Pai Lou Gateway. Chinese Gardens, Dunedin. N. Z.

Destinations for migrations of the Chinese Gold
Seekers during the later half of the 19th Century
British Columbia,
Canada
California, USA The Rocky Mt
States
Northern
Territory
Queensland New South Wales Western
Australia
Victoria
Transvaal
South Africa
New Zealand
Destinations from C.A.Price The Great White Walls are Built 1974. Small set of
Chinese gold
scales
When the Chinese arrived
here, they received a very
hostile reception from the
European miners.
They were segregated to
live in their own Chinese
camps.
Views of Ah
Lum’s store
today. It would
have sold a
wide variety of
imported
Chinese foods.
Two of the cottages in the
Arrowtown Chinese area.
The cottages were
surrounded by extensive
gardens and were a closeknit community.
Inside
one of
the
cottages
showing
door and
fireplace.
Many Chinese miners would make a
comfortable home of a cave.
This house
is one of
those that
can be
visited in
the
Arrowtown
Chinese
village.
Many Chinese were never
able to return to China as
they hoped and are buried
as they had lived in many
segregated cemeteries
throughout Otago. Because of segregation,
Chinese were not allowed
to be buried in the
conventional cemeteries
unless they had done
deeds that were favourably
seen by the locals. Wasteland outside the
cemetery boundary
was given to the
Chinese for a fee.
Lawrence Cemetery
Cromwell Cemetery
As gold gradually became
scarce, many Chinese
returned to China or
moved to the cities.
From 1877, or thereabouts, a
special area of Dunedin’s
Southern Cemetery was set aside
for Chinese burials.
Kum Poy Block 26P Plot 13
Also Memorial to Choie Sew Hoy
(Charles)
Mun Goon Block
114
Yuet Sheer Long
Block 114
Pong One Kay Block
12A Plot 11
Ing Ah Yeaw Block
12A Plot 11 This map portion of the Southern Cemetery was sourced from:
http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/25472/cemplot_southernphoto.pdf
Chinese Section
Blocks, X, 114 and 115
Both the county and village are often
recorded for place of birth.
Date of Death
These stones shows the age (lonegevity).
Some stones show birth year here.
The central characters offer information
about the deceased.
Mun Goon was born in
Poon Yue County Tai
Bol Village.
He was 65 years of age
when he died.
His headstone was
badly damaged and
has recently been
replaced.
The central characters offer information
about the deceased.
Surname or family name – YUET
First given name Sheer
Second given name Long
Character for ‘elder’
Character is like the English ‘s’.
Means ‘belongs to’
Character for ‘Gravestone’
If you read from the bottom up the characters tell
us that the “Gravestone belongs to elder Long
Sheer YUET”
Date of Death –
These are lunar
dates.
8
Month
( 14th) 10
4
Day
Died
(Information for this and the previous
two slides was provided by Mr L.Wong.
Dunedin.)
These
characters
show the age or
(lonegevity).
5
10
Aged 56
6
Age
Year of the rabbit.
(Died 1903)
Chinese prefer to be buried
on high ground overlooking
the sea or water and ideally
facing east.
The belief was that the spirit
was free to greet the
morning sun and to roam the
heavens till dusk.
The headstone is placed at
the head end of the grave.
The feet of the deceased
point towards the water.
Chinese burials are different
to European burials as
shown in the diagram to the
right.
If at all possible, shelter from
the harsh afternoon sun was
desirable. This could be
from trees or an
embankment.
(Both the information and the diagram for this slide were provided
by Mr L.Wong. Dunedin.)
Many headstones in the Chinese
portion have been badly damaged.
The headstones are significant. They
are often the only information we have
about an individual.
In 2002 the New Zealand Government
officially apologised to the Chinese for
the suffering caused by the poll tax.
The Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust
allocated $25,000 to begin the
restoration of the site and the
neglected and vandalised Chinese
headstones in the Southern Cemetery.
These are in what was once waste-land,
but is historically significant today.
The headstones are at the head end of
the coffin. Unfortunately, the view of the
sea is obstructed by a small hill.
The significance of restoring these
headstones was that they belonged to
elderly miners, labourers and market
gardeners from 1920 to 1950. They
were the lost generation that linked the
goldfields to the community of today.
48 broken stones were found in the
overgrown rubble and the project took
6 years to restore. (The information and
photographs for this slide were provided by Mr
L.Wong. Dunedin.)
Chinese burials now occur in
mainstream cemetery plots among
Europeans.
These headstone pictured are on
elevated ground and face the sea.
It is still rare to find Chinese burials on the rows
backing this stone with the feet pointing away
from the sea.
As time moves on and the later generations
become less aware of the traditional customs,
Chinese burials will become just another burial
without any thought of the spiritual wellbeing of
the departed. (The information and the photographs for this
slide were provided by Mr L.Wong. Dunedin.)