Fourth-generation Kiwi battled racism
The title of Paul Wah’s book, Wooden Man, Stone Heart, celebrates him as a man of strong determination and willpower, who could not be tempted.
As a fourth-generation Chinese New Zealander, Wah battled racism and intolerance as he sought to create an identity for himself.
Wah, who has died aged 90, was one of the first Chinese secondary school principals and a ‘‘good Kiwi bloke’’ who saved Taita¯ College.
He also had the claim to fame of being arrested in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square shortly after the infamous massacre in 1989, when he was teaching at the Shanghai International Studies University.
In his early life Wah, who was born in Feilding, suffered racism and schoolyard bullying. It left him determined to succeed and with a resilience that helped with the frustration of being overlooked for jobs because he was deemed to be Chinese.
In fact, he was a fourth-generation Kiwi, his great-grandfather Ng Leung Goo having arrived here in 1864, after paying the £100 poll tax aimed at keeping Chinese out of Aotearoa.
Wah’s parents, Leslie and Dolly, had a fruit shop in Feilding but, from an early age, he showed a determination to break away and succeed in European society.
Speaking only Cantonese when he went to school in Palmerston North, he quickly picked up English and played rugby to gain acceptance. It was a successful tactic and gave him the confidence to stand up to the schoolyard bullies.
’’The game of rugby, with its egalitarianism, camaraderie, freedom and opportunity for emotional release became one of the formative influences of my young life, making it impossible to retreat behind the bamboo curtain of the Chinese community,’’ he wrote in his memoir.
In 1951, he left school for a job with the Soil Bureau in Wellington. Raised to respect the Confucian tradition of respecting your family, he endured the opposition of his father, who wanted him to stay in the family business.
In Wooden Man, Stone Heart, Wah wrote of his determination to establish himself in European society. ‘‘Although there would be discrimination to overcome, I resolved to develop a thick skin and avoid a restricted life in the cradle of the Chinese community.’’
In Wellington, he had a number of jobs, including working on the wharves and as a freezing worker, before heading to Australia. When he went to get a visa, he was initially rejected after being reminded of Australia’s whites-only immigration policy.
On returning to New Zealand, he decided he needed to find a profession and, in 1956, he enrolled at teachers’ college. Six years later he joined the staff at Taita¯ College, where he held a range of jobs before becoming principal.
Dismayed at how badly the school was run, he wanted to bring about change but had to overcome prejudice from the white, mostly older, men who ran the school and who dominated the Ministry of Education.
It was not easy for a Chinese teacher and, despite his popularity and doing a good job as deputy principal, he was initially overlooked when the top job became available.
Wah believed that was because he was Chinese, and he wrote bitterly about some of the principals he worked under, whom he felt to be incompetent. Race relations were improving in the 1970s and he felt ready for the job.
‘‘Europeans allowed Chinese to wash their shirts, sell them vegetables, cut out their diseased appendixes, teach their children chemistry and prop up their incompetent principals, but appointment to an influential position and principal of a city secondary school was another matter.’’
Not put off, he kept applying and, in 1977, he got the job he so badly wanted. He found himself facing a significant problem. The suburbs surrounding Taita¯ were changing, with a growing Ma¯ori population, resulting in ‘‘white flight’’ to Hutt Valley High School.
His tenure was judged as a great success. He rebuilt the roll and significantly raised educational standards, as well as getting a marae for the school.
Trevor Williams, a former head of English and a close friend for 50 years, said it is not an exaggeration to say Wah saved the college.
Taita¯ had had five principals in a short period and Wah provided stability and a commitment to staff that was inspiring.
‘‘He was principal during a period I regard as the golden years of Taita¯ College. Those years were characterised by his commitment to education. He worked hard but always with a good humour despite all the obstacles.’’
Although he was committed to his students, Williams said Wah could never be accused of being orthodox. ‘‘Paul was a different sort of person. To begin with, he wore leather and rode a motorbike, which nonplussed the pupils a bit.’’
As a principal, he believed in empowering teachers, reducing their administrative duties as much as possible and encouraging them to be ambitious.
Williams calls Wah a close friend, hard to categorise but always entertaining. ‘‘He could speak Cantonese and Mandarin and was steeped in the Confucius ethos. He was also a good Kiwi bloke and I enjoyed his company immensely.’’
Wah talked to him about the racism he encountered in his early life. Rather than being bitter, Williams said it only made him more determined to succeed. ‘‘It encouraged him to build up the resilience that held him in good stead in later life.’’
His interest in rugby and Kiwi pastimes such as tramping, debating, motorcycling and skiing, was his way of assimilating.
In later life the pair corresponded on issues relating to China and the Chinese Communist Party.
Living in New Zealand, Wah’s interest in Chinese politics was a debating point, but in China that interest caused him problems when he was teaching in Shanghai and travelled to Beijing after the infamous students’ massacre to visit Tiananmen Square. Mistaken for a spy, after he got out his camera, he was arrested and interrogated by a security officer and had his camera confiscated.
Pamela Sharp, the assistant principal during Wah’s time at Taita¯ College and a close friend, said his family, wife Shirley and children Michael, Jeremy and Sarah, were always the focus of his life. Paul and Shirley, who came from a longstanding Chinese Petone family, were a devoted couple, she said.
A strong supporter of multiculturalism, he had an analytic mind with an unorthodox streak. ‘‘He was a philosopher, engaged with the world, always curious and insightful about its people, politics and religion.’’
Wooden Man, Stone Heart is a fascinating book that deals with racism in New Zealand society. Some of his observations about the Chinese community would have made many in that community uncomfortable.
He opposed Chinese girls being withdrawn from school to work in fruit and vege shops. Similarly, he disliked arranged marriages and believed that interracial marriage was the way for Chinese to assimilate.
He wrote about the negative effects of gambling on his own family and the ‘‘insidious’’ impact of mahjong, noting that his grandfather had gambled away the family business.
Wanting to avoid many of the formal Chinese marriage traditions, he wanted a low-key wedding that was not a display of wealth or Chinese culture.
‘‘My hope that our wedding would be an occasion of warmth, good humour and sincerity did not come to fruition.’’ Instead, he wrote, the minister conducted it in an unfamiliar dialect as if he was chairing a meeting of the New Zealand Chinese Association.
Son Michael remembers his father as a remarkable man who enjoyed success in unlikely circumstances. ‘‘He was from a Chinese family but he could survive in both Ma¯ori and European society. He was a school principal who set extraordinarily high standards.’’
It spoke volumes that, although Wah spoke only Cantonese when he went to school and never stood out as a student, he would become a highly respected and much-loved principal.
‘‘He went from a Chinese kid in the back of the classroom who could not speak English to success in the hurlyburly of public speaking competitions, against the best barristers in the capital.’’
His desire to learn was never more evident than when he completed a BA in Mandarin in his 70s. ‘‘He was a free thinker, but principled. He always enjoyed having fun, but his overriding principle was always about helping people.’’
He is survived by Michael, a GP in Auckland; Jeremy, a property manager in Melbourne; Sarah, an accountant; and Shirley, his devoted wife of 64 years, who lives in Petone.