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Headstone - Hui Fee Tak

Description: This image of a headstone was taken at Terrace End Cemetery. There was a small Chinese presence in Palmerston North from the earliest years of European settlement. By 1870 there were about 5,000 Chinese living in New Zealand, only two of them women. While the majority of men who immigrated to New Zealand intended to return home after working in the goldfields, some, like those in Palmerston North, moved into other occupations such as market gardening, cooking and running laundries. The grave of Hui Fee Tak is a reminder of these men. The 'Manawatu Times' of 29 December 1883 noted that a 'Chinese market gardener died a day or two ago and his fellow countrymen are burning his personal effects and apparel.' Early the next year the 'Times' reported that a 'handsome memorial' was to be erected by Hui Fee Tak's compatriots on his gravesite.