Aotearoa’s first Chinese organisations were founded in its first community – the Chinese encampment near Lawrence in Clutha. In the late 1860s the site was a booming mini town built on swampy land especially set aside for Chinese use. Called the Lawrence Chinese Camp, the site was outside the local council jurisdiction. This meant all the town’s amenities, such as roading, drainage and waste management, were organised and paid for by its residents.

It’s likely that the first Chinese organisations were set up to address these needs. The earliest mention we have is from 1872,^[1] when the 番禺公所 Poon Yue Public Office and 南順公所 Nam Shun Public Office signed an address of thanks to a departing Tuapeka magistrate. The English names they gave were the Poon Yue Clubhouse and the Nam Shun Clubhouse, but the translation of the Chinese ‘公所’ is more suggestive of groups that perform local government functions, as would have been the case at that time.^[2]

The names also show the groups’ counties of origin: Poon Yue and Nam Shun. Early Chinese had very strong loyalties to their family, clan and county of origin. Although the counties were geographically close, each had its own separate history, customs and distinctive dialect. When communities formed mutual aid groups, they were almost always with others from the same county.

In 1875 an Australian newspaper described the functions of these county associations (or guilds as they called them) as this:

1. To secure cheap passages to and from the goldfields of Australia and California.
2. To build clubhouses at the seaports and inland where required.
3. To pay the passage of members to China, when unable to work through sickness or accident.
4. To bury the dead who died without the means necessary to defray the expenses of burial.
5. To purchase mining property.
6. To pay the expense of lawsuits where the interests or honour of the guild is concerned.
7. To pay for repair of clubhouses.
8. To pay incidental expenses.^[3]

New Zealand’s Chinese population was the tiniest fraction of that in Australia, so it is unlikely that its associations had enough money to secure cheap passages or purchase mining property.  However, they did perform all the other functions listed above, including building clubhouses. The first was built by men from Poon Yue county and was variously called a clubhouse and a joss house - a European term for a Chinese place of worship.^[4]

Just in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the rooms were opened on 20 September 1869, On either side of the doorway were fixed these couplets: 'Whether coming or going, their mutual friendship continues' and 'May the people act with kindness and righteousness in return for kindness and righteousness received.'^[5]

Opening day was a grand affair with firecrackers, ‘the burning of powder and coloured paper’ and a ‘lavish’ feast of roast pork and other delicacies enjoyed by large numbers of Chinese and their European guests.^[6]

The celebrations were justified as the clubhouse quickly became the centre of the community. It was a gathering place to pay respects to ancestors and gods, run community meetings and celebrate festivals. The clubhouse also provided temporary accommodation for newcomers, the sick and the unemployed, until the community erected a two-story barracks cum community hall in 1884. Providing for the sick and unemployed was especially important in the days before a national social welfare system.

The Poon Yue clubhouse was not the only one of its kind. By 1872 the men from Nam Hoi and Shun Duk counties also had their own clubhouse in Lawrence.^[7] Seventeen years later in 1889 there was a fine ‘public hall and temple’ at Round Hill in Southland, New Zealand's southern-most Chinese settlement. It is said that the building cost £120 to which 250 miners contributed.^[8] This kind of organisational effort shows the importance the men placed on mutual support and reinforcing the community’s culture and identity.^[9] County organisations like these existed in all overseas Chinese communities. Many are still operating today: including the Poon Fah Association whose building in Wellington is a direct descendent of the first 1869 clubhouse.

Health was the other critical issue for mining communities. Mining was dangerous and the risk of injury was high, as was the risk of illness brought on by working in wet and cold conditions. There were Chinese doctors on the goldfields, but perhaps recognising the risk of serious injury and illness, Chinese donated generously and often to local hospitals.^[10] When the Lawrence Chinese Camp was established in 1867, the men donated a substantial amount to the Tuapeka Goldfield Hospital which soon had a Chinese ward and a reasonable number of patients.

In 1871 the Tuapeka Times reported:

The [hospital] Chairman stated that during the past month there had been from 10 to 12 Chinese patients in the institution. Dr Stewart had spoken to him with reference to these patients, as he had a difficulty in prescribing to them without an interpreter. The large number of them in the Hospital also imposed a heavy tax on the Warder. He (the Chairman) then called upon a few of the storekeepers at the Chinese Camp, and they at once consented to get a man and pay him for attending upon their countrymen. They subscribed the sum of £22 towards this object, which sum had been paid into the credit of the institution.^[11]

But it was not only the body that was at risk. Mental illness was a major concern and newspaper reports of ‘lunatic Chinese’ were not uncommon. In February 1879, for example, papers noted that a ‘violent, insane Chinese miner was arrested in the [Lawrence] Camp. He was brought by his mates from Bungtown and imagined himself to be building fortifications in China.’ ^[12]

Self harm was also prevalent. Dr James Ng reports that in Waikaia, Lawrence and Tuapeka there were 10 reported Chinese suicides in the 1870s-1880s. The reasons included destitution, sickness, bad news from home, unexpected debt and shame of arrest.^[13]  

A more intimate story of both care and tragedy can be seen in the story of Tse Ling, who was brought to modern attention in 2019 by archaeologists working on a former cemetery in Lawrence. In one empty grave was a brick with a Chinese inscription. It showed the grave’s former occupant was Tse Ling and that he died on 5 December 1879. His home village was Shek Wu (Stone Lake), a market town near the eastern edge of Poon Yu, just north of Guangzhou.

It is likely that Tse Ling sailed for Otago in the late 1860s probably with his brother and other villagers – at least four Shek Wu men are buried in Dunedin’s Southern Cemetery. However, shortly after arriving Tse Ling became mentally unwell. He was admitted to Dunedin Lunatic Asylum where he stayed for nearly 10 years.^[14] Fatally ill with tuberculosis he was shifted to the Tuapeka Hospital where he died in 1879. But he did not die uncared for. The Tuapeka Times records this about his brother’s response:

During his illness his brother manifested the most touching concern for him and on learning [of] his death burst into uncontrollable grief. It was with difficulty that he could be separated from the corpse. At the funeral on Tuesday, he followed the remains to the Chinese burial ground, venting his grief in a way which it was painful to witness, and refusing to be comforted. The name of the deceased was Ah Ling.^[15]

Tse Ling’s death was not the end of his brother’s care. According to Chinese tradition, the body of a deceased person must be returned to their family. This is so the family can do practices and offerings to ensure the spirit has a comfortable afterlife.^[16]

This was such a deeply held belief that in 1878 the Poon Yu and Fah Yuen miners of Lawrence formed an association to repatriate the deceased back to their homes in China.  The association was called the Cheong Shing Tong [link to come], literally the faithful trustworthy society, or in the words of Rev. Alexander Don the ‘Effulgent Goodness Society’.^[17] Subscribers paid 30 shillings, or more if they could afford it. This would ensure that if they died in New Zealand their body would be returned. The payments also subsidised the return of others who had died without such arrangements in place.

Tse Ling was one of 286 ‘former friends’, to be returned on the ship Hoihow in 1883. In January of that year a Cheong Shing Tong exhumation team arrived in Lawrence. A reporter watched as they gathered the bones into a calico bag which was then placed in a sack and carefully labelled ‘to show the identity’. The bags were then soldered into zinc boxes, which were enclosed in rough rimu coffins, ready to be taken to Dunedin.^[18]

The project was a serious logistical effort. The exhumation team involved five Chinese men and a European tinsmith working all around the goldfields, often in quite remote places. Behind the scenes there was a treasurer looking after the funds, and a secretary securing exhumation consents and council permits, organising transport and chartering the ship, and arranging the reception in Hong Kong where the men’s remains were transported on to their home villages.

What the exhumation team hadn’t noticed was the brick which had been buried with Tse Ling. The mindful Chinese workers spotted it. Having served its purpose of confirming Tse Ling’s identity, the brick was dropped back into the empty grave and the grave carefully filled in. It would lie undisturbed for another 137 years.

By the early 1880s gold was becoming less and less easy to find. Chinese began returning or moving on to other occupations. The Census tracks the slow drop in Chinese miners from 3,860 in 1881, to 3,025 in 1891 and 1,313 in 1901. Yet many old miners stayed on and their need for care became more pronounced as the population aged. By 1901, 68%  of Chinese miners were over 45 years of age. This was old for a miner, but also for the rest of New Zealand. The life expectancy of a New Zealand male was 41.6 years in 1901.^[19]

Care of the very elderly fell heavily on friends and community.  Friends contributed money to send people home to China, or even just to the ‘more genial climate and more comfortable surroundings of Ōtaki’. The Cheong Shing Tong and the Pooh Fah Association (for men from Poon Yue and Fah Yuen counties), also sent the elderly and infirm back to China. The latter considered it a primary duty to care for the aged, and sent the elderly back in batches in 1883 (perhaps 46), 1892 and 1902.^[20]  

In addition, many elderly Chinese relied on support from community institutions. The Southland and Otago Benevolent Institutions contributed to sending men back to China, reasoning that it was cheaper than caring for them in New Zealand,^[21] although they continued to do this as well. By 1905 the Otago institution was caring for 14 Chinese in its Dunedin Old Men’s Home and providing ‘outdoor relief’ for 61. Presumably the outdoor relief meant supplying a small weekly sum of 3-4s to help with expenses. A number of Charitable Aid Institutions provided these small allowances. This was important as Chinese were not able to receive the Old Age Pension introduced in 1898. The provisions specifically excluded Chinese – whether naturalised or not.

Some were also able to rely on the care of their European neighbours. Rev Alexander Don reported on one elderly man in 1897. ‘For months he had been cared for by Europeans – the Masters and Elliots chiefly – so that he was not in want of food.' Another of Don’s reports comes from 1907 at German Hill, Ida Valley.

Think of ‘Elegant Display’ living in a tunnel 9ft long, 4½ ft wide and 3ft high. He is 70 years old [and helped by his neighbour Jasper Dick]  . . . Near his tunnel Jasper Dick was coming from visiting it. He said ‘I am so glad you have come for I do not know what to do. The old man is lying in his cave in a dying state’ . . . it was infused tea he craved, for he had not strength to light a fire. We found a good supply of rice in the tunnel and Jasper at once put on some to cook for congee . . . ‘Elegant Display’, now agreed to go into the Old Men’s Home . . . and Mr Dick offered to look after the patient until removal.^[22]

However, it was mostly the Chinese who provided care and facilities for their own. Whether individually or through associations, people clubbed together to do what they could. And while there were Chinese in mainstream benevolent institutions, there were many others who were given free board in the many Chinese lodging houses that popped up not only in Otago, but also the increasingly urbanised Chinese centres in Wellington and Auckland.

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