SYDNEY'S CHINATOWN

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1921, Page 4

SYDNEY'S CHINATOWN

CELEBRATION OF NEW YEAR. SYDNEY, Feb. 9

Sydney has a rather scattered Chinatown—but the yellow-skinned community, while not particularly numerous, clings together and stubbornly preserves the ideas and habits ot the native land. The Chinese communities may be found, in patches, in the meaner subutbs which lie south-east and south of the (Central Railway Station. Here and there, there are whole streets of Chinese— quiet, inoffensive, industrious men and women, who are Europeanised in the streets, but in whose dwellings are preserved all the forms o

life in ancient China. Tlie Chinese celebrated their - e\\ Year on the night of February 7th, and, tucked away in a corner of Alexandria, a typical Lit of Chinatown was discovered A narrow cul-de-sac runs up oft Botany road. The far end widens out into a neatly-turfed court, and at one side is a joss-house. Chinese houses cluster all about. On Thursday-night us midnight approached, the patter o slippered feet and the harsher clatter of gardening boots sounded frequently, as Die people gathered in the josshouse. Steam .issued from the little houses nearby, and the hot night air u-as alive with the aroma ol cooking duck Two Chinese, on the steps of the joss-house, occasionally hammered on huge gongs. . ~ Inside, the joss-house was Orientally

splendid. Its three great ebony altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and draped ] with gaudy silks, supported huge bowls containing offerings of confectionery, fruit, and flowers. Conspicuous on one altar, from which many sticks of incense wafted their pungent fumes, stood a large glass howl, in which sported a number of silver fish, their glistening sides shimmering in the light of the Chinese tapers. .Midinght struck, and a hand of six Chinese instruments hurst into a frightful din, reinforced by the shrieks ot

numerous youngsters. Alternately kneeling and bowing, the Chinese prayed for forgiveness of sins committed during the year. , A man out on the lawn exploded bombs, thus to scale away evil spirits. It was a wild twenty minutes of hang! and crackle! Packets of money, in red paper, were distributed in the joss-house—a reversal of the usual order of things, as we know them—and the young people went forth joyously to take part in a dragon procession through the Chinese streets. They were all in fantastic silk costumes.