Suzanne Chan On
From Asian Report 16 July 2013
'Chinese People’s Street', or 'Tong Yan Gaai', as it was known to the Cantonese locals of the time, covered an area from Karangahape Road and Greys Avenue to Queen Street in Auckland’s CBD. It was a thriving area full of entrepreneurial Chinese fruiterers, restaurants and merchants, not to mention the odd illicit gambling house and opium den! Auckland-born Suzanne Chan On recalls a hard working but colourful childhood working in her parent’s fruit shop on K’Road from the age of five and retrieving her dad from the “dens” instead of the pub after work, during a time of bodgies, widgies and Elvis of course!
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