Chinese Diaspora in the Torres Strait

CHAPTER THREE

The  Chinese Diaspora in Torres Strait

Cross-cultural connections and contentions on Thursday Island

Guy  Ramsay

The  Chinese have maintained a long historical  presence in Australia.  Their mainland  experience, driven  by opportunity and fortune  yet encumbered by racial prejudice and exclusion, has received a great deal of scholarly attention in the past three decades. 1 This narration  of the Chinese diaspora in Australia has until recently focused on a racial binary of White  settler versus minority group. In  colonial  Australia  and  beyond,  the  Chinese were seen  as intruders,   the 'other'. A State-constructed discourse of 'threat' nourished  and  legitimated dominant society's fears of the  Chinese presence.  This  resonated  clearly  in dominant perceptions  of competition for economic resources,  such  as gold and retail commerce; drug trafficking in opium and alcohol; sexual competition and anti-miscegenetic sentiment in regard to Chinese 'bachelor societies'; post­ World War II fears of communist expansion; and, more recently, illegal immigrants and boat arrivals.

A new generation of Australian historical studies, however, has extended discussion of the Chinese diaspora beyond this White-minority binary.Z Recent studies of mainland  communities have decentred  the racial narrative  to incorporate  a third space of Chinese-Indigenous connections. Normative  racial boundaries have been successfully inverted  by placing the oppressed at centre stage and the oppressor at the sidelines, revealing a more complex and nuanced experience of triangulated  group relations (Chinese-Aboriginal-White).3 This study extends such work beyond the context  of mainland Australia to examine the Chinese  diasporic experience within  an even more complex site of cultural pluralism -Thursday Island, in Australia's north-east. This story of a diasporic Chinese community  sustaining  and  crossing boundaries  within  a prevailing multicultural  milieu elaborates the connections, contentions and intersections that  were experienced among politically subjugated but numerically dominant 'minorities': Chinese,  Torres Strait  Islander, Aboriginal, Japanese, Indonesian, Filipino  and  Sri  Lankan.  A  hitherto  undocumented but  distinctive  racial narrative  emerges in this chapter,  that of the presence on Thursday Island of a longstanding Chinese community,  which,  while ostensibly subject  to the hegemony of White colonial society, subtly undermined  the latter's cultural dominance through connections and contentions with an array of other Asian and Indigenous cultures.

Navigating a Presence

The  Chinese  presence  in Torres Strait  predates the establishment of a government settlement on  Thursday  Island  in  1877. Oral  tradition tells of Chinese junks visiting islands in search  of beche-de-mer.4 Chinese men were often employed as engineers, sailors, stewards and cooks on steamers and fishing vessels that  plied the strait  before and  after settlement of Thursday  Island.5

Within the  strait,  however,  Thursday  Island  became  the  principal  site  of Chinese migration during the late 19th century. Here, the Chinese  were to establish  over time a significant  presence numerically, economically  and,  to a limited  extent,  politically.  Yet scholarship  on the  multicultural island community to date has failed to examine  this experience  in any detail.6 This chapter aims to address this oversight.

In fact, the Chinese,  as Chester,  Thursday Island's first Resident  Police Magistrate, reported in 1877, were the first of the Asian nationalities  to arrive on the island:

I have this day taken charge of the settlement  at Thursday Island [on 25 September, 1877). The  population  comprised only the Pollee Magistrate and  Mrs Chester  and  their  son  Neville,  Pilot  Allan  Wilkie  (a married man) and the crew of the government cutter Lizzie Jardine) Coxswain William Richard Scott and four water police constables [one of whom was james Simpson), Edmonds Lechmere  Brown (who was dividing his time between Thursday Island, Somerset and the fiShery), a Chinese  gardener and sixteen or seventeen South  Sea Islander prisoners serving sentences for striking work.7

While the Chinese market gardens on Thursday Island -like those on the Australian mainland -produced a welcomed supply of fresh vegetables, before long, the aforementioned  Chinese  gardener had become a target of contention. Chester complained in 1879 that:

A number of valuable pearls are obrained  during each season's fishing; these are invariably secreted by the men employed, and sold either  in Sydney, or on board the mail steamers, the loss to the owners representing a considerable sum yearly. As the pearls never come into possession of the owners  it is impossible  to identify  them  or to convict any one  of stealing them. A Chinaman living here,  whose  ostensible means  of support  is a garden, is the principal buyer, or agent in effecting a sale on board the mail boats,  and has  carried  on  this  traffic  with  impunity  for the  last  twelve months. I would suggest:lst That  it should be made unlawful for any Polynesian, Asiatic, or other person  employed in  the  fisheries, not  being  the  manager  or owner  of a fishing station, to have pearls in his possession, or to traffic in them under a penalty of six months with hard labour, and forfeiture of the pearls to his employer.

2nd That  if pearls are found on any person not employed in the fisheries, the  onus of proof that  he  is lawfully possessed of the  same should  be thrown on such person, with a like penalty in default, and forfeiture of the pearls.

3rd That any person buying or receiving pearls !Tom any person employed in the fishery should be punished  in like manner;  with power to search suspected  persons.  All  proceedings to be summary as it would  be ruinous for owners to leave their stations to prosecute offenders.8

Within a decade, the number of Chinese on Thursday Island was climbing. On a visit to Torres Strait  in September 1885, Mackellar, a travel author, recorded that:

A very large number of Chinese arrives, and learnt at Thursday Island that a new law had been passed in Australia, and that they could not land there without  paying a certain sum and  having  a sort of passport with  their photograph attached. Here was a dilemma. They would all have had the great expense of reruming to Normanton [in Queensland's Gulf country}, or perhaps China; but a man in the store who had a camera saw his chance and offered tD do their portraits at £5 a head! They jumped at it, and he reaped a harvest. As his photographic  work is of the poorest description, and as every Chinaman to our eyes -especially in a portrait  -looks much  like every  other one, the  results cannot be of much  use,  but  it is complying with this ridiculous law.9

Navigating Boundaries

As the  pearling  industry  expanded,  so did  the  Chinese  presence  on Thursday Island. Early census data show a rapid growth in Chinese numbers on Thursday  Island from 1890 (see Table 3.1). This  was driven  by economic migration, particularly from the far north coastal and Gulf regions after Queensland's gold rush and the completion in 1889 of the Pine Creek railway, which had employed more than 3,000 Chinese.lO In addition,  the introduction of restrictive  anti-Chinese immigration  legislation  in the  Northern Territory during 1888 saw an exodus of 1,690 Chinese-numbers dropped from 6,122 in 1888   to  4,432  in   1889  - with   many   heading   eastward  to  far  north Queensland.!!

Thursday  Island was an important stop-off for boats travelling  between Australia and Asia. As boats journeyed to and from China  and the coastal ports of Queensland,  Chinese  seamen and labourers would therefore come and go. 12

It was as convenient to travel  to the state  capital,  Brisbane, as to return  to Singapore or southern China. This is demonstrated  in incidents such as that in January 1895 when a man named Ah Bow was deemed by the Thursday Island court  to be 'of unsound  mind'  and,  within  a month,  was sent  off 'home'  on board a vessel bound for Hong Kong.U

The  continued importance of Thursday  Island to maritime  navigation between Asia and Australia early last century, and the significance of this to the Chinese  residing on the island, are illustrated by two visits by important people almost exactly 30 years apart. The first was the arrival there of Mei Quang Tart, a prominent  member of Sydney's Chinese  community, an outspoken opponent of opium smoking and 'an old friend' of the Government Resident, Hon. John Douglas, while on a journey to China  with his family.14 The  second was the brief stopover by Chan  On Yan in June 1923.15 Chan  was the representative of Dr Sun  Yat Sen,  patriarch  of the  ruling  Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) in China.  Recalled to China  'on business'-at the time of the rise of the Chinese Communist Parry after its founding in Shanghai  by Chen  Duxiu and Li Dazhao in 1921 -he had been placed under police protection  during his voyage home on the S.S.Victaria.16 Police intelligence had uncovered a planned assassination attempt  by members of the Chinese  Masonic Sociery.l7 Despite the threat to his life  by  known   'enemies   of  his  government  in  China',  Chan   On   Yan disembarked  from the steamer and was reported  to have 'visited  the town on two occasions during his stay here, interviewing several leading Chinese of the island at their respective residence'.18

Table 3.1:Chinese population, Thursday  Island 1877-191319

Year                          Males   Females    Chikiren  Total Chinese   Total Thursday  Is

Thursday Island's strategic maritime  importance and  the  'Chinese connection' are  also  demonstrated by  the  Federal  Government's  expressed concern over illegal Chinese arrivals  through the port post-Federation. Reports in 1905,     1909, 1918  and 1920  reveal  prime  ministerial fears of an  'influx' of Chinese 'New  Chums' via Thursday Island  and  other northern ports.2° Although related  police  investigations in 1905 asserted  that  there  was 'hardly an  opportunity ... for Chinamen to arrive  by overseas  boats',  a 191 8 report subsequently claimed:

Henry Suzuki, Petrie Terrace [Brisbane], a Japanese, informed the Police that he had been told  by some of his countrymen that both Japanese and Chinese had been in the habit of gaining illicit admittance into the Commonwealth by the following means. When ships anchor outside Port Darwin, Thursday Island ... and other Northern ports, they disembark into small portable boats and then land upon some unfrequented part of the coast.Zl

Dominant Discourses of Exclusion

Given  the itinerancy  inherent  in maritime settlements and the growth of strong anti-Chinese sentiment across the colony, it is remarkable that a community of Chinese  market gardeners, merchants  and tradesmen  prospered for so long on Thursday  Island. Part of the community's success derived from the fact that the Chinese  created  businesses and provided skills that  were essential to the long­ term  viability  of  the  island  settlement. A  small  number  even  successfully applied for naturalisation. These  included  probably the earliest arrival, Jimmy Ah  Sue,  born  in Canton, and  naturalised  in August  1887 at  the age of 30; another  early arrival, Ah Sang, was naturalised in April 1893 at the age of 31; Tai Yit Hing, a 28-year-old storekeeper,  was naturalised  in July 1902; and 42- year-old George Sing, born in Canton, who, in September 1900, married Ah Bow, was naturalised  in October  1902.22 At the time, Sing had already resided on the island for 10 years and had five children,  'all brought  up in the English Church': Lilly (born  1897), Poy Lun (1898),  Ah Chun  (1899),  Celia  (1900) and Chilli (1902).23

The  number  of naturalisations is, however,  rather  low when compared with that  of other  non-White 'aliens' during the same period, especially given the large number of Chinese on the island and their significant  input  into the local  economy. The reason  may be that  few Chinese  were married  and  the Alien's Act of 1867 clearly stipulated that:

No Asiatic ...  shall be entitled to be naturalised as a British subject [in Australia] unless such alien shall be married and shall have resided in the colony for a period of three years. Provided that the wife of the said alien shall, at the time of his being so naturalised, reside with him in the colony.24

Moreover,  prevailing  racial  discourses of the  time  placed Chinese  - along with Indigenous people -at the lowest nmgs of the Darwinist order. The Queensland Figaro in October 1883 'predicted that some day the menial work of the universe will be all done by Chinamen and negroes, whilst the Caucasian race is to fill the high places of the earth, and the other races are to be squeezed out of existence altogether'.25 A Bulletin article from August 1886, entitled  'The Chinese  in Australia', was similarly outspoken

Disease,  defilement,  depravity, misery and  crime  - these  are  the indispensable adjuncts which make the Chinese camps and quarters

Indeed,  the  Sydney  newspaper, The Telegraph, on  Wednesday  8  May, 1899, reported  the  tracing of a local leprosy outbreak  to the Thursday  Island Chinese community:

Statements are current to the effect that a family, certain members of which had developed symptoms of leprosy, had reached one of the Sydney suburbs from Queensland. It is now ascertained  that the family formerly resided at Thursday Island, and had a boy afflicted with the disease in the Dunwich lazaret. The family recently took up their residence at Ashfield, and a neighbour a few days ago informed the local police that  the condition of the face of a little girl who accompanied the new residents warranted the presumption that the unfortunate child was leprous ... So far as can be ascertained, the leprosy is traceable to a Chinese boy who acted as nurse to the children and who, it is stated, frequently  sucked their feeding bottles to see if they worked properly.  This man afterwards developed the dread disease.27

On 1 January, 1901, the Queensland colony became a state in the Commonwealth of Australia.  The  Commonwealth soon  enacted  the Immigration Restriction  Act,  which served to legitimate  the discourses of fear and bigotry marginalising  the Australian  Chinese  community. There  were no naturalisations for Chinese residing on  Thursday  Island  between  1902  and World War II. Naturalisation of Chinese  and the immigration of their families were prohibited by the Commonwealth Nationality Act of 1903.28

Chinese contributions to the Thursday  Island community  and the remoteness of the place from the seats of government,  however, allowed a more inclusive  sentiment to  prevaiL After  the  end  of conscription during  World War I, a recruiting drive for volunteers led the Bishop of Carpentaria to request that locally born men of Chinese descent be included:

I should be very glad to know if there is any possibility of half castes being accepted as recruits for the Army. There are several of them in these parts who were very anxious to enlist a year ago, and who might be got now if it were quite certain they would be accepted. They are a fine stamp of men

-Some half caste Chinese  with white women as mothers. They have really been  very badly treated as they answered the call of the  Prime Minister some 16 months or more ago. Papers were sent to them and they answered yes, and then were turned down. The confidential committee tried hard to have the embargo taken off them and failed.

A; the conditions have changed so much during the last few months, and as the Referendum means that volunteers have to be got to make up the Reinforcements it seems possible you might be willing to accept these as volunteers now, who were rejected before Universal Service was definitely rejected. If anything can be done will you write to the Secretary of the War Committee in Thursday Island.29

Chinese - but  not  Indigenous, 'Malay' or  Filipino - children were welcome at  the  local  school.30  A  memorandum from  Albert Edward  Kelly, acting head  teacher of the Thursday Island  State School, to  the  Director of Education in March 1942, however, reveals  that approval did  not  extend to children of Chinese-Islander heritage. His reasons reveal some of the  workings of the caste system then  in operation on  the island:

Chinese and caste {sic] Chinese-White ... live as white people and are accepted in white society ... Chinese-Islanders are not accepted probably because rhey attended the 'Coloured School'  ... The admission of Chinese, Japanese and Chinese-White has been accepted because they reach a high standard mentally and morally and are always clean and tidy and provide healthy competition for the white children and live as white people. Other  coloured children fail to reach a very high standard probably because of their wretched living conditions and are classed as undesirable pupils in the State School ... At present, l suggest that those to be admitted  be: those accepted  as white or predominantly  white, Chinese, Japanese and half-caste Chinese-Whites  ... but public opinion desires as white a school as possible.3!

Despite  the general  policy, one schoolmaster did remove all the Chinese children from the school and sent  them  to the 'Coloured school'. When he left, they returned to the state schoo\.32

Connections  and Contributions

We  have  seen  already  how  the  Thursday Island  Chinese managed in part  to subvert the  State-sponsored racist discourses  that  sought  to disempower  them. This was due mainly  to their small numbers and  their  contribution to the  local economy, which  provided access  to  White  domains generally denied their mainland countrymen.33

The Chmese  Diaspara in Torres S<rait                                                                    61

Thursday  Island picture theatre and Chee Quee's store on Douglas Street, 1923.

Courtesy of)ohn Oxley Library, Brisbane (item  No. 698444).

Until World War II, the Chinese on Thursday Island worked in a number of occupations, predominantly service-oriented (see Table 3.2). The occupations broadly mirror those traditionally  undertaken  by Chinese  residing on  the Australian mainland.34 Of course, many Chinese had moved to Thursday Island after economic opportunities on the mainland had disappeared after the gold rush and, despite the economic fluctuations of the region's maritime economy, many eventually established prosperous, long-term business enterprises, catering to countrymen and other resident communities alike. Ah Sang, for example, was the local baker for more than a decade before and well after Federation. Tommy Ah Sue, too, ran a bakery for more than 16 years after Federation. Joseph Chin Soon was a tailor for nearly 20 years. King Woh ran a store and a lodging house and was a signwriter for a similar period of time. George Sing, Wing Sing Wah, Sam Hop, See Kee and Lai Foo all conducted longstanding retail businesses, of which the latter two still remain today. Their enterprises were often extensions of their experiences in other thriving Chinese centres of coastal far notrh Queensland: King Woh had a merchant firm in Port Douglas, near Cairns, during the 1880s and 1890s; George Sing was a general merchant for 10 years in Cooktown and four years in Cairns before coming to Thursday Island in 1892; and Ah Hing, Ah Foo, Ah San, Lai Foo and See Kee were all from Cooktown, the port of entry for the 1870s gold rush.35

As key contributors to the local economy, Chinese businessmen played a significant role in supporting the broader Thursday Island community.36 Until the evacuation of the island in 1942, they supplied the  inhabitants with commodities from Asia, as exemplified in the following 1936 advertisement:

'Just arrived by SS. Taiping. Fresh and Best Chinese Rice, lis. per mat, or

3 l/4lb for Is.' Salt eggs, sweet pmwn, Chinese sausage, Chinese  peanut toffee, bean sauce, bean curd, salt olives, ginger, etc. 'AU the above goods are for cash only. Ring up your order early, and I will deliver it right to your door. Buying from me, not only are you saving pounds, but you are also getting the Best Goods. A. See Kee, Cash Store.'37

Chinese businessmen were also key benefactors to local community organisations. The list of subscribers to the Jubilee Benevolent Fund in 1897 included Sun Loy Goon, George Sing, Quong Seng, On Cheong, Hop Woh, Tommy Ah Sue and Ah King.38

Only Chinese leased and worked the market gardens that served the local community. As early as August 1887, Lady Annie Brassey, the wife of the First Lord of the British Admiralty, who visited the island on the Sunbeam in 1887, had commented on the vegetables grown on the islands opposite Thursday Island by the 'invaluable Chinese•39 -most probably the market gardens on Prince of Wales Island later tended by Ah Loong (1891-1907)  and Wong King (1907-13).4° Market gardens became the sole domain of the Chinese,  who readily transferred leases from community member to community member. A garden located at the north-east  of Thursday Island (present-day Rose Hill) changed hands from James Ah Sue (who had obtained the lease in 1890)  to Tong Sing (1891), to George Bow (1891) and to Gee Woh (1901, written off in

1922).41 Tong Sing's lease was invalidated 'on account of his being an Asiatic

Alien, not naturalised in Queensland',42 yet many of similar status were 'allowed to remain in informal occupation  on  a yearly tenure' since the authorities deemed it 'essential for the health of the Thursday Island residents that these gardens be carried on'.43 A  garden located in the  north-west  (present-day Tamwoy) changed hands from George Ah Gow (leased in 1900)  to Ah Luk (1902), to Pang Bow (aka Ah Man, 1904), to Tseng See Kee (1918), to Francis Asange (1940);44 another from Ah For (1900) to Ah Yet (1900), to Tseng See Kee (1915, written off in 1922).45 To the west (neat Green Hill) there were gardens leased by George Nicholson (1889), Ah Man (1900), Ah Sing (1902), Sue Shing (1910) and HooPing (1930).46 In many instances, leases changed hands when owners returned  to China.  There  remained up to four market gardens on Thursday Island until the evacuation during World War [[.47

(Prince of Wales Is.)

Loa Look Kee)

64                                                                                                   Navigating Boundaries

Table 3.2: continued

Occupation

lmporter exporter

Name

Chow Bow

Year cited

1897, 1899

jeweller                             George Bow                          1891

Lodging House

Keeper

)immyAhSue

King Woh (aka Wang Woh, Kwong Woh Leong, Ah Man)

1885, 1887

1901

Pearl-sheller                   Jimmy Ching

James Foy

Law Luk Kee (aka Lu Lu Kee,

Lao Look Kee) LaiFook

1894

1906

1907

1908, 1910-12

Seaman

AhSing

AhSam

1877

1883

Shop Assistant                AhChu

Hong Chop Son

Sign writer                        King Woh (aka Wang Woh, Kwong Woh Leong, Ah Man)

Storekeeper                     SinOn Lee

Ah Sang (aka Sun Tai Lee, Sun Ty Lee; later Asange)

Wong Fat

LaiFoo

AhFoo

J irnmy Ah Sue

See Foo

Tommy Lee

AhHing

King Woh (aka Wang Woh, Kwong Woh Leong, Ah Man)

1895

1901

1900

1888

1888, 1890

1888, 1890

1888, 1903-28

1890

1890

1890

1890

1891

1891, 1895, 1900, 1902, 1903

continued over

George Nicholson               1891, 1899

Yuck Wah                              1892

Sun Loy Goon                      1894

Low Shung                           1894

Loo Look Kee (aka Law Luk Kee) 1895

Hong Wong Ling                   1895

Ah Ling                                1895, 1900

Pon Kew                              1896--1900

TungSungWoh                   1897, 1905

Tommy Ah Sue                     1897, 1899, 1900

The Chinese  Diaspora in Torres Strait                                                                               65

1913, 1916

Kwong Seng {aka Quang Seng)                                       1901

William Sam Hee                                                                1901

Ah Sing                                                                                   1902

Tai Yit Hing {aka Lai Yet Hing)                                            1902

Lay King                                                                                  1903

AhKum                                                                                    1903-13

LaiFook                                                                                  1903-13

Kum Hun Chong & Co.                                                       1903-42

MingLee                                                                                 1904

Ah Ken {aka Pong Keng)                                                    1904 {Mabuiag Is.) Wing Sing Wah        1905, 1916

Chong Quin  Lem                                                                1911

Sam Hop                                                                               1911-42

Chong Yong Lem                                                                   1912-19

Lai Too Fook                                                                         1913-28

Way Hop Chong & Co.                                                       1913

Wih Sung Tiy & Co.                                                             1913

Sun Chong                                                                            1916

HomYuen                                                                               1916, 1931

Sam Hop                                                                               1922, 1931, 1932, 1939

James Chee Quee                                                             pre-1927

Chin  On Laifoo                                                                    1928-37

Moo Kim Kow Chee Quee                                                 1928-39

{M.J. Chee Quee & Co.)

George Laifoo                                                                      1937

George Ah Sang {Asange)                                                 1939

Store Manager                        Chop Sun Heong {spelling unsure) 1903

66                                                   Navigating  Boundaries

Contentions and Criminality

Chinese businesses and services provided venues for communal interaction and contention. While  the retail businesses were clearly essential to all community groups on Thursday  Island, racial discord often  surfaced, as we see from these excerpts from Courthouse records of the time: