CHINESE OCCUPATIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 August 1933, Page 8

CHINESE OCCUPATIONS

CONSUL-GENERAL'S HUMOUR

“The Chinese hardly know Australia and Australians hardly know China,” said the Chinese Consul-General, Dr. P. W. Chen, lately in addressing the annual meeting of the Chinese Mission of Epiphany in Melbourne. The people of each country should take steps to know the other better. Dr. Chen added. When he was about to come to Australia two years ago, and mentioned his appointment to several Chinese, they confused Australia with Austria. Another said, ‘Yes, you are going to the land of the kangaroos, and you will soon be shaking hands with them.’ He had been in Australia for two years and had seen a kangaroo only once. That was When he went, to the zoo. (Laughter.)

“The Australian people think that every Chinese is a market gardener,” Air. Chen continued. “I spent five years in Canada and the United States and every where I went people thought that the Chinese were all laundrymen. Perhaps it was fortunate for the Europeans that they were. Otherwise, China might have colonised North America long before the Europeans came.

“A Chinese junk was found some years ago off the coast of South America. It, was proved that it. had come there 900 years previously. Apparently the junk sailed north from China, past, the Aleutian Islands, down the coast of Alaska and North America, to where it was found. Why did the Chinese not stop in North America where there was much gold? They did. They were met by Indians. 1 The Chinese ruefully turned away. They knew they could ißiver establish a laundry in those parts, so they sailed further south.” (Loud laughter.)