Sydney

New Guinea's

Chinese

Community Now in Sydney

I\/¥UCH publicity has gone the way of the Fuzzy-Wuzzies of New Guinea; less has gone to the former European residents; and nothing at all to the 2,199 Chinese to whom the Man dated Territory was home. These, the descendants of the Chinese brought into the former German Protectorate to work plantations, became in succeed ing generations the artisans and shop keepers of the Territory—an integral part of New Guinea life.

When the German Protectorate was occupied by Australian troops in 1914, and subsequently became an Australian Mandated Territory, the Immigration Acts of the Commonwealth forbade the further immigration of Chinese. The majority of the present Chinese resi dents therefore had never seen China, and to them New Guinea was—as it was not to the majority of Europeans —a homeland.

All who knew Rabaul also knew its Chinatown: a square of plain wooden shops, apparently cast from the same mould, where camphor-wood boxes and black, pickled eggs, jade and Australian groceries, tortoiseshell-ware and beau tiful silks, gaudy lap-laps and Marys * blouses, linen suits and roasted peanuts —and a thousand things more, edible, wearable or pleasurable—could be bought at almost any hour of day or night.

They will remember, too, the scores of tiny, black-haired children playing on shop verandahs, the beautiful young girls, and the older people who all made up a community that was law-abiding and self-sufficient.

The following article from the Metho dist “Missionary Review” is written by Miss J. M. Jenkins, 8.A., who was in charge of the Methodist Chinese School in Rabaul. It tells how a small per centage of these Chinese people—the fortunate minority—are faring in Sydney under evacuation conditions: — THERE are Chinese families scattered through many suburbs of Sydney, but in Redfern and Darlinghurst are a number of New Guinea families who were fortunate enough to be brought to Australia after the beginning of the Japanese war.

Of these, a group arrived in March of this year, having journeyed overland, through untold dangers and difficulties, from Wewak to Port Moresby. At one point of the journey a mother was car

ried away by a rushing stream and drowned; and her small baby was left with a native woman who could give it its only chance of life.

Most of the New Guinea people have at some time lived in Rabaul, and a number are past pupils of our Methodist Chinese School there. Sadly enough, few of the families are complete, and there is no knowledge of the missing members beyond that they were cap tured by the enemy.

From the Tropics to a Sydney winter is a big transition; but it has been accomplished with a smile. There is the same gracious hospitality in the flats of suburban Sydney as in New Guinea’s Chinatowns. Welcome cups of tea with condensed milk are served in the same way; biscuits; delicious roasted peanuts!

There are the same groups of toddlers and tiny children chattering and play ing, weeping and laughing; though here tramcars trundle along the street and footpaths are crowded with people.

Bedrooms with unironed clothes about; kitchen tables laden with thermos flasks, tea-pots, babies’ bottles, tins of con densed milk and other foods. And, too, the kiddies are responsible for the same sort of litter on the floor—papers, orange skins, peanut shells; and a small boy hastens to sweep up as we approach.

The Cantonese dialect, übiquitous medium for work and play, has the same fascinating lilt, as its tones rise and fall

bewilderingly. In shops here, too, is the familiar sight of children at tables practising writing large characters with brush and Chinese ink, while they wait for customers, BUT, amid the sameness, there are subtle differences. Little children trot along to the shops on house hold errands with ration books as well as cash; there are heavy top-coats over graceful Chinese dresses; little boys wear navy suits with neckties, instead of the casual shirts and khaki trousers; men go off by trams to work that is different, and often they are on night shift.

A focal point for these people is the Presbyterian Chinese Church in Camp bell Street, which is in the charge of the Rev. Lo Shui Kwong, who came from China in 1941 to take up work in Dar win, but who was evacuated from there early in 1942.

Here, as elsewhere, the Chinese are tremendously keen to give their children a Chinese education but, in surroundings so entirely Western, that it is difficult.

Hence Mr. Lo has a Chinese class— which is ever-increasing in size—on Sat urday afternoons, and the students do another hour’s study on Sundays. The class is working und/r difficulties, as Chinese text-books and other school materials are so hard to get, and so expensive, THIS school also is a little bit of China set down in Sydney: there are copies being written with brush and Chinese ink; transcription; writing practice— mistakes being made, too; it is a most difficult language even for Chinese people! There are classes repeating sen tences after their teacher —and finding difficulty in getting the tones right. And here a boy is learning a passage aloud in the time-honoured fashion, and there another is “backing his book” to check up on his memorising. There is freedom and chatter in the room, as in all Chinese classrooms: but the tasks are tackled happily and heartily, and, surely, successfully.

Because there are so many small chil dren among the Redfern families Mr.

Lo holds a separate service in St. Luke’s church in Regent Street. He has several European helpers as well as Chinese, and good work is being accomplished. Many mere babies come to the Sunday School, and there is crying and disturbance, and much coming and going of mothers in the church. But these are unavoidable factors that are ignored, and the teach ing goes on.

Chinese women are truly coming into their own. One charming lady who visited the Methodist Chinese School in Rabaul when she was on her way from Australia to China in 1936, now gives her time to church work here. The Chinese community is fortunate indeed in having the fine cultural and spiritual influence of this woman and her co-workers, and of Mr. Lo and his charming wife to aid them in their life in a foreign land, where difficulties abound.”

Captain C. N. F. Bengough of the BSI Defence Force, has been promoted to Acting Lieutenant-Colonel, from May 4, 1943.