Step Back In Time MIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA In the mid to late nineteenth expected to be a heavy loser, were buried in the meant that the men’s social Chinese, in particular their portant. century a combination of as the whole of his vegetable denominational sections of lives were pursued largely readiness to donate money to For other men the powerful push and pull garden would be ruined, and the local cemetery. outside a family environment the local hospitals and help in Australian family was factors led to an expected other market After a time the graves in and that sexual relations other fund raising efforts. paramount. Emboldened by unprecedented rise in gardeners along the river to the Chinese cemeteries were involved crossing the racial Alliances and associations an intricate system of inter- Chinese migration to other also suffer. exhumed and the bones and cultural divide. began to change over time. marriage, clan and family parts of Asia, the Americas In the mid 1870s the transported to China for Most social activity in the Many Chinese men, part- allegiances and networks, and Australia. Chinese began cultivating reburial. camps took place in the icularly the storekeepers, many Chinese men in The principal source of tobacco and maize, focusing Exhumations were temples, lodges, gambling were members of one of the Australia went on to create migrants was Guangdong their efforts on the Tumut and elaborate and painstaking houses and opium rooms, Christian churches and miniature dynasties and (Kwangtung) Province in Gundagai areas. undertakings and were although home visits and married, mostly to European become highly respected southern China, in the south The growth of the industry carried out through the hui or entertainments also occ- women, although a number within their local comm- west of the province and areas was rapid. By the late 1880s district associations, in urred. also married Chinese women. unities. abutting the principal city, production was entirely in the conjunction with local Despite the racial tensions Mixed marriages were seen By the 1950s, if not before, Guangzhou (Canton), and hands of the Chinese who, Chinese residents, part- of the late nineteenth century as one way of bridging the most of these families, were Hong Kong. unlike white farmers, had the icularly the wealthier ones. many Chinese people won a racial divide; church, sporting second generation Aust- They were a highly patience required for the With the eventual dis- measure of acceptance and and community associations ralians and were staunch motivated people for whom successful production of this appearance of much of the respectability in the eyes of such as Masonic Lodges were members of the local going to America and well paying, but delicate crop. Chinese population and the white Australia, contributing others. These men did not churches, lodges, sporting Australia was a rational Although many Chinese decline of the camps, the to charities and corporate life, abandon their fellow, often and community bodies. choice, particularly during the were forced out of tobacco traditional places of worship and in turn inviting Europeans less fortunate, countrymen, Excerpts for story and gold rushes. farming during the De- and burial fell into neglect. to ceremonies such as the or even their traditional beliefs photographs taken from In the Riverina the Chinese pression of the 1890s, the All temple sites, together Chinese New Year celebrat- and allegiances, although ‘Tracking the Dragon – a presence gathered pace with industry revived in the early with the camps, have long ions. these ties and associations History of the Chinese Cult- the waning of the gold rushes 1900s courtesy of the British since been demolished and Such instances were became progressively wea- ure in the Riverina’ which and the spread of settlement, American Tobacco company, the Chinese cemeteries reported by the press at ker. explores the history of farming and pastoralism technology and a guaranteed sometimes subject to Hillston in 1876, at Gundagai Many Chinese men in Chinese migration and further west. price. vandalism. In most instances in 1880, Adelong in 1887 and Australia upheld the family settlement in the Riverina and It is the size of this pop- Some Chinese men were these cemeteries have, Narrandera in 1889. lineage by supporting wives features a range of significant ulation shift, the concent- also wheat and sheep farmers. however, been preserved and At Junee in 1903 the in China and overseas, while objects and photographs. ration of the Chinese men in One of the more notable restored, and now constitute ubiquitous James Wong marrying again in Australia. Over a period of eight years, agricultural and pastoral examples was James Fong, a the strongest remaining visual Chuey invited the Chinese The Chinese wives either had Dr Barry McGowan and the industries rather than gold selector and storekeeper at evidence of the Chinese members of the Junee children before the husband staff at the Museum of the mining and the length of time Broken Dam near Ariah Park, people in the Riverina. Wesleyan Church and over 60 left for Australia, or conceived Riverina undertook extensive they stayed in the region that and William Quong who Much of the predominantly white Australians to a Chinese again on the husband’s research across the region. make the Riverina experience bought a wheat farm in 1916 male Chinese population in New Year’s Eve festival at his periodic return. For these He visited Narrandera on so significant. at Grong Grong and later the Riverina lived in self- residence. And few people men, traditional family ties in many occasions researching It was a predominantly purchased several other contained camps, located on disputed the generosity of the China were still very im- Chinese history. male population and the farms in the area. the fringe of the main towns Chinese men were a very large Further into the 20th and close to the main proportion of the adult males century the Chinese people waterways. in the Riverina towns, in some diversified into many other The largest camps were at instances up to half. businesses such as garages, Narrandera, Wagga, Hay, The economic value of the theatres, trucking, dry Deniliquin and Albury, with Chinese as market gardeners cleaning, baking and tailoring. smaller ones at Hillston, was equally appreciated, not At Grong Grong the Choy Booligal, Gundagai and only on the pastoral stations, family owned a large number Tumut, and at the larger but also in the towns like of businesses in the town, pastoral stations. Narrandera. opening up a garage and In 1884 a Parliamentary Market gardening and fruit motor vehicle dealership in Report on the five largest growing could be highly the 1930s and later an camps was submitted by Sub- profitable, for it was relatively engineering and steel Inspector Martin Brennan inexpensive to set up a garden, fabrication business. and Quong Tart. often on leased land, and in Another branch of the The largest camp was at partnership with other family ran a garage in Griffith, Narrandera on the banks of Chinese men. later opening a dry cleaning the Murrumbidgee River. It Market gardening was a business in Narrandera. had 340 residents, of whom major activity in Deniliquin Many Chinese were 303 were Chinese, nine from the early 1860s, perhaps Christian converts. In the European married women, more so than in any other 1890s a number of Chinese ten children and 17 Riverina town, for a churches (or missions) and prostitutes. favourable climate and Sunday schools, were It had streets and lanes, adequate water meant that established in the larger towns stores, a temple, a very large Chinese camp and market garden in flood. three crops could be such as Narrandera, Albury, cook shop, two lottery houses harvested each year. Wagga, Tumut and Hay. and several fan tan rooms. Chinese market gardening Where separate Chinese The Wagga camp was soon spread to other towns churches or missions did not located on the banks of the including Hay, Hillston, exist, the converts attended Murrumbidgee River on Booligal, Wagga and Junee. the local church of their Fitzmaurice Street. It had 223 At Wagga, most market choice. residents, of whom 194 were gardens were in the lagoon The largest Chinese Chinese, six European area known as North Wagga cemeteries, together with the married women, one a Island, although some burning towers and offertory Chinese married woman, 16 gardens were located at the tables, were located within the children and seven pro- Chinese camp in Fitzmaurice boundaries of the main town stitutes. Street. cemeteries. Built mainly of wood, with Because the Chinese Traditional burial linings and ceilings of hessian market gardens were almost ceremonies were sometimes and paper and mostly shingle always located near the reported in the local press, roofs, the houses were very waterways they were very and were elaborate affairs, susceptible to fire. Serious susceptible to flooding, with particularly if the deceased fires occurred at Hay in 1893 consequently heavy losses of was of high standing. Where and Narrandera in 1897, when crops. the deceased Chinese were all but five buildings survived, In 1950 King Fan, a leading Christian converts, Christian, and at Deniliquin in 1900, when Chinese market gardener in and sometimes Chinese rites almost the entire camp was Narrandera, remarked that were performed, particularly destroyed. the flood was the highest he if the deceased was a member The camps were predom- had ever seen in the town. He of the Lodge. The deceased inantly male domains, which Chinese camp - 1939. 6 — Tuesday, September 20, 2016 www.narranderaargus.com.au Narrandera Argus.