SYDNEY’S CHINATOWN

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1921, Page 3

SYDNEY’S CHINATOWN

VISIT BY THE SLUMS’ COMMITTEE

. i SYDNEY, Dec. 21. I A surprised Chinese cabinetmaker j excitedly rushed out of his workshop I to find Jiis living quarters besieged by I a number of politicians and an inspector from the Waterloo Municipal Coun- ; til. It was merely a visit by the Select - Committee on Slums and Congested - Areas, and, when the Chinese realised that the visitors had no evil intent his anxiety disappeared, and lie proceeded to show the party over his dwelling. In the days before Wexford street became Wentworth avenue a large section of the Chinese community of Sydney migrated to Waterloo. They settled in ail area around Botany road, Botany ; street, and McEvoy street, and where the Chinese settles he soon holds undisputed sway. The result is that this particular area of Waterloo is now the Chinatown of Sydney. The select committee visited this portion of Waterloo, and John Chinaman was inspected at his work and in his home. His work mainly consists of eobinetmaking, while bis home, for the greater part, is a tumble-down wooden shanty of one room, or a dilapidated weatherboard cottage from which the former European occupant has fled before the invasion of the Oriental.

Many of these cottages are used as workshops, and the front bedrooms or sittingrooms of a past era are crowded with the cheaper types of furniture, on which a small army of Chinese workmen is busily engaged with chisels, planes, or varnish brushes. There is a mixed odour or turpentine, Chinese candles, and cigarette smoke about the places, and some of the workmen are working under cramped conditions. In the living quarters inspected the position is not satisfactory. The average Chinese does not worry much about hygiene, and the sleeping quarters in some of the cottages are by no means inviting. The bed consists of a bundle of clothes and old rags piled up on a mattress, with a covering of mosquitonetting, which was probably once white.

The room is dark and stuffy, the broken window-panes^being pasted over with paper. As the Chinese keeps his place barred and bolted during the day, and probably at night as well the odour of the interior is objectionable. A visit was also made to a conglomeration of tiny wood and iron huts huddled up together on a fairly large allotment of land. There are eleven of these altogether in this section, and each appears to have been dumped down without any regard to regularity. Each hut is occupied hv a Chinese workman, who pays the modest sum of 3s per week rent. All arc securely locked, so that an external inspection only is possible. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. A visit was made to a fairly roomy wooden cottage occupie 1 by a Chinaman and a European woman.,The European woman introduced the visitors to the Chinese as “my husband,” showed them around the premises which were clean, tidy, com fort a I A’, mid in good repair, The committee •came to the conclusion that some members of tlie Chinese community lived under much better conditions than- certain Australian families in Systriim street, Uyrmont which they had just visited.