Saturday, February 11, 2012
Chinese Wedding.
The first Christian Chinese wedding in Wellington for some years was solemnised in tho Anglican Chinese Mission Church, in Frederick street yesterday, when Mr. Herbert Kwok, of Wellington, was married to Miss Ida Low, of Blenheim. The service was solemnised by the Rev. P. B. Redgrave, general secretary of the Board of Missions assisted by tho Anglican Chinese Missloner (Mr. Wong Tze). Tho service which was partly in Cantonese and partly in English, was Semi-choral, Miss Peterson presiding at tho organ. Thoebride, who was escorted by her brother, looked very pretty, being charmingly dressed in shell-pink satin, with veil to match, carrying a bouquet of roses, heather, and lily of tho valley. The bridesmaids were the Misses Mollie and Nettie Low, in mauvo crepe de chine, and Miss Ida Chong, dressed in pale blue eropo de chine. Mr. Dick Kwok was best man, with Mr. Chan Pang as groomsman. After the ceremony the guests were entertained to a breakfast in the Chinese Masonic Hall. Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 31, 7 February 1929, Page 15
The marriage of Mr and Mrs Chee
The marriage of Mr and Mrs Chee on Thursday last, by Mr Lord, Registrar, has afforded a subject for conversation at teatables, it being, we understand, the first real Chinese wedding that has occurred in Auckland. Ah Ghee and the lady of his love having been solemnly joined together in holy matrimony, tbe thoughtful couple conceived the happy idea of the celestial bride-cake, a piece of which we have duly received with compliments, nicely tied, and surmounted by a white rose, emblematic of purity and conjugal affection. We wish the happy pair long life and domestic peace. Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1886, Page 5
Mr. John Sang Louis
A Chinese wedding was celebrated at the Anglican Mission Church, Frederick street, yesterday, the contracting parties being Mr. John Sang Louis, of Wanganui, and Miss Doris Wong, late of Canton. China, who arrived from there on Monday. The Vicar of St. Peter's, the Rev. H. Watson, M.A., officiated at the service, in the presence of a number of the local Chinese. The Wedding March was played by Miss G. Jones organist of the Mission Church. A party was held in the evening to celebrate the event Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 120, 17 November 1916, Page 9
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Community history, Chinese
Diana Giese’s Post-War Chinese Australians and Chinese Australian Oral
History
Partnership projects were organised for the National Library of Australia. To find
out more, go to her
Website
http://www.
Post-War Chinese Australians
Chinese Australian Oral History Partnership
Tracking the Dragon
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people have arrived in Australia since the early nineteenth century and have made it their home. Where did they live, work and worship? Where are the places they cared about?
We know some of these places – temples, Chinese burial areas as well as some shops, market gardens and gold diggings from the past. Much remains unknown.
The Australian Heritage Commission is working to rectify this gap in our knowledge of migrant-related heritage places. It has been developing ways to assist migrant groups and the wider community to identify heritage places important to them. In 1999 it produced a 'how to' guide which has helped communities find and assess their migrant heritage places – the Migrant Heritage Places kit.
We have taken this a further step with the development of this guide and its sister 'toolkit' for heritage practitioners. The toolkit includes a bibliography of Chinese Australian references and a database of heritage sites.
These resources provide both communities and those working in the heritage field with ways of finding out more about the heritage places of a particular migrant group – Chinese Australians.
These new resources will make it easier than ever before to search, find and assess the undiscovered stories and places of our rich Chinese Australian inheritance. Their use will help to build a wider appreciation of this heritage among all Australians.
http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/ahc/publications/commission/books/tracking-the-dragon.html
NZ History Award
Subject: RE: NZ History Award
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 15:57:13 +1100
Dear All,
A quick response to Allen's message to you all.
Yes, I have been awarded one of the nine NZ History Research Trust Awards for Historical Research in 2003. The Ministry of Culture and Heritage sent me the notification and cheque to arrive just before Christmas, and I have written to thank then for such a great Christmas present!
I shall be preparing a more detailed statement about my research plans for Allen to present to the Executive of the Tung Jung Association for their consideration at their next meeting on Monday. I shall send you all a copy of this statement as well.
For the last five or more years I have been travelling to HK to interview my older sister, who died at the beginning of 2001, and to Guangzhou, Xintang (Santong), and Xinjie (Sun-gaii), to interview surviving members of my family - my mother's sister [they were Wongs from Gualing (Gwa-lang)] is still alive, as is my family's servant girl who took care of me as a baby! I have also managed to find and buy several written and printed sources of district and village history. This has all been for a Ye-fong Chan family history for my own family. The recent history of my family is a very tragic one, like so many other NZ Chinese families as the result of immigration restrictions in force in Australia and NZ during the first half of last century, and so that history will be for the benefit of my own family and future descendents only.
The History Award will enable me now to enlarge my research project to cover the history of migration from the cluster of villages in Zengcheng that made up what Chinese social historians call a marketing community based around Bak Shek. Most of the older Zengcheng families in NZ, and Australia, come from that marketing community. That history will be for public consumption!
The History Award will enable me to spend a period or two of research back in Zengcheng, as well as several periods of research in New Zealand, mainly Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin.
Since I have several commitments and responsibilities to Chinese Australian heritage and history this year as well, I need to spend some time this month organising my work schedule! This is difficult at the moment since many of my colleagues in Australia and NZ are still on holiday! I have already accepted an invitation to give a seminar at Victoria University of Wellington's Stout Centre in late April on the "Trans-Tasman Connections of the Chinese in Australia and New Zealand" and I have been told that the History Department at Otago University will be offering to host me during my stay in Dunedin. At this time it looks likely that I shall make an initial short trip to Wellington in March, probably from 10 to 20 March during which time I shall also come up to Auckland on the weekend. I shall have a six to eight week stay in Dunedin around August/September/October.
My research will depend very much on the advice, assistance, and cooperation of our Zengcheng peoples and organisations in New Zealand and I am looking forward very much to meeting you all and to working with you to reclaim and tell the history of our people in New Zealand.
Very best wishes.
Henry
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 15:57:13 +1100
Dear All,
A quick response to Allen's message to you all.
Yes, I have been awarded one of the nine NZ History Research Trust Awards for Historical Research in 2003. The Ministry of Culture and Heritage sent me the notification and cheque to arrive just before Christmas, and I have written to thank then for such a great Christmas present!
I shall be preparing a more detailed statement about my research plans for Allen to present to the Executive of the Tung Jung Association for their consideration at their next meeting on Monday. I shall send you all a copy of this statement as well.
For the last five or more years I have been travelling to HK to interview my older sister, who died at the beginning of 2001, and to Guangzhou, Xintang (Santong), and Xinjie (Sun-gaii), to interview surviving members of my family - my mother's sister [they were Wongs from Gualing (Gwa-lang)] is still alive, as is my family's servant girl who took care of me as a baby! I have also managed to find and buy several written and printed sources of district and village history. This has all been for a Ye-fong Chan family history for my own family. The recent history of my family is a very tragic one, like so many other NZ Chinese families as the result of immigration restrictions in force in Australia and NZ during the first half of last century, and so that history will be for the benefit of my own family and future descendents only.
The History Award will enable me now to enlarge my research project to cover the history of migration from the cluster of villages in Zengcheng that made up what Chinese social historians call a marketing community based around Bak Shek. Most of the older Zengcheng families in NZ, and Australia, come from that marketing community. That history will be for public consumption!
The History Award will enable me to spend a period or two of research back in Zengcheng, as well as several periods of research in New Zealand, mainly Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin.
Since I have several commitments and responsibilities to Chinese Australian heritage and history this year as well, I need to spend some time this month organising my work schedule! This is difficult at the moment since many of my colleagues in Australia and NZ are still on holiday! I have already accepted an invitation to give a seminar at Victoria University of Wellington's Stout Centre in late April on the "Trans-Tasman Connections of the Chinese in Australia and New Zealand" and I have been told that the History Department at Otago University will be offering to host me during my stay in Dunedin. At this time it looks likely that I shall make an initial short trip to Wellington in March, probably from 10 to 20 March during which time I shall also come up to Auckland on the weekend. I shall have a six to eight week stay in Dunedin around August/September/October.
My research will depend very much on the advice, assistance, and cooperation of our Zengcheng peoples and organisations in New Zealand and I am looking forward very much to meeting you all and to working with you to reclaim and tell the history of our people in New Zealand.
Very best wishes.
Henry
Zengcheng vs Jungseng
Subject: RE: Zengcheng, Jung Seng etc!
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:42:01 +1300
Dear Helen, Allen, and others,
OK, this is the problem of rendering Chinese sounds in Roman script! My
non-Chinese students in Chinese history have always complained about this
problem, when they find pronouncing Chinese names and terms hard
enough! And the problem is even more complicated for Cantonese! Many
Chinese characters are pronounced differently in putonghua (Mandarin,
Beijing speech, or the national language, guoyue) from how they are
pronounced in Cantonese - and they are often pronounced differently by
Hakkas or by people from different districts or even villages, most
specially those from Siyi (Sze Yup) or Zhongshan (Jungshan)
Lets stay with our own ancestral district. The two characters for our
district mean: "to add, to increase" and "city walls", and the name means
"added city", and first got its name in 201 AD.
In Mandarin the characters are romanised in two main ways: Ts'eng Ch'eng in
Wades-Giles (the old British romanisation, which is still used in Taiwan),
and Zengcheng in pinyin, the romanisation system of the People's Republic
of China, which has now been adopted universally, except Taiwan, after a
ruling in the 1970s by UNESCO.
That is why I use Zengcheng, though no Cantonese in Australia or NZ will
know where I come from!
The situation is VERY complicated in Cantonese and I know I am going to
worry Allen and Arthur!
In the old Meyer-Wempe Cantonese romanisation system our ancestral district
is Tsang Sheng
In the Yale system it is Jang Sihng
In 1960 the Guangdong Provincial Government decreed it should be Jeng Xing
However in 1971 the Provincial Government changed its mind and it is now
Zeng Xing
Note I have a Cantonese Dictionary published in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1999
that uses Jeng Xing and another official dictionary published in Guangzhou
in 1997 that uses Zeng Xing.
If the Provincial Government cannot make up its mind, you can see how
complicated it can be if you do cannot use characters and just know how to
pronounce them!
But that is not all. The major textbooks used in Hong Kong to teach
non-Chinese Cantonese are by Sidney Lau and you guess it??? He uses a
different romanisation system of his own!!! And our homes district
becomes: Jang Sing
My Cantonese friends in Sydney recognise the sounds Jang Sing or Jeng Xing
but when I pronounce the Mandarin Zengcheng - they do not know where I come
from!
I thus prefer to use Jang Sing in Cantionese, and Zengcheng in
putonghua. When I am with those who read Chinese - I use the actual
characters!
Allen and Arthur: I know where the "Tung" in Tung Jung comes from - but
how come we use JUNG????
Do not change the names of our associations now!! However the problem is
that Jung is the romanisation for the Cantonese sound for central as in
Jung Shan or Zhongshan, a major source of overseas Chinese. There is, then
a confusion between Jung Seng or Jung Sing, and Jung Shan. Indeed the two
"Jungs" are pronounced differently and are, of course, two different
characters.
Actually, this has already led to confusion in Australia. One of our
leading Australian oral historians has published on the web her interview
with an elderly Chinese who comes from Jang Sing, our district - I know
that because he is a member of our Sydney Luen Fook Tong, the Jang Sing
association, and he is a Wong from Bak Shek. I have criticised the
Australian, non-Chinese speaking, historian for her very leading question:
"You are from Zhongshan aren't you?" To which old Wong Hoy Lee, who is more
westernized than me, and knows no Chinese at all, simply answered "Yes,
that would be it." That is the problem of a non-Chinese historian
interviewing a non-Chinese speaking Chinese about Chinese matters!!!!
Sorry, this has become another long posting. More practically, perhaps one
of the things that should go on the Tung JUng website would be a list of
Chinese characters and their various romanisations for the Jung Sing
villages and surnames??
Best wishes to all.
Henry
(Zengcheng is spelt in many ways - jungsen, and so on. Henry Chan can
explain in much more detail the reasons. Regards Allen
H.D. Min-hsi Chan
Honorary Visiting Fellow
School of History and Philosophy of Science [formerly STS]
University of NSW
and
Honorary Associate
Department of Chinese Studies
School of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages and Studies
University of Sydney
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:42:01 +1300
Dear Helen, Allen, and others,
OK, this is the problem of rendering Chinese sounds in Roman script! My
non-Chinese students in Chinese history have always complained about this
problem, when they find pronouncing Chinese names and terms hard
enough! And the problem is even more complicated for Cantonese! Many
Chinese characters are pronounced differently in putonghua (Mandarin,
Beijing speech, or the national language, guoyue) from how they are
pronounced in Cantonese - and they are often pronounced differently by
Hakkas or by people from different districts or even villages, most
specially those from Siyi (Sze Yup) or Zhongshan (Jungshan)
Lets stay with our own ancestral district. The two characters for our
district mean: "to add, to increase" and "city walls", and the name means
"added city", and first got its name in 201 AD.
In Mandarin the characters are romanised in two main ways: Ts'eng Ch'eng in
Wades-Giles (the old British romanisation, which is still used in Taiwan),
and Zengcheng in pinyin, the romanisation system of the People's Republic
of China, which has now been adopted universally, except Taiwan, after a
ruling in the 1970s by UNESCO.
That is why I use Zengcheng, though no Cantonese in Australia or NZ will
know where I come from!
The situation is VERY complicated in Cantonese and I know I am going to
worry Allen and Arthur!
In the old Meyer-Wempe Cantonese romanisation system our ancestral district
is Tsang Sheng
In the Yale system it is Jang Sihng
In 1960 the Guangdong Provincial Government decreed it should be Jeng Xing
However in 1971 the Provincial Government changed its mind and it is now
Zeng Xing
Note I have a Cantonese Dictionary published in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1999
that uses Jeng Xing and another official dictionary published in Guangzhou
in 1997 that uses Zeng Xing.
If the Provincial Government cannot make up its mind, you can see how
complicated it can be if you do cannot use characters and just know how to
pronounce them!
But that is not all. The major textbooks used in Hong Kong to teach
non-Chinese Cantonese are by Sidney Lau and you guess it??? He uses a
different romanisation system of his own!!! And our homes district
becomes: Jang Sing
My Cantonese friends in Sydney recognise the sounds Jang Sing or Jeng Xing
but when I pronounce the Mandarin Zengcheng - they do not know where I come
from!
I thus prefer to use Jang Sing in Cantionese, and Zengcheng in
putonghua. When I am with those who read Chinese - I use the actual
characters!
Allen and Arthur: I know where the "Tung" in Tung Jung comes from - but
how come we use JUNG????
Do not change the names of our associations now!! However the problem is
that Jung is the romanisation for the Cantonese sound for central as in
Jung Shan or Zhongshan, a major source of overseas Chinese. There is, then
a confusion between Jung Seng or Jung Sing, and Jung Shan. Indeed the two
"Jungs" are pronounced differently and are, of course, two different
characters.
Actually, this has already led to confusion in Australia. One of our
leading Australian oral historians has published on the web her interview
with an elderly Chinese who comes from Jang Sing, our district - I know
that because he is a member of our Sydney Luen Fook Tong, the Jang Sing
association, and he is a Wong from Bak Shek. I have criticised the
Australian, non-Chinese speaking, historian for her very leading question:
"You are from Zhongshan aren't you?" To which old Wong Hoy Lee, who is more
westernized than me, and knows no Chinese at all, simply answered "Yes,
that would be it." That is the problem of a non-Chinese historian
interviewing a non-Chinese speaking Chinese about Chinese matters!!!!
Sorry, this has become another long posting. More practically, perhaps one
of the things that should go on the Tung JUng website would be a list of
Chinese characters and their various romanisations for the Jung Sing
villages and surnames??
Best wishes to all.
Henry
(Zengcheng is spelt in many ways - jungsen, and so on. Henry Chan can
explain in much more detail the reasons. Regards Allen
H.D. Min-hsi Chan
Honorary Visiting Fellow
School of History and Philosophy of Science [formerly STS]
University of NSW
and
Honorary Associate
Department of Chinese Studies
School of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages and Studies
University of Sydney
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