CARGO OF BONES.

[helen]

CARGO OF BONES. CHINESE PHANTOM SHIP SIX THOUSAND GRAVES OPENED BACK TO SACRED CHINA LONDON, April 27

If ever there was a phantom ship, it should be one which will leave San Pedro for China next month. It will carry one of the most gruesome cargoes on record.

The vessel will be loaded with the bones and earthly remains of nearly every Chinaman who has died in Southern California during the last fifty years.

Nearly a year ago the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association began to collect the remains from the churchyards all over the country, but the preparations were carried on so quietly that no public interest wias excited.

bones of about six thousand Chinamen have now been recovered-, wrapped up in pieces of soft cloth, and placed in boxes and carefully sealed. The remains will be re-interred in China, Wanganui Chronicle , Issue 12881, 6 May 1913, Page 2

[helen]

BONES AS SECURITY.

A lien upon the whitened bones of 267 deceased Mongolians is the gruesome security held by the city of San Jose, in the vaults of the Oakhill Cemetery for the payment of Idol 50 cent per head on the dead Chinese. Some twenty years ago a plot in Oak Hill Cemetery was set aside by legal enactment as the depository for dead Chinese. Up to date 327 Orientals have found there a resting spot. Confucius leads every Chinese to desire that his bones shall finally be gathered to the sepulchre of his fathers. So thoroughly is this imbued in the race that every live Chinese seeks to carry out the last wish of his deceased friends that his bones in turn may receive the same attention when his time comes to join the silent majority.' In keeping with the racial custom, the friends and fraternal connection of most of the deceased celestials took steps some time ago to secure the disinterment of the bodies in Oak Hill and have them shipped back to their native soil. A contract was made with the Oak Hill Improvement Company for their disinterment. The Chinese themselves set up a witches' cauldron in which to boil, clean, and whiten the the bones: The graves gave up their dead, the ghostly kettle steamed and boiled, and one by one from the cauldron, were taken the bones, Bruce Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 41, 24 May 1901, Page 2

[geoff]

Helen,

On my grandfather's headstone in Sydney is the word 'Waiting". Mum told me her father is "waiting there" before being sent back to China, the birth place of his parents. Grandfather was born in Melb, Aust. , spent a few years in China in his teens, then returned to Australia. His few years in China must have left an imprint such that he wanted to be buried there. Unfortunately, his wishes haven't been met yet...nearly 80 years on.

[douglaslam]

Geoff,

Though your grandfather was born in Australia and attended an exclusive private school, he must have felt his spiritual tie to China the stronger. It is not at all unusual especially in the era of institutionalized discrimination. Witness the number of overseas-born Chinese who rallied to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's call to arms to overthrow the Qing court and the support in China's effort to repel the Japanese in WWl ll.