Chu-Lin's life in Wellington centred around her home and her husband's Chinese supplies store; the Sing On Kee was a well-known shop, located first in Lambton Quay and then in Willis Street. Most of Chu-Lin's time and energy were taken up with having babies and rearing them. Household duties were so onerous that she had to make very heavy demands on her elder daughters. She seldom expressed her feelings, and communication was often in the form of basic commands. None of her children knew of the court case, nor the fact that their parents were married in Sydney. Few knew of her Chinese name, Chu-Lin (jade-lotus): she had adopted the name Mary Chun in New Zealand.
Chu-Lin had few friends and seldom attended social events. Her photographs show her at the few formal functions that she did attend, impeccably dressed in western-style suits, complete with hat and gloves and heeled shoes, defying anyone to see behind the facade of Chinese gentility. Chun Yee Hop, by contrast, was extremely active within the Chinese community. He was much revered as the long-time Wellington president of the Chee Kung Tong (Chinese Masonic Society), the overseas branch of the powerful Triad Society in China. This social and political organisation transcended the smaller clan associations. However, women were barred from most of the activities of this secret-sworn brotherhood.
In 1929 Chu-Lin, her husband and their 10 children sailed for China, where Chun Yee Hop's principal wife lived; perhaps they hoped that she would agree to look after the children and see to their education. The couple and their sons returned to New Zealand within a year. Two of the daughters returned in the early 1930s, the others only when they were forced from China by the Japanese invasion. Chu-Lin was to bear eight more children. Doctors eventually insisted that she deliver in hospital rather than at home, where she would be back at work hours after giving birth. She came to enjoy her hospital stays, the only break from work she ever had.
Chu-Lin gradually took over many heavy jobs for the family business as her husband aged. Even with the help of her children, she was weighed down by the sheer load of drudgery. Her ambition of saving £100 for her parents to buy an adopted heir to take her place never materialised. She died at Wellington on 12 November 1946, survived by 11 daughters, 7 sons and her husband.
Chu-Lin's life encapsulates the plight of the immigrant Chinese woman. She endured not only the eternal bondage to childbearing and family chores, but also the institutionalised prejudice which stigmatised her as an undesirable alien. I think sometimes we forget how hard some of our new found " kiwi's " worked and the harrassment they with stood . No wonder as a nation we so very adaptable
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