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Photos from Timaru 1934-1952 see also Chinese in Timaru
WHO IS Jim Andreassends Father? If my interest in family history and genealogy has a starting point it was to find who my Dad`s birth Father is. Dad didn`t know May was his mother until he was 50 in 1976 . May said at the time that she couldn`t remember the name of his father all that she did say is that he was Chinese. I wrote to Dr James Ng a couple of years ago, as he is very familiar with the Sue Lee Gardens in Timaru, it was owned by three Ng brothers including one known as Charlie Lum who married Hannah Christina and was Jim`s Aunt.
New research has discovered life in New Zealand for the Chinese was a lot worse than anyone previously thought, Dad was lucky in a sense to have at least a European name if not an Anglo Saxon one. Less fortunate were his cousins the Lum children also brought up by the Grandparents as well as both Charlie and Hannah passed away in 1930. Laws passed around this time removed child support for Chinese, I don`t know if they also lost it, money must have been scarce anyway with such a large family to bring up. Either way in small town Timaru everyone would have known who the Chinese were and many would not have welcomed them.
I think the way the Chinese have been treated, the intolerance and laws, since the beginning of European settlement is almost a reflection of some of the issues that NZ faces today and always has. The Politics of exclusion Its the ugly side to what should be a paradise for all.
Some comments made two years ago that Jim`s father name was Jim Yuen or Yuan. Immigration records have shown of couple of options, but nothing further.
Most people have the luxury of knowing who their Parents and Grandparents are, for those that don`t it can leave a huge gap which a simple piece of knowledge can start to fill. TV programs like `Who do you think are` and `Missing pieces` are helping to create an understanding why it is important and relevant to future generations. Some may consider it a pointless exercise that will not succeed, but in many ways it already has. I am collating all the information I have so far relating to Dad`s origins including Chinese in Timaru, Politics, Laws, Time line, Rumours, Facts, comments, emails, Sue Lee Gardens, names of workers, Society at that time, something somewhere just may click with someone and provide the vital clue. Anything no matter how minor may just help.
Please Contact Ronald [email protected] or phone +64 9 3601909
Sourced from the National Library of New Zealand
4 November 1865
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3 July 1872
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Chinese in New Zealand essays and research
Chinese settlement in NZ, past and present by James Ng Who are the Chinese by James Ng 1972 |
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The Making of the White new Zealand Policy:
Nationalism, citizenship and the Exclusion of the Chinese 1880-1920 In a 1999 paper Brian Moloughney and John Stenhouse note, "Until recently New Zealand historians have paid little attention to the Chinese, one of the forgotten peoples of our past."l They attribute this to three factors: the small size of the Chinese population, the domination of race relations studies in New Zealand by Maori-pakeha relations, and the left-liberal political outlook of historians leading to a preference not to find blemishes in the 1890s and 1930s since these were seen as the most progressive and enlightened periods of New Zealand history. Thus historians saw little significance "in the fact that their political heroes -Seddon, Reeves and Stout among the Liberals and Harry Holland, M.J. Savage and other Labour leaders -were ardent sinophobes."2 To this could be added the pervasive nature of national myths about New Zealand being a land free of class division and racism. 
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