Early Chinese students

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1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Aquinas, Asia, Chinese, dentistry, graduation, law, medicine

Dr Kathleen Pih, photographed by J.J. Webster, Dunedin, c.1930. Image courtesy of Presbyterian Research Centre, P-A154.19-59.

Chinese students have a long history at Otago. I’ve posted before about the big impact that Colombo Plan students from Asia had on the university from the 1950s to 1970s – many of them were Chinese Malaysians. As the Colombo Plan wound back and private international students grew in number, Malaysians remained an important presence on campus. The late 1990s also saw the beginnings of an influx of international students directly from China – their numbers peaked at 700 in 2005 and remain substantial today. But there is, of course, a long history of Chinese migration to New Zealand and the earliest Chinese students at Otago were homegrown – people who had been born or raised here.

I recently had the privilege of talking with two well-known members of Dunedin’s Kiwi Chinese community – James Ng, medical doctor and historian of the Chinese in New Zealand, and Peter Chin, lawyer, singer, and former mayor of Dunedin. Both have fond memories of their Otago student days and generously shared some insights into the Chinese community at the university. James Ng came from Ashburton to Otago to study medicine in 1954 – he describes himself as being at the tail end of the first wave of New Zealand Chinese university students. That wave resulted from the changing demographics of the Chinese community. For many decades immigration policy prevented the settlement of Chinese women in New Zealand, so many Chinese men here remained single or left families behind in China. When restrictions were reduced during World War II more women and families arrived in New Zealand. Peter Chin, who started his law degree at Otago in 1959, was born in Dunedin as part of the “baby boom” resulting from the influx of Chinese women to this country in the 1940s.

While some pioneering Otago Chinese trained in professions such as dentistry and law before these became university courses, and Norman Lo Keong graduated in engineering from Canterbury, the University of Otago’s first Chinese graduates were in medicine. The honour of being first goes to Kathleen Pih (Pih Zhen-Wah). Born in 1902 in Antung, China, she came to New Zealand in 1908 with her foster mother, a Dunedinite who had been working with the China Inland Mission. Special permission was required from the Governor-General for Kathleen to gain entry to New Zealand. She went to primary school in Waimate and had her secondary schooling at Otago Girls’ High School, enrolling as a university student in 1921. After graduating in medicine in 1929, she returned to China as a missionary for some years. She later completed specialist training in ophthalmology in London and married anatomy professor Francis Chang of Shanghai.They worked in China, Singapore and Hong Kong before retiring to New Zealand in 1969.

The next Chinese student at Otago was Roy Ting Shang Law, who commenced his medical course in 1937. He finally graduated in 1947 – this was a period when many students took extra years to complete their course, and the fact he had to work to support himself and his wife obviously didn’t help the progression of his studies. Dr Law established a very successful general practice in Wellington and this had quite an impact on New Zealand’s Chinese community. Once they saw how acceptable a Chinese doctor could be to wider society, they were happy to encourage their children to study medicine. James Ng’s parents were initially reluctant for him to undertake tertiary study, thinking business offered better opportunities, but Dr Law’s success swayed them to allow their son to come to Otago, albeit not to study in the field which originally interested him – geology!

The health sciences remained the most popular Otago courses for Chinese students, attracting people from all over New Zealand. Douglas Ngan Kee of Whanganui became the first Chinese dental graduate in 1950. The specialist courses in mining and home science also brought Chinese students to Otago, while arts and law attracted a smaller number, most of them southerners. By the 1950s Otago was also enrolling students from Fiji’s Chinese community, while the Colombo Plan brought Chinese students from elsewhere, notably Malaysia.

Jocelyn Wong, an arts student from Masterton, and Peter Chin, a law student from Dunedin, are at centre front of this group of students at a St Margaret’s College ball in the early 1960s. Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

There was no special club or society for Otago’s Chinese students, though many took part in activities of the local Dunedin Chinese Association. Some also participated in the International Club, which was mostly run by European women students. Other than this, they took part in activities according to their personal interests – for instance, James Ng joined the tramping club. Like many out-of-town students he also mixed widely with others by living in a residential college, thriving at Aquinas, where he was one of the founding residents.

The biggest priority for Chinese students was their studies – their reputation for diligence is a long-standing one. Extra-curricular activities came second to work, and Peter Chin notes that he was an exception in his generation for the extent of his involvement in campus activities. His first year was “a disaster” academically but a great success socially thanks to his talent for singing. Along with a few school friends he auditioned for the capping chorus, and as a result was asked to audition for the sextet. Becoming part of this elite group provided him with an instant introduction into student society. He sang with the sextet for 3 of his 5 years at Otago, and also became capping chorus master. In his final year he served on the OUSA executive, having been selected as their business manager, a role traditionally held by a law student.

Peter Chin (right) with the sextet c.1962. Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

In the 94 years since the remarkable Kathleen Pih first became an Otago student, many of New Zealand’s Chinese community have followed in her footsteps. My thanks to James Ng and Peter Chin for sharing memories and photographs of Otago student life in the 1950s and 1960s, along with some stories of their predecessors!

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Becoming part of Asia

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1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Africa, Arana, Asia, biochemistry, Colombo Plan, international students, mineral technology, mining, Pacific, physics

Oo Khaik Cheang, Philippa Wiggins and an unidentified person at a farewell morning tea for Oo in the Department of Biochemistry, c.1964. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Department of Biochemistry records, MS-4113/009, S14.512b.

In the middle of the twentieth century Pakeha New Zealanders, who had for generations looked “home” to Britain, became increasingly conscious that they were part of the Asia-Pacific region. The arrival of Asian students on New Zealand university campuses as part of the Colombo Plan played no small part in this changing perspective of the world.

The Colombo Plan – named for the city where it was signed, Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) – was a 1950 agreement between various Commonwealth countries to promote economic and social development in Asia and the Pacific. There were various aspects to the scheme: more developed nations sent money and technical expertise to countries in need of assistance, and they also provided education within their own tertiary institutions for promising students from developing nations. Around 3500 students came to New Zealand as part of the Colombo Plan during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This country then withdrew from that aspect of the scheme, though the Colombo Plan survives today, considerably modified from its origins of over sixty years ago.

Otago’s first Colombo Plan students arrived in the early 1950s, with numbers gradually building up. In 1965 there were just over 160 international students on campus, more than half of them from Asian countries. Probably most, if not all, of the Asian students were here on the Colombo scheme. The largest group came from the countries which would later form Malaysia: 39 from Malaya, 11 from Sabah and 8 from Sarawak. Another 10 came from Thailand, 8 from Singapore, 8 from Hong Kong, 2 from Ceylon, 2 from Indonesia, 1 from Java and 1 from Burma. A quarter of these Asian students were women. Otago also had 28 international students from Africa and 26 from the Pacific Islands that year.

The Colombo Plan students completed courses in a wide range of disciplines. Most lived in residential colleges for at least part of their course, and in recognition of this the government provided funding for the university to expand its residential capability. The money was used to extend Arana Hall (now Arana College), with its new Colombo Wing opening in 1968. But authorities were keen for the Colombo Plan students to be integrated throughout the community, so they were spread around all the colleges, and also enjoyed the hospitality of New Zealand host families during holidays.

Arrival in Dunedin, with its less than tropical climate, could be something of a shock for students from Asia! Furthermore, especially in the early years of the scheme, many New Zealanders were unaccustomed to the presence of ‘foreigners’ and treated anybody speaking in another language with suspicion. Fortunately, other members of the community made a real effort to welcome the visitors and the students themselves appreciated the opportunity to learn about Kiwi culture. Some really threw themselves into student life. One outstanding example of this is Mazlan Othman, who arrived in Dunedin in the early 1970s as an undergraduate science student and went on to become the first woman to complete a PhD in physics at Otago. She enjoyed all the capping events, attended protest rallies, played in a band, worked in a restaurant, visited the mountains and enjoyed long discussions at the pub with other students. She learned to appreciate New Zealanders’ egalitarian outlook on life.

Some of these mining students are likely to have been at Otago on the Colombo Plan – they were clearly getting into the spirit of Otago student life! Freshers’ welcome 1964, Department of Mineral Technology album, MS-3843/005, S13-561b, Hocken Collections, University of Otago.

Like many other Colombo Plan graduates, Mazlan Othman went on to a successful career. She returned to Malaysia to teach, and later worked in the Prime Minister’s office to oversee development of Malaysia’s national planetarium. She then became Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Many became university lecturers in their home countries. Oo Khaik Cheang, who features in the photograph above, became Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur). He completed a PhD on “The biosynthesis of bacterial cell wall constituents” at Otago, graduating in 1965. Others went on to signficant political careers. A well-known example is Sulaiman bin Haji Daud, who graduated in dentistry from Otago in 1962. Over many years in Malaysian politics he served as minister in various portfolios, including education and health. Soedjati Djiwandono, who studied education, politics and languages at Otago before completing post-graduate qualifications in London, became a distinguished political scientist in Indonesia.

The Colombo Plan offered the opportunity for students to complete qualifications not yet available in their home countries, and to bring the benefits of that learning to their home communities. But the plan also had great benefits for the host countries. It brought a new diversity to the student body and introduced New Zealanders to new cultures. Lifelong friendships were forged in Otago’s residential colleges, lecture theatres, labs and the student union. The scheme brought some especially bright minds to Otago, for competition for the scholarships was fierce. The connections made through the Colombo Plan would have a very long impact on the university, as the goodwill built up encouraged further generations of international students to enrol here. It is no accident that the largest group of international students at this university in more recent decades has been from Malaysia, which was also the home of the largest group of Otago Colombo Plan students.

Did you attend Otago under the Colombo Plan? If so, do you have any memories to share? Can you help identify anybody in the photographs? I have published the image of the mining students on this blog previously, but I’m yet to identify any of the people, or the location!

Update – 27 March 2014: Many thanks to Alison Finigan of the Alumni Office who found a mining graduate at an alumni function in Kuala Lumpur who identified some of the people in the mystery photograph! Among the men standing are Boon Meer Prasart (left), Vivoon Petpaichit (3rd from left), Chai ? (wearing dark glasses) and Paichit Patasorn (right). All four were from Thailand. Can you add any more details?

Another update – 16 December 2014: A big thank you to Nic MacArthur who identified Ray Soper as the man standing second from left in the photograph of mining students at their freshers’ do. Ray graduated with a BSc in 1967, a couple of years ahead of Nic, who graduated with a BSc (Hons) in mineral technology in 1969. A check of the graduation programmes also reveals what are hopefully the correct names of three of the Thai mining students. Viroon Petpaisit graduated BSc in December 1965, while Paichit Pathnopas and Sunan Boonmeeprasert were awarded Bachelors of Engineering in December 1966. I’m still wondering what the venue is – anybody out there know?

More information – 26 July 2016: My thanks to Jean Kennedy, who identified the man in dark glasses in the mining student photograph as Riew Kongsangchai, who graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in December 1965. Jean became friends with the Thai mining students through the International Club in 1963 and remembers them as ‘the best cooks among the Asian students’; they shared a flat in Clyde Street.