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Chinese men worked as cooks on pastoral stations and in hotels
for European employers. They
also worked for other Chinese in cook-shops in the various Chinatowns,
in Chinese stores, and in cafes where, as the twentieth century
progressed, there were more and more non-Chinese customers.
Under the 1901 Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Act,
cafe assistants and cooks were among those who were permitted to
enter Australia, at least for fixed periods of time.
 Unidentified
Chinese cook at the Hong Yuen store, Inverell, about 1925. (Private
collection)
Many of the larger Chinese stores employed Chinese cooks to prepare
the meals for the Chinese employees and family members who lived
on the premises. Harvey Young recalled the cooks at the Kwong Sing
Store in Glen Innes during the late 1930s:
I remember two lots of cooks,...They used to make noodles in
the back of the shop. Fresh noodles. And the old method then was
on a table with a bamboo pole which was tied at one end and a person
with one leg over it, jumping up and down on this thing to make
the fresh noodles. |
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 Henry
Hong and Charlie Hing, Tenterfield, about 1933. (Private collection)
Charlie Hing was, for some time, the cook at the Commercial Hotel
in Tenterfield which was located near the Hop Sing and Company store
owned by Henry Hong’s parents, John and Mary Hong.
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