Once again it's been a busy and exciting week for
Invercargill with the South Island Country Swimming
Championships; Badminton; ‘Big Day Invercargill'; the Royal
New Zealand Ballet; the launch of the Bluff oyster
season; the red carpet premiere of ‘Oku Tuakana' (a local
movie) and the Chinese New Year celebrations.
In Southland we have a close connection to China because of
the gold rush when 8,500 Chinese arrived in Southland
and Otago between 1871-1881.
Our other close connection is through Rewi Alley whose family
owned a farm in Castlerock near Lumsden.
It was here that Rewi bought his first rifle, a single shot
.22, and made pocket money selling rabbit skins at one penny
each.
He became a crack shot which served him well in WWI. When the
troop ship stopped in Capetown on its way to the Western
Front, Maori were banned from riding on the trams so the Kiwi
soldiers ran down the main street and tipped all the trams
over.
He arrived on the Somme where he was seriously wounded, but
won the military medal for bravery.
After the war he farmed for 6 years on a ballot farm but when
wool prices dropped from 29 pence per pound of wool to 2
pence, he walked off the land and got a job for the Shanghai
Fire Brigade. He spent the next 60 years working in China on
Gung Ho Industrial Co-operatives and is now celebrated as one
of the top 10 Friends of China.
There's no question that China will become New Zealand's
biggest trading partner within the next decade and historic
friendships forged by men like Rewi Alley will be helpful in
extending that relationship.
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