4 posts tagged “victoria”

Bob the Builder isn’t the only one who used ‘Yes we can’ to great effect nearly a decade before the New Hampshire concession speech of the current US president. Here’s a sticker that’s coming off an old Toyota imported from Geelong in Victoria, Australia that Lucire head designer Tanya spotted today as we headed to the first anniversary Vista Group lunch:

Geelong sticker

Geelong Toyota slogan

Dan Chan funeral order of service

I learned quite a few things about Dan Chan at his funeral last Wednesday in the eulogy delivered by historian Dr James Ng.
   Dan was born in China in 1907 but was educated in Australia, where his father worked, from 13—both at a state school in NSW and Scotch College in Melbourne. This was, as James told us, unusual in its day as most Chinese fathers of Dan’s era would have sent their children back to the old country.
   This foreign education meant that Dan was bilingual and a very well versed and philosophical writer. He had returned to China and Hong Kong to set up a business there but the Japanese invasion meant that he and his family had to flee to the antipodes.
   His education meant that he could stay in New Zealand because his work was needed in editing a magazine for expatriates here and Dan also helped members of the diaspora get money back to the old country (one of his proud accomplishments being the mastering of a code to aid the transfers).
   However, his business in New Zealand, as I knew it, was in the restaurant trade—back in those postwar days it was rare to see anyone other than Anglo New Zealanders in white-collar professions.
   This did bring his family some security and Dan was a great benefactor in the old country, even having a high school built.
   His contributions to New Zealand society were awarded with a Queen’s Service Medal and he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, which I understand equates roughly to an OBE.
   His driving licence was apparently still valid at the time of his passing. He was so alert and capable that instead of having an annual renewal—which is necessary for people at his age—he was given his for two years at age 99. He gave up driving voluntarily.
   As I said in my earlier tribute, he had a better memory for faces and people at age 100 than I do today.
   When you hear this history you come to realize that men like Dan, whom I knew more as being active in the Chinese New Zealand community, were actually the trailblazers who bridged the gulf between the émigrés and mainstream Kiwis.
   He was respected in legal circles, a recent conference only being funded because someone had made a large donation in his honour.
   The Otago University library holds Dan’s papers, a collection of writings between 1939 and 1999, often dealing with philosophy, not just Chinese issues.
   At his funeral, even former restaurateur and City Missioner Father Des Britten attended, along with engineer, blogger and historian Steven Young.
   Without his contribution and his readiness to work with institutions to help Chinese people in New Zealand, we would have been much the poorer. Dan was a great advocate.
   Although Dan had made it into the MSM when his ONZM was bestowed on him with the 2007 New Year honours, I found it a great surprise that the media missed his passing and a well attended funeral at Old St Paul’s.
   It may be a slight exaggeration to say that we would still be expected to run Chinese takeaways, laundromats and groceries—when you think about it, those days were within the lifetimes of many of us reading this post today. But certainly the idea of the well versed, professional Chinese New Zealander might not have been as well cemented, because the cultural gulf would not have been bridged as successfully.
   Those of us who enjoy professional positions today owe a debt of gratitude to men like Dan Chan. God bless you.

Maybe for my main blog later. The end of the full-size car is nearing, it seems. I got the following from the Ford Motor Company earlier today, as production of the old six-cylinder engine in Australia will come to a close.

Ford Australia today announced a key step in a new product manufacturing strategy that will allow the company to achieve production efficiencies and access global economies of scale.
   From 2010 Ford Australia will import a global new Duratec V6 engine, including high performance derivatives, for use in the company's locally made Falcon, Falcon Ute and Territory model lines. The improved economies of scale resulting from the globally-sourced engine will offer increased flexibility to potentially incorporate future alternative fuel strategies, particularly diesel technology.
   As a result, the company will discontinue its Australian I6 engine operations in Geelong in 2010. Redeployment opportunities will be maximised wherever possible and the company will work closely with its employees and unions to minimise the impact on the 600 people affected by the decision across engine operations. The company's remaining 1400 employees in Geelong and 3000 in Campbellfield will not be directly impacted by the decision.

   I feel for the Aussies affected by this, but given Ford has been streamlining its engine production, it was inevitable. This will also mean a streamlining of its full-size car platforms, so the next Mustang, Territory, Town Car, Falcon and other models will be engineered by one group, probably the Australians who have had plenty of expertise in this area. (The US, by contrast, has not changed its full-size platform since the 1979 model year.) The following was also in the release, which is good from an internal point of view, but cold comfort to the folks at Geelong:

Construction of the company's new Research & Development Centre, announced in 2006 as part of Ford's $1.8 billion Australian investment program, will continue and is due for completion later this year. Significant investment programs in new emissions laboratories and wind tunnel technology at Ford's test facilities at Lara will also continue, along with usual operations at the company's stamping plant and Ford Discovery Centre.

   Ford’s issue has always been internal infighting and Dearborn’s reluctance to accept anything that is “not invented here”. Let’s hope it gets over it, because my feeling is that there’s life in the full-size car market yet, and Holden, despite its slip-ups with the Daewoo products, has proved that with the VE Commodore platform and its derivatives.

Lucire’s Sylvia Giles has just returned from an assignment in Melbourne, Victoria, and blogged about the state of race relations in Australia. I trust Sylvia’s judgement (otherwise, why would she be writing for us?) and it was very sad to see that even regular Australians from her random sample did not have good things to say about Prime Minister Howard’s record. And I had been quite supportive of the PM and of Alexander Downer, especially when they tried to back up alleged terrorist and al-Qaeda trainee David Hicks (in contrast to the laziness of our own Foreign Minister-outside-Cabinet, Winston Peters). Sadly, Sylvia gives us a lot of food for thought and may provide an answer to the age-old (well, age and a half) question, ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’