CHineseINK

The Murder of Chow Yat

Joan Rosier-Jones

Published by: Stead & Daughters Ltd

 

Friday 21 August 2009

Wanganui

 

 

First I would like to thank Lesley Stead, for inviting me to speak and for sending me a copy of the book “hot off the press.” so that I could read it before the launch and, hopefully, have something useful to say.

 

Secondly I would like to congratulate Joan Rosier-Jones for her hard work in pulling together the story from scattered sources.

 

In particular I would to congratulate her for including background information about the early Chinese in New Zealand in the book, especially about

 

• Their lives and circumstances in China.

 

• Their lives in New Zealand at the beginning of the 20th century which is the period before Chow Yat and his employer came to Wanganui.

 

• Their lives in provincial New Zealand between the world wars – being the setting of this story.

 

It is heartening that in the early 21st century Joan and her publishers believe that there is a market and therefore an audience for stories about the Chinese in early New Zealand.

 

There was a time when New Zealanders could not have cared less about the death of lone Chinese man tending a cabbage patch.

 

Indeed in  Joan’s book there is a suggestion that the people of Wanganui in 1922 weren’t too concerned that the case against Toldy the Hungarian, the man initially charged with Chow Yat’s murder, collapsed.

 

There was no great public clamour to locate the real murderer,  although I must note that subsequently the Commissioner of Police in Wellington gave the local constabulary a fail mark and got them to do their homework again - after the Prime Minister got a letter from the Chinese Consul. 

 

While Joan has been  channelling Lilly Rush (Cold Case) while trying to put together a  case against a reputedly hair-triggered Ted Stewart, the outcome, as she admits in her book, is still “not proven.”

 

Be that as it may, Joan’s efforts in writing this book should be seen in the context of an increasing interest in incorporating New Zealand Chinese history as New Zealand mainstream history.

 

The seminal works of James Ng, Manying Ip and Nigel Murphy are already well known.

But in recent times, individuals and groups, including the New Zealand Chinese Association have (almost physically) reclaimed large parts of the Chinese community’s history and incorporated it into the history of New Zealand.

 

The activism which resulted in the Government’s apology for the Poll Tax and the subsequent establishment of the funded Poll Tax Heritage Trust is well known.

 

Other, more guerrilla, operations have provided interesting results:

 

• Joe Kum Yung is no longer the nameless, hapless Chinaman shot at random by arch-racist Lionel Terry in Haining Street, Wellington in 1902 but is remembered by a brass plaque paid for by the Wellington City Council to mark his centenary.

 

• Kim Lee is no longer the nameless, hapless Chinaman who was diagnosed with leprosy and incarcerated on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour  in 1905 and who, not surprisingly, died after been kicked out  by the other “lepers” to live in a wet cave in Mokopuna Island – essentially a large rock in the surf.  His centenary was marked by boatloads of people going out to Somes Island  -  filmed by two TV Channels.

 

• The story of the MV Ventnor which sank off the New Zealand coast carrying the 499 coffins of Chinese goldminers  - some of which were retrieved by local Maori – is another story about to be told in film.

 

Will Joan  be  playing Miss Marples  in The Murder of  Chow  Yat in the rustic village of Whanganui?  Idle speculation perhaps?

 

So, Joan, on behalf of the Chinese community I thank you for your research efforts and for putting together  the story of the murder of Chow Yat and the community in which he lived.

 

And to Stead & Daughters, I would like to thank you for your faith in the project, and taking the considerable gamble that the storey of Chow Yat will find resonance in the Chinese and wider community.

 

And to the family and descendants of Kwang Chong For who looked after Chow Yat in life and accorded him respect and decent burial in death, may your family forever prosper.

 

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