KEY POINTS:
Adman, local politician and dial-an-ideas man, Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, has come up with some winners in his time. The name "Starship" for Auckland's kids' hospital for one. A large reflecting pond in front of Aotea Centre was another. He's also had his share of clangers. A Lord Mayor of Auckland based in Wellington was one. As, I suspect, in the goodness of time, will his short-lived proposal (see story above) to rename New Lynn Auckland's Chinatown.
At least he was honest in saying it was all a gimmick to extract money out of tourists and other Aucklanders. "New Lynn is dreary and sluggish and there's simply no good reason to go there if you are not a local. I believe Chinatown, with festivals, exhibitions and weekend events is perfect."
He said it was "not a cultural or social move", just that "Chinatowns are significant drawcards for cities all over the world".
All of which made me cringe. If Chinatown was to be the making of New Lynn, then what next? A Disneyland Pa at Te Atatu, with hangi and hongi on the hour? A make-believe Samoan village at Lincoln? A Dally gum-diggers encampment at Henderson? Sorry, Bob, but it was all a bit kitsch. To say nothing of so last century.
Economists have long been softening us up to the reality that the 21st century is the time when the Asian economic dragon inherits the earth. Forget New Lynn, the whole world is going to be Chinatown. For proof you only have to step into any retail outlet in New Zealand and glance at the label. Whether it's a wok you're after, a toaster or a pair of world-beating "British" Quad speakers, chances are they'll have been made in China.
Out in the streets of Auckland it's the same. The whole city is starting to look a little like Chinatown. Which is no surprise given the 2006 Census has nearly 19 per cent of Aucklanders calling themselves Asian. I'm not complaining, just noting the obvious, that creating a fake Chinatown is beside the point.
If you want a good authentic Asian meal, then for most Aucklanders, we have no need to create a ghetto in one corner of town. We already have choice aplenty just around the corner in Balmoral, Mt Albert, Howick - sorry, Botany - Avondale, Northcote, New Lynn - you name it. So why risk all the pitfalls inherent in creating a new ethnic theme park?
Mr Harvey can envy the "tourist" charms of Chinatowns in many cities of Australia and the Americas and, for that matter, the equivalent Little Italys and Greek and French Quarters. But they're organic communities, growing out of a century of migration. Our immigration policies were so monocultural that it's only in very recent times that we can claim a few suburbs in Auckland are starting to get an ethnic tinge.
The closest we got to a Chinatown quarter in Auckland was the bottom section of inner-city Greys Ave. Eva Wong Ng, in a paper to the 2005 "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Banana" conference, noted that the Auckland Town Hall was erected in 1909 on the site of Thomas Humlog's Chinese laundry.
The Auckland Chinese population was then tiny; in 1900 it was just 155. Most were involved in growing or hawking fruit and vegetables, or in the laundry business. Grey St, as it was then known, was home base because rentals were cheap and it was next to the city markets.
As the population grew, Chinese boarding houses developed, and opium dens and gambling houses. For Europeans it was a place to avoid, but "those who grew up there tell a different story. As children they had wonderful childhoods". In 1947, many houses were demolished to make way for the multi-storey state flats. Then in 1959, lower Chinatown was demolished to make way for the civic administration building. In 1964, the last Chinese-occupied buildings in Greys Ave were demolished.
Unlike cities that embraced their exotic corners and turned them into tourist traps, we bulldozed ours. If Mr Harvey and his Chinese sister-city had stuck up some "traditional" gates and turned a section of New Lynn into a food alley, let's not kid ourselves it would ever have been Auckland's authentic Chinatown.
