SYDNEY'S CHINATOWN

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 39, 15 February 1921, Page 8

SYDNEY'S CHINATOWN

CELEBRATION OF NEW YEAR,

(FROM OUR OTTH COKItESPOMDINT.)

SYDNEY, 9th February.

Sydney has a rather scattered Chlnar town—but the yellow-skinned community, while not particularly numerous, clings together and stubbornly preserves the ideas and habits of their native'land. The Chinese communities may be found, in patches, in the meaner suburbs which lie south-east and south of the Central Railway Station. Here and there, there are whole streets of Chinese—quiet, inoffensive, industrious men and women, who are Europeanised in the streets, but in whose dwellings are preserved all the forms of life in ancient China. ,

The Chinese celebrated their New Year on the night of 7th February, and tucked away in a corner of Alexandria a typical bit of Chinatown was discovered. A narrow cul-de-sac runs up off Botanyroad. The far end widens out into a neatly-torfed court, and at one side is a joss house. Chinese houses cluster all about. On Thursday night, as midnight approached, ,the patter of slippered feet and the harsher clatter of gardening boots sounded frequently, as the people gathered in the joss house. Steam issued from the little houses nearby, and the hot night air was alive with the aroma of cooking duck. Two Chinese, on the steps of the joss house, occasionally hammered on huge gongs. Inside the joss house was Orientially splendid. Its three great ebony altars, inlaid 'with mother of pearl and draped with gaudy silks, supported huge bowls containing offerings of confectionery, fruit and flowers. Conspicuous on one altar, from which many sticks.of incense wafted their pungent fumes, stood.alarge glass bowl, in which sported ■a number of silver fish, their glistening sides shimmering in the light of the Chinese tapers. Midnight struck, and a band of six Chinese instruments burst into a frightful din, reinforced by the shrieks of numerous youngsters. Alternately, kneeling and bowing, the Chinese prayed for forgiveness of sins committed during the year. A man out on the lawn exploded bombs, thus to scare away evil spirits. It was a wild twenty minutes of bang ! and crackle !

Packets of money, in red paper, were distributed in the joss house—a reversal of the usual order of things, as we know them—a-nd the young people went forth joyously to take part in a dragon procession through the Chinese streets. They were all in fantastic silk costumes.