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A report on Chinese communities living in New Zealand. The Chinese Anglican Church in Newtown, Wellington, is one of the centres of Chinese culture in New Zealand. The stereotype New Zealand Chinese, are the green grocers at the markets otherwise the other 10,000 Chinese in New Zealand are mainly an anonymous community. The vast majority live in the four main centres.
In 1866 the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce brought a group of 12 Chinese gold diggers from Australia to work in the Otago gold fields. Their numbers increased rapidly and by 1867 there were over 1200. By the early 1870s there were over 4,500 most of them coming direct from Canton. When gold digging was no longer viable, most of them drifted north and became market gardeners.
Successful early business entrepreneurs were: Sew Hoy, whose family established a successful textile business in Dunedin, now a major clothing exporter and is still in the family.
Chew Chong was a dairy factory owner in Taranaki. In 1887 at his Eltham factory, he had possibly the first dairy freezing machine installed in the country. Nancy Goddard recalls those early days.
Thomas Doo is a member of one of the big three New Zealand Chinese families and a huge success in the European business world. The Doo family also owns dozens of city properties around Auckland.