Background

Tucked away in a file of English correspondence in the National Archives is a Chinese letter written to prominent Brisbane businessman Sun Jue Yow by his brother Sun See Fan from Canton. Sun See Fan had been in China for the past two years, having departed Queensland in 1901. In the letter, dated 1903, he asked his brother to help extend his fast-expiring Certificate of Domicile so he could eventually return to Australia. This letter is significant as it not only concerns immigration restriction policies and exemptions but also provides a glimpse into themes such as illness, medicine and education in the lives of Chinese Australians at the turn of the century. 

Sun Jue Yow, as depicted on the front of his own Certificate of Domicile.
Source: National Archives of Australia (Brisbane) J2482, 1904/88 (https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5062986)

Sun Jue Yow (孙祖祐pinyin Sun Zuyou, born c. 1859) arrived in Queensland from China in 1876 at around the age of 17. He was one of a number of Chinese men to reside in Brisbane in the period following the gold rush[1] and later acted as a community leader on several occasions[2]. He became naturalised in 1886[3], and in 1903 was the ‘manager’ of On War Tai & Co, described by the Brisbane Collector of Customs as ‘the leading Chinese firm in this city’. On War Tai (安和泰 pinyin An He Tai) was a general import-export firm on Wickham Street, probably the first Chinese merchant company to open in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.[4]

His brother Sun See Fan (孙仕芬pinyin Sun Shifen) was born in 1870. Leaving his wife in China, he came to Australia in roughly 1893, presumably to work with Jue Yow at On War Tai. In the correspondence associated with his permit extension, he is referred to as a ‘partner’ of On War Tai and a ‘storeman’.

Certificate of Domicile (人情纸)

In August 1901, after living in Queensland for about eight years, Sun See Fan temporarily travelled to China with a Certificate of Domicile, which would exempt him from the infamous Dictation Test when he re-entered Australia.[5] The certificate was valid for two years. In August 1903, while waiting to board a steamship from Hong Kong, Sun See Fan fell ill and was unable to return to Australia before the expiry of his permit. He promptly wrote to his brother in Brisbane for assistance to get the permit (人情纸, literally ‘paper of favour’) extended.

What followed was a series of letters between Sun Jue Yow and the Collector of Customs in Brisbane, who forwarded the extension request to the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs in Melbourne. The extension was granted until March 1904. Sun See Fan’s Chinese letter only exists within this correspondence because Jue Yow was asked to provide it as supporting evidence, with a partial English translation. The translation was apt, only including necessary information, but a look at the Chinese letter itself reveals other interesting details.

Remittance firms, medical treatment and a school satchel for Willie

The first thing to note in the letter is the place where Sun See Fan stayed in Hong Kong. The translation says he ‘got very sick whilst staying at Messrs Fong Yow Loong’, which in the Chinese letter is literally the ‘Fong Yow Loong gold mountain firm’ (芳祐隆金山庄). This is evidence that Fong Yow Loong was On War Tai’s partner firm in Hong Kong. It would have been one of at least 30 or so gold mountain firms (pinyin jinshan zhuang) that provided mail, banking and remittance services between branches in China and Australia.[6]

Sun See Fan writes that after getting sick in Hong Kong he returned ‘home’ to seek treatment, and from there he penned the letter to Sun Jue Yow. As for location, Jue Yow’s translation explains that his brother went to see a doctor in ‘Canton’. However, the Chinese letter itself does not mention a specific place name. As all the English documents merely use ‘Canton’ for their place of birth, it is unclear whether their home was the city of Canton or another location in the larger Canton province. It could quite possibly be present-day Zhongshan. [7] Judging from the phrase he used, it sounds like the treatment that Sun See Fan received would have been traditional Chinese medicine: ‘I went home to see a doctor for conditioning (调理 pinyin tiaoli) and took medicine for two weeks’. While it is evident that his preference was for Chinese medicine, the presence of Western medicine in places like his hometown would probably still be limited at the time.

In the second half of the letter, Sun See Fan reassures Jue Yow that their mother is well and that ‘all family affairs are taken care of by [another] younger brother’. He then tells of a child called Wai Yi, who ‘works hard at his study’. The name ‘Wai Yi’ (威兒 pinyin Wei er) is a diminutive form and often corresponds to the name ‘Willie’ in English. It seems plausible that this is the six-year-old son of Sun Jue Yow named Willie, who was then living with his relatives in China. Willie was born in Brisbane in 1897 but had been taken to China by his mother Wong See in 1899.[8] He was among the many Australian-born children in the late 19th to early 20th centuries who were ‘sent back’ to their ancestral home for a Chinese education or to acquire Chinese customs.[9]

At the end of the letter Sun See Fan passes on a small request from Willie: ‘the next time someone comes back to China, buy a leather school satchel for Wai Yi. He saw that Fuk Pin [a cousin/classmate?] has one, and he would like one too.’ Willie’s wish reveals the types of gifts that returning Chinese migrants would bring back for their families or on others’ behalf, and the circulation of material objects between Australia and China. Not long after, Sun Jue Yow applied for Willie to come back to Queensland as well. The exact dates of Willie’s and Sun See Fan’s return are unknown, as is the type of schooling that Willie attended in China. Further digitisation and research can help to address these and other unanswered questions.

Also of note are the language features. If we consider some of the words in the letter (e.g. 俾 ‘to give’) and the romanisation of the brothers’ names, it seems that Sun See Fan and Jue Yow spoke and wrote using a form of Cantonese. Additionally, the letter was written in a cursive script that drastically simplifies some characters, such as the third character in the word used for ‘Certificate of Domicile’ (人情纸 pinyin renqing zhi). This, together with the literary style of the letter, indicates that Sun See Fan was well educated. A final challenging feature is the transliteration of English words into Chinese characters. He gave the name of the ship he intended to board as something like the ‘Gap Haang: Ngo Si Yi’ (急行柯时兒?). We know from other sources that characters like ‘Gap Haang’ have been used to refer to the shipping company ‘Gibbs Bright & Co’, and the sounds of ‘Ngo Si Yi’ could likely represent the name of a contemporary ship like the SS Guthrie. Although Sun Jue Yow translated the missed ship as the SS Australian, it is equally possible that this may have been a wrong guess.

After 1903

Later, by at least 1910, Sun Jue Yow established his own firm (S. Jueyow & Sons) at Roma Street, Brisbane. It became one of largest Chinese firms to operate in the fruit and vegetable trade.[10] In 1924 he and his family moved to Hong Kong, but his firm continued to trade and advertise in the Sydney-based Chinese language newspaper the Tung Wah Times until 1935.[11]  Thus, Sun Jue Yow and his firm of the same name feature prominently in archival records and newspapers from the era. However, at present, little other publicly available information exists about his brother Sun See Fan apart from this letter and the associated paperwork. The letter remains a valuable record of his experiences navigating the White Australia Policy, his family life and his ties and travels between Australia, Hong Kong and China.

Ruth Shillabeer is completing her studies at Macquarie University and is currently working on projects on the history of Chinese diaspora communities. Her other interests include Classical and Literary Chinese texts and translation. 

[1] See history of Miss Nellie Sun Jue Yow’s family, in Queensland Museum, Chinese Wedding Gown (Qun Gua). https://collections.qm.qld.gov.au/objects/CH61199/chinese-wedding-gown-qun-gua

[2] Fisher, J. (2005) The Brisbane Overseas Chinese Community 1860s to 1970s: Enigma or Conformity. PhD thesis. The University of Queensland. https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:189802

[3] Queensland Archives, as cited in Fisher, p. 496

[4] Brisbane City Council Heritage Citation (2021) BAFS and Mackay Jewellers (former). https://heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/heritage-places/756

[5] The Real Face of White Australia, https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/wragge/the-real-face-of-white-australia/about/research and Bagnall, K. Certificates of Domicile. The Tiger’s Mouth, https://chineseaustralia.org/tag/certificates-of-domicile/

[6] Kuo, M.-F. (2018) ‘Jinxin (金信): The Remittance Trade and Enterprising Chinese Australians, 1850-1916’, in G. Benton, H. Liu, & H. Zhang, (eds) The Qiaopi Trade and Transnational Networks in the Chinese Diaspora. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315113043

[7] Sun Jue Yow’s firm appears to have some connection to Zhongshan. Letter from S. Jue Yow & Co., Brisbane, Australia, to Tung Wah Hospital on 18 September 1929. https://www.twmarchives.hk/coffin_home_archives_detail.php?uid=625&sid=1&contentlang=en&lang=en

[8] Readmission of Sun Jue Yow’s son Willie. National Archives of Australia (Brisbane), BP342/1, 7024/890/1903. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1639353

[9] Cheng, C (2020) ‘Beacons of Modern Learning: Diaspora Funded Schools in the China-Australia corridor’, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 29(2), p. 141, https://doi.org/10.1177/0117196820930309

[10] Queensland Museum

[11] Fisher, p. 449