INFO
| Name | The Chinese in New Zealand: a study in assimilation |
| Year | 1959 |
| Writer(s) | Ng Bickleen Fong |
| Publisher | Hong Kong University Press/Oxford University Press |
| Type of Text | Non-fiction |
| Artform | Literature |
ABOUT
Based on her MA thesis, Bickleen Fong’s book The Chinese in New Zealand: a study in assimilation, was the first book about Chinese New Zealanders to be authored by a Chinese person. It presents a snapshot of Chinese life in New Zealand, covering the makeup of the Chinese population, the history of Chinese immigration (including related legislation), family life, education, work and business, and social acceptance.
Fong’s study combines her own observations with informal interviews, research using historical records, the use of a sociometric scale to assess the assimilation of Chinese in Dunedin, and comparative studies of Chinese assimilation in the U.S., and in particular, Hawaii. Discrimination faced by Chinese New Zealanders is discussed in a matter-of-fact way, and Fong does not shy away from outlining some of the difficulties, discrimination and violence encountered during their first century in Aotearoa.
In the book, Fong situates the moment of her writing as a historical turning point, believing that the Chinese community in New Zealand was just beginning to assimilate and acculturate. In the introduction, she writes:
A number of motives prompted the present writer to attempt this study. Being a member of the Chinese community, she is naturally interested to discover how her fellow countrymen are fitting into New Zealand life. Moreover, hardly any written work has been produced so far on the Chinese in New Zealand.
Fong (1930-1998) was born in Nga Yiu in Canton, China, arriving in New Zealand as a child in 1939, when she and her mother joined her father. She attended Queen Margaret College in Wellington and the University of Otago. On her book’s dust jacket, she wrote:
I undertook this study on the Chinese in New Zealand as part of my M.A. in education. I am the first Chinese girl in this country to gain an M.A. and the first Chinese to get a book published. [Edna Lowe had graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA in 1946].
After graduating in 1954, Fong travelled and lived in Taiwan, where she was a lecturer in English at Taiwan Normal University, and where she met her husband Wang Chefu. They returned to New Zealand in 1957, married and had a daughter.
Fong is remembered as an early historian of Chinese New Zealand life — including by artist Kerry Ann Lee, who mentions The Chinese in New Zealand in her own Master’s thesis, written in 2008. Discussing Fong’s belief that third-generation Chinese New Zealanders will be almost completely assimilated, Lee writes, “Fong’s projection is infused with hope yet laments the loss of heritage through assimilation.” On the inside flap of the book’s dust jacket, Fong shared a little about her life, saying, “I have become a New Zealander by naturalization, so that I feel that this country is no longer a place of sojourn, but my home.”
