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Story: Ethnic inequalities

Chinese pakapoo shop, Dunedin, 1904

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Chinese pakapoo shop, Dunedin, 1904

Chinese miners were initially invited into Otago in the late 1860s to work on the goldfields. They quickly faced suspicion and some hostility from the locals, who found their customs strange. By the turn of the century the Chinese had moved into the cities, where they continued to face resistance to full participation in New Zealand society. They lived in small exclusive enclaves, where they practised some of their traditional interests such as pakapoo gambling.

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: PUBL-0090-001

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

David Pearson, Ethnic inequalities – European majority, Asian minorities: 1840–1945, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/29534/chinese-pakapoo-shop-dunedin-1904 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by David Pearson, published 24 February 2011.