Law change might boost tourism

ALAN WOODS

Last updated 05:00 14/12/2013

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BLUE SKY: Tourists enjoy Lake Tekapo.

This summer the Chinese tourist will become much more noticeable hopping in and out of campervans at visitor landmarks such as Lake Tekapo's Church of the Good Shepherd or Milford Sound to view Mitre Peak.

A Chinese law change means they are more likely to be seen down the highways and byways of the regions, than out of sight on organised shopping tours to foreign-owned Auckland and Rotorua souvenir outlets.
The legislative change from October 1 was designed to stop these tours, that often left the Chinese unsatisfied with their holiday Down Under.
The tourism industry is welcoming the law change, saying it should lead to more independent and higher-spending travellers visiting the real New Zealand.
About 78 million Chinese are crossing their borders annually and that figure could grow to 400 million in five years' time, a seemingly incredible Chinese forecast by Premier Li Keqiang.
The mind-boggling Chinese figures seems to offer abundant tourism opportunities but New Zealand will be competing with North America and the United Kingdom to attract the new Chinese middle class.
The number heading our way now is just a drop in that massive bucket - 234,500 this year, spending on average $2700 dollars each - in total, $633 million.
But Chinese tourists are already the second-largest source of visitors after Australians, who come in their droves - about a million a year.
There have been warnings in the past that New Zealand should maintain a balanced mix of visitors, to avoid the risks of a downturn akin to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.
However, those in the tourism industry have their glasses fully charged to toast China. Chinese tourists are forecast to spend about $1.1 billion here in 2018.
But it will not be handed to New Zealand businesses on a plate. Tourism leaders say tourism operators need to do their homework to attract and please Chinese holidaymakers.
The country needs better signage, and Kiwi hospitality and tourism operators should work on having better language skills to compete with the likes of Europe.
The stereotype of coach-driven Chinese moving from one souvenir shop to another no longer applies, the experts say.
Many Chinese tourists are happy on a shared bus trip of New Zealand destinations including Rotorua and Queenstown.
Other more wealthy Chinese prefer to be indulged with a more exclusive offering of lodges, fine Kiwi foods and wine and partaking in cultural events with Maori hosts.

Ryan Ingram, sales and marketing director of tourism operator Real Journeys that operates coaches and boats on Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, says a simple offering of hot noodles can go a long way.
Real Journeys representatives have been visiting China for 10 years to make tourism trade contacts.
Real Journeys now has 10 Mandarin speakers and other staff are put through a "cultural" training programme.
"In terms of a Chinese experience they're very heavily into food . . . if you don't have a hot lunch, it's certainly no-go [in creating goodwill]," Ingram says.
More Chinese are travelling around New Zealand, says Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism chief executive Tim Hunter.
"I happened to be at Pukaki [one] weekend, I was on the lakeshore and I counted seven rental cars with what were definitely Chinese visitors, and a couple of smaller coaches - 24 to 30-seaters - with some more groups of them."
New Zealand has recently outstripped Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom in Chinese visitor percentage growth, Hunter says.
"I think some of the work Tourism NZ's done with social media has really paid off."
Hunter says young professional Chinese are seeing New Zealand as the new cool destination. "I can't say it will last forever but it's a very good thing to happen."
CCT has recently run "China ready" seminars for tourism businesses.
Christchurch Airport is talking up the chance of a permanent China Southern Airlines service. So far it has one special chartered Boeing 787 Dreamliner service confirmed for Christchurch in February.
The airport's chief executive, Jim Boult, says at the beginning talks with China Southern were very formal, but they have become more relaxed.
"You use this analogy of a courtship. You've got to keep on dating and handing over the presents until you finally get to the altar."
The airport has Chinese language signage.
However, only about 20 per cent of Chinese visitors to New Zealand, or about 42,000, are getting this far south annually.
That appeared to be changing, though, following the shopping tour law change. Chinese October arrivals in the south were up 42 per cent on October last year, Boult says.
Auckland's Keri Davis is the owner of ICEworks New Zealand which designs tours for small groups of wealthy Chinese tourists wanting to rub shoulders with Kiwis and participate in cultural events like hangis.
"They're not interested in the tourist traps, they've got no interest in going to Te Puia or Whakarewarewa . . . they don't want to be standing in queues . . . so we need to provide a more exclusive experience," Davis says of the well-heeled visitors.
In the past 12 months he has hosted tours on themes such as agriculture and architecture. As well as visiting locations like Auckland, Wellington and Napier (for its art deco buildings,) the architecture tours have visited Christchurch, taking in sights including the Re:Start container mall and cardboard cathedral.
Patrick English, executive director of the New Zealand China Council, says Chinese visitors to New Zealand are expected to nearly double to 400,000 by 2018.
The Chinese were used to quality stays in their domestic market, so an area of concern was our lack of "world-class" hotels.
English spent 12 of the past 16 years living in China in trade roles. When Chinese tourists visited New Zealand they often saw business and education opportunities.
There is work to do, including smoothing the language path, English says.
"I've been on planes sitting next to Chinese who are looking at our immigration forms and they're all in English and they have to write in English . . . and that's not easy."
Tourism Holdings chief executive Grant Webster says: "The opportunity for China to be in the top five markets for bookings in our business is real and now expected."
Chris Roberts, general manager of corporate affairs for Tourism New Zealand (TNZ), says a newly launched web-based "China Toolkit" will help operators cater to the growth.
The type of Chinese visitor is changing dramatically. Until recently, about 75 per cent of visitors came on short-term group tours. However, Roberts says the law change means about 50 per cent are the higher-spending independent or long-stay visitors.
Some of the "less desirable" Chinese or Australian shopping consortia-owned souvenir shops have closed.
The law change has also led to Chinese visitor numbers in October falling 11 per cent on the October 2012 figure, but they should be back to growth by Chinese New Year in early February, Roberts says.
Our scenery is an important part of the trip for the urban Chinese.
"Actually being able to see the stars at night and the blue skies during the day, that is a big drawcard. There is a rejuvenation aspect to it," Roberts says.
China is also the latest country to experience TNZ's 100% Middle-earth, 100% Pure New Zealand marketing campaign, tied to Peter Jackson's Hobbit films.
Images of New Zealand are reaching the Asian market through social media sites and on DVD advertising screens running in taxis in the larger Chinese cities.
TNZ's marketing spend reflects the priority placed on China. Out of an $80 million budget, TNZ is spending $17m on marketing to Australians and $15m to the Chinese.
"If you are in an area and you haven't really seen Chinese visitors to date, you are going to see them soon," Roberts says.

- © Fairfax NZ News http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9516701/Law-change-might-boost-tourism

Kerre McIvor

Kerre McIvor is a Herald on Sunday columnist

Kerre McIvor: Mayor's affair a sad sideshow

By Kerre McIvor

8:24 AM Sunday Oct 20, 2013

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Len Brown should have kept it in his pants.

To think, just a week ago nobody was interested in local body politics. Now look at us.
In light of sordid revelations of an affair between Mayor-elect Len Brown and an ambitious little piece, Bevan Chuang, everybody's got an opinion.
I find it ironic that so many people have rung me this week fulminating about the importance of the position of mayor. How it's vital that a mayor be a role model and a source of inspiration to people.
What utter rot. If that were true, more than 34 per cent of Auckland ratepayers would have voted in the local-body elections.
As it is, Brown was returned to the role because people simply couldn't be arsed voting.
Then, what an ignominious beginning to his second term as Auckland's mayor. The horror began two days after the votes were counted, when an affidavit was published on a right-wing blog that revealed - in excoriating and excruciating detail - an affair between the married father-of-three and a wannabe politician 23 years his junior.
Chuang disclosed information about her liaisons with Brown that nobody ever needed to know.

She claims she was pressured by yet another lover, who was working for a rival mayoral candidate, to go public with the affair. Luigi Wewege - it just keeps getting more bizarre - was certainly pressing her through Facebook messages to give up the dirt on Len.
But there was absolutely no need for her to go into the detail she did. It was utterly tasteless. It was completely unnecessary and cruel. Chuang has been trying to play the victim card in recent days and that galls me. She is feeling, she wrote on Facebook, "used, abused and manipulated".
Oh, come on. She knew exactly what she was doing, she is old enough to understand the consequences and she was quoted in the Herald last year as saying she was willing to sleep with anyone in order to get herself pregnant in the Year of the Dragon, an auspicious year in the Chinese horoscope.
She has never been shy about talking about her love life on radio and television, so this is no doe-eyed virgin we're talking about here, susceptible to the machinations of mean old men. I will concede she has appalling taste in lovers, but the only victims here are Brown's wife and daughters.
It would probably be a good idea for Chuang to give up blokes for a while and sit at home reading self-improvement books to increase her chances of finding a real boyfriend.
But given that she succumbs so easily to pressure, and that she is given to baring the most intimate details of her sex life to the world, she'll be bloody lucky to find a soft toy willing to share her bed with her in the future, far less a real live man.
Although when push comes to shove, as it undoubtedly has done, she's single - she can choose to sleep with whomever she pleases.
A married man who has campaigned on his family values and thrust his photogenic wife and daughters into the spotlight at every occasion, on the other hand, should have known better than to shag a young, hungry woman on the make.
Once you decide to cheat on your spouse, you run the risk of losing everything. Perhaps that's part of the thrill - giving in to the self-destructive urge that so many of us have from time to time, just to make life a little more interesting.
Perhaps if you have a near-death experience, as Brown did a couple of years ago, it makes you want to take chances, feel alive - and he may have thought an affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter would make him feel like the rampant buck he used to be.
I don't know what was going through the Mayor's brain - sadly, that's the only organ of his of which I know little.
It's extremely unedifying, having to bear unwilling witness to a private affair between a tragic old man and a pathetic little bunny-boiler.
Perhaps, if we'd been colonised by France all those years ago, we'd have shrugged our shoulders and yawned. But we weren't. We were colonised by England and we've sniggered like school kids at the salacious scandal.
There have been calls for the Mayor to resign - mainly from those who were anti-Brown in the first place - and howls from the left that this is all a right-wing smear campaign to destroy him.
Brown has only himself to blame. If he'd kept it in his pants, he wouldn't have found himself in this most unsavoury of predicaments. He has tried to bluff it out this week, claiming the people of Auckland need him to do the job he was elected to do. But he's not that important. The city doesn't need him.
You could pretty much shave a chimp and put mayoral chains on it and the city would function. But Brown's there now and shows no sign of budging.
Perhaps if he does a superb job running the city over the next three years, the ratepayers will forgive him his trespasses. Whether his wife and daughters do is their business.

- Herald on Sunday

By Kerre McIvor Email Kerre

Scenes of a sex scandal: Five-star hotels to low-rent motels

By Bevan Hurley @bevanhurley

5:30 AM Sunday Oct 20, 2013

Len Brown entertained his mistress Bevan Chuang for two years at Auckland's top hotels and in the plush offices of the town hall. But she outed him in fast-food joints and cheap motel rooms

Len Brown took Bevan Chuang to the SkyCity Grand. Photo / Nigel Marple

Explosive revelations of Auckland Mayor Len Brown's affair with Bevan Chuang were dished up at a 24-hour McDonald's restaurant.
The scandal began moving from whispers behind hands to a bombshell on a blog when Whale Oil website owner Cameron Slater contacted his former Truth colleague Stephen Cook.
Cook - who was sacked from the Herald on Sunday in 2008 and lost an Employment Relations Authority claim against the newspaper - began contact with Chuang by text and quickly arranged a meeting.

Sunday, October 6 - Stephen Cook meets Bevan Chuang for the first time at a cafe on Ponsonby Rd. Luigi Wewege unexpectedly shows up a few minutes into their meeting.
He says he wants to create an "American-style smear campaign" against Brown before the mayoral election.
Chuang says Brown "flirted" with her. Cook says: "Well hold on, love, flirting is a perception. There's no story here.

"If you're going to make these sorts of allegations you've got to have some evidence."Wewege presses Cook to take the case but he refuses.

Cook phones Slater. "I said I've talked to this girl, the whole thing's politically motivated. She's said there was some flirting. She's been put up to this by this Luigi character. I didn't feel comfortable with him turning up.
"He's a shadowy character. It was like he was under the table urging her on.
"They were clearly working as a team and, now I think about it, seeing if I was willing to swallow this line to save them having to go that one step further."
Slater, who is in Dubai, tells Cook: "That's fine, that's why I got you involved because I needed your judgment."

Tuesday, October 8 - Anonymous threatening text messages are sent to Chuang, Slater and others.
Saturday, October 12 Election day in Kingsland. Len Brown's family are all smiles, despite Brown having told his wife of the affair on Monday. She isn't wearing a wedding ring.

Sunday, October 13 - Chuang calls Slater, who says he is keen to use the text messages against Brown.
That night, Chuang and Palino meet in a Mission Bay carpark to discuss revealing news of the affair.
In a sworn affidavit, Chuang says Palino told her he indicated a need to "get Len before the end of the week", the earlier the better.
They plan to suggest to Brown that he can claim he can no longer perform the duties of a mayor because of his health problem. "This would give him an opportunity to be a hero and assured that he won, so he did not lose any face."
Chuang continues to text Cook, inferring more serious allegations, and he agrees to meet again.

Monday, October 14 - Cook and Chuang meet in a McDonald's on Great North Rd at 9pm.
They spend two hours thoroughly going over every aspect of her liaisons with Brown.
"I told her we start from the beginning and we do this chronologically," Cook says, "every bit of evidence that's going to be damaging to him.
"We talk for about two hours. She's giggling, laughing.
"She's feeding off it, loving it. None of this stuff is being solicited. She offered it all up.
"I told her it wasn't realistic to remain anonymous."
Cook admits he doesn't warm to Chuang. He works through the night until 4.30am at a Ponsonby motel on writing Chuang's account.

Tuesday, October 15 - Cook picks Chuang up and takes her to a Central Auckland cafe.
She reads the 2,000-word affidavit he has prepared before taking her to Auckland District Court and signing the document in front of a judge.
Cook sends the statement to Slater and leaves multiple messages with Brown and his office, seeking comment about unspecified "serious allegations".
Cook calls Chuang at her parents' place in Central Auckland.
He tells her to turn her phone off, to get another number, to speak to no one but her mother and sister for the next 24 hours and to keep off the internet.
That afternoon, the media storm erupts - Cook picks Chuang up and takes her to a Mt Eden motel.
He pays $260 for two nights. Shortly after he texts her: "You've been named on Campbell Live."
Two hours later, he phones Chuang and she's not at the motel. She is at the North Shore home of a friend.

Wednesday, October 16 - Chuang avoids Cook but he persists and finally, they speak. He tells her Brown's supporters are smearing her name. "We've got to get you out there," he tells her. "You've moved from victim to perpetrator."
Cook devises a media plan - Radio Live with Duncan Garner, 3rd Degree, Woman's Day, Herald on Sunday and the Sunday programme. "We can turn this thing around for you," he says, "make it a priority."
She agrees. But two minutes before an interview with Radio Live, she pulls out. "I'm sitting right next to her and she looks completely vacant," Cook says.
After that she breaks off contact, avoiding all contact with Cook and Slater ... talking directly with media she chooses.

- Herald on Sunday

By Bevan Hurley @bevanhurley Email Bevan

Renee Liang: Getting beyond Asian

By Renee Liang

5:30 AM Sunday Oct 20, 2013

 

In the end, Bevan Chuang is just a foolish person who has acknowledged her mistakes. Photo / Greg Bowker

I'll admit it. My first reaction was annoyance. Oh great, she's Asian. Here we go again.
Yellow Fever. China Girl, Geisha Girl, Manchu Girl. Peking Duck. Asian Lolitas. These and other ugly terms have been flying around this week. They're casually dropped, often "as a joke". Often by people others might categorise as informed, intelligent, even culturally aware. So what's wrong with using them?
Try walking around in my skin for a week. I'm a born-and-bred Aucklander. Most of the time I feel pretty normal. But something like the Len Brown affair hits the media and I remember all the times I've had to fend off unwanted comments, "jokes" or advances.
Asian people are not stereotypes. We are not viper-like "dragon mistresses", nor are we little girl-women who can be innocent and slutty at the same time. We are not Tiger Mums. We are people. Individuals. And not all of us can do kung fu.
Chinese people have been living in New Zealand since 1842. But from the beginning, we've had image problems. First there was "Yellow Peril" - cue political cartoons depicting Chinese as deformed monsters. Then we became the "model minority" - quiet achievers, good at keeping our heads down and not making too much fuss.

It's only recently we have become more confident, seeking office, making art and films, writing books. You need this background to understand the reaction to Bevan Chuang's actions. There's been a lot of anger, even shame. That's natural. Bevan is well known to many in our community. She represented us on the Ethnic People's Advisory Panel, she's been highly visible at public events, a natural networker. As a "1.5 generation" Kiwi Chinese and fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, she has been seen as able to bridge the gap.
But Bevan is also just ... herself. She's open about her relationship status, her love of burlesque, and often dresses sexily. That's who she is. Does she manipulate the Asian babe image? Perhaps. But that's just a natural reaction to a lifetime of people assuming things about you. Sometimes it's just easier - and more fun - to go with the flow.
We all know how one person can influence a stereotype. There's no telling the damage Bevan's story might have done to other (young) (Asian) women and the conclusions uninformed people might now make about us. That she strove to represent us, and played the ethnicity card to get into politics only makes it worse. But in the end she's just a foolish person who has acknowledged her mistakes. Her Asian-ness shouldn't come into it.
Just as it's certain we have not heard the full story, hers is not our only story. The rabid public reaction is no reflection on Bevan, but rather a reflection on New Zealand society and how far we have yet to go.
And so, for my fellow Asians I have a challenge: we can't change our faces, but we can change the way people see us. Get out there and do it.

- Herald on Sunday

By Renee Liang http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11142963

HIS FIRST DAY HOME

HIS FIRST DAY HOME. Aki Witeria a Maori in uniform, was charged with the theft of persimmons, tomatoes and watercress, value 1/1. the property of Koung Young, with having damaged goods in a Chinese fruit shop at Newmarket, and with having assaulted Constable Hill. The circumstances were that the Maori went into a Chinese fruit shop in Newmarket yesterday afternoon, lie stood there and picked out persimmons, tomatoes, etc.. and ate them, and then took some watercress and started to go away, despite the calls of the Chinese woman behind the counter that he should pay for the fruit. Constable Hill noticed the woman following the man out of the shop and expostulating. He inquired what was wrong and on being told he asked the Maori to pay, and the latter refused. The constable went to arrest the man and the hitter put up a strenuous lfght in the shop, the struggle causing damage of fruit and other goods in the shop before Witeria was overpowered and handcuffed. The man did not seem to be drunk. Witeria said he was a returned soldier, who got home yesterday, and that he was supplied with liquor by a civilian, and did not remember what had happened in the Chinese shop. He was wounded in the right arm. Accused was fined  2 and 17/8 costs and expenses.Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 112, 11 May 1918, Page 6

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16583, 5 July 1917, Page 10

CHINESE IN AUCKLAND.

CHINESE IN AUCKLAND.  GLIMPSES OF THEIR LIFE. OLD TRADITIONS FAILING. INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN. Although the sight of the Chinaman j working industriously in his trim garden, reckoning change with amazing accuracy in a fruit shop or handing out the week's laundry, is a very familiar oto Aucklanders, comparatively little is known of the local conditions under which these I sons of the Celestial Empire are living, j f There are at present about 400 Chinamen I in Auckland, and perhaps 10 Chinese wives. Nearly all the others, however, have wives and children in their own land, and are patiently adding day by day to the little hoard that will some day enable them to go back to their homes and families. The family tie is a very strong one with the Chinese, and their sojourn in a foreign land  usually but the I stepping-stone to a return home and prosperity among their own folk that it would be very hard to obtain in the ordinary run of life in Chirm. The ancient traditions of the Chinese 1 still hold strong sway in some respects, jbut in others even the manners and 1 customs of the oldest Empire are waning I and undergoing the change inevitable j when Occident and Orient come into close and continuous contact. The pigtail has gone, and the quaintly-trousered women, with shy eyes and tiny sandalled feet, have given place to smart young misses wearing tailored skirts and French heels. But the average Chinaman is still the frugal, industrious worker of the age old East; even in prosperous Auckland he still lives mainly on rice, although his I needs in this respect, have gone unfilled for some time past on account of the prevailing acute shortage. Chinese Delicacies. An inquiry made yesterday as to how j local Chinese residents were faring in view of this dietary difficulty resulted in some interesting information being given with regard to the general trend of life amongst Chinese in Auckland. As in other I respects, the Orientals are conforming more and more to European ideas with regard to foods, and, although rice still is, or was until recently, their staple diet, the white man's menu is gradually being adopted by the Chinaman. A few traditional Chinese dishes are still regarded as a great delicacy: dried sharks' fins are in strong demand, and luxury fare is provided at the banquets occasionally held in Auckland. A glance at a list of delicacies forwarded from China for local consumption revealed some weird and wonderful dishes. An item of dried shrimps and oysters looked more or less familiar, but sugared watermelon rind, fishes' eyes in vinegar, onions in treacle, bamboo shoots in syrup, beche-de-mer, or sea-slugs brought to mind visions of a banquet truly Oriental. Other items ware-.— Chinese medicines and wines, canned bean cure, salt cucumber, hen albumen, and a quantity of the Asiatic egg" so  well known to local pastrycooks.  The Chinese are not given to riotous living, but, by all accounts, local banquets lack few of the traditional delicacies associated with these sumptuous repasts,  allowance being made, of course, for those dishes requiring ingredients which China j alone can produce. j Keeping in Touch With Home. There is in Auckland a strong branch of the Chinese Nationalist Society, which receives all the newspapers and current literature of China. This is widely read by local Chinese residents, who follow the occasionally-stormy course of home politics with keen interest. There are also two Chinese Freemasons" societies in Auckland, in which the trend of politics is reflected, although party feeling is apt to be little less pronounced than is sometimes the case with regard to local politics. That is "to say. the Celestials i usually agree to differ politely. One interesting point mentioned yesterday by a well-known Chinese resident was that the ancient dread of surgical operations is to a large extent dying out among Chinese living abroad. The Chinese physician is traditionally a herbalist amputations were unknown in China until students of the present generation migrated to the West, where they learned Western methods of healing and treatment of the sick. Consequently Auckland doctors frequently tend Chinese patients and perform operations and send  them to the General Hospital in a way that would have been undreamed of among the Orientals of a past generation. At the same time, the use of herbs is very popular, and the only Chinese herbalist in the Dominion, who has a shop in Wellington, does a fairly wide trade among his fellow-countrymen. Another point of interest, as showing the general acceptance of Western ideas. is that the old tradition that the bones of every Chinaman must be taken back to his own land is not so inexorably observed as in the past. During the epidemic about ten Chinese residents of Auckland died; some of these were buried in the ordinary way and will rest for- i ever in alien soil, but the others were embalmed and provision made for shipment I of the remains back to China. This cannot be done, however, for at least one year after interment, and even the ultimate carrying out of the old tradition will depend very largely upon prevailing shipping conditions.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17251, 29 August 1919, Page 9

IMPORTED CHINESE WIVES.

IMPORTED CHINESE WIVES. THE QUESTION OF THE POLL TAX.

Recently a Chinese resident of Auckland, desirous of marrying a lady of his own race, proposed to meet her on the steamer and marry her before she landed. This step he proposed to take in the hope that, entering New Zealand as his -wife, she would be exempt from the necessity for paying the poll tax of £100. Further, the step was to be only a formal one to provide a marriage of which proof would be available., as the parties were already married and had a child. The position was put before the Collector of Customs at Auckland, and he, while himself considering the proposal legal, referred it to Wellington for consideration. In reply he received the opinion of the Solicitor-General (Professor Salmond), to which reference was made yesterday morning in a Wellington message. It is a peculiar circumstance of the matter that the oninion should have been held that the poll tax could be evaded in any way. The Chinese have to pay the tax, naturalised or unnaturalisedj married or single. It is one of the sorrows that matrimony does not divide by two. The Collector of Customs informed a reporter yesterday that the position did not seem to have been quite understood. In the first place, the poll tax could not be evaded by any Chinese desirous of making a settlement in New Zealand. Then, any Chinese entering the Dominion had also to pass an education test, by satisfying the Collector that he could read English. The word Chinese in that connection had a restricted meaning, for a member of the race who had become a naturalised British subject was no longer regarded as a Chinese within the meaning of the Immigration Restriction Act, and such a one would be exempt from the education test. According to the opinion expressed by Professor Salmond, if it could be proved that a Chinese woman had been married to a naturalised Chinese man, she would be exempt from the education test, the naturalisation being in effect extended to her by tho marriage. That would still be quite apart from the question of the poll tax. He considered that to prove most Chinese marriages in such a way as to satisfy British law would be most difficult unless special steps were taken, but the difficulty could bo got over in various ways, including, for instance, marriage in such a place as Hongkong. The anticipation of difficulty in bringing the wife to New Zealand, suggested in the Wellington message, was, ihe Collector said, unfounded; for a naturalised Chinese subject could certainly introduce his better half into the Dominion, on payment of the poll tax, without difficulty. Professor Salmond's opinion included a highly interesting statement with regard to the children of a marriage contracted outside New Zealand. According to the Solicitor-General the Aliens Act provided that the children of naturalised persons were not themselves naturalised unless during minority they resided' with their parents in New Zealand. That is to say, such children remained Chinese within the meaning of the Immigration Restriction Act until they resided in New Zealand with their parents, and they could not do that until they could pass the education test. In the case of young children, Mr. Ridings remarked, that was manifestly an impossibility, and the construction put upon the law in that respect made the lot of the Chinese immigrant a very, hard one. The Collector stated that he did not know of any case in which a marriage had been contracted by a Chinese with a woman before landing in order to evade payment of the poll tax. As far as he knew the matter had not gone beyond the suggestion. New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14500, 14 October 1910, Page 7

MAJORITY IN NORTH ISLAND

CHINESE IN NEW ZEALAND. MAJORITY IN NORTH ISLAND.  [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Christchurch, Thursday, i The Rev. A. Don, the well-known Presbyterian missionary, referring to the Chinese in New Zealand, states that the balance of population is now heavily in favour of the North Island. At the census 'taken 18 months ago the figures were—South Island. 1133; North Island. 1497. "I estimated them as—South Island, 1025; North Island, 1450." said Mr. Don. These numbers will become more and more disproportionate. Another important, fact •a that the great majority of those in the South are over, and of those in the North under, 40 years of age. The numbers in the three centres are, approximately— Dunedin, 120: Wellington. 400; Auckland, 280."

Mr. Don speaks hopefully of the Chinese in Auckland, who at present hold their Christian meetings in market gardeners' houses, but who, he believes, will subscribe liberally for a building of their own. New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15157, 22 November 1912, Page 8