Camp Life; Food and Leisure Most of the predominantly male Chinese population in the Riverina lived in self-contained camps located on the fringe of the main towns and close to the main waterways. Even if they lived elsewhere, for instance, on pastoral stations or the smaller Riverina towns the larger camps were still important in their lives, for that was usually where the temples, lodges, churches, gambling houses and Chinese stores were located. In his 1884 report Martin Brennan provided an important snapshot of these camps and many aspects of daily life. He remarked that the camps were indispensable necessities where large numbers of Chinese were located, many of whom could not speak English. The camps provided houses of accommodation for unemployed Chinese, and those who were helpless or paupers and who would otherwise be a burden on the State. They were what historian Pauline Rule has described as ‘contact zones’, a source for labour for European pastoralists, a refuge for European women, and entertainment and recreation for others in the form of drinking, gambling and prostitution.187 The largest camp was at Narrandera, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. In 1883 it had 340 residents, of whom there were 303 Chinese, nine European married women, ten children and 17 prostitutes. Of the Chinese men, 14 worked in stores, 20 in opium shops, 10 in cook shops, 20 in gaming houses and 12 were gardeners; most of the others were labourers. When the Chinese
The Chinese camp at Narrandera. The Parkside Cottage Museum, Narrandera
Pauline Rule, ‘The Chinese Camps in Colonial Victoria: Their Role as Contact Zones’, in Sophie Couchman, John Fitzgerald & Paul Macgregor, After the Rush. Regulation, Participation, and Chinese Communities in Australia 1860-1949, Otherland Literary Journal No 9, Kingsbury, 2004, pp.119-131. 187
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