As in California and Australia, marriages occurred in New Zealand between Chinese men and local women, both Māori and Pākehā. The people who embarked on these relationships were especially brave as, in general, both the Chinese and European communities were not in favour of them. In spite of the opposition many of the marriages were very successful and there are numerous descendants in New Zealand.

The Chinese disapproved of the marriages because they felt superior to Europeans, who they thought were uncultured, and marrying a ‘foreign devil girl’^[1] was seen as threatening familial bonds which were of utmost importance.^[2] The combination of a patrilineal society and the worship of male ancestors meant that an overseas marriage was a threat to family cohesiveness.

Conversely, Europeans thought they were culturally superior to the Chinese and they didn’t like the idea of mixed marriages either.^[3] This feeling grew stronger during the late 1800s as New Zealand’s developing colonial nationalism led to increased protection of the country’s borders from ‘undesirables’, such as the Chinese.^[4]

Fear around intermarriage was out of proportion to the actual numbers involved. In 1886 only 2% of Chinese men in New Zealand were married to Europeans.^[5] The first four Chinese–European marriages in Aotearoa New Zealand took place in Nelson (1856 and 1865) and in Wellington (1866 and 1868), but from the early 1870s most occurred in Otago. About 70% of New Zealand’s Chinese population lived there after the arrival of Chinese goldminers from Australia in late 1865. This did not change until the mid-1880s.^[6]

For most Chinese men their first choice was a Chinese wife. A wealthy man, such as a merchant, might choose to bring his wife to New Zealand (as Greymouth merchant Yung Yuk Ting did in 1893),^[7] but most men did not have the funds to do this. A Chinese man who married a local woman needed to have enough money to support a wife and family in New Zealand, as well as send the expected remittances to his parents and his first wife (if he had one) in China. Remittances to China could be significant. In 1897 an unmarried Chinese man at Palmerston was sending £10 a year (a third of his income) to his mother.^[8] Only those who were at least moderately comfortable (for example medical men such as Wong Kee, storekeepers, market gardeners and tradesmen) could afford to marry in New Zealand.

European women married Chinese men for the same reasons that they married European men; companionship, love, security and to have a family.^[10] For Chinese men the reasons were probably similar, but their choice involved adapting their idea of a wife from the subordinate role of a Chinese wife to the expectations of a Western wife. At the time, the virtues required of Chinese wives were bearing sons, household duties and propriety in behaviour. They were not expected to participate in public life.^[11] While women in New Zealand were still legally dominated by men, they often worked and socialised outside of the home.^[12] That New Zealand women were used to greater freedoms must have been apparent to Chinese men before they married as many had been in the colonies for some time.^[13]

Chinese men had the reputation of being good husbands. For example, in 1871 Vincent Pyke, commenting on intermarriages in Victoria, said that the Chinese man ‘generally makes a good husband and father – much kinder in fact than the average European husband and father of the same grade’ (social status).^[14] For the husband a capable and intelligent European wife could be a great help, providing trustworthy advice, translation services and connections to the European world through her family and friends.

There were many less formal relationships, for example that of Choie Sew Hoy and Eliza Prescott who became a couple in about 1885.  Choie Sew Hoy was a wealthy and successful businessman, but as two of his Chinese sons had joined their father in Dunedin^[15] it would have provoked too much comment for Choie Sew Hoy to legally marry Eliza. The couple remained together until Sew Hoy’s death in 1901.

Anglo–Chinese children

Most families in New Zealand were large compared to today and Chinese-European families were no exception. Chew Chong and his wife Elizabeth Whatton, who married in 1875 at New Plymouth, had six surviving children. In Otago, Chow Tie and Grace Kerr had nine children while Wong Gye and Harriet Asquith, who had married in Australia, had 14 children.

There were difficulties associated with having a child who was part of two cultures, particularly as the husband’s ties with China were usually strong and they were keen to send their children back to their home village to gain ‘Chineseness’. Rev. Mawson, a Presbyterian missionary in China, thought that ‘in the case of boys the predominating motive is generally that he may learn the rites and perpetrate the worship of the ancestors of the family’.^[16]

The ability to send their children to family members in China could prove very useful, particularly if the children’s mother had died. A study of Anglo-Chinese children in Otago found that about 12% of children born there were sent to China.^[17] While very young children might have adapted easily, older children were likely to suffer from culture shock. James Fook You from Lawrence went to China when he was about 14 years old. When Missionary Rev. McNeur met him in 1905 he commented that he ‘feels like a fish out of water’.^[18]

Sometimes the father or even the whole family would go and settle the child in China before returning to New Zealand. In 1906 George How Chow and his wife Sophia West went to China with their children to take their youngest son, 11-year-old Eang King (also known as George), to St Jose’s College in Macau.^[19]

Hidden heritage

Anglo–Chinese children sometimes suffered from prejudice in their father’s home villages and mixed heritage was often hidden. The two daughters of a Chinese cook and a European woman who were born in New Zealand, went to China as children and returned in the late 1920s to marry Chinese men in Wellington. Their descendants had no idea that the two women had not been born in China to Chinese parents.^[20]

In New Zealand, due to prejudice against the Chinese and fear of being seen as different, families also hid their Chinese ancestry. For example, the Otago-born children of Richard Chin Shing and Jane Williams changed their surname to Cheyne. Some descendants had no idea that they had Chinese ancestry until they started researching their family history. Today, mixed heritage descendants are proudly reclaiming their Chinese heritage and actively exploring their Chinese roots.

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