Wellington
14 February – 22 Febuary 2010
Capital of culture, a hidden Chinatown
There used to be a Chinatown of sorts in Wellington. In central Wellington, some streets featured many Chinese retailers, with restaurants, laundries, fruit and vegetable stores. There was even one street known for its vices. There, it was said, people gambled, smoked opium and did other things forbidden.
Today, there are no Chinatowns in New Zealand. And the Chinatown of old Wellington is a distant memory, replaced by central city apartments, car parks, large stores and office buildings.
We were in Wellington for several reasons: it is the nation’s capital; it has a large number of Older Generation Chinese; it was celebrating Chinese New Year (on the actual day of the Chinese New Year – 14th February).
Arriving from Auckland by plane, we hurried to downtown Wellington, to the waterfront where we set up our display at the TSB Arena on the waterfront for the Wellington Chinese New Year festival. The event was well organized, though the windy and cloudy weather kept some away. But that’s Wellington for you.
I’d told Mu about the wind, but he didn’t really believe til he experienced it for himself. Taking a black canvas down a central city street, he almost got blown over.
At the New Year festival we had a display of artworks, and had lots of visitor come by to look at the images and talk with us. Mu painted on stage inside, doing a quick portrait of an older man, and later in the afternoon, he painted a girl from the audience. The easel needed to be held down in the brisk northerly wind.
After the busy day in public, we were fortunate enough to be invited to the Chinese New Year dinner of the Tung Jung Association in Wellington. One of three country associations, the Tung Jung Association has been looking after its members for more than 80 years in New Zealand. And we were looked after very well, by president Sam Kwok and ‘our man’: Gordon Wu.
During the week, we met with the association members, as well as the Chinese Association Wellington branch, and historian Nigel Murphy. Once we had set up and got ready for painting and interviewing, we were able to use the Tung Jung Association rooms for research and painting.
But before we could start, we had to get some canvas stretched onto frame for painting. A previous offer of help from a nation-wide art shop turned out to be too expensive for us: about $130 for each canvas. So we did the Kiwi DIY solution and borrowed a painting on a frame, and stapled our canvas from China onto the frame.
We also needed a video camera, and after a lot of running around, Mu decided on an old tape camera from a second-hand shop. We then had to find a charger. The camera doesn’t have a power source or a cable to connect to a computer, but it works. And with tapes has cost under $250.
One day Mu painted Gordon Wu from the Tung Jung Association, in the association’s clubrooms. It took most of the day, and we frequently stopped for breaks, to drink tea, and eat some of the delicious lunch and chocolate chip cookies made by Gordon’s wife.
Gordon is particularly interested in his family’s history, and it was interesting to hear about his trips back to China and what it was like.
And now, how some of those ancestral villages are threatened by transport and urban development.
One story he told us was about how the Chinese families, desiring food from their Chinese homeland, would have to substitute foods. So when they couldn’t find or grow taro, the replaced it with beetroot, for use in classic meals such as braised pork and taro. Like McDonalds using beetroot in hamburgers.
We also met with a Chinese family in Karori, including two sisters aged 93 and 92 years old. May and Doris still have a strong presence. Number one and number two of 18 children, they were among the first Chinese women in New Zealand. The first settlers were mainly men, bachelors, and the New Zealand government actively discouraged wives, children and women to migrate to New Zealand.
Our last public engagement in Wellington was as part of the Chinese New Year festival at the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand: Te Papa. We set up in one part of the marae (meeting house) and were joined by author Alison Wong, who we’d met last month in Melbourne. She recently married a man whose family had been friends with her family for three generations. And soon they will move to Australia to live.
Alison is a poet and last year had her first novel published, As the Earth turns Silver. I’ve just started reading it, and found it compelling, particularly as it weaves in social and person history, and provides a window on what life was like a century ago in New Zealand for Chinese. Everyone I’ve met refer to this book. So buy it.
We tried to loan it from a library in Wellington: but all the dozen or so copies were either out on loan or reserved.
Alison sat through music, singing and other commotions as Mu painted her at Te Papa.
Thanks to the Tung Jung Association, particularly Sam Kwok and Gordon Wu; Linda and Stephannie at the Chinese New Year festival; those graffiti artist guys upstairs in Cuba Street, Ian Lyons, Billy in Island Bay for hosting Mu and Alison for giving up some of her valuable time on Sunday.
