Going bananas
Posted 22 July 2009 // Jock Phillips
Conference participant, public law specialist Mai Chen
I have just returned from the most stimulating conference of my life. It was the Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas conference held in Auckland over the past weekend. There were about 350 people there, mostly Chinese New Zealanders who had come to talk about and celebrate their New Zealand story. There was some history, with a magisterial address by James Ng on the discrimination suffered by the Chinese here, but for me it was the fascinating stories of contemporary New Zealand Chinese that were truly inspiring.
In one session entitled ‘High Flying Bananas’ four New Zealand Chinese told their stories of achievement in modern New Zealand. Mai Chen’s story began when she landed in Christchurch aged six. It was such an unwelcoming environment that on her first day, the sight of Mai and her three sisters walking together along the street to the botanic gardens led an astonished passing motorist to drive into the car in front which in turn bashed the next car. From that point Mai decided that discrimination would make her more determined; and she learned not to conform, but to treasure her difference, and make it count for her. As one of the country’s leading public law specialists the strategy has clearly worked.
Next up Don Ha described himself as very different from Mai – ‘neither good looking and without a university degree in sight’. Yet he is now one of Manukau’s most successful realtors and clearly a very rich man indeed. He arrived as a Chinese boy from Vietnam and spent his first few months in New Zealand in a refugee camp. He quickly learned how to survive in Auckland. One of his jobs was collecting watercress from the drains around Auckland, packaging it up and selling it to the New World supermarket. He earned $300 a week – which was fine until the council closed off the supply by spraying all the drains! He sold cars, had a stall in a flea market, worked in a bakery, and eventually set up his own real estate firm. He sold 86 houses in his first year – 98% of them to Pākehā buyers. Now he lives in a mansion where his bedroom is larger than his first house, buys race horses and sponsors the local rugby club.
If rags to riches was not your taste, then the session ‘Visually Chinese’ was certain to inspire. Five artists talked about how their Chinese experiences in New Zealand had shaped their art work. They ranged from street artist Peap Tarr, to brilliant architect Ron Sang, to graphic artist Liyen Chong – who drew using human hair. I especially liked the work of Susan Louie. Brought up on a market garden outside Gisborne, she now fashions in glass the vegetables her family grew in the fields.
And for us webbies there was also something. I tried, until the technology failed(!), to show off Te Ara’s immigrant stories, especially the wonderful piece on the Chinese by one of the conference organisers, Manying Ip. And the New Zealand Chinese Association and Auckland City Libraries launched their fabulous new site, Chinese Digital Community. This is a wholly community-built site, and the local Chinese have responded magnificently by uploading their precious images and telling their stories. Check it out.
At the banquet the former boss of New Zealand Post and new boss of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade, John Allen, spoke of how New Zealand needed Chinese New Zealanders precisely because their difference of perspective was a source of innovation and creativity. If the sheer exuberance and imagination on show at the conference is any guide, then New Zealand has a great future.
