tour through these alien quarters the picture becomes a brighter one. The air of mystery disappears, and we find a clean-living, industrious and home-loving people with whom it would be difficult to find fault. To the inspectors of the Health Department belongs the credit of pointing the way to wholesome living conditions,


paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19260211.2.102?items_per_page=10&page=6&query=chinese+diner&snippet=true

SOUTHLAND TIMES, ISSUE 19791, 11 FEBRUARY 1926,