{"id":2100,"date":"2017-05-01T12:01:59","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T01:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2100"},"modified":"2017-04-28T10:57:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T00:27:20","slug":"robe-chinese-festival-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/05\/robe-chinese-festival-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Robe Chinese Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend is the Robe Chinese Festival, and launching at the festival is a new book by Liz Harful, author of\u00a0<\/em>Almost an Island<\/a>. Guichen Bay and the Chinese Landings\u00a0incorporates material from\u00a0<\/em>Almost an Island\u00a0with new research.\u00a0<\/em>Both books will be available from the foreshore pavilion on Saturday 6 May, and Liz will be signing books from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm.<\/em><\/p>\n

After\u00a0Victoria introduced a tax on Chinese passengers\u00a0during the gold rush, some 15,000 migrants landed at the small, isolated community of Robe during a calendar year, from there walking over\u00a0400 kilometres to the Victorian goldfields. As this excerpt from\u00a0<\/em>Almost an Island\u00a0shows, the local community made the most of this influx!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Wall mural, Robe Institute.<\/p>\n

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Many local businesses and residents seized the opportunity to make money. Robe\u00a0had a reasonably new jetty but the water was too shallow for ships to dock there so\u00a0passengers and cargo had to be ferried ashore in lighters or row boats. [Guichen Bay harbour master Henry] Melville records\u00a0that boatmen charged exorbitant prices to land the passengers and their belongings,\u00a0leading to a few minor skirmishes with the Chinese who knew they were being\u00a0exploited. Thomas Drury Smeaton, who did not arrive in Robe until 1864 but is often\u00a0mistaken as an eyewitness, claims in a colourful account that the intention was to\u00a0\u2018make them pay as much as they could, and even (it is said) take the money by force\u2019.\u00a0According to Melville, the amount ranged from five to ten shillings \u2013 a price so extreme\u00a0the government resident sought new regulations to prevent such extortion.<\/p>\n

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Chinese miner in traditional garb relaxing with\u00a0a long-stemmed pipe by Richard Daintree.\u00a0(Courtesy John Oxley Library, State Library of\u00a0<\/i>Queensland: Neg. 51355)<\/i><\/p>\n

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Once ashore, the Chinese had to pay guides and carriers to take them overland to\u00a0the goldfields. These fees varied but were generally\u00a0\u00a350 per party, depending on the\u00a0number and the terms. If the newcomers were able to secure the services of a carrier,\u00a0heavier items might be placed in the carrier\u2019s wagon. But most possessions were ported\u00a0in the traditional Chinese manner, across the shoulders in bundles fixed either end of a\u00a0stout bamboo pole. Once they realised how far they had to travel and the limited transport\u00a0available, most objects too heavy or awkward to carry were left behind. Some of\u00a0these ended up in Robe households and others were abandoned along the way.<\/p>\n

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Painting titled \u2018Flemington Melbourne\u2019\u00a0showing a long line of Chinese wearing coolie\u00a0hats on their way to the goldfields, c. 1856,\u00a0by Samuel Charles Brees. (Courtesy State\u00a0<\/i><\/span>Library of Victoria: H17071)<\/i><\/p>\n

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The Chinese \u2018must have put in circulation at Robe not much less than twenty\u00a0thousand pounds sterling in gold and silver\u2019, wrote Melville 30 years later in his\u00a0not-always-reliable memoirs. A flotilla of fine new boats emerged in the bay to cater\u00a0for the new landing trade and local businesses thrived, with new stores opening up\u00a0along Smillie Street. One newspaper report in May 1857 even claimed real estate had\u00a0increased in value by 200 per cent within the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

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Chinese encampment by Charles Lyall,\u00a0c. 1854. <\/span>(Courtesy State Library of Victoria:\u00a0<\/i>H87.63\/2\/6B)<\/i><\/p>\n

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Find out more about\u00a0<\/em>Almost an Island\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend is the Robe Chinese Festival, and launching at the festival is a new book by Liz Harful, author of\u00a0Almost an Island. Guichen Bay and the Chinese Landings\u00a0incorporates material from\u00a0Almost an Island\u00a0with new research.\u00a0Both books will be available from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,107],"tags":[94,709,710,429,708],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-extract","tag-almost-an-island","tag-book-signing","tag-liz-harful","tag-robe","tag-robe-chinese-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-xS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2109,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions\/2109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}