CHineseINK

NEW ZEALAND CHINESE ASSOCIATION

National President’s Speech at the Chinese New Year Parliamentary Reception in the Grand Hall, Parliament Buildings on 19 February 2008.

Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Helen Clark; Minister of Ethnic Affairs & Minister of Education, Honourable Chris Carter; Ministers of the Crown and Members of Parliament, Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China; Mr Zhang Yuan Yuan, Distinguished guests, Members of the Chinese Community, Ladies and gentlemen.

The New Zealand Chinese Association would like to wish everyone here tonight a very happy and prosperous Chinese New Year. Gong hei fait choi, sun nean fal lock.

On behalf of all the guests here tonight, I wish to thank the Prime Minister and the Minister of Ethnic Affairs for graciously hosting this parliamentary function to celebrate our Chinese New Year. This event, to welcome the Year of the Rat, is highly appreciated by the Chinese community.

Prime Minister, i still remember very vividly being present for your public apology to the Poll Tax payers and their descendents at a similar reception on Chinese New Year Day, 12 February 2002. This was a very emotional and historical occasion for the Chinese community who had personally suffered hardship and injustices under the past selective discrimination.

Your subsequent announcement of the reconciliation package on 11 February 2004 and the setting up of the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust later in 2004 has provided appropriate closure of the Poll Tax grievance issue. The Poll Tax descendant community will be eternally grateful for this courageous action by you and your Labour Government.

The annual income from the trust is being used to fund projects that provide tangible support for our Chinese New Zealand history, our Cantonese heritage language, our unique identity and Chinese arts & culture, particularly that of the early settler Chinese community.

As you and many others are aware, the New Zealand Chinese Association, worked tirelessly from the early 1990’s on the Poll Tax issue, and as a national organisation with many Poll Tax descendants as members, we have initiated or enhanced many activities with the financial support of the Poll Tax Trust.

Major NZCA events that have benefited from the support of the Poll Tax Trust include the series of very successful Banana events which examined the identity of Chinese New Zealanders both in a local and global context, two Leadership Camps attended by about 40 young Chinese on each occasion to learn more about their cultural heritage
and to acquire leadership skills, and the annual Easter Sports Tournament & Cultural Event which attracts many participants and supporters from throughout NZ.

Our assocation is the only truly national Chinese organisation in NZ whose aims and and objectives are summarised by the following succinct mottos:

• Serving NZ Chinese for over 70 years with 13 Branches nationwide

• Leading NZ Chinese into the future

NZCA considers it is very important that we enhance the relationship of the descendants with all Chinese residents in New Zealand and the wider New Zealand community. This should produce a stronger and united Chinese community and a stronger multi-ethnic society in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders. “We are all childen
of migrants. The only difference is when our parents came here”.

I am tonight launching a fundraising appeal for a gift by all Chinese New Zealanders to the NZ Olympic Team going to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It is proposed that the gift will sit outside the NZ Team living area in the Olympic village and be presented to the Chinese Olympic Committee
at the end of the games.

This is an unique opportunity which may not re-occur in our lifetime to demonstrate to all NZers that NZ Chinese feels an integral part of our adopted country and that we greatly appreciate the opportunities to settle here and enjoy the better lifestyle here. And to China, our former home country, the gift signifies that NZ has fully accepted Chinese as worthy citizens who have made immense contributions to their new home country.

Messrs Ron Sang and Guy Ngan, eminent NZ Chinese artists, have organised an appropriate design for the gift consisting of a two metre long modern stylised dragon (symbolising China) with a greenstone pearl on its tongue (symbolising Maori) on a granite base at a total estimated cost of about $40,000. The sculpture needs to be completed by mid - May to ship with other equipment for the NZ Olympic Team.

A charitable trust is already in place and hence any donations made are tax deductible. The names of all persons and organisations who donate $1,000 and more will be suitable engraved on the sculpture for all to see. (And if you are ready to write that cheque out now, please see Harvey Wu or myself after this speech).

At this stage, I would like to introduce Mr Dave Currie, Chef de Mission, and Robyn Wong, Team Services Manager for the NZ Olympic Team who will ensure safe delivery of our gift to Beijing and the handover to the Chinese hosts after the games. I now unveil a model of our gift for you all to view.

Once again, I wish to thank the Prime Minister and the Hon Chris Carter for hosting this Chinese New Year celebration, and thank you all for attending.

Kai Luey

I attended the NZ China Friendship Society dinner to celebrate Spring Festival/Chinese New Year at the newly renamed Dragon Restaurant in Tory Street. The Society, once regarded as a hot-bed of communist sympathisers in the 1960s, is now very much regarded as New China’s oldest friend in New Zealand and is the “home” of many European  “old China hands” - the most famous being Rewi Alley. Its celebrations are duly attended by the Ambassador, the Mayors of Wellington and Porirua and by Foreign Affairs officials.

I noted that Ambassador Zhang Yuanyuan arrived attired in a formal “Mao” suit, a form of dress these days usually reserved for State funerals and dire announcements of national significance. As the Ambassador cheerfully told everyone later, China’s Foreign Ministry had instructed all Chinese ambassadors worldwide to attend Spring Festival celebrations in formal dress; however in the southern hemisphere, Wellington’s autumn heat and the Dragon’s lack of air-conditioning had conspired against the Ministry, forcing the Ambassador to deliver his speech in shirt sleeves.

Mayor Kerry Prendergast cheerfully noted that Wellington had “sister-city” relationships with not one, but two Chinese cities, Xiamen and Beijing (there is a Chinese term for that, but I’ve forgotten it) and wanted help and support from both for Wellington’s long-awaited Chinese Garden. She also announced that she had been invited by the Municipal Government of Beijing to the 2008 Summer Olympics and would just have to make time in her busy schedule to attend. It’s tough work being Mayor but someone has to do it.

We had a NZ Foreign Affairs official at the table who reported good progress in concluding the NZ China free-trade agreement - China’s first with an OECD country. Unfortunately he was on the opposite side of the table because I was just dying to ask him why New Zealand did not have a single ethnic-Chinese New Zealander in its negotiating team in however junior a position - demonstrating a lack of sensitivity to New Zealand’s Chinese population, blindness to an obvious diplomatic opportunity and the “whiteness” of the upper levels of New Zealand’s government.

The Dragon Restaurant is still much as I designed it. In its second incarnation they replaced the stainless steel handrails around the stage with faux Chinese patterned wood and painted the walls brown; in this, its third incarnation they didn’t replace the bone plates with fresh ones and the waitress asked the customers to help clear the table.

A NZCFS dinner always ends with a quizz about China - with the guests at each table forming teams. The 25 written questions are so obscure that even the Ambassador, senior foreign affairs officials and diplomatic staff from two countries, two mayors, the headmaster and headmistress of two of Wellington’s great schools, the Chancellor of Victoria University and Google on a cellphone cannot agree the answers and the evening ends in uproar.