Uncovering Chinese Gold Rush HistoryBy Philippa Rayment
Epoch Times Australia Staff Sep 10, 2007
The temple of the See Yup Society in South Melbourne. (Jarrod Hall/The Epoch Times)
The stories and history of the Chinese during the time of the gold rush is largely unknown. Uncovering the stories of those thousands of Chinese who came in search of their fortune is a mammoth task. But with the interest and financial help of the Heritage Council of Victoria, the See Yup Society in Melbourne is restoring and documenting the thousands of historical memorial tablets that line the halls of their temple in South Melbourne.
The memorial tablets, which remember the dead, are helping reveal the extent of Chinese immigration at that time. In the 1850s - 60's twenty per cent of the population in Victoria were Chinese.
Archaeologist David Bannear said that very little is known about what happened to those Chinese, and that these tablets are able to tell part of the story of those remarkable people.
When Mr. Bannear first saw the ancestral tablets, he was touched by the commitment of the See Yup Society in preserving the memories and the names. He felt that if the tablets were to be lost then the souls of those 13,000 men would be lost forever. "I was very touched by that,' he said. "As an archaeologist I understand the moral…the joys and the expectations associated with artefacts and they really change people's lives."
As an ongoing project, the Old Chinese inscriptions will be translated and put in a database which will be available to the public.
The Executive Director of Heritage Victoria, Ray Tonkin said, "We believe this is a remarkable project which gives great insight into Victoria's history and heritage.
"The temple itself of course, has been listed on the Heritage register for many years and was always seen to be very important, not only an important piece of architecture, but a great piece of Victoria's cultural heritage," he said. Chinese heritage is gaining increasing recognition in Victoria as it is appreciated in being a valuable contribution to early Australian history.
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-9-10/59631.html
