China's missing ancestors finally honored in New Zealand(3)

PLACE OF ANCESTORS

The Chinese group began talking with local iwi (Maori tribal groups) and learning about how the bones had been collected and buried.

Those talks resulted in two plaques being unveiled during this year's Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping) festival at the main burial sites to show the Chinese community's gratitude to the local Maori for their care of the dead.

More than 100 Chinese from around New Zealand, including Chinese Consul-General in Auckland Niu Qingbao, went to the Hokianga area last month to establish the Ventnor Grove of 22 native kauri trees -- many of the bone boxes were made of kauri -- at Te Roroa, while a red Chinese gate was unveiled at Mitimiti, framing the coastline where many of the bones came ashore.

But most importantly, they honored the 499 -- the only one ever identified was Choie Sew Hoy, a successful Dunedin merchant, who died in 1901 -- with a traditional Chinese "bai ji" ceremony.

Joss sticks were burned carrying messages from the living to the dead; pork, chicken, liquor, sweets and fruit were offered; and replica money was burned to keep them supplied in the afterlife.

"What I had a quest to do was to understand that the ancestors on that ship had never had a bai ji ceremony with the joss sticks and the food. I know the place of ancestors and I feel very strongly about the place of ancestors in our everyday lives," said Wong.

The story of the Ventnor and the 499 is gradually being seen a defining moment in the history of New Zealand's Chinese community.

OPENING DOORS

Auckland pediatrician and playwright Renee Liang is a second- generation Chinese New Zealander who said the story of the Ventnor had piqued her interest in her ethnic culture.

Based on the Ventnor story, her play, The Bone Feeder, written in 2009, depicts the trials of a young man wanting to take home the bones of his great great-grandfather and the tale of a Chinese man who emigrates to New Zealand in the 1800s.

As well as being "a really good story," the Ventnor, with its unfulfilled promises to return home, also pulled at the heart strings.