OUR CHINESE ALLIES

Otaki Mail, 5 November 1943, Page 2

OUR CHINESE ALLIES

FELLOW-CITIZENS' APATHY Miss A. Cook, a mission worker, who has been acting as missionary to the Chinese population of Wellington for nearly a year, made a plea for better relationships between the Wellington Occidentals and their Chinese fellowcitizens, when addressing a meeting of the Women's Social Progress Movement on Wednesday afternoon. She asked how many people remembered when they went into Chinese shops that the Chinese were our allies. Each week Miss Cook prepares and delivers a sermon in Cantonese at the Christian Chinese Church in Frederick Street. The church was interdenominational, she said. Outlying districts were included in the parish, and it was her job to pay individual visits in a considerable number of towns, including Napier, Otaki, Palmerston North, Wangauui, and Woiroa. Interpreting for those who had little or no English, and help for personal problems were universal demands from the older folk. The young people were well organised in their own Chinese Association, and she was glad to see that Chinese cliil-. dren were being readily accepted as equals by the younger generation of . New Zealanders. Miss Cook stated that there were between 500 and (500 Chinese residents I in Wellington, but, although living j among Christian people, few were truly Christian in their outlook. Attendance at their own church was very limited. A great number were more pagan than heathen, and only a few clung to Con- ' fueianism. ' "Thev are geU'cg 'ke driving force . of Christianity in their native China, j but here the deadweight of indifference I seems to hang over them," she said, i adding that this could be remedied by ' a warmer interest in their welfare. !