TOPIC 14: POSITIVE MULTICULTURAL MODELS
CHINATOWN, SYDNEY
INTRODUCTION:
Our positive multicultural influence is Chinatown in Sydney. Chinatown is located between the corner of Sussex and Liverpool Street to Hay Street bounded by George Street and Darling Harbour. A Chinatown is a section of an urban area containing a large population of Chinese people within a city that is not predominantly Chinese. An aim of the health and fitness centre is to heighten and recognise the Aboriginal community in Redfern and through this create a multicultural environment within the centre and for the local community. Sydney’s Chinatown is a mixture of Asian culture, shopping and cuisine. The area’s distinctly oriental architecture, street lanterns and archways confirm it is a showpiece for Australian Chinese Culture.
For the proposed Health and Fitness centre in Redfern, the Architecture, rooms and spatial areas of the building should incorporate indigenous styles and concepts. Through this, the building will represent a “celebration” of the importance of this site to the Aboriginal community, as it is the first bit of urban land handed back to the Aboriginal community. Through incorporating indigenous culture within the building the centre can become a representative of Aboriginal culture to the local residents and to Sydney. This will enable the community to have a greater and deeper understanding of the Aboriginal culture. The health and fitness centre will represent a legacy left by the current generation for the children of the future generation.
Chinatown is a place where there is practically no language barrier and where social services are available in a familiar language or dialect and in less intimidating surroundings. Unlike the Chinatowns in some other countries, Sydney’s Chinatown has been relatively free of crime and hygiene issues, and is a major tourist attraction in Sydney. There is currently a lot of crime in the Redfern area. Hopefully through the introduction of the Health and Fitness centre, crime in Redfern will decrease. A reduction in crime will be appealing to the general public and bring more people to the area. This will increase positive multiculturalism and enhance community spirit within Redfern and Sydney.
HISTORY OF CHINATOWN DEVELOPMENT AND CHINESE SETTLEMENT IN SYDNEY:
Chinese immigration emerged from the year 1848. The first flood of Chinese immigrants to Australia came in 1851 and the majority of them worked as riflemen. They congregated mostly around the Rocks area and through this formed the first Chinatown in Sydney. After the gold mines were upturned, most of the Chinese went back; however, roughly 200 Chinese stayed and continued to do primitive and manual work to survive in Australia. Whilst living in Australia, they were not recognised within the community nor had they been taken care of from the government until the 1920s.
The Chinese stated to form clans and social organisations. Through this, they rented public buildings to run massive wholesale centres and restaurants in the Hay Market area. At the same time, the Chinese tried to introduce the eastern culture into the surrounding social area by various public activities. The period of 1930 to 1970 saw the early Chinese immigrants starting to contribute both economically and culturally to the Sydney community. As one successful multicultural model in Sydney, the Chinese community has created a welcoming and prosperous society together with eastern and southern immigrants and Australians.
COMMERCIAL STRUCTURE:
Shop front premises in the Chinatown area are generally taken up by restaurants, provision stores, variety stores, bookshops, video shops, beauty parlours, travel agents and jewellery stores. In Dixon/Sussex St, the area is the hub of restaurants mixed with other types of commercial establishments. By far the largest group of establishments is restaurants of various seating capacities.
This area is also the location of many of the Chinese community service organisations, clan associations, religious organisations and trade or occupation associations. In this way, the Chinatown area has an important role as a community, cultural and service centre. For the proposed Health and Fitness centre in Redfern, providing a combination of businesses that work together with the gym will attract the community and encourage them to come to the centre. Such services that could be provided would be restaurants/cafes, child care facilities, medical facilities and entertainment, for example, host boxing matches. The different facilities that the centre could provide would enable the whole health and fitness centre to act and be treated as one community – this concept must be delivered constantly to ensure that the Redfern gym would act as a positive multicultural influence towards the community. The diverse commercial facilities the gym would provide would attract a broader spectrum of people using the gym. For instance, providing child care facilities would bring young children to the gym, as well as their parents and also having restaurants/cafes would attract young teenagers and adults. By opening the health and fitness centre to a wider demographic, it will also be treated as a community centre, and as a place of gathering and socialising for the local residents.
SOCIAL ORGANISATION:
In the Dixon/Sussex area of Chinatown, there are many community service organisations, clan and village associations, trade associations and other ethnic social and religious organisations. A number of religious organisations that are located near the Chinatown area provide Chinese language services. For example, Saint Andrew’s on George Street offer their congregation meeting area to provide Chinese language services to the local community. A number of service organisations provide community supported and government aided social services such as educational services and housing. By having a wide range of social services and community organisations, the Chinese have found home with individual leading parties.
Through different organisations offering diverse services to comply with the needs of certain groups in their community, it depicts how these organisations respect that it is a multicultural area and embracing the different cultures creates a stronger community bond. It is recommended that a similar concept be introduced to the proposed Health and fitness centre in Redfern to ensure that the broader community responds positively to the gym. Social organizations are willing to improve the area and bring the community together by introducing a number of services to the area that would attract both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community. The Health and Fitness centre need not be just a gym. It can provide many services that fulfil the needs of the local residents in Redfern and the communities surrounding Redfern. The centre can range in different services such as:
- Medical services – where people are able to visit a doctor and they are able to come and use the gym for rehabilitation purposes
- Gender based – the gym can provide a certain section where only women exercise. This will enable women to feel comfortable when coming to the gym
- Offering a range of fitness/exercise/aerobics. This includes kickboxing, pilates/yoga, rehabilitation area, weights, cardio etc.
- Educational services – classes can be held within the centre to teach children the history of the area and how this centre would represent a “celebration” of Aboriginal culture and the need to preserve this centre for future Aboriginal children.
ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE:
The Entertainment Centre, located in Chinatown, is one of the most visible developments in the area. The Entertainment Centre was opened in 1983 and has been successful in hosting events ever since, such as basketball games and concerts. The Entertainment Centre has an average of 164 events per annum and 972,110 patrons annually. Pedestrian paths around the Entertainment Centre have been created to lead people into the Chinatown area.
Due to the close proximity of the Entertainment Centre to Chinatown, people who are waiting for events to commence would go and visit the Chinatown area and so some shopping. Furthermore, after events take place in the Centre, people would go back to Chinatown and have dinner. This depicts a strong, successful relationship between Chinatown and the Entertainment Centre. Owing to the many type of different events held by the Entertainment Centre, there are a mixture of cultures that are brought to the Centre. Therefore, they are drawn to Chinatown due to being closely situated to the Centre. The various cultures entering Chinatown demonstrates positive multiculturalism in the area.
In reference to the Health and Fitness Centre, not only does it need to be appealing enough to draw people to the area, but the centre must also be surrounded by development it can form relationships with. This brings even more types of groups of people to the gym. One major example is Sydney University. Due to the University being so close to the site, it can advertise the new health and fitness centre and offer special discounts in conjunction with the gym. This would attract a wide group of people coming to the gym, in turn enhancing a more multicultural community for the Health and Fitness Centre. The location of the proposed health and fitness centre directly faces Redfern Station. Thus it is imperative the design of the gym be inviting and invigorating enough to draw people who are regularly at Redfern Station.
Malvin Wong: 0313698 Wendy Wang: 0407797 Melissa Stanton: 0418126