Appo Hocton book and exhibition launch

It is indeed a befitting time for the book launch and exhibition opening of Wong Ah Poo Hoc Ting (Appo Hocton) - New Zealand's first naturalised Chinese migrant in 1842.

Chinese New Year's traditional celebration goes on for 15 days and today falls within the first fifteen days of the Year of the Tiger. Chinese New Year is about celebration of family and the large number of family members gathered here is incredible.

This is a very important occasion because the history of early Chinese migration is being re-written.

It has always been known that the earliest Chinese migrants came in the 1860s to mine the goldfields at the invitation of the Otago Chamber of Commerce and now we know in fact that Wong Ah Poo was the first one to land here in the sunshine city of Nelson.

That alone shows that he was a smart man and that Nelson had beaten Otago as being the first place for Chinese migrants to come and live.

I want to acknowledge Diana Clark, the great granddaughter of Wong Ah Poo, who wrote to me in early 2009 to get my facts right because I, like many others, had referred to the earliest migration of Chinese to New Zealand as from the 1860s.

I am pleased that the Chinese Poll Tax Trust was then able to approve an application for funding for the publishing of this book that Diana Clark had started to push for since 2004.

The life of Wong Ah Poo also shows that I inadvertently made a mistake in delivering my maiden speech as New Zealand's first MP of Chinese and Asian ethnicity in March 1997.

Before I made my speech that described how the path to Parliament by Asian New Zealanders was paved with tears, blood, hard work and determination, 130 balloons to commemorate the occasion were released outside Parliament.

The balloons represented that it took from the 1860s to 1997 - 130 years - for an Asian New Zealander to enter Parliament.

Of course I should have released 150 balloons since the first Chinese person arrived 1842. The act of releasing 130 balloons was difficult and full of challenge in itself -- not only the approval of the Speaker of the House had to be sought, but the Civil Aviation Authority as well.

The reason that this important fact was not discovered a lot earlier was, according to Diana Clark, she was not told of her Chinese ethnicity until later in life.

This reflects a common underlying societal attitude that has made ethnic minorities to not be proud of their heritage or bi-cultural background.

In the case of early Chinese migrants, legislative measures such as poll tax and English language tests were all used to stop the flow of their migration to New Zealand.

The increased number of Asian migrants and an enlightened and inclusive attitude change has now seen even multiculturalism being embraced. The red lanterns that lined Queen Street and the 150,000 people who visit the annual lantern festival being staged in Albert Park, Auckland, is a stark contrast to even in the 1970s where Chinese New Year's would have come and gone without a stir.

I ended my maiden speech with the vision of New Zealand being One Nation, Many People with Shared values; the values being given a fair go, innovation and compassion.

Wong Ah Poo - along with other early Chinese pioneers such as Chew Chong - would have lived these values.

Chew Chong standardised the iconic one pound sized butter and invented refrigeration techniques for exporting butter around the world. Thomas Ah Chee also lived these values when he introduced our first supermarket Foodtown and Choie Sew Hoy also did when he invented a specialised gold dredge for mining.

Yet even for later day Chinese migrants, like myself, our pioneers' identity is a mystery for different reasons. The Chinese family name of these pioneers were not recognisable, Sew Hoy and Appo Hoc Ting were not names that fellow Chinese could relate to.

In those days, Custom and Immigration officers would have assumed Chinese names were written in the same way as Western ones. Christian names were followed by family names and the pioneers' christian names inadvertently became their family names.

When Appo Hoc Ting was identified recently as being a Wong, some asked whether we are related. A few thousand years ago, my husband - who is the Wong - may have been related and by marriage I may be as well.

I feel privileged to be invited here to be part of this historical event, which will have significant impact on things to follow with Wong Ah Poo's personality coming through to shatter the collective identity of Chinese New Zealanders. 

It will motivate others to follow and thus enrich our historical and cultural tapestry.

The way forward is for New Zealand to realise that our future will be strengthened by the various strands of different ethnicities woven into our landscape.