Ep. 371 | Choie Sew Hoy and the Sinking of the S.S. Ventnor

“Choie Sew Hoy, he was too smart and entrepreneurial to engage in the backbreaking labor of mining. Plus, he spoke English, the great differentiator that separated the Cooley labor from the ones who made their living as a merchant or liaising with the locals. Choie Sew Hoy made a living by employing one of the most important and ancient skill sets known to humankind, buying and selling. He set up a shop that sold all the necessities of life to the Chinese community and to other local peoples, of course.”

“Unlike what we know about the Chinese immigrant experience in California, New Zealand's history lacked the scale of violence and massacres witnessed in the American West. Wherever the races mingled, some degree of violence never failed to occur. But unlike the American West, in New Zealand, the problem there was sporadic rather than systemic. The anti-Chinese sentiment was manifested through legislation pushed through parliament rather than being mob driven by men like California's Dennis Kearney, who led the charge against Chinese immigration there.”

“From 1901 to 1902, Chinese who had previously perished in New Zealand and who were interred in about 40 small Chinese cemeteries from around Dunedin had their remains exhumed and processed in such a way that each complete set of human remains was separated and bagged with an identification tag. The remains were then placed inside a plain wooden coffin. On July 22, 1901, while preparations were underway to process the remains for their final trip home to Guangdong province via Hong Kong, Choie Sew Hoy suddenly died, age 64. His son, Cho Kham Pui, stepped into his father's shoes and took over the operation. In total, there were 499 men who were prepared for the voyage home.”

“The next day, on October 27, the SS. Ventnor, sailing closer to the shore than it should have, hit rocks off the coast of Taranaki on the western side of the North Island. The ship's fate was sealed when the captain made the fatal mistake of seeking harbor in New Plymouth rather than turning around and heading south back to Wellington. Like that iceberg would do to the Titanic a decade later. The damage these rocks did to the Ventnor ended up being more catastrophic than Captain James Ferry at first determined. It was determined later that whilst piloting the vessel, Captain Ferry had enjoyed more than one tipple.”

“The Maori from these Iwi along that stretch of the west coast of the North Island, they knew what this was all about and so they did what came natural. To the Maori, the dead, regardless of their origin or whoever they may have been in life, should be treated with dignity. So in the spirit of Kaitiakitanga, the people there gathered the bones that kept washing up on the shoreline over a period of months, took them inland and buried them with respect, performing their own Maori rites of returning them to the earth from whence they had once come, to ensure the spirits would not wander.”

“As things turned out, the Maori and Chinese people had a few other things in common. Both people, Maori and Chinese, worshiped and honored their ancestors. And there was a strong belief that you were who you came from. Both had very strong clan associations and ties to their native places. The Maori with their Iwi, Hapu, and Wanao extended families. And both cultures had dragons and serpentine-like creatures as guardians. And they both prayed at sacred, natural sites and had similar protocols for speaking, rituals, and other formalities.”

“While its general location was known, divers only located the wreck of the SS. Ventnor in 2012. In 2013, descendants of Chinese miners and members from the Maori Iwi gathered at Hokyanga for a ceremony. And since then, annual remembrance events have been held. And these two cultures, these two communities, who throughout history remained strangers, now join together to annually commemorate this event and honor these Chinese who came to New Zealand filled with hopes and dreams.”

“So, there's no great battle or great emperor or profound discovery here. This is just a little story that perhaps teaches us that amidst the backdrop of history, quiet acts of humanity and compassion were going on all the time all over the world. We just didn't see it and nobody wrote a book about it.”