Journal of Chinese Australia, Issue 2, October 2006

Chinese feasts and festivals in colonial Australia

Kevin Wong Hoy and Patricia Monaghan-Jamieson

Four or more generations of Chinese in Australia have produced distinctive Chinese Australian cultural practices. Recent Chinese immigrants from parts of Asia sometimes respond negatively or disparagingly to Australian versions of Chinese culture because they find them unfamiliar. However, some multi-generational Chinese Australians of full Chinese ancestry have never visited China, let alone set foot in the home villages of their ancestors. Even more Chinese Australians of some or full Chinese ancestry do not have access to village dialects and cannot speak Cantonese. Recent Chinese immigrants have helped to enrich, and in many ways re-ignite, 'Chineseness' in Australia. We should recognise, however, that the culture brought by new immigrants is different from the Chinese culture brought to Australia by the forbears of long-established Chinese Australians. Some aspects of their culture have little changed but other aspects have evolved into other forms.

Chinese settlers first started to arrive in Australia during the first few decades of the nineteenth century.[1] When they set sail for colonial Australia, they felt the separation from family, home village, district and clan group more keenly than separation from imperial Qing China. Gwok Yinming of Juksoyin (Zhuxiuyuan) village, in Long Du (Liangdu) sub-district, Chungsan (Zhongshan) county, Canton province (Guangdong), who emigrated in 1880, certainly maintained a significant connection with family, Liangdu and Zhongshan rather than to any notion of greater China.[2] Both China and Australia were yet to emerge as nation-states. Once in Australia, the Chinese found themselves in autonomous, independent colonies. Perhaps for town and district-oriented Chinese, the municipal and regional civic structures encountered within the Australian colonies were not so unfamiliar. As a consequence, the cultural practices Chinese brought with them and the way that they developed were very specific to the particular localities in both China and Australia.

In some parts of regional Australia, entirely Chinese-Australian festivals - generated by events in Australia - came into being. In 1890, following severe flooding of the Barron River in Cairns, a junk carrying a consignment of bananas capsized at the river mouth. A number of local Chinese drowned. The Cairns Chinese community banded together to honour their spirits. This event soon became known as the Barron River Memorial Festival and was commemorated annually. By the 1930s, it had evolved into the Chinese Annual Memorial Picnic and had become more light-hearted.[3]

Figure 1. Chinese Annual Memorial Picnic, Cairns, 1939. Photograph by James Ah You. From the collection of Imelda Wagner.

Other rituals, ceremonies and Chinese culinary traditions are more easily reconciled with contemporary Chinese practice. Early generations of Chinese in Australia also celebrated festivals according to the Chinese calendar and conducted rituals in accordance with the customs of their region. In this paper, Kevin Wong Hoy examines a nineteenth-century Chinese temple dedication in the Buckland River valley and the kinds of Chinese celebrations held to mark the arrival of first-born sons in nineteenth-century north Queensland and Patricia Monaghan-Jamieson offers an effective illustration of Australian commemoration of a traditional Chinese festival by exploring Lunar New Year festivities in Adelaide sponsored by her ancestor, Way Lee.

The Buckland Valley temple dedication

The dedication ceremonies enacted at the opening of new Chinese temples were spectacular displays. When the Buckland Valley Chinese in northeast Victoria opened their temple in 1857, it was indeed a grand affair, if a little provincial.[4]

As far as can be ascertained, non-Chinese did not participate in the ceremony but they observed from a distance. The correspondent for the Ovens and Murray Advertiser was one such observer. He lamented that the Chinese Buckland temple was the only place of worship of any faith to have been erected on that goldfield - a clear sign of Christian lethargy. Although the correspondent's article contains considerable contempt for the Chinese ceremony, the article does offer some insight into the ceremony itself and a description of the temple:

The temple…was about twenty feet in length, by twelve or fourteen in width, neatly framed, the cornicing of both walls and roof being of canvas or calico; the inside had a flooring of boards, which was matted and carpeted in front of the alter or table in a small space of about eight feet square.[5]

The ceremony commenced with worshippers lighting small clusters of incense, taking a step backwards and then making three respectful bows toward the altar of the gods. After each manoeuvre, the clusters of incense were placed upright into a container. The ceremony then changed pace. Strings of fireworks were exploded, firearms were discharged, drums and gongs struck and cymbals clashed. Next, long incense tapers were lit and the worshippers repeated the ceremonial bows to the altar. The ceremony floundered while an argument was resolved by the officiating celebrant - possibly over protocol.

Ceremonial food soon appeared. A roasted pig, roasted fowl, joints of pork and a variety of other dishes were carried into the gathering, followed by an abundant array of fruit, cakes and pastries. The worshippers then proceeded with what could have been Taoist rituals of kneeling, bowing and rising to make a grand offertory of the prepared food. This was followed by reverent reading of passages from written Chinese records. Liquid offerings were then made to the altar. Clear liquid was poured from a teapot into a clear glass and raised to the altar. A little was poured onto the ground and the glass was raised again. The ceremonial food offering was repeated.

'Everything combustible' which had been employed during the ceremony was then burned in a large bonfire. With the official ceremony complete, the gathered worshippers enjoyed the celebratory feast accompanied by 'a good deal of Chinese claret'.[6]

Unfortunately the Buckland temple was destroyed by fire soon after its construction, the result of a savage five-hour attack by Anglo-European perpetrators against the Buckland Chinese miners on 4 July 1857. Nevertheless, Australia was at one time well served by Chinese temples, which stood in almost every location where Chinese settled.

Celebrating the arrival of first-born sons

Prominent north Queensland Chinese merchants maintained the Chinese custom of lavishly celebrating the arrival of first-born sons. One event which received considerable newspaper coverage was the feast given by Lee Yan in 1896 to celebrate the birth of his son - the first fully Chinese boy born at Cairns. It was attended by seventeen leading Europeans, including the Cairns Police Magistrate, and several hundred Chinese well-wishers. Amongst numerous courses at the banquet were bêche-de-mer soup, platters of duck, pork, preserved eggs, preserved shrimp, sun-dried oysters and other delicacies. With dessert, congratulatory speeches were made and monetary gifts for good fortune were presented to the child, who appeared with his mother.[7]

The spectacle of the occasion offended some Europeans, or at least some newspaper editors. The event was widely reported in the Herberton Advertiser, the Townsville Star and the Sydney Bulletin. Each published some sneering reference to the welcoming festivities for the child. The local newspaper, the Cairns Argus, was more accommodating and criticised its competitors for their lack of propriety.[8]

Gwok Yinming, better known as Willie Ming, celebrated the arrival of his first-born son in 1900. Ming had become affluent and successful as a businessman and sugar cane grower. As the Cairns Morning Post wrote, 'Willie Ming this season at Aloomba has between six and seven thousand tons of cane to cut'.[9] While Lee Yan had included Europeans on his guest list, Willie Ming chose to invite only Chinese guests. Although he might have anticipated high regard from other local citizens had they been included, perhaps he saved himself the outrageous press coverage exhibited on Lee Yan.[10]

Some 520 Chinese friends, many from Zhongshan, began banqueting in honour of the infant during the afternoon. The local newspaper report does not make it clear whether the child, Herbert, or his mother, Yeun Day, participated in the feast, but it conveyed the grandness of the occasion:

Fifty-seven tables were laid throughout Mr Ming's store and back yard, and everything passed off in an orderly ship-shape manner. The business of the afternoon was eating and drinking, and business was attended to. Here are a few items from the menu list, as supplied to an inquisitive newspaper scribe by Willie Ming himself - 62 English ducks, 35 Muscovy ducks, 50 fowls, 3 pigs, beche-de-mer soup, Chinese mushrooms, Chinese shellfish, bird's nest soup, shark fins, etc. etc. The giver of the feast received 'numerous and costly' presents for the baby from many of his guests… He is a first rate citizen - anyone else to the contrary notwithstanding.[11]

New Year celebrations: a time for rejuvenation

One Chinese celebration which unfailingly absorbed the entire community across Australia was New Year festivities. From Cairns to Adelaide and from Sydney to the west, many have a tale about Chinese New Year customs witnessed in their region. New Year dinners could be elite affairs:

The guest list of a dinner given by Willie Ming and Ah Young in 1897 resembled a 'Who's Who' of prominent Cairns citizens. It included Stafford, the Police Magistrate, Milford, the town's leading lawyer, the Polynesian Inspector, the Post Master, the Collector of Customs, a bank manager, the editor of the Cairns Argus and several prominent businessmen.[12]

As early as 1884, the year of the Monkey, the Chinese merchants of Adelaide were concerned to complete the appropriate rituals for welcoming the new lunar year. In preparation, everyone in the commercial world traded feverishly to settle all outstanding accounts. This accelerated activity before the arrival of the new year allowed Chinese businessmen to 'gather in the monies due'. If one were to default, it was considered a blow to reputation and financial standing, not to mention starting the year 'under such ill-omened circumstances'. 'All houses were thoroughly renovated and put in order for the approaching feast'.[13]

Adelaide witnessed a whole week of religious ceremonies, festivities and entertainment. On the eve of the Lunar New Year, thirty-one Chinese who were closely associated with Christian outreach, celebrated the arrival of the new year with their teachers and two or three men closely connected with the Adelaide 'English School' for Chinese at City Mission Hall. After tea, one of the Chinese rose to his feet and made an eloquent speech in English. This was followed by a lantern slide show. As a conclusion, another Chinese both recited and sang an English hymn to an organ accompaniment.[14]

Before dawn on New Year's Day, 'the members of each Chinese household in Adelaide offered sacrifice, with many genuflections and prayers, to heaven and earth, and to their tutelary gods.' Following the homage to the guardian gods, the worshippers next paid their respects to their ancestors, then the living elders of the family. 'After each service crackers were discharged in the back yards of the homes and on the vacant piece of land near Light Square, Adelaide.'[15]

The first few days of the new year were customarily reserved for close family and friends, but afterwards the circle of celebration widened. Three days after the start of the new year, a collection of Adelaide's men and women engaged in religious and philanthropic work met by invitation at the spacious premises of Ah Chung & Co. in Hindley Street. Ah Sun, Ah Chung and Yook Kee made ample provision for their entertainment. The next evening, 'Cheong-Kee & Co. invited a few special friends to partake of a Chinese Supper, served up in true Chinese fashion. They entertained in a way that they thought would please their friends, and by their assiduous attention, and at all their feasts, etc., strove that the company had only to suggest and it would be on the table in a moment.'[16]

On the day after Cheong-Kee & Co's festivities, a Chinese New Year banquet was held at Way Lee & Co., a business also located in Hindley Street. Way Lee, also known as Yett Soo War, came from the Jingshan local government area, Dongguan county, Guangdong province, near the border region with Zengcheng county. It was intended to be a jovial evening amongst the Chinese, however six Europeans were also invited. As a gesture of graciousness to the Europeans, an English supper was also served in an upstairs drawing room, where the European guests and selected Chinese friends could retire. The following description of the New Year's feast, based on the article published in the Christian Colonist, captures the cross-cultural, good humour evident in 1884:

All the tables had been laid out beautifully with immaculate white tablecloths and with bowls containing different preserves, meats, vegetables and soups. There was lemonade and ginger beer, all piled up like stored ammunition, one on top of another and in rows. The guests conversed and enjoyed themselves for some time before the celebrations began. Then, it was decided by all present that they should begin the festivities. The hosts reminded all the Europeans to be sure and ask for anything that they wanted that had not been supplied, assuring them that they should make themselves at home. 'The dishes were many and varied; each basin contained a different assortment of all kinds of poultry and pork; and as it was cut up into small squares' the Europeans experienced no difficulties with the feast except for the chopsticks. 'How to use these little bits of wood was a puzzle.' A few managed to lift pieces of duck, but dropped them in the communal soup on the way to their individual basins, splashing soup all over the pristine tablecloth. These accidents were taken in good faith, and 'English knives and forks' were placed before every European guest in case they could not manage the Chinese eating utensils.[17]

The supper was formally opened by Way Lee, who toasted Cheong Kee with a small cup of Chinese wine. 'The others followed in quick succession [until] each man had drunk the contents of his friend's cup', whilst the European guests watched with interest. The host, noticing their quiet interest, held up a large bowl of Chinese brandy, and directly facing the Europeans made a toast to them. All the Europeans responded. As they did not drink the alcohol, lemonade was substituted and drank from the bottle in the fashion at the time. The host held the basin with both hands in front of his friend's mouth, and invited him to drink from the basin. Each man held the basin to another's mouth. Two European men, 'great friends of the Chinese', thought they might do the same, so in responding, they, after a brief speech, attempted this different mode of drinking. It was reported that the Chinese were delighted with this gesture on the part of their European guests and laughed good-naturedly at their attempts to follow Chinese custom.[18]

Conclusion

This paper has explored a range of Chinese Australian community events, illustrating the ways that Chinese Australians celebrated old customs, adapted them to a new setting, or invented entirely new ones. Some occasions were principally for Chinese temple worshippers or Chinese friends. At such events, the ceremonies tended to be more solemn and the guest lists more selective. Custom required that some celebrations should be contained. New Year's Day, for example, was generally celebrated only with family members and intimate friends. Over the following days, it was acceptable and expected that the social circle would expand progressively to include others. It was these occasions to which Europeans were invited.

Shared affairs involving Chinese and non-Chinese could be used by the press to encourage racial prejudice, but were also profitable opportunities for cross-cultural socialising and exchange. The Chinese merchant was a gracious and generous host to both Chinese and non-Chinese guests. The inclusion of lemonade, ginger beer and English supper at the celebratory feasts arranged by Chinese hosts was intended to put European guests at ease in their unfamiliar surroundings, and the usual strictness of Victorian etiquette could be put aside in favour of friendliness and practicality. Whether European or Chinese, both guests and hosts were new settlers with a shared responsibility for nurturing a new generation of children and for finding ways to interrelate and co-operate successfully within their shared community. Feasting together was one way to do this.

The feasts and festivities under discussion here are a mere selection of those observed in Australia. Marriage ceremonies, August Moon festivals, Dragon Boat festivals, parades, celebrations for Sun Yat-sen, private birthday parties to celebrate longevity, Ching Ming, funerals and other special occasions are also currently under study. Today, enthusiasm for these special occasions (as widely enjoyed community events) has increased through the growth of Australia's Asian permanent and student populations, and through many other Australians embracing greater cross-cultural interest.

Notes

[1] Mak Sai Ying is believed to have reached Sydney in 1817. See Annette Shun Wah and Greg Aitkin, Banquet: Ten Courses to Harmony, Doubleday, Moorbank, NSW, 1999, p.11.

[2] Gwok Yinming, otherwise known as Willie Ming, was naturalised as a British subject in 1901. Chinese from one district did not necessarily enjoy good relations with the Chinese from another district. See Cathie May, Topsawyers: The Chinese in Cairns 1870 to 1920, Department of History and Politics, James Cook University, Townsville,1996, p.65.

[3] Cathie May, Topsawyers, p.75.

[4] Herald, 3 July 1857.

[5] Herald, 3 July 1857.

[6] Herald, 3 July 1857.

[7] Cathie May, Topsawyers, p.200; Bulletin, 22 August 1896.

[8] Cathie May, Topsawyers, p.200; Cairns Argus, 6 August 1896.

[9] Cairns Morning Post, 16 October 1900.

[10] Although published with contemptuous comment by the Bulletin, Willie Ming was nevertheless acknowledged by Europeans. See Henry Reynolds, North of Capricorn: The Untold Story of Australia's North, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2003, p.150.

[11] Cairns Morning Post, 16 October 1900.

[12]Cathie May, Topsawyers, p.200.

[13] Christian Colonist, 7 March 1884; Adelaide Observer, 2 February 1884.

[14] Christian Colonist, 22 February 1884.

[15] Christian Colonist, 7 March 1884.

[16 Adelaide Observer, 2 February 1884; Christian Colonist, 7 March 1884.

[17] Christian Colonist, 4 April 1884.

[18] Christian Colonist, 4 April 1884.

About the authors

Kevin Wong Hoy is the great grandson of the Cairns businessman and sugar cane producer, Willie Ming.

Patricia Monaghan- Jamieson is the great granddaughter of the Adelaide merchant, Way Lee.

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