Chinatown Citichat 18 January 2002

CITICHAT 2/2002 - 18 January 2002

Chinatown

Walter Pon was born and grew up in Johannesburg. He is the retail director of Sui Hing Hong, an import and wholesale business established by his parents in 1943 and still operating today from its premises on the western end of Commissioner Street. More pertinently, from the perspective of the city’s urban regeneration process, Walter has recently been elected Chairman of the recently established Johannesburg First Chinatown Association, established specifically to focus on the revitalisation of the city’s ‘Chinatown Precinct’. In that capacity, he convened a meeting last evening, Thursday, to investigate a way forward for the initiative. More accurately, he and Johannesburg architect Heather Dodd, convened the meeting. Heather has been quietly working for some years on promoting a fresh look at the Chinatown Precinct that would include a the construction of a 'Chinatown Gateway'. The current activities and those that are planned in adjacent Newtown, have provided fresh impetus to the need to address this area.

Many locals may be quite unaware of this relatively small Chinese precinct that exists on the western edge of the city. Historically this area in Ferreirastown, bounded by Commissioner, Marshall, Fox and Bezuidenhout Streets, was known as the ‘Cantonese Quarter’. It is adjacent to the proposed Johannesburg West City Initiative of which details and confirmation of a start date will, hopefully, shortly be made public. At its Western end is Johannesburg Central Police Station better known in its ignominious past as John Vorster Square whilst Newtown proper is to its North-West. For reasons unknown to me, the street grid to the north/north-west of the precinct is a real mess and one of the issues that must be on the agenda of any local regeneration initiative. The precinct is one of the oldest in Johannesburg and contains one of the oldest buildings, the Chinese Club Building, where our meeting took place. Adjacent to it is the United Chinese Club building designed by German architect, Pabst, which still attracts great interest from architectural students and others. Walk around the area and you find in addition to Walter Pon's business Sui Hing Hong, others such as Ho Sui - Chinese Provisions and Gifts; the Yung Chen Noodle Den; Canton Take Away and Potters Chinese Take Away; Chon Hing Chinese Restaurant; the Chinese Deli in Wolhuter Street; Lucky's Café; Jade Tours; and the well known Tong Lok and Swallows Chinese Restaurants.

Historically, the first Chinese arrived in the Cape in the 17th century as exiles and convicts, today the community includes immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. During 1904 to 1906 some 50 000 Chinese were brought into Johannesburg to work on the mines. The Government of the day imposed restrictions on them in that they would be limited to a three year indentureship, be confined to unskilled labour and be compulsorily repatriated. The opposition party to the British Government of the time declared in Westminster that the restrictions were “of an oppressive nature and smacked of slavery”. This provided the platform for Winston Churchill’s famous comment “It cannot, in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government, be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word, without some risk of terminological inexactitude.”

Ja, well, no fine (again)!

As an aside, in depth research into the historical background of the South African Chinese community by former journalist and author Melanie Yap and Dianne Man then a librarian at Wits University led to the publication of the book ‘Colour, Confusion and Concessions’ published in 1997. The book records discriminatory measures against the Chinese such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1904 that introduced a type of ‘pass’ for Chinese residents in the Cape and, of course, similar legislation aimed at ‘Asiatics’ by Paul Kruger’s ZAR Government in 1906 which sparked Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance campaign earning him incarceration in the “Fort”.

The precinct was the traditional centre of all Chinese activity, business, retail, restaurants, (gambling dare we say!) and was also the information hub (through the Chinese Club established in 1909) about what was happening back in China. Over the past few decades, as with other parts of the city, crime and general degradation led to many of the Chinese traders leaving the area and setting up businesses elsewhere such as in Cyrildene and Edenvale. There has also been a downturn in business at night in the precinct. Now, with the city’s urban regeneration programme becoming more and more visible and attracting more people into the city and into areas such as the adjacent Newtown, the stakeholders in the area are mobilising to be part of the action. The precinct has never formally been demarcated as “Chinatown” which is a great pity when one sees how such areas have added to the attractions and vibrancy of many great Western cities – New York, London, San Francisco, Vancouver and many others.

Heather Dodd has put forward a proposal for a Chinatown Gateway. She comments;

“The idea of a ‘gateway’ of traditional symbolic design, is proposed to mark the entrances to Chinatown. This would give identity to Chinatown as a precinct. The proposed positions of the gateway would be at Commissioner and West and at the Johannesburg Central Police Station end of Commissioner Street.” She goes on to succinctly summarise the larger project philosophy; “The idea of Chinatown as a distinct cultural precinct within the city is an important one. It reaffirms a sense of identity of the Chinese Community in the post-Apartheid city. It assumes an identity that can be more effectively marketed in terms of the tourist market. It allows the idea of a safe and secure precinct to be marketed with an upsurge in night-time activity.”

For me it’s exciting that, as the regeneration process gathers impetus, it gives rebirth to many small gems that, whilst currently somewhat withered and shrivelled, might have died and been lost completely to the newly emerging city if it weren’t for the care and concern of those such as Walter and Heather!

Have a great weekend, cheers, neil