As the Earth Turns Silver (24 page)

I am grateful for assistance provided by the Robert Burns Fellowship, the Willi Fels Memorial Trust, a project grant from Creative New Zealand, a Reader's–Digest New Zealand Society of Authors Stout Research Centre Fellowship and a New Zealand Founders Society Annual Research Award.

I am indebted to Jane Parkin for her sensitive and perceptive editing and Judith Lukin-Amundsen for her invaluable reading; my publishers, Geoff Walker and the team at Penguin New Zealand, and Rod Morrison, Daniel Watts, Janet Chan and the teams at Picador in Australia and Hong Kong; as well as my agent, Toby Eady, and Jamie Coleman of Toby Eady Associates. Thanks to Keely O'Shannessy for her fabulous cover, Mary Egan for beautiful internal design and Alan Knowles for his author photo.

Special thanks to Roger Steele, Christine Roberts and Roger Whelan of Steele Roberts who provided support and encouragement throughout the years.

Fiona Kidman gave excellent structural advice on an early draft, and Toni Atkinson, Gilbert Wong, Eva Wong Ng, and members of the various incarnations of my writing groups – including Caren Wilton, Raewyn Brockway, Lynn Davidson, Johanna Knox, Claire Baylis, Sarah Laing, Kate Camp, Catherine Chidgey, Virginia Fenton, Alex Gillespie, Jay Linden, Michael Gilchrist, Peter Hall-Jones, Naomi O'Connor and Jan Farr – gave feedback and/or encouragement. Thanks to Kate who found the Chinese proverb which inspired the novel title and chapter,
As the Earth Turns Silver
. I have no idea whether this is a true Chinese proverb.

Dianne and Peter Beatson provided their wonderful Foxton writing retreat where much progress was made and Siggy Woolloff and her staff at Aunt Daisy's Boathouse Café gave coffee, sanity and a writing refuge overlooking the water.

James Brown, Catherine Chidgey, Justin Paton, Chris Price and Lawrence Jones, as editors of
Sport
,
Landfall
and
Nurse to the Imagination: 50 Years of the Robert Burns Fellowship
, published draft extracts.

Linda Cound gave me her ‘little orange book' and Forbes Williams assisted with research and discussions about narrative.

The residents, associates, secretaries and the directors – Allan Thomas, Vincent O'Sullivan and Lydia Wevers – of the Stout Research Centre, the staff of the Chinese section of the Department of Asian Languages at Victoria University of Wellington, and many people associated with the English and History Departments of the University of Otago, made me welcome and helped along the way. Other institutions which helped with research were the library, anatomy museum and medical library at the University of Otago; the New Zealand Dictionary Centre; the Alexander Turnbull Library, Oral History Archive, Manuscripts, Music and Reference at the National Library of New Zealand; Wellington City Archive; Wellington Public Library; Porirua Public Library; Pataka Porirua Museum; Te Papa Museum of New Zealand; Otago Settlers Museum; Porirua Police Museum; Olveston; Larnach Castle; Archives Research Centre of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand; First Church of Otago; Hocken Library; and Anderson Park in Invercargill, where the Ashford table was found.

Many individuals helped with historical, Chinese, military and other research. In particular, Nigel Murphy, James Ng, Eva Wong Ng, Brian Moloughney, Duncan Campbell, Helen Leach, Graham Stewart, Tom Brooking, Aaron Fox, Pat Fox and Edmon Wong, all went way beyond the call of duty.

Thanks also to Jane Malthus, John Stenhouse, Dorothy Page, Barbara Brookes, Howard Baldwin, Alison Hercus, Lynley Hood, David Hood, Bill Keane, Michael Kelly, Helen McCracken, Jenny Gibson, Chris Cochran, Chris Jones, Trevor Garrett, Sophie Giddens, Sylvia Carlyle, Russell Klein, John Earles, Geoffrey Rice, Anne-Marie Brady, Mervyn Thompson, Liz Bryce, Chris House, Hardwicke Knight, Richard Hill, Bronwyn Dalley, Clarence Aasen, Pauline Keating, John McKinnon, Eirlys Hunter, Alistair McLean, Jean Ellis, Joan Henderson, Harry Ricketts, Selwyn Graves, Kirsten Wong, George Wong, Lynette Shum, Bill Wong, Kai Wong, Dan Chan, Ray Wong Tong, Percy and Alice Chew Lee, Nancy Wong, Ng Li Fe Oui, Anita King, Tsan Yew Wong, Yuk Fung Chong, Maurice and Margaret Meechang, Chan Wai Yung Wong, Margaret Wong, Roy Law, Thomas Keong, Bai Limin, Li Kangying, Jing-Bao Nie, Manying Ip and Timothy Woo.

Diana Davies, Steve Yanko, Jo McMullan, Raewyn Brockway and Dr James Ng helped with medical details, and Dr James Walshe and Dr Charles Moore, specifically, with psychiatric history. Philip Simpson, Phil Garnock-Jones and Bill Sykes provided information about plants in early Wellington and New Zealand. Ngahuia Te Awakotuku, Morrie Love and Maui Solomon gave advice about Maori in the early twentieth century, and Dianne Bardsley provided invaluable guidance on early New Zealand English.

Damien Wilkins, Bill Manhire, Adrienne Jansen and Andrew Johnston encouraged me in the early days of my writing. Even earlier, my high school English teacher Peter Exeter opened my eyes with
Owls Do Cry
and was the first to believe in me and inspire me with literature.

Over the years a number of people helped in many and varied ways: Michael Gilchrist, Pepe Choong, Andrea Hudson, Ruth Pink, Pam Atkinson, Shanti Setyowati-Anderson, Don Anderson, Caroline McCaw, Martin Keane, Lindsay Forbes and Phil Castelow. I particularly want to thank Linda Tyler, Kevin Yelverton and Toni Atkinson, who were always there for me through hard times.

My family are owed the greatest thanks: my mother and father, Doris and Henry Wong – Dad, you gave me the permission to write this story and this is for you – my brother, Graeme Wong, and sisters, Sharon King and Janice Young, and their families, without whose support this book would never have been written, and especially, the best little guy in my life, my son, Jackson Forbes, whose patience and tolerance made this possible.

This novel was written over many years. To those who declined to be acknowledged and also those whom I have inadvertently neglected to acknowledge, please accept my heartfelt thanks.

Many written sources were consulted in the course of research and writing. What follows is only a partial listing. Newspapers included the
Evening Post
,
Dominion
and
Truth
and websites included the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/
.

The New Zealand Medical Service in the Great War 1914–1918
, Lieut.-Col. A. D. Carbery, Whitcombe & Tombs was particularly useful for its descriptions of shell-shock and
Sojourners: The Epic Story of China's Centuries-old Relationship with Australia
, Eric Rolls, University of Queensland Press for its descriptions of opium smoking. The words of Po Lo in the chapter ‘More Than Horses' are based on Arthur Cooper's beautiful translation of Lieh Tzu in
Li Po and Tu Fu
, Penguin Books. Lionel Terry's recital in the chapter ‘A Fine Example of a British Gentleman' is quoted from his long poem ‘God or Mammon?' which he self-published. Dictionary entries in the chapter ‘The Little Orange Book' are quoted from
Glossary of English Phrases with Chinese Translations
, Woo Kwang Kien, Commercial Press.

Other books and theses which I particularly drew on included:
Doctor Agnes Bennett
, Cecil & Celia Manson, Whitcombe & Tombs;
Lionel Terry: The Making of a Madman
, Frank Tod, Otago Heritage Books;
The Shadow
, Lionel Terry, self-published;
Truby King: The Man
, Mary Truby King, Allen & Unwin;
A Brief History of the Chinese in New Zealand
, Joe Y. Sing, self-published;
Black November: The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in New Zealand
, Geoffrey Rice with the assistance of Linda Bryder, Allen & Unwin: Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs';
Old Wellington Days
and
More Wellington Days
, Pat Lawlor, Whitcombe & Tombs; ‘Representing Haining Street: Wellington's Chinatown 1920–1960', Lynette Shum, MA thesis for Victoria University of Wellington;
Zengcheng New Zealanders: A History for the 80th Anniversary of the Tung Jung Association of NZ Inc.
, Henry Chan (ed.), Tung Jung Association of New Zealand Inc.; ‘The Poll-tax in New Zealand: A research paper', Nigel Murphy, The New Zealand Chinese Association;
The Kelburn Cable Car: Wellington – New Zealand
;
Always a Tram in Sight: The Electric Trams of New Zealand 1900 to 1964
;
The End of the Penny Section: When Trams Ruled the Street of New Zealand
; and
When Trams Were Trumps in New Zealand: An Illustrated History
, Graham Stewart, Grantham House;
Supreme Court (42 Stout Street, Wellington) Conservation Report for the Ministry of Justice
, Chris Cochran; and
Twentieth Century China
, O. Edmund Clubb, Columbia University Press.

Other useful books included:
Windows on a Chinese Past, vols 1–4,
James Ng, Otago Heritage Books;
The Basin: An Illustrated History of the Basin Reserve
, Don Neely and Joseph Romanos, Canterbury University Press; ‘Psychiatry & Seacliff: A Study of Seacliff Mental Hospital and the Psychiatric Milieu in New Zealand 1912–1948', Susan Fennell, BA (hons) essay for University of Otago;
Backblocks Baby-doctor
, Doris Gordon, Faber & Faber;
Lady Doctor: Vintage Model
, Frances I. Preston, A. H. & A. W. Reed;
Stethoscope & Saddlebags: An Autobiography
, Eleanor S. Baker McLaglan, Collins;
Wellington's Old Buildings,
David Kernohan & Tony Kellaway, Victoria University Press;
The Chinese Century
, Jonathan Spence & Annping Chin, Cassell Paperbacks;
Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco Chinatown
, Marlon K. Hom, University of California Press;
Yuan Shihk'ai,
Jerome Chen, Stanford University Press;
Reader's Digest New Zealand Yesterdays
, text: Hamish Keith, picture research: William Main;
Anzac Diary: A Nonentity in Khaki
, N. M. Ingram, Treharne Publishers and Distributers; and
Dear Lizzie: A Kiwi Soldier Writes from the Battlefields of World War One
, Chrissie Ward (ed.), HarperCollins.