CHineseINK

The World Premiere of Chinese in Molesworth Street – 90 years trading in the Government Centre was held on Saturday 23 February 2008 at the NZ Film Archives located at the corner of Taranaki Street and Ghuznee Street. True to the traditions of E! canapés from Scopa were served, liquor flowed freely, the 70 documentary film junkies and invited guests rubbed shoulders with the stars, the Director pitched her opus, acknowledged the sponsors and thanked the crew, while the Producer appeared in auteurial black and mumbled modestly. Then it was into the projection room to see seven of our “world famous in Wellington” intrepid heroes, filmed on location outside their former premises, all sitting on genuine apple boxes as in the days of yore, telling their sometimes wry stories of commercial and personal triumphs.

Mrs YH Lowe told of the nearly 40 years that she and her husband (and before them, her father-in-law and his brother) operated the Peter & Son fruit shop/Chinese grocery store opposite the Wellington Railway Station; and how 11-year-old Tommy delivered orders and later met Lee Kwan Yew when he came to the shop make a purchase, (possibly chewing gum?)

Ken Chan, outside what is now the Court of Appeal, recalled how, as an 18-year-old Wellington College senior he inveigled the then Chief Justice, Sir Humphrey O’Leary, a customer of the Hop Lee Laundry starched collar service, to witness his application for New Zealand citizenship in the hope of joining the Air Force near the end of the Second World War; and his 18-year-old would-be-aviator’s keen observation of American servicemen leading kiwi girls down to air-raid shelters under the grounds of Parliament on Sundays, presumably for their own protection.

Laywood Chan, his wife, his father Dan and his grandmother apparently all got front row seats when the young Queen Elisabeth II arrived through the main gates of Parliament during her 1951 Coronation Tour; and later (probably another day) sent Mrs Holyoake home with fish ‘n’ chips for Sir Keith’s supper.

In the same location, Sonny Tom, to the astonishment of well-informed Japanese tourists, was able to personally indulge the post-cabinet-meeting munchies of Prime Minister Norman Kirk and Internal Affairs Minister Lance Adam-Schneider with oysters and chips on a regular basis.

Willie Wong, operating a providor business for 20 years that supplied fruit, vegetables and all manner of goods and services for visiting ships, had to get up a 2.00am several days a week, which he insists helped his social life. He was helped in the business, now the site of the State Services Commission, by his wife Loretta and after school by his children who later escaped to London to work in the City.

Richard Young, a sometime IT specialist, took over the providor business in recent years and developed a produce import/export business alongside. Strangely, his children also appear unwilling to take over the business.

Allan Tso, was the third generation to operate a fruit shop on a site adjoining the old Shamrock Hotel (now relocated) and presently the offices of the Accident Compensation Commission. As such he had to contend with the daily disorder associated with excessive drinking during the “6 o’clock swill.”

Nigel Murphy took a rare break out to the sunlight of the National Library forecourt to provide an on-site historical perspective to help explain the circumstances which led to the establishment and successful operation over many years of Chinese businesses in Molesworth Street.

The filming for this documentary took place in 4 hours of one day from 10.00am until 2.00pm using a small borrowed video camera and borrowed camera operator. The introduction for each interview was done in two or three takes with the barest of script outlines. The interviewees’ responses were certainly improvised on the spot. The raw footage yielded 37 minutes in the final cut. A conscious decision was made during editing to allow interviewees the opportunity to tell their stories fairly fully. The interviews are however, not intended to be oral histories where the emphasis is on completeness and historical accuracy. A hypothetical broadcast version would probably need to be cut to 22-24 minutes. Editing was not done on an editing suite but in a bedroom on a dual-core PC using Final Cut software – by post-graduate students of film.

Originally intended as a contribution from the Chinese community to a City Council- initiated urban design/community art interaction project involving a one-off lunch-time street-level discussion in a freight container setting, all curated by Siv Fjaerestad from Enjoy Art Gallery, I decided that our community could not give an adequate representation of itself under these conditions. I therefore naively suggested that we film the interviews with a view to projecting them in the freight container in the same week. It soon became obvious that in terms of pre-production planning, research, scripting, logistics, principal photography and the most elementary editing that it would take far longer than the time available for the film to be used for its original purpose. The approaching end of the academic year meant that our volunteer film editors had to take time off to finish their course projects and for prior commitments at Christmas. In the New Year, with second unit (background) photography, sound re-recording and historical image research and acquisition, subtitling of the Chinese language interview and copyright and archival deposit agreements, event planning, catering etc, the final, final cut was completed mere hours before the world premiere.

The Wellington City Council contracted Enjoy Art Gallery to curate the In-site container project, and this enabled Enjoy to work with us on this project; however the outcome is effectively a zero-budget film. Wellington Chinese Association has only funded the venue hire and the reception cost of official guests at the World Premiere; most people paid a small entry charge for the reception and film. Of course, we have had the unpaid use of equipment and the labour of several volunteers in the making of the documentary – notably the editing, arranged by Enjoy Art Gallery. We have also had the access to the creative input and expertise within Enjoy and for these reasons copyright of the film is shared with them. The deposit agreement with NZ Film Archive is such that the public may view but not copy the film. Other uses would be controlled by the Chinese Association.

A professionally produced DVD is available at a cost of $15, and a very small part of that price will go towards defraying the cost of consumables and the wear and tear on equipment.

With the advent of Youtube and movie-making capacity built into even $300 digital cameras, moving images are the new baseline for effective communications and producing, directing, editing and presentation will become key skills. The experience gained in producing this film will be extremely valuable in future projects – such as the recently-announced film-based “action research” on Chinese youth leadership and identity by Assoc. Prof. James Liu– part of a larger project to be undertaken by the Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research at Victoria University on Chinese, Muslim and Pasifika youth with a $200,000 grant from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology. More on that exciting project later. Those who cannot wait can contact me.

STEVEN YOUNG syoung@stevenyoung.co.nz

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