-- Who were the Chinese who came to Australia? --
-- What was it like for the Chinese on the goldfields? --
-- How did societies help the Chinese in a new land? --
-- Women and Chinese --
-- Opium smoking --

Who were the Chinese who came to Australia?

There is a common misconception that the Chinese were involved in most of the criminal activities in Victoria. In actual fact, this was not the case.

Chinese men had first come to Victoria in large numbers during the 1850s gold rushes. For them Australia was ‘Tsin Chin Shan’, the land of the New Gold Mountain.

The Chinese mainly came from the thirteen counties around Canton, the capital of Kwangtung province. These Chinese had very similar physical appearances, ideals and temperaments. They were generally described as a sober, peace loving, kindly, industrious and frugal people. Some of them however acquired what were seen as bad habits and tastes, such as opium smoking and gambling. Many also practised idol and ancestor worship which was seen at that time to be unacceptable, was misunderstood, and was considered to be a threat to the Christian way of life as practised in Australia.

Poverty was widespread in parts of China, especially in Canton. The gold rushes and the decades that followed were a time when Victoria appeared very attractive to people wishing to escape from the economic conditions at home in Europe as well as in Asia.

Approximately one-third of the Chinese immigrants to Victoria were free and independent, paying their own passages. These people were mainly artisans, shopkeepers and merchants. Many of these immigrants would have been able to read and write Chinese – and increasingly also English.

The other two thirds came under a credit ticket system and were mainly farmers who borrowed money for their passages from rich bankers, village elders or wealthy money lenders and left their land as security. Those who came under the credit-ticket system had to repay debts as soon as they earned enough money in the Australian colonies. Many of the Chinese in this second group went to the goldfields.

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What was it like for the Chinese on the goldfields?

The Chinese hoped to find gold and help support their families and repay their loans. The Chinese miners therefore sent huge quantities of gold back to China to their families and to those to whom they owed money.

The gold fields were an extraordinary multicultural mix with practically every nation represented. However, the Chinese tended to stay in separate camps. They stood out as different because of their Asian features, language, cultural practices and dress. Problems on the gold fields soon occurred for the Chinese miners. They started to rework the mullock heaps (mounds of left over rocks from mining) and to extract the left-over gold (tailings) from them. This annoyed the European miners as they felt the dumps still belonged to them. It was also claimed that the Chinese method of mining muddied the precious water.

These differences and difficulties became more pronounced as surface gold became harder to find and deep lead mines required more money to operate.

Chinese miners adapted to these changes by starting other businesses that catered to the needs of the miners and the towns that were developing around the mines. The Chinese started shops, market gardens and laundries. Again their success and enterprise caused jealousy.

Find out more about the Chinese on the goldfields, the attitudes of Europeans towards them and early efforts to restrict their entry into Victoria and overland from South Australia.

Also visit www.sovereignhill.com.au/education/research.saspl (open in new browser) to read notes about the Chinese on the goldfields. There are notes for primary and secondary students on the Sovereign Hill website. You may find this information useful in trying to understand later attitudes towards the Chinese prisoners and their crimes as introduced in this exhibition and website.

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How did societies help the Chinese in a new land?

Arriving in a new land with different customs, language, dress, attitudes to work and dress is difficult for all immigrants. To help them adjust to living in a new land, most Chinese miners joined a society of people from their home districts in China. These societies set rigid rules for them to live by and also helped sick miners. The best known one was the See Yup Society. Membership of the See Yup Society cost 25 shillings per year (the average weekly wage in 1855) plus one shilling per month. The society provided friendship, protection and advice to the new arrivals. The society helped new members by giving them a list of rules to help them settle in quickly and peacefully. They advised them to wear European clothes to avoid offending Europeans with their bare legs. They were to abide by European mining methods and to remain calm and peaceful. If they broke the rules, society officials flogged them.

It is quite likely that some of the men who were old and found themselves in prison did not belong to one of these societies and were therefore not looked after in their old age by a society. They were forced to steal as they had no family or other assistance. James Ah Oun is one such man.

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Women and Chinese

Another cause of jealousy was women.

For many years there were virtually no Chinese women on the goldfields. According to the Handbook to Australasia in 1858, only 4 of the 18,109 Chinese on the goldfields in 1856 were women. In 1857 only 2 of the 26,321 Chinese were women.

Chinese men were accused of stealing white women. In actual fact some women preferred a Chinese miner as he washed more regularly and treated them well. It was difficult for the Chinese men as many had wives in China and it could be many years before they were reunited, if ever.

The number of women in general in Australia had always been low during the first half of the nineteenth century. With the huge influx of European men trying to find gold this inbalance increased. Various schemes were considered to encourage women to come and live in Australia.

European Australians views about the Chinese were often tainted by prejudice. You may recall from reading notes in the previous section that the evidence of the European wife of Ah Leen, who had been badly beaten by the mob, was not believed on the grounds that any white woman who would marry a Chinese showed a character of poor morals and people would not place any confidence in her or her evidence.

Activities

• James Ah Oun was found guilty of larceny and vagrancy. What did he do?
• Why do you think that a person like James Ah Oun would have been in and out of prison during the 1880s and 1890s? Why might he have found it difficult to find work? Think about the things that made life difficult for the Chinese in nineteenth century Victoria. If you had to prepare a set of rules for the See Yup Society to help new arrivals, what would you include in your set of rules? Note: You could find further ideas to include by reading the text, The Chinese on the goldfields.
• People can fear other people because they know very little about them, their customs, traditions and way of life. If you had to prepare a booklet about Chinese people to help other Australians to better understand them, what might you include in your booklet and why?
• What would you include in a booklet to help people coming from China to adjust to living in Australia. Compare your suggestions with those of other class members. Use this list to prepare a master list. Prepare the booklet and present a copy to your local member of parliament.
• Search through the text that accompanies each of the photographs (including the text about Wah Lim) at this exhibition and online for evidence to prove or disprove the following statement: ‘Sometimes the court would take more notice of the evidence of a European rather than that of the Chinese person.’
• Read the text, The Chinese on the goldfields:
  On a blank map of Australia (or Victoria and South Australia) mark in the places mentioned in the text.
  List any unfamiliar words and terms and make a glossary of these.
  Make a timeline of the early actions taken to restrict Chinese migration to Victoria. Later you can extend this timeline.
• Use books from your school and local library and the internet to find out what happened at Buckland (1857), Lambing Flat (1861) or the Palmer Goldields (1877). Use this information to prepare a frieze or story map to explain one or more of these events.

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Opium smoking

Another significant problem between the Europeans and Chinese was the Chinese habit of opium smoking. Opium dens were considered terrible places where only the desperate and criminals went. Many of the surviving records of the Chinese are their prison records for drug-related crimes. Joe Byrne, one of the four members of the Kelly Gang developed a close association with the Chinese community in Beechworth. He was reported to be an opium user.

Look at Ah Choey’s photograph and read Ah Choey’s story about how he came to be convicted. Next read Ah Chee’s story and look at Ah Chee’s photograph too. What img do these stories create for you? Talk about the ways stories such as these would help to reinforce the ideas about opium smoking described in the previous paragraph.

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