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Tuesday, 10 December 2013
The remarkable legacy of Choie Sew Hoy

If it wasn’t for one man’s invention, Dunedin city might be a shadow of what it is now. In the 1870s a large scale gold dredge created by Choie Sew Hoy revolutionized gold mining across the world and revitalized Dunedin as a city.

But Choie Sew Hoy was also a man deeply interested in the welfare of his fellow Chinese, most pertinently by being against the opium trade and by setting up a society looking after the remains of the Chinese gold miners who passed away in New Zealand.  

For Asian Report Lynda travels across the country, from the Hokianga in the far north to Dunedin in the South to meet descendants of Choie Sew Hoy, to learn about the remarkable history of one of the oldest Chinese families in New Zealand, here since 1868. Lynda also gets a tour through Toitū Otago Settlers Museum with Curator Sean Brosnahan to view the Sew Hoy Family collection, as one of the most quietly influential families in the city.

Gallery: The Sew Hoy family